The Devil Made Me Do It

A couple of things have been going on. I read the AAR article “Dianomy: Understanding Religious Women’s Moral Agency as Creative Conformity” by Elizabeth M. Bucar – liked it!

I also read the Christian Century article “Double Belonging” about people who consider themselves in two faith communities at once (Buddhist/Christians, Jewish/Christian, Islam/Christian). Don’t like it. The article is fine, but the idea of trying to be completely in both camps at the same time is weak at best. Just because you are bi-spiritual (or in an “open relationship” with your God) does not mean that you can sleep with two at once.

What I wanted to write was about language and rhetoric and spiritual images. Yup, once more on language. I was in Shawnee Kansas at Central Baptist Seminary last week spending a lot of time doing basically nothing with 25 other “Adaptive” leaders, when one person stood up in the back of the room and said:

“The Holy Spirit has moved me to ask for prayer.”

This was a fascinating statement that brought into question power and discourse. If this person just said, “I think we should pray” then it is just that person making the suggestion. We can understand that the individual is trying to persuade everyone else that prayer at this time would be good. It is a basic request that is easy to understand. But when someone says, “The Holy Spirit has moved me to ask for prayer,” the request changes in a big way because there is a depth of meaning in the phrase, “Holy Spirit.” We now have to try to understand what the person means by “Holy Spirit.” The difficulty with such a phrase is that many people will hear this term in many different ways with different theological level of authority. So when someone says, “the Holy Spirit led me to ask for prayer,” does that mean we have to stop everything and pray, or does that mean we need to talk about prayer, or does that mean we should pray but only in one specific way. The use of the term is vague and difficult to grasp. This becomes especially problematic when the individual is using the term with a sense of power and authority. In this case the individual was trying to gain control of the meeting, but the facilitator would not relent.

So what is the take-away? If nothing else, we in the religious world, need to be very careful with our terms. So often we use religious language (it says in the Bible, God’s plan, Jesus told me, etc…) with a sense of authority, but we are not sure if the person we are talking to understands the term in the same way that we do. It is one thing to throw such terms around willy-nilly but don’t expect others to understand what you mean.

If you don’t like this post, take it up with God. God told me to write every word here…

RIP Gibran - You Will Be Missed

It is an odd thing to write a eulogy of sorts about a family pet. I am sure that some will scoff, but a family member is a family member, and grief is grief. So I am going to offer her a tribute because she deserves is.

I cannot count the amount of times someone looked at Gibran (our dog) and saw wisdom and spirituality in her eyes. There was something knowing about her. I’ll never forget the day when we brought Anthony (our first born) home. Gibran was curious, but never threatened or threatening. She seemed to know instinctive the difference between her toys and Anthony’s toys. There really isn’t a big difference between dog toys and baby toys. This was how she was with each child that came home. She sniffed the baby and then went back to her own life. As the kids got older, Gibran knew that when she played with them she needed to be gentle and careful. She had a tender soul.

When the kids went outside I did not worry if Gibran was there. She would let us know if someone was around. When I went for hikes with Gibran I never put her on a leash because I knew she would not leave me, and she never did. I may not have been able to see her, but she could always see me. She kept squirrels out of the yard and protected our garden from rodents. She loved to go for walks and to play with me. Rebekah gave Gibran the love and attention, she would pet Gibran, but we had an attachment. I would walk her and it was good. I would feed her, and I would be with her when she would die. She wasn’t a puppy or even a pet but a companion to me. We did not need to speak much, we did not need to be cute together, we just seemed to understand each other.

To find someone who understands you, who is your companion but never says a word is a rear thing. To find someone whose quiet presence is comforting is a rear thing. Gibran was that comforting presence. She love to be doted on, she loved to be pet, but with me she would sit at my feet under the dinner table and I would enjoy her warmth on top of my toes.

I know that it will be a while before I truly miss her. It will be a while before I notice that I am no longer going on walks, that I no longer can watch her chase away the squirrels. It will be a while before I truly feel the absence. I will grieve now, but this is an immediate grief. The deep grief will come as I notice the ways my life has changed, the absence of her in my life.

For a pet, a companion, a friend I could not ask anything more from her. She was greatly loved in this family and she will be greatly missed.

This is something that my oldest son, Anthony, wrote:
Friday January 21, 2011,
Gibran is going to die today. She is 11 years old. Born in 1999 to 2010. It is hard to let go of her but it’s the right thing to do.
God, bring Gibran to heaven, and protect her there please. Amen.
Good bye Gibran. From Anthony Joseph Malone

A Pie in the Sky

Here are my thoughts for this Sunday's sermon. The text is Isaiah 9:1-4.

MAIN IDEA – It is difficult to preach about hope in a real way to people who are suffering. How does one suggest that things will get better when things are in a state of crap? How does one suggest that things will get better when in your own life things are difficult and seemingly lost? Again and again we find words of hope, but what does it offer that is real? I don’t want to start reading signs and stars and say that when someone dropped a dollar in front of me that is God helping me. That is shallow. Or that the prayer someone says for me is God helping me. How does that make a difference when my children are starving?

If I leave my comfortable, Western, middle class life, I have to look at the very real fact that people in this world assume that some of their children will not live to adulthood. There are people who assume that they will be bombed or ravaged by war and violence. There are people who struggle to live just because who they are. There are people who struggle and I’m supposed to preach about hope? It seems empty and shallow at best, cruel at worst.

Even now, making the turn to hope is a difficult thing when being honest. I’m expected to make the turn, but I don’t know if I can with authenticity. My desire is that I can hope in the promise and trust of God. My desire is to believe, Lord help my unbelief.

You said that people who walked in darkness have and will see a great light. Are you going to let the rest of the world see that light?

THEOLOGICAL IDEA – this evokes the hope of the resurrection. In every case, the worst that can happen is death. A child struggles, but hope is held to until the child dies and then it is assumed that all is lost. The crucifixion and the resurrection show us the way that the yoke has been broken. When we embrace the hope of the resurrection (a hope that goes beyond any sense of substitutionary atonement) then we can read the passage of Isaiah with the promise of God ringing in our hearts?

Afterthought to Words and Power

The clergy group in EG is putting together a statement on rhetoric. Here is the bit that I offered:

Words and images have meaning and power. It is very easy to forget this and to be seduced by rhetoric that is hateful, violent, and dehumanizing without realizing what it is that we are hearing. While I cannot state that one person or another is directly responsible for the tragedy in Arizona, the current national and political conversation about awakens us to the power of words and images. Violent images, words that creates those who disagree into “others” without human value or worth, and apocalyptic images evoking fear, are all dangerous and I believe abhorrent to God. We have a tradition of respect and understanding of the other. Let us recall, not only did Roger Williams feel it was important that everyone had the freedom to follow God as he or she was led, but that everyone be seen as a child of God regardless what path he or she took. Not only was Williams tolerant, but respectful with charity.

We follow a God of love who calls us to consider each person as precious no matter what he or she believes or does. We follow a God who values peace and mercy. The polemical tone that is such a part of the political discourse has no place in any faith community for it is antithetical to the nature of God.

I urge you to be vigilant of words and images that objectify others, that evoke violence, and that suggests hatred as the only response one can take.. Not only do I urge you to reject such discourse, but to call others away from it as well. Our God does not ask us to get our way no matter what, nor does our God call us to see every political issue as a dire moral moment for our country that justifies hatred. Instead we are all called to take a radical stand against those who embrace images and words of violence and show the profound love of God. Let us embrace and live the call of the prophet Micah in our own speech, rhetoric, and images: “…and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

Words, Rhetoric, and Fancy Pictures Have Meaning

Yesterday I read an article in the very popular American Academy of Religion about Hate Speech. For those of you who don’t believe anything that I write, the article is “Curses Left and Right: hate Speech and Biblical Tradition,” by Brian M. Britt. (AAR, v. 78, no. 3). Yes, that is not the proper way to cite a source, but this isn’t a publication that calls for that kind of criticism, so back off Kate Turibian.

Anyway, Britt was claiming that Hate Speech actually has power and can affect people. Despite the protection of the 1st Amendment (that pesky part of the Constitution that allows Yellow Journalism to happen i.e. Fox News, that allows commies to gather and that will not allow our children to recite brainwashing pseudo-Christian prayers in school), Britt is claiming that Hate Speech is not just a string of words but is an action in itself that holds power. He is using Austin which is good, but neglects Wittgenstein, which is bad, but that is a critique of his larger argument. Perhaps that will be for another time.

For the most part I like what Britt is claiming and I thought about this when I read the current criticism of Sarah Palin’s crossfire website picture and the Tuscan shootings. I am not going to say that Sarah Palin is directly responsible for the shooting, but I would say that the rhetoric has become a reality.

Despite the wussy and wimpy back peddling (that must be the Mama Grizzly way) that camp Sarah has been stating (it wasn’t meant to represent a target or suggest a gun; reload meant eat an energy bar, blah, blah, blah) the polemic, violent rhetoric has power and meaning. I don’t think anyone can claim that placing an individual in a crossfire is a benign statement – it is an act that suggests violence, that suggests a sense of desperation, and that justifies a vilification of the other. This is powerful speech.

I’m not saying Sarah Palin, and the many other right wing hyper-conservative folks are guilty of hate speech, whatever that may be. I am accusing them of being at the least disingenuous about their actions. I would love it if someone from camp Palin said something like, “we now recognize that the tone and tenor of our messages have had violent undertones and we recognize that we need to take responsibility for those messages. We implore our colleagues to take more time to consider the possible repercussions of our rhetoric and consider sending the same message with a more honest and life-affirming tone.”

Yet we all know that will never happen, to many big words, to much soul-searching, and to long to write on the side of a bus.

I Only Listen to Music Written and Performed by People With no Morals

Happy New Year. It is an arbitrary thing, but for whatever it is worth, happy new year.

Should we judge the author or the work itself?
I have recently downloaded Kanye West’s newest album “My beautiful Dark Twisted fantasy,” and have gotten a little bit of flack for it. I don’t have a lot of Kanye’s other stuff but have heard other tunes and have liked them. In addition I have heard from the music critic on Fresh Air, and the folks on All Songs Considered that this is a really good album. So, on a lark and with a gift card I purchased the song.

So far I have to say I enjoy it. I haven’t listened enough to give it a full critique, but I like it so far. Yet I have heard some people say they wouldn’t buy it because of who Kanye is. I don’t know everything he has done so I am not sure what exactly he represents or is being held accountable, so I am not one to judge or condemn him, but his music – I like it.

Here is the thing, just because a bastard writes it does that make it bad? Think of Die Walkure, or Lohengrin, or Das Rheingold. Are these operas bad because Wagner, an Anti-Semite, wrote them. Or what about all of the writings of Martin Luther? He also was fairly Anti-Semitic, so should we discount all of his writings. Augustine was a philander who begat a bastard child and did not help his mistress. Should we throw out the confessions? Martin Luther King Jr. had many affairs. Should we stop learning and listening to the “I have a Dream” speech? Beethoven originally supported Napoleon and intended to dedicate his third symphony to him. Should we stop singing Ode to Joy?

When you think about it there are a whole lot of creeps, low-lifes, bastards, and morally bankrupt people who seem to have contributed many good things to our society by way of the arts, sciences, politics, and more. In the U.S. many of our colleges, libraries, and foundations are funded by dollars earned on the back of works who were poorly paid, taken advantage of, and cheated. Yet we have not condemned the “robber barons” of our nation.

When someone perfect, without any sin, mar, failing, and fault offers something that is good and fulfilling (and not some boring “Christian” crap that holds little artistic value) then I will listen and endorse it. In the meantime, I will be aware of the author, but overall I will look to the merits of the work itself. Let Kanye play. Just not to loud, to many obscenities.

PostscriptJust in case you feel the need to be nerdy, I think this falls into the category of “author’s intent.” Feel free to ready Stanley Fish (early or late) or other Post-modern literary critics. Basically we can never know the author’s intent, all we have is the text, or song, or art itself and our reaction. That is the only thing that is real.