My "annual" summer service leading came last August. I hadn't posted my sermon then, as it's been a while since I've even looked at this blog. I figured that now was a good time to reread it and post it. So here it is, virtually unchanged from when I gave it.
---
Reading: A synopsis of Norton Juster's "The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics"
A straight line falls in love with a dot. The dot, finding the line to be stiff, dull, and conventional, turns its affections toward a wild and unkempt squiggle. The line, unable to fall out of love and willing to do whatever it takes to win the dot's affection, manages to bend itself, giving rise first to angular and then elegant shapes. The dot takes a second look at the line, and notices the subtlety and complexity that was missing before. It looks at the squiggle and what once seemed like freedom and joy becomes nothing more than chaos. In the end it decides to accompany the line and they dance off together.
---
2011 Summer Reflection: “It’s Different For Girls”
What the hell is wrong with you tonight?
I can't seem to say or do the right thing
Wanted to be sure you're feeling right
Wanted to be sure we want the same thing
She said, I can't believe it
You can't possibly mean it
Don't we all want the same thing?
Well who said anything about love?
Don’t you know that it’s different for girls?
In this popular 1979 song by Joe Jackson, the singer starts by suggesting that the male protagonist wants sex and woman want love. Of course, by the end of the song, the singer reveals that it’s just the opposite. And in fact, the “it’s different for girls” line is meant as irony. The fact is that boys and girls do NOT differ in their desires or their dreams or the worlds that they inhabit. Perhaps there are differences in communication styles, but that’s really not such a big deal, right?.
Or so I would have told you last year. Now, having spent the summer watching my daughter prepare to leave us for college next fall, and having been through this process once with our son, I’m not so sure that’s true. Although our son’s journey into young adulthood has been comparably rewarding and frustrating, his path -- at it’s core -- is quite recognizable to me. I remember the journey to college, the changing of friendships, the gaining and losing of relationships, and the quiet confidence that I acquired as gained life experience. I see my son’s joys and struggles, and I remember the similar joys and struggles from when I was his age. If I use the example of the dot and the line from today’s reading, I can say that my son and I are both lines, trying our darnest to figure out how to make the necessary bends in our appearances to appear to be more complex and artistic than who we are.
But the world of our daughter just seems so foreign. After all, here’s a young woman on the verge of adulthood, and I see her talents and her gifts that she has and I’m just jealous. She navigates a complex social world that makes little sense to me, and yet I see so much that we have in common. There’s no talent that I have that she does not have, and yet she brings to the table all sorts of abilities that I always dreamed of having as a teenager. She shows confidence, awareness, sensitivity and social skills that seem far, far beyond anything I could have hoped for when I was her age. While I watched my son struggle within the social jungle of high school, Simone seemed to float through with relative ease. She has the complete package.
Not so fast.
Our wayside pulpit has (or until recently, “had”) a quote by Miles Davis: “If you understood everything that I said, you’d be me.” And I think of this often as, over the course of the summer, I’ve heard things coming out of her mouth that just make no sense to me at all. Whereas I used to see a self-confident dynamo, I suddenly see an incredibly insecure persona emerge. Whereas I used to see someone who consumed knowledge and desired new exploratory experiences, I suddenly see someone more interested in reading Seventeen or Cosmopolitan and buying stuff at the mall. And I can’t help but want to say “you’re wasting your talents -- get with the program!”.
And then there are the struggles, for which the answers just seem so obvious. It’s as if, in the past few months my daughter has regressed into a state where conversations center around the same things over and over: food, clothing, appearance, or the questions like “will I make friends at college”, that just seem ridiculous. And any support that I offer feels irrelevant or unhelpful, so I walk away from any father-daughter interactions feeling like we have little to say to one another.
Mary Alice reminds me often that I do have a profound influence on how my daughter sees herself and on how small actions on my part can make her feel judged or devalued. Certainly the literature supports her on this, but as a father, I feel that I can only observe from a distance, a distance which seems to grow by the month. As we move closer to the separation of college, I feel a separation within our relationship that feels far more permanent than anything I’ve felt with my son.
I’ve talked with other fathers of teenage daughters about this, and they’ve noted the same thing. Young men are are -- for us, anyway -- easy to understand. Uncomplicated. As boys transition into adulthood, the subtleties and conflicts of that parent-child relationship seem to diminish, and our role as “fatherly purveyors of occasional wisdom” seems to grow. We mind our own business, they mind theirs, and over time, we share words and experiences as begin to admire one-another’s acquired wisdom.
But it’s different for girls. I’ve learned a great deal about parenthood and about maleness as I watched my son mature. Now that knowledge seem utterly useless and valueless in interactions with my daughter. Even though we have much in common -- intellectually, physically, spiritually -- we just don’t connect. And the ironic joke is that I’ve always felt I had more in common with my daughter than with my son. I still do. Whereas my son seems to ask for my help and seems interested in my opinions and knowledge, I am limited in what I can give him, as his experiences already mirror my own in so many ways. But whereas I can offer much knowledge and wisdom that’s relevant to my daughter’s life, such advice seems unhelpful and unwelcome.
And yet... there are moments where I “get it right”. A couple of years ago, Milo and Simone pooled their resources together and for Christmas, they made a substantial contribution to the Elias Fund, an organization that’s dedicated to fund community development and education in Zimbabwe. Early this summer, when they were both here, I wanted to give them a small something that would remind them of their connection with one another, and I gave them small brass bracelets with the Zimbabwean phrase “I am strong if you are strong”. I didn’t make much presentation of this, other than to say that this was to remind them of their familial and humanitarian bond with each other as they were about to embark on separate journeys. Milo’s reaction was much like mine would have been. Appreciative of the gesture and understanding of the meaning, but -- at it’s core, a minor item to be put in a drawer, which might be viewed and remembered sometime over his life. Simone took it differently. She wore the bracelet the next day, and over much of the summer, and looked up the meaning and history of the phrase, and when asked about it by friends, talked about it in a way that both demonstrated understanding of the connective nature of the gift and of the words themselves. She got it. She got the message of interdependence in a way that I did not, and I was lucky enough to see it this summer.
It’s different for girls. Moments of intimacy and connection happen more frequently, and with less preparation and understanding. That Zimbabwean phrase, (like the South African term “Ubuntu” of which I am so fond), emphasizes the need for togetherness and collective action, much like our own principle that talks about the “interdependent web of all existence”. And while I always understood the relationship between parents and children centers around a “movement towards independence”, my relationship with my daughter continues to teach me about a “movement towards unity”.
We’re all in this together. Even as we drift apart. Go now in peace.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Homo Ludens
Centering Thought from Plato: You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation
---
Reading from G. K. Chesterton’s “All Things Considered”: It is not only possible to say a great deal in praise of play; it is really possible to say the highest things in praise of it. It might reasonably be maintained that the true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground. To be at last in such secure innocence that one can juggle with the universe and the stars, to be so good that one can treat everything as a joke—that may be, perhaps, the real end and final holiday of human souls.
---
2010 Summer Reflection: “Homo Ludens” (thanks to Dad for that suggestion)
Gooooooal! If you’ve watch this year’s World Cup at all, you’ve probably watched it with an English soundtrack. But it’s also played on the Univision television station, with a Spanish-language soundtrack. And as I don’t speak a lick of Spanish, many find it surprising that I prefer watching the Univision broadcast, where the commentary sounds like this to me: gibberish, players names, gibberish, exited gibberish, gooooooal!
It doesn’t matter which team scores, the commentary sounds the same, and every score change ends with the same enthusiastic goooooal, and since in soccer, 90 minutes of play will often produce 1 or maybe 2 score changes, that Spanish commentary epitomises the concept of the perfect moment in spectator sports.
We all understand the concept of a perfect moment. There’s even a Greek word for it: Kairos. Special time. Momentary time. It’s different from “chronos”, or “ordinary” time. While chronos may represent last night’s dinner, kairos is that first bite of the best course, or of dessert. Or it’s the memory of your very first taste of mesquite grilled lobster from the Village Fish. But it’s not just the good moments -- it also represents that moment of horror when that call of “gooooal” in the last minute of the game was not for the team you wanted to win.
I stand in front of you today wearing a shirt from the 2006 World Cup. This is the French team Jersey, and the French and Italian teams played in the final game. For the world cup championship, a soccer game that happens only once every 4 years for national bragging rights in the world’s most popular spectator sport. Milo and I watched the game on City Hall Plaza, where the Italian-American mayor of Boston had arranged to provide a public viewing. And it was a good game. Both teams scored in regulation time, and neither team scored in the overtime period. But the moment from that game that I most remember did not come on either team’s score, or even from the penalty-kick shootout that followed. It came in the middle of the overtime. The French forward and most valuable player, Zinedine Zidane, frustrated by the Italian defense, turned and without apparent provocation, headbutted the Italian defense-man Marco Materazzi, who immediately dropped to the ground. We, along with the crowd, about 2/3rds fans of Italy, stopped and collectively went “did he just do that?”. Zidane was immediately ejected, and we fans of France suspected, then and there, that our team would not have bragging rights at the end of the day. We were right. And it is that moment, rather than anything else about that game, or even that day or week, that I remember vividly. That moment, standing on City Hall Plaza, accompanied by my son and some 1 or 2 thousand French and Italian fans, all stopping and saying “what the...?” That was the moment. Although nobody scored, and the commentators would not have said the word, it was undoubtedly the most pivotal point of the match.
One thing to remember about those moments. They rarely arrive when you are hard at work. Most of them come during the playing of games or watching people hard at play. They come not as you learn the technique of improving a jump shot, but as you actually shoot the shot perfectly, feel it leave your hand, knowing that the ball will touch nothing but net, and hearing the swish. They aren’t about the work of learning, they are the moments that come when we feel the results at play.
In college, I had a graduate course in Human Development, taught by a visiting professor, Brian Sutton-Smith, who used his book, called “How to Play With Your Children (and When Not To)” as a text. His teachings remain somewhat controversial, as he states that act of unstructured and informal play in childhood remains an essential part of normal human development, and he considers the removal of unstructured playtime, whether due to parental choice or lack of neighborhood spaces to be a practice that borders on abuse. In raising my own children, I think of his teachings often, especially as I watched the many parents who feared that their kids could “fall behind” if they didn’t develop the desirable resume that got them into the “best” schools. Childhood playtime would be replaced by childhood skill-development time. In fact, his book had a chapter title that summed up much of his parenting philosophy with respect to childhood development: “Mastery is not Play”.
Mastery is not play. To a 1-year old, learning to walk is not play. It’s mastery. To a 4 or 5 year old, learning to ride a bike or throw a ball is not play. That’s skill-development. And as almost any 10 year old will tell you, learning to play the piano, or guitar, or saxophone, is not fun. It’s parental torture. And even leisure activities like chess or poker or basketball are not play as they are learned. They’re work, especially if expect to improve at them. And for what? Regardless of the amount of effort and time we spend practicing, very few of us will ever engage in a game or sport to the level where we reap financial reward. And then if you’re good enough to be paid to play a game or an instrument, most of the time you’ll spend improving won’t involve much playtime. You’ll be working. You’ll be mastering. As any professional poker player will tell you, when you sit at the table, you work. You grind out the dollars from the others at the table who are just “playing for fun”. And away from the table, you study the game and the other players. You’re mastering the game, not playing it. And mastery is not play.
But play is what it’s all about! Especially play when we are active participants. Whether the activity involves the most intimate interaction between people making love or the most casually social interaction over a game of bananagrams, the moments of memory, of purity -- kairos -- come when you feel that moment of change, you participate in and know that you’re about to take control, but haven’t yet. And then it happens. And nothing else matters.
For several years, a favorite board game in our house is “The Settlers of Catan”. It’s a board game that involves obtaining resources, building roads, settlements and eventually cities. You can’t win unless you negotiate with others at the table -- by trading resources. But since most everything on the table is known quantity, you have a good sense of where your opponents stand at any moment. So you have to strike that right balance between cooperating with your opponents and at the same time finding a way to cut off their options so that they can’t actually win the game. My spouse could always tell when I was about to make a decisive move. I’d try to display a casual demeanor, but she’s notice my increased excitement, and she would warn others at the table then and there that I “was not to be trusted”. And it was true (the excitable part, not the trust part -- I can always be trusted). Those close moments -- when I could see the path to victory but not take comfort in the achievement just yet -- are moments of sacred presence, and no matter how much I’d try to “look casual”, my excitement, my focus, my awareness that I was about to change the game would be giveaways to the people who knew me well.
The world can be an ugly, cruel place. Reading first-person accounts often shows the world of the past as one filled with suffering and injustice. Today’s world, believe it or not, is probably less cruel, but our windows to it often display a world which seems harsh, and unforgiving. And most science fiction stories -- especially those that paint a world using the “present-day-reality- extension” brush -- show dystopian futures designed to make us wonder what kind of world our descendants will inhabit. But there is once constant in every world that’s been fundamental in the past of humanity, part of every human culture in the world, and will be part of any future that involves our species.
Play. We play. We invent games, we agree on rules, and we play. Or we watch others -- those with more skill than ourselves -- play the games we’ve invented. Historically, we know that people have played some form of spectator-sport football -- kicking some round object toward some goal with some form of score-counting -- for well over 3000 years, and I’d suspect that some form of playing a competitive sports is as old as our transformation from a hunter-gatherer society to an an agricultural one. And why is that? I think it has to do with a human need for social interaction -- for play. We play with objects, we play with language, we play with concepts. We play with others, and we play alone. In fact, it’s entirely possible that, once we as a species discovered that through cooperative ventures, we could vastly extend our chances for individual survival, we then took it upon ourselves to increase our species ability to cooperate by inventing games. After all, we’d invented language, and once our stomachs were full and the sex was complete, we had to find something else to do. So we played games.
And we play games today. As difficult as the problems of the world may look right now, we’ll always play games, and we’ll always take comfort in watching others at play. Today at 2:30, we’ll put our problems aside and join the rest of the world in watching the best players in the world play the oldest team sport in history. We’ll find some personal reason to celebrate the Spaniards and demonize the Dutch. Or vice versa. We’ll watch the game we’ll wait for those moments of decisions during the game, when the commentators on Univision will shout -- Gooooal!.
Feel the joy.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Deliver us to College...
Today, I volunteered to give the sermon at my church's summer lay-led service. As we prepare to drive my child on to college in a few hours, I delivered this sermon on letting go.
Today's reading is from Stations of the Spirit, by Victor Carpenter
And so it goes.
I do not remember the moment to which my father refers in today's reading, but I understand the feeling he had that day. For in a few hours, we will climb into the car and bring our son to the College of Wooster where he will spend the next (hopefully only) 4 years. Of course, given the length of time each of his parents took to get through college ... maybe a little longer.
For me, a similarly ordinary experience that brings forth extraordinary feelings came last April. One Saturday afternoon, my son called and asked if I wanted to join him and a couple of friends for a game of Ultimate (that's "competitive Frisbee" for most of us). I walked over to his friend's house and then I along with about 5 other people over to the field across the street from here and played. Some of his friends I'd known for many years. Others I'd never met before. But the ages ranged from 17 to 18. I was 50. Yet I was not out of place, and after about an hour of play, we all sat and rested for a bit. I listened to the conversations around me, which were hauntingly familiar: school, teachers, jobs, women, names of people I'd heard of and some I hadn't. General talk about people and events from their present and about their immediate plans for the evening or the rest of the weekend. I felt welcome into the group, not as a parent, and certainly not as a peer. Just as a welcome participant. There was a sense of trust amongst his friends that I wasn't someone who would judge them or advise them or attempt to guide them based on what they said that day. It was like being a guest-member of that exclusive club of teenage men, just hanging out -- a club I'd left so many years ago. A club that they will soon leave too. I felt privileged in that moment, and as I walked home, I knew that it wouldn't be a privilege I'd get much more. After all, the role of a parent of a teenager is a combination of gate-keeping, disciplining, guiding, and helping. Picking up the pieces. To the teenager, our role feels intrusive, because it IS intrusive. I certainly remember many of my own teenage years, where adults were either intruders or watchers or simply invisible. On that day, I felt like an honorary teenager, and that would be a very fleeting moment.
He leaves us soon, and with it he takes our ability to observe the decisions he makes, to see his growth, and to converse regularly with him as he wrestles with new ideas and new experiences. Now, I don't want to imply that the transition of our elder offspring from dependent child to independent adult has happened, and I hold no illusions that, now that he is 18 and soon to be living "on his own" (or as much on his own when we get the bulk of his bills in the next few years) he will behave responsibly and ethically and wisely. He's not quite an adult, and Lord knows, if this summer's experiences of his are any indication, that kid's still got a lot of maturing to do.
At times this summer, I found myself asking why, why do you not learn from my experience? I know I made some idiotic choices in my youth, and I told you about many of them -- so why do you make some of the same choices? But that's not how things work. In the world of the teenager, the peer rules the parent. And the experience of listening to -- or giving -- bad advice is simply part of the growing process. It's the smart teenager that learns from this experience, and the wise one that looks out for his friends as they learn from their own foolish behaviors. But valid warnings don't cross the parental or generational lines. They're only valid when going from peer to peer. Why? because that's how we grow. We grow through experience. When I was a teenager, I knew that my parents had only a limited amount of useful knowledge to pass on to me, regardless of what they claimed. I simply knew better. Now my children return the favor. They remind me that while I might have the answers, they still need to learn for themselves, and IF they learn, they will learn the same way that I learned. A combination of intelligent decisions and foolish action. And they will develop and maintain friendships, where they share experiences with those who'll understand their situations and their frustrations.
Many of us in this room see children as they grow. We watch them run around during happy hour, we teach them about Unitarian Universalism, we watch them deliver credos from the pulpit and then we watch them disappear into their own group, only to return for their youth services, then we see them only for the Christmas Eve service, and then after a couple years, they're gone from the church altogether. The children move on, create families and join churches of their own. They continue to grow, but we often don't see the people they become. But they become.
In 1961, Carl Rogers, the humanist psychologist, published the book "On Becoming a Person", where he talks about "the fully functioning person" as a processing organism in process rather than a static state of humanistic perfection. He talks about 7 characteristics of the fully functioning person, and I cannot help but relate those characteristics -- openness to experience, reliability towards others -- to our 7 principles of Unitarian Universalism which go from from individual worth and dignity through cooperation and growth within the larger world of life. Rogers refers to something called "the good life", which as he points out, is not the same as a "life of comfort". In fact, the "good life" is just the opposite: The "good life" involves the stretching and growing of becoming more and more of one's potentialities. It involves the courage to be. It means launching oneself fully into the stream of life. And it doesn't end when you finish high school, or when you finish college, or start your own family. It is an ongoing process, moving from dependence to independence to interdependence.
And as we launch our first child into the stream of living independence, I also think of the changing nature of the our relationship. When raising a child, the questions revolve around "how can I alleviate this person's physical or emotional pain or what can I do to make my child a better person?" Later, as they grow into their own potential and begin to dictate the terms of their own personal growth, the question changes to "How can my role in our relationship facilitate this person's continuing development?". But as they leave, this question emerges: "How do I continue developing now that this person will become less a part of my daily life". Note the change in emphasis. "How do I continue developing?" This means acknowledging the influence that my child's presence has on my own continuing development, and the noticing of the two way influences we have on one another.
In our faith, we talk about an interdependent web of all existence, of which we are a part. Part of that interdependence is the joy of watching your child strike out on his own, make the decisions and take the actions of launching himself fully into that stream of life. But part of it is the pain of knowing that the those places will include you less and less as that teenage child constructs the life of his destiny.
Go now in peace, go now in peace. May the love of God surround you, everywhere everywhere you may go. Amen.
Today's reading is from Stations of the Spirit, by Victor Carpenter
It was the end of a summer holiday. The year was 1977. The last summer before our son Tyler was to enter the University of Pennsylvania. We were returning from a morning on the beach. As we came within sight of the house, Tyler broke into a run. I watched him race ahead, moving further and further from us. An ache started moving within me. My neck muscles tightened. I knew that I was going to cry. And the tears came.
I remembered feelings from my childhood. I was the little boy left at summer camp, my family driving off, leaving me to deal with my homesickness. I was surprised that my childhood vulnerability should confront me again in a situation of role reversal. I told myself that it was time for my son to leave home, but that was no help. The prospect of his claiming a life beyond the family that had nurtured him left an empty place in me, and my tears were an indication of my own vulnerability at the prospect of change and loss.
And so it goes.
I do not remember the moment to which my father refers in today's reading, but I understand the feeling he had that day. For in a few hours, we will climb into the car and bring our son to the College of Wooster where he will spend the next (hopefully only) 4 years. Of course, given the length of time each of his parents took to get through college ... maybe a little longer.
For me, a similarly ordinary experience that brings forth extraordinary feelings came last April. One Saturday afternoon, my son called and asked if I wanted to join him and a couple of friends for a game of Ultimate (that's "competitive Frisbee" for most of us). I walked over to his friend's house and then I along with about 5 other people over to the field across the street from here and played. Some of his friends I'd known for many years. Others I'd never met before. But the ages ranged from 17 to 18. I was 50. Yet I was not out of place, and after about an hour of play, we all sat and rested for a bit. I listened to the conversations around me, which were hauntingly familiar: school, teachers, jobs, women, names of people I'd heard of and some I hadn't. General talk about people and events from their present and about their immediate plans for the evening or the rest of the weekend. I felt welcome into the group, not as a parent, and certainly not as a peer. Just as a welcome participant. There was a sense of trust amongst his friends that I wasn't someone who would judge them or advise them or attempt to guide them based on what they said that day. It was like being a guest-member of that exclusive club of teenage men, just hanging out -- a club I'd left so many years ago. A club that they will soon leave too. I felt privileged in that moment, and as I walked home, I knew that it wouldn't be a privilege I'd get much more. After all, the role of a parent of a teenager is a combination of gate-keeping, disciplining, guiding, and helping. Picking up the pieces. To the teenager, our role feels intrusive, because it IS intrusive. I certainly remember many of my own teenage years, where adults were either intruders or watchers or simply invisible. On that day, I felt like an honorary teenager, and that would be a very fleeting moment.
He leaves us soon, and with it he takes our ability to observe the decisions he makes, to see his growth, and to converse regularly with him as he wrestles with new ideas and new experiences. Now, I don't want to imply that the transition of our elder offspring from dependent child to independent adult has happened, and I hold no illusions that, now that he is 18 and soon to be living "on his own" (or as much on his own when we get the bulk of his bills in the next few years) he will behave responsibly and ethically and wisely. He's not quite an adult, and Lord knows, if this summer's experiences of his are any indication, that kid's still got a lot of maturing to do.
At times this summer, I found myself asking why, why do you not learn from my experience? I know I made some idiotic choices in my youth, and I told you about many of them -- so why do you make some of the same choices? But that's not how things work. In the world of the teenager, the peer rules the parent. And the experience of listening to -- or giving -- bad advice is simply part of the growing process. It's the smart teenager that learns from this experience, and the wise one that looks out for his friends as they learn from their own foolish behaviors. But valid warnings don't cross the parental or generational lines. They're only valid when going from peer to peer. Why? because that's how we grow. We grow through experience. When I was a teenager, I knew that my parents had only a limited amount of useful knowledge to pass on to me, regardless of what they claimed. I simply knew better. Now my children return the favor. They remind me that while I might have the answers, they still need to learn for themselves, and IF they learn, they will learn the same way that I learned. A combination of intelligent decisions and foolish action. And they will develop and maintain friendships, where they share experiences with those who'll understand their situations and their frustrations.
Many of us in this room see children as they grow. We watch them run around during happy hour, we teach them about Unitarian Universalism, we watch them deliver credos from the pulpit and then we watch them disappear into their own group, only to return for their youth services, then we see them only for the Christmas Eve service, and then after a couple years, they're gone from the church altogether. The children move on, create families and join churches of their own. They continue to grow, but we often don't see the people they become. But they become.
In 1961, Carl Rogers, the humanist psychologist, published the book "On Becoming a Person", where he talks about "the fully functioning person" as a processing organism in process rather than a static state of humanistic perfection. He talks about 7 characteristics of the fully functioning person, and I cannot help but relate those characteristics -- openness to experience, reliability towards others -- to our 7 principles of Unitarian Universalism which go from from individual worth and dignity through cooperation and growth within the larger world of life. Rogers refers to something called "the good life", which as he points out, is not the same as a "life of comfort". In fact, the "good life" is just the opposite: The "good life" involves the stretching and growing of becoming more and more of one's potentialities. It involves the courage to be. It means launching oneself fully into the stream of life. And it doesn't end when you finish high school, or when you finish college, or start your own family. It is an ongoing process, moving from dependence to independence to interdependence.
And as we launch our first child into the stream of living independence, I also think of the changing nature of the our relationship. When raising a child, the questions revolve around "how can I alleviate this person's physical or emotional pain or what can I do to make my child a better person?" Later, as they grow into their own potential and begin to dictate the terms of their own personal growth, the question changes to "How can my role in our relationship facilitate this person's continuing development?". But as they leave, this question emerges: "How do I continue developing now that this person will become less a part of my daily life". Note the change in emphasis. "How do I continue developing?" This means acknowledging the influence that my child's presence has on my own continuing development, and the noticing of the two way influences we have on one another.
In our faith, we talk about an interdependent web of all existence, of which we are a part. Part of that interdependence is the joy of watching your child strike out on his own, make the decisions and take the actions of launching himself fully into that stream of life. But part of it is the pain of knowing that the those places will include you less and less as that teenage child constructs the life of his destiny.
Go now in peace, go now in peace. May the love of God surround you, everywhere everywhere you may go. Amen.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Hopelessness and Patriotism.
"I've always wondered why I was put on this earth. ... I've been feeling helpless on the war on Terrorism but I realized I could engage the terrorist allies here in America."
"I thought I would do something good for the country. Kill Democrats until the cops kill me."It was a simple plan, constructed out of the primary ingredients of fascism: hopelessness, patriotism and a desire to follow orders.
On July 27, 2008, a middle-aged man walked into a children's performance of Annie at the Tennesee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church with a 12-gauge shotgun, 78 rounds of multi-shot ammunition, and an intent to kill as many people before being killed himself. Through some extraordinary actions by the entire congregation, he managed to kill only 2 people before he was held down and arrested a few minutes later. The American equivalent of a suicide bombing, his action that day represented an act of pure terrorism.
I have no doubt that if Jim David Adkisson's name was Mohammed Zibakalam and the religion of his youth was Islam instead of Christianity, then virtually all of the news media -- mainstream and extremist -- would have been on this action as an example of the necessity of our "war on terror", much would have been written and broadcast about whether or not the shooter deserves a trial-free sentence of indefinite length in Guantanamo, or whether he should be summarily executed.
But Adkisson was raised in a Christian household. And he is not of middle eastern descent. And he reads and recites the words of O'Reilly, Hannity and Savage, not bin Laden. So, outside of UU circles and and local coverage in the Knoxville area, his actions that day have been largely forgotten in the six months since his attack. As of today, Adkisson has no Wikipedia entry, and the whole shooting event has a fairly short page devoted to it. Most Americans have no idea that the event even happened.
Last week Adkisson pled guilty to all charges. He had left a 4 page suicide note/manifesto on the seat of his truck, and the local paper just posted it. Here's a copy (.pdf), in Adkisson's own writing. The writing is both chilling and incredibly sad. Each time I read it, I cry. I'm crying now as I write this. The opening quotes on this posting is from this note, as are these pieces of "wisdom", under the "Know This If Nothing Else" section:
- "This was a hate crime"
- "This was a political protest"
- "This was a symbolic killing"
And of course, there is a page all about the Unitarian Universalist Church itself, which he summarizes up in this statement: "They embrace every pervert that comes down the pike but if they find out that you're a conservative, they absolutely Hate you. I know, I experienced it".Some people will read Jim David Adkisson's manifesto and see the rantings of a madman. I do not. I read the manifesto and see the writings of a soldier who understands orders and wants to demonstrate his willingness to follow them. I see someone who desperately wants to be part of a larger movement and to show the people whom he admires that their words do make a difference. And make no mistake. The people whose books he read and whose voices he heard understand his motivations, and will never denounce them. The Goldbergs, Coulters and Savages will continue to write books and to speak words of division. And IF they denounce him or his actions (and that's a big 'if' -- more likely they'll pretend he never existed), they will never denounce Adkisson's motivations. In fact, his manifesto could have been written by any number of conservative voices whom we hear on mainstream radio and television. Every. Single. Day.
In 1994, thousands of Hutu extremists listened to radio stations that encouraged a cleansing of the countryside of all those citizens who would not think the right way. Those people were soldiers, willing to fight, to kill and to die for a movement based in racial and ideological cleansing. They listened to the Interahamwe voices of authority on their radios and they followed orders. Jim David Adkisson also listened to the "conservative" voices of authority on the radio as they promoted a movement based in racial and ideological cleansing. He read their books, and educated himself in their movement and understood his role in that movement. He would follow orders. Like the thousands of Rwandans who killed everyone for an ideology of hate, Adkisson became a person whose life now had meaning.
"I'd like to encourage other like minded people to do what I've done. If life ain't worth living any more don't just kill yourself do something for your country before your go. Go Kill Liberals!"The Interahamwe would be proud.
Note: All items in italics come directly from Adkisson's manifesto (pdf link).
Liberal Hatred
I originally wrote and posted this on 29-July-2008 on my older (now inactive) blog. As I write an update based on recent news, called "Hopelessness and Patriotism", I felt it was time to repost this note from 6 months ago. It remains here, unchanged from that July day of writing.
-----
Is this what Jim David Adkisson carried as he drove up to the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church on Sunday with a shotgun and 76 rounds of ammunition? After all, any person with an Internet connection can buy this bumper sticker and proudly place it on their vehicle of choice.
There is some denial amongst conservative blog commenters (I haven't read much from more "official" conservative columnists regarding this, but I'm sure we'll hear from them in the next few days) regarding Mr. Adkisson. To them, he is simply a deranged person, and the rhetoric promoted by conservative commentators had nothing to do with his actions on Sunday. When and if the Coulters, Hannitys and O'Reillys (and their many "second string" talk radio surrogates) refer to the shooting, I'm sure that they will be shocked -- SHOCKED -- to learn that their writings and broadcasts were part of Adkisson's motivation to "visit" the UU church. In fact, they will take offense at any one who could think or say such a thing.
I wish those commenters were correct. I wish that conservative writings and broadcasts have no bearing on an attempted massacre at the church. But the widespread rhetoric against "liberals" as enemies in a culture war -- much of it quite incendiary -- leads me to believe otherwise.
A little over a year ago, David Neiwart (of the Orcinus blog) posted an appendix to his outstanding (and long) series called "Eliminationism in America", where he documents many quotes by best-selling conservative authors (like Ann Coulter and Michael Savage) and mainstream conservative broadcasters (like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly). Rather than reprint much of the statements made by these very powerful people, I recommend that you visit that site now -- Click here right now -- even if it means you never read the rest of this blog entry.
In fact, even if all you read are the book titles (and they're all bestsellers), you can easily guess the poison contained within them:
I find it especially interesting that this politically motivated attempt at mass murder is not called "terrorism" in the mainstream media. Part of the problem is that the term "terrorism" has no simple definition, and that the use of the term itself connotes a politically-motivated action which is based on misguided political principles. In other words, if the action is based on honorable principles, then it is -- by definition -- not terrorism. And to the conservative media outlets, violent elimination of "America's enemies" is one of the highest principles to which a soldier can adhere. The moment we label an action as "terrorist", we impugn both the action itself as well as the political motivation behind that action.
It is for that reason -- good motives but bad actions -- that conservative commentators will not label Mr. Adkisson's actions as "terrorist". On the other hand, I have no doubt that if Mr. Adkisson had spent time reading bin Laden's writings before walking into the TVUUC, then the very same action would be so labeled -- repeatedly -- by every media outlet in the country.
So while conservatives will agree that Mr Adkisson's entry into the church and shooting up the congregants was bad action, they basically agree with much of his beliefs behind that action. In the eyes of many conservative broadcasters and writers, we are in a culture war and the enemies of the good consist not only of the people who wish to kill Americans, but also those who will refuse to view people
Almost 7 years ago, G. W. Bush spoke these words "You're either with us or against us in the fight against terror". Since that time, conservative authors, commentators and even administration officials have said that liberals and terrorists are -- essentially -- on the same side in this "war" (yes, Karl Rove said that in front of a applauding audience of several hundred in 2005).
Mr. Adkisson's actions on Sunday were those of a domestic terrorist. He acted as if he were under orders, and those orders were to eliminate liberals. It's not hard to find statements by many prominent people -- repeated over and over -- that in our "culture wars", liberals are the "true enemies of America", and that the responsibility of every "freedom-loving citizen" doesn't stop at the elimination of their leaders. It means "taking out some of their supporters too".
But what is truly sad about the whole incident is this. Because the beliefs and principles of UUs lie at the core of our liberal religious tradition, Mr. Adkisson will probably receive more kindness and compassion by the congregants of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church -- the people he considered "enemies of America" -- in the coming months and years than he will by any conservative columnist, author or broadcaster -- the people he probably considered his "friends" only 3 days ago.
-----
Is this what Jim David Adkisson carried as he drove up to the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church on Sunday with a shotgun and 76 rounds of ammunition? After all, any person with an Internet connection can buy this bumper sticker and proudly place it on their vehicle of choice.
There is some denial amongst conservative blog commenters (I haven't read much from more "official" conservative columnists regarding this, but I'm sure we'll hear from them in the next few days) regarding Mr. Adkisson. To them, he is simply a deranged person, and the rhetoric promoted by conservative commentators had nothing to do with his actions on Sunday. When and if the Coulters, Hannitys and O'Reillys (and their many "second string" talk radio surrogates) refer to the shooting, I'm sure that they will be shocked -- SHOCKED -- to learn that their writings and broadcasts were part of Adkisson's motivation to "visit" the UU church. In fact, they will take offense at any one who could think or say such a thing.
I wish those commenters were correct. I wish that conservative writings and broadcasts have no bearing on an attempted massacre at the church. But the widespread rhetoric against "liberals" as enemies in a culture war -- much of it quite incendiary -- leads me to believe otherwise.
A little over a year ago, David Neiwart (of the Orcinus blog) posted an appendix to his outstanding (and long) series called "Eliminationism in America", where he documents many quotes by best-selling conservative authors (like Ann Coulter and Michael Savage) and mainstream conservative broadcasters (like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly). Rather than reprint much of the statements made by these very powerful people, I recommend that you visit that site now -- Click here right now -- even if it means you never read the rest of this blog entry.
In fact, even if all you read are the book titles (and they're all bestsellers), you can easily guess the poison contained within them:
- Ann Coulter: Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism
- Sean Hannity: Deliver Us From Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism and Liberalism
- Michael Savage: Liberalism is a Mental Disorder
- Jonah Goldberg: Liberal Fascism (complete with a cute picture on the cover)
I find it especially interesting that this politically motivated attempt at mass murder is not called "terrorism" in the mainstream media. Part of the problem is that the term "terrorism" has no simple definition, and that the use of the term itself connotes a politically-motivated action which is based on misguided political principles. In other words, if the action is based on honorable principles, then it is -- by definition -- not terrorism. And to the conservative media outlets, violent elimination of "America's enemies" is one of the highest principles to which a soldier can adhere. The moment we label an action as "terrorist", we impugn both the action itself as well as the political motivation behind that action.
It is for that reason -- good motives but bad actions -- that conservative commentators will not label Mr. Adkisson's actions as "terrorist". On the other hand, I have no doubt that if Mr. Adkisson had spent time reading bin Laden's writings before walking into the TVUUC, then the very same action would be so labeled -- repeatedly -- by every media outlet in the country.
So while conservatives will agree that Mr Adkisson's entry into the church and shooting up the congregants was bad action, they basically agree with much of his beliefs behind that action. In the eyes of many conservative broadcasters and writers, we are in a culture war and the enemies of the good consist not only of the people who wish to kill Americans, but also those who will refuse to view people
Almost 7 years ago, G. W. Bush spoke these words "You're either with us or against us in the fight against terror". Since that time, conservative authors, commentators and even administration officials have said that liberals and terrorists are -- essentially -- on the same side in this "war" (yes, Karl Rove said that in front of a applauding audience of several hundred in 2005).
Mr. Adkisson's actions on Sunday were those of a domestic terrorist. He acted as if he were under orders, and those orders were to eliminate liberals. It's not hard to find statements by many prominent people -- repeated over and over -- that in our "culture wars", liberals are the "true enemies of America", and that the responsibility of every "freedom-loving citizen" doesn't stop at the elimination of their leaders. It means "taking out some of their supporters too".
But what is truly sad about the whole incident is this. Because the beliefs and principles of UUs lie at the core of our liberal religious tradition, Mr. Adkisson will probably receive more kindness and compassion by the congregants of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church -- the people he considered "enemies of America" -- in the coming months and years than he will by any conservative columnist, author or broadcaster -- the people he probably considered his "friends" only 3 days ago.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Religulous and Discontentment
Around Christmastime, I visited my in laws, who mentioned that they had seen Bill Maher's Religulous and asked if I'd seen it. I hadn't but I expected that my reaction to it would be either
(spoiler alert below)
The movie runs for about 100 minutes, and for the first 90+ minutes, it does essentially this: conflate religious faith and supernaturalism. It ignores the human need to search for truth and meaning in life, implying that those who find solace in existing belief systems are either fools or charlatans (or in the case of Muslims, potential assassins). It provides little insight into why we approach the "large questions" in the manners that we do, and only seeks to demonstrate to us, the "knowing, educated audience", that these "believers" are hopeless rubes being taken for all they're worth by man-made organizations.
In the last 5 minutes or so, Maher decides to make his statement: religions are not simply cute personal and organizational anachronisms made for our (the scientifically educated) amusement. They're dangerous. And for the most part, his statement is accurate, provided you accept his definition of religion as blind faith in supernatural powers, with an implied rejection of scientific methods and conclusions. I do not accept his definition.
Maher defines religion and religious concepts in the most divisive and simplistic manner -- almost in a "you're with us or with the extremists" way. He chooses the narrowest possible interpretation for broad concepts like God, faith and scripture, and his movie does little to encourage a viewer to examine his own relationship with the world beyond a general consumption of goods and services.
To me, Religulous rings like a well-done Michael Moore-type documentary. And as someone who likes Moore's documentaries, this is a good thing. The movie's very amusing (yes, I laughed a lot), reasonably accurately reported (though the Horus/Jesus piece may be fast and loose with the truth) , and (even without the closing monologue), about as subtle as an elbow that gets jabbed in the ribs, over and over. It's full of quick editing cuts to ensure that we get the point that Maher wants us to get, and it will replaces any meaningful discussion of the meaning of religious thought in human society with snarky commentary and ridicule. It preaches to the choir.
There's no attempt to understand the history of the beliefs, little interaction with religious scholars, and no attempt to talk about the deep personal faiths that have allowed some of our greatest people to make their differences in our lives. By treating the subject of faith in this crude and unsophisticated manner, the movie ends up being an example of the intolerance it so decries. The only difference is that unlike the religious extremists he mocks, Bill Maher's message won't cause us humans to destroy the world.
Unfortunately it won't cause us humans to seek ways to find meaning in the world either.
Now I don't want to say that I didn't enjoy the movie. I did, and, like brother and sister in law, I have a general agreement with Maher's message about extremism, even if I understand that his characterization of these faiths (and the nature of faith itself) was woefully incomplete. It's just that, as I watched this movie, a not so subtle voice inside my head kept saying this:
Just because you agree with him doesn't make him right.
- A great deal of laughter since I find Maher very amusing and often insightful or
- A great deal of discomfort, since the promoted message of the movie (starting with the title) would be one that alternately pokes fun at believers and decries their beliefs as invalid, thereby building yet another wall of miscommunication between those with faith and those without.
(spoiler alert below)
The movie runs for about 100 minutes, and for the first 90+ minutes, it does essentially this: conflate religious faith and supernaturalism. It ignores the human need to search for truth and meaning in life, implying that those who find solace in existing belief systems are either fools or charlatans (or in the case of Muslims, potential assassins). It provides little insight into why we approach the "large questions" in the manners that we do, and only seeks to demonstrate to us, the "knowing, educated audience", that these "believers" are hopeless rubes being taken for all they're worth by man-made organizations.
In the last 5 minutes or so, Maher decides to make his statement: religions are not simply cute personal and organizational anachronisms made for our (the scientifically educated) amusement. They're dangerous. And for the most part, his statement is accurate, provided you accept his definition of religion as blind faith in supernatural powers, with an implied rejection of scientific methods and conclusions. I do not accept his definition.
Maher defines religion and religious concepts in the most divisive and simplistic manner -- almost in a "you're with us or with the extremists" way. He chooses the narrowest possible interpretation for broad concepts like God, faith and scripture, and his movie does little to encourage a viewer to examine his own relationship with the world beyond a general consumption of goods and services.
To me, Religulous rings like a well-done Michael Moore-type documentary. And as someone who likes Moore's documentaries, this is a good thing. The movie's very amusing (yes, I laughed a lot), reasonably accurately reported (though the Horus/Jesus piece may be fast and loose with the truth) , and (even without the closing monologue), about as subtle as an elbow that gets jabbed in the ribs, over and over. It's full of quick editing cuts to ensure that we get the point that Maher wants us to get, and it will replaces any meaningful discussion of the meaning of religious thought in human society with snarky commentary and ridicule. It preaches to the choir.
There's no attempt to understand the history of the beliefs, little interaction with religious scholars, and no attempt to talk about the deep personal faiths that have allowed some of our greatest people to make their differences in our lives. By treating the subject of faith in this crude and unsophisticated manner, the movie ends up being an example of the intolerance it so decries. The only difference is that unlike the religious extremists he mocks, Bill Maher's message won't cause us humans to destroy the world.
Unfortunately it won't cause us humans to seek ways to find meaning in the world either.
Now I don't want to say that I didn't enjoy the movie. I did, and, like brother and sister in law, I have a general agreement with Maher's message about extremism, even if I understand that his characterization of these faiths (and the nature of faith itself) was woefully incomplete. It's just that, as I watched this movie, a not so subtle voice inside my head kept saying this:
Just because you agree with him doesn't make him right.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Sunday Sermon Survival
Well, I completed the Sunday Service here at Church (with Dad) and the presentation with Jeff Klein and Howard Lenow seemed to go pretty well, too. I expect that we'll see a recording (and text) of the sermons posted on the Church website in the next few days, so anyone who wants to relive the text may do so :-)
I posted a late draft of my part of my sermon, called "Beyond Impossibility Lies Hope" on the "invitation" site (I was still editing it as Dad was reading his), where you're welcome to read it. If you need access, please contact me and I'll give you access.
Peace.
I posted a late draft of my part of my sermon, called "Beyond Impossibility Lies Hope" on the "invitation" site (I was still editing it as Dad was reading his), where you're welcome to read it. If you need access, please contact me and I'll give you access.
Peace.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)