WiseSerpents

On the priesthood of believers

2008-07-04T13:34:00.000-07:00

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people,
in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of
darkness into his marvellous light. Once you were not a people, but now you
are God’s people;once you had not received mercy, but now you have received
mercy. Live as Servants of God. Beloved, I urge you as aliens and exiles to
abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul. Conduct
yourselves honourably among the Gentiles, so that, though they malign you as
evildoers, they may see your honourable deeds and glorify God when he comes to
judge. (1 Peter 2:9-12)

I was reading this verse today and thinking on a book I have been reading (The Omnivore's Dilemma) along with many other sources of input I've had as of late. Most of these sources have to do with our consumerism, both at the financial and cultural/personal levels.

It's difficult when you realize just how engrossed we are in consumerism; difficult on the soul. At least for me, there's a sense of anguish about the whole system. Must we be resigned to living in a cultural structure that is foundationally built on the peddling of unneeded, often unwanted, and even more often harmful goods?

As is often the case in such ponderings, one must eventually devlove the nucleus of an answer around some excellent advice from Fr. Hopko: "Try and think of the solution that involves as much of yourself as possible." That is to say, try and think of which form of solution you can affect the most by a change in yourself, and let the macro-problem fall where it may.

The more I look at it, the more I am convinced that Christianity is not a majority religion. It cannot be. Indeed, the life of a Christian is far less fulfilled when they are lured into believing that they live among a "majority Christian people." Such thinking perverts the point made by Peter from a responsibility into a right (specifically a bragging right). A person believing that they are a Christian person living among a Christian nation believes that Peter is speaking about a group right that they, and those around them with similar identity, inherently possess: We are God's people, therefore he loves us more.

Conversely, if you take my starting point, that Christianity is always a minority faith, even among a "churched" people, then the verse becomes one of resistance, intended primarily to be read by an embattled minority who understands themselves as an ALTERNATIVE to the world around them.

But what does it mean to be not only the nation of God, but specifically a nation of "priests"?

I believe the point lies in appreciating the role of the priest in Jewish understanding. The priest is not simply an interpreter of the Law - a role far more specified to the rabbis. A priest is essentially one who sacrifices on behalf of all the people. To be a priest is by definition to be "set apart", and one cannot be set apart if one is part of the mainstream. Indeed, the moral law given by God to govern the Jewish people was a much smaller than the elaborate laws given only to the priests. One could say, at risk of extreme simplification, that the book of Leviticus is a book of laws given over entirely to the specifics of being a priest-within-a-people; one who is set apart for special behavior, even among those who are ruled by God's law.

Practically speaking, this means that Christians are called to live in opposition to norms of the culture around them. Now this is not a culturally elitist point. All cultures (to my knowledge) contain both baptizable and irredeemable aspects. "Christian culture" is in fact a perpetual subculture of the few who have been truly transformed by God's love and sacrifice (God's priesthood, if you will). The paradigm of this love is the one who sacrificed himself for an unappreciative majority. He wished to save those who wished to kill him.

This last point cannot be emphasized strongly enough. Christians cannot realistically expect that people will come around, or at least not until they've gotten in their lashes on the backs of those who would try to save them. Druggies will not thank you for taking the crack pipe at the height of their habit, though they may retrospectively fight the habit for the honored love of a friend lost trying to save them. I believe the same basic logic works for people in general. The priests will initially be feared and loathed, precisely because they represent an uncomfortable alternative. They have chosen to put themselves under the stricter law; the harsher requirements.

And here I differ entirely with the Reformers. While we can all agree that one cannot "work their way into heaven" in such brutish form, I also think the wording of this passage excludes the possibility that our actions and virtues do not matter, or are not expected to be exceptional "among the Gentiles" - which is default for "nonbelievers". At some level Christians are called to model this alternative priestly life that they preach. We are not only to follow Christ, but to model Christ, in whatever broken form we can muster. Ultimately, the gentiles will not be drawn to something unless they can first say with some certainty "these people do represent something different from myself and what is commonly around me."

But what is around us? Honestly we can come up with plenty. But given my current readings and reflections, I think we are obliged to call out one of the strongest demons who we do combat with on a daily basis - Consumerism. This is the force that tries to control us by offering excessive bounties of goods. And I don't just mean STUFF. I mean those forces that try to commodify and secularize our very minds. I mean especially those forces that try and convince us that there is no unseen reality, and that our actions only have the consequences that we can measure in numbers and feel in physical and psychological damage. In short, Consumerism is the devil that tries to convince us that all of human interaction is easily categorized as a DEAL or a BARGAIN. That there is nothing sacred in life except sticking to promises we shake on with the contingencies we built into them. I can't think of anything that says "letter of the law and not the spirit" quite like this business model of living with others who we are supposed to treat as sacred vessels of God's creation.

Again I say, this demonic force is so large that its strongest power is in its sheer vastness. Nearly everything from the music we listen to, to the movies we watch, and the foods we buy, are tainted with its influence. Even our casual notions of "romance" are, on closer inspection, just creations of the demons of sales and marketing.

Take for example our expectant zenith of courtship - the diamond ring. Did you buy your wife a diamond ring? Don't think that has roots in consumerism? Look it up. Read on the history. We've been sold a bill of goods. It wasn't even a tradition until De Beers told us that it was, while at the same time sentencing the center of a continent to virtual slavery to provide our blood-soaked romantic baubles.

Before we can truly live lives differently from what is around us, we must first be aware of what it is that is around us. Be aware of where our food comes from, what our laws are based on, and generally we must become a more reflective people. Perhaps at the end of the day the fight against Consumerism starts with an understanding of how entranced we are by the aural culture and its neophilia. Perhaps being a nation of priests will only begin when we can first get some idea of what is profane, so that we might promote something sacred in its place.

But don't expect thanks. Questioning a lazily contented peoples' modus operandi, even at the level of something seemingly simply like a recent tradition manifested in a courtship bauble, is an invitation to harm. An apathetic pig with a full gut will tusk you for touching its trough of intoxicating slop, just as surely as a starving man will fight to the death for a morsel of grain. The sacrifice must be made with full appreciation that the majority will not love you for it, and will do unto you as it did unto your master, whom they hated first.

Idiocracy - The Joke is On Us

2008-06-06T07:47:00.000-07:00

Last night I finally got a chance to view the movie Idiocracy. The basic plot is that an average guy is frozen in cryogenic sleep for 500 years and wakes up to a world that is much dumber than the one he left, courtesy of the fact that dumb people have far more children then those who are intelligent.

But the plot isn't as important as the satire. Although it's a comedy on the face of it, I think that the biting social commentary is aimed at us, not at the fictitious "dumb people" in the movie. My guess is that it's precisely in our inability to get that the joke is on us that the movie makers get their ironic thrill.

The fact that the movie is aimed at us is made obvious when the main characters have a simultaneous epiphany - they realize that despite the stupidity and depravity of the people in 2505, their lives are pretty much analogous those the chracters were living back in 2007. That is to say, they are obsessed with money, sex and thrill-seeking; in short they are consumers, albeit ones who have lost the ability to couch their consumerism in gilded euphemisms.

The movie presents a hyperbole of how we already are, and asks us, via bathroom humor and crude sex jokes, to review the purpose of our own lives AND the integrity of our culture. In this latter point the movie is at its most subtle. In the idiotic future people still watch movies - they're just mindless (/plotless, literally), and they still have relationships - they're just shallow, and they still read - it's just trash, and they're still economically capitalist - they just have no ability to resist the punchlines of marketing.

Finally the movie is also a challenge to those few who DO understand that the joke is on them. It's a challenge to ask whether we're part of the problem or the solution. The main characters' little motto, borrowed from Thomas Paine - "Lead follow, or get out of the way" - turns out to be surprisingly prophetic in this slapstick distopian comedy.

Perhaps the entire movie can best be summed up when one distopian says to another "Wow you like sex and money too? No way! That's so cool. We should hang out."

Do the opposite

2008-05-12T16:35:00.000-07:00

A fitness coach recently gave a simple piece of advice to any of his proteges who wished to have a good body - Look at how most people around you live their lives, and do the opposite.

Truly the coach could not have forseen the way his advice would register in my mind. He was only saying, on the surface of it, that most people live a poor physical lifestyle, so you should be unlike them if you want a healthy body.

But as with all simple words of wisdom, the point can be extended.

One of my soap-boxes for quite some time now has been the way in which we carry on relationships. This runs the gammut from family to friends to romance and everything in between.

The time has come for some hard talks. On average, our interpersonal relationships fail. Let me repeat, because I don't think the point can be driven home hard enough: On average, we fail at relationships.

For the most part we have pathetically disrupted families, destructive romances built on nonsense and poor priorities, and while friendship is often demonstrated, I still have to say that co-dependence in self-destruction accounts for far too many "close friends."

With families the case is easily documented. On average, our marriages fail. On average, kids don't have two involved parents in their houses. On average we have no sense of greater family.

Romances are also a wreck. On average, we break up. On average, we have casual sex. On average, people cheat. On avearge we give our hearts away too easily, and recover them too effortlessly.

Friendships are more difficult to quantify, but I would still say that they suffer from general malaise. First of all, few people have friendships strong enough that they make any life plans around them. Secondly, the phrase "you're just a friend" has become the stock insult for would-be lovers who don't quite cut muster. Finally, we often think of "friends" as simply people we enjoy now and again. Nobody who we owe anything, but someone that we like to partner with in mutually destructive behaviors. Commonly we think of friends as people who love us no matter what, but not as people who will tell us biting truths with our best interests in mind.

So what to do? The best advice I've heard in a while was the coach at the beginning of this little schpeel - do the opposite. Prioritize your family and friends. Plan around them. Surround yourself with people who want the best for you, and not those who will buy you choclate ice cream to cheer you up from feeling fat. Don't give your heart away easily. Make sure there are tangible promises from a respectable source before allowing them any "rights" to you. And if something does go wrong romantically, do not treat it as some kind of game.

Get used to being single - we over date.

Become accustomed to friends who will critique you - we don't need "yes" men.

Love your family in tangible ways. Try to prioritize them over yourself at times.

and it goes beyond this...

Read, because most do not.

Read non-fiction, because most who read do not.

Exercise, because we're drowning in a sea of bodyfat and health difficulties.

Don't listen to relationship counselors, because they're the mouthpieces of a culture built on shitty assumptions.

Enjoy the outdoors, because we weren't meant to be lap dogs.

Work to live and not vice-versa, because nobody dies wishing they had another hour to give to the office.

Compete, because competative entertainment pushes us towards success.

Cook, because cuisine is an art of culture.

Be religious, because life without the sacred is boring.

Listen to different music, because top-40 kills brains cells and degrades women (even the women artists).

Be introspective, so that you can live a life worth living.

Give, because it isn't all about you.

Just generally do the opposite of a society that, on average, fails.

the Primary Intuition

2008-05-07T10:21:00.001-07:00

During my brief run as a Philosophy professor, one of the more interesting of my standing discussions is why people make a faith leap. Honestly, I do not find the "God-proof" arguments terribly compelling, and the good ones end up begging the question. For instance, I think the arguments from Religious Experience and Kierkegaardian Existentialism are persuasive, but not exactly "logical" in the sense of justifying the type of belief that religious conviction entails. If it was a purely intellectual decision, I believe that I would classify myself as an agnostic.

And yet my faithfulness is there. So I am left with the connundrum - how is it that I am drawn so strongly to a belief that is not based on the kind of empirical evidence that my secular beliefs are found upon?

In this little mini-quest of mine, the best thing I have to offer so far is a little reflection on the definition of faith from Hebrews 11:1-3

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

When I have presented this as an object of reflection to my classes on the nature of faith, I find that more often than not they get from it "faith is just a blind trust." The part of this analysis I find lacking is the "just" part. Honestly, the post does say that faith is blind, in that quite literally, it is not based on that which is seen. As a corollary, I would also have to say that it implies that if your faith is based on A,B,C proof-texts, it may not be the biblical faith that one really holds.

It's easy to focus on what the verse negates. It's easy to just say "ok God wants blind followers." It seems to excuse the problem of faith and reason in the minds of both believers and unbelievers alike, giving no real guidance as to what it might mean for a person to come to faith. But I think this is a bit lazy. If I'm reading it correctly, the verse actually DOES give a couple of really big hints.

First, it says that faith is based on hope, namely hope in the idea that there is an unseen reality that is, nevertheless, fully real. It can enter into our lives and affect us.

Hope is often the least emphasized of the three theological virtues (the other two being faith itself, and of course, love, the one most often emphasized). Yet I think that hope may be precisely what opens the door for faith and love. It's as if God is saying "Ok, I am telling you that there is a spiritual (read: immaterial) reality that is a counter-part to all that you do see. You can either accept or reject this proposition."

I call this call to hope the "Primary Intuition" of faith. If my reading of this verse is accurate, a person must hope for God. They must be open to the idea that all we see, hear, do, and encounter has a divine and sacred as well as a mundane significance. As we come to know God more fully this is fleshed out and developed in a more specific way, but I think it remains a pre-requisite for openness to God that we be fundamentally hopeful people. We have to be able to look at the world around us and say "This is not enough. There is more."

One might then ask "well don't we all hope for that?" To this I must answer in the negative. In all honesty, God is rather inconvenient for us much of the time. To truly believe that there is a force watching out and caring about all of what we do and think is frightening (or should be). It means that we are constantly accountable to another standard. There is never really a time when we are "alone", however much we may prefer to believe that we are. In short, we have no choice but to hold ourselves accountable to godly integrity. By integrity I mean, as I posted from coach Dan John, that we must always be true to ourselves in every situation. We cannot close the door and lose our responsibility to God. We cannot hide behind our rights as autonomous citizens, nor our conveniences of life. We cannot merely assert that we are the center of our own little one-person universe. We cannot persecute without fear of judgement. We cannot cheat and not get caught. We cannot lie and not be found out. We cannot hate our brothers and sisters without consequence. And perhaps most importantly, we cannot really believe that we are in complete control of our own (or even our collective) destiny.

I think the point here is that it establishes the Burden of Proof in the God question. If we look at reality and say "I want to believe that there is more", then God is a de facto answer. Because we yearn for a greater presence, we will choose to weight those things that support divine existence more heavily that those things which cause us to question.

Many I know who have chosen not to believe do so largley on the grounds that they would rather give up the pressures of living under the reality of God than the pressures of living under the nihilism of life without Him. This is not to say that they are immoral. Indeed I think some actually start out with a very humanitarian, ethical impulse. They want to believe that parts of their lives only have the values that they assign to them. Certainly our sexual ethics can be much looser if sex is only as important as we want to treat it (thus opening the door for the idea that it can be "harmless fun" or something of the sort).

Also, I think non-hope is a great temptation for those who wish to believe that we can assert a greater level of control over the visible world. Many humanitarian crusaders have difficulty (in my experience) coming to grips with how limited our little moral crusades really are. They wish to believe that somehow if we could just increase our education, think more clearly, and institute the right political mindset, that we could really change the way people are, and thus the normal functioning of our world. It's much easier in some ways to have this atittude that to understand that we are called to be better people out of love for our common creator, and not because we can expect to see immediate large-scale results from our undertakings and sacrifices.

Basically, it's a hard pill to swallow that the light has to shine through the darkness, but the darkness is often prefered by people. It's difficult to buy into a system that tells you up front "look, people are a rough lot. The more you love them, the higher and thicker your cross is libel to be."

The second difficulty of faith is to believe that this unseen reality is not only co-real, but actually MORE real than the concrete instances of our lives. Now, I am not saying that we should simply opt out of things of the flesh as if they were unimportant. What I am suggesting is that we have to act on the priorities of the unseen world first, and let them dictate how we live in the world we can see. For example, when we say that "marriage makes the husband and wife one flesh" we are clearly not talking about a literal mixing of DNA. What we're saying is that "as far as God is concerned, your salvation is now a matter of co-striving. Everything that happens to one happens to two. You are one accountable entity in the eyes of God." Further, you could no more break this bond before God than you could cut your own arm off. You must treat the other, with all of their faults in place, as if they were part of you, inseparable in spirit, mind, and pleasure.

But it is a joyous message too. It allows us to hold that, in spite of the seeming mundane and trivial lives we lead, we are of cosmic importance to the creator of all things. All of our life is covered in divine concern, and therefore everything we do has divine significance. All can be beautiful or ugly, all can be clean or unclean, all can be worship or idolatry.

Basically, it is the choice to believe that we matter beyond what we seem to. That we are paradoxically so insignificant to the cosmic order, and yet so meaningful to the cosmic King.

counselors

2008-05-02T16:05:00.000-07:00

Most people who are on MTV shows don't need air time, they need a counselor. Case in point: Tila Tequila.

when life becomes allegory

2008-03-27T20:55:00.000-07:00

Doing biblical studies has given me a deep appreciation for the way in which metaphors can become reality for us. Like when you're reading the stories of David and Solomon, or even something obscure like the early chapters of Joel, somehow with the movement of the spirit they can tell you something about "reality", almost as if there was some kind of magic waiting to be unlocked by the movement of the Holy Spirit.

Now I wonder equally how the reverse might work. I'm learning how life itself can become the allegory. It's as if each little episode of our lives, no matter how seemingly irrelevant, can also become a story waiting to be unlocked by the inspiration of the spirit.

These same stories are like paradigms that we all have to live out ourselves. We not only read about the prodigal son, we are him at times... and we can be the father at times... and the older brother at times. We all build the temple, and we all cavort with the foreign gods. We all raise up our voices in praise and promise as did Solomon, and display his cunning wisdom at times, and also at other times, his desecrating idolatry.

It reminds me of how things really don't change. I mean they DO, but so long as people are people, our entire lives are already written, couched in the tales of characters long past. We are all immortalized, with different details, in those texts of antiquity. Even the messages... occasionally we have the same realization, state them anew, and they are once again enlivening. And there are times when I hear lines, and they remind me of our inherent connection with these people of old. The same wisdoms, parroted again for the first time, enculturated into a totally different space and time.

What in particular brought about this little reflection? Hehe... check it out.

How silly.

How simple.

How poignant.

"There is nothing new under the sun." - Ecclesiastes

"It's all the same, only the names have changed." - Bon Jovi (Wanted Dead or Alive)

Words on integrity and relationships from Coach Dan John

2008-03-22T18:18:00.001-07:00

I really liked this little thing. It's from a letter written by Dan John, who is a well-known coach in the firtness and bodybuilding community, but also a Religious Education coordinator in the Roman Catholic church. Ostensibly he was talking about dating, but I liked the part on integrity and its connection to proper relationships; I don't think it has to refer only to dating.

Integrity is one of the things some people forget when they start getting
into
relationships. Integrity is being “one” person…so, on a date or just out
with friends, are
you the same person you are when you are with your family
at Thanksgiving? If you
change from place to place, event to event, you fail
the integrity test.

It is a great gauge for people you want to date, too. Watch somebody in
the school
cafeteria when the teachers aren’t around. Watch them when they
are with “less popular”
people. Watch ‘em. Someone who treats you like fine
gold and a disabled person like dirt is going to be treating you like dirt very
shortly, too.

A great clue for people is to watch how they act around their parents.
When I see
a student genuinely happy to see their folks, I know I have a kid
who acts the same at
home and school. Kids who are rude to their folks may
try to charm you but keep an eye
on your wallet.

If you are worried about introducing people you date to friends and
family, you
might want to put yourself through the integrity test.

-Daniel John (aka: Coach Dan John)

overt racism

2008-03-04T10:35:00.000-08:00

Well, one of my students is choosing to take an overtly racist position for her paper on abortion. The question for the essay reads: "Is an unborn essentially a human being who is in a stage of personal development, or is it essentially something less than human until birth or a certain stage of development?"

The real point is to get them to identify what it means to be "essentially human": What makes us what we are? How are we different than other animals? Do embryonic and fetal tissues share in those essential traits?

Anyhow, one of my students approached me with the question of what to do if ze (since it might be a man or a woman) thought it was ok to abort a black baby, but not a white one. I said well, it seems that you're proposing that race is an essential trait of humanity. The answer "yeah, basically."

As stoic as I typically am in the classroom (especially philosophy), it's difficult for me to stare down blatant, unrepentent racism in the modern world. I understand it as the product of a different place and time. I don't really judge racism in the American south a century ago, because it was a latent cultural assumption inherited from epochs of social conditioning. But today?

I mean seriously, which Sesame Street program did ze miss? Which of the millions of elementary indoctrination attempts, or MTV truisms didn't accomplish its brainwashing purpose? I'm a bit ticked. It's like hey, if you're going to brainwash people into being tolerance drones of all kinds of freakishness, at least make sure the good aspects of uber-tolerance are successfully imparted.

Besides, apparently this person doesn't have the kind of concerns that outweigh racism. For instance, I might think about being racist for a while, but then I couldn't watch Dave Chappelle's black white supremacist and bust out laughing. And what about all the hot Asian girls that are available to me as a single man? And then you've got the issue of Indian food. How can we live in a world where we can't acknowledge the objective superiority of spicy curry and nan to "meat'n'taters" ? Or there's the biggest issue of all: How can a racist live in a world where you can't pull for McFadden over Tebow for Heisman?

At this time and place of human history, I just don't get the impulse of racism...

Another prodigal post

2008-02-24T09:51:00.000-08:00

I returned to church today after an extended absence. The reading for the day: The Prodigal Son - ironic.

It's easy to see why this particular parable is one of the more well-known. It truly does speak to us on an analogous level. There are so many situations we face that we can logically extend the lessons of the story.

For me the difficulty always lies in the elder son who had kept the homestead running all these years. I realize that I'm supposed to boo him offstage and be more like the father, but it's incredibly difficult for my personality to see it that way.

The question I have so often faced is on what basis should we ever bother being moral?

Yes I know that in theory we're supposed to do it because "it's the right thing" and "because we love God." Somehow that doesn't quite cut it. Shouldn't it be the right thing to do because there is a benefit for having done it, and a consequence for having failed in doing it? And if that is true, isn't there logically a balance between forgiveness and disciplined insistance that we must strike?

For me, the problem becomes more acute in our cultural context. Oddly enough, even our secularized cultural inheritance is informed by Christian ideals. Among these is forgiveness. I might even claim that most secular people I know still believe at some level that forgiveness is divine, and inherently better than judgement. Yea, I might even claim that forgiveness is too easily given. A simple "I'm sorry" gets you out of any culpability.

We also have the unusual phenomena of persons who pre-meditate their own conversion. You know the mindset I'm talking about: For now I'm going to do whatever I want no matter how depraved, but later in life I will be a good citizen, join a church, sign up for the PTA, drink only in moderation, and vote Republican. As a person in college put it to me: "I have the ultimate 5 word get-out-of-jail-free card. I just have to tell people who ask me about my past "Well, I was in college" and it's all water off a ducks' back."

His point was clear. He was telling me hey, I can do whatever I want, because ultimately I can just "repent", people will buy it and even sympathize with it, and if you deny me that turn-around, you'll be the elder son.

Perhaps I've let that sentiment affect me too long. Yet, I cannot shake the sheer injustice of it. Of all reasons that I have to rail against my own religiosity, my ideals of justice are the primary stumbling blocks to my Christianity. Not unbelief, not the lure of material things, but the very notion of unconditional forgiveness. I can square with it now and again, but ultimately I yearn for an imperative for virtue.

I think the trick is in the sincerity of the repentance. If it's used simply to escape consequences, then I don't think we're obligated to acknowledge it as an action of God. On the other hand, if the person is truly penitent, then the obligation to receive them is impressed upon us. I can't explain it exactly, but I do get a sensation these days that helps me distinguish between the two. Namely, often the truly penitent person simply did not have a good standard before. They were, if you will, the "virtuous gentile". They were good by their own code, but they hadn't ever come to grips with the rigors of God's laws, so they didn't even have those categories to think in terms of. It's not that they sinned by commission, they just didn't recognize the standard of righteousness.

Finally, I have to say that the old debates regarding whether or not a person could sin after Baptism give me some satisfaction. Sure, the church ultimately ruled that we will all most likely sin after Baptism, but it does show me that others were plagued with the same problem. And even with all that I have learned, and my gradual growth into being a more forgiving soul, I still contribute a skeptical eye towards "penitents" that will help ensure that more forgiving hearts are not taken advantage of, and that their love is only poured out on those who truly desire to partake of it.

a little worse than normal

2008-02-23T21:37:00.000-08:00

I began talking to this cute young lady tonight at Books-a-Million. Turned out she was just a couple of years younger than me, and we had a decent amount in common. Certainly the cuisine chat was great, although I had to say that I felt that the South Beach Diet cookbooks I had in my hand sort of cramped my style. Not sure why diet books do that, but methinks it has to do with admitting that you need any tweaking at all. Smacks of underconfidence in some weird way...

After, we ventured together into the Christian books section. It suprised me to some extent that she had a working knowledge of theology. Apparently she went to a Christian high school, yet her knowledge of real THEOLOGY writers was more adult than that would suggest - more NT Wright, less (fill in inspirational writer).

At last it was time to gather my guts and do what must be done - ask her out on a date. So I asked where she lived. She said "Memphis". Damnay... I inquired as to whether or not that was her hometown. "No", she says, "Fort Smith is where I grew up. I hope to move back here soon, but my husband is in optometry school in Memphis."

A brief contemplation of suicide, and then I began the long march of re-channeling the converation towards inevitable dismissal.

"Nice to meet you", she said. "Really nice. It was so random and interesting. Wish I could talk to you more often, but we're just visiting family for the weekend. By the way, I'm Sara."

I replied in like words and then we parted.

Normally that sort of thing doesn't get to me. Why did it this time? She did seem like a particularly classy, informed, like-minded and quirky sort of person. Cute, in a deceptively youngish-looking and somewhat coffee shop way (my favorite).

It effected me more than usual. I've been blaise all evening.

Oh the definitions we lack...

2008-02-13T20:43:00.001-08:00

One of my classes today was quite convinced that what makes us humans, as opposed to "merely animals," is that we have a soul. Not only do we have a soul, but it would live forever, could have alternate destinations, and just generally mattered...

Of course, this all broke down when I asked a rather innocent question - What is a soul?

**************************** crickets ***************************

This should be an advertisement for the University

2008-01-25T20:06:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting in a Thai resteraunt in Van Buren when I hear the Arkansas fight song begin to blare in the background. At first, Farrah and I cannot determine if this clear sound is from a TV speaker or a cell phone ring. Finally we identify it as a cell ring (with excellent sound). About that time, after letting it ring for what must have been 10 rings worth of the university's fight song, a little Asian guy of about 60 flips his phone open, and with a thick Thai accent yells into it "AaallO!? WHO DE(a)R?"

Later tonight my phone rings, it's Abood, my best friend of Syrian origins now living in LA. "So... good news."

What's that?, I wonder aloud.

"Joe Adams, that cornerback and receiver hybrid from Little Rock who committed to USC? Yeah... well apparently he visited the UofA this weekend and liked it. Rivals even downgraded his commit to USC from hard verbal to soft. Good chance for the hogs to land him I think."

haha. I can just imagine the commercial. A guy from Bangkok, an Arab Muslim with his little cap on, sporting the long beard and living in LA pursuing grad studies in Islamic theology, and a cracker who just got in from killing deers in the Ozarks three-way call each other to talk about Razorback football... awesome.

A life worth living

2008-01-16T12:06:00.000-08:00

I was stirred the first time I heard of Fr. John Meyendorff's eulogy to Fr. Alexander Schmemann, "his was a life worth living."

I recalled aforementioned line today while giving a lecture on the value of Philosophy. I was talking about the misconception that so many people have that Philosophy is "useless". Then I brought up the fact that practically any issue we debate, question we attempt to resolve, or stance we end up taking is fundamentally a philosophical endeavor. The problem, according to me, is that too many who deem philosophy "useless" are adhering to a narrow definition of usefulness that boils down to "a skill that helps me acquire tangible things." Then, practically without realizing it (I'd given the lecture three times without this addition) I just flatly said what was on my mind, "... and if someone honestly places no value whatsoever on anything besides skills that acquire material things, I hope they fail out."

Now of course the students recoiled, because they assumed that I was insinuating a bias against materialistic people that would be reflected in the grades. I quickly said that's not what I'm saying. I won't make it happen per se. But, I still hold to my comment.

For me the issue is one of a life worth living. Socrates, who thankfully is their first reading, put it so well all those years ago: "The unexamined life is not worth living." I think in his eulogy to Fr. Schmemann, Fr. Meyendorff might well have had this exact idea, if not even this exact quote and author (which I do not doubt given his classical learnedness) in mind.

Truth be told, we Americans have such access to education, and such an opportunity to broaden ourselves, that whether or not we choose to live a "life worth living" - an examined life - is just that, a choice. We have the opportunity to make it happen. We also have the opportunity to skip over this self-examination and simply make money, marry 2.5 times, and die.

Here I'm taken to an early quote from the show Battlestar Galactica. Captain Adama is giving his (he thinks) retirement speech, and he poses a quandry: "So often we are thankful for our lives, but we rarely ask ourselves - do we deserve to live?" For modern Americans (among others) I think the question could just as easily be rephrased "do we deserve our prosperity." I'm of the opinion that if all we produce are buyers and havers, takers and absorbers, users and consumers, or as Tom Hopko says "copulators and calculators", then we are little more than extremely blessed and gifted parasites.

I cannot, for all of the love inside of me, find it in my heart to sympathize with the self-imposed problems of those who take blessings without thanks, and forfeit their responsibilities.

A funny evangelism brainstorming exchange today

2008-01-09T21:32:00.000-08:00

Kyle: "So here's the issue - We always tell people that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. They convert, but then later we mention 'oh hey, and now you have to give up everything.' By then, they don't want to hear that. So how can we front-load the question so that they know that God has a wonderful plan for their life, loves them, and also that it's not going to be easy?"

Me: "Easy. Start by telling them 'God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Now let me tell you how the best plan God ever had worked out for the one he loved the most..."

Anglicans need not believe in the Virgin Birth

2007-12-27T09:11:00.000-08:00

This is a fairly interesting little piece about the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, saying that the Virgin Birth, at least as recounted in Matthew, is a "legend". I can't tell if the statement is simply an instance of colossally stupid PR, or if Dr. Williams is simply being comprehended by lesser minds. In either case, I cannot really agree with him. Let me cite before I critique:

The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has picked apart elements of the
Christmas story, including how a star rose high in the sky and stood still to
guide the wise men to Jesus's birth place.

Stars simply don't behave
like that, he told the BBC during an interview.

Dr Williams said there
was little evidence that the three wise men had existed at all. Certainly there
was nothing to prove they were kings.

The only reference to the wise men
from the East was in Matthew's gospel and the details were very vague, he said.

I have a hunch that Dr. Williams is primarily bucking against the trend towards historicizing scripture, a move that I whole-heartedly support. On the other hand, I am very much a scripture-reading product of Fr. Tarazi and Fr. Behr, who likewise tend to go against the grain of historicizing scripture through and through, but who also are very careful to add the qualifier that scripture IS binding on Christians AS it's written, and that there IS a sense in which we must believe ALL of it.

Perhaps Dr. Williams had all of these qualifiers in mind. I must say that such statements are often difficult to decode for those who lack a formal theological education. But I would be interested to know if he indeed made further qualifications, or if he simply stuck to his point that "it's not a hurdle that new Christians need to bother with", in which case we're in disagreement. It's part of the creedal belief. While I would be all about him speaking in terms of "spiritualized" belief, I am quite uncomfortable with simply saying carte blanc that it's an unnecessary belief. After all, if Christ was not born from the virgin womb, in some sense, then we suffer an aesthetic problem saying that new Christians are born of the Virgin Church. The Church is the virgin mother, symbolized by Mary, who gives birth to new Christ's every day.

However he meant it, I reserve bloodthirsty judgment on him until I know more. But this I am certain of, it was not a smart thing to simply call it "a legend". This isn't Sampson killing 5,000 with the jawbone of an ass, nor is it Lot plugging his daughters while his wife is still being sprinkled on French Fries... this is a line from the Nicaean consensus of the early church. It's a cornerstone of Christian self-understanding, and at the very least he needs to tread these waters more carefully.

thankfulness, Ray style

2007-12-22T07:59:00.001-08:00

Seeing as though it's the second holiest part of the year (if you disagree and think it tops Pascha, then read some Behr/Hopko and try a 40 day fast) i've gotten to thinking about a couple of things I'm uniquely thankful for God bringing into my life these past few months:

1. i'm thankful for the thousand-acres of woodland near Mountainburg. It gives me a place to be free, to hunt, to hang with the boys (wes, Nate H, Jay, Dan, Shoji, Andy, Evan). I forgot how much I love this state until I got back into the wilderness. I thank god also for the other wonderful features of my home that I so often overlook: the trees, the playful squirrels, the many animals for me to hunt, all the little landmarks of Fulmer history, the smell and stillness of autumn and the pleasant bite of winter.

2. I'm thankful for my sisters and their friends. They've re-humanized me and grounded me back on terra firma after years of relative isolation in an academic bubble.

3. Also to my first classes of students for sticking with me as I figured out how to teach, especially for a few: Greg, Lizzie, Karen, Sheila, Matt, Cherish, Jamie, Shelby, Lindsey, Kenzie, Linh, John, Jimmy, Neal, Jojo, Zack, Jennifer, Katie, Shaundreika, D-Chap, Tara, Lukerts, Josh, Kelsey, and all the others I'm forgetting, for seeing me as a person who was teaching them, rather than just 'the prof' or 'the young guy'.

4. For Shoji, because there's nothing cooler than the couple of weeks we spent together, watching Tokyo meet the Mulberry; you were born part-Ainu, but I hope that your heart left part-Cherokee. Aboriginese unite!

5. For Wes and vong, because they've been the best old school friends around, and I couldn't ask for better.

6. For Farrah, for showing me how to love, forgive, and what those words look like enfleshed. It's odd watching someone take a little bit of advice from you, only to exceed you in spirit and wisdom, in such a short period of time.

7. For Barry, Tim and Shosh, for a variety of reasons, but particularly for their ability to keep it smart yet fun.

8. For Krish, Nate H, and Rob Avery, for pondering religion with love and opposition (and BW of course!) After all guys, sometimes gentiles do instinctively what the law commands, and show that although they do not know God, the Law of God is etched upon their hearts. (romans 1)

9. Nate Preston, for telling me that we should not trust anybody who doesn't read fiction, and thus reminding me that I needed become once again become trustworthy, and for just being my conscience when I became judgemental, narratival, and my usual self-important. Also, for smashing my idols faster than I can build them.

10. For the Garklavas', for owning.

11. For my mentors Fr. Tarazi, Fr Behr, Dr. Bouteneff, Dr. Cornell, Dr. Kiriopoulos, Dr. Barnet, Fr. Hopko, and posthumously Fr. Alexander Schmemann. Whatever spiritual advice I possess is merely standing on the shoulders of giants. Anything I accomplish for God's kingdom is merely a footnote to the musings of greater minds.

12. For my Vlad's homies - too many to name, but you know who you are - for showing me that the gwaace of the holy spiiiwit... really can fill all that is lacking to an open heart.

13. For my blood-brothers: Dooba, Wes, Paul, Webb, and Andy.

14. For my parents, because without everything they have given me, the rest of this list would be irrelevant.

oddest little dreams

2007-12-22T04:51:00.000-08:00

Last night I had a series of odd dreams. It's rare that my dreaming is so crystalline. I'm not one of those people who wakes up every other day with some claim to a lucid night experience, but last night was an exception.

The one that searing into my mind until this morning was a very strange one indeed. It was part of a larger set of mini-dreams where the character (ostensibly me) was faced with different situations where I had to sift through the other actors in the dream to figure out who the harmful ones were. My only guess is that the short story of demonic whodunit's can only be explained as a combination of reading too many Flannery O'Connor shorts, plus watching Saw and Saw II before bed.

But, back to my dream, the final dream in the series involved a very odd occurrance. I wasn't in much doubt as to who the bad ones were, nor the fact that they were too powerful to stop. At a certain point, and I can't remember if it was another character speaking, or a voice, or just my own thoughts on the situation, I had clearly lost the conflict, and I began to pray. The dream itself went dark as my dream-eyes were shut as tightly as my actual lids at night, and I remember thinking that the evil ones were gaining energy from everyone attempting to fight them. It's like the demons were using our own passions for survival, violent and flighty impulses, as sources of energy.

When I started to pray, I realized that I was going to be targeted. Still, I prayed, and had the thought "I will follow this path, even if I'm the last one on earth." So then there was a thunk, I believe that was me being killed, and I awakened in the dream to another place. I was there with another character who had been fighting the demons with a revolver. He walked away, looking dejected. I heard a voice, and might have even seen a person (can't be sure now) who simply told me "good...this is the path that divides." Then the land around, which had been arid the entire time, began slowly to bloom with greenery... at this juncture I lost the dream.

A winter's scene

2007-12-19T20:28:00.001-08:00

It was like a vision...

I was sitting in the stand, in the middle of nowhere, miles of low mountain woods on either side of me. Vision was high because the leaves were on the ground, and the sun was dying. The air was crisp enough that I breathed smoke without effort, and the cold left that acute ping on my tongue when my mouth opened too wide. I was huddled in camoflauge from head to toe, many layers deep.

Stillness reigned in all directs, except for a couple of squirrel's playing in the dry wood, and the slow trickle of a stream running over overlapping limestone rocks, creating hundreds of tiny waterfalls, as if God has left a tiny fawcet barely running. The water seemed cleaner in the cold.

The smell is remarkable. Unlike the summer, where every piece of flora and fauna from spiders to moss is exporting millions of scents, winter is austere; there are only the smells of evergreens, bark, fallen oak leaves, and dried hickory nuts blowing on the wind; well, and the musk of wild animals when they come near.

I sat there in the tree with bow in hand. The leaves were crunching under the ponderous movements from light hooves. Deer were coming. Out they came into the clearing. A small herd emerged from the mountain trail in orderly fashion. One of the larger does gave out a sharp bleet, warning the others about something.

There was no sound. Only the constance of the stream, and some inexplicable smoke rising in the trees.

Back to writing my books

2007-12-19T20:20:00.001-08:00

Well, my project for writing a book for publication, so advanced over the summer, took a serious hit with trying to get around and teach a new class this past semester. But, hope is just around the horizon as winter break promises to provide ample opportunity too kill deer and turkey, quite a bit of cooking and eating to accomplish, and little else. So, that should allow plenty of time to get my writing well underway.

Any volunteer rough draft readers?

Don't call it a comeback!

2007-12-19T20:18:00.000-08:00

Ahh, the title borrows from the beginning lines to the immortal LL Cool J classic "Momma Said Knock You Out". It's in reference to publishing back on my blog.

I haven't really been out of the writing loop, i've just been writing on facebook. Perhaps a couple of those magical little notes will need to be pasted on here in the near future.

Mindless party nonsense; how I hate thee

2007-12-14T23:18:00.001-08:00

Tonight was a very interesting indeed. My mother had the pinning ceremony for her nursing class (the fall graduates from the Nursing program). The after-pinning revelries were two-fold: First, faculty ate dinner at Red Lobster, and then we were all supposed to go to some guy's poolhouse and join the students for an after-party.

There were no kinks in that schedule.

It's interesting how much I dislike parties. I do not like public dancing, I do not like large numbers of moron Americans around copious amounts of alcohol, and I especially do not like blasting butts-and-bass music in the background while I attempt to carry on trite conversations with people who respond like they should be wearing an "I'd rather be shaking my butt to ths crappy music" shirt.

I do wonder why it is that the party scene bothers me so much. Beyond mild moral critiques, I simply do not enjoy myself. The combination of thumbing noise and shallow conversations wear me out. I'm not one who's ever done well with the concept of "just being", or the corollary "just doing". Things need to have a reason. I need to see what they're getting at, and consequently whether or not I should follow them.

Truth be told, it's odd to me that so many people enjoy the mindlessness of it all. Not really appealing for me. There's nothing at a party that I can't do a better job of with just a few friends.

Oddly, there is one instance where I found parties fun - seminary.

Yes, you heard it here first. Seminary shindigs were generally fun. Again, I have yet to formulate exactly why the difference is so stark. The loud music is there, as it the alcohol, but the internal culture of the participants made those experiences wholly other than what I encounter in the public sphere. Now for the arduous task of figuring out how virtually identical actions can be fun in one sector, and so bloody annoying in another.

First Blood and shrunken testicles

2007-10-22T06:23:00.000-07:00

I killed my first deer on Saturday. A nice doe worth 112 lbs. As Nate says, "strong work."

However, the beast couldn't go quietly into the night, nono. Instead, is sprints down the mountain at breakneck pace. We tried in vain for about 30 minutes to find a blood trail, but to no avail. Then Nate casually says "well let's head down this way. They like to head for water when injured." So he scours the right woods while I take the left trail, which was a bit clearer path. I finally get to bottom where the pond is, and I see something floating in the middle. I'm thinking "uh oh". So I throw a rock near the lump and the ripples cause an ear to bob.

Oh Dear.

So then I hear Nate's boyscout whistle way way way up the hill trying to contact me. We play dueling whistles for a while as I make the epic trek back up the wooded giant to find him. I see him sitting, he says "I think I found the trail." I replied "Good, but unfortunately I think I know where this trail ends." But we follow it anyway, hoping against hope that it's another deer and that mine is toasted on land somewhere. We follow it a good 1/4 of a mile through thickets and brush... all the way back to the pond. He takes one look out there "well...hehe... enjoy."

My duty was obvious. I sent Nate back 1/2 a mile to get our gear and the four-wheeler for transport. Meanwhile I strip and head into the murky water. I take one step in and my worst fears are confirmed... although the day is heating up rapidly, the water is still in the throes of the 50 degree morning. This was gonna hurt...

At first I went slowly, trying to acclimate to the temperature. I'm half numb when the water finally reaches my "critical parts". I then scream. That's when I decided to man up. I lunged out head first into the deeper water and swim as fast as I can trying to build up some body heat. Finally all that summer swimming comes in handy. I finally reach the carcass and grab the ear, pulling as I perform a one-arm backstroke to the land. At long last I reach the clay soil to where I have to stand, and began to pull for all I was worth. The second I had it firmly anchored on the clay edge I sprinted over to my dry clothes and started using my t-shirt to towel off, thus preventing sickness. Luckily I was layered and had the longer shirt (still not real heavy duty, but...). The boxers were soaked too. So, in I go to my camo pants sans undergarments. Then I knocked the clay off my feet while standing on the semi-wet t-shirt. Last on is the shirt. I let out a final primal scream and began jumping around for warmth.

It was definately a memorable way to get #1. Not bad for my initiation as a venison slayer.

Soon there will be feasting...

too animal for me

2007-10-18T20:59:00.001-07:00

Recently Ft. Chaffee has opened up for some special training programs. We've had an influx of temporary residents from various units around the country. Tonight I was in the gym working out with 5 of the guys from the "Special Warfare" division.

Yikes.

These dudes were animals. Ripped like whoa and having nothing but functional muscles. I'm usually more than enough of a stallion to feel good in the gym, but this was intimidating. It's not often that I'm in the gym with five other people and that I feel sure that I am the biggest wuss in the house. I suppose I hung as long as it was just pure weights, but when it came down to body-handling exercises... whoa. These guys were repping out weighted pull-ups like I do unweighted push-ups. It really reminds you of your place on the totem poll when you're in the presence of professional warriors.

misunderstandings be damned

2007-10-14T20:16:00.000-07:00

I was just speaking with someone on the subject of their brother being misunderstood by the parents. The convo was started indirectly by reflecting on Kafka's Metamorphosis.

These gripes can be legit. Certainly I sympathize with having a disconnect with the family. I often wonder... I think we're all misunderstood to some degree, especially once we've lived away from family for a while. But it seems unique to our generation that we feel that our differences are unique enough that others should actually spend their time giving a damn. Are we due that amount of special treatment?

Arkansan nightmare

2007-10-13T22:36:00.000-07:00

Well, the Hogs have now blown three 4th quarter leads in an equal number of games, starting their SEC season 0-3. Today after the game I told my mom "You've probably seen the end of a lot of things." Even though the Hogs only lost to an admittedly decent team 9-7, I think this game dug some graves.

First things first, the Hogs cannot win the SEC West, or even lose it in such a way that they were one of the "late season hopefuls." So, in a certain sense, that game was the end of hope for this year.Secondly, this game probably ended Darren McFadden's realistic shot at the Heisman. Until now his numbers had forced people to consider him, even during Arkansas losses. Tonight those numbers weren't posted. Not his fault of course. Auburn finally called the bluff on our offense in a way that no other team until now had done. They stuffed 8 men in the box all game and dared us to pass. Instead we spent most of the game running right at them. Still the result of an overall team failing, but nevertheless, that's that.

Lastly, it was probably also the tombstone on Nutt as our head coach next year. I'm not in the Nutt hater camp, and honestly people, the man couldn't pencil in "lose your top FIVE receiving threats" into his game plan for this year. Also, let's not pretend that the Auburn offense did any better against our defense than we did against theirs. Still, results have a way of taking precedence over the facts on the ground, and the results are three straight heart breaking losses for a coaching staff who had been able to deflect substantially criticism on the basis that "love us or hate us, we win games." Now that they haven't, and any lofty objectives are functionally out of reach, that line of reasoning will no longer work.

Indeed I will probably be one of the few Arkansans who still hold a love for Nutt. I sat through those long and ugly years under Danny Ford. While things haven't unravelled the way I'd have liked, I cannot forget that bright eyed young coach who walked into Fayetteville my freshman year and lit a fire in a dead-end program. It's too bad it usually has to end this way. Everyone's hero, the two-time coach of the year, booed twice in our home stadium, riddled with possible scandal (possibly not of his own making, although certainly mismanaged). Somehow in spite of all his flaws (or perceived flaws), Nutt is "coach" to me... like coach Lunny was in at Southside high school, and like Nolan Richardson was for Arkansas basketball.

I realize of course that college football is no biggie to the world at large. Nobody outside of my little corner of the world is affected by the difficulties of a middle-sized college football program falling on hard times. But in a place like Arkansas it's still a small enough circle of people that these things hit more personally. We all have a large investment in our team, not because they're a #1 contender on any regular basis, but because they're ours. It's especially sad when I see an Arkie coaching and two other Arkies playing on the opposite side of the ball. It's difficult seeing a boy from my hometown, who's brother is good friends with my sisters, line up under center for the other team. There's a feeling of family feud that has characterized this whole thing. Maybe that's what making the grapes so sour.

Ironically the grape crop in Arkansas did die in the fields this year. But there's one berry that will still be bottled into the sweet local nectar by our two state wineries - the native Arkansas muscadine. I have elsewhere written a poem of my home state based on the characteristic of this bittersweet berry. I still feel that it is a fitting emblem. A fittingly prospering crop that endures the ups and downs that characterize everything here: from football and politics to the weather. It is my hope that our beloved football team, like our little berry, can be resilient in spite of all, weather the cold, and once again be bottled into a bittersweet liquid that calms the souls and reddens the cheeks of her native sons.