CCBlogs thinking critically, living faithfully

I went on a rant yesterday about organization and reorganization.  I want to continue the theme today about excessive government pork projects.  This morning’s news had an article about the millions funneled into West Virginia by the late Senator Byrd with all best intentions.  His fondest hope was that these many projects would be the engines to lift the state out of its bottom of the heap economic condition.  They didn’t. It reminded me of several communities I worked with many years ago.  In one case a reasonably large city that had fallen on rustbelt hard times was represented by an influential member of congress who was able to direct many building projects into the city center and around the county.  They created some high paying but temporary construction jobs, and, when the dust finally settled, what they got were buildings and highways, but the economy was still in the tank.    The attitude of the community leadership was that unless they got federal and state grants for big projects they were doomed to failure.  For them, the new highway or building was the future, a future that would somehow resurrect the greatness of years gone by.  It was a depressing scene well suited for Faulkner or Williams. Obviously I’m masking the city’s identity.  At least thirty years have passed and reports are that it has begun to prosper again in entirely new directions. A smaller but stable community, it has taken advantage of the projects bequeathed to it by adopting a new attitude.  Finally recognizing that their great days of yore are not coming back, they have envisioned a new future for themselves that honors the past without being burdened by it.  Healthcare, education and tourism have become important economic engines that are comfortably yoked with heavier industries that still have a place, albeit a mature and smaller place.  The millionaires of a century ago are gone.  The average family income is modest but solid.  It’s a good place to live and a good place to visit.   The lesson, if there is one, is that there is nothing inherently bad or porkish about major federally funded building projects as such.  They become pork when they are built just for the sake of building something without a clear vision of how they will be employed for the long term well being of the economic base of the community before they get built.  Visions like that cannot be built on dreams of past glory or an unrealistic future of striking the mother lode.  They must be built on clear thinking that balances the pragmatism with imagination.  Sadly, it appears that did not happen in West Virginia, nor, I suspect, in many other places.  And, lest my conservative friends in the rural district in which I live rush to jump on the usual harrumphing bandwagon, I have just two words to say: Farm Bill.

As I read the Washington Post article on Top Secret America, I was reminded of how governments, large and small, tend to deal with bureaucratic issues by reorganizing.  It’s easy to poke fun at the federal government because it’s so large that it’s bumbling efforts at streamlining through reorganization take on a comedic dimension, or at least it would be if it didn’t cost so much.  Legislators, desiring to show the folks back home that they are on the ball, offer all kinds of bills reorganizing this or that as if moving something around or changing its name would accomplish anything.  Their usual performance includes emotionally charged attacks on whatever form of organization currently exists followed by the promise of a salvific Eden under their proposed reorganization.  They mean well, for the most part, but legislatures are not very good managers, they are policy setters, and when they dictate management decisions masquerading as policy, they are usually wrong.  I have some sympathy for them.  I have served as a commissioner of local government agencies in several communities.  Small though we may be, the fact is that we lay commissioners are limited in what we are able to know about the intricacies of the agencies for which we are expected to set policy.   Having also had some experience trying to influence decisions made in DC, I have an inkling about how hard it is to be one of 535 legislators trying to find a way to arrive at a majority vote on important matters about which only a few have any in depth understanding and the underlying strategy is to make the other party lose regardless of what might be best.Senior managers in the executive branch don’t fare much better.  For one thing, they are both limited and directed by legislative authorizations.  For another, it is just so tempting to engage in empire building, which is most easily done by acquiring, hoarding and brokering information.  Finally, as I wrote to a friend the other day, I think DC is the most seductive place in America.  It is there that otherwise decent human beings are seduced by power: having it, getting close to it, influencing those who have it, and basking in its glow.  Adam, Eve, the serpent and the fruit of the forbidden tree are in the minor leagues compared to Washington. Lest we be misled to think that this is a modern problem, or even an American problem, I offer one of my favorite quotes;We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized.  I was to learn that later in life we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing, and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.Petronius Arbiter66 A.D.

Yesterday the U.S. Chamber announced its three part plan for encouraging job growth.  First, deregulate business (meaning stop financial industry reform legislation).  Second, continue the Bush tax cuts for the very wealthy that are scheduled to be eliminated soon.  Third, repeal health reform.  Their main complaint in the news snippets I heard and read had to do with the uncertainty that has been thrust into the market place because of these three things, and uncertainty, they claimed, is the boogeyman of investment that scares big business and inhibits the creation of new jobs.Uncertainty about markets is, of course, the bedrock of private enterprise competitiveness.  In fact, uncertainty is the bedrock of any form of competition.  Consider, for instance, any ball game where rules establish the core structure and limits of the game but uncertainty about what the other team will do is what makes competition possible.  What is important is that the rules be known and understood.  When it comes to major reforms of the financial and health care industries, that will take a while, particularly since these industries have become expert at manipulating the existing set of arcane rules to their benefit with little regard for the welfare of the nation as a whole.  Now they have to work at figuring out how to do the same with a new set of rules that are not yet promulgated, only legislatively authorized in general terms.  It would be so much easier for them to just keep things the way they are.What kind of uncertainty is bothering the Chamber’s big business clients the most?  They way I figure it, they are most uncertain about how and where to find the loopholes and opportunities for a quick killing in a newly regulated financial industry, a more competitive and efficient health care system, and a way for wealthier people to legally avoid paying taxes.  They do not want to change the way they do business, and they may not know how, so the trick is to figure out ways to weasel through new rules with as little change as possible.  What a pain!  Why not just leave well enough alone?The U.S. Chamber is supposed to be an organization promoting the health of a strong private enterprise economy, with an emphasis on smaller businesses, local communities, and open, fair competition.  They can do better than mouthing the same old ‘no regulation is good regulation’ nonsense that only benefits would be monopolists and oligarchs.

The high school from which my wife graduated 50 years ago is in a district of just one square mile, assuring that it will always be relatively small and tight knit.  The many who have lived their entire lives in or very nearby are deeply and intimately dedicated to the school and what it stands for in a way I have not ever experienced.  Consider that these people were together from kindergarten through grade 12 as one unified class.  Those who remained in the area have only deepened their loyalty to the heritage that is theirs through that school experience.  Indeed, heritage is the word I heard over and over again during our few days in Oklahoma.  Oddly enough, it was never defined, just assumed.  Exactly what is the heritage of which they are so proud and to which they are so loyal?  It was never said.  The most common meaning of heritage has to do with cultural traditions and values, and I was fascinated that those traditions and values seemed to be assumed without the need to articulate them.  As a visitor, even an informed visitor, all I could do was guess as to what they might be.If I ever get the chance to sit down for a good long visit (interrogation?) with a couple of their leaders, I’d like to find out what they think that heritage actually is.  It must be something important because they are certainly loyal to it.  My one guess is that, however defined, it might serve as something of a bulwark against the anxieties of uncertain times and undesired change.Does any of that have to do with church?  It does in my mind.It made me reflect on how we deal with heritage in the mainline Protestant church world.  Do we clergy, who are deeply loyal to the traditions and values of our denominations, ever try very hard to articulate what they are to the people who sit in the pews Sunday after Sunday?  I don’t think so.  Good people desiring a nurturing and nourishing worship experience wander from Presbyterian to Methodist to Episcopal to Lutheran to Baptist without ever recognizing the serious theological traditions and values that underly each of them. For example, when I arrived in the parish from which I retired, I discovered an erstwhile member trying as hard as she could to remake it into something more out of the holiness tradition.  I doubt if it ever occurred to her that being Episcopalian in the Anglican tradition was anything other than local custom.  Moreover, I doubt if she knew much about the holiness tradition either.  She just liked the style of worship and conservative theology that she saw in local congregations and read about in books from popular sources.The point is that, regardless of denomination, most mainline Protestant clergy are lousy at articulating what it is that makes their particular tradition a unique part of the Body of Christ with unique gifts to offer.  If there ever was a time when the heritage of a denomination could be assumed because everyone who is a part of it has always been a part of it, it is long gone.There is no such thing as generic Christianity.  The particularities of our denominations have real meaning.  They cannot be assumed.  They need to be well taught and well understood, not to further divide us, but for two other reasons:First, so that members worshiping in a particular tradition more fully understand how that tradition leads them into deeper communion with God in Christ.Second, so that we all may more richly benefit from what each has to offer to the whole.

The other day I wrote about being all but invisible on a visit with an elderly relative on a trip back to Oklahoma.  A good part of the long weekend was spent in high school reunion activities at which I was a spouse.  Reunion spouses are not invisible, but they do occupy a position that might be called benevolent marginality at two different levels, BM-1 and BM-2.  Many of my wife’s classmates still live in or near their small town, and their spouses, at benevolent marginality level 1, are well integrated into the social life and culture of the place so that, while not classmates, they are friendly with everyone else who is local and considered to be valued auxiliaries needed to make up the whole.  I, on the other hand, was a spouse from a distant and unknown land who had met and married this local girl in a large, strange and far away city.  That put me in benevolent marginality level 2.Persons in BM-2 are welcomed but quickly ignored by all except those who are curious about what might have attracted their classmate to this reasonably well groomed and apparently decent alien.  Has he shown himself to be worthy of her?  Is he close enough to their standards of acceptability to be considered an appropriate mate?  Does he have any exotic tales to share?  Will he listen to and respect the tales we tell?  Do we want to make a place for him as an honorary BM-1 level spouse?  Fortunately, my wife has sufficient standing among her classmates, with enough cousins still living nearby, to ease the transition, and I was granted a 3 day pass with an option to renew on a future trip.  It might have helped that her brother and sister were also at hand.I wonder if that is more or less the way that most congregations treat newcomers?  I know that every congregation is proud of how open and welcoming they are, but the truth is seen by how strangers and visitors are welcomed at the door, by those sitting nearby, at the Lord’s table, and at coffee hour.  And that truth is almost always benevolent marginality.  BM-1 may be accorded to those who look and act as much like the respected members of the congregation as is possible for a visitor, especially if they are accompanied by or related to someone.  BM-2 will be accorded to most others.  A third level, BM-3, will be accorded to those who look and act sufficiently like those we do not want to associate with and whom we hope will quickly leave.   I’ve been a visitor in enough congregations to be fairly certain that this is the norm, not the exception.  There is, however, an exception, and I’ve experienced it only a few times because I find it excruciatingly unpleasant.  The exception is in congregations with greeters so well trained and organized that I feel like I’ve walked into a used car lot to be hustled by an over eager and hungry sales person.  Good Lord, there has got to be a better way!  Which reminds me, I wonder what we might learn about greeting, welcoming and including others by the way Christ did it?  I wonder how hard it would be to welcome each person, known or not known, as if he or she was Christ?   Wouldn’t that be an interesting thing to try?

Ever heard someone say, I sure would like to be a fly on the wall to hear that conversation? I've come close. I got to spend the better part of a day with my wife's elderly step father. Although I've known him for almost thirty years, his framework for understanding the world and family relationships was well established before I came along, and there is very little room in it for me. So as the conversation flowed and ebbed, I observed as if under Harry Potter's cloak of invisibility. I suspect that his world view is a more typical American view than many of us would expect.

Family, for him, are his close relatives, people he has known for sixty years or more, and those closest to my wife and her siblings in their early adult lives. All others are incidental adornments to be treated kindly but of no real consequence. The memories of the way it was are more real to him than anything in the present, and our visit was an opportunity to dive into them, bringing them onto the stage of life once more for an encore of tears and stories. There is nothing wrong with that, and much to be treasured, but it is a well defined and limited world that allows in little light from outside.

The rest of humanity has its place and function. In fact, those places and functions are also well defined. For him, every person is identified by their race, and every race is assumed to have certain behavioral characteristics that are well known to him. White people are further subdivided into sets according to their countries of origin, each with incontrovertible characteristics of their own. Brits, for example, are very nice, bright, and utterly inept at anything practical.

Surprisingly, none of that is expressed with the slightest indication of contempt or sense of superiority. It's just the way things are in his world, and he assumes it's the same for everyone. At the same time, it leads into a world of implied threat and fear. Certain races are known to be thieves. Those people are around him all the time, so the threat of being robbed is always present. Some races are known to cheat, and so the fear of being cheated is always near at hand. And never trust a mechanic who might be English or Mexican.

It's a fascinating thing to be an all but invisible witness to the unfolding of his world, and to spend time reflecting on it. It's not very much different from the world my mother lived in, nor, I suspect, from a world that is very common throughout the country. I think it is a very different world from my own, but is it?

I wonder when church becomes a sanctuary for the self righteousness of the insecure?For some reason I have been reflecting on particular people I have encountered in church leadership positions ever since I was in junior high.  I just finished a Jack London short story called “The House of Pride.”  Maybe that’s what triggered it.  Anyway, among them were always a few for whom life in the congregation was an arena in which to display their superior religiosity, which often came in the form of greater faith than anyone else, more pious devotion to tradition and ritual than anyone else, more moral righteousness than anyone else, and,most of all, more assumption of the right to influence decisions than anyone else.  It took time, but it finally dawned on me that they also were often more insecure than anyone else.  It’s hard to say exactly what that means, but, just from remembered observation, it seemed that they were uncomfortable in their own skins, uncertain of their place in secular society, and envious of those who appeared to be humbly self confident in a wider variety of situations and conditions.  Church was a place where they could achieve the illusion of superiority, and exert a greater degree of control over others.  I’ve often wondered what that might have to say about their family lives as well.It reminds me of why I’m not very fond of the theology of an old hymn that reads in part, “Rock of ages, cleft for me.  Let me hide myself in thee.”  I do not believe that Christ, and by extension the church, is a place in which to hide, there to feel secure in one’s insecurity, rubbing it with religious salve that can make it very hard for others to find their own place of blessing.Church is sanctuary, but it is sanctuary for the purpose of offering rest, restoration, healing and nourishment to be sent back out to do the work we have been given to do.  It is not supposed to be an emotional hidey-hole or a platform for the emotional abuse of others.Healthy congregations require effective pastoral leadership that is aware of the presence of such persons, makes room for them as beloved of Christ, but does not give them room to act out to the detriment of others.

I wonder who wrote Psalm 104, and when?  Whoever and whenever, it is a radically revolutionary piece of theology, something of a poetic hand grenade tossed into the milieu of religious beliefs and myths that dominated the Mediterranean world.  In that world, an endless array of divine agencies were held responsible each for a particular form of creation or condition in the environment.  Each nation and tribe had its own pantheon of gods with enough cross fertilization to create combinations and permutations to challenge any mathematician.  It’s an easy thing to assume that they simply invented these deities to explain mysteries that would someday become plain old boring scientific facts.  Maybe so, at least in part, but I also suspect, as with Otto, that all those myths were also tinged with an authentic sense of the divine.  And that brings me to the radical poet of Psalm 104.  He, or perhaps she, in thirty-five brief stanzas, praised the God of Israel as the singular creator and sustainer of all creation, including the ebb and flow of environmental conditions.  The psalm reflects a holistic understanding of creation with appreciation for the place of every creature and every condition.  Even the dreaded sea monsters are made not to be feared but to be appreciated as evidence of God’s sense of humor and joyfulness.  The God of Psalm 104 is not capriciousness nor does he required propitiation.  What he has done he has done beneficently, and the appropriate response is simply praise and thanksgiving.  There is no longer any need or place for a pantheon of gods.  They are not only displaced, they are eliminated as having never existed. They were never more than shadows, vague indicators of the greater truth revealed by God through the people of Israel.I imagine that the kind of thinking revealed in this psalm would have been seen as a great offense and real threat to nearby peoples, if they were aware of it at all.  I also imagine that more than a few Israelites had their doubts when they first heard it.  What of our own day?  Fundamentalists of every stripe in every religion have a hard time with new and radical revelation.  They are easily offended and threatened, and react accordingly.  On the other hand, just because some idea is promoted as a new revelation doesn't’ make it so.  It may not even be new.  Then there are those who are unwilling to consider the divine at all in any form.  As the second letter to Timothy says: “...The time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires...” (2Tim. 4:3)

Balaam, at least the Balaam that appears in Numbers, has become something of a spiritual hero for me.  Elsewhere in scripture Balaam is condemned as one who tried to curse Israel, but whose curse was turned by God into a blessing.  In Numbers, Balaam is portrayed as one of integrity.  Who he understood God to be is unclear.  Certainly it was not Jahweh.  What is clear is that he would accept no payment nor offer any prophecy except that which the Lord gave to him.  It must have been hard to stand before the king backed up by his army and say, not once but several times, Tough luck your majesty, but God has blessed these people and there is nothing you or I can do about it.Balaam’s integrity as a holy person is worthy in and of itself, even if he did not know the God whom he faithfully served.  As a Christian I believe that God’s self revelation to humanity is progressively recorded in the words of Holy Scripture, and is most fully and truthfully revealed in Christ Jesus as we know him in the gospel records.  That does not stop me from considering that God may be speaking to and through persons of integrity who do not share my faith or understanding of who God is.  Balaam’s courage to be faithful to God’s message is astounding.  Fail to do as the king orders and it’s off with your head.  Not many of us are likely to lose our heads, but how often has a major donor or influential member threatened to do some sort of damage if the pastor doesn’t toe the line?  One pastor, whom I know well, has lamented that he often felt constrained in his preaching for fear of offending powerful members of his congregation.  I imagine that is not all that unusual, and I regret those times when I also failed to be bold in proclaiming the Good News of God in Christ.The Balaam of Numbers has much to teach us, but his mention in 2 Peter 2:16 (KJV) also has its uses.  A friend of mine used to mutter a portion of it under his breath during vestry meetings: Behold “...a dumb ass speaking with a man’s voice...”So here’s to Balaam, and here’s to his ass.  May there be more such as they.

I watched a portion of an interview with Nevada senate candidate Sharon Angle in which she was asked whether there could ever be any justification for abortion.  Her answer was that she is a Christian, and that God has a plan for every person’s life.  It bothered me that, apart from the obvious evasion of a direct answer, she would dare to make a bold statement linking Christianity with the doctrine that God has a plan for every life.  It’s not simply because she said it, but because I often hear the same thing said around town, in response to most any tragic event or condition in life, as if it was an undisputed biblical truth and core Christian belief. Well, I am a Christian, and I do not believe that God has a particular plan for each person’s life.  The idea strikes me as naive silliness believed by the dreadfully misinformed.  Scripture certainly records many plans.  Most of them are human plans, all known to God, that usually result in one sort of disaster or another.  Others are God’s plans: God’s plans for constructing the tabernacle and building the first temple; God’s plans for Israel’s future; God’s plans for the world’s future; God’s plans for salvation.  Not God’s plans for every human life.  To be sure, God has called, and continues to call, particular persons into his service for certain purposes, but each person so called is able to choose whether to go along or not.  More to the point, scripture makes clear that God has provided us with what we need to know and do to live in godly harmony with one another, and has made it pretty clear that that is what God would like us to do.  None of us is forced to live that way and for the most part we don’t.What scripture most clearly reveals is that God is ever engaged with human kind.  God participates with us in the events of our lives.  My own experience is that the more I engage with God the more I am aware of how much God is engaging with me.  The obverse of that is to have no awareness at all of God’s presence in one’s life, and, therefore, to have no response to God’s urging, counsel, or even goading.  None of that has anything to do with the idea that I am a rather hapless person careening through life controlled by a predestined fate that includes all the events and conditions I might encounter.  I’m not sure where this “God has a plan for your life” stuff comes from, but I hear it often enough coming out of the mouths of popular preachers.  I guess it’s a sort of perverted latter day Calvinism.  It produces persons filled with daily anxiety as they desperately try to figure out what that plan is while scared to death that they will burn in hell if they fail, which, by that doctrine, they were destined to do anyway, so it’s a godly gottcha all the way round.  Others are proud of their achievements in life, earned by the sweat of their labor and beholden to no one, but eager to lay any misfortune at the feet of God as evidence of God’s plan.  And then there are those who wallow in their predestined misfortunes with the attitude that this is the life God assigned to them so get used to it.How does any of that square with the gospel of Jesus Christ?  It doesn’t.

Following the recent Supreme Court ruling on Chicago’s gun ban ordinance, some commentator pronounced that the Second Amendment was the first and most important guarantee of freedom.  What on earth was he thinking?  Where does the mindset come from that enshrines a gun toting citizenry as the first and most important guarantee of freedom?  Among other things, I’m a bit suspicious that too many of the would be gun toters are those whose blustery demeanor and desire to prove their willingness to defend their rights are, perhaps, not the most stable persons one would like to see parading well armed down Main Street.  I’ve offered that opinion to a few gun toting acquaintances, and their rabid defense, tinged with angry outrage, of their right to be armed darn near proves my point.But I digress.  I wonder what that commentator, whoever he was, might think of the rest of our Constitution: our constitutional separation of powers, freedom of the press and religion, and commitment to civil rights.  What do they have to do with the freedom he so cherishes?  Or does he want his own ideal of freedom imposed on others, and is willing to do so backed up by the force of the weapon he carries?  Force of arms has had a role in developing the civil freedoms we now take for granted, but in every case I can think of that force, whether threatened or applied, did not involve gangs of armed vigilantes.  Moreover, as was the case in our own war of independence and civil war, force of arms had no enduring value except as imputed to it by the unarmed power of the freedom of expression.On the other hand, force of arms has also been the source of decades and centuries of persecution, destruction, oppression, and tyranny.  Sometimes, as in the case of our own Indian wars, it has been wielded by the state.  Sometimes, as in the case of the current rash of Chicago murders, it has been wielded by revenge seeking criminals.  It has been wielded far too often by angry relatives and friends against those closest to them.  In the end, being armed is not, in itself, a defense of anything.  It’s just having the easy and conveniently at hand means to kill.  That’s all.  Nothing else.  The true defense of freedom is in ideas, the ability to express them, and the ebb and flow of unfettered public debate about them.For what it’s worth, once upon a time I owned a few rifles, shotguns and handguns.  Moreover, I was authorized to and did carry a handgun as a civilian in public.

The latest news about the Virgin Atlantic flight stranded on the ground at Bradley International is that the pilot requested permission to off load the plane and Customs officials threatened to arrest any/all persons if that happened.  I’ve been writing a little about boundaries and barriers, and it seems to me that the issue of hospitality is a part of that.  Friend Tom commented that the ancient Greeks considered hospitality the most sacred of duties.  Jesus was the very definition of hospitality in life.  Benedictines are instructed to welcome every visitor as if they might be the Christ.  We have a statue sitting out in a bay with a plaque that reads in part, “... Mighty woman with a torch, whose flame is the imprisoned lightning, and her name, Mother of Exiles.  From her beacon-hand glows world-wide welcome...” I realize that we have laws about immigration and customs enforcement, but I ask you, in what way does “get off that plane and we’ll arrest you” help secure borders or display hospitality?  When can the so called barrier of our borders become a boundary of hospitality without jeopardizing security, real or imagined?  What kind of stupid is this?By the way, I thought I might pop a note to the nice people at ICE saying much the same thing but note that they have a very corporate website.  Try to find an e-mail address on it, or a phone number for anything other than reporting suspicious persons without having to dig, and dig, and dig.  Not to worry.  I figure some Internet sifting software with pick this up and forward it as “potentially of interest.”

Have you ever wanted to write a personal letter to a senior executive of a major corporation, perhaps with a comment or two about a product or service?  It isn’t all that easy.  With e-mail as our dominant way to write letters, try looking up an address connected with a name on the ‘contact us’ link on any major corporate website.   You won’t find much.  Sometimes one has to be diligent just to find the ‘contact us’ link.  Oh well, what about an old fashioned postal letter?  All you need is a name, address and stamp.  That may not be all that easy either.  Corporate websites are full of everything but names of senior executives.  It’s not that they’re secret.  If you know how to do it you can ferret out everything you need, just not on their websites.  In my previous post I mumbled on about boundaries and barriers.  These are barriers.  The information is not there because they do not want to hear from you, whether for good or ill, unless you have been authorized to enter through the gates and into the fortress.   That really gets under my skin, but I do have a certain grudging sympathy for them.  It’s a sympathy generated by the public comments section at the end of all Yahoo News articles.  There are some thoughtful comments, but the majority seem to be rude, contemptuous, ignorant and juvenile.  And those are the ones not screened out for crudeness of language by the censors.  Who would want to be inundated by thousands of e-mails from them?What got me started on this was Shell Oil.  Not only have they publicly tut-tutted BP before congress, but they have begun airing television ads touting themselves as the good oil company.  That just flies in the face of their own performance in places such as western Africa.  So I thought I might pop a note to their CEO, or some other senior executive, suggesting a little more humility and a little less hubris.  I have no illusions about how much influence a retired Episcopal priest from Walla Walla might have, but the idea of just popping a note to a person whose name and address are easily available is out of the question.  I do pop a note to Mr. Obama on occasion.  His name and address I have.  It’s on the White House website.  No doubt you have noticed how my well reasoned thoughts have influenced him.

Let’s talk about boundaries and barriers.  We all need boundaries and sometimes we need barriers.  Boundaries have clear demarkations, but they are permeable.  Barriers also have clear demarkations but they are impermeable, though not insurmountable.  Boundaries help define who we are, and who we are not, as individuals and as groups both formal and informal.  Barriers do much the same but because they are defensive in nature they tend to define the other as unacceptable, perhaps even as enemy.  Boundaries, on the other hand, being permeable, tend to invite the other to come in, explore, and possibly decide become a friend or member.  In suburban terms, a barrier is a gated community with a manned guard post.  A boundary is a low picket fence with an unlocked gate and welcome sign.  One says stay out.  The other says come in, but know that when you do you are in a particular place of particular ways.Both boundaries and barriers have much to say about what is and what is not appropriate behavior in various circumstances, but boundaries, being flexible, are able to make adjustments as needed.  Barriers, being inflexible, tend to inspire unreflective judgment and punitive responses.The words of Jesus established boundaries.  So do the words of Paul in Romans and Galatians as he struggles to clarify the difference between the freedom that is ours within the boundaries of faith in Christ Jesus and the lack of freedom that is also ours if we choose to live behind the barrier of the ancient law.  That law was not without its purpose.  The ancient Israelites were a fragile assembly of tribes surrounded by enemies intent on their destruction or enslavement.  The law formed one part of an essential defensive barrier behind which they might become both a nation and a people of God.  As barriers go it was just barely good enough to make room for that to happen.  Sometimes we also need barriers, physical and psychological, for our own survival.   Barriers can serve legitimate purposes, but Christians are more about boundaries.As Christians, we are to be a people of boundaries, not barriers.  The problem is that people like barriers too much because they give us a sense of security in uncertain times.  Castles, moats and forts, we like and want them all.  They separate the saved from the unsaved, the believer from the unbeliever, the clean from the unclean.  We want to welcome the stranger only if the stranger will undergo conversion to be just like us.  We are in favor of spiritual revival so long as it revives those who need it to become just like us.  To make sure our standards are maintained, we erect barriers, lots of barriers, and there is no better place to look some really good ones than in the ancient laws of Torah.  We don’t have to take them all, just the ones that suit our needs as effective barriers.  Our best justification is to boldly state that without these barriers we would have no boundaries at all and anything goes.  That doesn’t even make sense, but it sounds good. The question is, how can we become less a people of barriers and more a people of boundaries?

In the midst of psalms seeking God’s protection from, or revenge upon, enemies stands Psalm 87 celebrating God’s song of joy as he records the peoples of the earth, including  major enemy nations and sometime allies, unbelievers everyone, as having been born in Jerusalem.What do you suppose inspired the poet to write these words of praise for God’s welcoming embrace even of Israel’s most feared enemies?  Footnotes in one of my bibles are sure that only individual converts are included in the welcome, but that requires the words of the psalm to be stretched beyond their limits. In my imagination I see the writer rushing his new offering to the chief temple musician, all excited that he has gained a new insight into what might be included in the fullness of God’s abounding and steadfast love for the whole of his creation.  And I imagine the chief musician saying, “What, are you crazy?  What gives you the idea that the Taliban, Iranis, Illegal Mexicans and Hugo whathisname could possibly be included in God’s household, much less honorary citizens of our beloved capital city?  Get outta here and take that drivel with you!”What really amazes me is that it survived to be included in the canon of psalms.Psa. 87:0    On the holy mount stands the city he founded;   the LORD loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.   Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God.  Among those who know me I mention Rahab and Babylon; Philistia too, and Tyre, with Ethiopia— “This one was born there,” they say.  And of Zion it shall be said, “This one and that one were born in it”; for the Most High himself will establish it.   The LORD records, as he registers the peoples, “This one was born there.”  Singers and dancers alike say, “All my springs are in you.”  

What was Elijah’s problem?  How many times did God have to rescue him, or use him to pull off some amazing event, for Elijah to get it through his head that, with God as his special companion, he did not have to be afraid of Jezebel or anyone else?  What is with this running away to hide in a cave?I think it has to do with how hard it is to confront the mind bending insanity of a chaotic world.  Faith can sustain one for a time, but there come’s a point when, in the face of a tangle town of political, moral and social manipulation, it’s hard to navigate a reasonable course, even in companionship with God, or, for that matter, to be confident of God’s presence at all.Getting away to a quiet place, a place of refuge, a place where it is possible to think, pray and commune with God is essential to maintaining one’s sanity in the face of the craziness that characterizes so much of what passes as civilization.  Oddly enough, I think that there was something comforting in the earthquake, blazing fire, roaring wind, thundering storm, and the silence in which the still small voice could be heard.  There was a sense of order in each of them.  They made sense.  Besides that, they existed for a season. They came and they went, and when they were gone, they were gone.  In that time and space it was possible to make some sense out of his relationship with God and gain enough understanding about the work God had given him to go out and do it.  Elijah could not stay there.  He had to reenter the cynical, manipulative insanity of the world of Ahab, Jezebel and all the other characters in the drama that surrounded them. That had not changed, but Elijah was ready to have at it again.  We also live in an Ahab and Jezebel world.A few weeks ago I read Michael Lewis’ new book The Big Short in which he chronicled the rise and fall of the subprime mortgage fiasco, and the fortunes of a half dozen persons who saw it coming and made billions betting on it.  It’s a story of arrogance, stupidity, avaricious greed, utter disregard for the common good, incompetence and ignorance all working at cross purposes that could only result in mutual self-destruction.  It may be that Wall Street types played the role of Ahab and Jezebel, but the rest of us were not innocent bystanders.  We egged them on, endorsed their work, bought their products and trusted them with our money.  We, collectively, played the part of Naboth’s neighbors who were so easily persuaded to betray an honest man.  I don’t think Lewis’ book was so much an indictment of Wall Street as it was an indictment of the banal greed of all the Main Streets one finds in a Sinclair Lewis novel. A similar theme was followed with my next read, a highly recommended novel by Daniel Greenberg: Tech Transfer: Science, Money, Love and the Ivory Tower.  I don’t recall who highly recommended it, but they have very low standards.  It was advertised as a witty, yet informed, novel probing the incestuous relationships between university research and big business.  It turned out to be populated entirely by characters of no discernible integrity whose lives overflowed with duplicity and fraud.  In Greenberg’s world there is no honesty, only degrees of coverup so that those who can best disguise themselves have the best chance of winning whatever it is they are out to win.  It’s only a novel, of course, but one written by a science journalist whose non-fiction works appear to follow the same path.  Both books displayed a disordered contemporary world in which ignorance, self-serving manipulation, disregard for the well being of the community, political opportunism, and enthusiastic falsification of truth are the normal patterns of life for great and small alike.  It is Noah’s world, Elijah’s world, Luther’s world and our world.  Just look around:  Thailand, Kyrgyzstan, North Korea, Arizona, South Carolina, British Petroleum, McNeil Labs, Tea Parties, political advertising and media consultants, pharmaceutical advertising, and that’s just this week’s news.  Included on that list is every you and me who sneeringly point at ‘them’ and ‘they.’  We, you and I, are the ones about whom Paul wrote when he said: “Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.”It isn’t that our world is fallen or dark.  It is that our world is sinfully chaotic driven by hundreds of millions of selfish decisions, including our own.  No wonder Calvin went for a theocratic dictatorship or that Plato favored the absolute rule of a philosopher king.  Both were terrible ideas, but they do show how the nuttiness of Marxism could be so attractive at first glance.  They attempted to impose order on chaos.  They failed for good reason.  Whatever God is up to, it does not include the imposition of order on society by the self appointed, whether by good or evil intent, nor has God made any appointments himself.Elijah, indeed scripture through and through, offers another way.  It is the way of boldly entering the world as it is carrying the light of God’s presence to be shined in all places regardless of power or position.  We who have taken the name of Christ are called on to learn from Elijah but not follow him.  We are to follow Jesus Christ carrying with us a new kind of light: a light of healing, reconciliation, and godly justice.  Like Elijah, we may sometimes feel overwhelmed by chaos and even lose our way, and like Elijah, we will have to seek refuge in communion with God to regain strength, energy and sense of purpose.  In the end, it seems to me that we are not intended to live an orderly life of predictable equilibrium.  We are intended, by God, to live in communities of communities in an improvised and ever changing perichoresis.  We do not live that way now, but we Christians can approximate what that might look like in our own daily lives among those with whom we live, work and play.  We Christian can, and sometimes we do.  Just not often enough.  

I love the Elijah stories.  Part prophet, part wizard, I’m certain that Rowling got her model for Dumbledore from him.  For that matter, I wonder if Jezebel, Ahab and Ahaziah might be the source of the evil Malfoy family.  Charles Taylor has argued that we have lost our sense of enchantment, or maybe it’s better put that we have lost our ability to perceive an enchanted world.  We no longer live in a world populated by “ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night.”  We have purified the air of the “cosmic powers of this present darkness,” and the “spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”  In so doing we have also emasculated and spayed the spiritual presences and forces that have been embedded in the human story for almost ever. Actually I may have to take that back.  All of them live on, just not within the context of liberal theology.  Fundamentalists and friends are filled up to here with the reality of the devil and his minions.  A few of my fundamentalist acquaintances give the devil so much credit for present evils, and all things they don’t like, that they are able to avoid all responsibility for the ills of this world, including those in their own lives.  Various New Age followers wax poetic over the beneficent spiritual presence they find in all things, everywhere, all the time.  Slightly more anchored persons opt for a Celtic Spirituality that few Celts would recognize but that encompasses both benevolent and malevolent spirits in moderate proportions that never get too far out of line.  The rest of us are entertained not only by Harry Potter but also by all the super heroes that inhabit movie land.  The fundamentalist’s devil absolves humanity from responsibility.  New Age thinking tames the spiritual world, confining it to a mildly exciting but not threatening existence. Super heroes separate the world of enchantment from reality altogether and make it a form of fictional entertainment.   Elijah takes the world of spiritual enchantment and plunks it down squarely in the serious business of understanding God’s engagement with humanity and God’s use of humans as agents of his power and presence.  Even though intimately involved with God and serving as conduits for God’s power, Elijah, in particular, does not live in a world he can control.  Unpredictable discontinuities haunt his life with real threats, famine, thirst, and anxieties great enough to challenge his faith.  They are all a part of his existence.  Enchantment, it seems, is not magic, and it is especially not magic that can solve the problem of how to maintain a favorable equilibrium in one’s life. Perhaps we need to discover a new way of understanding the spiritual enchantment of creation, a way that would allow us to seriously engage with in the context of our scientific age just as Elijah did in the context of his age.

This is an opinion piece about local politics in our county, but perhaps you will find it interesting anyway.
As settlers moved west and towns began to grow, they had to decide how best to live together in community.  It seemed like a good idea to elect willing persons to various offices that needed to be filled with the hope that they might do a decent job of it, at least for a while.  That’s the American way.  It’s the way that was enshrined in the State Constitution and succeeding statutes providing for the form of county government that shall be.  It’s a way that worked out well as long as the social, economic and legal environments of our communities were relatively uncomplicated.  Nothing is uncomplicated anymore and hasn’t been for decades.  But we still hold open elections for offices that require highly skilled and specialized professional leadership.  Maybe it’s time to reconsider some of them.  A case in point is our upcoming election for County Sheriff.There are two highly visible candidates running for the open office of sheriff in our county, Mr. Turner and Mr. White.  I guess there are other candidates but none with the same visibility as they.  Mr. Turner emphasizes his local roots although he has spent most of his life in Los Angeles as an LAPD officer, and then attorney, before returning to our area to become a wine maker.  Mr. White has been a local deputy for over twenty years rising to the rank of captain.  Mr. Turner is endorsed by a wide range of community leaders, some county officials, and a number of local police.  Mr. White is endorsed by a wide range of community leaders, many current and retired deputies, and a number of local police.  Mr. Turner says he is for God, country and family values.  Mr. White advertises his life long membership in the Presbyterian Church where he has been an active lay leader.  Other than the single fact that both are trained and experienced law enforcement officers, what does any of the rest of it have to do with whether either would make a good chief of a complex, countywide law enforcement agency?  If you were on a search committee to find the right person to lead a legally and technically complicated organization, are these the most important criteria you would examine to find her or him?  They shouldn’t be.  But they are what voters who have not a clue what might make a good sheriff will use to make their decision, if they use any verifiable criteria at all.Most will vote according to which name they think sounds better, or whether they like or dislike the person who owns the house on whose lawn a campaign sign appears.  The point is that it’s time to abandon elections for certain offices that require highly trained, specialized and professional leadership.  In our case it is the County Board of Commissioners who should have the responsibility for hiring the best professional they can recruit to do a job that has been well defined according to the present and anticipated needs of the department.  Making changes such as these would require the adoption of a county home rule charter, and oh my lord what a storm of controversy that would unleash.  There are only six home rule counties in the State, which I find ironic.  Conservative individualism is the credo of local politics around here, so one would think that home rule would be just the ticket to get local county government out from under the thumb of Olympia.  Not a chance.  The prevailing attitude of “We got what we got and we’re going to keep it that way” is an obstacle of enormous size and weight.So who do you want?  Turner or White?  Flip a coin.

Rain.  It’s been raining for days.  According to one forecast it’s supposed to rain for more days yet.  What’s wrong with this picture?  We live on the dry side of the mountains.  Seattle gets rain. We get dry.  It is true that we depend on winter snows for our water, and this winter was not a good one for that.  The snows came late and melted too quickly.  The local paper threatened water rationing.  Farmers and ranchers were likely not to have access to all the water for which they have paper rights.  Now it’s been raining steady for days.  I wonder what that will do for the water supply?  I wonder which farmers will be overjoyed and which ones will be sure their crops are ruined?  I wonder who will blame God for having lost his sense of timing?  I wonder who will blame it on global warming, and who will blame it on Obama?  I wonder if the people on the Gulf Coast will know or care about a very rural intermountain region whining about too little or too much precipitation?Let’s see if I’ve got this right.  The Gulf is filling up with oil and there is no immediate prospect of stopping it. The damage to life in all forms may be incalculable.  BP may cease to exist and with it a huge percentage of dividend revenue going toward pensions in Britain.   The European debt crisis may drag down the nascent economic recovery.  The Israelis are using lethal force in international waters to defend themselves against boats loaded with unarmed Gaza relief activists.  China can’t keep its school students safe much less control North Korea.  Japan can’t keep a leader longer than eight months and is catching up with France or Italy in the race for most PMs in the shortest amount of time.  Thailand can only fake democracy.  Chavez is leading Venezuela into a worker paradise as prosperous as Cuba’s.  Mexico is in an internal state of war with drug lords who have become rich off of American drug users, but we get some of the money back by selling them guns.   Jamaica wants to be like Mexico.   The people running Wall Street are no smarter or honest than they have ever been.  And, oh yeah, it’s raining too much here.  Gee I wish I was president and could fix all these things.