Friday Night Date Place: Vows

A few weeks ago, I looked at having a realistic view of marriage. A lot of people date with the idea of marriage as the end game, so it’s always good to have an idea of what it is you are actually aiming for (and if you should be in all that much of a “hurry” to get there).

As another way of looking at what it is so many folks think they are ready for, I thought that I would look at the vows that my wife and I took six years ago. Today I will post her vows. Coincidentally, tomorrow is our anniversary, which means that you’ll get a special Saturday edition of “Friday Night Date Place” as I post my vows then. These vows were written by my friend and pastor, Rich Vincent, originally for his wedding, but a lot of us who have been under his ministry have co-opted them for our weddings. This is what my wife pledged:

As I await the future resurrection and glorification of the body, I must due to my present frailties, weaknesses, and continued sinfulness, not only say, and not only promise, but rather, I must vow to you before friends, family, God, and government, those things which, apart from the grace of God, I can not fulfill.

As the Church loves Christ sacrificially,
so I vow to sacrifice all for your sake
As the Church loves Christ supremely,
so I vow to ever delight in only you
As the Church loves Christ eternally,
so I vow to love you until my dying day

As the Church cherishes Christ,
so I vow to esteem you my greatest treasure
As the Church submits to Christ,
so I vow to submit to you
As the Church represents Christ,
so I vow to respectfully obey you
As the Church serves Christ,
so I vow to serve you with all humility and patience


And just as the church will forever remain the bride of Christ,
so I vow to never depart from or abandon you,

For Richer or poorer
In sickness and in health
For better or for worse
Until death do us part

By my love, I hope to prepare you for the One whose love
I can only but hope to faintly imitate- the Lord Jesus Christ



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Post-Colonialism: The Colonized

In light of looking at the mentality of the colonizers, now it’s time to turn our attention to the mentality of those colonized. Examine at the process of colonization as the forced absorbing of one story by another. Again, the clearest way I can relate this to people is by telling the story of Daniel. Many people are familiar with the story of Daniel in the lion’s den, but the back-story is what I’m interested in. The story is set against the exile of Israel. The Israelites were taken to a foreign land, not all of them, but their best and brightest young men. In effect, the exile robbed Israel of its brain trust, its future. Those men were in turn re-enculturated: indoctrinated with new language, new customs, even new names. Essentially brainwashed as a form of systematic control.

In a lot of ways, the idea of postcolonialism is a reflection upon the struggle for identity in a non-western paradigm/context. Sort of the cousin to the discussion on ontological blackness (identity politics, nigrescence, and race as shared story). Under colonialism, cultures were wiped out, the memories of our histories wiped out (and I say “our” realizing that this was something far from unique to the black story).

In the name of Jesus, what Gospel message was heard by those colonized? You are sinners, you’re going to hell, you need to be saved/forgiven of your sins, and we will tell you how. Had the message stopped there, it still would have been an incomplete Gospel, but one I could live with. Instead, the colonizers brought in and attached their own cultural baggage: trading one sin-soaked culture for the dominant sin-soaked culture. What we heard was a Gospel message clouded by self-interest: “we’ll trade you the Bible for your land and resources. And we’ll encourage that trade by use of the whip if we have to.”

The western imperialist hegemony trust in its own power, its political/economic alliances, its manifest destiny a little too much. When you create and buy into your own mythology, you want to be able to dismiss the lingering effects of slavery and ignore the colonial systematic oppression woven into the very fabric of this country and its systems (and worse, the colonialist mentality woven into our very hearts and minds). Those colonized, the victims, basically have two choices: accept the oppressors value system, being content to remain in their place; or re-define their reality, fight the oppression. You see, such a Gospel can’t help but make the hearers of it feel dirty, ashamed, inferior, afraid ... then in Stockholm Syndrome-esque fashion, grateful.

Part of the mental process of colonization is that things are always about knowing or being put in your place. Disobedience has consequences, be it by whippings, lynchings, or separate but equal. If the slave experience shaped how black people see this country and its systems, it is not far-fetched to allow for that same history shaping how we see (and hear) the Gospel. The method was simple: if the metaphor or story that you live your life by can be changed, you will be changed.

“‘Are not you Israelites the same to me as the Cushites?’ declares the LORD . ‘Did I not bring Israel up from Egypt, the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir?’” Amos 9:7

Here’s the rub: this partial, baggage-laden Gospel was REJECTED! It wasn’t true to our (African) heritage, pride, and sense of self-worth. It wasn’t true to the Gospel of the Bible and it certainly wasn’t true to the triune God in whom we all find our worth and identity. God is sovereign and moves throughout history in ways I can’t begin to comprehend. The idea of Christ’s message being brought to Africa by the end of a whip, I won’t lie, I can’t put my mind around that. It’s too big. However I do know that ideas have consequences, and that colonialism had its lasting effects.

It’s the difference between people arriving here to escape tyranny and pursue freedom vs. those who arrived in chains to serve under tyrannical rule. How unless the oppressed, themselves, throw off the shackles of their oppressors, “self-esteem” can’t be reclaimed - self-hatred and a mentality of oppression will be in danger of ruling the day.

However, when you oppress the weak and poor of your own nation, trample on their freedoms, I can’t help but think that there are consequences for both the oppressed and the oppressor. There is this structure that reinforces the story oppressors tell themselves. They move over other cultures to lay down their own, their “idea” of Christianity - as if the culture can’t absorb the Gospel. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - existing in community and love, creating from an overflow of that shared communion. Wanting us to partake of that community and know its peace and love. God’s will not being a “pie in the sky when you die” message, but the reality that His will is being done now. Not that “you” are a sinner, but we all are sinners, but God’s kingdom is available to all of us now. Where faith meets social praxis, the dynamic of reflection and action. All cultures reconciled to Him. Justice to be done for all people. That is a more complete message of the Gospel, one that I can whole-heartedly get behind.

“Let’s conquer the world for Christ!” While I’m sure that Christ appreciates the sentiment, His was not a mission to conquer. That is part of colonial language, the trap of Imperial Christianity, kind of like me saying “go forth and make disciples ... by any means necessary.” We use a lot of war imagery in the name of a man who said “those who live by the sword shall die by the sword.” Missionary work is about putting the Gospel message into the hearer’s cultural context. It’s about finding ways to contribute to people’s lives without turning them into the missionary’s image of what they ought to be. Guide them without assimilating them. Maybe in how black people in America were able to take the corrupted Gospel message and co-opt it - well, maybe there is something for the oppressors, the colonizers, to learn from their victims.

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Post-Colonialism: The Colonizers

“The man who submits himself to a Tyrant in heaven naturally submits himself to the yoke of a tyrant on earth. The bible is a much more efficient and inexpensive tool of oppression than the overseer's whip. Were I a slave master I would absolutely want all of my slaves to be Christians. I'm sorry but the Black church was no miracle but the overseer's plan come to it's fruition. That the conquered inevitably adopt the faith of their conquerors is just one of those sad facts of history. That was an excellent essay however and while I do understand many of the points you were making on how Christianity was used in order to allow communities to gather and organize this is an example of people working with the tools they are given. It's no different than us making a delicacy out of the feet and intestines of a pig. We survived and thrived in spite of rather than because of.”

“We were able to take a weapon used against us and turn it back on our oppressors. That is no doubt a great triumph. But in the end it still had it's intended purpose of completely cutting us off from our culture and indoctrinating us and brainwashing us with the culture and religion of our oppressors.”

“Still, historically, the conquerors of one culture have always torn down the temples, demonized the gods, and inevitably forced their own faith on the conquered. It seems somehow unseemly to argue that Black people are somehow better off for this having been done to them.” --Wrath James White

Strong words. These comments were made in the wake of my blogs on The Miracle of the Black Church and Ancient-Future African Faith and are arguments well worth considering. I’ve been doing a lot of wrestling over the idea of how to do evangelism and missionary work. For that matter, there’s been a lot of discussion, or at least the beginnings of conversation, about the idea of ministering in a postcolonialism age. I wanted to back up a bit and look at what this means and what it’s implications may be, because I believe a lot of what the idea of postcolonialism is about gets to the root of what Wrath, among others, was getting at. For example:

Evangelism tends to be the destroyer of people. Historically and currently. It's mostly imperialsim... after all how else does one form a religion to rule an empire based on the teachings of an anarchist... Constantine was many things, but he was a canny politician. Christianity has always, from its inception, been a prosletysing religion. If goes out of its way to recruit and spread, and has a successful meme. Islam conquers. Judaism doesn't care, join don't join doesn't matter. Buddhism under Akosha had something like the Christian missionaries, but nothing like as muscular. Hindus don't care since they regard most religions as subsets of Hinduism (down to Krishna's comment on that).

Thing is, one size doesn't fit all. I'm happy to help with medical aid, but if they stated introducing God bothering cultural modification to it, I'd suggest we let them die in their own time rather than wipe them out with God. But then I suppose their souls are more important than their bodies. –Harlequin

Missionary work during the age of colonialism will be viewed, assuming that it is not already, as a(nother) sad chapter in church history. The church, as a whole, will have to take a long hard look in the mirror and accept the things it has done in the name of Christ and its role in the oppression of people.

An aspect of colonialism is its conquest mentality that works by making other cultures less than human, debasing one while exalting the colonizer’s. The western imperialist colonizers viewed Africa as an untamed land with ungodly people, that there was nothing good in this dark and scary continent–other than its resources–and that its people were entirely under the power of the devil. Ironically, the United States is a revolutionary country in that it threw off the shackles of its own colonial masters. The hypocritical conceit of the country was that while our founding fathers held that all men were created equal, they also held slaves. You don’t think that central kind of hypocrisy doesn’t affect the character of a nation? Finds its way into the system of the society. Finds its way into the hearts and minds of the individuals that make up the system. Becomes ingrained. If all other peoples are members of a subordinate race, created to be slaves, then it becomes axiomatic, part of the consciousness and institutions.

The slave master’s intention was to present “a” Jesus. One to make slaves obedient and docile, a Gospel message to reinforce making faithful servants to white masters. In some ways, missionary work was a Bible and whip theology: we will take your land, profit from your resources, run your lives. We will make you slaves. We will replace your inferior culture with our superior one. To come to know Christ, you have to become civilized, absorbed into the dominant culture. Change your language. Change your names. Change your gods. Change your native ways. Become assimilated.

Integrated.

All of this was mixed into the Gospel package. Religion was a tool, no, a weapon, but the mindset that this came from bled its way into all areas of our religion, life, and culture. Think of it: at the time, missionaries failed to see God already at work in the cultures they traveled to - which He is, as He is already at work in everyone’s lives. Would-be evangelizers could have made bridges between their own faith and the faith of the people they hoped to evangelize, making the final/missing connection to Christ. Instead, the colonizers brought in and attached their own cultural baggage: trading one sin-soaked culture for the dominant sin-soaked culture. Naturally, this had to impact the portrait of the Jesus they were presenting, first in their own minds and next in the minds of the people they were presenting Him to.

Okay, some of it is anti-modern posturing or a hyper-modern reaction, a postmodern look as Western culture calls into question the legitimacy of the European hegemony. It’s easy to see the postcolonialism conversation as some form of guilty white liberal evangelism (though there is too often a certain “these people can’t take care of themselves” condescension to much guilty white liberal thought). However, as one (white) person thinks through the issue:

I am talking here in systemic terms; we have to think about how we contribute to maintaining systems of dominance through our actions and perceptions. We need to see these systems as global, as closely linked to economic and political structures, but expressed in local ways. We also need to bear in mind that systems are constructed from the actions of individuals, and so can be deconstructed by the same actors.

The colonialist mindset tends to creep into our American brand of Christianity. It leads to a mentality of “reclaiming” or “taking back” communities for Jesus. It works its way into our language. We have evangelism “Crusades,” doubly eerie in light of our times and our dealings with the Middle East (as, by general appearances, our two stories simply can’t find a way to co-exist so one is trying to wipe out the other.) Here’s the rub: we are all working under the paradigm and worldview of our cultural age. The missionaries simply adopted the culture and mindset of their colonialist day. Modern missionaries adopt the mindset of their modern age. Postmodern missionaries labor under a postmodern, and hopefully postcolonial, mindset.


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V for Vendetta

Remember, remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot...

Based on the brilliantly prescient comic book written almost 20 years ago by Alan Moore (who has had his name removed from the movie during one of his famous snits), V for Vendetta seems more relevant today than it did when he first feared a Thatcher/Reagan world. As much anarchist manifesto as movie, it takes place during the regime of a fascist England—“Strength through unity. Unity through faith.” Symbolized by a double-barred cross (reminiscent of the broken cross of the Nazi party), the government has declared martial law. The citizens are subjected to fingermen (their own brethren serving as informants to the government), constant surveillance of their conversations, government controlled media, and any undesirable being “black-bagged” (troops bursting into their homes and dragging them off with black bags over their heads to detention camps).

Enter V (Hugo Weaving).

Hugo Weaving (The Matrix and The Lord of the Rings trilogies) uses his voice and body language to convey the presence the character, since his mask, unlike most super-hero characters, doesn’t move. The only problem with the movie, if you aren’t familiar with the original work, is that it is not an action movie. The movie was written and co-produced by the Wachowski brothers (also of The Matrix trilogy) and continues the theme of rebels against the (governmental) system that they like to explore in their work. As the film is as much a meditation on an idea as it is conventional action film, those expecting a spandex slugfest will be disappointed. This movie, like The Matrix movies, is about ideas.

“Violence can be used for good. Justice.”

–V

Running around in a Guy Fawkes mask, V calls for revolution and anarchy, in order to bring down the government. Anarchists, to my mind, have never held a particularly well thought-out position. Mostly because many of the people who call themselves “anarchists” fall more into the chaos for chaos’ sake camp. Anarchy can be a tool, a means to an end, but there has to be a point. It has to lead to something. The terrorist imagery against the backdrop of a totalitarian government leaves a mish-mosh of fodder for discussion, though on the surface it wants to be an allegory for our times.

Moving away from the movie’s political intentions, V is the Christ figure in the movie, a person of judgment (“No one escapes their past. No one escapes judgment.”) and compassion, who calls for a revolution in living and thought. Evey (quite serviceably played by Natalie Portman, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith) is his apostle, and in a lot of ways, represents the humanity of V’s “Christ.” Similar to Christ, V leads her, and by extension, the people of England, on a journey to freedom.

“I wish I wasn’t afraid all the time. ... I know this world is screwed up.”

–Evey

The first step on this path to freedom is realization of the dilemma that we find ourselves in. In their world, there is something terribly wrong. The people live lives of coerced conformity, their freedoms curtailed. They “gave away our civil liberties in order to feel safe”; in other words, they gave into the fear in their lives (a fear ultimately created by themselves). Because their world seemed so dark, hopeless, and full of despair, they traded their freedom to secure a measure of order and peace. On top of that, they sensed that they weren’t who they were supposed to be. As Gordon puts it, “You wear a mask for so long you forget who you were beneath it.”

“An idea can still change the world.”

–Evey

V for Vendetta also explores the power of symbols and the power of art to convey ideas. What the people needed wasn’t another symbol of the government lording over them; rather, the populace “needs more than a building, it needs hope.” This is where revolution begins, with a new idea and faith in a new hope. For such a revolution to take root, it needs messengers to carry the idea forth and converts to live out the mission. His was a simple message, one of hope. The world as he knew it would end and a new world, a new kingdom, would begin.

In this regard, V was joining in Christ’s mission. “I, like God, do not play with dice and do not believe in coincidence,” V says. God is all over this movie. God is in the rain, Evey proclaims as she marvels at His creation with new eyes. God is also in coincidence, one of the themes of the movie: coincidence is like God’s fingerprints.

“You’ve been running from it all your life.”

-V

The next step in the journey is a kind of conversion experience, a paradigm shift as one moves from one kind of worldview to another. It is a wrestling of faith (vs. doubt). In Evey’s case, her faith had been in society’s structures, government, and institutions. In other words, faith in the wrong things. To accept the revolutionary message of freedom meant that her old way of thinking had do be broken down. Discipleship is not easy; often we share V’s lament, “I wish there was an easier way.” This part of the journey can be the most arduous and means a refusal to give in to the tests/trials of one’s faith and accepting a clarity of purpose.

The final step of the journey of freedom involves baptism into their new life. The interesting contrast was in their respective baptisms: Evey’s was in water (“God is in the rain”) and V’s was a baptism of fire (when he escaped his detention facility).

“You are completely free. You have no fear anymore.”

–V

V lived by a simple credo: Vi Veni Universum Vivus Vici (by the power of truth, I, a living man, have conquered the universe). Ironically, once you have set upon the path to freedom, the journey never truly ends. You begin life as you should have been living from the beginning, free to live as you were created to be. To be fully human: “ to laugh, to cry, to kiss.”

V for Vendetta is so literate, with such a powerful use of language—you could choke on the alliterative “v”s in the dialogue—this easily felt like one of the best movies I ever read. The Wachowski brothers dialogue still feels a little heavy handed as they are prone to over-writing to highlight the “significance” of the ideas they are trying to convey. I don’t know if the subversive message of a harlequin terrorist will resonate with an audience; however, anarchy has always been fashionable. The revolution will not be televised, but it will fit nicely onto a movie screen.


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Post-Colonialism: Mission Trips

Once a year, a church that I used to attend would gear up for their big mission trips. It was a large, wealthy, mostly white church and they’d plan 3-4 trips over a couple month period of time (short term missions season). We’d be deluged with these “moving” videos and power point presentations of how “those” people are. How “they” are living. How the Gospel can be used to transform “them.” All to the steady drumbeat of “now give us money so we can send our youth/members over there.” Now I’ve always had a bit of a problem with this kind of missionary work (as opposed to being a missional church). It always smacked of being more about the outreachers than the outreachees. When people came back from the trips, the reports were all about what God did for me, what God showed me, here’s how I was impacted. And how was this justified? “If just one soul was saved, then it was all worth it.”

Expletive. Deleted.

Don’t get me wrong, obeying and doing should always have an impact on a the person doing the doing. If more people would shut up about how Christian they were and live it out instead (letting their good deeds replace their often empty rhetoric) then we’d be a lot better off. On the other hand, so you go over “there,” build your school, orphanage, or church, come back all *changed*, give a weepy report, read the “thank you o rich and gracious American” letters and give Jesus a good pat on the back. Typically, depending on where they are going, a 20 person team has to raise about $1000 each in order to go on one of those trips (the last letter I received from a would be missionary was for $1500, but I want to keep the math simple). That’s about $20 K to send folks to essentially vacation for Jesus. I would be willing to bet that whatever group you were going to help could do a lot more in Jesus’ name if you just cut them a check for the $20K. It’s not like locals can’t do the work of 20 teenagers. Admit that these are cheerleading sessions for the church–“Go Jesus! Look what we did! Yay us!”–and call it a day.

This still left a couple things that troubled me:
1. What sort of impact are we having on “them”? My contention has been that for missionary work to have lasting impact, it has to be long-term and incarnational. Wherever it is done. Lasting transformation on the “missionary,” which we all are, and on people they are evangelizing. Discipleship is a process, an often longer process than we are comfortable admitting in our “ten weeks to know Jesus” culture. If I am on a STM for a week or doing a day-long “project,”it’s more about making us feel better, like we “did” something. One-time gifts, one-time labor is easy. It doesn’t really cost us anything. Follow up, building relationships - those things are true investments.

2. Where does this “us” vs. “them” mentality come from? Missionary work has become so about “over there” that we’ve become convinced that that’s the only way missionary work can be done - as opposed to being incarnational, living among the people you want to minister to. You know what? I’m glad when anyone in America takes an interest in Africa. Rwanda. Sudan. The AIDs epidemic. We are conveniently silent about a lot that goes on in Africa. However, it’s the whole idea of the “otherliness” of the people we want to evangelize that got me thinking today.

The same suburban church that I used to attend–which mind you, does a lot of good things–decided that it wanted to do missionary work here in town, in the inner city. Good! I’m all about evangelizing in your own backyard. It was going to be an every week ministry. Good! That would allow relationships to be built and true discipleship to be done. They want a lasting impact on the workers. Good! We are transformed by doing. They want to reclaim the neighborhood for Jesus. Good. Uh, reclaim? Because “they” need Christ, too. “They”? Who “they”? When did “we” become “they”? “They” derived their same identity and worth from the same Trinity that “you” do.

Maybe I just like to complain about stuff. You know, maybe I woke up on the grumpy side of my Christian bed. That’s not beyond the realm of possibility. However, I’ve been hearing a lot of discussion on the topic of post-colonialism and what that means. So I thought that I’d examine the topic and figure out what all the chatter is about.



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Sunday Boozin’ Sunday

“‘Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.’” Exodus 20:8-11

I don’t keep the Sabbath.

It’s one of those commandments that doesn’t get a lot of play. When you ask people to name the Ten Commandments, they can usually get the big "Thou shalt nots" - Adultery. Lie. Murder. Steal. - you know, the ones most likely to impact them. People struggle to name "keep the Sabbath". For starters, my day job requires me to work seven days a week. Even if it didn’t and I was a faithful keeper of the Sabbath, then I would certainly depend on a lot of other people not being particularly convicted by it. I can rest a lot easier knowing that police officers are still at work (because most criminals I know are great respecters of the Sabbath); and with my kids being accidents waiting to happen, I’m glad doctors still report to work on weekends. For that matter, I know that plenty of folks have rolled out of sermons, even ones on the importance of keeping the Sabbath, only to go out to eat - keeping their convictions at the expense of others. While at home, resting, I still need to be entertained. You don’t expect me to hang out with my family all day - football must be played. For that matter, I began writing this blog on Sunday.

In my mind, there’s always been this kind of divide between the Old and New Testaments. Like the Old Testament is about the harsh, judgmental God, while the New Testament is all about the loving God. The Bible has become seen as two different sets of promises made to two different groups of people or at least people wrestling within two different circumstances or paradigms.

Too often, we’ve reduced, misused, and missed the overarching point of the Old and New Testaments. Most teachings explaining the relationship between the Old and New Testaments present the Old Testament as all about the law, impossible to live up to, and, well, “bad” with the New Testament being all about grace, possible to achieve, and “good.” This leads to the practical application that the Old Testament is a lot of wasted ink and we should concentrate on the New Testament.

“One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.” Romans 14:5

The Bible is one story with two covenants. The Old Testament (Covenant) was the story of God saving the world through a specific people, the story of the nation of Israel. In Christ, we have the fulfillment of the story. The New Testament (Covenant) was the climax and conclusion, if you will, to that story. Jesus fulfills the story--without undermining the necessity and vitality of the Old Testament--bringing the story to its ultimate end. We are all adopted/grafted into the story of Israel. So what we have is essentially two acts of the same story.

If you press me on the topic, meaning, if you make me argue this using Scripture, I would say that Sabbath restrictions don’t apply to Gentiles. The Mosaic laws were about defining a people, a nation. That was their point and their focus. In Christ, we have freedom. I’d say that there is wisdom in taking a day to relax and not burn yourself out. God bless weekends. And, I’m glad that we have weekends to worship as we feel led. However, the Sabbath equals rest, and my rest is in Christ.

Hoosiers who favor keeping state laws that prevent most Sunday alcohol sales outnumber those who oppose the restrictions, according to a new poll. Fifty percent of those surveyed favored keeping the current laws, while 43 percent supported allowing more Sunday sales of beer, wine and liquor, according to a poll commissioned by The Indianapolis Star.

Pam Ingram, 49, from the southwestern Indiana town of Bloomfield, said she doesn't see anything wrong with having one day without alcohol sales in stores. "I just don't see a purpose for the sales," said Ingram, who added that she does not consider herself anti-alcohol. "If you want it on Sunday, there are six other days you can get it."

This is what got me started thinking on the topic of the Sabbath and how we go about "keeping" it. I understand and appreciate the sentiment of wanting to respect Sunday as a day of worship (though, apparently Jews and Seventh Day Adventists aren’t similarly respected); however, what does this accomplish? When all is said and done, I have to plan ahead to get my drink on. Seriously, this is a relic of a Puritanical time. If we are honest with ourselves, we’d acknowledge that this represented a day when one religion was privileged over another. Don’t put this on God or the Bible. Let me tell you, I’ve sat through many sermons where afterwards I really wanted a drink. Plus, I follow the party Savior: Jesus knew how to keep a party going (and it was wine: no matter how you twist the Greek, it cannot be rendered Welches Grape Juice). Buddha never turned water into wine.*

Plus, I may have to buy communion wine on short notice.





*I have it on good authority that Buddha was more of a beer guy.**

**I'm sure that I'm going to find out who actually reads these things to the end.



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Moving on Up

I’m not a hood guy.

My brother informed me of this when I told him that I had to move. Some people, according to him, are hood people, but I am not one of them. I am the kind of person that the hood chews up and spits out. How I’ve managed to stay alive without annoying the piss out of one of our neighborhood drug dealers is apparently proof positive of the existence of God.

Apparently my neighborhood scores higher on the ghetto quiz than I thought. I've never really paid attention, really. It's always simply been home. Oddly enough, I’m only moving five minutes away, but there is a peculiarity about living in Indianapolis. There are serveral invisible dividing lines in the city that somehow separate good and bad neighborhoods. Judging from the weight of living above my means, I’m officially middle class. I already miss being poor and debt free. So ...

Good-bye Big Momma. Candy Lady. Crazy Neighbors.
Good-bye the 1, 2, 3, ... 4 liquor stores on the corner.
Good-bye check-cashing places (one for each liquor store).
Good-bye beer bottles on the corners from evenings of “lamping”.
Good-bye pawn shops.
Good-bye plasma place.
Good-bye wearing your portfolio around your neck, on your fingers, or in your mouth.
Good-bye parking your 401K in front of the house.
Good-bye gun shots on the 4th of July, Halloween, and New Year’s Eve.
Good-bye “soul skate” night that have the police locking down every street when it lets out.
Good-bye police helicopter searchlight that I no longer have to explain to my kids as the police coming by to say “hi.”
Good-bye pizza places that won't deliver once it gets dark. Yes, I'm looking at you, Domino's.

Um, coincidently, we are moving today - right now, as a matter of fact. Spring officially began earlier this week. Oh look: hail, then rain, then sunshine, then snow. I love Indiana. I am occupying myself by blogging. This is why God created wives. Mine’s abnormally strong. She looks so cute hefting our new couch. Well, we’re moving on up ...


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Friday Night Date Place - Making the First Move

(Or “I was asked “is it alright for a woman to ask a man out?”)

Since I speak of the pompatus of love (will someone PLEASE let me know what that means), I am dedicating my Friday blogs to the topic of dating. So far, I’ve looked at why folks bother to date, whether or not you are ready to date, taken a more realistic view of marriage, and defined dating (which led to looking at what I called “the couch dilemma”/DTRs). Now to examine a topic that, oddly enough, sparks a lot of debate.

I was at a Super Bowl party when a guy came up to me, regaling me with polite chatter while dancing around what he wanted to talk to me about. Eventually he got to his point. It seems that he found himself in the situation where a woman was interested in him and asked him out. He told me that this made him uneasy because he believed that if a woman initiates a relationship it sets a pattern that interferes with the man’s ability to lead, so he turned her down. This has been bothering me for a while.

I’ll admit, sometimes I don’t know why people come to me with questions. They know, or some part of their soul should cry out in knowing protest, that I am only going to make fun of them. I looked him in the eyes and wondered aloud why he wasn’t thankful that someone saw something in his crusty behind worth asking out. What I’ve come to realize is that this problem poses more of a dilemma for some folks than I initially thought. This is a question that polarizes singles, splitting them between traditional and modern schools of thought (I’m quite serious, by the way):

1. This is a good thing. A woman asking the man out takes the guesswork out of things. Look, the number one (and if not number one, at least top three) issues I hear from guys is that they can’t tell if a woman’s interested. So, as a general rule of thumb, if she asks you out, she’s probably interested. If he’s afraid of rejection, again let me emphasize that her asking him out reduces the chances of him being out on a limb and risking rejection. Let’s face it, some people don’t thrive on always being the risk-takers and anything that reduces risk is preferred.

Some people say that they are tired of outdated notions of male and female roles. I have the suspicion that there are some guys who like to say things like that in order to sound like, well, they don’t revel in their Neanderthal ways. Such guys may believe this non-traditional “forwardness” is okay in theory, but they would be put off or at least caught off guard in actual practice. In fact, it is my guess that many of the same guys who applaud this defiance of outdated notions are the same guys who, once the “I dos” have been said, immediately want a marriage of traditional roles.

Sadly, some guys will see the woman asking them out as a demonstration of her assertiveness and independence (read: threatened by), and they are more comfortable in the other school of thought.

2. This is a bad thing. This view comes from the traditionalists among us. Of course, this puts guys in a particular Catch-22: if they believe that men should do the asking, but they don’t want to risk rejection by asking someone out. These guys–when they come to me for counsel–again, get openly mocked.

But you never know which type of guy you’re dealing with. So, women, apparently your safest course of action is to hint broadly and loudly, but stop short of asking him out. This is one of those (silly) rules of the game that there is no point in complaining about, that’s just the way it is.

In general, men love the thrill of the chase and women love, want, and need to be desired.

There, I said it.

Do you know what all of this stems from? There is quite the debate in Christian circles about how leadership in the home should work. I’m not going to wade into this debate (since we’re almost at the end of our time together), however, I will say this: the church does a poor job of communicating what male leadership/headship will or is supposed to look like in marriage. Is it supposed to look like the man takes the lead in all things? Does this mean that the guy makes all of the decisions? Does this mean that every time the man speaks, the woman jumps?

Don’t get me wrong, this is how it is in my marriage. Oh yeah, whatever I say, my wife is quick to jump to it.

There is all of this pressure to be a leader, and no instruction on what this is supposed to look like. And no matter how nuanced the pastor thinks that he is making his teaching (your might remember such sermons on passages like Ephesians 5:22-32 or First Peter 3:1-3), what gets heard is “he commands, she follows.”- despite the context of the passages being a discussion of mutual submission.

Here’s what is rarely emphasized enough: being a leader means being ready to serve.

To the ladies who ask me “why do guys” questions: why would you want a guy too gutless to ask you out? If you are the kind of woman who “can” ask a guy out, then I wouldn’t worry too much about the “what if he’s a traditional guy?” dilemma. You’ll be butting heads on all sorts of issues. And if you put into the “only the men are to do the asking” camp, be prepared to wait. You can put your faith into a guy’s ability to pick up on cues and hints. Good luck with that. You will have to do something to stand out from the pack.

This is how the game starts.

Now I’m off to do the dishes. Cause I'm the head of my household and I rule with an iron fist, baby!


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Addicted to Key Words

In yesterday’s blog, I pointed to JA Konrath’s suggestions for making a better blog. I wanted to come back to his suggestion number 7:

7. Link to Other Blogs. Go to www.sitemeter.com and sign up for free. It will let you see where your traffic is coming from. This is often an eye-opening experience. The more sites that link to you, the more hits you'll get. If you want to see who is already linking to you, visit www.technorati.com.

I love finding new ways to focus on me and God bless the internet for providing new ways to do it. I periodically like to find out how much my blog is worth though more often than not, googling myself leads to new levels of blog humility. You know, all of this started because I was whining about people not reading my blog. Okay, truth be told, there could be thousands of people reading my blog, and I’d still complain that not enough people are reading me. I’m a writer, I’m always looking for a larger audience. This led me to go to www.statcounter.com. It’s another site that lets me do what Konrath was talking about, see how many readers I have and where they come from.

Now a long time ago, a friend of mine warned me not to get addicted to my blog. It’s one thing to post fairly often; it’s another thing entirely to obsess over who is reading you and where they come from. Well, I know how you people find me. I’m the number one destination for people googling “White trash weddings” or “black people fried chicken.”

Some other keys words that kind of stuck out to me (and the blogs they pointed to): Shia Labeouf. Nigrescence. “Dark night of the soul” poem based on sermon. Nerd hierarchy. Slavery and dehumanization. Nick Mamatas or Brian Keene. Though my favorite word searches involved “kids peeing outside” and, well, lyrics to a song that amused me.

The second part of my whining involved people not commenting on blogs. I’ve been having the same conversation with a few blogging friends of mine. The same lament is repeated over and over. “No one’s reading me. I can tell because no one’s commenting.” However, once I got to thinking about it, I realized that it takes a lot to get me to comment on someone’s site. I have close friends who I simply like to harass on their blogs. I read about 50 or so livejournals regularly, and rarely, rarely comment. Same with the dozen or so xangas and myspaces I subscribe to. On top of that, I have another dozen or two random blogs that I read. And don’t comment on.

Just like I’m betting I have tens of readers right now, and none of you will comment on this.

Tens, I say!


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Turning Over a New Blogging Leaf

Welcome Intake readers. I’m now blogging over there (as well as on Xanga, LiveJournal, MySpace, Friendster, as well as the original blogger site). I thought now would make a great excuse for me to allow me to (re-)introduce myself a bit. I’m a horror writer, though I also do reviews for Hollywood Jesus and have a review blog there. My day gig, besides being a productive writer (in other words, the one that pays the bills), is as an environmental toxicologist for Commonwealth Biomonitoring. I am the facilitator for The Dwelling Place (for those having trouble finding the office of facilitator defined in the Bible, if you check the original Greek, the word we translate as facilitator comes from the word also translated loosely as “semi-meaningless title so that we don’t have to explain to church visitors why one of the church leaders writes scary stories”). Because I know that you want to get to know me better, I’ll highlight a few choice previous blogs: Namely how I’m a Christian horror writer and my spiritual journey thus far, though you might remember me from my profile in Intake not too long ago.

So, with introductions done, I thought that I’d get to the point of today’s missive, namely why am I turning over a new leaf when it comes to blogging. I’d been doing some whining about my limited readership, um, reassessing how to make my blog more popular/accessible. I’ll admit it: I’m an egotist - I write to be read. It had been pointed out to me that, frankly, some of my essays can sometimes take the turn of being long as well as ... esoteric. Well, writer JA Konrath (A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing) recently had this to say about what makes a good blog:

1. Content is King. It's what brings people back. It's what draws new readers through search engines. If you share important information, experience, and wisdom, you'll build a readership.
2. Lists, Tests, and Bullet Points. A text-heavy blog is a turn off. Pay attention to negative space. People like to absorb information in bite-size pieces. The easier it is to digest and read, the more return visits you'll have.
3. Stay Focused. Stick to one topic per entry, and make sure this topic is different from previous topics so your readership doesn't get bored. What is the reason for your blog? Do you have a reason?
4. Ask Questions. A blog isn't a monologue. The best ones ask questions to provoke feedback.
5. Be Friendly. This is the community watering hole, and you are the bartender. Be welcoming, friendly, and accommodating. Answer questions, be polite, and be genuinely glad people have shown up.
6. Be Controversial. Arguing is good. Disagreement is good. As long as everyone remains civil, encourage debate.
7. Link to Other Blogs.
8. Free Stuff. Periodically hold contests or give away free things. Everyone loves free things.
9. Keep Yourself Out of It. Unless the focus of your blog is your personal life, your personal life doesn't have much of a place in a blog.
10. Strive for Perfection. An occasional typo is harmless. Every other word spelled wrong is annoying. Most blogs have Spellcheck. Use it.
11. Limit Self-Promotion.
12. No Blog is an Island. Besides linking to other blogs, you should reference other blogs in your blog entries.

Do you see suggestion #3? I have yet to pick a topic or even a focus for this blog o’ mine. For the record, I tend to focus on the three ‘R’s: race, religion, and writing. As with any craft, you have to learn the rules for doing it so that you know when to break them.

In other words, the rules can bite me and everyone can just swim in Lake Me!*

*And yes, sometimes my blogs will run a little long. Love and kisses to John A. Burks.



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Suburban Flight?

Hamilton County continues to be among the fastest-growing counties in the nation, according to population estimates from the Census Bureau released today. Some of the suburban county's growth is at the expense of Marion County, where the population drain is evident in the census estimates.

From 2000 to 2005, Hamilton County's population increased 32 percent, making it the 18th fastest-growing in the nation. Hendricks was the only other Indiana county to crack the Top 100, ranking as the 75th fastest-growing county with a 22 percent increase. "An awful lot of this is coming from what we call suburban flight," said Vince Thompson, an economic research analyst with the Indiana Business Research Center in Bloomington.

Suburban flight. My, what a pleasant sounding spin. I guess “white flight” was too accusatory. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s white folks fleeing the “browning” of the city. Speaking as one of the people you’re running from, allow me to pour a tall, cool glass of haterade. I made so many friends with my rant on home-schooling, (apparently some folks took issue with me saying that they were home schooling their kids because they were afraid of black people and drugs) but this is the same mess, different circumstances. Don't believe me about the browning of the city?

Marion, the state's most populous county, showed slight growth in the five-year period in part because the number of births was nearly double the number of deaths. In addition, the number of people moving in from foreign countries outnumbered those moving out by more than 13,000. "The good news is Indianapolis continues to grow, and that's always a positive thing," said Deputy Mayor Steve Campbell. "Having a lot more international residents is always a good thing, and we appreciate that."

People want to dress up their behavior in all sort of good sounding ways. They are moving away from “hustle and bustle of the city;” they are moving to “safer” neighborhoods, whatever. I’m not here to say that they aren’t doing those very things. Nor am I going to say that what they are doing is necessarily or unconsciously racist. In their minds, they may perfectly be willing to live with anyone who can afford the houses where they are moving to. Perfectly willing to live with people of their same class, which would again point to the burgeoning class over race problem that this country will have to eventually deal with. Well, live with them until too many of “those type” of undesirables move in with their strange ways. Then it’ll be time to sell your house and move even further north or west.

Ironically, I’m moving, too. I, too, had certain considerations that I had in mind when I was choosing where I wanted my family to live. I have bi-racial children and though they could “pass” for white, I wanted them to live in a multi-cultural neighborhood. I want them to see a variety of people as their neighbors. I didn’t want to even unconsciously communicate that some people ought to be feared or that we can only live with people who are like us. Too many people moving to the suburbs already have a “get away from people” mentality. They build their fences and then don’t talk to their neighbors. Certainly, that is how communities are forged.

Plus, I know I want to live with a bunch of people looking to get away from folks (like me).

Who knows. I could be totally off. People could be moving for as simple a reason as “I need more space for my stuff.” Because that also what life is all about.



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Random Meme Day II

Your results:
You are Will Riker

Will Riker 80% James T. Kirk (Captain) 70% Beverly Crusher 70% Chekov 70% Spock 67% Deanna Troi 55% Geordi LaForge 50% Jean-Luc Picard 40% An Expendable Character (Redshirt) 35% Leonard McCoy (Bones) 35% Data 32% Mr. Scott 30% Worf 25% Uhura 20% Mr. Sulu 15%

At times you are self-centered but you have many friends. You love many women, but the right woman could get you to settle down.

Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Quiz


I can’t say that this surprises me at all.

While I’m being completely random, I’ve been inconsistent about blogging over here because I’ve been tending to my Hollywood Jesus blog. I’ve been in a bit of a comic book mood: Batman: Arkham Asylum, Justice, X-Factor, Infinite Crisis, and Fallen Angel (though, I also reviewed something from the DVD bin: Valentine’s Day + Lent = Chocolat).

Having declared March 17th a holy day, not because of St. Patrick’s Day, but because V for Vendetta was released, I was not disappointed. I also plan on catching the Prison Break marathon on March 20th to do a review of that show also.

On a completely different note, Burger King continues its trend of nonsensical commercials. I’m got that “big bucking chicken” song stuck in my head. Great.


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Friday Night Date Place - The Couch Dilemma

Defining The Relationship.

I suck at DTRs. My first DTR with the woman who would later become my wife was not an auspicious occasion. In fact, it involved a lot of me ducking for cover and running. You see, we had began our dating life without me knowing it was a date. I was killing time with a friend, hanging out as a lark. She was on a date - I simply didn’t get the memo. The memo was received the third time we were hanging out. I wanted to see the movie Starship Troopers, couldn’t find any takers, then she informs me that she would love to see Starship Troopers [this was actually a bold faced lie, as I came to find out that not only didn’t she like Starship Troopers, but she hates any alien movies where the aliens look too ... “alien” (meaning only muppet aliens need apply). This isn’t as weird as her fear of animals with really small feet thing, but I digress.]

I stop by, she asks me if I’ve eaten. I say no, then am treated to a home cooked, and candlelit, meal. “Uh oh.” My guy sense, dull and quite selective thing that it is, went off. She was way far into this ... thing (I couldn’t bring myself to call it a relationship), and I’m barely at the “do you have any hobbies?” stage of things. I rationalized that it wouldn’t be fair for us to keep dating with her so deep into me (okay, it was an ego-centric rationalization. I was going through a “who can blame them for falling for me” stage). Actually, I’ve come to realize, in retrospect, that our relationship was a series of DTRs, usually ending badly, all precipitated by what I will call “the couch dilemma.”

The couch dilemma
I don’t know if this is a common phenomena or just one common is Christian singles groups, so I figure I’ll describe what it looks like and you can see if it sounds familiar. Guy calls up girl. They get together to hang out. Dinner, movies, or other activities. Whatever. They find themselves spending a lot of evenings sitting on the couch talking til all hours of the night. This happens repeatedly. Until someone’s, usually the woman’s, feelings get so entangled that they can’t take it anymore and they break down and have a DTR. At which point they pursue a relationship or that’s the end of their hanging out. Sometimes I call it the non-dating/kinda dating dilemma, the lie of courting, two people just hanging out, or the difficulty of opposite sex platonic relationships.

Before we examine what’s going on, let’s point out a few things. Most times this starts out simply as friends going through the motions of dating (which is why it is so important to define what a date is). To the outside observer, it looks and almost feels like a date in a lot of ways. Enough to make the lonely times seem less desperately so. Guys like being able to call someone up. Ladies like to receive that call. And, it beats the alternative: doing nothing. And again, they are in the company of a member of the opposite sex, spending an evening doing something with someone.

But eventually, someone, usually the woman, asks themselves (and eventually him) what’s going on? What are we doing here? Are we dating? Are we courting? Are we just friends hanging out? Which only means that you will face the inevitable DTR talk.

Whoever asks, is at the disadvantage (if you have to ask, you aren’t the one in control). The woman, the usual asker, is asking in the hopes of either taking the relationship to the next level, or making sure there are no misunderstandings going on. The man, the usual coward (or strategically wise depending on how you look at it) has set up a no-lose scenario. If he’s interested, things could keep going as they are, and he’s spending time with the woman he’s interested in. Even if, in a previous conversation she has said that she wasn’t interested or he realized he had few of the things on her “guy wish list”, he’s snuck in under her radar (under the auspices of hanging out as “just friends”) to take his shot. So if she asks and he senses her wanting to “make sure there are no misunderstandings” (READ: I don’t want to ruin the friendship, I see you as a brother, blah, blah, blah), he loses no face by saying “oh no, we were just hanging out”. And if she’s wanting to take it to another level, great.

If he’s not interested, which means he was just killing time with her (saw her as a friend, or a sister, blah, blah, blah), then he gets to weasel out of things by apologizing for the misunderstanding. That by they way, if she had grown interested despite the numerous talks they may have had before they started hanging out, leads to resentment on her part as she mulls over “what was he doing with me that whole time?” She’s left with the used hand towel feeling of having her emotions toyed with. All this without any kissing, much less sex, to make her feel even more used.

That is one reason why the DTR can be long in coming. Both enjoy the time spent together, no matter what level that is done on. And two, they have asked themselves is the risk of the DTR worth the relationship changing, because it will change.

Guy/Girl Platonic Relationships?
Plato is the philosopher who came up with the idea that there can be a type of love or friendship that can be purely spiritual, not sexual. That’s why male-female, non-sexual (i.e., without sexual attraction), relationships are referred to as Platonic. (Mind you, how sad is that? That you suck at something so bad that they name the phenomenon after you. Of course, considering my track record, my name should be Maurice LetsJustBeFriends, but I digress).

Friendships across the sexual divide are hard to establish if you set out to form one. It is rare that the friendship is seen as an end in and of itself rather than a stage in the relationship. Half the time, you have these friendships thrust upon you. You know, you sidle up to a person and, lose your dating map, and find yourself in the friend zone. Actually, that fear of one or the other of you having an agenda is one reason why these friendships aren’t trusted. They can almost only happen once the possibility of dating has been ruled out.

God brings people into our lives for reasons.

True guy/girl friendships have certain characteristics. On the plus side, they develop a true brother-sister relationship. They become sounding boards into the mystique of the opposite sex. They have clear boundaries. They may have entertained romantic notions, but they moved past them, however awkwardly. These friendships are experienced on different levels and in different ways that same sex friendships. Partly, this is because they allow us to imitate or express ourselves in ways analogous to a romantic relationship. Guys become more vulnerable. Ladies get to relax and have fun. It’s like dating without the games.

Thus the confusion.

On the negative side, there is always the potential tar pit of emotional intimacy and confusion. Or physical attraction (sex in friendship clothing). You have to realize that you two are of opposite sexes and there is a mystery to sexual attraction. Reality dictates that though you may not be attracted to them now, nor see yourself ever being attracted to them, sexual attraction is a mysterious alchemy. I know too many people, myself included, who woke up one day finding themself suddenly looking at their friend in a different light. Luckily, I married mine. Also keep in mind that these friendships may be difficult to maintain once one or both of you enter into relationships or marriage. Not a big deal since most of your friendships will have to adjust should you get married. And it’s smart to include your spouse in that friendship.

Friends with benefits
The great philosopher, Chris Rock, doesn’t believe in Platonic friendships between the sexes. To paraphrase him, women keep guy friends much like penises behind emergency glass: break in case of emergency. And guys only have women they haven’t slept with, yet. Have you noticed that singles tend to hug a lot more often? That’s because a hug means physical contact. In the absence, sometimes long absence, or kisses and caresses, hugs go a long way. But this is a topic for another conversation.

Anyway, don’t fear the DTR. A clarification does not equal a proposal. Unless, you eventually define the relationship by proposing. Which was sort of how me and my wife’s story ended/began. Eventually.


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Taqwa

I received a letter from a Muslim brother of mine recently. He’s sort of in the same place I am spiritually, journeying and questioning, although he’s in Islam. To put the blogs that I will be referring to in context, tragedy struck a member of my family. It’s tough to wrestle with the basic tenets of your faith: the whole “love your enemies” thing seems pretty good on paper until you are confronted with it face to face. Anyway, here is an excerpt from his letter:

So, like I said, the tone of the article really invoked that initial response. Which is a good thing, because it sparked self-reflection, which is what, I would think was the purpose of his words. Nevertheless, your comments in regards to Wrath’s article were, I thought, right on point. As a matter of fact, I was teaching on the salient points of your remarks today during the leadership class I teach to my leadership committee. You mentioned that while Christians focus in on the aspect of God’s love, that some tend to forget or negate the very real aspect of God’s wrath. And God’s wrath is not something that is very pretty.

This holds true for Muslims as well. Often, especially non-Muslims looking at Islamic beliefs will focus in on the concept of taqwa - which is the fear of Allah. And so you will have this discussion on how “the Muslim God” is one of hate, trepidation, etc. (while the Christian god is one of love).

But the fact of the matter is that taqwa, the fear of Allah, is a very real and necessary component of development in a Muslim’s path. Taqwa is an understanding that there are consequences, really serious consequences (i.e. the hellfire), to our actions. And the Hellfire is something that a person should really be afraid of.

On the other hand, there is a balancing factor to this idea of the fear of Allah, and that is a concept called ishan - which is the love of Allah. This is a stage of development where the believer begins to understand the necessity/utility of conducting oneself in order to attain the pleasure of Allah, or that God will look upon us favorably. This is when one begins to conduct oneself in a manner not because he feels he has to, but rather because he wants to.

It’s when you take these concepts as a whole, that you begin to get a better picture of the walk that we should be on and the level of achievement we should be striving for.

Whew! I thought that we were the only ones who wrestled with a schizophrenic view of God. Too often I deal with people who have one of two ideas of how God deals with them:
1) He’s this cosmic genie doling out blessings like some sort of Santa in the sky (and our faith is reduced to being like little children hopping in his lap to curry favor/ask for stuff).
2) He’s this figure behind the bushes waiting for us to screw up so He can jump out, yell “ah-ha”, and lay the smite down (and we live in fear of this bully, though he’s supposedly bullying us for our own good).

Let’s face it, this “love me or else hellfire” God isn’t someone I want to get to know better. I don’t want to deepen a relationship under the threat of punishment if I don’t. Threats are conducive to me having to do something, not wanting to do something. Is this the message we are sending out about who God is and what He’s about?

The flip side isn’t any better. Many people struggled with the dilemma of finding an acceptable theodicy for the horrors that they sees during the course of a lifetime, or even a random reading of any given day’s newspaper. A theodicy, simply put, was when man attempts to justify God or explain suffering. Commonly, it addressed a problem called “the problem of evil”: if God is good, and all-powerful, why does evil exist? Though it seemed like a common stumbling block to believing in God’s existence, in the history of philosophical thought, this was a fairly recent development. The whole problem of evil is the logical result of this shift of emphasis of how we view God’s character.

In the last couple hundred years, the image of God as both good and severe, a God that fit readily into our (Old Testament kind of) paradigm, was gradually replaced with that of a one-dimensional, only-good God. The whole God = Love, as in Love is the only dimension of who He is, has its own set of problems. So of course people couldn’t reconcile how a supposedly good God allowed horrible things to happen, especially to the most innocent among us.

We forget that God is also holy. And, like Aslan, the lion from C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, we need the occasional reminder that there is a (righteous) fearful element to holiness. “Make sure you stay alert to these qualities of gentle kindness and ruthless severity that exist side by side in God” (Romans 11:22a, The Message version). This idea isn’t comfortable, but it’s good to wrestle with.


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Batman: Arkham Asylum

Writer: Grant Morrison
Artist: Dave McKean
Publisher: DC Comics


“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat, “we’re all mad here. I’m mad, you’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice
“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”
–Lewis Carroll (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)

In 1989, when the British invasion of comic book writers was well underway, Grant Morrison was tasked to write a 64 page one-shot that grew into the graphic novel, Batman: Arkham Asylum. He was already making his mark, spinning imaginative stories around B-level characters (Animal Man, Doom Patrol) before going on to write a host of other great comic book runs, (DC One Million, JLA, X-Men, All-Star Superman). Before I come off as a complete fanboy, he was also prone to some truly odd ball runs ( I’m still puzzling my way through Invisibles and WE3).

Batman: Arkham Asylum is more a horror comic detailing the dark history of the Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane, this “triumph of reason over the irrational.” is where the psychologically disturbed villains that Batman faces (from the Joker to Two-Face) are consigned to between escapes. It almost has the feeling of a Lovecraftian world (one that the word “Arkham” tends to conjure), though this is equally due to Dave McKean’s (Sandman) mix of photography and painting that creates the Gothic home of the insane. In fact, this is the definitive Arkham story.

“Arkham is a looking glass. And we are you.” --Joker

Led by the Joker (the clown prince of psychosis), the inmates have taken over the asylum and have blackmailed Batman into joining them within its walls. Fighting against his own psyche, Batman must jump through their hoops, elude them, and rescue the hostages - all against the backdrop of the story of Dr. Amadeus Arkham, the asylum’s founder. The story is one of a legacy of hate and madness that explores the conceit that a finer line than we feel comfortable with separates the sane from the mad. The madness seems to be contagious as such close proximity to the insane has had an effect on some of the doctors.

“I realized that she was simply trying to protect herself from something in the only way that made sense to her ... mother had been born again, into that other world. A world of fathomless signs and portents. Of magic and terror. And mysterious symbols.” –Dr. Amadeus Arkham

Madness is often associated with paradigm shifts, a change in how we see the world. Experiencing such a shift, living through it, can be quite traumatic - moreso than we might guess at first. We become invested in our worldview; often defining ourselves through them (as much as they often define us). When those (mutual) definitions crumble, so goes our grounding, our sense of reality.

The kingdom of humanity is very much a kingdom of madness. Amadeus Arkham describes his predicament way: “Madness is born in the blood. It is my birthright. My inheritance. My destiny.” He is all too fully aware of the fact that we live in a cycle of death–one of (the lie of) self-sufficiency, fear, doubt, anxiety, broken relationships–with our minds, as one of the doctors described the Joker, filled with “thoughts guided by chaos.” We have this mix of feelings going on within us. This vague confusion and longing, what Augustine called the God-sized hole within each of us. Since we have to fill this void with something, we search and even invent ideas, personas, or things to fill this inner dissatisfaction. And yet, we can’t escape the ache of emptiness.

“I run blindly through the madhouse. And I cannot even pray for I have no God.” –Amadeus Arkham

These can lead to what the Spanish mystic, St. John of the Cross, called dark nights of the soul. And it can be tough finding your way out of them. Not every painful experience falls into that specific category. It refers to something more than simple misfortune, but we can learn much about getting through stormy times by learning about getting through those dark nights.

Overall, the process looks something like this:
-we feel that God is absent and inactive; He’s gone and we’re alone.
-we’ve come to the end of our ability to be in control.
-the familiar (spiritual) practices that we had come to depend on, that usually comforted us, instead
seem hollow and ineffective
-BOOM! We hit a wall.
But it is the feeling that God is not at work, that He has abandoned us, and all of our cries
are going unanswered that causes us the greatest pain.

“I have been shown the path. I must follow where it leads.” –Amadeus Arkham

A lot of times we place our love and faith in the wrong things, or good things that aren’t
the best things - confusing our spiritual ideas with some distorted ideas of God. It’s tough to hold on to faith when all we hear is a deafening silence, yet that is exactly what we must do during such times. Sometimes the dark circumstances are the exact times that God uses to transform us. This is what Batman had to learn (a dark night for the Dark Knight).

Grant Morrison took a cliche (the inmates running the asylum) and spun a dark, satisfying tale from it. While it had become quite the fad to explore Batman as borderline psychotic–starting with Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns–Morrison seriously explores the idea. In the final analysis, this was a solid, creepy story with art that matched the mood of the book - I just don’t think it was worth the price of admission (at least the first time around. The 15th year anniversary edition features a ton of extras that nearly doubles the original’s length and includes an annotated version of the original script). In Batman: Arkham Asylum’s examination of the horror of insanity, and our fear of our own detaching from reality, this is one of Grant Morrison’s more thought-provoking and haunting works.

Aiming for Sunshine

Aiming Higher, Inc., is a nonprofit public benefit corporation organized (1) to promote the orderly change of administration of the offices of Governor and Lieutenant Governor of the State of Indiana by assisting Governor-elect Mitch Daniels... (2) to support the office of Governor by various activities and financial assistance tending to lessen the burdens of government, and (3) to promote the Governor’s policy agenda through grassroots and legislative lobbying and issue advocacy, and for other purposes and activities as authorized by law.

That was straight from the Aiming Higher web site. There's something to be said for truth in advertising. Sure, this is more of my generally uninformed political ranting, so let me get this straight: highway construction companies give generously to Aiming Higher. Governor “My Man Mitch” Daniels is pushing his Major Moves road-building agenda. Now, some folks are up in arms over this happy confluence of circumstances. People are funneling money to serve their interests. Shocker! Accept that the game’s rigged. They have played the game and worked the system. I ain’t mad at them.

I hate to break it to you, but I don’t care. Really, I don’t. You know what? Give money where you want, to whomever you want, in any amount that you want. Just open up the books so that we know (well, not me, cause I don’t care til someone gives me a reason to) who’s doing the giving. Love them sunshine laws. (By the way, that’s pretty much how my campaign finance reform plan would look, too.)

Yes, I’ve become more disinterested in the Machiavellian machinations of local Indiana politics. Unfortunately, I’ve watched politics getting done up close and personal (don’t think I’ve forgotten the “Sheriff Cottey insulting folks trying to make the Republican Party more inclusive” incident). It’s like watching sausage get made and getting turned off from eating pigs (well, that’s not entirely true. Pork tastes good. If God didn’t want us eating animals, He wouldn’t have made them out of meat. I’m just saying).

Look, my vote is officially up for grabs. Democrat or Republican, make me an offer. Find a way to connect with me, find a way to make me care, and it’s yours. However, what will probably happen is that my/our (the millions of folks like me) disenchantment will be factored into the political equation and the system will be worked. I’d “fight the power”, but I’m tired. And comfortable. So I accept that the game’s rigged. Not that there was any guaranteeing that I’d care then either. Now pass me another sausage.


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