Promises

Letters to My Adult Children: On Blame & Privilege & Seeking the Best

There is an interconnectedness to life, to be sure. I believe we have eternity to figure out Chaos Theory and we still won't be done. The whole concept of it boggles my mind. Ultimately, it argues that I cannot help but be affected by the choices and actions of others. Knowing this to be true, most of the time we try not to be assholes. We try to do right by others. I hope that is one of the lessons you learned from your Mom and me very early on. The most famous but, less clear version of this reads, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." 

I know that my choices, when you were young, to betray your Mom and you, still have profound impacts on how you navigate life. But, please hear me. In the same way that I cannot use the fact that my mother sexually abused me to excuse my rancid, narcissistic choices that hurt you; you will be wrong if you choose to use my choices -- that did very real damage to you -- to excuse any poor choices you make in life. They are your choices. 

You see, a lack of privilege is never an excuse. In fairness, there are multiple kinds of privilege. There is "personal privilege." For example, people who were not sexually abused by their primary attachment figures have privilege that I'll never know. People who were not ripped from all that they knew culturally and were transplanted as toddlers into a culture that was foreign and confusing for them, have privilege that I and nearly every third culture kid will never understand. Conversely, as a 6'3" tall, not-ugly man, I have privilege that a 5'4" man or an unattractive and unintelligent man will never know. 

Though the lines are blurry, there is also "systemic privilege" Systemic privilege is privilege which is systematized. Men have privilege over women in our culture. We live in a patriarchal society. It is hard to deny this simple fact. Some of this is strictly biological. Men tend to be physically stronger than women. There are things we can lift, reach, carry, haul, and move that women simply can't. We are physically more intimidating than women. Probably because of the physical strength differential, men have subjugated women throughout history. This is systemic privilege. Other examples of privilege are race, sexuality, and economic privilege. Let's briefly acknowledge the historical reality of each:

• Race -- The subjugation of Black people is not news. Europeans bought slaves from African slave traders, imported them, and used them to create wealth for themselves. Those Europeans passed their ill-begotten wealth onto us, their descendants. The generation that immediately proceeded mine then passed Jim Crow laws that made it next to impossible for the black community to gain an economic foothold. They did this to protect us -- their children -- from being threatened by those that their parents had enslaved. Later, we legalized abortion, placing abortion clinics in black communities, and convincing the black community that they would be better off if they killed their children. Despite any arguments to the contrary, abortion was born in racist ideology and eugenics philosophy. Finally, we created a drug war that was designed to imprison black men and steal fathers from their children. The drug war allowed a prison industry to develop where white people got rich by imprisoning their black neighbors, all for victimless crimes. There is no way anyone can deny the historical systemic racist policies we legalized and institutionalized. I have not included the fact that we excluded black men who fought and died in our country's wars from the GI Bill and housing programs or the redlining practices that stopped blacks from buying properties they wanted and which allowed banks to charge them higher interest rates on any loans they took out. I also didn't include stories of how we simply killed successful black communities. Our nation institutionalized racism. This is systemic racism.
• Sexual Identity -- A homosexual lifestyle was outlawed in many states until well into the 2nd half of the 20th century. Indeed, homosexuality was listed in the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual as a pathology until the mid-1970s. People could be fired for or not hired for jobs simply because they had a same-sex attraction. The system was rigged against them. This is a systemic privilege. Straight people didn't have to worry about being fired for liking members of the opposite sex and men typically didn't have to worry about philandering costing them their jobs. Women did, however. The system's and culture's rules were stacked against the homosexual community
• Economic Privilege -- OJ Simpson was found not guilty because he was wealthy and was able to use his wealth to work the system. Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein walked around as free men even though they were clearly sexual predators and needed to be imprisoned, simply because they had money. Lori Laughlin received a much lighter sentence than someone without means would receive for the same crime. Money gets people out of trouble and ostensibly is a license to break the law. Money buys access to politicians. Money can create wars and blackmail communities. This is perhaps the biggest area of systemic injustice in America. Justice is supposedly blind, but the wealthy always figure out how to tip the scale. The law is not upheld equally. This is systemic privilege.

I point these out because there is injustice in the system. Not everyone starts at the same place in this race we call life. This is not in question. You have certain advantages being born to your Mom and me, growing up in a home where you knew you were loved and both of us were involved in your life. You didn't face economic hardship, but neither were you handed everything on a silver platter. You also had disadvantages: Your Mother and I divorced. For the first years of your life, I was caught in active behavioral addiction. 

As you move into life, you have choices. You can blame me (or some other outside factor) for your struggles, "My Da was an addict! What do you expect!" Or, you can acknowledge the reality that you are the child of an addict, take appropriate cautions, and move on with your life to make up for the deficiencies I gave you. You are not limited by my choices. You are only limited by the choices you make in response to those choices. I believe strongly that you actually have a leg up because you grew up in a recovery home where you were taught a new way to live that other kids didn't have access to. You learned about acceptance and the importance of honesty. Those are items of privilege that I gave you that remain hidden from typical lists of what privilege is. We were able to have and are still able to have conversations that other families only dream of. That is the best kind of privilege.

Critical Theory argues that all of life is about power. Power = privilege. Critical theorists argue that there will always be a struggle for power between the privileged and those without privilege. The trouble with the theory as Woody Allen pointed out in his 1973 comedy, Sleeper is that as soon as power is achieved by those without it, there will be a new struggle between the newly disenfranchised and the newly powerful. Critical Theory ultimately makes power into a "need." I don't think it could be any more wrong. We don't need power to achieve what we truly want. We need connection, and connection often requires us to give up our power to maintain a connection to the other whom we love. Only when we get this paradoxical truth will we truly find that which we truly seek. 

Sheryl Crow wrote, "It's not having what you want; it's wanting what you have." ("Soak up the Sun," C'mon, C'mon, 2002). And, in the end, that is what I pray for you: contentedness-or peace (knowing it's all good and being able to rest); joy (knowing its all good and having the ability to enjoy it with others); love (a long-term connection to another where you are understood, accepted, and desired, and where you return the same); and, hope (knowing in the depths of your soul that you and the ones you love are gonna be ok in the end).

You can't get there if you blame life, others, God, or the universe for the state of your life. You can't get there if you view life through a comparative lens of what others have vs what you have. You can't get there if you give your power away and assume that you can't have what you really want. 

Ultimately, Please don't seek the lesser goods: power, being right, control, material possessions, privilege. Rather, seek the great: Peace, joy, love, and hope. When you find them, you will end life complete, whole, and satisfied.

Letters to my Adult Children - On Being Anti Death - March 2020

I live my life as a rebel for love. I fight death. But not mere physical death. For physical death does not have to be the enemy of love. No, the death of which I speak -- who is my enemy, and who will one day be completely destroyed is called, “Shame.” Shame is death by another name. It is always accompanied by “self-serving,” and, can’t be fought through the politics of power and control. It can only be defeated by love and self-sacrifice. It can only be defeated by a gaze that communicates, “You are valuable. You are loved. That won't change.”

For many years I've labeled myself “pro-life” even though I don’t always vote a “pro-life agenda.” I am pretty outspoken in my condemnation of the "pro-choice" defenders. People wonder how I can be against abortion, call myself pro-life, and not push for abortions to be illegal; and, I answer that though I label myself pro-marriage and think adultery is evil; I don’t think adultery should be illegal. And, that though I am pro-sobriety, clear-headedness, and relational connectedness; I do not think that alcohol or illicit drugs of any kind should be illegal. So, it follows, given my invitational nature — I invite people to the good, rather than to try to force them to it — that I can hold abortion to be an abomination and not fight for it to be illegal. There are too many evils like this to name — things that destroy people and relationships that I have no desire to outlaw. I believe people need to have the freedom to choose good over evil, rather than be forced to it. I’ve written about this to you extensively and don’t think I need to repeat myself here once again.

Within the last year or so, Tony Kriz and I were talking about the “pro-life” debacle — people who stand against abortion politically; who try to make the choice to abort a child illegal and who are also war hawks, pro-gun, pro-death penalty folk. Tony told me that he’d adopted the label, “anti-death,” for himself. I took it as an invitation. Slowly, I began to refer to myself the same way. I now say, “I am anti-death.”

Tony’s and my conversation occurred in the context of Paula and I walking this horrific end of life road with her parents. As you know, Miggy — “007” — is a brilliant man and nuclear engineer who is now stuck inside his body and his mind. He cannot speak. He cannot toilet. He cannot feed nor dress himself. Neither can he walk. We need to thicken anything he drinks so that he does not asphyxiate. This is not a life he would want or chose. He has a DNR that is incredibly strict. Mike would prefer not to be alive at this point. If we were a tribal people, he wouldn’t be. And yet he is. We keep him alive against his will. The life we give him is actually death for him.

Dementia and Alzheimers were your Gramgee’s biggest fear. She wanted to be dead rather than to live with losing her mind; yet, that is how she left the planet. I am beyond grateful for a doctor who cared enough to not to prolong her life any longer than she cared to live because while I am convinced her last months and years were God's great gift to her, she was miserable in the end.

When we got toward the end of Dad’s life we had a choice on how to proceed with his cancer treatment. We chose to attack the tumor aggressively. Weekly I took him to his radiation appointments. And, while the radiation wasn’t fun, it allowed him to maintain his quality of life. He and I still played and took short trips together. We still went out and enjoyed Timbers games, etc. But, the radiation was not a cure. The doctors thought that taking the tumor out surgically was the best medical course, so we followed their counsel. I would not repeat it, nor do I want it for me. For while we may have prolonged Dad’s life a little, we destroyed his quality of life. His last 9 months were miserable. He practically lived at OHSU. His life was sucked out of him. I wish I could have a mulligan on Dad’s end of life. We’d play it completely differently than we did. The choices we made during those days are some of my biggest regrets.

People often think me morbid to say I want to exit the planet on the back of my bike, but I want to die as I lived. See, death doesn’t scare me in the slightest. I told Thomas last night on a FaceTime that I am ready to go whenever. though I have no death wish. There is a lot of life left to live, I am content to exit whenever it is time to go. I would be lying to say that the process of dying doesn’t scare me though. It petrifies me. I certainly don’t want to exit the way Gramgee did, nor the way Mike and Char are. Waking in glory is my hope, suffering along the way is my nightmare. If there is a redemptive feature to it, it eludes me.

All of that brings us to a discussion of this incredible time period we are all experiencing right now. I have not lived through anything like it. There have been times like it in history, but none that any living person has ever experienced. The pandemic of 1918 and the Black Death of the middle ages were similar in the annuals of human history. But this is completely unique and new. It is as if a giant “pause” button was being pushed. We are being forced to live a year of Jubilee (See the Old Testament commands around this) even though we’d never choose it for ourselves.

I along with millions of others, are taking actions right now to ensure that you, in particular, Maggie — and the countless others like you who have health challenges — are not put into positions where you have to fight for lives not yet fully lived. For though I may be ready to enter glory at any time; and though, I may see the reality that Gigi and Miggy would prefer to stop breathing and exit this planet; I am not ready for you and/or TL to do the same. You both have lives to live. You are my greatest gifts to this world. And much h of the hope of life I hold is to leave you to the world when I exit the stage. There is no greater gift I can imagine giving the world than the two of you. No amount of money or profit; nothing I build or create can compare to the gift that you are to this planet.

I’m joyfully choosing to give up my ability to move around and enjoy my life the way I want in order to make sure others have a chance to continue breathing. Some don’t want to give up these freedoms. They are saying, “I want to live the way I choose to live. Don’t tell me how to live. It is my body, and my choice.” It is ironic how the catchphrase of the pro-choice movement is now being used to spread even more death.  And while one of my social media friends complained about that reality and attempted to deny any parallels to abortion saying this is a completely different thing; her arguments were inane, factually wrong, and harmful and hurtful.

For too long, the pro-choice movement has sounded the refrain, “My body, my choice.” Don’t tell me that I can’t live the way I chose even if it costs another human life. I shouldn’t have to have any consequences for my actions. Men, not wanting responsibility pushed abortion further. There was now another escape of responsibility; men became abortionists and began pushing a “pro-choice” agenda. There was an additional benefit to ridding the world of unwanted brown babies, now that machines and industry didn’t need their cheap or free labor — we truly could get to a place of survival of the fittest, the poor and the downtrodden could be controlled simply through population control, and a marketing genius made it all sound as if it was a woman’s choice.

Now the oligarchs have repurposed their slogan and are now arguing that “opening the economy” is more important that the health risks of 2% of the population (think of how many millions of lives that is!); that people need to be “free” to chose to live the lives they want rather than be held captive by a disease that threatens others’ lives. It is a similar refrain to the war hawks who are willing to kill thousands “over there” so Americans can have the kind of life we want to have “over here.” It is the kind of refrain that allows us to separate mothers from their children at the border, putting their kids in prison, so that we don’t have to worry about being overrun by brown-skinned people who may cost us a few dollars to feed and clothe. Why should we? They don’t even speak English.

The real issue, whether it is abortion, or war, or immigration policy is an insipid commitment to pursuing death rather than life. The death of which I speak is bigger than mere, “ending of breath.” Death is a commitment to self without regard for another. Death, as I am defining it here, is the denial of relationship. For there is no life without love. The mother who kills her unborn child by having an abortion must deny any relationship to that unborn child. The oligarch who pushes the politician to order a pilot to drop a bomb on the oligarch’s enemy; or a seaman to launch a missile to do the same, has to deny a relationship or connection to the families they kill when the bombs and missiles land, killing indiscriminately. The populist who says the parents of the kids at the border that we threw in prison, should never have brought their kids here in the first place, has to deny any kind of relationship to those brown-skinned children in order to throw them into those prisons. The Russian policeman who arrests the dissident to send them to the Gulag has to deny the horror to which they are sending them. We have to deny relationship to live the way we want. The tribesman who captures and enslaves one from a different tribe to sell him into slavery has to deny any kind of relationship to him. In order to perpetrate such evil, we have to first deny relationship and therefore humanity. In so doing, we create a culture of death. I will stand against that culture with all my being. It is why I stand as a rebel for Love.

 

Letters to My Adult Children - Evil & Politics - Winter 2020

When one feels the need to control another adult, to take power over another adult, to get them to behave the way you think they ought to behave, you are engaging in evil. The attempt to gain control and power is the first sin. It is how Adam and Eve were tempted in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3). It is how Jesus was tempted after his baptism (Matthew 4). It is something that God does not do with us. He seemingly always allows us to choose evil. He gives us the freedom to make evil choices. It is one of the biggest complaints people have with God. "Why does God allow evil?" The atheist argues. Surely a good God would not allow all the atrocities that occur in the world. Yet, God does. He doesn't choose to take power over people, but rather continually invites them to another way of life -- The way of love. Usurping, or attempting to usurp power that God doesn't take is surely the worst kind of Evil.

---

Recently, a good friend, who I respect and admire posted an admiration piece on AOC. I trolled him. Though I try not to, some friends simply beg to be trolled. Gotta figure out what that is all about. But, that is another post. On his post, referring to AOC, I wrote, "She is her own kind of evil." He asked me to articulate what about her makes me say that. Another friend, who I also respect, posted her record that isn't so different from many of the new wave of socialists flooding the House, as the electorate reacts to the evil in the White House. 

My friend accused me of having "racially informed libertarian leanings." I cracked up at that, partly because my political leanings find their genesis in from my understanding of Scripture which he is partially responsible for -- specifically, the theological position that individuals, as well as people, are made in the image of God (the Imago Dei). If that is true than individuals are made to be free. I put that together with 18th-century French political theory developed by Frederick Bastiat, my time in 12-step rooms and studying The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and finally my work in the domestic Violence world where I learned to define abuse as, "any time I attempt to tear at the humanity of another." Combining those streams of thought and experience, I end up holding that DJT and AOC are both tools of evil --  if not evil itself. This does not mean that they are exempt for being used by God -- for God uses all things. He used the Pharisees and Herod and Pilot and the Centurians who crucified Jesus. God transforms evil. But that does not excuse it.

So with that prolegomena, let's talk about why I think both our current president, DJT; and Congresswoman, AOC are evil...

They are evil because they are trying to take control and power over others - not to hold evil back, but to promote their own agendas.

Let's look briefly at this story from the gospels. James and John came to Jesus and they said, "Will you grant us a request?" Jesus responded, "I don't know what it is, but, maybe?" They then said, "When you enter your Kingdom, we want to sit next to you - one on the right, and one on the left." Jesus responded, "That isn't mine to give, but watch yourselves. Don't look at authority the way the world does. That isn't the way of the Kingdom. Instead, learn to be servants, for the first will be last and the last will be first." 

Jesus repeatedly turned the world as the disciples understood it on its head. True power was found in giving up power. True life is found by sacrificing one's own life. Love, modeled in the Trinitarian relationship, was the template for life in the Kingdom. This relational life does not grab after power and control -- that is the world's way. To be made in the Image of God is to be made free to chose either good or evil. God purposely chose never to try to force us to the good, though God continually did warn us against the evil. That evil, revealed in story after story in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, seems to happen most often when one person tries to take power over another. The quest and thirst for power are the taproots of the story of the Fall in Genesis 3 and the temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4. It is nearly always one of the ways people are tempted toward evil. This, in and of itself, by itself is more than enough to say that DJT and AOC are both evil, for both want to control others, wanting to and taking power over them.

As far as I know, Frederick Bastiat, who wrote a small, wonderful booklet entitled, The Law, was not a Christ-follower of any kind. He was a political theorist who argued that the collective does not have rights that individuals don't have. He gave the example of ten friends gathering together and nine of them voting to take the tenth friend's money and divide it equally between them. Such action would is immoral. I think he is right. While his argument has limitations - everyone believes the collective has some rights that individuals don't have. For instance, the collective can imprison people for wrongdoing and hurting others. The collective does what it can to protect its citizens. The real issue here becomes, where is it right for the collective to draw this line in repurposing wealth and property and still be moral? Many of these questions are far more easily answered on the community level rather than the national level.

If someone attacks a village, the village bands together to protect itself. However, if a rich person wants to take more land from someone else to become richer, she may well use her power to conscript poorer people to fight for her to take what is not hers. This is the beginning of nationalism and the genesis of America. Here it is easy to see the evil that arises from a quest for power. Part of Bastiat's answer to this question of where the line of individual versus collective rights is drawn was to argue that collectives existed to protect the individual. Governments exist to hold evil back. They do not exist to promote the good. This is where disagreements take place among thoughtful people. I hold that disease and death are non-human forms of evil and therefore the collective needs to form a collective to fight against them. To some degree, I believe that ignorance is also a form of evil and so the collective is wise to work together to combat it through education. In this realm, I struggle because historically, we fall into the trap of teaching people what to think rather than how to think. Education has limits. We have made it into a tool of the corporatists and the oligarchs. So, while I agree that education is an antidote to the evil of ignorance, centralizing control of it is its own form of evil.

Bastiat's economy can be seen in the realities of the microcosm of a household. It is far too easy to let others take the responsibility to love. I don't say this proudly, but when Paula is traveling I simply do all the things that need to be done around the house. When she is home, many times, I wait for her to see what she does to see what I need to do. This approach to life is not loving Paula, it is me giving up my responsibilities because it is easier. People often don't do things because they don't have to do those things. Someone else will do them. So, if I can get others to pay more, I can pay less. This is immoral. This is a form of evil. I want to make sure people are cared for at the lowest possible cost to myself. Therefore, I will spend other's resources to alleviate my need to care for the marginalized and the poor. Practically, socialism takes real pain and makes it someone else's problem. I don't have to worry about it anymore. The government will take care of it. That is surely not what is intended. But it is what results from the practice. We tend to not do what others are doing. Parents don't spend the time educating their kids because schools do it. I don't give to the homeless because we pay taxes to address it and then bitch and moan when City Hall can't come up with viable solutions to the problem. We don't worry about unwanted children because we kill them before they are born. We figure out a way to pay as little as we can, knowing that someone else will pick up the slack.

Recovery also shaped why I see both AOC and DJT as evil. I don't think I've ever explained how The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous works. We are now into the Fourth Edition. In every Edition the first 164 pages are identical. So, for instance when people talk about, "the promises," everyone knows to turn to page 83 to find them. Those first 164 pages never change. The majority of the book, however, is the stories of recovery which make up the last 2/3 of the book. One of those stories, found in both the Third Edition around page 473 and in the Fourth Edition, around page 416, is entitled, "Acceptance is the key." It is a doctor's story of recovery from alcoholism. My therapist at Keystone asked me to read three pages from that story every day for three weeks of my five-week stay in rehab. The doctor points out that he was an expert in finding the problems in everyone and everything else in the world, but it took realizing that his problem lay inside of himself, for him to stop drinking. His story was my story. I had to stop pointing my finger at "the evil out there," and discover that the problem wasn't out there. It was in my inner sanctum and inner being. Once I realized this. Once I accepted my own shame, I opened the door to healing and Love. 

I saw this same issue as I worked with domestic violence perpetrators. The men with whom I worked saw themselves as victims. They gave their power away. They felt emasculated and so they grasped for power that was not theirs to grasp, They tried to control their girlfriends and wives, abusing them along the way. My refrain to them was heard almost every week, "abuse occurs whenever you attempt to tear at the humanity of another." We typically abuse people in one of the following ways: physically, verbally, sexually, emotionally/mentally, financially, through control or damage of properties, harm to pets, and spiritual abuse. 

DJT is doing this by stealing property to build a wall. AOC is doing this by attempting to steal wealth to pay to accomplish what she sees as moral, saying that those who have billions could not have come by those dollars honestly. She may be right about that, but we don't right wrongs by repeating them. In many ways, AOC's approach is not so different from Jerry Falwell's attempt to control morality from the conservative position. When we attempt to control morality, rather than to invite people to it, we attempt to do something God never did, because it would violate His very nature. And things that violate the nature of God are evil

Both DJT and AOC believe that the problems in the world are, "out there," problems. Both want to take control of other peoples' lives, to fix the problems. And let me remind you that if we can only be OK if others change, we are in deep shit. That belief creates a sense of powerlessness which in turn swings to abuse. People don't like feeling powerless so they grasp power. That is a mistake. Grasping power is at the root of Evil.

Both the unfettered nationalistic capitalism of DJT, and the democratic socialistic vision of AOC are born in the furnace of an attempt to take control and power over others. Both have succumbed to the same temptation that Jesus overcame, Both see the problem as being, "out there." They are both wrong. They have both bought into the economy of the Evil One rather than the Kingdom of God. This shadow kingdom must be labeled correctly or we shall wrongly endeavor to live as its citizens rather than claiming our birthright in the Kingdom of Light and Love.

 

Letter to My Adult Children: My Politics

Hey guys, 

Because I am trying to adopt Pabi's "political atheism," I don't publish my political ideas. However, if these posts are what they are supposed to be, it is only fair that you understand what I think about some of these things. As you will see there is enough here to piss everyone off. That is why I don't publish them. I do not hold to any of them very tightly but rather hold them in an upturned, open hand, more than willing to be wrong and recognizing that what I believe doesn't matter much in the large scope of things. Ultimately Pabi's campaign slogan from her last presidential bid is as good as any, "No bad beer." Let that be our motto. With that being said, here ya go. This may not be everything, but it is a start. Let's see how many people get up in arms

My Political Beliefs

Assumptions

1. Political systems are never good. The best we can hope for is to structure them and limit them to be less bad.
2. Some things we band together to do more effectively as a community.
3. Nearly always, less is more.
4. Political systems exist to hold evil in check. This requires force. So not everyone can be a Christ-following pacifist. Only those called to non-violence need be completely nonviolent. We are always to be a prophetic voice using Love as our weapon to reign in power.
5. Love cannot be systematized nor politicized. And, since it exists as the greatest unseen force in the universe, it must inform how we think about politics.
6. Individuals are made in the Image of God and thus are created to
   1. Live in and appreciate beauty,
   2. Be interdependent (designed for perfect relationship),
   3. Be creative (designed to design),
   4. Have dignity (a value that is independent of what they do, create, and think), and
   5. Live into freedom.
7. Modern political theory on both sides of the conservative/progressive divide takes away some of how a loving God created us.

These things being true. I:

1. Am completely pro-life:
1. No abortion,
2. No capital punishment,
3. No wars to export democracy or protect economic interests.
4. No capital punishment
5. Only self-defense of life and property (not material)
2. Believe in a single-payer health care system. This is purely pragmatic as it runs counter to most of the rest of my political theory of limited, or no government interference.
1. There are too many stakeholders in the current system: hospitals, doctors and nurses, big Pharma, and insurance companies. Everyone has their hand out to grab whatever they can.
2. Medicare works and has proven to be sustainable when not raided to pay for other services. It allows for people to purchase supplemental insurance so it does not completely bankrupt insurance companies and put their thousands of employees to of work. It has negotiated reasonable drug prices for members and can keep those costs in check.
3. If it can be combined with the current Health Savings Account Model that slides for peoples’ needs, it will actually make doctors and hospitals compete for patients in a free-market manner, while encouraging individuals to save and allow those savings to roll into an IRA (assuming it functions as the current system does).
4. You don’t hear Canadians, Brits, and Aussies complaining about their system. For sure there is the odd horror story but these are the outliers,  and they do not compare to the thousands of families that are bankrupted by their medical expenses and are either swamped by insurance premiums that are out of this world, or simply uninsured because they cannot afford the premiums to begin with.
3. Think all drugs (not just marijuana) should be legal, and that we should tax the hell out of their sale to fund education and recovery programs (as well as other things). Prohibition does not work and only fuels crime and the “Penitentiary syndicate.”
4. Think that someone who is trained and demonstrates proficiency should be allowed to privately own an aircraft carrier or F-16, or any other kind of weapon they so desire. I do not believe in gun registries. I think they are dangerous. However
1. Given the prevalence of guns in America, gun safety needs to be taught in schools by people who know, understand, and respect guns.
2. Before anyone can own a weapon they need to show proficiency in using that weapon. I suggest levels of licensure: basic (single action weapons), Hunting proficiencies, semi-automatic training, fully automatic, explosives, heavy gunnery, etc… People can only own that which they are trained to own, but they don’t have to own, nor are any records kept of what they own.
3. What I love about my stance on guns is that it tends to piss everyone off. So, I must have something right in my thinking.
5. Believe government should have no say in marriages period. The “rights” (taxation, etc…) that marriages now give need to be transferred to a registry of partnerships that will do the same thing. But the government should not be in the marriage business.
6. Think that permitting private property improvement is inane. Though public buildings for businesses need to be inspected for safety
7. Believe property should not be taxed
8. Am a flat tax guy:
1. A Straight across the board 10% tax on EVERY financial transaction divided between the state and the federal government. In my world: 7% to the state 3% to the Feds.
2. Vehicle license fees should be calculated based upon vehicle weight and the miles driven each year.
3. Utilities need to be regulated to ensure equitable distribution. The internet is a utility
9. Believe traffic police need to be required to drive marked and highly visible cars. The question here is: Does traffic enforcement exist to make the streets safer or increase revenue. If it is to make the streets safer, heavily marked police cars slow traffic, unmarked vehicles merely catch speeders.
10. Think that most but not all police need to be foot patrols and unarmed. (See the UK)
1. The militarization of the police has led to severe mistrust and increased violence
2. Body cameras need to be required.
11. Believe that individual neighborhoods need to be given more power to build the types of the community they want without government overuse
12. Think that the US military needs to be recalled to bases on American soil. No troops on foreign soil. We need to stop being the world’s police. That money needs to be poured into US infrastructure and economic partnerships that build US interests economically rather than politically and militarily. We need to cap our military spending at no more than two times what the next strongest nation is spending.
13. Think that education needs to be free all the way through 16th grade. School choice and vouchers are good.
14. Hold that corporations ARE NOT to be treated as individuals. Free speech rules should not apply to them.
15. Think that elections need to be publicly funded to keep big money out.
16. Think that we need term limits across the board. (No more than 12 years in Washington DC for any politician).
1. Lists of which politician a corporation gives to and how much needs to be public record and easily accessible. I really like the idea of sponsor patches on politician’s suits.
2. Senators and Representatives need to live under the same financial rules that collegiate athletes follow regarding accepting gifts and trips, etc…)
17. Believe that churches need to start paying tax on income that is not spent on community enrichment and social services. This would take a lot of thinking and work, but, I can dream, can’t I? The funding that comes in for multi-use building that is open to the community as a rec center or emergency homeless shelter wouldn’t be taxed where the money that comes in for a worship center that is only used for worship services would be, etc… See the Sally Army for what I mean here. They do this well.
18. Think the government should never be allowed to compel speech.
1. Giving money is not free speech
2. If I am an artist I should not ever be compelled to create art that runs counter to my religious beliefs.
19. Think the government should not be allowed to limit pipelines etc… but neither should private property owners be forced to allow them. Fines for any kind of environmental hazer need to be so severe that companies work into their financial plans contingencies and safety that mitigates the chance of disaster. In other words, disaster fines need to be so outrageous that companies will go above and beyond to avoid any spills.
20. Believe that pollution needs to result in “outrageous” fines so that we do not have to micro-manage how they do it, merely punish them so severely they will avoid pollution at any cost.
21. Think there need to be caps on personal liability but none on corporate liability.
22. Believe that federal minimum wage be set at $15 / per hour for adults and $7.50 for those under 16 years of age
23. Hold that Shop, art and music need to become staples of both primary and secondary education. Recess needs to regain stature in primary education. Primary schools should start earlier than secondary schools do.
24. Believe that Veteran’s, first responders, and educator’s (with ten years of service or more) healthcare should not be limited (to the VA) and should always have a very low deductible, lots of freedom of choice, and low out of pocket expenses without having a lot of paperwork for the providers, so that the best providers will want to care for veterans and teachers.
25. Think every high school grad and drop out should be required to do a minimum of two years service either in the Military, Peace Corps, or something like the Ameri-Corp (building and serving local communities and infrastructure) before going onto college or trade school.
26. Banks and financial institutions need to be very heavily regulated.
27. The bigger the corporation the more regulation it needs. If it is an international it needs to have the most regulation
28. No ID no vote
29. We need to loosen and allow more immigration in, once that is done, we need to make it difficult for illegal aliens to be comfortable, We do need to create pathways to citizenship for illegals who have been here for years and have started families here.

Letters to my Adult Children - On Emotions & Anger - Fall 2019

In one of the last DV classes I taught, I took a minute to talk to think. (Whenever I talk to think, I get words out of my brain so that I can see them more clearly and ponder them from different angles to discover if the words are true or not.)

With many of the men I work(ed) with, I have to teach them about emotions. To do so, I created a worksheet to hand out that reads something like this:

When we say we feel bad we might be saying…

• I feel hurt — Something that makes me who I am has been attacked, broken, or damaged
• I feel sad — I’ve lost something
• I feel lonely — I am disconnected from others
• I feel guilty — I did something bad
• I feel despair — I am without hope things are (I am) never gonna change
• I feel scared — things are going to go badly
• I feel disgusted — I experienced something that I found to be inhuman or gross and had a visceral or somatic reaction to it.

Shame is its own category because it is a combination of fear and shame; but, it is fear and shame about myself.

• It is fear that either, I am too much, or I am not enough
• It is despair that I will never be enough or always be too much
• It is fear that if you see me for who I am you will not understand, accept or delight in me
• It is despair that this won’t ever change

My favorite definition, though not clinical, is simply, the inability to meet the gaze of another. You can’t look them in the eye. You can’t let them see your soul.

Surprise is its own category as well because when we say that we are “Surprised,” we may be expressing a negative or a positive feeling.

Surprise happens when someone or something has caught us off guard and we weren’t prepared to experience it.

Like Surprise, “Anger” is not always a “bad” emotion. Sometimes it feels good to feel Anger.

Anger is one of those bad feelings combined with a sense of injustice or blame — "Someone or something else is responsible for my bad feeling and I am powerless to do anything about it."

We feel anger toward others, ourselves, institutions, cultures, people groups, and objects

Many times, the anger we feel at others is really anger we feel toward ourselves that we “transfer” to them or “project’ onto them to avoid blaming ourselves. Other times, we “transfer” or “introject” anger that we feel toward others onto or into ourselves to unconsciously gain more of a sense of control. Typically, this happens when fear is the “bad” emotion we are “unjustly” feeling.

Sometimes, anger is justified, righteous and empowering. When this is the case, we rightly condemn the wrong action or the evil without judging the person who chose it. This is a very difficult discipline.

As I thought about this, I thought about my Mum and the fact that she helped a ton of people and was someone that my brother says, “is the most evil person he has ever met.” Since she sexually abused me, it is hard to deny her this title, but something in me needs to if I am to stay sane.

Dwight Friesen was my advisor at The Seattle School. His office was filled with “&’s.” Over my three years inhabiting that holy space, I learned the power of holding the “and.” Mum was both completely evil and a saint. I had to learn to hold both truths about her. The question was could I hate her evil — her actions that broke me and my brother (including but not limited to her sexual abuse of me) — with the fury of all that is holy; and still hold her as my mother who was herself broken and worthy of love?

So, "holy anger," is anger that is directed at the evil that is done, and not at the persons who do it. It separates the evil act from the person who acts. This is so hard to do! It is far easier to hate the person who does the act than to focus our hatred on the action and the evil that leads the person to take the action.

Anger directed at evil changes the world. It led William Wilberforce to dismantle slavery throughout the English Empire in the 19th Century 40 years before the American Civil War. It led amazing women to lead the Women’s suffrage movement in this country. It led Martin Luther King Jr to lead the Civil Rights movement, and Gandhi to begin dismantling the caste system in India. The hatred of evil is an amazing motivator for change in our world.

This is true in part because Holy wrath is always organically connected to love. We “hate” that which destroys personhood and mars the image of God in people. But can you see how close that is to hating people for doing evil? It is a fine line and it takes a lot of hard emotional work to hold it. But, it is worth it because malingering anger at others eats away at the foundation of our souls and though it is rooted in the past, haunts us in our present lives and relationships.

So How Do We Get There???

There are 3 prerequisites for holy, world-altering anger:

1. Grief
2. Forgiveness
3. Proper Boundaries

Grief is mourning what is lost. Someone rightly said it is the removal of the opportunity for us to love. We grieve when we have lost something or someone that/who gave us hope for a better tomorrow, for connection, for understanding, delight, or beauty.

Grief

Many people have addressed the stages of grief: denial and isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. Others have outlined how we don’t simply step through each step in an orderly fashion, we bounce from stage to stage, and then back again.

What hasn’t been addressed is the fact that for many of us, get stuck in the anger in an attempt to make an end-run around the grief and not fully experience it. We don’t want to feel the loss and the hurt, the loneliness, and the sorrow, the fear or the anguish that accompany grief. Instead, we stay angry so we don’t have to feel the sorrow. Anger becomes our defense against the grieving process. When it functions this way, we don’t cycle away from it. We get stuck in it.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is making a choice to give up judging the person and/or the need for revenge against them. It is not giving up the right to judge their action, nor is it necessary to enter into or hold a relationship with someone you have forgiven. Forgiveness does not mandate relationship. It only mandates judging or holding resentment against another. A lack of forgiveness is a sign that we view a person to be little more than their actions, choices, or emotions. And, none of us are merely our actions, choices, or emotions. We are much more than merely the things we do, feel, or choose. 

Boundaries

For the past two-plus years a national debate has raged over the nature of our nation’s southern border. The debate has been over the nature of the boundary that we have with Mexico. On one extreme, some argue that there should be no border and no boundaries. And, on the other, we need to build a wall, and perhaps a moat to stop anyone we don’t let anyone in that we don’t want in. Most of the country falls somewhere between these two extremes.

That picture provides a handy metaphor about personal boundaries. Personal boundaries exist to protect us from others and others from us while allowing for relationship and connection with others.

Like in the national debate, people with poor boundaries fall into two extremes: People who don’t really have a sense of who they are except through the eyes of others - who can only feel good about themselves if those around them feel good about them (these are similar to the people who want no border); and, people who hold a position of not caring or needing anyone else and being complete loners, refusing to let anyone know what is happening inside of them and not really caring what is going on inside of others (these are the people that build a wall and dig a moat around themselves to protect themselves from getting hurt.

Having good personal boundaries means that we are both differentiated - knowing who we are and what makes us us; as well as being attached - knowing who we are through our relationships with others, creation, and the Creator. When I talk to clients who don’t believe in God, instead of using the term, “Creator,” I refer to “the transcendent realities of our world” - things that go beyond reason and rationality such as love, wonder, and awe. I guess what I mean by that, is that when I go to Ecola State Park and look over the knoll where I poured out Mum and Dad’s ashes to the Pacific Ocean with seems to go on for an eternity and pounds into the rocks below, I learn about myself in relationship to my world. When I crested Piegan Pass in Glacier National Park, I literally fell down to worship, not because I was tired (though I was) but because I was full of awe and wonder at the creation that opened up before me. At that moment, I not only saw the majesty of the Northern Montana Rockies, the peace of the hollers below, and the beauty of the glacial lakes hidden in them, but I got to see myself in light of all those things. It gave me perspective about myself and my limits. Perhaps the best illustration of this is found in a little part of the 1991 movie, The Grand Canyon. When Simon (Danny Glover) sits on the curb talking to Mac (Kevin Kline).

Simon is really talking about boundaries without knowing it. It is difficult to see where we start and stop. We need to see this reality if we are going to deal with our own unhealthy anger. If we are going to hold to boundaries that promote life and health.

It sounds a lot easier than it is because in close relationships our boundaries overlap. the choices you make affect me, and the choices I make affect you. We lust for freedom that infringes on the boundaries of another far too deeply. If I own property and dam a creek to create a reservoir for myself and for irrigation, it means that the people who live downstream are robbed of water that they need. If I build a four-story house, it might block the sunlight from yours. Actions have consequences and so the freedom we long for can often limit the freedom of another.

We feel anger when we see freedom impinged upon by another. This balancing act is at the heart of nearly all the social debates and dialogue in this nation. As I work with clients who complain about dysregulated emotions (their emotions are too big for them to handle and it causes problems), to work effectively I need to work along two fronts: 1) giving them tools to help them regulate their emotions in healthy rather than unhealthy ways, and 2) helping get at the issues that cause the dysregulation in the first place. As you can see above, it is because they have faulty boundaries. So the work becomes exploring the unconscious reasons and motivations they hold to those boundaries.

For you guys to thrive this will be your work as well. For anger not to rule you. For you to be able to hold to the righteous anger at the evil people do while not feeling anger toward the people who do them is perhaps the single-most Christ-like behavior we can practice. Living this way is why I say I am a Christ-follower. It is perhaps the single hardest thing we Christ-followers are called to do. It is also how we get to experience eternal life in this life. It is a life full of joy and sorrow. And it always promises adventure for us as we follow in his steps, leaving drops of grace in every step we take.

Thank God I'm Not...

Sunday, my rector preached from Luke 18:10-14

Then Jesus told this story to some who had great confidence in their own righteousness and scorned everyone else: “Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a despised tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: ‘I thank you, God, that I am not like other people—cheaters, sinners, adulterers. I’m certainly not like that tax collector! I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.’

“But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’ I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (NLT)

My rector's sermon was much like Jesus' story. It caught me. I've preached from this exact text dozens of times. And yet, this Sunday, the Holy Spirit caught me. For my rector pointed out that whenever we hear this story we tend to identify with the tax collector, silently whispering, at least to ourselves, "Thank God I am not like the Pharisee in the sto..." Oops...

Why did he have to preach this sermon at this point of our election cycle? It hardly seems fair.

My Democratic supporting friends are clearly acting just like the Pharisee. I read their posts every day, and the drive me nuts! (My Rep leaning friend's posts make me laugh in their unintended silliness, but they know enough not to play the Moral Majority Card that the Dems stole from their playbook.)

As I see it, the only trouble with their position is that Hillary's election is deadly. According to a Huffington Post article, written to support her, she wants to buttress our defenses and make our military's presence in the world even more deadly. Additionally, she is outspoken in her support of partial birth abortion and Planned Parenthood, which (despite their claims to the contrary) was created as a way to control the African American population. Unfortunately, they are doing a better job than any of their eugenically inclined founders ever dreamed.

Because she is running against a morally inept patsy, her own moral bankruptcy is overlooked. "It is not nearly as bad as his... nothing has ever been proven..." the argument seems to go. "If she had Trump's history as a woman, she'd be crucified." They are right about that last bit. She would. But it needs to be said, because she is a woman, to some she can do no wrong. She is, in essence, in many ways, the twin of Margaret Thatcher.

Returning to my rector's sermon; my trouble is, as soon as I point my finger at the Dems for being pompous hypocrites who hide behind a wall of intellectual snobbery and dishonesty; I join them in at the bottom of the outhouse... I judge shit. Just like them, when I claim "to be better," I become the Pharisee in the story. As evidenced by my belief that I have taken the moral high ground.

What I need to be doing is beating my breast, looking up to heaven and asking for God's forgiveness for being too proud to love, and judging those who judge fiercely and without empathy.

I'm sorry. I am wrong in my reactions. I am grateful to have a rector who cares enough to catch me in my sin.

 

For those who know better, these days need you to be better

In my second year of grad school, our Therapy professor introduced my cohort to the work of Margaret Crastnopol who studied and wrote about psychic micro-trauma. She spent two hours with us presenting a paper and then took questions about her theoretical construct and how we could better work with those with our clients who were cracked or broken because of micro-trauma in their life.

Her work naturally follows in the wake of a similar book on micro-aggressions, by Derald Wing Sue who wrote, Microaggressions in Everyday Life. While micro-traumas are not necessarily the result of micro-aggressions, they are connected. Micro-traumas are the bi-product of recurring small traumas. One helpful metaphor is Chinese water torture. For micro-trauma functions in a similar vein. It is the result of repeated, ongoing small traumas; indifference; low-level emotional, spiritual or verbal abuse; prolonged emotional abandonment; or unintentional, recurring micro-aggressions. Dictionary.com defines Micro-aggressions as,"A subtle but offensive comment or action directed at minority or other non-dominant group that is often unintentional or unconsciously reinforces a stereotype and/or,the act of discriminating against the non-dominant group by means of such comments or actions." 

I fear that many of us are suffering micro-traumas as a result of this completely inane election cycle. And I believe that social media is only compounding the problem. It has become a hotbed of micro-aggression. People's feeds resemble their personal culture and ideologies. Anything outside of their worldview is unwelcome. Using this standard, when people post hateful things, those posts reach the level of being micro-aggressions.

It is people on the political right who distrust academia who seem to struggle with the construct of micro-aggression and micro-trauma the most. Surprisingly, though, micro-aggressions are not limited to the conservative right. We see them within many of the reactive movements that stand against the abusive, systemic powers that conservatives support.

This mutated election cycle, with all of its craziness, has led to not only micro-aggressions but full on assaults on whole demographics by people from both sides. We are truly a fractured nation. What caught me off guard is the scope of the assaults that both sides seem more than willing to perpetrate against the other.

If you look to the right, Mr. Trump and his talking heads apparently enjoy attacking those who oppose them. Let's face it; their strategic offense is offensive. The only way to avoid their ire is to agree with them or avoid them. On the stump, Mr. Trump has lumped hard-working illegal immigrants with rapists and murderers. There is no room in his worldview to obey biblical commands to welcome the alien and the stranger. Likewise, his misogyny is on display nearly every day at every rally he attends. One doesn't have to read too far into the text to see he would have thrown the first stone at the woman caught in adultery, and that he would never have spoken to the woman at the well (except to command her to serve him). He is intentionally and strategically offensive. He is unapologetic and generates tribalism among his followers that is at best, frightening -- and at worst. lethal. 

What surprised me recently, however, is that the other side (though not as course and blatant) is just as deadly and intentional in their attacks on their enemies. When Secretary Clinton referred to half of Mr. Trump's supporters as "deplorables," she not only created a circle of hate; she created an apologetic for it. For, it is not wrong to hate deplorable things. Her allowance of hatred of the deplorables opens the door for all sorts of propaganda that twists and distorts the truth, further inflaming Mr. Trump's supporters. She continues to create an atmosphere that is unwelcoming and damning of anyone who dares to challenge her. This one misspoken phrase reveals much of the character and strategy of the Democratic party.

My Facebook feed is full of articles attempting to argue that it is impossible to oppose Secretary Clinton without being a misogynistic, racist, gay-hater. No longer is it merely Mr.Trump's supporters who are all those things. And now, it is anyone who opposes the former Secretary of State. In me at least, it has backfired, making Mr. Trump more palatable; and that realization disgusts me. I don't want shit ever to taste like anything I'd want to eat.

It has been common in this country to dehumanize your political opponents. There is nothing new in that. I may not like it, but I've grown accustomed to it. What feels different in this election is the attempt to dehumanize the followers of your political opponent. While conservatives blast the intelligence of the progressives (which is irony at its best); the progressives (I will no longer call them liberals -- for the word denies them entrance into its fraternity) blast right back. They do so more subtly and with longer words containing more syllables, but they do it nonetheless. Each side is attempting to dehumanize the other. 

The thing that most breaks my heart, however, is when my classmates and friends from my seminary who sat in lectures with me about micro-aggression and micro-trauma; who worship the same Jesus who we read about in the Holy Scriptures, violate their call to heal. They do so by tearing down those who disagree with them; dehumanizing them and making them, "less than." I want to believe that their micro-aggression is unintentional and that if they realized that they were creating micro-traumas in people, they would stop.

As people who claim to follow Jesus -- who urged anyone who would listen to him to repent and live in the Kingdom of Heaven; we are called to be Kingdom people. I don't care if you vote for Mr. Trump, Sec. Clinton, Gov. Johnson, Ms. Stein, Sasquatch, or my wife (her campaign slogan is: "No bad beer," BTW). For nearly all of us who live in Oregon and Washington, our votes don't matter. Our States' electors are already set. There is no urgency in this part of the country. We are still going to have conversations with others -- in particular with those whose hope rests in the temporary government of the USA. The way we have the conversation reveals how much we love our enemies; how willing we are to trust Jesus when he urges us to turn the other cheek. It reveals to which Kingdom we belong.

We are to be "salt and light." We are to care for the orphans, the widows, the aliens, and strangers (see refugees). We are to beat guns into plowshares and turn weapons into art which gives life rather than taking it. We are to feed the hungry, turn the other cheek, care for the grocery clerk or the gas station attendant who serves us. We are to bring life, joy, hope, peace, faith, and self-control to our world. It kinda needs it right now, don't you think? 

As long as we are focused on tearing down the intelligence of our political opponents, our focus is not where it needs to be. We can and need to demonstrate to the world how to disagree with each other and still love and respect one another. We can (and are called to live in the Kingdom of Heaven while we navigate this world's, wars, hurricanes, tornados, mudslides, earthquakes, raging fires, hunger and poverty,, racism, militarism, consumerism, individualism, and even elections. 

I recognize that there is a certain irony to this post. I hope in its current form there aren't any unseen micro-aggressions left. I think I also removed all the outright aggression as well. I don't want to shame anyone into trying to love better. Though sometimes I try. 

I don't write to discourage people from supporting their candidate of choice, or following their conscience and not voting at all. I write, wanting the conversation to shift, love to come to the forefront, and Christians to remember -- not only that they are royalty but that they are already residents of the Kingdom of Heaven.

A libertarian perspective

Ren,

 

This is taking the form of an open letter to you because you asked me a question the other week. I realized as I began sifting through my thoughts around the topic that this can’t be answered without a carefully outlined book, which I am unwilling to write. What you get instead is a loose hanging letter that is anecdotal. I am not sure if it answers your question, so much as it lays out how I see the political landscape. It is not tightly written, nor serious in tone. It is merely a letter from one friend to another. Please take it as such. I’m using my blog to make it an open letter for history’s sake. I want my kids to know my heart as it develops. I want them to know why I took the positions I took and did the things I did. That is now the purpose of my blog and you afforded me opportunity to add to the already existing catalog of thoughts. Also, it is not well edited. I am sorry about that. Enjoy my friend, I am so grateful for you.

 

I find myself in an interesting political situation. Let me explain. I am a long time Libertarian. In college, I was profoundly influenced by the writings of Frederick Bastiat, a French political theorist. He related a scenario in which 10 people found themselves in a community. One of the ten had $1000. two had $100 and the remaining seven only had $10 each. Seven of the ten voted to act as a democracy and then voted to distribute all the cash equally among the ten people. The man with $1000 objected. He had earned the money through hard work and he knew that at least two of the men with only $10 didn’t work at all. So the seven men set upon the man and took his money by force and divided it among themselves. Bastiat pointed out that such behavior was thievery.

 

That story still resonates with me but perhaps for different reasons than Bastiat’s. Let me explain what I mean before returning to the story and my conundrum. My political theory has to be tied to my theological theory. A few days ago, I posted a post simply entitled, “I Believe.” As I sifted through what I believed, I realized that central to my understanding of life is the belief that both humanity and individuals are made in the image of God. This one statement is at the vortex of my conundrum. For the image of God is a holy thing both in the individual and humanity. Part of my calling is to help individuals live into their Imago Dei; Calling forth glory from within them so that it can be offered as a gift to the rest of the creation.

 

What makes individuals possess the image of God is up for debate. I am incapable of listing them all here. I will limit this list to some of the teleological aspects of the Imago Dei. Theologians have listed: humanity’s capacity for agape and empathy, people's design for relationships, creativity, and freedom. This does not include the ontological aspects of the image of God in each of us.

 

I posit when we limit any one of these, we limit the Imago Dei in that individual. When we thwart creativity we actually thwart the Kingdom. When we limit or restrict freedom we do the same thing. And when we limit freedom or stifle creativity, we often limit peoples’ ability to love and live in relationship with others. I need to flesh that out using the story above. 

 

When the majority forced the rich man to share his wealth with them, they stole from him the ability to choose love. His act of giving his money to them was neither loving nor caring. It was coerced. What would have happened if they had offered an invitation instead of an ultimatumIn? They acted from a place of fear instead of relying on their Creator for their sustenance and survival, they trusted in their own power, limiting themselves to the world they could see rather than the world they could not.? 

 

Many argue that such a position is purely utopian. It cannot work in a broken world full of selfishness. I am surprised that many of my friends on the left who reject the very notion of original sin, hating “reformed theology” become very “reformed" on this point. They do nit trust people to be good. They do not trust people to choose love. People must be forced to take the actions of love to protect those who have no opportunity, and who could very well die without their aid.

 

Meanwhile, my conservative friends also take positions from a place of fear. They think we need to limit the freedom of people to make supposedly, "moral choices" (noneconomic moral choices.) They do not think we can allow people the freedom to choose drugs and addiction because too many will do so. We do not want to allow abortion because too many people will have them. We can’t allow gay marriage because it will promote a gay lifestyle and elevate homosexuals'  choices to be in a monogamous gay relationship to the same status as their choice to be in a heterosexual relationship (either monogamous or not).  We need to spend trillions on defense, because if we don’t our enemies will choose to destroy us. We can’t allow people to choose to come live in our country whenever they want! THE left doesn’t want to be forgotten here either. We need to outlaw guns because people choose to use them for bad things.

 

In all of these cases, we limit peoples’ freedom to choose the good because we are afraid. We take power over them to force them to behave in a way we think they should behave. Both my conservative and my liberal friends are guilty of taking power over people to shape their behavior. Whenever they do they limit peoples' freedom to live into their Imago Dei and choose love.

 

Love is so big it has two opposites. First is indifference. If I don’t care, I don’t love. Second is fear. When I act from  a "non-immediate" fear I cannot love. Immediate fear is a fear that yells for a person to stop or get run over by a train. It must be separated from the “what if” fear that all people tend to stew in. Both of these opposites come into play in this discussion.

 

Let’s talk about indifference. When anything is someone else’s responsibility people tend to grow indifferent about it. They no longer need to pay attention to it for it is assumed it has been addressed. I know that when I pass the person on the street holding a sign asking for help I have two responses. The first is skepticism, the second is to hand them a list of service agencies that will provide them the care they need. I have become indifferent because the job to take care of these sometimes unfortunate individuals is the collective’s responsibility. I’ve abdicated my personal responsibility to another. I’ve ceased loving. While it is my responsibility to love no matter what, our welfare state has wrongly created in me a sense that poverty and caring for those who have not, is not my problem. I fear that the move to create more agencies to care for unfortunates is simply an attempt to relinquish responsibility that we no longer want because we are tired of the hard work of loving.

 

Now let’s talk about fear. To the extent that we are scared that something won’t be accomplished unless we usurp power, we act from a place of idolatry, Usurping God’s role in ongoing creation. We don’t trust him to make things happen the way we want or expect and so we take power over. In the above example we steal, playing Robin Hood to make sure that the neediest in society have enough. Some might say that it is motivated from love, but I suggest it is because we really want to abdicate our responsibilities. 

 

How can we in good conscious ask others to give up their coats when we have not first chosen to give up our own? How can we ask another to give up their property when we have not offered our own? 

 

That is only one side of this argument. Libertarians (small “l” rather than large “L”) hold to the autonomy of the individual. They are wrong. Genesis 1.26-27 does not say that individuals are made in the image of God. It says that humanity is made int he image of God. No individual is autonomous. Science has disproven the myth of autonomy. And my experience has disproven the myth of autonomy. The choices you make have direct effects upon my life. If you own property up stream from me and choose to dam a stream that I rely upon, your actions steal my opportunity to live and thrive. A true libertarian would argue that it is tough on me, the one that “owns” the spring or the glacier from which the stream is born defect owns all the water in the stream. Rarely do you find such a pigheaded libertarian, however. Even libertarians admit limits to their theory. 

 

It is far easier to see autonomy on a continuum. The question becomes where do you end up landing on the continuum? That is a question that I have been wrestling with for the past few weeks. I think I want to suggest (without knowing how it works itself out fully) that instead of autonomy existing on a  two-dimensional continuum it must be seen at least three-dimensionally. For no one exists autonomously from God. There is no real autonomy in the world. We are all dependent upon our Creator for our very existence. He is the one that holds evil at bay. He is the one that unleashes and allows love to flow. He is the one that invites us to live in a Kingdom of his making rather than our own.

 

In Genesis 4 after Cain kills his brother, God curses him and sends him out to wander and never settle. Cain then goes out and starts a city. This is how we as humans typically respond to God. It is as if we give him the finger. I know that sometimes I have given him the finger. This is a picture of our attempt at autonomy. Autonomy and freedom are not equal; nor are they synonymous. The minute we claim freedom to hoard or exert power over another, we cease being free. I realize that this is more of a theological premise than a political one, and yet it has to come into play here.

 

When I worked at the University of Michigan I got to spend time hanging out with George Mavrodes. He told me the story of the sociologist friend of his that went to live with the Amish during the presidential campaign of 1951 when Adlai Stevenson ran against Dwight Eisenhower. The whole Amish community, though they would never vote, supported Eisenhower. This confounded the sociologist. He asked them about it and he was told that Stevenson was divorced and they would never trust a man of that questionable character in the White House and they wanted a strong General to run the country so that they could live in peace. This only served to confuse him more. And so he asked more questions. 

 

The Amish related that people are called to different things and that they were called to be a people of peace, much as a cobbler is called to be a cobbler or a blacksmith to be a blacksmith, but then they acknowledged that such a calling was not universal. All are not called to pacifism. God calls others to be carriers so that they could live in peace.

 

This enters into this conversation to say that though love demands I not take power over another, that does not mean that it is true for everyone. It is simply true for me. I am called to hold up a banner of invitation for people to give up their need to take power over in the name of love and invite others to join me. If I required it, I would violate my own calling.

Priorities & the call of God

The turmoil our country is in right now has put me at odds with many of my mentors, and many of those I love who self identify as part of the Christian Right. First, it was immigration; now it is the violence of our police and a lack of accountability for those who are in power; indeed the systemic racism that so many are blind to differentiates me these days from friends, family and former teachers and mentors. 

Unlike some of my other friends on the Christian left who are angry with the Christian right, I am simply sad; heartbroken that Jesus has gone through a synchretistic morphing with capitalism into the protector of the powerful and the rich. Somewhere, this Advent -- a season of waiting for His return -- we've lost something near and dear to His heart. We've lost the fact that He came for the oppressed and marginalized and was killed by the out of control powers of a Roman State hell bent on protecting the status quo; fearful of Jews who they looked at in similar ways to the way we look at our African- American brothers and sisters -- as threats to their way of life and security.

In 351 AD things changed for the Church when Constantine made Christianity the State religion and Christians went from being outlaws, on the margins of society, to being in charge. It was Satan's biggest coup. Christ never wanted his followers to be in charge. He even said, "Do not look at authority the way the Gentiles do when they Lord it over one another." And yet that is precisely what we have done. And since such power is blessed by the church, it was easy for republic -- a government by the people for the people -- to morph into government by the corporate powers for the wealthy and privileged (most of whom are white).

The problem didn't stop with Constantine. Indeed, violence has been a part of our nation from birth to our adolescent Civil War, to genocide of Native Americans, and the inslavery of Africans. It has carried on into the present with our economic raping of Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East and many, if not all of our neighbours to our south. We have taken that which we havce coveted, and trodden on any and all that get in our way. And we have done it all in the name of freedom and God, which is no freedom at all, but actual slavery to mammon. Who in these instances, has proven to be our god, for we cannot serve two masters.

At some point those of us that follow Christ have to drop what we are doing (what He has called us to do) and pay attention to the abominations our government and corporations and, indeed, even our own choices that support them. At some point we need to shift our focus from our primary callings because those abominations are too horrific to be ignored any longer.

I don't know when that time will come. Perhaps it is already here. Up to this point, my primary concern, my life work, has centered around issues of spiritual abuse; loving the abused and the broken so that the cycle of abuse, which is so prevalent in Christ's Church will stop. However, if things keep going the way they are going, I will have no choice but to join the throngs of those who are marching and protesting because the physical violence must stop. Triage will require I step into something I don't want to step into, because if I don't my son will have to step into it later on at much greater cost.

America must repent, for "we the people" are greedy, consumptionistic,fearful of anything that threatens those things, and violent toward those we see as threats. We need to turn from our sin and cry out for mercy or go the way of every other Empire that has gone before us. Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing.

Revisiting the Creation & Evolution Debate

I had a conversation with a pastor in Christmas Valley in May that I have not forgotten, Evolution is a more important issue than we place on it. Sometime circa 1990 I spent a week at Michigan Technological University. One of my favourite couples was on staff there – Chris and Barb Anible. When I got home after the week Chris mailed me a letter to the editor of the MTU paper. The title said, “Speaker knew nothing,” referring to me. I kept that letter for a long time. I only wish the author of the letter had stayed to hear my talk because he argued the same things I argued in my talk, we just ended at different places.

If I remember that talk correctly (Dan Allender informed us that all memory is fiction), I tried to provoke everyone. I had nothing good to say about any position on the creation/evolution spectrum. I pointed out each position’s strengths and weaknesses, and argued that every “scientific origins theory” was “post-dictive.” We can only know what we see in the present and formulate ideas about the past, which we even call “pre-historic” (before history). The creationists weren’t happy because I pointed out that Genesis 1 was not about “how God created,” The gap theorists weren’t happy because I argued philosophically against the idea of macro-evolution. The naturalists weren’t happy because I pointed out that their position simply makes no sense whatsoever.

I’m revisiting this issue in 2014 some 25 years later because the pastor in Christmas Valley pointed out that nearly all the other debates we are having in the political spectrum stem back to how we view this one issue. I had not considered that. There is a lot of truth in what he says. If one holds an evolutionary view of the world, one believes that our view of everything from the Constitution of the USA to our view of sexuality is improving and, hence, we need to do away with our old way of thinking. This is a dangerous position to cling to, and, I believe is incorrect.

I end up a seven day creationist. There, I said it. I am not sure what it means to say it, and I don’t hold it tightly or theologically but rather philosophically (and that includes my epistomology) by faith because I see no other helpful or possibly true (small ‘t”) options.

Like I did so many years ago while I spoke at Michigan Technological Univeristy, I hold that evolution paved the way for Nietzsche and then subsequently Hitler and Stalin.  Once we accept it, either as a Theist or a Naturalist, our epistemology goes sideways. The theist becomes a Deist or a Baptist (whichever comes first) not allowing God to work in his world; its trajectory is set. The naturalist becomes tribalistic and a fundamentalist of his own secular theology. Some of my friends land here, and are unable to see their own naturalistic fundamentalism.

I don’t know how it all went down. I wasn’t there. I do know though, that if God made Adam, he did not make a freshly minted fetus. No, he made a full grown human. If God made a human who looked old, it follows that he would make the earth the same you’re Science’s carbon dating is not convincing to me. Neither is their study of rocks and fossils. If God created the way that creationists say he did. Creation would fool our science by taking on the appearance of age.  To my theistic (or even biblical) evolutionary friends, if there wasn’t a historical Adam, then we have a bunch of theological issues we have to address, because Paul’s ideas about Jesus being the new Adam can’t be correct. Some of us are already trying to do away with the idea of Trinity or gender roles because we want to disregard the text and read it with our new lenses. In so doing we are creating a greater harm long term. I can’t buy in. And I will love you, and break bread with you anyway. We don’t have to agree from my perspective.

I am a creationist. I don’t know how old the earth is. I’d venture a guess that you don’t either. I do know that if we think that everything is evolving we are in trouble. I am not interested in “Creation science” or scientific debates. I think nearly all of that from both sides is bullshit. See my thoughts above.

Lots of people smarter than me will disagree. And I could be wrong. As I said I don’t hold my position tightly. I voice it, because it does seem as if this one issue affects may others: war, sexuality, human freedom, human privacy, care for the poor and the outcast, stewardship of creation, justice issues, and the list goes on. So I stand where I stand. What about you?