Toy Story 3 and the Afterlife

Don't read this if you haven't seen the movie. This is SPOILERIFIC. Go see the movie now. It is awesome. Then come back and read this.

Pixar's latest film is an astoundingly good meditation on death and the afterlife... with toys. Through the course of the movie the protagonists confront or consider a variety of possible scenarios for what fate awaits them. Most interestingly the movie has a clear hierarchy for which possibilities are the best and worst.

At the beginning of the movie we know already that Andy, the owner of Buzz and Woody and friends is going to college. The toys make a last ditch attempt to get him to play with them, but when it fails they resign themselves to the fact that their life as Andy's toys is over. This is death. The movie takes it for granted from the get go. There is no question whether the toys will "die". The question is what awaits them afterward. We are presented with 5 options in order from the worst to the best:

#5 - Annihilation. The worst possible fate awaiting the toys after the end of their life with Andy is total annihilation according to Pixar. At the genuinely terrifying climax of the movie the toys are in the furnace at the landfill unable to escape and on the absolute brink of being melted down. The scene is presented in such a bleak way that I was actually convinced Disney would allow children to watch their favorite animated toys get obliterated against all meta-film logic. Amazing storytelling and a sublime example of eucatastrophe let you know that this is not the option the writers choose for their characters. Beyond the furnace there is nothing. They could have chosen to show melted plastic being recycled and include reincarnation among their possible afterlifes but in the film the fire is just a full stop. It is fascinating that this was the worst fate in the writer's minds because it is one that a growing number of atheists are perfectly comfortable with.

#4 - Hell. Not as extreme as annihilation, but almost as bad is Hell, which in this case takes the shape of a daycare/gulag run by an evil pink teddy bear. The toys are imprisoned and tortured by having their joys turned into nightmares and their identities robbed (in the case of Buzz Lightyear). Interestingly, hell itself offers a choice of destinations. The destiny of most toys in hell is to become trash and be annihilated. The only way to avoid ending up at number 5 is to become the jailers and imprison and torture other toys. Staying in hell means becoming Satan.

#3 - Purgatory. Initially the toys were going to be put in a box in the attic awaiting an unknown future. There is some hope, "Andy might have kids of his own one day," but no certainty - they could still end up getting sent to hell (donated) or annihilated (thrown away). Purgatory is not as good as life, even Woody who gets to go to the nice purgatory (college) has to leave his friends, and none of them get to do what they feel is their purpose: be played with by Andy. After facing Hell and Annihilation the toys decide that purgatory looks like an acceptable fate, because they can't imagine better... yet.

#2 - Heaven. The evil pink teddy bear steps over the line and is tossed out of Hell by his own lackeys. What happens then is pretty profound - Sunnyside Daycare become the Toy Story version of Heaven. This is a place toys go when they die, but instead of a gulag where they are tortured, it is a place where they are cared for and made whole. According to Pixar heaven and hell are the same place and even all the people are the same. The only difference? How they treat each other. As good as heaven is though, this is not the fate that the writer's chose for their characters. Woody envisions something even better...

#1 Resurrection. The toys end up handed down, by Andy to a young girl who he trusts to take good care of them. Andy hands each of them over, relinquishing ownership by telling their story one by one to the girl who takes them with gratitude. The difference between this and heaven is that it is not an escape from the world. The toys remain in the world for which they were created, to be owned and loved by a kid. Escape from this world isn't desirable, even to go to a nice-seeming place like heaven, because this is the world God created and loved. The toys wave goodbye to Andy who is moving on to a new life of his own while Woody, Buzz, and the gang look astounded at having been given a fresh beginning. The best of all possibilities for life after death, according to Pixar, is to rise again; to be gifted a first day, after our last.

Still Waiting

"What the Almighty will do if thousands of praying, loving Christians non-violently face death in the search for peace and justice will remain shrouded in mystery--at least until we have the courage to try it" (Ron Sider, Non-Violence [Dallas: Word Publishing, 1989], 92).

Shamelessly stole this one from Josh Rowley's fine blog. It was too good not pass on.

A Myth, A Fairy Tale, A Story, A Description

As is often the case, talking epistemology with John Shuck combines with my own reading in mythopoetics, fantasy and theology and results in me dealing with a few terms that I find helpful to use consistently.

In each case, I'll use a brief description, followed by a list of what is generally valued in each mode of expression. Lastly, I'll throw up a few examples that come to mind.

A Myth

In the comment thread conversation I had with John Shuck most recently, I called myths "structures of meaning that tell us the truth about ourselves and the world and invite us to live into that truth more fully." This isn't a bad definition, and I'll go with it for now. Myths can also be described as "stories that make stories". A myth is primordial because it gives rise to many other stories of other kinds. It is powerful because it guides people as they make stories of their own lives and experiences, as well as those of their community. A myth becomes a myth, in part, due to it's broad use. A myth that gives rise to no stories is no myth. It is much easier to recognize older myths because we can see whether they have stood the test of time.

Values: evocative power, invitation, broad applicability, iterative richness, "meaning", valuation, generative power (stories that make stories)

Examples: the Bible as a whole and many of it's parts individually, the Bhagavad Gita, the Mahabharata, the cycle of trickster stories of Coyote and Raven and Spider etc., the Koran, the Prose and Poetic Eddas, the Ennuma Elish

Myth is the purview of religion and spirituality.

A Fairy Tale

Tolkien gives the best definition of what he calls "fairy stories" in his essay and lecture "On Fairy Stories". It is a relatively long lecture, actually, and he has a lot to say, but in brief, he defines a fairy story as providing four benefits: fantasy, escape, consolation and recovery.

He is using fantasy in the medieval sense, that is, in using the mind's faculties to imagine things that do not or cannot exist. One example he uses is "green sun". For escape, Tolkien is reclaiming escapism as something good; 'the escape from a prison rather than the flight of the deserter'. Consolation doesn't need much explanation - a good fairy story provides consolation in the midst of life that is often unsatisfactory in some way. Lastly, Tolkien talks about recovery - that is, recovery of wonder at everyday things, or recovery of vividness of experience. He gives examples like "tree" or "fire" or "bread and wine", things that he feels he understands better thanks for fairy stories than he would have without them.

Fairy stories help us to see our world differently. The basic structure of a fairy story is an introduction to the familiar, a journey into the other, unfamiliar world, and a return to the familiar, having been changed by what was experienced in the unfamiliar world.

Values: fantasy, escape, consolation, recovery, otherworldliness, the familiar-made-strange and the strange-made-familiar

Examples: The Hobbit, Avatar, The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,

A fairy story is a particular kind of story that is close to myth.

A Story

A series of events purposefully organized by an author or authors for a purpose other than description. It's actually pretty challenging to define a story, but for my purposes, I think the above will work. A story has to have a storyteller, either an individual or a community; it has to be intentionally arranged from start to finish, and it can't just be a bare recounting of events, because that falls into the last category that I'm looking at. A big difference one can see is between what makes a "good" story and what makes a "good" description.

Values: expressive craft, narrative beauty, coherence, characterization, drama, irony, evocative imagery

Examples: Beowulf, Anansi Boys, The A-Team, The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Story is the purview of authors and storytellers.

A Description

A series of events organized logically and chronologically. The assumption is that something has occurred, and has been observed, and then the description attempts to express those observations to someone who was not present.

Values: technical accuracy, functionalism, reductionism, efficiency of expression, clarity

Examples: the physical origins of the universe, a blueprint, an instruction manual, a technical schematic, a genogram

Description is the purview of science.

What's open is to discuss which of these we are dealing with at any given time. What is not an option is pretending they are all the same thing.

Who Needs A Trinity Anyway?

For the purposes of this post at least, I am going to argue that the traditional doctrine of the Trinity is not necessary to Christian faith and practice. It is far from the only logical conclusion one might draw from a reading of the Old and New Testaments. As an aside, I want to say that most Trinitarian theology is hardly Trinitarian at all. We have a bit about God, a tremendous amount about Jesus, and then the appendage of the Holy Spirit which has a kind of vague function.

Now, the Trinity has been necessary for hundreds of years as an article of faith in order to avoid being excommunicated, hunted down, burned at the stake, and so on. Of course, this was not always the case, but has been the case for the vast majority of Christian history. Very very early, the formula of Father Son and Holy Spirit seems to have been adopted. It's universality had to be enforced with violence on a regular basis, but still: what has Christianity not enforced with violence on a regular basis when it comes to doctrine?

The Holy Spirit and the Trinity in the Early Creeds

The Apostle's Creed does no more than mention the existence of the Holy Spirit as part of it's trinitarian structure. It says basically nothing about it. It is implied by the Creed that the HS has something to do with the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, etc., but there is nothing definitive said about the Holy Spirit whatsoever.

At this point, we do not have the modern doctrine of the Trinity. We just have God in three main forms, the third of which is almost completely undefined.

Next is the Nicene Creed, which has more to say about the Holy Spirit. We hear that the Holy Spirit is the Lord and Giver of Life, that the HS proceeds from the Father [and the son], and with the Father and the Son is to be worshipped and glorified. Oh, also, the Holy Spirit spoke through the prophets.

This is still pretty vague, but with the name Lord we get the sense that the HS is a person of some kind, a character in this story at least. Lord of Life, Giver of Life, and speaking through the prophets gives us a vague sense of what this person might be doing. If we glance back, we also find that the Holy Spirit was involved in Jesus' incarnation in the virgin Mary.

Jump ahead to the Athanasian Creed, and suddenly we have 25 lines defining the relationship between the persons of the Trinity. This is followed by the remainder of the Creed, which is dedicated to the incarnation, suffering and resurrection of Jesus. Even in the Athanasian Creed, we can see a difference between the three persons of the Trinity. God is unbegotten. Jesus is not made but begotten of God. The Holy Spirit proceeds from both God and Jesus.

Now, in the Jesus part, we get a little bit about God, since it is important in the Creed to determine exactly what Jesus' incarnation was like. Once that is nailed down, however, we have death, resurrection and judgement. Bang. Done.

Once again, we have nothing whatsoever on the activity, or person-hood of the Holy Spirit. We know more than we'll ever need to know about the Holy Spirit's supposed metaphysics and essence, but nothing at all about the Holy Spirit's character, or story, or activity, or importance.

The point of the Athanasian Creed is clear: quibbling about the metaphysics of the Trinity is a matter of life-and-death. What the third person of the Trinity actually is and does is of no importance whatsoever. Unlike the 25 lines of what I inelegantly call quibbling, it is not saving knowledge. You could theoretically memorize the Creed, ape it on a regular basis, and no one would be the wiser to the fact that you thought the Holy Spirit was in fact a magical canteloupe, or a literal ghost, or that the Holy Spirit was primarily concerned with listening to you argue about homo-ousias. At least as far as this Creed goes.

The Holy Spirit and the Trinity in the Bible

There is sparse evidence pointing to the Trinity in the Bible, and there is no discussion of it as such anywhere to be found. A "full" Trinitarian theology is never articulated in the Bible.

Certainly, the OT talks about the spirit of God, and how that spirit acts as God acts in some circumstances. It doesn't seem clear, to me at least, however that the spirit of God is a different person from God. The spirit of God seems to be what I called in my statement of faith "the manifest presence of God" in the world.

The NT has Jesus describing the Holy Spirit with the person-term Paraclete, clearly referring to the Holy Spirit as a person in that case, rather than exclusively an impersonal force. In other parts of the NT, such as at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit appears as an energy manifesting itself as flame, wind, insight, etc. At Jesus' baptism, the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus as an impersonal force manifesting as something like a dove, and we have God's voice speaking in the same moment.

We also have the baptismal formula of "Father, Son and Holy Spirit." Clearly, the three terms are important, but we have nothing whatsoever of the dense language of the Creeds, which is an invention after-the-fact, dealing with concerns that do not seem to have been the concerns of either Jesus or the first Christians.

We have enough language to talk about the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but there doesn't seem to be much justification for making any kind of Athanasian formulation a necessary belief.

The Holy Spirit and just plain Holy Spirit

In the NT, what is translated as "the Holy Spirit" is sometimes literally "the Holy Spirit", that is, using the definite article. In other situations, it is simply "Holy Spirit" - no definite article, in a construction that seems similar to "lively spirit" in English. This happens 52 times in the NT. Basically, "pneuma hagion" and "to pneuma to hagion" are translated in exactly in the same way, as "the Holy Spirit", even though in 52 cases this seems incorrect.

What the Greek might imply, though, is that Holy Spirit refers both to a kind of person or divine personality or divine agent, as well as to an experience or, yes, an energy.

What is consistent is that the Giver is consistently "the Holy Spirit" and the Gift is "Holy Spirit". What is implied is that Holy Spirit is more complicated than simply a person. No one would say "the Christ gives the gift of Christ", but we might say "the Holy Spirit gives the gift of Holy Spirit."

-->Actually, I like the idea that "the Christ gives the gift of Christhood", but that's a whole other conversation.

The Athanasian doctrine of the Trinity does not account for this difference in my view.

A bit on Jesus

The Holy Spirit is my entry-point for talking about the trinity because I think there is plenty of justification for using God-language to describe Jesus. There is less justification, however, for using Athanasian language. There are instances in the Gospels when Jesus talks about God being greater; about God being his Father as well as his disciples' Father. There are other instances where Jesus uses the same language of himself and of God. The situation seems to be less clearly symmetrical than the Athanasian Creed describes.

Conclusion for now

This is all a work-in-progress in my own thinking, but at the moment I think that what bothers me most about the Trinity is the symmetry. It seems like a complicated, lived-in, contextual reality in scripture is replaced with a sanitized philosophical structure.

What instead?

Instead of the Trinity, why not just go with bare description of what we read? God is the creator. Jesus is God's only begotten son as well as God's anointed one. The Holy Spirit is a divine presence as well as an experience or an energy which comes from God and from Jesus as well.

This leaves us open for more reflection as well on our experiences of God. We can talk about Wisdom as she appears - present with God from before the beginning of creation. We can talk about Wisdom, as an example, without worrying whether the doctrine-police are going to get us in trouble for horning in on the Trinity's territory.

We can also, as has been brought up in the comment thread on Aric's post on the Trinity, perhaps take more seriously Jesus's call to be like him. We don't have to be concerned with the problems inherent in trying to be like "the Godhead" (which I've always hated as a term). We can just follow Jesus in being Jesus-like, rather than putting faith in Jesus apart from the belief that we are called to be like him.

Anyway...

I'm still thinking about all of this, and this is more of a mess than I'd like, but there you have it.

A-Team & Gandhi

I saw the A-Team movie today. I needed some flat-out escapism after Synod and the summer season offered plenty of choices, but this movie was at the best time for me so I grabbed my ticket and sat down. For the most part it delivered what I wanted. It was fun. It was ridiculous. I actually chuckled aloud in boyish glee at the parachuting tank scene. So I got my money's worth.

But one thing in the film begs to be called out for sheer idiocy. B.A. Baracus experiences a vague conversion while he is in prison and talks about being unwilling (unable?) to kill. This sets up his character's shallow character arc in which he goes from badass Army Ranger to whiny pacifist to badass mercenary outlaw. The entire thing is set up as a foregone conclusion that he will remember that he is a meathead whose purpose in life is killing badguys at the dramatic climax. His transformation is symbolized by his mohawk, which he shuns for the 2nd act of the movie in his pacifist stage, but is back for the thrilling reveal when he murders the villain. Like Samson his mojo is in his hair.

The worst moment in this bad idea of a subplot is when he trades Gandhi quotes with Colonel Hannibal. Baracus asks Hannibal if he knows who said, "Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary." Hannibal does of course and shoots back, but Gandhi also said, "It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence." He then uses that quote to urge Baracus to get back to killing people, because that is what Gandhi would do. Obviously.

It's depressingly ironic that Gandhi would be so badly misused. Hannibal's quote was cut off. It continues, "Violence is any day preferable to impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." Gandhi then of course went about demonstrating in his life the conclusive superiority of non-violence to violence, which is the opposite of impotence and cowardice which is what is implied about Baracus during his pacifist phase in the movie.

The movie thoroughly fails to grasp Satya-Graha, Gandhi, or non-violence, which I suppose is fine for a summer blockbuster. I went in there looking for explosions and I found them. I just wish they hadn't thrust this clumsy, ugly sub-plot in the middle.

The completion of the ironic reversal is in the ending of the movie. The A-Team fails to get their name cleared and their elaborate scheme is completely undone in a matter of moments by corrupt government agents. They find themselves once more fugitives, arguably worse off than they were before, yet the movie shows no hint of awareness that the quote Baracus pulled from Gandhi had actually been prophecy. "Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary." Everything Baracus gained by going back to his violent ways was actually a loss in disguise, and it will continue that way until he realizes that violence is nothing more than a slightly higher form of impotence. Like the movie, violence is all flash and no substance.

10 Explanations of the Trinity

I know I can come across as an arrogant condescending jerk. So when I commented on twitter and facebook over the weekend that the trinity isn't difficult to explain I naturally got some pushback. Well, okay, what I said was:

The Trinity isn't that hard to explain. Please stop dumbing down the church by acting like our most stimulating ideas are unexplainable. Fake populism and anti-intellectualism are extremely unbecoming in a minister.

I apologize for the aggressive tone. It was uncalled for.

What I mean by this though, is that I think there is an attitude which is unfortunately prevalent in the church, even among ministers, that treats theology as if it were some arcane art form. Ministers sometimes work so hard to be "one of their people" that they give off the impression that all that theology stuff is just too difficult for them. They leave it to seminary professors to try to explain complicated things like atonement, the trinity, and predestination. While I would love to brag that I am a master of the arcane, the truth is that these things aren't at base that complicated. This is not quantum mechanics. We all went to seminary. We presumably study and read and think about this stuff all the time. It is part of our job description that we be able to understand and articulate theological ideas.

To back up my braggadocio, here are 10 ways to explain the Trinity which anyone in your congregation will be able to understand:

#1 - The Clover. St Patrick famously described the trinity to the people of Ireland by using the analogy of the 3-leaved clover. Each leaf on the plant appears whole and independent, but they are indivisibly part of a single stem. Strength: This explanation has the advantage of being historical, includes an effective visual aid, and emphasizes the equality and unity of the persons. Weakness: An inanimate object is in some ways a poor choice of analogy for the dynamic living trinity.

#2 - Dancing. Central to understanding the trinity is the nature of their inter-relatedness (that fancy greek word Perichoresis). Have everyone stand up and form a circle, then do any of the thousands of folk dances in which the parties all move together performing their parts in unison. God is the dance, the energy, the movement at the center of creation and the trinity is our way of saying god does the dance perfectly - all of the dancers are in total harmony. Strength: This explanation will work great for kinesthetic learners. It is dynamic focuses on the relationship of the persons. Weakness: It is abstract and doesn't do a good job of describing the individual persons of the trinity.

#3 - Battery, Wire, Electricity. God is the power source, the battery, the creator. Jesus is the mediator, the wire which conducts God's love to us. The Spirit is the power itself, the love of God which comes to us through Jesus. Strength: Another explanation with a good visual aid. This one has the strength of differentiating the persons and putting them in a relationship which reflects the usual portrayal of their roles. Furthermore, this example can demonstrate our relationship to the trinity - we are the light bulb at the end of the wire which the Spirit turns on. Weakness: The analogy is rigid, and utilizes inanimate objects to explain something which is fundamentally living and dynamic.

#4 - Rublev's Icon. It is a famous work of art depicting three angels sitting at Abraham's table. The angels are at once the figures from the story in Genesis about receiving strangers, and the persons of the trinity in perfect relationship with each other. A notable feature of the painting is that the persons, while at the table clearly in conversation with one another are all turned toward the viewer as though we were a fourth participant in the conversation, thus illustrating the outward moving love of the inward relationship of the triune god. Strength: You can't go wrong with beautiful art for reaching people who might otherwise not grasp the subject. Weakness: It depicts the trinity as three separate persons which will then lead to questions about the unity of the godhead.

#5 - Quantum Physics. Ha! So the trinity is complex! Well, this is really just a very basic observation from a layman's understanding of physics, but for the last century we have gradually discovered that all matter is actually energy vibrating at different speeds. It is a gross exaggeration, but in one sense, you and I are beams of light. The simultaneous duality, or underlying unity of these supposed opposites, energy and matter, is a great entryway to talking about the mystery of how God could be simultaneously three persons in one. Strength: This is an explanation which will appeal to the intellectually curious. Weakness: Speaking outside your field of expertise leads to unwittingly saying ignorant things.

#6 - Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer. One effective way of approaching an explanation of the trinity is in terms of the roles of the persons. This is the approach of many of the confessions, essentially listing what God the father does, what Jesus does, and what the Spirit does. They are all God's work, but in particular ways, at particular times, in particular places. Strength: There is lots of confessional material to rely on here. Weakness: It is easy to fall into cliches and also easy to overly separate the persons.

#7 - Ice, Water, Steam. The different states of matter are an effective illustration of how one thing can take three very different forms with different attributes. Similarly God can appear and act in history in dramatically different ways and remain one God. Strength: Strongly emphasizes the unity of God. Weakness: Fails to differentiate the persons or express how they are all simultaneously God, not modes appearing at different times.

#8 - Optical Illusion. Have you ever seen those Mind's Eye posters where it just looks like a random blur of colors until you squint or blur your focus and then suddenly an image pops out at you? Or the picture of the young lady who is also an old woman? These kinds of images defy our perceptions and categories. They can be an entry into discussing how, when viewed from different perspectives God presents different aspects. As savior and teacher God appears as Jesus. As creator and providential caretaker God appears as a parent. As inward presence, spark and encouragement God appears as the Spirit. Strength: Visual aid possibilities abound and it emphasizes the unity of the persons despite the apparent differences. Weakness: Some might take offense at comparing God to an illusion.

#9 - Three Dimensions of Space. We interact with our surroundings through three dimensions: height, width, and depth. The dimensions are completely distinct and non-interchangeable, yet invariably present simultaneously in the same location. Without one or the other of the dimensions all of existence would be radically altered. They are mutually dependent for intelligibility. Strength: A very close analogy of the uniqueness yet mutuality of the persons of the trinity. Weakness: It's somewhat abstract and static.

#10 - Lover, Beloved, Love. There is a reason that orthodox language for describing the trinity uses "persons" as the basic unit of the godhead. God is alive and active, so the best way to describe God's nature is through a relationship of mutual love. The New Testament continually shows us the relationship between God and Jesus as one of giving and receiving love. Jesus is referred to as "my beloved" by God at several key moments. Significantly at one of these moments, his Baptism, Jesus receives the Holy Spirit. This is a picture of the exchange of love between the persons of the trinity. This is also the story of Good Friday and Easter. Jesus (the Beloved) gives up his Spirit (Love) to God (the Lover). God (the Lover) then restores the Spirit (Love) to Jesus (the Beloved) on Easter morning. Strength: This example is ripe with biblical imagery and applicable to our understanding of human relationships. Weakness: It would be easy to think of the persons as three completely separate individuals with this description.

Ultimately, as is by now apparent, no single explanation is going to be wholly satisfactory. What did you expect we're talking about the godhead?! Some explanations will be prone to the error of making God into three different people, others prone to making God into one person with three faces. But any of these explanations would be a good starting place and from there you can use your well developed theological skills to balance out the weaknesses of a narrow understanding of the trinity into a profound exploration of the richest Christian doctrine.

"Freedom Isn't Free"

In reflecting on this Memorial Day, I find myself contrasting two very distinct kinds of freedom.

Freedom A (American Freedom)

The first kind of freedom is the kind of freedom that we can rightly celebrate on Memorial Day. It is the kind of freedom that people must both kill and die for. Around 7 thousand American dead in Iraq and Afghanistan, around 30 thousand US wounded, and by the very lowest estimates out there, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans killed.

This kind of freedom which we celebrate has a price - and it is primarily a price that our enemies pay. That is, we ultimately exact the price from others, even as some courageous few pay the price themselves.

Freedom B (Christian Freedom)

This is the kind of freedom that we talk about in church, and it is an entirely different kind of freedom in every way. This is the freedom we find when we are able to die to sin and to be raised with Christ. It is the freedom of giving up our lives in order to find true life. This freedom demands every shred of courage that going into battle demands, but what it does not demand, what it never demands, is that we would harm another person.

Just as most of us never go into battle for the first kind of freedom, to kill and to risk death, most of us never truly have the courage to fully find the second kind of freedom, which comes on the other side of a kind of death.

In both cases, I find I can respect great courage in the face of death and sacrifice without trouble. I do not have that kind of courage, and I can honor those who do.

It is much harder to honor the courage it requires to kill, however. And when I am called upon to honor those who "paid the price" for American Freedom, my sorrow also goes toward the many who paid that price but are never found in veterans' cemeteries or memorials - the civilians who always die in greater numbers than soldiers in modern war, and those we called enemy, who our young men and women killed for the sake of American Freedom.

In both cases, if we are to find Christian Freedom at all, we must find it in ourselves to love those who paid the price, soldiers included, but also civilians on both sides and our enemies.

In other words, as long as we cannot love our enemies, we will never be free in the way Christ gives freedom, but only the false freedom that the loaded gun can bring.

And the price of loving our enemies - which may cost our very lives - is one no one else can pay for us.

Neil Gaiman Mythologian

You know what life needs more of? Giants, dragons, gods, magic, alternate worlds, rainbow bridges, clever traps, illusions, and narrow escapes. I only stopped that list because otherwise that list would go on for the rest of this post.

Life needs these things not because of what they are, but because of what they represent. Neil Gaiman gets that and he doesn't merely write stories with giants in them he writes stories that tell you what giants mean and in so doing what life means. He is a mythologian.

I recently read Odd And The Frost Giants in about an hour and am now reading it aloud to Avery. It is so astonishingly pure. It is a reading experience akin to eating a handful of snow on a mountaintop far from any city or road. You think to yourself 'that is what snow tastes like'. This book is what stories taste like.

If you need more giants in your life - and you do - go pick this up at your nearest library and instantly improve any afternoon.

Shun Security

A Baccalaureate Address for the 2010 graduating class of Fort Morgan High School.

Luke 12:15-34

I’m going to tell you something that your parents, mentors, and guardians would probably rather you didn’t hear. It’s okay because they’ve got the advantage on me. They’ve been giving you advice your entire life and they’ll get to keep on doing it long after today when you will have completely forgotten this meddlesome sermon. It’s also okay, because I am also a parent, so I know of what I speak.

Here it is, my reckless, unfashionable, irresponsible, downright crazy advice to you, graduates: Shun Security. Don’t spend 1 more minute of your life trying to be safe. Don’t waste energy worrying about your comfort. Don’t put money and resources into protecting your future. And never put your own life before the life of another.

I confess I feel a little guilty telling you this because up till now it is probable that adults have gone to extraordinary lengths to make you feel safe. Or at least they should have. That is their job as parents, teachers, grandparents, uncles and aunts, and so on. They have tried very hard to get you to this day, healthy and whole. Many of them probably harbor dreams that you will lead a life better than the one they have had in terms of comfort and security. They want you to have a better education, a better job, a better house, and a better retirement than they have.

But you are bright individuals. By now most of you have seen behind the curtain and realized that life is not safe. Despite the best efforts of adults, danger has gotten through and you might be aware that we adults are afraid of an awful lot of things.

We’re afraid the stock market is going to come crashing down and wipe out our pension. If we have a pension. Cause if we don’t then we’re afraid of what happens when we get too old to work. Or our health starts to fail us, and that makes us afraid of the health care system. We’re afraid to take medications because of side effects and we’re afraid of not having medications. We’re afraid of surgery and we’re afraid of not getting the surgery we need soon enough to stop the spread of the cancer that also terrifies us.

We’re afraid of hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis and tornadoes. We’re afraid that hail and heavy rain will ruin this year’s crop, or else we’re afraid that no rain will come at all. We’re afraid of global warming, or cooling, rising sea-levels, and disappearing glaciers. Or we’re afraid of scientists and politicians and experts pulling the wool over our eyes with fancy charts and numbers.

We’re afraid of terrorists, and drug czars, and cartels and dirty bombs, and other scary sounding words we hear on the news. We’re afraid of corporations and wall street and bankers, and we’re afraid of what would happen to our economy without corporations and wall street and bankers.

Every day of your life, in the back of our minds, we adults have been afraid for you. That any of these things from Asthma to Swine Flu to pedophiles might harm you or take you from us. Every time you scraped your knee or didn’t call home at curfew or studied too little, or studied too much, or had too few friends, or had too many friends… we worried. Because we wanted you to be safe.

And though this is a natural desire it is also tragic, because safety is an illusion. Despite all of the advertisements to the contrary there is no diet which will make you immune to heart attacks and cancer. There is no foolproof investment plan that will make you immune to a bad economy. There is no strategy to get you through life that will guarantee comfort, or longevity, or security. There just isn’t.

Like the farmer in the parable we heard read earlier – we build bigger barns and silos to hold the grain we’ve stored up, only to discover that our time has come and all the grain in the world won’t buy us another year. Security is an illusion – an elaborate, expensive, time-consuming illusion.

The worst thing about chasing the illusion of security is that along the way we do a lot of harm to other people. In the interest of protecting ourselves and our loved ones from danger we run roughshod over the vulnerable in our society. We make enemies and we go to war against those enemies and ironically we only feel less safe the more this continues. Struggling mightily to create for ourselves an illusory shroud of security we are continuously confronted with equally illusory dangers. Unable to tell the real dangers from the fake danger we see all around us, we tighten up or lash out ever more in a deadly and completely avoidable downward spiral of fear.

Fear, more than any other emotion, defines our culture these days, and I think it is high time for a culture-shift. I want you to live free from the fear that has plagued the generations ahead of you and this is the secret – to shun security; to let go entirely of the illusion that you, or anyone else for that matter, can make yourself safe; to realize that there are things which are much more desirable than safety and getting those things entails joyful risk, self-sacrifice, and an openness of spirit which fear will kill.

Here is something which is more desirable than security – beauty is more desirable than security. Not physical beauty. Not sexiness. Not the stuff they sell on magazine covers – I mean real beauty. The kind of beauty that makes some things Art and some things just things. The kind of beauty that cracks open your soul and makes you grateful to be alive. If you have art in you waiting to be given life, I want you to Shun Security. Don’t do the safe thing and become an accountant. Take risks for beauty.

Here is something else which is more desirable than security – Peace. Not peace enforced at gunpoint. Not the fake peace which is just fear of someone with a bigger arsenal than you. The kind of peace which comes from within and heals wounds and bridges gaps and increases understanding between people. The hard kind of peace which means saying I’m sorry, and I forgive you, and being willing to turn the other cheek rather than seek retribution. If you have the capacity to understand and forgive then I want you to Shun Security. Don’t do the safe thing and keep to yourself. Go where the suffering and the violence are and take risks for peace.

Here is something else which is more desirable than security – Love. Not infatuation. Not even romance, per se. I mean the kind of love which means giving yourself for other people. The kind of love which saves lives and souls because of its crazy generosity. The kind of love which lifts people out of distress and hopelessness, and shows them the impossible truth which is that there is more good in a single human heart than all the evil and all the injustice the entire history of humanity can muster. If you have love in you waiting to be shared I want you to Shun Security. Don’t do the safe thing and give only what you think you can afford. Give everything you have and everything you are and take risks for love.

Shun security. If the world is telling you to be less generous you need a bigger bank account – ignore it. Safety isn’t worth the loss of your kind heart.

Shun security. If the world is telling you to give up your passions and do the responsible thing – ignore it. Safety isn’t worth the loss of your creative soul.

Shun security. If the world is telling you there are problems too big for you to solve, and dangers too terrible to be risked – ignore it. Safety isn’t worth the loss of will to overcome.

Shun security. If after this baccalaureate people tell you I’m way off-base and you need to be realistic and take care of yourself first – ignore it. Safety isn’t worth the loss of your spirit of adventure.

Life isn’t safe. You haven’t been safe one day of your life so far, and you won’t be safe a single day from here on out. Shun Security and go for the things that really matter, and rejoice that you have been given the courage to do so. The world will forever be in your debt.

I Never Went To Sunday School

So I missed out on all this good stuff...

The Ancient and Medieval Thesis: The World is in Continual Decay

My fanaticism around Middle-Earth and all things Tolkien is well-documented, and over the years I've steadily absorbed information about the subject. I have also been influenced by it. Middle-Earth is supported by a deep and complex system of assumptions about the world which is sort of gathered together out of Tolkien's medieval studies as well as his Roman Catholicism.

There is the Kalevala, eddaic literature, Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the Old and New Testaments (he knew some Greek and Hebrew), Thomas Aquinas and so much more all buried in there, as well as his own syntheses of these many influences in his own thought in ideas like mythopoetics, eucatastrophe, and what is the best thought on fantasy and "fairy stories" to date.

One of the assumptions that suffuses Middle-Earth is that history is the story of a long decline. It was a common assumption of medieval times that the greatness of the past could never be replicated in the present and that the "march of history" is in fact a story of slow, inexorable decay.

Our technological achievements might lure us into dismissing this out of hand, but I am not fully convinced that the corollary is true - that history is a story of steady progress.

Hand in hand with all of our achievements is our growing capacity for abject destruction. Now, I won't get into this argument because it has been said before. We've been shocked aware by two world wars and the threat of nuclear holocaust (weapons only the US has been willing to use, sadly and interestingly) and since the "march of progress" argument has rung a little hollow now and then. For every civil rights victory in the US there is an expansion of child sex slavery or repressive religious regimes or, frankly, a US-sponsored right-wing overthrow of an elected government.

What we don't seem to develop is the moral sensitivity to use our technology wisely. And never before has one nation been able to kill everyone, everywhere, many times over. Is that progress toward anything but absolute ruin? If so, I don't see it.

Perhaps we are heading toward some kind of turn, some realization that has been slowly and secretly building over time. Perhaps we have already set in motion mechanisms which will inevitably destroy us.

Either way, as I have been doing research and listening to lectures on Tolkien's work, and encounter this Medieval paradigm of decay over time again and again, I can't say I have a strong rebuttal ready. We have medicine and technology and information but most of the people on planet Earth don't have access to them anyway. A third of them don't have enough food or clean water. And I'm not clear that we haven't, in aggregate, created more problems than we can solve.

By Contrast With Idolatrous Holidays

The crusader who originally got congress to declare Mother's Day back in 1870, Julia Ward Howe, wrote this: "A Mother's Day Proclamation"

Arise then...women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts! Whether your baptism be of water or of tears! Say firmly...
"Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -

Another Day of Sectarianism and Idolatry

Today is National Day of Prayer. This holiday is a mistake. There are ways it could be celebrated that I would potentially support. There are Biblical approaches to this holiday which would at least prevent it from being outright idolatry, but the way that the holiday actually is observed is not something I can support at all.

First the reasons why you should not observe this holiday:

1. It is an infringement on secularism. We are a secular republic and the state should not be in the business of lifting up any particular religion over another. Though the holiday is vague enough it could apply to a variety of faiths, in practice it is dominated by Christians. Last year every other prayer at the event held in City Park in my town included something about this being a "Christian Nation." Increasingly, secularism is also understood to mean not lifting up religiousness over a-religiousness. Even if the holiday were perfectly pluralist it would still be infringing on atheists who are part of our nation.

2. As it is usually practiced it is idolatrous. It is possible to pray "for the nation" in a way that is not idolatrous, but to lavish praise, swear an oath of allegiance, kiss or salute or otherwise honor symbols of patriotism and national pride like the flag, or refer to the United States or any nation as somehow uniquely important to God, belonging to God or held in special esteem by God is idolatry. God is not American. In fact, God is steadfastly against national identity, ethnic divisions, divisions of class, and gender. God is busily working to unite all people and the powers and principalities are God's implacable opponents in this world. It is doubtful that any kind of prayer, but a prayer of repentance is appropriate for a nation state.

3. The kinds of prayers which would be appropriate on a "National Day of Prayer" from a Christian perspective, are necessary all the time. Prayers of repentance. Prayers for justice. Prayers for peace. Prayers for the end of nations and the inauguration of the kingdom. We should be praying like that all the time, and we should definitely not be praying on a schedule dictated by congress and signed into law by the president. If anything we should be calling for Christians nationwide to hold prayer vigils around the anniversary of wars and actions that our country needs forgiveness for. We should call for non-participation of Christians in holidays like this one which serve to buoy national pride and entrench parochialism. National Day of Prayer, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Veterans Day, President's Day... these are days for us to boycott, not observe.

Now an approach to the holiday which would win my tepid support (not overcoming all my objections, but a start):

1. National Day of Prayer as a day of atonement. If we assembled prepared for mourning and repentance, dressed in sackcloth as it were, and did so in open areas devoid of any symbol of national pride or identity; if at such an assembly we said aloud and forcefully our many sins - the wars we have waged and are waging, the injustices of our economic system, the division of classes and racial and gender inequalities in our society, the fearful grasping after security, and failure to trust God's providence, the perpetuation of our identity over against imaginary "enemies" and the hatred of those enemies we have created - THEN we would be on the right path.

2. Following our rehearsal of our sins, we would hear from the prophets of the Old Testament warning the nation of Israel that God held them in no special regard, but would judge them for failing to be a light in the world. We would remind ourselves that God in Jesus calls the entire world to communion and we have no business coming to that table as Americans, or Brits, or Chinese, or Russians.

3. Finally, we would pray that God would forgive the sins of the whole world, end divisions and inaugurate an era of Shalom. We would repent of any national allegiance and vow never to take up arms against a neighbor so that we might have a place in that new world. Then we would go home weeping, knowing that it was too little too late.

Another Closeted Bigot

Meet George Alan Reker. He is a former professor, and a big time activist in anti-gay circles. He was on the founding board of the Family Research Council with James Dobson. He has been an "expert" witness in testimony before congress, an adviser to the White House, and in the Florida ban on gay adoption. He speaks all over the world on teen sexuality and "Gender Identity Disorder". He has of course said that the Bible is the infallible word of God and homosexuality is a sin. He is also a humongous hypocrite.

You see he recently returned from vacations to Europe and Bermuda with a young male prostitute called "Lucien" for the purposes of anonymity. He initially said he'd brought Lucien along to carry his luggage since he'd recently had surgery, but since he found Lucien on a site called Rentboys (NSFW) where he had to scroll through a number of pornographic images and videos to find a candidate several pages in advertised as having a "perfectly built 8 inch cock" and "up for anything" as long as you pay the thousands of dollars per day a boy from this site costs plus all travel expenses... that is a very expensive porter.

Mr. Reker later added that it was for evangelism purposes. In other words he, a 61 year old man, scanned through pages and pages of pornography to pick out a 20 year old male prostitute to pay thousands of dollars to go to exotic locations to... convert him.

Look, I don't care what Mr. Reker did or didn't do in those joint hotel rooms in Bermuda and Spain with Lucien. Reker can join the long list of bigoted hypocrites who have been exposed like Paul Cameron and Ted Haggard. No surprise really. These men believe against all evidence and common sense that homosexuality is a terrible disease which can be cured by lunatic methods. It is evident that they are themselves very sick.

No, what concerns me is the huge number of Christians who despite constant overwhelming evidence and the repeated blatant hypocrisy of their brightest lights and leaders will continue to regard organizations like NARTH as respectable and continue to peddle the same bull to the great harm of LGBT people everywhere, and the shame of Christians around the world.

What makes all of this more disgusting is that I will get told I am abandoning the gospel and ruining the church because I want gay people to be able to visit their loved ones in the hospital or dedicate their lives in service to Christ through ordained ministry, while people will make all sorts of excuses for those who want to be able to buy barely legal sex-workers a third their age, and snort crystal meth off of their chiseled abs.

Penny Arcade and Drugs

This is kind of fantastic, and if you are curious about depression, worth watching. It also features Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade for the geeks out there.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/pa-the-series/118/