World Orders and Ancient Prophets

 Almost an hour ago, I wrote this tweet:  "Thinking about geopolitical conflicts of my youth, watching young versions of old rock stars in 'Sun City' video, thinking about Reagan and constructive engagement, looking at a map of Ukraine/E. Europe, feeling doomed, writing blog posts into the void/madness."

But I have yet to actually write a blog post.  I have toggled between opinion/analysis pieces and old videos:  "Sun City," "Silver and Gold," and "No Easy Walk to Freedom," with a side trip to "El Salvador," a Peter, Paul, and Mary gem that I had forgotten.  I have resisted the temptation to revisit old videos, like The Day After, although the last line of Timothy Snyder's piece in The Atlantic made me want to do just that (his lines:  "The creativity and historical awareness of the Biden administration has made war costlier for Russia. Of course, there might be another level to consider: that the mobilization (or even an invasion) is meant to divert our attention from something else.").

I have heard the drumbeats of war, and I've heard every analyst declare that we will not send U.S. youths to die for Ukraine.  I've heard these similar sentiments my whole life.  What that really means is that we'll be careful not to show the images of caskets on TV.

I read this article in The New York Times which includes a very useful map of Eastern Europe and Russia, and I've thought, we're doomed.  In the days before George H. W. Bush's excursion to protect Kuwait, I went out to put gas in my car.  In these days of underemployment, I don't drive much, so I don't really need gas.  As I've been on my morning and afternoon walks, I've listened to accents, and I'm realizing how much more I'm hearing accents from Eastern Europe than from Latin America.  My pattern-making mind wants to see the larger picture.

I want to believe that saner minds will prevail, but I look at Putin and I see the bad boyfriends and abusive husbands that are the worst kind of afflictions for female safety.  He looks out and sees a world of enemies.  Here's another gem from Timothy Snyder's piece:  "However that may be, the habit of provocation might be making it harder for Putin to read the outside world. Just because you live in a house of mirrors does not mean that you can find the exit."

I think about the nuclear weapons, and I know that if we have nuclear exchanges of any size, these past two years of pandemic will look like a time of bliss.  But I also know that there have been many other times when my fearful brain has thought about the possibility of apocalypse, and the world walked back from that brink.

May we be at a similar time, backing away from this precipice.  

Now I will go for my walk as if the world isn't hanging by a slender thread.  I will do my seminary homework due today analyzing Paul's letter to the Galatians.  I will then turn to my project that asks us to consider the ancient Hebrew prophets and the role of the prophet today.  That project could go in so many ways.  I will let the drumbeats of war remind me to pray throughout today.

Ponderings on Presidents Day

 Some assorting ponderings on Presidents Day--will they hold together as a post?  Yes.  As an extended essay?  Probably not, hence the format.

--While I like having less traffic on a Monday morning walk, I feel this odd resentment.  As an underemployed person, if everyone has a work day off, one of the benefits of underemployment seems to disappear.  Happily it will return tomorrow.

--Does this Ukraine tension underscore the need for strong presidential leadership or show the futility of wishing for it?

--Anne Applebaum's essay headline in The Atlantic sums up Ukraine nicely (accurately?):  "There Are No Chamberlains in this Story:  But there are no Churchills, either. And Ukraine will fight alone."  The bleakness of this headline makes me feel a piercing sorrow.  You can read the whole essay here.

--Why would any gathering of foreign leaders happen in Munich ever again?  The symbolism and the optics seem impossibly bad.  Of course, that might change, depending on if this week-end's meeting accomplishes something we can't see right now.

--The older I get, the more I realize that people in leadership positions are by and large, just regular folks, thrust into leadership position.  Maybe they have special skills.  Maybe they will rise to the occasion.  Maybe not.

--I understand why we want a president who will save us.  But viewed one way, there have been very few political leaders who were able to pull that off. 

--It's more likely that history will be made by groups of ordinary people, people not in charge on a national level, people making change on a regular basis.

--And we'll only remember if we have people who are writing it all down and/or recording those efforts in some way.

Who First Told You About Jesus?

Our online service is made up of recorded chunks that our pastor puts together and streams at the given time. It's a cool concept, as it allows many of us to participate.

This week, my pastor asked several of us to tell the story of who first told us about Jesus.  I said sure, but I warned that my answer was fairly standard:  my parents.

My pastor said that my answer was rare, which intrigued me.  Is it that rare to have grow up in a home where one's parents don't talk about Jesus?  I could see it if I grew up in a non-Christian home, but my pastor says that it's not as common as I thought.

Here is what I recorded:

Saturday Doubts

 I am in a bit of a funk this morning.  Yesterday morning, I was having fun, thinking of my approach to this seminary assignment:

Pretend that you are Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres, Stephen Colbert, Maria Bartiromo, Tavis Smiley or some other TV/radio host and you are going to interview the prophet Jeremiah on your show. What question would you ask him and why? How do you think he might answer that question and why? Be creative AND be sure to include texts/quotes from Jeremiah and information from the assigned readings to support your points as either the interviewer or Jeremiah. 

But this morning, I am second guessing myself.

I spent much of yesterday afternoon working on a video.  I typed out the script I planned to follow, and then I spent some time practicing.  I knew that 4 minutes max was the guideline for the time we had, so I wanted to be sure.

I must have done at least 20 videos--grrr.  In a way, though, it was a plus, because I had the script mostly memorized by the time I did the final take.

What's got me in my funk right now is that the final take doesn't have to be the final take.  I did already submit it to the Discussion thread, but I could submit another version.  I have spent the past few hours thinking of how I could have done it differently.  

I have also spent some time thinking about the video that I was planning yesterday morning and what I ended up with.  I had this idea for costume changes, but I gave up on that.  In the end, when Jeremiah talked, I had on a pair of sunglasses; I took them off for the announcer speaking.

I tried to walk a line between explaining too much and leaving some things unexplained.  For example, I wrote lines for Jeremiah when asked about Jeremiah and God having lunch on a regular basis:

"You were expecting what? A burning bush? That would upset my neighbors. Sure, we have lunch. There’s a great kosher deli that you should check out before you leave. They have the best strudel. It’s like the word of the Lord made into pastry."

I didn't explain that Jeremiah had a vision of eating the words of God.  Was I too subtle?

I did do what the assignment required in terms of referring to the book of Jeremiah and the readings and lecture videos.  Did I do enough to to explain the why of the question? I no longer know.

I could spend the morning creating an alternate version and not be any more reassured.  I like my final video, but I do see all the ways it could be better.  I know that I could spend the whole morning and not end up with something that would take away all my doubts.

And here is the larger issue:  I have other seminary work to do.  This discussion post is not a larger project.  I know that on one level, I'm overthinking it.  On another level, I am still so unsure of my ability to deliver what my professor wants, particularly when it comes to video.  I am much more comfortable with my writing skills.

I will likely leave my effort as it is and trust that it will be O.K.  Time to move along.

Creative Writing in Seminary

 I've been enjoying my seminary writing, even though it's not exactly the kind of writing I would be doing anyway.  Wesley Theological Seminary has created an exegesis template which has elements of what I've done before, like the background of me as a reader, combined with tasks I've never done, like analyzing some of the Greek words.  Much of our theological writing follows that template, or it's more like a response or class homework that I wouldn't be writing for a blog post.

This week, I've been enjoying the chance to do some creative writing.  Here's our assignment for Hebrew Bible class:

Pretend that you are Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres, Stephen Colbert, Maria Bartiromo, Tavis Smiley or some other TV/radio host and you are going to interview the prophet Jeremiah on your show. What question would you ask him and why? How do you think he might answer that question and why? Be creative AND be sure to include texts/quotes from Jeremiah and information from the assigned readings to support your points as either the interviewer or Jeremiah. 

I'm part of the half of class that has to do a video, but past experience has showed me that having a script is a good idea, so I'm writing it out.  Fun!

I am also planning a creative project for my Speaking of God in a Secular Age class.  Yesterday, I made this proposal:

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The syllabus says that we can propose a creative project in lieu of a critical essay, and I have a proposal.

Several years ago, I read this interview with the poet Jericho Brown.  I was intrigued by his description of how he wrote his duplexes:

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PP: It's so interesting to hear you mention this process. As I was reading, I was definitely curious about the form’s origin story.

JB: With all my poems, and with the duplexes especially, but with all my poems, I really just try to use everything I have. I really want to imagine a world in which we have everything we need. And if I can imagine that world in my poems, I hope I can make that world come true in real life. People talk about what they do in their writing day or what they do with their writing time. One of the things that I’m doing is I’m really excavating lines that go back. There are lines in "The Tradition" that go as far back as 1999, and I’m going back and looking at all of those lines and trying to put them together, trying to use what I couldn’t use before because I should know now. I should be a better poet now than I was then, and yet, even then I was a poet and therefore, I had lines that worked. I just didn’t know how to make them work in a poem.

So that’s how the duplexes were made. I quite literally took every line that I had ever written in a poem that didn’t work, or every line that wasn’t yet in a poem that was 9-11 syllables long, and I put them all in a file. I printed them out. I cut them up. And I started working with them as little slips of paper.

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Back to me:

When I first read that interview, I wanted to try that technique; I, too, am a poet with lots of lines in lots of poems that never came to fruition.  I love the idea of printing the lines, cutting them out, and arranging them to see how they speak to each other.  So far, I have never tried his approach, so this class seems like a great opportunity to do that.  I would also be happy to write a process paper to go along with the poem sequence to explain my approach and how I experienced the creative process.

I propose that I will create 15-25 duplexes, each line 9-12 syllables, each duplex 14 lines long.  In an ideal world, they would speak to each other and hold together as a small collection, a chapbook of poems.  But even if they don't work as a chapbook collection, the process of creating the series will be valuable.  Since the work of Jericho Brown features prominently in this course, this creative approach will give me an even greater appreciation for his work and what he has accomplished.

I am open to modifying this proposal, and I look forward to your input. 

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My teacher responded:

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I love this idea! But 15–25 duplexes is an ambition target. I would suggest 5 as it's a very complex and challenging form, and I will ask you to also write a theological reflection on the process of writing them. Let's touch base soon about details.

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I feel like the luckiest seminary student in the whole world!

The Yearnings of the Trees

As part of an online journaling group organized by Mepkin Abbey, I am rereading Thomas Merton's New Seeds of Contemplation.  Yesterday, I was struck by chapter 5, which begins with this sentence:  "A tree gives glory to God by being a tree" (p. 29 in my very old paperback edition that once belonged to my parents and originally cost $2.45).

Merton jumps off from that sentence to talk about humans and our false selves and our true self, about identity and how we figure out our identity.  This morning, Merton's italicized sentence jumped out at me:  "The seeds that are planted in my liberty at every moment, by God's will, are the seeds of my own identity, my own reality, my own happiness, my own sanctity" (italics Merton's, p. 33).

One of the benefits of this journaling group is that we all notice different elements of the text.  One of our group members talked about the image of God blowing the seeds of our identity; the gentleness of the image struck me.

Merton is an interesting writer in that he sometimes uses the charged language of sin, but in this case, he's talking about sin as never being in touch with our true selves, "to refuse the fullness of my existence" (p. 33).

But how do we do this?  Merton says, "Ultimately the only way I can be myself is to become identified with Him in Whom is hidden the reason and fulfillment of my existence" (pp. 35-36).  For those hoping that Merton will give the easy 3 step plan, that's not going to happen.  Merton says that it's not an easy task, that it's likely going to be a lifelong project.

Furthemore, in chapter 5, Merton says we can't do it on our own, that the only one who can help us find God is God.  It's the kind of round and round rhetoric that makes me want to hurl the book across the room, and I know that I am not alone in this.

But I return to the idea of that tree giving glory to God by being a tree.  We don't think of trees as longing to be anything other than a tree.  But that sentence made me think about the tree that wishes it could be something else, a different variety of tree perhaps, the pine tree wishing it could be a willow.  

I also thought of the tree longing to be something completely different, which may be closer to what Merton is thinking about, the tree that yearns to be a cloud or the ocean.  Do many of us long to be something so different from our true nature that we might be a tree wishing to be the ocean?  

It's an interesting way of thinking about our endless self-improvement projects.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, February 20, 2022:


First reading
Genesis 45:3-11, 15

Psalm
Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40

Second reading
1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50

Gospel
Luke 6:27-38


Turn the other cheek. Give up your clothes if asked. This Sunday we get to Luke's version of texts which have been so misunderstood through the centuries that it’s hard to remember what Jesus was really saying. Jesus was NOT saying to let your abuser batter you day in and day out. Jesus was not instructing us to let evil steamroll right over us. Jesus was not even calling us to pacifism, a stoic acceptance of brutality that will buy us a better condo in Heaven for enduring hell on earth.

No, these are resistance texts. Yes, resistance texts.

These are texts that show us how to resist evil in such a way that evil elements will not turn around and destroy us. Likewise, these are texts that show us how to resist evil in such a way that we don’t become the evil that we are resisting.

It’s important to remember that the culture of Jesus was a vastly different culture. It was a culture based on honor. It was a culture based on social hierarchy. It was also a culture ruled by Romans who were not going to tolerate social unrest, Romans who would not hesitate to slaughter dissenters.

Jesus shows us how to live in this world, how to resist evil without being destroyed by evil. If you want to read the best text on this idea, I recommend Walter Wink’s Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination. It is one of the best books of theology I’ve ever read, and I’ve read a lot of theology.

Let’s focus on the turning of the other cheek, since this passage is so well known. Notice that Jesus gives specific cheeks in specific order. That’s a detail lost on us, but it wouldn’t have been lost on the people who heard Jesus’ instructions. Walter Wink explains today's Gospel passage in great detail to show that Jesus doesn't advocate passivity but instead shows a way to maintain one's dignity in the face of overbearing oppression.

For those of you who would sneer at the idea of resistance working in our evil, evil world, I would say that nonviolent resistance can bring mighty social change.

Walter Wink, writing in 1993, notes, “In 1989 alone, there were thirteen nations that underwent non-violent revolutions. All of them successful except one, China. That year 1.7 billion people were engaged in national non-violent revolutions. That is a third of humanity. If you throw in all of the other non-violent revolutions in all the other nations in this century [the 20th], you get the astonishing figure of 3.34 billion people involved in non-violent revolutions. That is two-thirds of the human race. No one can ever again say that non-violence doesn't work. It has been working like crazy. It is time the Christian churches got involved in this revolution because what is happening in the world is that the world itself is discovering the truth of Jesus' teaching, and here we come in the church, bringing up the rear.” And of course, more lately we can point to a variety of revolutions which have fairly peacefully gotten rid of dictators who had been in power for decades.

Maybe we are not up for the task of resistance, which can be scary and can lead us to unexpected places. At the very least, we can pray. We can pray for those people who are doing the heavy lifting of resistance. We can pray for those who are transforming their societies for good, whether they live in our country or on the other side of the planet. We can pray for the softening of the hearts of the hard ones. We can pray that we have the wisdom to recognize evil when we see it. We can pray that we have the courage to resist evil in whatever forms it comes to us.