The Yellow Brick Road

I'm packed up and ready to go. Follow my lame@$$ adventures here. God bless.

Constantly

Well, I went with John to the movie Constantine last night. The Hook, one of the local free tabloid weeklies, said this, "Constantine...is either a great bad movie or a terrible good movie." I would tend to agree. As a two-hour blend of action, occult mysticism, and Keanu Reeves acting like a troubled pretty boy, it worked very well as a Hollywood action film. I was actually impressed that it avoided the gnostic dualism that pervaded the Matrix movies. In fact, and by saying the following I am giving away the ending, the movie finally embraces a vaguely orthodox worldview.
I had a discussion with my brother about politics. (By the way, if you followed the previous link, you may be under the impression that my brother lives in San Francisco and owns an art gallery. Let me assure you that he lives in Chicago with my parents and works as a church musician by day and one @$$kicking security guard by night. His name just happens to be the same. Although, by introducing him in such a manner, I have just made his life compelling enough to be a graphic novel, don't you think?)
Anyways, the first sentence of the previous paragraph was written merely so that I could write the rest of the paragraph. It was perfectly redundant, because every time my brother and I speak we discuss politics. However, I once suggested to him that if I were a politician here in the God-blessed U.S. of A. I would employ the language of Micah 6:8, and talk about doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with one's God. When asked the definitions of mercy and justice, I suggested that justice is getting what one deserves, and mercy is getting what one does not deserve. Thus a paradox is suggested. When my earnestly enquiring brother asked me in what practical policies this would result, I replied, as one dejected by the re-election of the Great Hypocrite, that since I would be a politician I would do whatever I wanted because I would be a liar.
Although this piece of brutal honesty did not do much to smooth over the fraternal bonds strained by the unmitigated debacle of Republican control over our government and now, apparently, attempted control over our very life and death, it does point out an important paradox of the Christian religion. (By the way, when something doesn't make sense, it's a paradox if you like it and a contradiction if you don't.)
Anyways, this paradox is the fundamental conflict of the movie I started this blog discussing. Also, this is a fundamental paradox of human society. This is an extremely important question, and I would suggest that both major parties seem to have a problem addressing it. The Democrats (since I am one, I will pick the plank out of my own eye first), have the problem of confusing mercy with justice, and suggesting that the just thing to do is to dispense mercy. While this could masquerade like a healthy respect for mercy, it ends up perverting the concept, because we then cannot see it as it truly is, a gift given freely either by God to us, or from one person to another.
The Republicans (now for the speck, which I am quite convinced is a plank) have the opposite problem, they hypocritically cloak themselves with the mantle of doers of justice, while acting quite unjustly themselves--remember the "Law & Order" president (and no, for all those who don't remember the 70s, I am not talking about Sam Waterston). Also, they will falsely cloak themselves with the mantle of Judeo-Christian religion, and while advocating for an unjust justice, will completely ignore the concept of mercy.
However, the problem with the movie Constantine and often with Christians, is that they see our present existence as defined by neo-platonic or gnostic dualism. Therefore, they see our flesh as sinful and lowly, and are therefore obsessed by issues of sexuality and death. It seems that nothing but a snuff film would satisfy their prurient interests.
Someone once said, and it has been repeated numerous times--and I paraphrase--it is easy to die for a cause, but extremely difficult to live for one. The conservatives frame the problems of our society as a matter of extinction--the end of the things they don't like. Conservatives ruminated hopefully many times about the complete destruction of the Democratic party. They would like all gay people to either keel over and die, or all convert to joyless heterosexuals. They want any vaguely socialist solutions to societal problems to shrivel up and die. Most hypocritically, they would like all death to stop in the here and now. They would like all abortions to cease for hence forth and forever. They would like no one to stop being artificially kept alive by machines, and they definitely would not like to see people choosing euthanasia. In fact, they don't like people dying so much, they want people who reputedly cause death to all die, abortion doctors, folks on death row, etc...
These are the same folks that suggest our world will never be perfect, but would like certain aspects of it to reflect the perfection they claim can never come until Jesus' return (when he blows up all the Muslims, tears down the Dome on the Rock, and we can all finally become kosher again.) This does not reflect thoughtful obedience to religious tradition, nor rational imperical thought in the best of the Western traditions.
The fact of the matter is, we live in a world that demands both justice and mercy, and we have to learn how to live with facts we don't like. For instance, nuclear proliferation is not going to stop anytime in the near future as long as people are curious and power-hungry. The key is for us to either work together as a species imperfectly or at least avoid pissing each other off badly enough for us to destroy each other in a nuclear holocaust.
Life is complicated and confusing, it does not provide any certainty before we die, and the best we can hope for is that the power of mercy is just a little stronger than the power of justice. I swear this entry was about the movie Constantine.
Peace.

The Umbilical Cord of Idiocy or Why Republicans Hate America

Okay, so Nevsky had a great post about this whole Schiavo misadventure. (By the way, to follow up from my last post--No,"John" did not come to get me, but he has been spotted by members of this household driving around with his estranged wife.)
Anyways, back to the Schiavo disaster. The following are reasons why anyone who disagrees with me on this matter is an asshole.
>Decisions about life and death are, by their very nature, religious, or at very least a matter of personal conscience, and any government dictate is going to get it wrong at least some of the time. This is why our government previously established much freedom for the individual citizens to decide when life begins and ends. This is a principle embodied in the first amendment in terms of the separation of church and state.
>If the Schiavo family is really Christian, then they would be looking forward to Schiavo's reunification with Christ, and the removal of an unnatural feeding tube would provide a natural death and allow her to return to her maker in peace.
>Michael Schiavo has pursued this matter in good faith through the court system, which has almost unanimously agreed with him.
>Almost all medical professionals in this country agree with his opinion that his wife will never recover.
>If the Republicans desperately want to keep government out of corporate boardrooms, why is it so necessary to put it into our homes and consciences?
>The separation of powers in the constitution was clearly designed to keep one branch of government from being excessively controlling over another branch.
>The idea of judicial review has proved successful for the last two centuries in protecting our civil liberties and privacy from an intrusive federal government.
>The constitution clearly states that all powers not delegated by the constitution to the Federal government are reserved for the States and the people (Amendment X). Now, Republicans claim to be strict constructionists, so why are they being such deconstructionists on this issue?
>We are all going to die. The Republicans are merely delaying the inevitable.
>I do not have the right to impose my religious beliefs on others, however, the Congress seems quite capable of drafting legislation to impose a vaguely materialistic and legalistic Judeo-Christian view of life and death not shared by all Judeo-Christians on the entire country.
>Let this woman die in peace.
>What is to keep the Federal government from declaring Thursday to be "Put Matthew J. Lind through the Spanking Machine Day," if there is no such thing as Judicial Review?
>Why is this an issue? Why can't this man make these rational decisions for his moribund wife?
>I hope that every Congressperson who voted for this excrable piece of legislation suddenly gets stricken by a debilitating terminal disease, and their families are forced to watch them rot away slowly. Then, when their families move to have these honorable members of society die with dignity, the Federal government moves in to keep them alive and with the smallest amount of morphine possible
>I am glad that we are so smart, because otherwise God might be able to decide when we are born and when we die. But now, with in vitro fertilization and feeding tubes, we can make God irrelevant, whoops, I mean very, very important.
>Remember when Republicans mentioned God several thousand times in their speeches? They really meant Mammon, the God of materialism and a faithless clinging to physical existence because, actually, there is no God but Mammon and Epicureus was his prophet. According to Tom DeLay, this is the fundamental teaching of Christ about our human existence.
>We should cower in fear of physical death, because Jesus died for our sins and set us free from the bondage of the grave.
>If God wanted us to die with dignity, he wouldn't have invented feeding tubes.
>I am so mad I can't see straight.
The end.

I hate Illinois Nazis

I'm very shook up tonight. I called 911 for the first time in my life. I heard screaming and shouting next door, and I went downstairs and peaked my head out the door, and saw my neighbor, let's call her "Jenny", running across the street. She was shouting, "He's threatening me with a gun, call the police." I ran back inside and dialed 911, and the officers came promptly. I have called the police several times on my neighbors, because the day after we closed on the house, Jenny was taken to the hospital after having been beaten within an inch of her life. However, I never called 911 before.
This was also the first time that "John" was home when the police arrived. The police chief himself, came down and took John for a ride to talk to him. I actually recognized the policemen who came, one of the benefits of living in a small town, and they talked to me for a few minutes afterwards just to make sure I was okay and not in any danger. They assured me that he is not going to be coming around again any time soon, but I don't know if that means he has violated a restraining order, or if they just think that the police chief is extremely persuasive.
Anyways, after that, Jaimee called to tell me that a family friend in Boston is having a severly troubled pregnancy, and has to have a c-section to save her own life at 6 months. This means that the baby will quite likely not survive. So, we exchanged prayer requests. I decided to light the candle to la Virgen de Gaudalupe, because I am partly Mexican in my head. That, and I'm hypercredulous. Anyways, I didn't actually pray to la Virgen, but I did do some serious praying.
I would appreciate any and all prayer support on this one.
Anyways, I do have a little self-righteousness I need to confess. In a previous post, I suggested that Illinois Nazis were responsible for the death of Federal Judge Lefkow's family. However, it seems likely that he was just another peon, who lost a civil suit and went nuts. This does not change that fact that Illinois Nazis stink.
Anyways, I ranted to Janna the other night, about the self-righteous smugness of FOX News et al., who pointed as an example of liberal media bias, the lack of coverage on the slaying of the Armanious family of Jersey City. Their pet theory was that the Armanious family had been slain by Muslim terrorists for being Christians (Coptic ones, no less). However, it turns out that they were killed by their crazy non-Muslim tenants for living in Jersey City. I'll let the conservative media speak for themselves.
The point is, the world is full of hatred, violence, pain, and grief. However, when we try and look at it through an ideological prism, we usually only see refracted light. The truth is, we are never safe from danger, and that those who would put an end to terror or suffering on Earth, be they liberal or conservative, are on a fool's mission. However, we are commanded to keep trying, "casting our bread upon the waters" and waiting for it to come back to us. I just hope my neighbor "John" doesn't come back tonight.
"For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known." 1 Corinthians 13:12

Matt's Northeastern Magical Mystery Tour

I am attempting to make a freeloading visit north and east during my spring break. If you are or know a person with a big heart and a bed for 1 night in one of those aforementioned blue states, please let me come stay. Peter Bratt, check out the revised itinerary. Would that work for you?
I am trying to stay with some folks who are a little right of center, so the Magical Mystery Website is politics-free, just like the seminary near where I grew up was a "nuclear-free zone."

Conservative Moral Relativity

Just a reminder--Let's raise the Minimum Wage!
Now onto foreign relations. The crisis with Syria demonstrates the true hypocrisy of conservatives. I would like to point out that many conservatives complain of liberal moral relativity, and then engage in it themselves. The whole "Jeff Gannon" controversy is another perfect example. FOX News defends the White House allowing a male prostitute to masquerade as a correspondent, and in the same breath condemns liberal moral relativity, while Rupert Murdoch makes millions by selling us smut on regular (or classic) FOX. Then we have Ari Fleischer's lame excuse, that he believed the name "GOPnews.com" was just a marketing device. In fact, this whole interview with Terry Gross is full of lame excuses for bad behavior and even more lame criticism of the "liberal media." Just go to www.mediamatters.org to see how transparent all of this is.
Anyways, back to Syria, which invaded Lebanon to prevent Israeli "terrorism" and an actual incursion into their territory. They have brought a certain amount of stability to a country which Ariel Sharon is actually almost single-handedly responsible for destabilizing. Now George W. talks about bringing democracy to Lebanon, which has actually had democracy for the past few decades, just under the heavy influence of Assad. In fact, is this not what we want to happen in Iraq. Don't we want the Iraqis to have a democracy in which they vote for pro-American candidates, and invite our troops to stay for the next three decades?
Criticizing the abuses of Syria's secret service may be fair, but it is pretty darn self-righteous in face of our own widespread prisoner abuse problem. Also, outsourcing torture is morally equivalent to doing it ourselves. I don't think Nike would ever claim that the shoes made on their behalf in Southeast Asian sweatshops are not Nike shoes.
In fact, the whole idea that somehow, Western culture is more able to handle nuclear technology than brownskinned people with funny accents is a little disturbing. Also, the idea that democracy brings stability is ridiculous. There are plenty of countries that have had elections with little peace to show for it. If democracy is the answer, then why don't we open up Pakistan to immediate elections, and watch what happens when the Islamist parties get control of a nuclear bomb. The fact of the matter is, sometimes other countries have less or more control over their society, and sometimes democracy makes things worse rather than better.
The problem with neo-conservatives is the assumption that America is right all the time, and that our point of view should be forced onto other countries with radically different histories and different values. "My country, right or wrong," has now become, "my country is never wrong."
Now, I do have to give Bush some credit, especially for the limited elections in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, but we have threatened neither of these countries with invasion. So why couldn't we have used diplomatic pressure to spread democracy in our allies, and not claim that invading a country and occupying it spreads democracy when we do it, but hinders democracy when other people do it, even if that country had something of a democracy.
Or for instance, let's take conservative hand-wringing over Rwanda. Sure, that was bad, and Clinton should've done something about it. However, I did not see a groundswell of support in the Republican-controlled congress to send in the marines. Now that we are faced with another crisis in the Sudan, our invasion of Iraq has made it virtually impossible for us to have any moral high ground from which to authorize the sending of troops.
In fact, the Bush doctrine, although it may have had limited success in spreading democracy in the Middle East, has failed in its major premise--that the United States, by ourselves, can invade autocratic countries around the world and build stable democracies there. Even if Iraq becomes a stable democracy, the sheer moentary cost of the war is going to make any Republican balk in the future. The sheer cost in lost and damaged human lives should make anyone balk, especially the tremendous number of Iraqi lives lost.
Finally, if George W. Bush was so happy for Yushenko to get a recount in the Ukraine, why did he fight so vociferously against one in Florida?
Raise the Minimum Wage!

A National Tithe

First, in keeping with my new-found mission from God--support the Minimum Wage. Go to www.democrats.org, or www.MoveOn.org, and tell them that it is time to fight to raise the Federal Minimum Wage.
Now, onto more obtuse and less realistic goals. President Bush once believed in Faith Based Iniatives. I had an idea while I was reading the latest issue of TIME, which was a discussion on poverty, which was written by Jeffery Sachs, an economist for the UN's Millenium Development Goals. He made some very good, specific points about how to eliminate extreme poverty worldwide. However, his main point is that we as a nation need to honor our responsibility to the rest of the world monetarily.
Well, here is a website that tells you all about faith-based ideas of tithing, but every world religion encourages giving to those less fortunate. Now, here's my suggestion, since Republicans like to talk about our "Judeo-Christian" heritage, how about this. We commit as a nation to a national 10% tithe of GNP. Now, if Republicans don't like the idea of making laws straight out of the Old Testament, then they have to give up all efforts to criminalize gay marriage.
Now, here's how this would work, because we all know how much Republicans like to make solutions in the private sector. We would add up all the itemized tax-deductible contributions for the previous year. Then we would subtract that from the 10% of recorded GNP. We would then make up the difference in additional taxes, possibly in a nod to our Muslim brethren, a 2.5% tax on personal assets. We could use all this money collected for any humanitarian purpose. We could use it to pay for the Department of Education, Medicare, etc... However, we should set aside at least 10% of the money collected to go to world development.
This way, we encourage giving to private charities--which Republicans suggest is the true answer to society's ills--because the penalty tax amount would decrease as private giving increased. Now, I'm willing to compromise on the numbers here, because unlike some suggest about other issues in the Bible, we don't have to take these numbers literally. In fact, I wonder how many folks who think that the Earth was created in 7 days, or that homosexuality is abomination unto God actually give 10% of their income. Let's put our money where our big fat mouths are.
Oh yeah, let's fight for an increase in the Minimum Wage.

The Minimum Wage

Here's how I see it. This is our chance. Whatever Democrat who thought this up--is a genius. This is our issue--the minimum wage. We need to fight for an increase to the miminum wage. Sure we can phase it in over a few years--but it needs to be done. In fact, we should fight to peg the minimum wage to the hourly wage of a worker making half the national average household income. In fact, I'd even settle for half the national average per capita income.
Here's why this is great. It's simple, it's a matter of more money for more people. You can either be for it or against. It benefits the most vulnerable members of society, whom the world religions teach us, deserve special respect.
The other reason this is great, is that it is a positive platform. No longer are the Democrats fighting against "reforms" but rather for a real reform. This will be real assistance to those on "workfare" and those in rural, small-town America.
This is what I'm going to try and do. Everytime somebody mentions Social Security, I'm going to ask for their support on raising the minimum wage. Everytime a conservative on a blab show opens their uninformed mouth, a Democrat should talk about raising the minimum wage. If the Republicans go "nucular" in the Senate and force a filibuster--the Democratic Senators should get up and talk about raising the minimum wage for the next few weeks. We should truck in poor people from all over the USA, and have them march in front of some television cameras with signs that say, "Raise the Minimum Wage."
For some more information about minimum wage. Check out this excellent NPR story today. Here are some basic talking points.
>Historically, minimum wage was usually set at half of the national average per capita income
>Currently it is about 1/3 the national average per capital income.
>The minimum wage has the lowest actual buying power it has ever had in about the last 50 years.
>A person living on minimum wage now is dependent on government services in order to make ends meet on a daily basis, services which will very soon be insolvent--Medicare, Medicaid, etc...
>People subsisting on such a low minimum wage drive up the costs of our everyday lives, by being more likely to go bankrupt, more likely to not have medical or other insurance, etc...
>Providing good jobs fights crime; remember the 90s?
>Small businesses are hurt more by unfair competition from mafiosi like Sam Walton--who could afford to pay their workers more--than by paying their own workers a fair wage.
This is my new issue. So, if you come up in this hizzle trying to "reform" something like Social Security, prepare to hear more about this from me. As those who care about social justice, we need to fight for this and not shut up about it until it happens. When it does happen, we need to be jerks and point out how the Republicans fought against every step of the way. Then we can point out that they actually voted against it before they voted for it.
Fight for truth, justice, and a decent wage.

The New Sodom

So Janna and I were talking today about the meaning of two bible stories, in which the men of the town ask permission to rape a newcomer. The first one, of course is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, in Genesis 19. The second, lesser known, but even more difficult reading is Judges 19. Now, both of these passages have the same setup. There are strangers in town, in the Sodom and Gomorrah story, these strangers are clearly angels, especially since this comes on the heels of the Genesis 18 story of the visit of the Angels to Abraham and Sarah. These strangers are going to have to stay in the public square, but a local, knowing the propensities of the other locals, demands they stay in his house. Of course, in the Sodom and Gomorrah story, this is Lot.
Well, then the local men come, and demand to rape the strangers. Now, anyone who thinks this story is referring to consensual homosexual sex is not reading the same Bible I am. There is no possibility of consent or desire for it. These stories are all about the utter mistreatment of total strangers by a group of materialistic citizens. This point is hammered home, in the fact that in both stories the kindly old man offers up his virgin daughter(s) to the crowd. In the Judges story, the visiting priest offers up his unfaithful concubine, who by definition is his own private sexual slave. In both of these stories, we see that the "property" of the hosts (because in this era women were considered property of their owners, fathers or husbands) is considered to be a fair offering to the angry mob.
The point is not that these men are homosexuals, but that they are inhospitable. One of the greatest sins of the ancient world was a lack of hospitality. It is clear in Genesis 18 that Abraham's warm reception of the angels is part of the reason he is so richly blessed by God. This is the interpretation of the writer of Hebrews, in chapter 13, verse 1-3.
In fact, for the Greeks, this issue was of such import, that Zeus, the chief god, was known as Zeus Xenios, or the the protector of hospitality. The story of Baucis and Philemon parallels these stories in many ways, and, as a moral, suggests that the lowest among us could be gods or spiritual beings testing our hospitality. (This was why Paul and Barnabas were treated as Zeus and Hermes in Lystra in Acts 14.) This is also good Christian doctrine, taught by Jesus himself in Matthew 25.
Well, the townspeople in these stories end up in very different circumstances. In the Genesis story, the angels act as a deus ex machina and carry Lot's family safely through the crowd. The "Sodomites" are destroyed by fire and brimstone, which I read in the book Ancient Mysteries, some researchers have decent evidence may have been an actual meteor shower.
However, in the Judges story, the concubine is handed over to the mob, only to be raped to death, and then have her body chopped into 12 bits by her former priestly master in his grief, and sent to all the tribes of Israel. The point of the book of Judges is summed up in it's final verse, "In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit."
Based on these stories and that verse, I believe that the economic conservatives are the true sodomites of today's society, and not those who have made a lifetime commitment to love and cherish another human being. This may seem somewhat of a jump, but consider it for a second. What was the sin of the Sodomites? Surely Jewish ritual law condemned homosexual sex, just as it condemned eating calamari in the same terms. However, these Sodomites were not Jews, so they did not have a covenant with Yahweh, and therefore, were not obligated to the terms of this contract. It was their treatment of the weakest members of and the rampant materialism in their society that brought judgement upon them. Don't take my word for it, this is what Jesus says in Luke 17, "“It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all." Notice, no mention of homosexuality.
The Sodomites were destroyed as a group, because none of their people had the courage to stand up against the abuse of the weakest members of an ancient city, the non-native resident. Today, in our world, the equivalent would be, the homeless, the illegal immigrant, the Arab population, etc... There is so much talk in the Bible about how it is completely inacceptable to hoard or be too desirous of wealth. This is exactly what the Bush administration wants to do. It wants to allow people to "keep" more of "their" money. It also wants to reduce our public commitment as a society to the weaker members of our society.
Well, I saw Armageddon, and apparently, the next time a potentially destructive extraterrestrial object comes our way, Bruce Willis has found a way to destroy it and to achieve tax "reform" for the oil industry. However, I would suggest that what happened to Babel is a more applicable fate. We will become so convinced of our God-like wisdom, that our divisions will keep us from accomplishing our shared goals.
Or possibly it is the ending of the second story that is the most likely for us. Let's say that the concubine is Social Security. Let's say that those who would bow to market forces are the townspeople. After these types have ravaged the concubine, her master will chop her into little lifeless, bloody bits. These folks will justify their actions on the basis of freedom. I could make the same analogy to the environment, the people of Iraq, our nation's school system, et cetera ad nauseam. They would suggest that free markets always find the best solutions, and in "those days [America] had no [federal government]; everyone did as he saw fit."

I used Microsoft Paint. 

Where I've been

Thanks, CmdrSue, this was really fun, especially because I'm a giant geography nerd...
Bold the states you've been to, underline the states you've lived in and italicize the state you're in now...
Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C /
Go HERE to have a form generate the HTML for you.
Check out my new links. 6thdoctor is Nevsky's brother, I met him this weekend at Ann's house, and he is just as hilarious in person.

What I learned on my summer vacation

As I look forward to the next week with exams, I have given myself a prodigious workload. I have about four quizzes to grade, two exams to write, and a 3rd trimester work packet to put together. Of course, all these things somehow seem to get done, grades won't be due until the first weekend of second trimester, and I'll try and get my life together.
I read an interesting article on Slate about Mrs. Stewart of Living fame, and the lessons she took away from prison. It was an interesting article, and as one who was glad to see an incredibly rich person go to prison for the white-collar crime which costs our society so much, I found myself strangely unmoved by the author's wringing of hands about Mrs. Stewart's unteachability.
I am quite sure that going to prison has changed Martha's outlook on life. I don't know how, but the lessons she learned are her lessons. As a teacher, I have the privilege of teaching or not teaching what I want to my students. However, as a human being, I am only able to learn the lessons that others or the divinity choose to teach me. As a person of faith, I trust that the lessons we are given are sent to us in due course, and we either absorb them or ignore them.
That is why I am praying for these people to be struck by lightning, destroyed by hail and brimstone, get leprosy, or be swallowed by the earth. Check out their definition of "Love Thy Neighbor." That's totally what they would want me to wish for them, because they believe, that if someone is doing wrong, the loving thing to do is to erect a monument commemorating his descent into the infernal regions on the site of his death. Who needs enemies, when you have these kind of Christian brothers or sisters?

Fear and Loathing in Middle School

Things I'm sick of hearing from my students...
"I couldn't do it because it was too hard."
"I couldn't do it because my printer/computer/mouse/keyboard/disk/etc... was broken."
"I couldn't do it because it didn't make sense."
"I couldn't do it because I left my book at school."
"I couldn't do it because I don't understand Latin."
"I couldn't do it because I was on vacation."
"What was I doing?"
"What's wrong with saying...?"
"Mr. Lind, whoa, there was this one time, when, seriously, this will just take 15 seconds, so like this one time..."
"I was just playing."
But, really, God love 'em all. There's no birth control like teaching. I do honestly enjoy what I do, but sometimes, just sometimes, I wish I could say, "Move a little to the left," and press a button in my classroom that would open up a trapdoor to the bottomless abyss, like Montgomery Burns has.
But most of the time, my job is rapturous bliss. I saw this teacher on a PBS show while I was home during the snow day. He was talking about how rewarding and wonderful teaching is and how all of his students were so precious. I would say that 90% of my students are blessings to me everyday. However, I would say that the other 90% have given me cause for frustration everyday as well.
How can someone honestly talk about how wonderful other humans are? Did they suddenly fall through several dimensions into the Twilight Zone? People are by nature selfish, rude, arrogant, opinionated, and misinformed, and I myself fall very hard into all of these categories. As a Christian, I believe it is a privilege to serve others and live selflessly. However, I and all my fellow human beings fail at this daily. Then think about children, who have not yet internalized what it means to be selfless, and who simply need more attention and concern than adults. Realize that I spend my day working with these folks.
The sad part is, though, as we get older, we get more self-righteous. Most kids I have dealt with don't really believe that they are more important, more intelligent, or more correct than most adults. However, we grown-ups can be obsessed with the battle over who has a monopoly on truth, justice, and intelligence.

Gay Marriage

I recently sent out to many of my friends a link to the Friends of Norm website. This was a suggested visit from Andrew Hoogheem, and I genuinely felt moved by the story. Even if you have an issue with gay marriage, if you are a pastor, and your daughter is getting married with or without your participation, I would hope that you would choose to participate.
So, my friend Aubrey was a mite taken aback with this story, and asked me about my views of gay marriage, most notably, had I always supported it. Well, the truth of the matter is, I never really thought about it until recent news events came to the fore.
I do know that when I was a very young man, I remember asking my mother if two men could marry each other, or two women. Having asked this at the age of nine, I came to the conclusion that if homosexuality was truly "unnatural" then a nine-year old child should have known that. I also had to go through much soul-searching about my sexual identity, but by the age of 16, after a thorough literature review, I realized that the male underwear models in the K-mart ads couldn't hold a candle to the brassiere section.
Anyways, I believe there are many social arguments for gay marriage, and there are other far more competent social scientists available to discuss these in other arenas. However, seeing as I am a board-licensed theologian, I will now tackle the difficult issue of Christianity and homosexuality, more specifically gay marriage.
The first thing I would like to say, is, although I believe, as a Christian, that the Bible is the highest word in the realm of theology, that the Bible itself makes no claim to being the only or possibly the final word on the nature of God. There is an admonition, at the end of the Book of Revelations, not to add or remove any words from that specific book. However, this book was placed at the end of the Bible by the early church fathers, somewhat arbitrarily, and this admonition obviously only applies to the Book of Revelations itself.
Also, there are many admonitions in various books to avoid false teachings, however, the early church defined its core doctrine in the following creeds, none of which make reference to homosexuality specifically. Nor do any major Christian denominations define this as a salvific, or creed-worthy issue.
Also, the only time the Bible refers to its own authority, is in II Timothy 3:16. In my mind this verse is more problematic than anything, because the Greek word, graphe, merely refers to any writing in general.
The point being, as Christians, we need more than just scripture to interpret God's will, we can also use the Church, in which some with spiritual authority are already endorsing gay marriage, the Holy Spirit, which is moving some in the church to embrace gay marriage, and our own reason, by which, through science, we have now discovered that homosexuality is quite natural and not deviant at all. However, back to the Bible.
One of the conspicuous things about all of Jesus' collected sayings is that he never mentions homosexuality. He does take some time to condemn divorce, and very gently condemns promiscuity, but not homosexuality. Gay marriage, in an ideal world, discourages both of these things.
Also, homosexuality in the world of the New Testament was always, by nature, extra-marital. In fact, the nature of marriage as a system by which property can be passed from generation to generation is not even biblical itself, but was rather invented by the ancient Greeks and Romans, who were quite tolerant of extra-marital sex, as long as "bastards" did not make any claim to property rights. In the Old Testament, the patriarchs and kings of Israel live much as many Muslims and Mormons do now, marrying as many females as their little heart desired. In fact, it was the cultural practices of the Greeks and the Romans which redefined marriage as to be a contract between and limited to two people. Nowhere in the Old Testament is this definition of marriage to be found.
Therefore, homosexuality in the Greco-Roman world must have been by definition only extra-marital, because a homosexual relationship did not allow for the transfer of property to the next generation, and therefore, when it is condemned in the New Testament, the actual verbiage used specifically refers to men having extramarital affairs with men. The only place where the New Testament is not specifically referring to extra-marital homosexuality is Romans 1, and in this chapter, I believe, the homosexuality referred to is merely a symptom of the materialism embraced by a certain unnamed group of people and not the root of the problem. If this verse were taken to its logical conclusion, W. and Cheney (ol' Bush and Dick, the winning team) would be knocking boots and spreading butt herpes to Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, et al.
Hence, we need to travel to Acts 15, The Council of Jerusalem. The problem the first church council was trying to address, was the conversion of non-Jews to Christianity. Of course, at this stage in history, this oftentimes meant that a man was going to have to leave part of his John Thomas behind in order to follow the way. Also, there were all sorts of kosher rules which they would now have to live with, which would have been completely unacceptable to most Greeks or Romans. Thus a principle this Council decided on, is that the specific moral regulations of Judaism could be adapted based on the predominant culture.
The Council, however, decided that there were 4 things that were worth preserving about the Jewish heritage.
1. Not eating meat offered to idols.
2. Not engaging in "sexual immorality."
3. Not eating strangled animals.
4. Not eating blood.
Well, the first one was already thrown out the window by Paul in I Corinthians. We'll skip the second for a moment, the third and fourth requirements (some would say these are one in the same) were quickly discarded by the early church, the blood requirement being forgotten in the evangelization of the heathen Anglo-Saxons, who loved to eat blood pies.
The point is, God can speak to us through culture as much as he does through scripture. Also, based on our culture, we can adjust our attitude towards scripture and its prescriptions and proscriptions. Our very idea of monogamy is not a biblical concept. Also, our idea of marrying the person you are in love with is unbiblical. Marriage, up until recent decades, was about property, class, and family. Would anyone like to stand up and say that a heterosexual marrying for love is immoral?
Paul is very clear on this point in Galatians, when he states unequivocally that morality is not about legalism, but about our hearts. There are many examples of the Israelites adopting the cultural practices of their neighbors, from the very text of some of the Psalms to the story of Jethro, the great lawgiver Moses' father-in-law, who, although not a Jew, gave Moses some very practical advice in the organization of Hebrew society, which he then followed.
Therefore, we return to the beginning of the argument, if two loving people want to commit themselves to an exclusive sexual relationship, and not spread around STDs, which Paul cryptically suggests as the punishment for those homosexuals in Romans 1, then I think we ought to let them. If someone is seriously so bothered by this that they are driven to distraction, I would suggest that they channel that energy into not lying, cheating, defrauding their neighbor, abusing the poor and the widows, and lording their authority over others.
That is enough of a challenge for me, that I am going to stop wagging my fingers, sign out, and see if I can't start on number 1.
God bless those pagans.

"Western" Civilization

The Good:
Today, those who think that killing people that kill people is the way to keep people from killing people suffered a small setback. See my friends at NPR for the details.
The Bad:
Did you have to read 1984 in high school literature class. Well, I didn't, but I was a fan of mid-20th century distopian fiction, so I have no excuse for not finishing the book. Anyways, in it, I remember that there was the bad guy that they had to hate for about 15 minutes everyday, Emmanuel Goldstein. Well, apparently, he's in Iraq, and his name's Zarqawi.
The Ugly:
For everyone that says racism is dead and that there are no more crypto-racists any more, or that judges are tyrants with unchecked powers who don't care about justice, read this story.