The true meaning of Christmas (cookies)

As soon as I gave the cookie away, I regretted it. “I don’t need money, but please give food,” read the man’s sign, conveniently matching the lack of cash and presence of a wrapped baked good in my pocket. I handed it off and took a moment of self-congratulation at my benevolence. It was soon replaced with an obsession that grew with each step away from that cookie.  Where could I get another one? What kind of grocery store carried that kind of cookie and would be open late on Christmas Eve? And the most embarrassing thought: Maybe he’d give it back?

the one that got away

Twenty-four hours earlier I hadn’t even known that soft spice cookies with chunks of crystallized ginger existed. But it had been handed to me, free, for answering the coffee shop trivia about what all snowflakes have structurally in common (six sides). It hung out in my pocket for a day, waiting for a moment when low blood sugar coincided with deciding I’d earned the reward. Without noticing, I’d developed a vivid conviction about how satisfying that cookie would be.

My friends and I had just finished dinner and a movie, in the vein of rewriting Christmas traditions for adulthood, when I spotted the man with the refreshing sign.  Logically, it made sense to give the thing away – my stomach was full with meal and movie popcorn; it would be hours before I should let myself eat again. I could practically feel myself getting fat. And here was a man who may have swallowed nothing recently, other than his pride. Objectively, giving the cookie away was the right thing to do.

But it all came so fast. Walking briskly, talking with my friends, there were only seconds to act before the man with the humble sign would be in the past, a point of Christmas regret. I hadn’t time to say my goodbyes, to accept full responsibility for what it meant to part with the cookie. Yet it was gone. My brain reminded me it was owed a jolt of sugar. My salivary glands scoffed at the insufficiently gingery selections on the menus I passed on the way back to my car.

An opportunity to practice acceptance of the loss inherent in life, I reminded myself. If I can get over this cookie, then maybe I’ll be ready for dating. Didn’t I hear that sacrifice and loss come with a relationship? Grandiose aspirations. At the next late-night grocery, I was buying some Tate’s White Chocolate Macadamias, closest thing I could find to the one that got away.

O heart, be thou not fickle. How does such a brief encounter make such a lasting impression? Was this love, or something more of a base, animal nature? During the movie, my hand kept returning to the cookie in my pocket, seeking that reassurance she was still there, that there might be the possibility of a more intimate encounter later that night. I did have a thing growing up for sampling the cookies put out for Santa. Perhaps my panic echoed Christmas traditions long dead?

Or was my cookie-love more related to the strangely dystopian advertising jingle playing when I’d entered the AMC theater – “If you’re feeling scared, go get a snack / If you’re feeling bored, have a snack….” It was Christmas, a time not without its heartstring puppetry. Many a lover in the past helped me both avoid and relive the disappointment of the holidays. Had I simply switched out partner for pastry, like so many obese Americans before me?

How long do we wait at dark buildings
 before realizing no one will show up?

The Tate’s rode next to me to church, unopened, as a testament to my virtue and restraint. I have to admit I was relieved to find the church dark as I arrived half an hour early. It’s been years since I had a regular church home, and this would be a new experiment, one that had called to me from the online newspaper listings of Christmas Eve services. Rather than feel pulled to go in early and socialize, the dark building gave me time to do what I most felt like – to start writing down the thoughts revolving around the cookie affair. In a strange twist, the only blank paper in my car was the disposable cup from that café where the cookie was obtained, and the first paragraphs of this essay literally circle around it.

Google, the overeager gift-giver

Ten-thirty came and went with the church still dark, and I checked the church service listing on my phone again. The top date on the page indeed said December 24, 2014. Then I noticed a second date below –from 1997.  Like an off-base gift from someone you didn’t get anything for, the published Christmas service listing I’d followed had been an ancient archive unearthed by an overeager Google. I was tracing a Christmas route that would have worked 17 years ago, but was clearly not appropriate tonight. Did I even want to be in church, with the confusion of a familiar story rehashed by strangers? A foggy mixture of duty and opportunity had guided my Christmas intuition back when I was 21, and it had shown up again in persisting toward a church service when what I most wanted at the moment was to write. It’s so easy, when searching for something in the present, to trip over the past.

How much of a Christmas answers the needs of today, rather than reverberating the echoes of the past? If we keep traditions alive, do they make room for the present, for realities and people with us now? Or do traditions rigidly aim to please those long dead – who perhaps never loved us as much as rituals seemed to promise? I saw this year that in less than 24 hours I can invest a piece of cooked dough in my pocket with all the fantasy and expectation I used to lay on imperfect loved ones. I dreamt about partaking, but avoided taking a bite. Like cookie, like family – on some level I knew it never could satisfy me completely, but that doesn’t make it any easier letting go.

I hope that cookie helped, and the man got more of what he needed this Christmas. How much similar unresolved internal conflict keeps us from sharing with the many homeless people who obviously have more pressing problems? If it weren’t for a man with a unique sign, I might still be holding onto my chewy symbol of the past. If we pattern our holidays based on 17-year-old information, sometimes they lead us to dark, abandoned places. There can be a freedom in letting go of traditions – and sometimes, a cookie is just a cookie. (I enjoyed half the Tate’s while writing this).

Christmases past have been stressful affairs about finding the “right” gifts for others, banking on a certain recognition for my efforts, and demanding enough of a haul to satisfy my own entitlement. Christmases recently have been more creative affairs, delving into what I might have authentically of myself to give – curated music mixes, pieces of writing like this. Like beggars asking for money, many people out there may be looking for the same kind of reducible Christmas experience. But if we don’t look up from the reverberating past, we may miss that something simpler and unexpected can bring more joy.

It may be the very thing you've been carrying in your pocket all along.

Reading the Qur'an

I am embarking on a reading of the Qur'an.  I have wanted to since college but put it off, however after attending an evangelical-leaning church for two years, I realized in a car ride today with my more left-leaning friends that I have begun questioning my long-held conviction that the God of the Bible and Allah in the Qu'ran are one in the same.  Having not read the Qur'an, of course, this conviction was based on nothing other than the desire for the world to be a happy place where everyone gets along (as my family wasn't) and did not stand up to the assertion by my zealous Pakistani ex-Muslim friend who claimed that Allah could not be the same God as the God in the Bible because in the Qur'an it says _X_ (which I don't remember).  But anyway, that assertion was enough to erode my so-called conviction, which like most things wasn't something so much I believed but a pleasant compromise position that served my purposes in most the circles in which I traveled.  So, I decided it was time to see for myself.

I will cut to the chase after such a wordy prologue.

What stands out to me about the Qur'an, in starting to read from the beginning, includes:


- The recitation seems to be directed toward the disaffected descendants of Ishmael, but seeking to move readers beyond factionalism to a common reference point in Abraham.  It is not directed toward "Muslims" - as no such people would have existed at the time of the recitation.  Rather, it orients itself as pointing out the common problems with the practice of religion of both Jews and Christians:

They say: ‘Become Jews or Christians and you will be guided aright.’
Say: ‘Rather, the religion of Abraham, of pristine faith. Nor was he a polytheist.’
Say: ‘We believe in God, and in what was revealed to us, In what was revealed to Abraham, to Ishmael, to Isaac and Jacob and the Tribes, In what was revealed to Moses and Jesus, In what was revealed to prophets by their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, And to Him we surrender.’

Khalidi, Tarif (2009-07-23). The Qur'an: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (Kindle Locations 577-581). Penguin Classic. Kindle Edition. 

As for the believers, for the Jews, the Christians and the Sabeans* who believe in God and the Last Day, and who do righteous deeds - these have their wage with their Lord. No fear shall fall upon them, nor shall they grieve.

Ibid,  447-448.

They say: ‘Only Jews and Christians will enter the Garden.’ Such are their fancies! Say to them: ‘Show me your proof if you speak the truth.’ Yes, indeed. He who surrenders his face to God in all piety shall receive his reward from his Lord. No fear shall fall upon them, nor shall they grieve.

Ibid, 537-539.

This last quote I like particularly because it points to an unsavory aspect present even today in evangelical Christianity, namely that of in-grouping and exclusivity claims by a religious body regarding who may enter heaven.  To this, the text answers (as does the Bible, but Christians seem to miss the possibility that it could apply to them) that it is a turn of the heart - "surrenduring... in all piety" that is more important - than to which doctrine you ascribe.


- The text does not seem to deny Jesus' sonship, as I have often heard attributed to it.  Rather, it seems to acknowledge this claim, and put a different emphasis on it than Christianity evolved to - namely, to by it assert further God's power and sovereignty, which seems to be more of the intention of the text.

They say: ‘God has fathered a child.’ Glory be to Him! To Him, rather, belongs all that is in the heavens and on earth. All mankind obeys Him. Marvellous Creator of the heavens and the earth! When He decrees a matter, He merely says to it: ‘Be!’ and it is. 

Ibid, 545-547 

- In general, the wisdom and correction it issues forth seem on-par if not more direct and biting than anything we will find in the old or new testament regarding the necessity for genuine faith and the description and punishment for hypocrisy.  Take this example, which not only captures the Christian doctrine of predestination but also adds a nuanced understanding of how the evil lie to themselves - an awareness I wish were more present in Christianity:

As for the unbelievers, it is all the same if you warn or do not warn them: they will not believe. God has sealed up their hearts, their hearing and their vision with a shroud, and terrible punishment awaits them. Among people, there are those who say: ‘We believe in God and in the Last Day.’ But they are not true believers. They try to deceive God and the believers but, unknown to them, deceive only themselves. Sickness abides in their hearts and God increases their malady. A painful punishment awaits them for the lies they uttered. And if someone says to them: ‘Do not sow discord in the earth,’ they answer: ‘We are merely trying to bring people together.’ In truth, they are sowers of discord, but they know it not.

Ibid, 368-374. 

- Lastly,  contrary to most popular belief - among fundamentalist Muslims and Christians alike - the text does not seem to prescribe violence.  Although it is easy to see how for the simple-minded, this would be extrapolated:

O believers, retaliation for the slain is ordained upon you: A free man for a free man, a slave for a slave, a female for a female. But if a brother is forgiven by another regarding what is ordained, then gracious pardon must be offered, and seemly deliverance of payment made. This is an act of leniency from your Lord and a mercy. Whoever commits aggression thereafter, painful torment awaits him. The prospect of retaliation saves lives, O you who are possessed of minds - perhaps you will fear God. 

Ibid, 650-654.

What I read in this is not an order toward violence, but rather a demand for accountability: transgressors must be made to know their sin, otherwise, how will they learn?  However, as a caveat to this, forgiveness reigns as an even stronger law.  Not forgiveness that we come up with on our own, but forgiveness that we are bound to BECAUSE another has forgiven us (cf Luke 7:47).   Violence - as aggression - is strictly forbidden.  It emerges that the threat of retaliation - rather than the retaliation itself - is the important element, in teaching us to fear God.  This is an even more humane expression of the ever-popular "spare the rod, spoil the child" in Christianity (Proverbs 13:24).



If what I take from this brief introductory reading of the Qur'an holds true, I would say that reading the Qur'an is of utmost importance - not as a way of "understanding our enemies," as I am afraid it would often be taken, but as an additional word from God for any who consider themselves pious.  The proscription of hypocrisy is even more crisp and upfront, and it seems directed toward dividing those who please God by their faith from those who posture with their religiosity - a theme taken up strongly first by Jesus in his evisceration of the Pharisees, and in Matthew 6:1-8.

I may come across more in the reading that challenges this hypothesis, but in the recitation issued through Mohammed I see a continuing accusation and warning against hypocrisy - issued by the One and Only God - leveled at Christians and Jews, but directed specifically at an audience who may have culturally been ostracized by both these groups, as descendants of the banished Ishmael, born to Hagar when Abraham showed his human weakness and doubted God's promise.  These people deserve salvation too, and it would not be like my God to allow the descendants of Ishmael to suffer vile treatment - by Jews and Christians alike who were not living up to what He had taught them about brotherhood - without stepping in and saying something for their benefit.

I do not agree that what I have read so far was meant by God to spur a new, separate religion called "Islam," but then again I also do not believe necessarily that God wanted "Christianity" to emerge to contend with Judaism.  Rather, I believe each action by our God is part of his ongoing effort to reach out to us, point out to us where we are off and our souls are in danger because of it, and invite us back into right relationship with his loving compassion and mercy.

one part of the response

Dead prez was right. Only its not just skin color. It's BS passed down as abuse by weak human beings who can't face their problems. We have to fight the lies. But we have to fight it first in ourselves. or nothing changes

Candice Isaacs McCormick, R.I.P. 7/22/2010

an oil spill to puncture naivete

it was clear 2 weeks into the spill that the gulf would never be the same - at least to some of us - but it took until today for NOAA to come out and say it. "the public has an expectation that with technology we can solve the problem. We know we can't" (Doug Helton, NOAA's seattle-based Emergency Response Division.)

it was even clearer that this oil spill had something major to say about oil and drilling, in answer to Obama's political posturing to open up our shores to drilling just a month before. Something along the lines of "this is not the answer." but it took Obama until today to admit that "there are inherent risks to drilling four miles beneath the surface of the Earth -- risks that are bound to increase the harder oil extraction becomes."

the way I see it, these aren't risks. they are guarantees. because whether we burn the oil in our engines, or spill it before it gets to the pumps, it is choking the planet either way. we shouldn't get so worked up about the oil spill. just as much damage would have been done by carbon emissions from burning the oil if business had progressed as usual. Only, we wouldn't have been thinking about it.

the mass resistance we exhibit every day - both collectively and personally - to the present crisis of climate change is rooted in the same shallow naivete with which we continue to be amazed with how bad the oil spill is, letting awareness in step by step each week as our leaders put words to what we all know, deep inside.

that the gulf of mexico will remain a marred homage to our callous irresponsibility toward the planet through the lives of our children and our children's children has been the reality since week 2 of the spill. had the spill not happened, this same violence our society exhibits toward the planet would have been writ large on a thick sky and the ever accelerating temperatures through those same lifetimes. if it does alter the policy road Obama had started down, and raise the political ire to overcome the deadlock of our "leaders" on clean energy legislation, then i will ever after remember the oil spill with an ironic fondness.

however, whether that happens remains to be seen. so far, our response has been little more than the same old impotent outrage that conveniently distracts us from the fact that a spill like this was not an unfortunate accident; it is the absolute and necessary outcome of the course we have been pursuing.

criminal investigations into culpability on the part of BP, transocean and haliburton - as were announced today - need to be undertaken. But they need to be accompanied by a long hard look at things closer to home - from the history and structure of the MMS, down to each of our personal investments in a lifestyle dependent on oil-based transportation and disposable plastic goods.

denial has gotten us exactly where it was going to. now it's time to wake up and smell the black tar that has been smeared on the wall all along.

Black Wealth, White wealth

The author of a book I read in college, "Black Wealth, White Wealth," has come out with a follow-up study. It was covered today on the Michael Eric Dyson show.

The original research (from 1984) shows that while blacks' average income had grown to within 77% of whites' pay for the same job, there was still a huge disparity in wealth, defined as financial assets. One illustration I remember particularly well described how long different families' available assets could support them if they lost a job. With no income, "White's reserves allow them to survive at the poverty level ($968 per month) for over a year, while most blacks... would not make it through the month."

The current update to this research shows that this original disparity between black wealth and white wealth has quadrupled since 1984. It's getting worse - according to the radio interview - at a time when the reigning perception is that a) the racial disparity has pretty much disappeared, and b) that if left to themselves, our social systems will trend toward equalization and erasing the problem.

The research shows this is not the case. There is much to be discussed here, but a conclusion of an hour-long discussion with three of us at Lydia house the other night on this topic is that we as youngish white guys perhaps don't have "responsibility" for creating this problem, but we do have "responsibility" for analyzing and holding accountable the current external social systems and internal unconscious prejudices which contribute to the increasing skin-color disparity in economic opportunity.

All I have to add to this is one thing. The radio show points out that typically such disparity is falsely attributed to flaws perceived as inherent in African Americans - ie, they're lazy, they're bad with money, etc. The research explores and refutes these claims by focusing on the highest-achieving blacks and whites, but still the tendency is to explain away the problem as something "personal" about people with dark skin.

I see a parallel problem that paralyzes well-meaning whites who might be interested in doing something about it: we read such news as an accusation against us - that the disparity is our personal fault and something we should feel guilty about - simply because of our white skin color. Thus we become defensive and take actions more oriented toward self-justifying than toward solving the problem.

Taken together, we can see that the problem is perpetuated by a tendency to blame the individuals involved, which distracts us from looking more broadly at the difficult problem of a complex society which both influences and implicates both blacks and whites in perpetuating both the unequal distribution of resources and a mass abdication of responsibility.

Ironically, we are bombarded by false concepts of responsibility which we must clarify and defend ourselves against, while the true responsibility we have and must take remains buried and unrealized.

We must scrutinize both our motivations and the ways false concepts are given free reign in our thinking and consequent behavior, or nothing will change.

MLK, climate change, and responsibility

I have been listening to the speeches of MLK and his relatives today, especially Yolanda King, his eldest daughter, who made the connection for us of finding inner peace to MLKs philosophy of nonviolence.

And it seems to me that something has shifted, between the 60s and today, in that MLK had a clearly identifiable evil that he could articulate and orient against; that of white oppression, expressed so many different ways.

I have sensed that the fight on climate change resonates with principles of MLK's philosophy; namely that the way to approach change is through proactive action guided by principles (http://www.itscool.us/) - rather than backbiting/blame vs denial, which seems to be the prevailing approach.

In his first Massey lecture (http://www.prx.org/series/31037-martin-luther-king-jr-massey-lectures) King contrasted the effectiveness of the nonviolent approach - where the oppressors are exposed in their evil for violent reactions to nonviolent measures - with the strategy of riots which had erupted in the North, which gave fuel to pre-existing prejudices and arguments against integration. However, King did allow that non-violent protest had not been working as well in the North, where the racism, though present, was not as overt - so the oppressors could not as easily be taunted into exposing themselves.

How does this compare with the fight on climate change? Today we do not have a clear enemy. Society has quickly evolved (having learned from King?) to the place of more effectively hiding our evils. Multi-national corporations' oppression and rape of the Earth, while present and deplorable, is not the bulk of the problem. The subtext of every public plea to reduce energy use is the implication that we are all part of the problem; we are all to blame. There is no way to tweak one part of the system (along the lines of our traditionally linear, judicial model) and contain carbon; rational analysis by policymakers continues to conclude, rightly, that every penalty levied or offset offered will simply be paid for or passed along the supply chain, in order to preserve the right to continue polluting, or maintaining a standard of living within the "American way of life" without alteration. (Vanity fair featured a spread this week on a Vegas hotel that was LEED certified, proving "the simple notion that luxury and responsibility are not mutually exclusive" - http://www.vegasnews.com/16177/star-studded-event-marks-grand-opening-of-first-citycenter-hotel-–-vdara-hotel-spa.html ).

The downfall of all offset programs is that they must be comprehensive - encompassing the full carbon cycle, through the whole of the planet - to not be outsourced. The reason the simple solution of a worldwide, per-citizen offset system has not been introduced is that the implications are too radical. To do so would effectively address the economic imbalance between the first and third worlds - and this is something we would like to avoid thinking about for as long as possible.

It's not just our politicians and our corporations. It is, first and foremost, an evil embedded in our consciousness, as born by citizen of the developed world. Jesus had plenty to say about it, but the implications are so deep that nary a preacher wants to draw the obvious connection: our way of life is unsustainable, and it is simple sinfulness that keeps us from clearly addressing this obvious fact. Unsustainable, not just ecologically, but firstly spiritually. To dig to the roots of American concepts of "progress," what constitutes a healthy economy, and what kind of technological advances we should have the right to look forward too, would force us to call out the hypocrisy of manifest destiny, the deep distortion of the gospel and evil on which this entire nation was founded. Remember the religious fundamentalist mass murderer from Utah who claimed "God told me to do it"? That is our founding fathers, and the prevailing consciousness of the developed world.

While the rape of extermination of great native populations may seem far removed in history, we perpetuate the same mass denial today in our rape and extermination of the planet's healthy ecology. This same consciousness, which allows us to perpetuate rape and aggression while continuing to think we are basically good people, manifests in our relationships and treatment of each other, as I have recently learned the hard way. The simple act of looking at ourselves, to truly see and admit our sinfulness, is so difficult today that we must pay a fortune in therapy simply to access it.

MLK faced a simple, clear enemy. The oppression in the South failed to manipulate its audiences as well as the North. But the the civil war was fought largely for style points. The continuing, systemic racism in our country - discovered in the North by MLK after winning his battles in the South - shows that no one has ever been that interested in changing the status quo. We want our power and our ability to feel good about ourselves. So what to do? Change? No - simply get better at manipulating.

This seems to have been the course our country has followed since the Viet Nam era. It explains a fundamental problem that I have been noticing more and more in myself and in most people I talk to - a basic inability to take responsibility. Our deficit in responsibility fuels the therapy industry - most of which has us simply chasing our tales, but never getting called out for our part in causing the problem - and it is the basic evil that is at root of our inability to deal with climate change. We will continue to generate Green "spin" and talk a good game without taking action, until we can finally admit we're all fuckers who don't give a shit what happens to the Earth. That at least would be a good starting point, because we'd have some honest ground to stand on, rather than living in a self-imposed hype that increasingly has nothing to do with reality.

In the south, MLK had a clear enemy. In the north, that enemy was harder to see. Today, we are all going crazy and feeling under attack, because we have no idea where the problems are coming from. It's hard to look at ourselves when the enemy is within us.

The only way to take down this enemy is to take responsibility.

Is it the 'homo' or the 'sexuality'?

The problem I have with public issues of sexuality:

I recoil from liberal discourse on the topic

but am not conventionally conservative

I feel uncomfortable with the focus on gay rights

but not because I am against them

and I am anti-abortion

but don't feel it is my place to step in to protect unborn babies

but is rather to mourn, and perhaps to speak from my heart, where God gives me opportunity

But moreover, I am angered by the assumption

that I must "have" a position on these topics

These particularly political issues

are raised against a backdrop of non-controversial,

commonplace obscenity

in every commercial, movie and television plot;

there is a dominant discourse in which sexuality occupies center stage

in the sphere of human relations

while I feel that it should rather be something respected, treated as sacred,

and respectfully hidden from view.

Our kids should be well-protected from their parents' sexuality

and friends and neighbors should not be exposed to sexually-suggestive behavior of couples

Rather, we should be able to relate in human ways, from places of our heart

And sexuality should be expressed, celebrated, privately - so it does not need to be repressed

But simply kept in the bounds God designed it to be

We are an oversexed culture

We have no bearing about how to solve the problems of gay rights and abortion

But perhaps we can see that these "problems" are created when sexuality itself leaves the bedroom

And parades on the street

The trend toward everybody's sexuality

Being everybody's business

Creates the problems we cannot solve

The liberal emphasis on liberating sexuality

is one ingredient to the problem;

The conservative audacity to violate what God relegated to the privacy of couples, and committed communities at best,

is the other, reactionary at best.

Both are to blame, and neither is right

More modesty is needed all around,

built on humility

of our own confusion, flawedness, and brokenness

Adam and Eve's problem, recorded in the bible

should be suggestive enough

that we all are going to be confused around sex

None of us has the place to parade sex around,

Neither our personal sexuality, nor our positions on it.

Parents, humbled by their own struggles, and helped by God,

should introduce children to what they need to know, when the time is right

Couples should further explore sexuality together

Only when already committed to each other for life

And seek guidance from elders, and other committed couples,

Once sex has been put in its proper place:

Not the central issue, not an issue on its own,

but one mysterious dimension of human relationship and existence

of which our proper and most healthy priorities and boundaries

have already lovingly been described by God

God's way of treating each other, regarding each other,

Checking ourselves and living in obedience to Him

Must be the first and far more important emphasis,

and aspect of life to be explored and practiced

long before anything about sex is discussed or explored

This is the only way out of the mess

This is the only hope for surviving the confusion

Our particular brokenness must be discovered, confessed, allowed to convict,

and shared in living relationship with God

and then we will be shown what to do with the rest

Afterthought:

Churches should boldly address impropriety, or the desacralization of sex

But only in the context of their charge of shepherding their flocks,

Not as a weapon to wield in general, irresponsibly, doing the same damage

as the impersonal, generalized liberal portrayal of sex.

Well when you put it that way...

the government should only be big enough to annihilate any country and (If necessary) every country, to spy on its citizens and on other governments, to keep big secrets, and to see to the health and happiness of large corporations. A government thus reduced will be almost too small to notice and will require almost no taxes and spend almost no money.

Wendell Berry,  from"The joy of sales resistance" in Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community

doctor-pusher-flyer man

So I'm coming out of Georgia, on a plane that hit turbulence on its last leg, throwing the flight attendant sitting in front of me into the side of the plane, sending one person to the hospital when they landed.

My previous flight from Roanoke landed thirteen minutes before this one was scheduled to take off. I barreled through the airport as much as I could run, passing the gate attendant and throwing myself into the emergency exit door trying to bust it open upon seeing the jetway door closed. The gate attendant yelled at me that I couldn't just throw myself against an emergency exit door, to which I replied "Well I just did and it didn't open, so now I want you to get me onto that plane." (Come to think of it, aren't emergency exits supposed to open?) She called security on me.

While we were waiting for security I calmly explained how no one from the previous flight – which was delayed for mechanical reasons – had called to ask them to hold the flight, despite my requests. I listed all the things their airline had done wrong, as she spoke on the phone to someone about me as if I wasn't there. Before security arrived, however, another delayed passenger did. Then another. Soon there were five of us waiting, all delayed for mechanical reasons.

While she talked to someone I assumed was in the office, I calculated my list of needs (a 4 star hotel, $60 meal voucher, and free flight – for all of us there). Then she said, "ok y'all, come with me." I thought she was taking us around the corner to negotiate a deal, but instead she punched in the security code and let us onto the jetway. "I have NEVER seen that happen before," said the woman I sat beside.

So now I'm in the first seat I saw – right in front next to the exit, facing the steward in his fold down seat. I ask him how his night has been. "Not so good," he replies, and proceeds to tell me about people hitting the ceiling literally on the flight in from Seattle.

After a bit he asks me and my neighbor if we're going to watch any movies. "I didn't think we had any tvs," I say, having scanned the walls and ceiling for something like the screens the other passengers have in the seatback in front of them. "Oh yeah," he says, "they're right down there," showing me rotating arms like a dentists lamp hiding next to my legs.

"Yeah they have nice touch screens and all kinds of movies and games you can buy."

"Oh I left my credit card in the overhead," says my neighbor.

"That's ok," he says in confidence. "You don't need one, not when you know me. I know how to turn them on for you."

It's what he says next that grabs my attention: "Yeah they have lots of options to entertain you , and that's what we want. That's the future. We want you to be entertained. Anything to make it a little less painful. It's a long five hour flight and we don't want it to be painful. We want you to be entertained so you don't feel it."

Suddenly I feel like I'm talking to a drug pusher. Even though I know he doesn't mean any harm, I feel like he's speaking the mantra of electronic corporations everywhere, whose CEOs maybe don't mean harm either, or maybe they do. But I think, isn't that just what its all about. Life is long and it can be painful, and they want us to be entertained so we won't feel it.

It's funny because a doctor said almost the same thing to my mom when he gave her up for dead: "We just want to make sure you're as comfortable as you can be from here on out. We're interested in your quality of life." That was when I killed him.

I mean, as far as I was concerned. I walked out of the room and started searching for other doctors. We never saw his fleshy face again.

But I wonder why the word choices of the doctor and airline steward are so similar. Both of them represent a cultural response to life that has gotten just too hard. Apple is just another drug company. Screw trying to fix things; we're going to take this little pill and wait for it to be over. Imagine if drugs were administered by looking at them. If we could stare at an IV bag of morphine and feel better, it would look a lot like TV.

Which means that basically we're turning America into one giant hospital. And the illness is life. Our cultural doctors don't really know how to make life better, so they've prescribed a heavy dose of Comcast. Think I'm exaggerating? Name the biggest companies you can think of. How many of them are in the business of electronic distractions?

My mom is home from the hospital now. She's slowly worked her way back to eating, walking on her own, and being able to take care of herself better. It is an incredibly long, patient process for a woman who two months ago was still robust and working, despite having cancer. Dehydration brought her within a virus of dying, and one month in bed on life support has made her very weak. We take it as a good sign that she can make it into the family room to sit with us evenings and watch tv.

Our economy right now is built on electronics and legal drugs. The bulk of it is subsidized by credit and insurance, since what will satisfy us is far disconnected from what we are able to provide for ourselves. All this is fine, for now. Just as nurses can rest reasonably when a patient is on life support with stable vital signs. But what about when they pull the plug? What will all our children do when they pull the plug? Every generation born after me has had internet from the age of ten.

The blackout in Florida last week went unexplained. Not even the people who run the power grid could explain why it happened. The tornados in Florida tonight and freak winter storm over the middle two thirds of the country don't need explanations any more. We seem to know that you don't need specific explanations when the overall system is so strained. Our overall energy usage in the US is growing by 20% each year. Because of laptops, ipods, LCDtvs, etc. And we're not using any of it to solve our problems. We're using that power to be entertained.

My time in Virginia has been spent working on a system to get kids involved in learning about climate change and reducing energy usage, organizing a program for the Girl Scouts to educate their communities about the importance of changing habits and of efficient devices like Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs, which they will also be selling. I'm trying to change it all, but I'm just one person. I could die on this plane ride because of crazy weather caused by global warming. And everyone around me is just watching tv.

Lots of people go to the hospital. Some people die there. Some people come home. I went to the hospital once, and I didn't die. But it took me a lot of years getting better, to learn how to use my energy better, to work on what matters, to not get by in life just being entertained. My mom is home from the hospital now, and her path to getting better is long and slow, and not even assured. The sickness is still inside her.

The world needs a lot of us working on what matters now. We all are a lot closer to dying than we might imagine. Maybe it would help to realize that we are already in the hospital.

--
Andrew Varyu
Founder, ITSCOOL
Innovative Tactics for Sea Level and Climate Change Outreach and Opportunity Leaders
"Getting kids psyched to be America's leaders against Global Warming"
206.909.8868
founder@itscool.us

Press:
NPR: http://www.wvtf.org/news_and_notes/audio/cs_girlscouts-03-07-08.mp3
TV: http://cfc.wset.com/searchvideos.cfm?k=girl+scouts
Paper: http://www.kirklandreporter.com/jumpstory.html?story=news3&pubdate=10/10/2007
Partner: http://www.gsvsc.org/news.htm#itscool


_other projects:_
Harvard Masters of Divinity Candidate
Postulant to Priesthood, Episcopal Church of Western Washington.
blog: www.andywrites.org
alt contact: harharvar@gmail.com

homelus

mortgages are rising homes in foreclosure people on street.

guys on fox debate
millionaire boy: "live within your means!"
sociactivist: "we are victims!"

man across the street sleeps on bench.

I think mortgages a bad idea to start with, like credit.
I tell mom : system never should be built, banking so much on future.

Mom: but how would people buy houses?

Exactly.

man sleeps on bench. some think we are better than he:

"I pay my bills," we say.

But really we don't. We pay to support the denial:
No one can live within their means in this system of "ownership."


Unless we live on a bench.


We thought we were better than he? Different?

God is showing us the truth.

Antinomies I Poverty

Debates on poverty, between conservatives who believe that the poor should help themselves, and liberals who believe that the state should help the poor, are flawed from the start. Because both positions are predicated on not believing in God's abundance.

Though liberals orient primarily toward the poor, and conservatives orient primarily toward themselves, neither is morally right. We have to look at what fears are behind both their positions. Liberals are saying, if the government does not give, the poor will not have enough. Conservatives are saying, if the government does give, I will not have enough. Both believe that there is only so much to go around. This reveals that neither side believes that God is infinitely abundant. Because of this common limit to their faith in God, neither position can claim moral superiority.

If they believe in God's promise to provide, there would be no reason to be afraid. We can accept that conservatives will orient primarily to themselves and liberals will always consider others. This is balance, and this is as it should be. However, if both positions did believe in God's infinite prosperity, then their reactions to the poor would look very different. Conservatives would say, you may take my resources to give to the poor, because I know God provides for me and I will in no way be less well off by sharing my wealth with others. Liberals would say, I have more than enough energy and resources in my life to follow my heart and assist the poor. I do not need to hope the government or anyone else will take care of them for me. God has revealed their burden to my heart, therefore I am part of God's provision for them. I can give of myself because I know God will take care of what I need for myself in the course of opening myself to be an instrument of God's grace.

See, both liberals and conservatives reveal by their political orientations a common underlying belief - that God is not providing for them. To believe that God is watching over and providing for you opens up a third way, Jesus' way. This is neither liberal nor conservative. Whether your heart is given the gift of going out and personally helping others in need, or the gift of focusing and channeling prosperity, your attitude and reactions will look much different if you have faith enough to follow the third way.

This reveals one last important shared point - that neither side of the debate should concern themselves with the poor as a starting point. If liberals and conservatives have an incomplete faith in God, which does not allow them to see all the ways that God has, is and will continue to provide for them, then their first priority should be healing their own situation, to come into full awareness of grace. Jesus did not start by tending to the poor. Jesus started by realizing he was the son of God.

***

(* Antinomies are categories of mutual exclusivity, two positions that cannot be reconciled. Kant believed that the human mind was created in a way that causes us to see all things in terms of binary oppositions. Taoists believe that when two things seem irreconcilable, we must rise above and see the situation with a new mind, often which realizes the harmony and balance in the overall situation, as symbolized by the yin-yang symbol. This piece is part of a series that will explore underlying assumptions behind traditionally entrenched debates, toward seeing how ideological divisions can be dissolved toward mutual harmony and understanding.)

The blindness that calls itself Justice

Here are the brothers

who murdered my Grandmother.

Here is the coat

they bought with SSI

then forgot

at her house

after they murdered my Grandmother.

Here’s the nice stuff

that they took from her house

and then sold to get clothes

the night after

they murdered my Grandmother.

Here is the family

that watches the trial

of their sons

who murdered my Grandmother.

Here is the Father

who sucks air from a tank

who lets me go first

who humbles himself down

who looks grievous as I

cause he knows

his sons murdered my Grandmother.

Here is the talk

where I eavesdrop and hear

the Dad telling his kids

they can’t afford parking

cause they got towed before

so they can’t see the trial

of their brothers

who murdered

my Grandmother.

Here is my pocket

that holds a free pass

to the parking garage

because someone murdered

my Grandmother.

Here are the families, both of them victims: one family rich, whose pain is assuaged; one family poor, who gets no parade.

Here is the blindness that calls itself justice: helping the rich, ignoring the poor, though the money thing led them to kick in her door.

Here is the moment

where I hand my free parking

to the trembling hand

of the bloodshot-eyed father

of the boys

who murdered

my Grandmother.

blank slate

/to be read aloud:/


i walk when i think
so i speak with the movement
i need to move on
past the problems i drink

where does this life begin
where does a life begin
they tell me i'm a blank slate
tabula rasa - epiphany of my philosophy
society so developed
that it bred out its own soul--
Aryan, master race
what do we have to relate
privilege rides the backs of their struggles
but lifted from dirt and sweat
we lose our roots

identity afloat
society led on by those whose effects
always fall through the cracks,
scraps to be gobbled
by the mouths that lost track
of their own power to CAUSE

and we peddle our souls
for a piece of the soul we can't compose

but the blanket of racket
that rattles our mental blanks
passes us doin eighty
in our own 25-mile-per-hour zone
past country homes

we have a history but we just don't care
because yesterday's an ancient memory
and our struggles, given voice
might compromise our choice

give me something, scotland,
russia poland czechoslovakia
to know that my struggles began
before my mom threw out my dad
before dad's affairs,
before my acne scars,
before the towers took my faith
before my grandma faced that knife
something that tells me i've been around
my people started laying tracks
so i don't have to start from scratch

i'm a blank slate with stains;
the chalk line remains.



--composed by inspiration from Miguel Pinero,