My 12 days at Mike's and Heather's are over. It will be so good to see my runts again.
Yana is a bright, happy, beautiful baby with a long stubborn streak and real love of green trees and fresh air and naps on Daddy's and Mommy's chest.
Yana' feeding schedule remains complicated. She is fed every three hours in the daytime and each feeding takes a little over and hour: heather pumps, feeds by bottle, and administers the rest of the food through a tube in Yana's nose. This rigorous schedule makes doing the rest of the life's stuff extremely difficult.
As you can all imagine Heather and Mike are wonderful parents! I am really proud of the patient, loving, dilligent, care they give to her.
I wish Canada was not so vast so that the distance between Toronto and Lethbridge wasn't so great.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Monday, August 21, 2006
Yana
Jodie is here to visit...therefore the mandatory blogging! (haha) Well, I now know what it's like to be a fuzzy headed momma living in babyland. Yana, Mike and I are faring well - establishing new routines (especially around feeding) and enjoying our little girl's pretty normal babyhood. We're so happy that besides a rigourous feeding schedule and once a day meds, Yana's life is pretty similar to any other baby without heart problems - and she's such a happy, content kid! Our docs have given her straight A's so far and say to expect her 2nd surgery around November - that one is open heart, so it's quite a bit more serious than the first one. It's a series of 3 surgeries to recreate the circulation in her heart using just one pumping chamber instead of 2. The 3rd surgery will be when she's 2 or 3. Please pray for us as we head into the beginning of Mike's busy season. It will be an adjustment for us all from the lazy dazy days of summer! We've come to think of ourselves as living in a dictatorship - speaking of which...the 10 lb dictator calls! HEATHER
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Go Trolley Go
I cut out of my Lazarus Rising street walk early tonight so I could get home to help put the kids to bed. Jodie's gone to visit Heather, Yana, and Mike in Lethbridge. Both had taken long naps so I said I'd try to be home by 9:15 and Sim could stay up until then and Johanna later. I was at Queen and University at 1/4 to, but had to wait till a few minutes after nine before a trolley came along - a double car, quite packed, of course, after such a long wait.
Just after Dufferin the trolley suddenly stops, second time this has happened today - other time with Sim and Jo on the way to see a friend from the street in the hospital, the driver comes on over the speakers and says there's some guy who has gotten on and won't pay the fare and won't get off and he's not moving until the guy gets off or TTC supervisors or security come and remove him. Well, lo and behold, this muttering old timer plops his ass down two seats over from me. I'm in the very back reading Moby Dick. Everyone just waits for awhile while the driver and he go back and forth a bit. He shouting "Thou shalt not kill. I've got to get to the hospital; i'm going to have a heart attack." The driver insisting he's staying put. Our fellow, inviting him to come back and have his adam's apple ripped out - "Thou shalt not kill" - or his head cut off or to perform a lewd act.
After a few minutes, the other passengers start getting into it. At first, I'd just chuckled a bit, as did the African Canadian dude a seat up and to the right. Now, I notice a hospital bracelet. "Hey buddy, you trying to get up to St. Joseph's." "Yeah, can't walk that far. Tired. Gonna have a heart attack." "Okay, well why don't you get off here and wait at the Coffee Time. I'll get my van and come back and take you to St. Joe's." "Alright" he says and storms off the bus, leaving a few invectives hanging in the air behind him. Says my chuckling buddy incredulously, "you aren't really going to come back and get him are you?" "Yeah," I shrug, as if its all in a day's work. And why not? Last night at Sanctuary's dinner I was in the thick of an even more delicate situation with an aboriginal fellow who a decade or so ago held our nurse Keren at knife point for 20 minutes insisting that he needed to kill a white person to settle historical wrongs. "Be careful" exclaims another, somewhat amazed passenger, and off we go.
So I get home a bit before 9:30 and Angela is just tyring to put Sim to bed. He's quite excited to see me and they say he's ready for bed, but has just started to say Mama, mama, mama. He goes down easily enough for me with a round of Go Dog Go, Goodnight My Child and Great is Thy Faithfulness. Johanna comes in the door right as I'm getting ready to put him down, but that doesn't bother him a bit.
Jo had taken a long nap so I take her along in the van with Ben to see if our friend is at Coffee Time. He is. We get him down to emerg without incident. Doesn't seem to be much too much wrong with him, though there's some bombast along the way. Offers to fix, paint, or whatever we need for the van: "oil jobs, breaks, I do it all. And I don't charge nothing except maybe a cup of coffee and a donut. Maybe a beer. She's running pretty right now, doesn't need anything. What year is she '95? '96?" "'98 I think." "You just give me a call." "Sounds good!" He wants me to stay with him until he's registered in case the guard is there that doesn't like him. I show him in, but beg off staying as there's a line at the desk. "Gotta get my daughter to sleep." "Oh, okay. I'll be here most of the night." "I'll come back a bit later."
So we head back. Johanna gets the chips I promised her as we were heading out the door to Coffee Time. Harold and the Purple Crayon. Crictor. E-cards from and to mama. Goodnight my child, twinkle twinkle, hey diddle diddle, the Shema, Our Father, Praise God from whom all blessings flow, and she's out. Back to St. Joe's, he's out. Sprawled slack-jawed across a chair in the emerg waiting room. I consider waking him slightly to just say hello, but think better of it when I glance at his comrades-in-waiting, viscerally glad that he's conked out. Perhaps I'll go by again tomorrow if time allows.
Just after Dufferin the trolley suddenly stops, second time this has happened today - other time with Sim and Jo on the way to see a friend from the street in the hospital, the driver comes on over the speakers and says there's some guy who has gotten on and won't pay the fare and won't get off and he's not moving until the guy gets off or TTC supervisors or security come and remove him. Well, lo and behold, this muttering old timer plops his ass down two seats over from me. I'm in the very back reading Moby Dick. Everyone just waits for awhile while the driver and he go back and forth a bit. He shouting "Thou shalt not kill. I've got to get to the hospital; i'm going to have a heart attack." The driver insisting he's staying put. Our fellow, inviting him to come back and have his adam's apple ripped out - "Thou shalt not kill" - or his head cut off or to perform a lewd act.
After a few minutes, the other passengers start getting into it. At first, I'd just chuckled a bit, as did the African Canadian dude a seat up and to the right. Now, I notice a hospital bracelet. "Hey buddy, you trying to get up to St. Joseph's." "Yeah, can't walk that far. Tired. Gonna have a heart attack." "Okay, well why don't you get off here and wait at the Coffee Time. I'll get my van and come back and take you to St. Joe's." "Alright" he says and storms off the bus, leaving a few invectives hanging in the air behind him. Says my chuckling buddy incredulously, "you aren't really going to come back and get him are you?" "Yeah," I shrug, as if its all in a day's work. And why not? Last night at Sanctuary's dinner I was in the thick of an even more delicate situation with an aboriginal fellow who a decade or so ago held our nurse Keren at knife point for 20 minutes insisting that he needed to kill a white person to settle historical wrongs. "Be careful" exclaims another, somewhat amazed passenger, and off we go.
So I get home a bit before 9:30 and Angela is just tyring to put Sim to bed. He's quite excited to see me and they say he's ready for bed, but has just started to say Mama, mama, mama. He goes down easily enough for me with a round of Go Dog Go, Goodnight My Child and Great is Thy Faithfulness. Johanna comes in the door right as I'm getting ready to put him down, but that doesn't bother him a bit.
Jo had taken a long nap so I take her along in the van with Ben to see if our friend is at Coffee Time. He is. We get him down to emerg without incident. Doesn't seem to be much too much wrong with him, though there's some bombast along the way. Offers to fix, paint, or whatever we need for the van: "oil jobs, breaks, I do it all. And I don't charge nothing except maybe a cup of coffee and a donut. Maybe a beer. She's running pretty right now, doesn't need anything. What year is she '95? '96?" "'98 I think." "You just give me a call." "Sounds good!" He wants me to stay with him until he's registered in case the guard is there that doesn't like him. I show him in, but beg off staying as there's a line at the desk. "Gotta get my daughter to sleep." "Oh, okay. I'll be here most of the night." "I'll come back a bit later."
So we head back. Johanna gets the chips I promised her as we were heading out the door to Coffee Time. Harold and the Purple Crayon. Crictor. E-cards from and to mama. Goodnight my child, twinkle twinkle, hey diddle diddle, the Shema, Our Father, Praise God from whom all blessings flow, and she's out. Back to St. Joe's, he's out. Sprawled slack-jawed across a chair in the emerg waiting room. I consider waking him slightly to just say hello, but think better of it when I glance at his comrades-in-waiting, viscerally glad that he's conked out. Perhaps I'll go by again tomorrow if time allows.
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
New Orleans--2005
Morning has broke
The mayflowered breeze of that dawn
Not so early and what light?
Nothern?
Slaves running...
Dreaming.
Falling Rocks. Not on me.
I ain't
Man or a woman until the roads are traversable
and whose gonna bury the dead?
Don't matter no more!
Quilts with birds or any the like
Ain't gonna save the ship.
No pretending
When the saints roll in all our waters gonna be troubled.
The mayflowered breeze of that dawn
Not so early and what light?
Nothern?
Slaves running...
Dreaming.
Falling Rocks. Not on me.
I ain't
Man or a woman until the roads are traversable
and whose gonna bury the dead?
Don't matter no more!
Quilts with birds or any the like
Ain't gonna save the ship.
No pretending
When the saints roll in all our waters gonna be troubled.
Monday, July 31, 2006
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Yate's Trial
Andrea Yates judged not guilty, by reason of insanity. It was this case, in particular the miscarriage of justice in a judicial pronouncement of “insane, but guilty”, that prompted me towards my current research interest: “Sin and Sanity in 19th century America.” Strangely, I find this verdict (almost) as unsatisfying as the first. At first my interest in the case was stoked by the callousness of some theological commentators on the case; specifically, a discussion of the Society of Christian Philosophers over whether some one with diminished will or reason could even be considered a “person.” The conversations were carried on from the raving lunacy of the syllogism (as if one could understand such a dark mystery of human fragility through A causes B (mitigated by C only if D, E, and F). I then turned to the public debate
The National Review blamed feminism. They satirized a letter from NOW. “Stop Persecuting Andrea,” it read, “defend her liberating views on the origin of human life. Fight our culture’s war on women.” It is time that the world gets the message, “a home paid for by a man is no place for a woman.” Yates was far from a feminist. She accepted the control of her husband including his command that she only have one friend. Yet, the Review lampooned NOW in part because its members did defend Andrea Yates – donations came in to help defray her legal bills and dozens of famous women recounted their experience with post-partum depression and the rigors of motherhood. While not condoning her actions, they could sympathize.
Many implicated the Yates’s Christianity, faulting the biblical narrative of Abraham, belief in demons and hell, and the crazy itinerant preacher who convinced Andrea that bad mothers are witches. Others blamed Randy Yates, Andrea’s husband, and the “conservative Christian culture that continues to empower controlling and abusive husbands.”
Some conservative Christians, most notably James Dobson, defended the validity of Andrea’s illness on the basis that no well mother would ever do such a thing to her children. However, several other notable conservatives thought Yates was either a sinner or wickedly insane. Chuck Colson suggested that “scripture should have been the arbitrator of Andrea’s worldview” and if she had only read her bible more she wouldn’t have fallen for such malicious lies. World Magazine took a similar tack suggesting that Andrea was “guilty of not feeding truth to her conscience.” They argued, using the first chapter of Romans, that humans are culpable both for irrationality and the malicious acts which may result: “to despoil a moral compass by a history of small rejections of the light is to become more (not less) culpable for the immoral action that may result, though the subject does not feel guilty.” Yates could have resisted the suggestions of the devil just as Christ did: “when he heard voices saying ‘Throw yourself from the pinnacle of the temple…’ he rebuked them.”7
Perhaps the most interesting thing about the articles that circulated at the time of Andrea’s trial was how very much they tried to see in her actions a place for broader social commentary – motherhood is too difficult, Christianity is too oppressive, abortion is too accessible. Many mentioned post-partum depression. Few mentioned that Andrea actually was diagnosed with schizophrenia and rare post-partum psychosis. In fact, even in the articles defending Yates, mental illness played a secondary role in commentators’ explanation of her actions. She murdered because she was insane with too many children, insane and a conservative Christian, or insane and a dominated housewife. It is little wonder that the courts concluded that she was insane and guilty. It is not easy to explain insane acts without confusing them with sin.
The problem is hard to solve. Sin and insanity are difficult to distinguish. Is it possible to differentiate the environmental factors which trigger mental illness from the evil habituation which is the cause of human sin? How is the vitiated reason of fallen humans different from the impaired reason of mentally ill? What distinguishes the bound will of the cussed from the involuntary actions of the mad?
I suppose in the weeks ahead we will be treated to more commentary on these matters. I can’t say that I am looking forward to it. I have my own ideas on to theologically understand such matters. And yet, mostly I am left saying with
Augustine:
Crazy people say and do many incongruous things, things for the most part alien to their intentions and characters, certainly contrary to their good intentions and characters; and when we think about their words and actions, or see them with our eyes, we can scarcely—or possibly we cannot at all—restrain our tears, if we consider their situation as it deserves to be considered. St. Augustine, City of God.
The National Review blamed feminism. They satirized a letter from NOW. “Stop Persecuting Andrea,” it read, “defend her liberating views on the origin of human life. Fight our culture’s war on women.” It is time that the world gets the message, “a home paid for by a man is no place for a woman.” Yates was far from a feminist. She accepted the control of her husband including his command that she only have one friend. Yet, the Review lampooned NOW in part because its members did defend Andrea Yates – donations came in to help defray her legal bills and dozens of famous women recounted their experience with post-partum depression and the rigors of motherhood. While not condoning her actions, they could sympathize.
Many implicated the Yates’s Christianity, faulting the biblical narrative of Abraham, belief in demons and hell, and the crazy itinerant preacher who convinced Andrea that bad mothers are witches. Others blamed Randy Yates, Andrea’s husband, and the “conservative Christian culture that continues to empower controlling and abusive husbands.”
Some conservative Christians, most notably James Dobson, defended the validity of Andrea’s illness on the basis that no well mother would ever do such a thing to her children. However, several other notable conservatives thought Yates was either a sinner or wickedly insane. Chuck Colson suggested that “scripture should have been the arbitrator of Andrea’s worldview” and if she had only read her bible more she wouldn’t have fallen for such malicious lies. World Magazine took a similar tack suggesting that Andrea was “guilty of not feeding truth to her conscience.” They argued, using the first chapter of Romans, that humans are culpable both for irrationality and the malicious acts which may result: “to despoil a moral compass by a history of small rejections of the light is to become more (not less) culpable for the immoral action that may result, though the subject does not feel guilty.” Yates could have resisted the suggestions of the devil just as Christ did: “when he heard voices saying ‘Throw yourself from the pinnacle of the temple…’ he rebuked them.”7
Perhaps the most interesting thing about the articles that circulated at the time of Andrea’s trial was how very much they tried to see in her actions a place for broader social commentary – motherhood is too difficult, Christianity is too oppressive, abortion is too accessible. Many mentioned post-partum depression. Few mentioned that Andrea actually was diagnosed with schizophrenia and rare post-partum psychosis. In fact, even in the articles defending Yates, mental illness played a secondary role in commentators’ explanation of her actions. She murdered because she was insane with too many children, insane and a conservative Christian, or insane and a dominated housewife. It is little wonder that the courts concluded that she was insane and guilty. It is not easy to explain insane acts without confusing them with sin.
The problem is hard to solve. Sin and insanity are difficult to distinguish. Is it possible to differentiate the environmental factors which trigger mental illness from the evil habituation which is the cause of human sin? How is the vitiated reason of fallen humans different from the impaired reason of mentally ill? What distinguishes the bound will of the cussed from the involuntary actions of the mad?
I suppose in the weeks ahead we will be treated to more commentary on these matters. I can’t say that I am looking forward to it. I have my own ideas on to theologically understand such matters. And yet, mostly I am left saying with
Augustine:
Crazy people say and do many incongruous things, things for the most part alien to their intentions and characters, certainly contrary to their good intentions and characters; and when we think about their words and actions, or see them with our eyes, we can scarcely—or possibly we cannot at all—restrain our tears, if we consider their situation as it deserves to be considered. St. Augustine, City of God.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Long Silence
Boy. It has been a busy couple of weeks culminating with Doug and I both preaching on the same Sunday last week. Sometime soon I will post that sermon. I went with Doug on one of his street walks this past Friday. This experience brought me closer to the heart (and the loins) of Toronto. We passed along the border of four of the major sex trade districts: "high-end" girls, "middle-range" girls, transvestites, and boy's town. (This disturbs the heart and the senses). We also visited some people at a harm-reduction shelter for alcoholics (they serve alcohol throughout the day.) Our companion on the street walk was a fellow church member, communist ex-pat, a one time writer for the Globe and Mail, and one hell of a story teller. I think Doug would admit that our friend ended up leading the walk with his ability to initiate a bull session with just about anyone. He was making fast friends, giving out his phone number, and talking like an insider about the shelters in town.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Monday Night Prayer
It is almost too hot tonight to pray. Lord, I ask that you would bless this experiment in life together. The heat makes it all too concise and clear that community is difficult. Protect us from irreconcilable differences. Give us the grace to accuse and forgive, argue and apologize, think new thoughts, and deconstruct our perspectives. We are more than two or three please let your spirit come, pouring holy manna all around, bending and breaking our flinted hearts, granting us the wild eyed wonder of a child in a garden fixated on teleology. Oh how things can grow. And we could grow, but, only with your help. Oh, husband of the good vine keep us painfully aware of what must be pruned. And please teach us to glory in each other’s blooms like they were are own. Amen
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Agatha, Andrea and my interest in psychology
I recently finished a ridiculous Agatha Christie novel “Trial by Innocence.” The whole plot depended on biological determinism. A mother of six adopted children is slain in her home. Potentially any of the children adopted out of situations of extreme poverty could be the assailant. They are all essentially unstable stock: cussed misfits, born swindlers, and homicidal maniacs.
Last week the USA Today featured a story on Andrea Yates the Texas mother who killed her 5 children because she believed Satan commanded her to do it. The psychological expert called on by the prosecution Park Dietz testified that while her actions sprang from delusion (Satan told her through morning cartoons to slay her children she nonetheless) knew right from wrong. In fact she testified that she wanted George Bush and the rod of human justice to rid her of her demons. Instead of being evidence of a lack of mental competence Yates aspirations were deemed by the witness for the prosecution to be a clear sign that she knew right from wrong. Dietz asserts,
“Under Texas law, if a mentally ill person commits a murder in response to command hallucinations from God, they would surely be insane," he said. "If they did it at the direction of the chief of police, they are arguably insane. If they believed it at the direction of a gang leader, at the direction of Napoleon, at the direction of Satan, they are not insane. Gang leaders, Napoleon and Satan do not have moral authority in Texas.”
Use your delusions I guess. The situation is made all the less clear cut by the recognition that Yates believed that God was using her sinful act as an avenue for the salvation of the children. She would face civic punishment (which would incidently rid her of the Satan within.) They would merit eternal life (having been sacrificed before the age of accountability.) That such thought patterns represent a knowledge of right and wrong is ludicrous. Her civic punishment might be fine with Andrea Yates and Park Dietz but it ain’t justice. While, I could never embrace the absolute determinism of Agatha I nonetheless believe that insanity exists and sometimes in our fallen world people are not strictly responsible for their actions. In part we have a judicial system precisely to arbitrate these sorts of exceptional situations. Pandemic fears of the abuse of the insanity defense was born in large part as a reaction to the eugenic thinking represented by Christie in her novel. It is time to snapback from the long arch of this backlash. Justice demands that we do so.
Last week the USA Today featured a story on Andrea Yates the Texas mother who killed her 5 children because she believed Satan commanded her to do it. The psychological expert called on by the prosecution Park Dietz testified that while her actions sprang from delusion (Satan told her through morning cartoons to slay her children she nonetheless) knew right from wrong. In fact she testified that she wanted George Bush and the rod of human justice to rid her of her demons. Instead of being evidence of a lack of mental competence Yates aspirations were deemed by the witness for the prosecution to be a clear sign that she knew right from wrong. Dietz asserts,
“Under Texas law, if a mentally ill person commits a murder in response to command hallucinations from God, they would surely be insane," he said. "If they did it at the direction of the chief of police, they are arguably insane. If they believed it at the direction of a gang leader, at the direction of Napoleon, at the direction of Satan, they are not insane. Gang leaders, Napoleon and Satan do not have moral authority in Texas.”
Use your delusions I guess. The situation is made all the less clear cut by the recognition that Yates believed that God was using her sinful act as an avenue for the salvation of the children. She would face civic punishment (which would incidently rid her of the Satan within.) They would merit eternal life (having been sacrificed before the age of accountability.) That such thought patterns represent a knowledge of right and wrong is ludicrous. Her civic punishment might be fine with Andrea Yates and Park Dietz but it ain’t justice. While, I could never embrace the absolute determinism of Agatha I nonetheless believe that insanity exists and sometimes in our fallen world people are not strictly responsible for their actions. In part we have a judicial system precisely to arbitrate these sorts of exceptional situations. Pandemic fears of the abuse of the insanity defense was born in large part as a reaction to the eugenic thinking represented by Christie in her novel. It is time to snapback from the long arch of this backlash. Justice demands that we do so.
Monday, July 03, 2006
Community News
Jodie and Doug became members of TUMC (Toronto United Mennonite Church) last Sunday.
They also recently trekked to California and Oregon for vacation. While there they attended John and Brooke's wedding and got a chance to catch up with Jessica, Angie, Anne, Naji, Jonathan, Sebastian, and Emmanuel.
Doug is moving to a 3/4 time position working with the homeless as the street pastor for Lazarus Rising.
Simeon is adding words to his vocabulary by the scores every week. This Sunday he managed to smash a score of glasses all over the church floor during coffee hour. He recently got his first hair cut and enjoyed time spent with Grammi, Grampi, Nana, and Uncle Jeff out in California.
Johanna enjoyed being a flower girl in John and Brooke's and Uncle Jeff and Aunt Cyndia's wedding. She is planning ahead already to her next visit to Grandma's at Christmas and to her own wedding.
Steve is becoming more and more at ease living with us crazy kids and continue to remain very active at Sanctuary.
Angela is enjoying mothering Jacob, gardening, and soccer (watching and playing.)
Ben and Angela are doing and are doing a good job making friends amongst the neighbors. They enjoy worshipping at Parkdale Neighborhood church and revel in the unexpected there (for instance just this week someone asked "can I get some butter with this bread" when they were having communion.
Jacob is sitting, verbalizing, smiling and giggling, and all-in-all getting to be a very big boy.
Jodie and Angela are excitedly planning a trip to Alberta to see Heather, Mike and Yana.
They also recently trekked to California and Oregon for vacation. While there they attended John and Brooke's wedding and got a chance to catch up with Jessica, Angie, Anne, Naji, Jonathan, Sebastian, and Emmanuel.
Doug is moving to a 3/4 time position working with the homeless as the street pastor for Lazarus Rising.
Simeon is adding words to his vocabulary by the scores every week. This Sunday he managed to smash a score of glasses all over the church floor during coffee hour. He recently got his first hair cut and enjoyed time spent with Grammi, Grampi, Nana, and Uncle Jeff out in California.
Johanna enjoyed being a flower girl in John and Brooke's and Uncle Jeff and Aunt Cyndia's wedding. She is planning ahead already to her next visit to Grandma's at Christmas and to her own wedding.
Steve is becoming more and more at ease living with us crazy kids and continue to remain very active at Sanctuary.
Angela is enjoying mothering Jacob, gardening, and soccer (watching and playing.)
Ben and Angela are doing and are doing a good job making friends amongst the neighbors. They enjoy worshipping at Parkdale Neighborhood church and revel in the unexpected there (for instance just this week someone asked "can I get some butter with this bread" when they were having communion.
Jacob is sitting, verbalizing, smiling and giggling, and all-in-all getting to be a very big boy.
Jodie and Angela are excitedly planning a trip to Alberta to see Heather, Mike and Yana.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
The Wedding
Doug and I enjoyed John and Brooke's wedding very much. It was sacramental to see them so in love, rendered giddy with anticipation, and filled with deep thanksgiving. I remembered the most powerful moment in my own wedding was the singing of the doxology because I felt encircled with love and overwhelmed by blessing.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Two Weddings and a Funeral
Doug, Johanna, Simeon and I will be leaving tonight for John and Brooke's wedding. We will be stopping in Ripon to attend Angie's Grandma's funeral (Wednesday morning) and then we will be off to Oregon hopefully arriving just in time for John's reception. The following weekend we will be back in San Diego for Doug's brother Jeff's wedding. A busy week replete with deep, sorrowful, and joyful moments with/for our dearest friends and relations.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Excuse the mess!
My internet connection kept failing and I loss my corrections to the previous post twice. Sorry, you got such a rough version! I decided to leave it up "as is" because I haven't the energy to correct it once again. I know. I know. It is rough. And it wouldn't convince anyone who wasn't already persuaded. Just some liberal Christian rant!
Haditha
This is what I have had my mind on today especially as it recapitulates this.
What is a Christian response to such things? Why I know it is not this! I still can't fully comfortable in my own pacifism. Does my pacifism alone render me guiltless of the crimes of my country. I must admit that I feel responsible. I am a citizen? Right!? This violence was for me?! Right? For my Freedom? I remember prayers as a child: Thank You that I live In America and have religious freedom! As if Nuclear Bombs and Marines are what preserve our freedoms and not the cross of Christ. But, I don't see anyway that this war machine is gonna grind to a halt and I know to many beloved Christian friends and neighbors who have never paused a millisecond and thought--Maybe, just maybe, shooting one year old babies for any cause at all is not right. Even our cause!? Even if it were Jesus's cause. Of course I am being overly dramatic. My guess is that they would simply not believe that such acts as the slaying in Haditha would be carried out in our names and by some twisted extension in the name of Christ. However, I can't see any other way to look at it. Surely, the God of Israel hate idolatry as much as ever. Are we worshipping GOD or are we worshipping Mars? Are we worshipping GOD or the flag. It seems to me that there are lines being drawn in the sand at places like Haditha.
What is a Christian response to such things? Why I know it is not this! I still can't fully comfortable in my own pacifism. Does my pacifism alone render me guiltless of the crimes of my country. I must admit that I feel responsible. I am a citizen? Right!? This violence was for me?! Right? For my Freedom? I remember prayers as a child: Thank You that I live In America and have religious freedom! As if Nuclear Bombs and Marines are what preserve our freedoms and not the cross of Christ. But, I don't see anyway that this war machine is gonna grind to a halt and I know to many beloved Christian friends and neighbors who have never paused a millisecond and thought--Maybe, just maybe, shooting one year old babies for any cause at all is not right. Even our cause!? Even if it were Jesus's cause. Of course I am being overly dramatic. My guess is that they would simply not believe that such acts as the slaying in Haditha would be carried out in our names and by some twisted extension in the name of Christ. However, I can't see any other way to look at it. Surely, the God of Israel hate idolatry as much as ever. Are we worshipping GOD or are we worshipping Mars? Are we worshipping GOD or the flag. It seems to me that there are lines being drawn in the sand at places like Haditha.
Monday, June 05, 2006
Remains of the Day and CD IV.2
I confessed to my lack of good reading last Thursday. I have been attempting to amend my ways and read the Remains of the Day and started Barth's Church Dogmatics IV.2 this weekend. Barth says that a Christian is one that not only hears and struggles with God (ie. Israel) but accepts a role in being God's co-worker in the task of redemption. Of course, "co-working with God" always means for me something like: whatever you do in word or in deed do it all for the glory of God. Of course this attitude I learned amongst Calvinist where it meant too often--be an investment banker ad majorem deo. Here God is preeminetly the God who is concerned with human excellance. So, are major task is to preform are calling with virtuosity. This attitude make sense as long as one is serving the right things and people. However, the Remains of the Day gently delineates the ambiquities of human virtue that makes this a task that requires much critical facility and a good deal of moral trepidation. Certainly post-Holocaust we can no longer ever think of duty the same way again.
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Sunday Night Prayer
Lord God,
I pray for Yana and Heather and Mike. Deep thanks for Yana's gracious arriving. I ask that Heather and Mike might be able to craft moments of normalcy for themselves. Time when they can exult in toes and noses and little yawns. We ask in hope that she will be healed and quickly.
Amen
I pray for Yana and Heather and Mike. Deep thanks for Yana's gracious arriving. I ask that Heather and Mike might be able to craft moments of normalcy for themselves. Time when they can exult in toes and noses and little yawns. We ask in hope that she will be healed and quickly.
Amen
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Nothing to say.
I find that most days I have nothing worth saying. In part because I spend my day wrestling with esoteric archival stuff or reading (and also watching) intellectual junk food. I confess that I am finding myself watching Oprah during the kids naptime, that I have been thumbing through old copies of Parent magazine, and that I even watched a whole episode of "So You Think You Can Dance?" My academic enterprise finds me giddy every time a mention of prophecy, city of refuge, cain, or total depravity is mentioned in the American Journal of Insanity (1844-1860). But, I can't yet explain the significance of my reading. No wonder I have nothing to say. I have been reading the NY Times. However, I find my self attracted to pop psychology, movie reviews and articles on Garrison Keillor and the Dixie Chicks. Perhaps, I have unknowingly suffered a head injury. This also might explain my preference of Yahtzee over Scrabble, for Agatha Christie over W. Somerset Maugham, and Coke over Coffee, and the worst confession of all: I actually know the name of Brad and Angelina's baby.
Monday, May 29, 2006
Sunday, May 28, 2006
God. It has been a long time since I have longed for you. In the excess of praise choruses, upon my bed at night, or even the longing that is mingled with tears. Please fill us with love that sets our hearts restless. Please set us seeking the peace found only in your finality. Give us the grace to love what is divided and broken, fragmented and partial all around us... not as a temptation from the ultimacy of your love but with an eye towards the time when you shall be all and all, before the rocks cry out, before tears are wiped not wrung, before the beast rests with prey... Until you come again let us trust in your unfailing love. Lord, God Strong to Save. Teach us to find ourself at rest in your promises and spured on by your peace.
Amen
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