Advent: The Anxiety of Redemption

Advent, that interesting time of hope and expectation, the one liturgical time that even most generic evangelical churches have a difficult time ignoring, is upon us.  Over the last few days I, like many in this country, have contemplated with horror and puzzlement the latest in a seemingly endless string of violent tragedies.  Over these last few days I, like all of those around me, have come to no answers, and have failed to understand the evil which was enacted on a small town in CT.  On the simplest level, all of our strivings to ‘understand’ are bound to fail.  An act like that which has covered the papers and stolen the airwaves is ultimately beyond comprehension precisely because it cannot be ‘understood’.  It cannot be understood, it cannot be defined, it lies beyond any concept of rationality.  At best, looking into the face of senseless death causes us a Kierkegaardian anxiety.  This anxiety is not on behalf of the ongoingness of our own lives, but, to some extent, for the ongoingness of life at all in a world in which radical evil takes place.  We stand at a precipice, terrified, looking down into the dark abyss below. 

It is both ironic and important that the horrors of Newtown took place during Advent.  In the liturgical calendar, Advent is shown to be a time of waiting, and a time of anticipation.  Advent is not Christmas.  Advent is not a season of new birth.  Advent is not a season of joy, but rather one of anxiety.  Hope and anticipation cannot take place in the face of a guarantee.  Advent is not really about preparation for Christmas, but about the anticipation that the miracle of Christmas could actually occur.  Advent should be a time of reflection on the brokenness of the world.  The story of Christmas is only meaningful against the backdrop of brokenness.  The anxiety of Advent is an anxiety in the face of brokenness, in the face of evil.  The anxiety of Advent is not fear.  Rather, it is that feeling in one's gut which defies explanation and definition.  It is the intermixed feeling of hope and despair.  Advent is not the guarantee of Christmas.  That the Newtown shootings took place during Advent  illustrates the hope of redemption which is found in the despair of brokenness.  Many, understandably, question whether there is ultimately any meaning in a world in which children are murdered.  And of course, without in any way diminishing the horror experienced in Newtown, this is hardly an isolated incident.  It is important to also remember the countless individuals across the world who die violent deaths every day.  It is important to remember the thousands of children who die every single day due to lacks of adequate healthcare, nutrition, or clean drinking water.  The loss of each of these lives, among countless others, calls for questions of meaning and value.  The is the world in which Advent finds itself.  This is the world because of which we can't help but experience tremendous despair.  

Yet, Advent, as a season of anxiety, is a season in which hope always comes alongside of despair.  We hope for healing.  We hope for happiness.  We hope for redemption.  Taken etymologically, Advent combines the prefix 'Ad', meaning 'to' or 'toward', with the Latin verb 'veni', meaning 'to come'.  In the Christian liturgical calendar, the term 'Advent' is usually used to refer to the coming of Christ.  Yet, the despair of a broken world ought to remind us that Advent need not be a unidirectional season.  Advent is misunderstood if we see ourselves as stationary in the process of the coming of Christmas.  The Latin verb 'veni' is a word which notates movement, but additionally demonstrates growth and creativity.  Advent is a season in which a broken world seeks to enact its own redemption, while simultaneously hoping for the newness of Christmas life.  In the shadow of Newtown, the world, and particularly this nation, needs to begin in earnest the practice of Advent.  While enacting meaningful gun control is an important step forward (as a meaningful plea in this regard I was particularly impressed with this article by ESPN's Rick Reilly:  A Different Call of Duty as well as this NY Times op-ed: Do We Have The Courage To Stop This?) in redeeming our own brokenness, and while there are important mental health issues that should continue to be addressed to stop those who would commit mass killings (or any killings for that matter), these treat the symptoms of our brokenness while the disease rages on.  We live in a society that glorifies violence.  We proclaim our favourite athletes to be 'warriors' and 'gladiators' as though the enacting of violence upon another is a mark of pride.  We ignore the admontion, "Blessed are the meek," in favour of a focus on individual strength and self-reliance.  

Advent is a season in which we ourselves are among the mobile.  Advent is a season in which we need to remind ourselves that the hope of Christmas means nothing unless we intentionally incorporate it into our lives.  Advent is a season in which we hope for the coming of Christmas, but also a season in which we enact the going-toward the hope of Christmas.  We cannot passively wait with anticipation for redemption, but rather must creatively spring forward into redemption.  With anxiety, we must encounter brokenness in itself in order that this very brokenness might somehow be redeemed. 

For Love of the Knuckleball

I have always been enamored with the idea of baseball as a metaphor for life.  One could make an argument that sports generally could serve this metaphorical role, but I don’t think it’s the same for all sport.  Baseball players, more than most, seem to recognize, and indeed even embrace, the absurdity of the game.  Baseball players don’t feel the need to make themselves into ‘warriors’ doing battle on the gridiron.  At the end of the day, they’re just ‘ballplayers’.  They play a game.  Major League ballplayers play (roughly) 162 games every single year.  They don’t pretend that any game is a matter of life-and-death.  You win some… you lose some- the nature of life.  Every player has down days, friends stumble, people let you down.  Of course, the opposite is also true: sometimes people play beyond their capabilities- everybody who has played baseball for any significant length of time has gotten to be a hero, if only for an afternoon.

 

This afternoon I was listening to an interview with R.A. Dickey (R.A. Dickey Interview), the dynamite knuckleball pitcher for the New York Mets.  By all accounts he is a great ballplayer and an exceptional human being.  Given my own academic tendencies, I was intrigued by his description of the knuckleball as a “countercultural pitch.”  While this is clearly a loaded phrase, let’s take a few minutes to unpack what it is that he might have meant by this.  The knuckleball is absolutely unusual even by baseball’s standards.  As Dickey describes, most baseball pitchers aim to throw the ball hard.  Every baseball fan has been engrossed watching some of the great fireballers.  Among those pitchers of my lifetime this list would certainly include Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, Bobby Jenks, Matt Verlander, even John Rocker.  We sit at the ballpark and love to watch the speed recorded by the radar gun pop up on the screen.  A kid’s eyes bulge as he looks at his dad and says, “Did you see that??!! 100 miles per hour!!!”  Our culture, generally, is always interested in the biggest, the strongest, and the fastest.  We love to see how hard a pitcher can throw, just like we love to see how far over the fence a hitter can knock a ball.  But the knuckleball is different.  The knuckleball doesn’t move any faster to the plate than the average high school kid can throw.  A knuckleball, on tv, barely looks like it is moving at all.  The knuckleball pitcher rejects the traditional sporting maxim that bigger/faster/stronger is always better.  Indeed, what is particularly fascinating about knuckleballers is that they equally reject the related maxim that precision is king.

 

The knuckleball is not about power, and it’s not about precision- it’s about pure and unadulterated chance. The magic of a knuckleball (say what you want about physics, I’m not entirely convinced that it is not actually magic) is that even the pitcher doesn’t know what is going to happen next.  The ball might swing left or swing right.  The ball might dip or it might drop.  The knuckler can’t possibly contain his pitch, but is left in a position of hope.  Of course, there is incredible skill involved, which is why, according to Dickey, there have only been 60-70 knuckleballers (presumably major leaguers) throughout the history of baseball.  A knuckler must have a modicum of control over his pitch, but even more so he must have faith and courage.  He has the faith to release, to allow his ‘creation/art/pitch’ into the world.  He has the courage to accept the happenings of chance.  The knuckleball is a 'countercultural' pitch precisely because it refuses to be identified by the structures of power and control which regulate the world of sport.  The knuckleball is quite literally 'counter-cultural' insofar as it draws its meaning in opposition to the status quo.  99% of pitchers try to throw as hard as possible, try to put the ball in a precise location, and try to impart unusual spins in order to control the exact trajectory of the baseball.  The knuckler, in opposition, scoffs at all of these practices.  He does not throw the ball with great velocity.  He does not even know where exactly his pitch will end up.  And, perhaps strangest of all, he rejects the very notion of spin.  R.A. Dickey expects his pitch to make no more than 1/4 of a single revolution in the 60.5 feet between himself and his catcher.  The pitcher with the courage to throw a knuckleball does so in defiance of the way things 'have always been'.  The knuckleballer sees the world differently, sees a world in which chance is a means of living, and a way of life.  

I have always been enamored with the idea of baseball as a metaphor for life.  Although I could never have been a pitcher in my baseball career (as clearly evidenced by my one and only excursion to the mound), I do think that we are all (metaphorically) pitchers in the game of life.  Of course, at various times in our life we are also catchers, shortstops, and, yes, at times even right fielders.  When, in my life, I play pitcher, I don't have the practice, the natural giftedness, or (at times) even the desire to be Nolan Ryan. As Dickey describes it, every knuckleballer comes to the art less out of desire than out of a failure-driven necessity.  The pitcher who throws a knuckleball does so with the full humility that he does not measure up to the standards set by his peers.  I'm pretty sure this is also the place where most of us live our lives.  Yet, what the knuckleball symbolizes is the strength of weakness.  The knuckleball is the ceding of (at least some) control.  As much as I'd like to think that my life is in my own hands, the stark reality is that it just isn't.  Like a knuckler, the best I can do is point in a desired direction and hope for the best.  Like a knuckleball life can dip, dive and swerve.  But, like a knuckleball, it is the dips, dives, and swerves that make life meaningful.  Life is a constant game of chance- of wishing, hoping, and striving.  While it might feel weird 'leaving my hand', I strive to embrace that chance.  

On Violence, Evil, and Suffering

I have a terrible memory.  As a general rule I don't remember much of my past.  Yet, something that I remember vividly is sitting in a high school Spanish class watching the television immediately after the mass shootings at Columbine High School in 1999.  At the time I didn't realize the full gravity of the situation, but as the story began to unfold I began to feel differently than I ever had before.  There is no name for the feeling that I had, but it was a combination of disbelief, pain, anger, and fear among other things.  Not 15 miles from where I was sitting something inexplicable had just happened.  This was the first time I remember coming face to face with the ineffable.

There have, tragically, been numerous times since then that "my world" has experienced other horrific and tragic examples of senseless violence (which it seems is a silly term since I can't find a way to think of sensible violence).  Just in the past month the news has been filled with stories of the horrible massacre at the movie theatre in Aurora, and just recently the murders at the Sikh temple in WI.  These events were absolutely terrible, and they are tragic evidence that we live in a world in which meaningless violence is inflicted on people every single day.  Every day people are killed, tortured, abused.  Perhaps worst of all is that the pervasiveness of violence is ultimately incomprehensible to us.  I can no more understand why James Holmes' acted as he did than I can understand a rock.  There are certainly physical and chemical realities underlying both, but neither physics nor chemistry can ultimately explain motivation, belief, or intention.  Speaking with someone not long after the movie theatre shootings my conversation partner and I said, nearly simultaneously, "I hope he's crazy."  The truth is, for us, it is much easier to live in a world in which such unconscionable behaviour can be blamed on mental illness.  If he's not crazy, then what?  If there's not a physiological blame then where can we go from there?  

Many people would have no problem saying that somebody like James Holmes is either crazy or evil.  Unfortunately I can't buy into this simple distinction.  While I am a firm believer in the reality of mental illness, I simply cannot accept that the alternative is that a person IS evil.  From the beginning of time we have often taken the label of 'evil' and applied it to that which we don't understand, and even more dangerously, to those who are simply different than us.  We (potentially) call somebody like James Holmes 'evil' in order to turn him into an Other.  If he is not crazy or evil, than what is to say that we too could not perform similar tragic acts?  We want him to be evil, in order to make ourselves feel better about the world in which we live.  Yet, for many of us, the world in which we live is a world in which we gladly accept what Walter Wink calls 'the Myth of Redemptive Violence'.  We distinguish between the violence which we understand and the violence which we don't by labeling one 'just' and the other 'evil'.  I will be the first to say that the actions of James Holmes were evil.  But does that make him evil?  What does it mean to so freely categorize a human being?  It would seem, at face value, that an 'evil' person is beyond hope, beyond peace, beyond redemption.  Indeed, it would seem that an 'evil' person has simply ceased to be human.  I cannot accept this to be true of any person. Nobody is beyond the hope of redemption.

While it would certainly make me feel better about the world to classify certain individuals as evil, I'm afraid it is merely an easy way out.  The real difficulty for me, in the face of the ineffable, is to recognize such actions as a genuine part of the world in which we live.  The world in which we live is filled with tragedy.  The world in which we live is broken, violent, and full of hate and pain.  In the 3rd book of the Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay, the main character, Katniss, comes to a realization about the violence of her world. Quite movingly she says, "I no longer feel any allegiance to these monsters called human beings, despite being one myself.  Because something is significantly wrong with a creature that sacrifices its children's lives to make a point.  You can spin it any way you like."  While this may well be a critique on a general culture of warfare, it also seems to be exactly the sort of 'easy-way-out' to which I have already pointed.  Yet, I think this quote also points to an important fact.  Perhaps it is precisely the 'monstrosity' of humanity that we have difficulty accepting.  We label an individual 'evil' in order to reject the monstrosity which inherent in our humanity.  This monstrosity is that which transcends our understanding.  It is coming face to face with the ineffable within ourselves.  We come face to face with evil not via the Other, but in ourselves.  I can say with approaching-perfect certitude that I will never commit an act of violence so egregious and despicable as those described, yet, I fully abide in a world in which children die from treatable ailments (not the least of which is malnutrition).  I cannot give up my allegiance to humanity, but must face the monstrosity that inhabits it.  A professor who I think quite highly of recently offered the most meaningful advice that I have heard in the face of such monstrosity, "Let us silently sit with the pain," for sometimes that is all we can do.  

In Defense of Television

This morning I saw a brief feature in Relevant Magazine about a man who has lived without a tv since 1988 (http://www.relevantmagazine.com/slices/man-hasnt-seen-tv-show-1988-claims-be-fine).  In and of itself, living nearly 25 years without a tv is not really that big of a deal.  It's unique, certainly, but hardly world-changing.  I have a lot of respect for this man, for the way he appears to have lived his life, for the choices he has made, and for the many worthwhile causes that he has undertaken with his spare time.  Yet, as I thought about this article, I began to wonder about the potential value in television.  I wouldn't dare say that a life without television is somehow incomplete, but I think (I think) that television can offer a great deal to a person who uses it responsibly.

Without a doubt, the vast majority of shows on tv are aimed at the lowest common denominator, and are very near the opposite of edifying.  Not long ago I accidentally saw about a minute of Chicagolicious.  Well, it wasn't entirely accidental.  You see, I enjoy watching shows about travel (since I can't afford to do as much of it as I'd like I get to experience other places, peoples, and cultures vicariously), and I enjoy watching shows about food creation (probably since I am a big fan of both making and eating various food creations), and I adore the city of Chicago.  I (wrongly!) assumed that this show would just be a documentary-style show about the people and foods which are unique to Chicago.  Nope.  As it turns out, those 60 seconds will forever be remembered as wasted time that I can never get back.

However, particularly in the past decade, I have begun to see more and more shows which refuse to pander to the lowest common denominator.  I have seen shows which have a meaningful message which they want to share, shows which have an artistic value on par with anything Hollywood has to offer, shows which are unique, creative, and witty.  Indeed, there are times (albeit a very small percentage) when a show's writing could rival that of Steinbeck,  Dostoyevsky, or Roth.  While I believe strongly in the importance of reading, I have seen on television moments which equal the importance of any book.  It is easy to place literature on a higher level than tv, but I'm not sure that doing so is warranted.  We have no problem looking back at great films, say Casablanca or On the Waterfront, and claiming them to be masterpieces, proclaiming them as pinnacles of artistic achievement.  Yet, we rarely recognize that achievement in television.  I wonder why.  Surely the preponderance of television shows about people who may or may not be able to sing or may or may not be able to dance, shows about people who are famous for being famous, and the E! Network haven't really helped.

However, even as "reality" tv has taken over the airwaves, there have been tv executives who have made an effort to do magic in 30-60 minutes once a week.  I have just recently been watching a new show from Aaron Sorkin called Newsroom.  From the first five minutes of the first episode I felt that there was something special.  When asked why America is the greatest country in the world, a character gave this impassioned speech:

I was struck by the passion of the moment.  Even if they demonstrated a certain historical revisionism (of course, which historical rendition does not?)  I was struck by the words.  But, most of all, this speech demonstrates to me what television can be, although rarely is.  While tv demands less imagination from its audience than a book, the emotional impact need not be lessened.

Newsroom is by no means the only great show on television.  AMC's Breaking Bad is another example of tv with an impact.  Breaking Bad explores the depths of human depravity, it illustrates the ease with which a person can fall- the snowball effect of little choices on a person's character.  Edgar Allen Poe could not have written a story more engaging and powerful.  Poe could not have more readily plumbed the depths of darkness, of the evils of society, of the brokenness of creation.  And, so as not to seem like a total snob, I should mention that fairly recently my life has been impacted in very meaningful ways by a network ratings giant, How I Met Your Mother.  Even in the silliness of such a show, truth can be found.

While I could make a list of other important moments in the history of scripted television, the point here is not to kick a dead pig (which incidentally I did do when I was much, much younger).  Television is very often much more of an enslaver of the masses than it is their saviour.  We would all (myself certainly included) do well to turn off the tv more often in order to spend an evening at the park, read a book, or tell our own stories to our families and friends.  Even so, as with (almost) any form of public expression, there is great meaningfulness that can be found within the world of television.  We may not always see it, and I'm afraid we often miss it until it is too late (looking at you Firefly), but still it lurks somewhere beneath the surface.

The Value (Cost?) of Education

I believe in education.  If my life demonstrates nothing else (although I certainly hope there is more to it than just this) it is that I believe in the importance of education.  I have, literally, been a lifelong student.  I don't mean that just in the 'I read a lot and enjoy learning things' kind of way.  I have spent nearly every year of my life seated in various classrooms, positioned behind various desks, and sequestered in dark corners of various libraries.  I love to learn, and I love to do so within the walls of the academy.  During the nearly three decades of my life an incredible amount of money has been dedicated to tuition, books, and academic pursuits.  I have been extraordinarily lucky in my life that even more money than was spent was saved through scholarships.I currently attend a school that charges over $1,000.00 per credit hour.  Although I'm not paying this amount, or perhaps because I'm not paying this amount, this figure blows my mind.  It calls to mind the classic scene in the film, Good Will Hunting, in which Will scolds an intellectual blowhard by telling him that in 50 years he will realize he wasted $150,000.00 on an education that he could have gotten for $1.50 in late charges at the public library.  I can't help but wonder if I, too, will someday come to this realization.  

I've recently been thinking about education for a number of reasons.  In the news of late have been two major stories that have pushed me into these ponderances.  The first story (Metro State Tuition) is that the Metropolitan State College of Denver (my father's alma mater) approved a special tuition rate for undocumented immigrants.  The second story that has caught my attention has been the battle to keep student loan rates from raising (Student Loan Rates).  In many ways I'm not particularly interested in all of the political posturing that has taken place because of these two issues.  Like many people, I'm fed up with a reactive politics which offers little of value because it is too busy toeing a party line.  When I first heard the story about Metro State I was extraordinarily excited.  I have been fortunate to know a number of young people who find themselves in an extremely difficult position.  Having been brought to the USA as young children (illegally), they have grown up here and know no other home.  They have lived fairly average lives, and have worked extremely hard to excel in school and make something of their lives.  Of course, after having put in the sweat to do well for themselves, some of them have graduated and found little hope for a prosperous life moving forward.  Because of their legal status in this country (due to no choices of their own!) they are virtually unemployable, and therefore find themselves unable to pay for college tuition.  Moreover, because of their residency status (and that of their parents) they are also virtually unable to get college scholarships.  For several years I have watched this happening, and it has killed me that young people with so much passion and so much potential find themselves in a seemingly hopeless position.  I earnestly believe that, given their natural abilities, if given the chance, many of these young people could do great things.  I certainly don't think that college is the only way forward for a person to do great things, but I do believe that in many cases it can make a profound difference in the life of a person.  I don't know whether this special tuition rate will ultimately take effect, but I pray that this, or something like it, can make a difference in the lives of many.  This is not a political statement, at least not in terms of American "politics."  I earnestly believe that this is a moral issue: "When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien.  The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt" (Leviticus 19:33-34).  Each and every one of us has been a stranger in one way or another.  Each and every one of us has been in need of compassion, of love, of basic human kindness.  Just as it has been given to me, I hope to be given the opportunity to demonstrate it to an other.  While I understand that there are political/fiscal issues at stake in this debate, I find the call to compassion to be stronger than any potential desire for the well-being of "us" at the expense of "them."  

Yet, as mentioned above, regardless of the value that I place on higher education (and education generally), I am bothered by the entitlement marketing that has taken over the education system.  I have been extraordinarily fortunate to have had the opportunity to pursue education at the highest levels.  I cannot take that for granted.  I have been even more fortunate to have done so debt-free.  I understand that not everybody has the opportunities that I have been given.  Because of this, I am hesitant to speak my thoughts here.  Nevertheless, as I hear the harrowing stories in the news of how student loans are destroying people's lives (their words of course), I can't help but question the wisdom which would justify a person taking on that kind of debt for the sake of education.  Higher education is not a right.  Higher education is not a necessity.  Many people (past and present) have made for themselves incredible lives without a college degree.  While, on average, a college graduate will make more money than one without a degree, we cannot allow ourselves to buy into an existence in which the value of life is a financial equation.  College is not for everyone.  While that may sound as though it is a judgment from one on the inside I hope that this is not the case.  This is not a matter of intelligence, much less a matter of class or of caste. I hope against hope for the educational possibilities of some undocumented folks.  Even so, I don't pretend that a college education will magically transform their lives.  We still live in a world of injustice in which people of all races, genders, and castes find themselves living in unequal power relationships with others.  College won't change that.  This is precisely why I question the validity of the proclamation by which people find it appropriate to take on unmanageable amounts of debt in the name of education.  Life is about so much more than a degree (or two, or three, or... well... you get it...)  Student loans are a valuable tool if used well.  However, it seems that many people are beginning to recognize that the value of education (at least of their education) is less than the cost of that education.  I wish that every person would be a lifelong student, but I think that perhaps Will Hunting had it right all along.  To be a student does not, necessarily, mean to sit in a classroom.  There are teachers all around, the trick is to recognize them. 

I believe in education.  I commend those who believe the struggle for higher education (if it's not a struggle it really isn't being done right...) is important, and is worth an investment of their time, energy, and money.  However, I equally commend those who can see other ways to succeed in life.  I commend those who make a difference in the world regardless of their educational background.  I commend those who read books, those who engage in meaningful discussion, and who think critically of the world around them.  These are the true students, and it is like them that I yearn to be.  

Camelot: The Possibility of Things Hoped For

In the last two weeks I have had two nice experiences.  The first experience was that I had the opportunity to go see the musical Camelot with my family.  (The play was put on by the Performance Now Theatre Company- http://www.performancenow.org/- which always does a really nice job).  I first saw Camelot, I believe, when I was in middle school, as part of a field trip to see Wheat Ridge High School's production.  Since that time it has been one of my favourite musicals.  I have always been drawn to the combination of joy and tragedy that is found in Camelot.

The second experience was that I received in the mail a copy of Jürgen Moltmann's latest, and perhaps last, book, Ethics of Hope.  I had pre-ordered this book so long ago that I can't even recall when it was.  Over the course of the last five years, or more (?), I have been continuously drawn back to Moltmann's work, and I was particularly excited about the publication of a distinctly ethical text (To be fair, this text has existed in German for a couple years, but I have been far too lazy to put in the time of working through it- slowly!- in German).

I bring up both of these experiences together because both experiences, in addition to the dissertation proposal that I am currently working on, have left me thinking about utopia.  I'm sure that most of us, probably in high school, have read a number of texts about utopias.  I'm also fairly confident that for most people I wouldn't be breaking any new ground when I say that etymologically this term comes from Greek, and literally translates into the phrase  "No Place"--  οὐ ("not") and τόπος ("place").  Utopias are utopic precisely because they could never exist.  Perfection is that which always eludes us, which, no matter how far we stretch out our arms, is always just past our fingertips.  Camelot offers a perfect, and particularly humourous vision of utopia.

The city of Camelot is purported to be a place where even the weather is completely subject to royal decree.  Camelot is a magical place where it never rains until after 8:00 PM, where the Autumn leaves blow away altogether (at night of course!), and where the moonlight must appear by 9:00.  In short, there's simply not a more congenial spot for happily-ever-aftering than there in Camelot.  Arthur, although certainly not alone, conceives of his city as a place which can change the world. He says, "We'll invite all the knights, and all the kings of all the kingdoms to lay down there arms to come and join us."  The world will no longer be a place where people no longer kill people because of invisible boundaries.  The world's mantra can no longer be, "Might is right."  Camelot, as conceived by Arthur, will literally reshape the world into a place which fights for 'justice for all'.  He wants to do away with class distinctions, with jingoistic warfare, and with petty  rivalries.

Yet, unsurprisingly these lofty goals ultimately fail.  Camelot is, at its heart, a love story.  It is story of a man, Arthur, who loves his queen with all his heart.  Yet, it is also the story of Arthur's love of the hope that Camelot offers.  Tragically, it is also the story of Arthur's heartbreak.  Arthur, the king who has cast aside even his own ultimate monarchical power for the sake of justice, finds himself betrayed and alone.  Camelot is the story of Arthur's heartbreak.  It is the story of Guinevere slowly but consistently destroying her relationship with Arthur.  It is the story of the ripple effects of individual actions.  Yet, as much as any of these, it is the story of hope in the face of destruction.  If you're unaware of the story, the short version is simply that Queen Guinevere is caught in an adulterous relationship with, Lancelot, the greatest of all knights.  She is tried before Arthur's newly-founded criminal courts and sentenced to death (certainly a bit harsh, but still a step up from the prior system whereby she would have had no legal rights).  Lancelot escapes from Camelot, and is therefore not also tried.  Arthur's dilemma is that his love for Guinevere, despite his broken heart, cannot allow the judgment to stand, but if he were to overturn the ruling of the court he would destroy everything he had created Camelot to be.  It would again simply be a place where might makes right, where unequal power relationships are the order of the day.  Rather than overturn the judgment, he sets her execution for a place and a time in which Lancelot, being the gallant knight, will be able to swoop in and rescue her.  The penultimate scene demonstrates a bloody battle in which many people die in the battle between the forces of Camelot and those which came with Lancelot.  Guinevere is rescued, but the battle leaves behind a trail of bodies nevertheless.  This trail of bodies is the embodiment (quite literally) of the ultimate destruction of Camelot and all that it stood for.

Yet, there is yet hope to be found for Arthur.  The musical ends with Arthur alone in the woods, as he prepares to fight a battle that he doesn't want to fight against Lancelot's army- a battle which is based on retribution, a battle which has no concept of 'justice-for-all'.  A young boy comes to Arthur, hoping to fight in the battle.  Before sending the child away, Arthur says to the boy, "Each evening, from December to December, before you drift asleep upon your cot, think back on all the tales that you remember of Camelot. Ask every person if he's heard the stories.  Tell it strong and clear if he has not- that once there was a fleeting wisp of glory called Camelot...Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot.  Camelot was a utopia, because it never fully existed outside of Arthur's mind.  Yet, as utopia, Camelot serves as a reminder of what could be.

It is precisely in this act of remembrance, of the proclamation of 'one brief shining moment' wherein the hope of Camelot is found.  Arthur recognizes that his own actions, as well as the actions of those around him, have killed the utopia (indeed, as is the nature of utopia, the utopia killed itself).  Camelot has returned to the way things used to be.  Yet, Arthur sees in this moment continued hope.  He isn't trying to secure his own legacy, but rather proclaiming that, even for a short while, the world was changed for the better.  He wants Camelot to be proclaimed throughout the world so that it can serve as a demonstration that hope still flies.  Camelot was a failure, but that failure is not permanent.  Thus, even though his own life didn't turn out as he envisioned, and even though his love of Guinevere would now remain always as a vestige of a tormented past, Arthur's love affair with hope has survived.  The future is open.  Even in the face of continuing tragedy, of continuing violence, of continuing hatred, hope springs eternal.

 I intended this to be a post about two experiences, it turns out to be a post primarily about only one.  Yet, this one experience is, in some sense, a universal experience- it is the experience of a world of brokenness.  For those who have read Moltmann's work, he reminds us that hope is not the hope for utopia.  Hope is not the process of waiting on something good to happen.  Hope, on the contrary, is about making happen that for which we hope.  Hope is not a  naïve belief that everything will always be good, but the recognition that our lives, even if only for one brief shining moment, are meaningful outside of ourselves.

Three Minute Fiction

Every year NPR has a competition which they call 3 Minute Fiction.  Listeners are encouraged to write a story of no more than 600 words (approximately three minutes when read aloud) using the prompt supplied by NPR.  This year's prompt was: She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door. Just for fun I decided to enter the contest this year.  I threw in nods to Fitzgerald (since Gatsby is one of the greatest works of all time), as well as to Nietzsche, Levinas, Heidegger, et al., because such things are never far from my mind.  This was my entry:

Every Present is a Past/ Every Past is a Present

She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door.  In the morning people would know what she had done. 

                “It doesn’t really matter anymore,” she thought to herself, “Sometimes a person just has to walk away.” Even this thought didn’t overcome her fear, her regrets… her pain. Her past, the smiles and tears alike, seemed to be a mere fiction. She felt the present, as she had never felt it before, this one brief moment, being borne back into the past. She couldn’t help but chuckle with derision… the past. What is the present but that which is continually dying. There is no present but the eternal recurrence of the same. She was suddenly aware that the unnerving feeling of déjà vu was simply due to the fact that no present can escape its own past. The dying away of the present, the ‘now’ which is always already the ‘not anymore’ , this was the only future to which she might look forward.

                Past. Present. Future.  Did these words even have meaning? Perhaps the past was all that is, and all that ever can be.  She thought back over her actions of the past 24 hours, and of her actions over the past 3 months. “He had it coming,” she reminded herself. She had done only what she knew to do. Nobody would fully understand what she had done… nobody could. She didn’t understand. She had been thrown into this situation, but she wasn’t entirely sure how, and couldn’t even contemplate the possibility that there might be a why. Is there ever a why?  We live, we act, occasionally we think. She had to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

                With absurdity on her mind, she picked up the book again.  She leafed through the pages with no interest in the words therein. He had been given the book, but refused to read anything that didn’t, in his mind, justify his own stupidity. He was convinced that he was in the right, that the entire world revolved around him. Of course, he couldn’t have admitted this; he couldn’t even have thought it. “He had it coming,” she reminded herself once more. Some people think that a person is like an onion: a person must strip away the outer layers to find the core, the heart of a person, the soul.  She laughed yet again.  Of course, a person is like an onion. Each and every one of us is a series of layers, but, the reality that is tragically ignored is simply that a person has no core.  When the layers of a person, just like those of an onion, are stripped away, nothing remains. Her mind was again dragged to thoughts of the past, whatever that meant.  She saw clearly how each and every decision of her life, each fleeting present, had given her a new layer.

                   She gingerly returned the book to the table, careful not to disturb the quiet of the room. She stood up and walked toward the door.  With one final glance around the room she prepared to leave for good. As the door creaked open she was filled with hope. The present was already passing away;  it would be replaced with a seemingly infinite series of presents in the future. Perhaps the future is not entirely dictated by the past. Even the past was only what she made of it. With a smile she stepped through the door, and, swinging it closed behind her, she said to nobody in particular, “I’m better off right now.”     

On Re-membering

Over the course of the past NFL season, and particularly evidenced tonight, the New England Patriots have been paying homage to Myra Kraft, the recently deceased wife of Pats owner Robert Kraft.  Even during tonight's game, the biggest game of the year, numerous Patriots tapped the patch bearing Myra's initials and pointed to the sky in her honour.  

Many see this as a touching tribute to a woman who more than one player called by some variation of 'mama'.  While I would hate to criticize what was probably a very meaningful gesture from these players, I'd like to briefly consider what it means to truly remember the dead.

Only a few weeks ago I heard a professor say, "The best way to forget about a person is to look at a photograph."  We stare at photographs to remember the past, but in so doing, we merely confine the deceased to the past.  As I sat watching the Patriots give tribute to Mrs. Kraft, I wondered to myself what meaning such tributes might actually have.  Was anything actually accomplished by a bunch of grown men wearing a small MHK patch on their chests for the past few months?  Was the show of pounding the chest and pointing skyward even meaningful to the players, or was it merely a show for the boss?  Could the life of Mrs. Kraft really even have meant that much to these players?  These are merely hypothetical questions.  Far be it from me to criticize the personal observances of these men.  I can't possibly pretend to understand the mourning process of any other person. Keeping that in mind, I would like to argue that a small shoulder patch and a finger upward, while possibly personally meaningful, are not an act of remembrance.  

Playing off an admittedly over-used philosophical trick, we can get a much stronger understanding of 'remembrance' by throwing a hyphen into the word.  'Remembering', at its strongest form, is nothing less than re-membering.  Re-membering, is an act of intentional embodiment.  To re-member, is not to think happy thoughts about the events of the past (even if sugar-coating the negative).  Rather, re-membering is to recognize what was important to a person, and to again put flesh to those motivations.  Myra Kraft, for example, was by all public accounts a pretty impressive person.  She was a great philanthropist and supported a number of great causes.  She was not actively involved in her husband's work as owner of the Patriots, but when she found out that a recent draft pick had a continuing history of violence toward women she demanded that he be released immediately.  As it turned out he was released even before training camp had started.  It would seem that Myra Kraft is a woman who deserves to be re-membered.  Yet, this re-membrance cannot come from a simple expression.  If Patriots players truly wanted to re-member Mrs. Kraft, they could best do so by living the life that she is no longer able to live.  To re-member Mrs. Kraft would be to demonstrate a life of committed engagement.  This is not a simple act of mimicry, but a meaningful demonstration of intentional embodiment.  

Gilles Deleuze spoke at great length about the concept of memory, and, citing the literature of Marcel Proust, profoundly spoke of memory as "time regained."  Memory, claimed Deleuze, is related to a past that has never been present.  The active performance of memory, what has here been called 'remembering', is an act of repetition, or of eternal return in Deleuze's Nietzschean terminology.  Yet, this repetition, is an enacting, not a reenacting.  In memory time is regained because it allows the bringing to present of things past.  The Remembrance of Things Past, thus, is ultimately the becoming of something.  

In the end, re-membrance is not a complicated idea, much less a complicated practice.  While weeping for the lost can be a meaningful part of the grieving process, it is not a meaningful remembrance.  While it can be fun to look at pictures of those we loved who have passed on, it is not a meaningful remembrance.  Remembering, re-membering, is to live a life that would make the re-membered proud.  Re-membering is to see the footsteps of the deceased, and to continue on in the direction in which they lead.  This is not the act of 'following in' the footsteps, but of placing value upon the footsteps themselves by moving beyond them.  Remembrance is not an act of grief, not an act of looking to the past, but an act of intentionally moving into the future. To live well is the greatest remembrance. We remember by re-membering the remembered.    

On the (Im?)Possibility of Justice

As I was driving home recently I heard a fascinating interview (on Fresh Air) with a legal scholar named Michelle Alexander (Jim Crow Still Exists in America).  I highly recommend listening to this interview (which I will not rehash here).  What particularly struck me about this interview was the interaction between Alexander and the work of another prominent academic.  This other individual claimed that, after having spent a great deal of time studying people in various positions within law enforcement, he could not reasonably believe that the criminal justice system is inherently racist.  Alexander's response, in part, was simply that,"I think it's very easy to brush off the notion that the system operates much like a caste system, if in fact you are not trapped within it."  Without having the legal background of Alexander, I'm not especially interested in the legal arguments as such.  Rather, the reason that this particular statement struck me is because she names so clearly the existence of what many ethicists would call structural evil.  I'm certainly not doing anything new by pointing to the possibility that structural evil is a reality in the world.  In fact, much of what I have to say on the matter was said (with significantly more insight) by Reinhold Niebuhr in his classic, Moral Man and Immoral Society, 80 years ago.  Although I disagree with much of what Niebuhr has to say in that text, I think that the very title of the book offers a thought-provoking critique of any sort of societal ethics.

I once heard it said, I know not where, though it's been in my head for a long time, that, "A person can be smart, but people will always be dumb." (OK, upon a quick googling I have found that this is a quote from the film, Men in Black... not the sort of high-minded result I had hoped for, but so it goes...)  While I do not share as high of a view of the individual with Niebuhr (or of Men in Black apparently), I do believe that this little saying is onto something.  Alexander is right to point out that it is nigh well impossible to fully recognize the systems in which we are enmeshed.  While I recognize the slight absurdity of making this claim while simultaneously trying to discuss the very systems in which I am, we are, entrapped, I also recognize that there is power to be found simply in naming the system as such.  If I could presume to put words in Alexander's mouth, I'm fairly certain that she would agree that many, perhaps most, law enforcement officials (and likewise individuals generally) are not intentionally racist.  Most of us ( I hope) who did not live through the civil rights movements shudder at the horrendous bigotry and hatred that used to be at the forefront of our society.  I, at least, can scarcely imagine living in such a world.  Nevertheless, if we listen to Alexander we learn that African-Americans are imprisoned for drug crimes at a vastly greater rate than Caucasians even though, statistically, they are both equally likely to possess and distribute illegal drugs.   Even if those individuals charged with enforcing our nation's drug laws are not intentionally seeking out individuals of a particular 'race', they are, even if inadvertently, helping to perpetuate a broken system.

Lest it seem as though I am merely interested in castigating others, I must admit that I am equally culpable, albeit it in differing ways.  The point of this blog post is not to point fingers, but to wrestle with what it means to speak of systemic/structural evil.  Is it true that, even with good intentions, we, as individuals which form a society, can be enmeshed in a system by which human dignity is rejected?  Although Alexander's focus on drug convictions is an interesting case study of systemic racism, it is by no means the only example that could be given.  Moreover, although 'racism' is certainly one form by which this structural evil is made manifest, it is certainly not the only one.  Bigotry and ignorance are all too often the public face of human societies.  Rather than simply give a list of -isms, it would perhaps be prudent to rather ask what might be done in the face of structural evil.  Is there hope in the face of such overwhelming bleakness, or might it be better to simply give in to the systems of power without rocking the boat?  If the battle with structural evil begins and ends with the individual, then I dare say it is hopeless.  Yet, the individual must still play a role.  What is needed is for individuals who have been intentionally shaping/being shaped by communities of virtue to stand up against systems of power.  Last week we celebrated MLK day.  Yet, it was not MLK the man (per se), but MLK the organizer who has earned a day of remembrance.  MLK would not have been MLK were it not for the communities in which he was raised and the communities in which he shared life with others.  The only way for 'moral' individuals to continue to have hope in the face of immoral societies is through what Bonhoeffer called simply "life together."  Only through intentional living, through the recognition and naming of systems of power, of structural evil, through the resistance of a community, can unjust systems of power be overcome.

Yet, lest I sound too much like an optimist, it should be stated that even IF such communities of virtue are possible, these communities, too, will enact their own unjust systems of power.  Ever newer recognitions and intentionalities will always be necessary; the fight for justice is never complete.