La Puerta

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A musician who has always deserved more acclaim than he has received in his solo career is John Cale. A founding member of the Velvet Underground, a band whose lyrics and insistent – if at times atonal – music capture their era far more effectively than most, Cale has gone on to produce some songs provocative enough to rival those of Lou Reed himself. On his Paris 1919 album, the song “Hanky Panky Nohow” contains these thoughtful lyrics: “nothing frightens me more than religion at my door.” These words are, ironically, prophetic. Religion at the door, in public office, behind major media corporations, has become an insidious threat to the founding principles of this nation. Right, Ms. O’Donnell?

Yesterday morning I went out to get the newspaper. Although I live in a relatively safe town, we are classified as the “Greater New York City” area, and I’m always suspicious of anything unexpectedly left on the doorstep. There was an unaddressed, blank, sealed white envelope there that jingled when I nudged it with my foot. At first I thought it might be a set of keys left at the wrong house, but when I did finally open it I discovered a bilingual set of aluminum faith coins. An accompanying letter assured me that God wants to save me and shared with me a dream of somebody in a white dress carrying a Bible. The letter, amazingly, misquotes John 3.16.

I am the frequent victim of Jehovah’s Witness visits. I have students handing me booklets that will save my soul. I receive offers of golden miracle crosses in the mail – I still carry mine around, but prosperity has continued to elude me – with the assurance that God wants only the very best for me. I open the paper and see the suffering of the people of Indonesia. I see a column about teen suicides resulting from bullying with victims as young as twelve hanging themselves. I see overweight politicians feathering their already overstuffed nests. I turn back to the anonymous letter. “Please hold this coin or pass it on to someone who needs it,” it instructs. I think I’m going to need a truckload of coins. Nothing frightens me more.

Zombie Walks

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As October nears its creepy climax, signs of the macabre have become abundant. A trend that has reached new heights in recent years is the zombie walk. Various cities or regions host large groups of brainless, reanimated corpses in parade (rather like a Tea Party, I should imagine) to welcome in the darker half of the year. In a most unconventional display of cultural unity, groups of strangers meet for the purpose of sharing their fascination with the undead. Given the inherent potential for overly enthusiastic participation, these events are usually held during daylight hours and are becoming as accepted as trick-or-treating on Halloween.

Fear of death is sublimated in a conquest of the same with less definitiveness than traditional resurrection, but with a more gritty and graphic triumph of life. Organized religions have had difficulty maintaining numbers in much of the “developed world” while this new danse macabre has taken on a life of its own. Many find claims of divine authority in institutions that refuse to make clean breaks with sex scandals or threats of Quran burning somewhat disingenuous, while nobody questions the motives of zombies. They simply do what it takes to survive. An honest zombie stumbles toward eternal life.

Credibility is less easily commanded than it had been in former times. While many voices, such as Tea Partiers’, are claiming the need to erase the sixties and seventies and subsequent decades from the calendar so that the authoritarian Father can be returned to power, thinking people are asking what the plan might be. Is it time to break down that putative wall between church and state and declare America a plutocratic, evangelistic Republic? Never mind that inevitable conflicts will break out over who has the right to set doctrine and public policy – most citizens will be found out walking with their fellow zombies, welcoming in the darkening season.

The Power of Hope

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My wife pointed out at article on MSNBC yesterday that stated Robert H. Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral is filing for bankruptcy. Internet reaction has been predictably hostile, clawing at the craven, money-driven industry of television ministry. There is no question that many television ministries quickly grow corrupt under the lure of immense wealth. The average American citizen is glad to part with some money if it can buy favor with the man upstairs. When a minister is able to construct such edifices as the Crystal Cathedral with the good-will offerings of the faithful, well, s/he’s an entrepreneur, the kind of people God likes, according to the Tea Party. Schuller was famous for his positive thinking and insistence that God will do great things for you. When recession hits, however, not even God remains solvent.

According to the article, various corporate sponsors of the Cathedral are having difficulty holding up their end of the contract. Positive thinking extends only as far as the goodwill of the banks. Is there any question who the real god is here? Americans love the non-biblical concept that God helps those who help themselves. Making more money than a humble clergy-person ought to make may improve the sense of optimism, but it loses touch with where the average citizen lives. It is easy to be optimistic when you have a heavenly bankroll on your side.

Yes, but can it keep birds from flying over your head?

Over the weekend my family looked at slides from our years in Europe. The great cathedrals, even if in ruins, convey a sense of stoic strength, genuine commitment. Built with the hard-won resources, if not the actual physical labor of the local populace, these cathedrals were made of stone. I recall standing in the nave of Salisbury Cathedral while the tour guide pointed out that the very stone pillars supporting its huge steeple were bowed under the weight of all that stone above. Some day it may collapse under its own pressure, but it will have always survived longer than the Crystal Cathedral. Religion, if I may use a metaphor, is more authentic when it deals with stone rather than glass. The religion that struggles with the intractable realities of daily life will inevitably last longer than the feel-good, glass-plated, Tea Party serving “religion” of feel-good Christianity. It is too bad about the Crystal Cathedral, but maybe the entrepreneurs should be asking serious questions right now about which god they truly serve.

Wasps

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I just finished reading Iain Banks’ The Wasp Factory. It is a disturbing novel on many levels; even the back-cover comments warn against reading it. The reason for mentioning it on this blog, however, is that it is so full of religious ideas that it would be a shame not to address them here. I won’t put in any spoilers for those who might, even with adequate warning, want to read the book.

The wasp factory of the title is a divination device. The narrator, Frank, does not believe in God because of the unfairness and cruelty in the world, although he is also a frequent perpetrator of cruelty. As he seeks revenge on animals other children, Frank views their suffering as a form of punishment from the God he disbelieves. At one point, after his brother Paul dies, Frank compares him to his old dog Saul, also unfortunately deceased. At this point he reveals, “Paul, of course, was Saul.” Death is the Damascus Road experience in this world devoid of a deity, but one where death is considered far more certain than life. At one point Frank declares the sea to be a mythological enemy, a point of view shared by the Bible and many ancient societies.

Frank is a neurotically ritual-bound individual. No matter how gruesome, his tasks are part of an elaborate system that must be repeated in order to maintain its efficacy. At one stage Frank declares, “this is like intellectuals in a country sneering at religion while not being able to deny the effect it has on the mass of people.” This statement is more insightful than it first appears – it is the dilemma of many who attempt to understand religion who are considered a luxury not to be afforded by society. Frank is a paradigm: people are religious, even in heterodox belief systems. The Religious Right has understood this for decades: talk religious talk and they’ll vote for you. Most people have no way of checking out what form this religion might take. It makes me almost as nervous as The Wasp Factory itself.

Eve’s Orchard

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One of the innocent pleasures of autumn is apple picking. Not living in the country, many of us rely on the local orchards that open their trees and furrows to the public during the fall so we can feel once again in touch with nature. It may be only temporary, but this farm life is authentic and revitalizing – especially under a cerulean blue October sky. So it was that we joined our anonymous friends to pluck fruit and feel a part of the organic world away from laptops, palms, and cells. Picking apples always brings Eden to mind. In fact, no matter how secular the class I teach, if I ask students what picking fruit from a tree – usually I have to throw in the snake as well – represents, invariably most guess Adam and Eve. Of course, in the patriarchal world of the Bible, Eve gets the rap for taking the first bite, but a more sensitive reading reveals maybe this was what God intended all along.

Tasty fruit of knowledge

Within a generation of the origins of Christianity, a negative spin had been placed on that fateful fruit. This was the willful disobedience of sin rearing its ugly head in Eden. Of course, Genesis does not refer to the act as a “sin” – the word first occurs in the story of Cain and Abel. The human striving for knowledge, for the prerogative of the divine, the sadder but more informed life, was now a matter of blame. In the Greco-Roman cultural milieu where men set the standards, woman became the harbinger of sin and decay. Adam stood chastely by, happily clueless until Eve insisted he try this brand of iniquity. Pure fiction. And yet it is this version that has retained cultural currency in the western world. Blame it on Eve.

The patriarchal version


So much of our reading of the Bible is based on prior expectations. Even Bible translators know that they can’t go too far a field from the standard that the KJV set. When western Bible readers first cut their teeth on English prose, it was the dulcet tones of Elizabethan English that captured their attention. And the mores of Shakespearean England combined with the harsh repressions of a simmering Calvinism led to a Bible choked with sin to the point that a little fruit enraged the creator as much as fratricide just a chapter later. The fruit had rotted on the tree, and women were to blame. Perhaps it is time that we recognize the filters before our eyes when we approach the Bible. If we can understand that the patriarchalism is not the point, but merely the cultural shading of the time, we can release the message that the fruit is good. The temptation was not to become evil, but simply to become human.

Demo C. Rats

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I just finished China Miéville’s novel King Rat. I’ve been thinking a lot about rats lately. This retelling of the tale of the Pied Piper of Hamelin has a strong Marxist flavor that intrigues the reader into greater possibilities. Each week as I drive the many miles required as a professional adjunct, I think about the bourgeoisie of academia. Many university programs are simply not possible without the many adjuncts willing to be exploited in order to keep them going. While the adjunct is kept below a certain number of courses so that costly benefits do not need to be paid, full-time faculty are kept below a certain number of courses so that they are free to build the university superstructure. Some teach no courses, do no research, and conduct no administration. It is a fair guess whether they even bother to breathe or not. Yet they are paid full salaries and benefits. Academic fossils paid simply to exist.

Saul, the rat-man who would be king, has a conscience. He was raised by his human father to appreciate the sense of what Karl Marx wrote. As the novel progresses, the rats congregate around him, wanting him to be their king. I have been an adjunct instructor for five years now. As I have watched my prospects grow slimmer, my work load has increased for less and less payback. I frequently chat with full-time colleagues who appreciate everything I’m doing. This academic year I am scheduled to teach eleven courses, strictly part-time, of course. Otherwise someone might have to pay benefits. This week one of the schools I teach at actually expanded parking privileges for adjuncts. Not to be nice, but because they had to.

Saul, the would-be king. So biblical. So human. At the end of the story he lives up to his idealism, granting rats autonomy without being sure how it will play out in the real world. There was a time when academics were idealists. Universities are now, like all other aspects of “modern life,” businesses. I’m sure that full-time instructors devote very little thought to those who work for table-scraps to support the system that underwrites their comfortable lifestyles. Certainly a university president or dean would loose nary a wink of sleep over those who’ve given themselves over to the task of Atlas, holding up their sky. It is business as usual. And as the bourgeoisie know, every aspect of life is business. What happens when the rats go free? The end of the story has not yet been written.

The Chosen Peoples

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My thanks go to Simon & Schuster for sending me a review copy of Todd Gitlin and Liel Leibovitz’s new book, The Chosen Peoples: America, Israel, and the Ordeals of Divine Election (2010). Briefly, the book traces the origins of the concept of being a chosen people in both Israel and the United States. This concept is then shown in relief with those who are “unchosen.” The authors conclude by highlighting the national sense of mutual goodwill between Israel and the United States. The full text of this review is on the Full Essays page of this blog.

I read this book wearing multiple hats. Since the first chapter traces Israel’s sense of chosenness from Biblical times to the present, I began by wearing my Biblical Scholar hat. Many of the questions asked and raised about the Bible reveal a naivety about traditional claims of biblical authorship. Although certainty cannot be achieved, biblical scholars have applied textual and literary techniques to the text for well over a century now, and many of the claims simply accepted by Gitlin and Leibovitz simply do not stand up. This may seem a minor flaw, but since Abraham is foundational to this outlook, it is essential to at least consider his lack of historical attestation. Gitlin and Leibovitz assume that Genesis, with its stories of Abraham, predates the books that follow. This is not a safe assumption to make, and using this background as a foundation for further analysis might well lead to structural problems with the argument later on.

Wearing the hat of an historian, I noticed how much of the force of the argument of the book is interwoven with the idea that God has actually chosen Israel. I have told my students for many years now that historians do not make claims on God or God’s alleged activities. Texts that narrate God’s actions tend to be classified as myths rather than history. The concept of chosenness, which Gitlin and Leibovitz are reluctant to relinquish, is based on the premise that God has indeed done the choosing. An historian would be extremely reticent to make such a claim. Having noted this concern, the authors do a fine job of providing a brief, readable history of the founding of modern Israel without recourse to what God was doing in the twentieth century. When the authority of the Bible is needed, it is quoted here in King James English, hardly the most accurate translation available.

Gitlin and Leibovitz suggest that chosenness is more a curse, at times, than a blessing. The reasoning seems to be that the concept of chosenness leads inexorably to Zionism. The ideas interact on a much more subtle level than that, although certainly the Zionist movement has owed and continues to owe quite a heavy debt to the concept. The generalizations here are a bit broad – political motivations may not receive their full due. Toward the end of the chapter the ideology of messianism is engaged and brought into the discussion. It is not clear that messianism is the same as chosenness; the two ideas both emerge in Judaism, but do not always overlap. When the authors state that Zionism has always been messianic at heart (p. 57), that may be correct, but it does not necessarily reflect chosenness. Gitlin and Leibovitz are very good at pointing out the inconsistent application of the idea of messianism in the formative stages of the modern state of Israel.

Please see the Full Essays page for the remainder of this review.

Escanaba in da Moonlight

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My daughter was ill at school recently and I went to pick her up. It has been a few years since this has happened, so I guess I’m a little out of practice. In the school office there is a Star-Trekish device poking up through the counter where visitors check in. I was instructed to put my driver’s license on the device and an eerie glow emerged from it as they scanned my card. You are not allowed to leave with your own child, even if the school calls you, without being scanned. A New Jersey license is a real hassle to acquire with multiple forms of ID required – this isn’t the Midwest where you just turn in your expired license and they hand you a new one. Every four years you have to prove you are who you say you are. As we climbed into the car, I was glad for the school security, but I couldn’t help remembering.

I grew up in western Pennsylvania where deer worship was the dominant religion. The first day of buck season was a school holiday; I can’t recall if doe opening day was just a half-day or not. We could not graduate without passing a course called “hunter’s safety” which involved detailed instructions on how to shoot rifles and shotguns. My high school – God’s truth – had a rifle range in the basement and you were allowed to bring your rifle to school as long as you checked it in the principal’s office. When I tell others about this they don’t believe me, but when I ask my high school friends they all remember it that way too. Now that my stupidly smiling driver’s license image is floating around the school mainframe as a potential kidnapper for picking up my own daughter, I think about the difference in times.

Kids had guns in my high school in the late 1970s, but they knew that it was wrong to shoot other students. It was a small town, but we were all taught the rules of engagement and we knew that other human targets were outside the scope. Every year there were accidental hunting fatalities (Dick Cheney would have felt right at home), but the schools were used to address that issue. Today I see wind-bag politicians trying to cut back on education as much as possible and I see kids who don’t know any better killing their fellow students indiscriminately. No, I’m not nostalgic. I do not own a gun. It is my belief that children learn from adults, and when politicians say through their words and actions that looking out for number one is all that matters and that bullying (yes, Mr. Governor) is appropriate for getting what you want, I think it is no wonder we find ourselves with children who can’t tell right from wrong. I’m ready to watch Escanaba in da Moonlight and pray to the god of the deer.

Deer God...

From Bragg to Phelps

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Religious freedom is proving to be a two-way street. The news is rife with stories of religious groups pushing the limits beyond their right to state an opinion into arguably unconstitutional behaviors. At Fort Bragg, the Army is sponsoring Rock the Fort, a Christian rock concert promoted by the Billy Graham Evangelical Association. Although Christian bands are spiritually minded, they do not perform for free, raising the question whether military (government) money is being spent to promote a particular religion, a particular strain of Evangelical Christianity. In offering this concert, is the government endorsing this one religion? Statements that other religions are free to send their rock groups to Army bases rings hollow when, with rare exceptions, such groups simply do not exist.

Meanwhile, Time magazine brings the curious Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas back to the headlines now that Supreme Court has been called in to argue whether their outspoken condemnation of the military is constitutional. Fred Phelps, the founder of the church, has led divine hate campaigns across the country. It is his protests at the funerals of soldiers killed in action that has forced the question of whether his group has the right to condemn indiscriminately. The question of good taste need not even be asked.

What these Evangelical groups are pointing out is that God apparently suffers from schizophrenia. Simultaneously the great general upstairs loves soldiers and wishes to convert them and also hates them and condemns them to hell. The jury, it seems, should be the taxpayers. We are the ones footing the bill for Christian concerts and paying the not-insubstantial salaries for Supreme Court justices to argue about the legality of religious hatemongering. In these days when many feel that Islam is a threat (as Christian clergy threaten to burn the Quran), it might be worth asking where the real threat to religious freedom comes from. Religious zealots often make excellent soldiers, no matter what the religion.

These guys love God, but is the feeling mutual?

Higher Ethics

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As a part-time public servant (I teach part-time at two state schools, Rutgers and Montclair State) I am required to sit myself in front of the computer for over an hour each year to watch a slide show on the ethics expected of public servants. Probably the first time this was a good thing since I had seriously been considering taking a tip-jar to class with me to help meet the costs of living in New Jersey. You see, part-timers do not get benefits. Some, like me, teach twice as many courses as their “full-time” colleagues and get paid less than half of what their betters do. I am a bargain-basement public servant. I figured a tip-jar might just help to cover mileage (not reimbursed). As I listen to the stern-voiced lady spilling out all the unethical practices (like tip-jars) that can lead to the dismissal of bad public servants, my mind can’t help but to wander to what Bruce Springsteen famously called “the mansion on the hill.”

Froma Harrop, a journalist in Providence, wrote an op-ed piece on higher education that appeared in yesterday’s New Jersey Star-Ledger. After surveying the situation at her local Brown University, Ms. Harrop laments the seemingly endlessly escalating costs of higher education. In the past four decades tuition has increased an average of 15 percent, whereas incomes (at least some) increased at an average of 6.5 percent. She notes, however, that the money is not going to professors or academic programs. The lion’s share of university money goes to sports teams. Students who often have trouble passing my admittedly easy introductory-level courses are pampered, petted, and preened by the university. The average undergrad has plenty of stories to tell of how they have been forbidden goods and services that the university reserves for its sports stars. Ms. Harrop also cites the fact that the number of administrators has nearly doubled in the last 30 years. For all that, the schools haven’t become more efficient, just top-heavy.

So as I waste an evening looking blankly at my computer screen, I realize that I am a public servant. Strictly part-time. I also realize that many public servants – those who hold high political office come to mind – earn far more than they strictly need. In fact, the benefits package alone of some of these “servants” would easily support a family of three mere mortals. And they don’t even have to make their own car payments. As an undergrad I took enough courses in ethics to officially declare it a minor. I have studied religion, a discipline akin to ethics, all my life. As the stern-voiced lady tells me all the bad things I cannot do with state money, I wonder what the top public servants are doing tonight.

I’ll Take Coffee, Thank You

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Yesterday’s victory of Christine O’Donnell in Delaware’s senate primaries seems to have shocked a lot of people. Have these people not been paying attention? Did they sleep through Beckpalooza? Have they failed to see that Sarah Palin’s lackluster life story has become a best-seller? Are Americans in denial that we are facing a major Religious Right comeback? The problem, yes, problem, is that Americans are not taught to think about religion for themselves. Raised with the idea that their political and religious leaders have some special channel open to the divine, they are sheep led to the, well, you know…

Society pays for its sins. One of the most fatal of the deadly sins is the refusal to take ownership of religious education. Unreflective religion in the hands of politicians is a fully armed atomic warhead. Many Americans like to think this is only a problem in nations with Islamic infrastructures, nations unduly influenced by shahs, ayatollahs and imams. Nations influenced by Tea Parties, Neo-Cons and biblical amateurs are much safer, much more friendly.

Problem is, the Bible’s a mixed bag. Some of the loftiest spiritual sentiments nestle down uncritically next to calls for genocide and harsh repression. As long as it is the magic finger from above that’s written it, that’s good enough for tea-tipplers. There are few opportunities to call Americans together for a religious town meeting. We’re all too busy off doing it our own individual way. In such a climate, isn’t it best to let those without any formal religious training tell us what the Bible says we should do? Do you want one lump with that, or two?

O'Donnell takes Castle to school

Utopia

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In a rare moment of free time I stumbled across the website of Damanhur, a planned eco-society physically located in Italy but with branches in other (mostly European) nations. The Federation of Damanhur is dedicated to the spiritual, artistic and social development of humankind. It is probably most famous for the hand-carved temples deep within a mountainous location in northern Italy. The Temples of Humankind are, from web pictures anyway, quite stunning, often earning the hackneyed accolade of the “eighth wonder of the world.” The temples are dedicated to Gaia, the earth, and humanity (often, unfortunately, its greatest enemy). The Temples contain a hall of waters, hall of earth, hall of mirrors, hall of metals, hall of spheres, a labyrinth, and the Blue Temple. Begun in 1978 as the vision of Oberto Airaudi, a tunnel was excavated and the temples were carved from the rock. A moving account of how government officials, determined to shut down this clandestine operation only to emerge from the temples emphatically stating that they must be preserved, came to the aid of the Damanhurians is presented on their website.

Like other utopian movements, the Damanhur society seeks a better world. Their vision of a planet in sync with rather than warred upon by humans is compelling. Their achievements are admirable. Still, it remains a sad commentary on the world that greed and capitalism have constructed. Every day self-satisfied faces of wealthy politicians glare out from the newspaper or Internet declaring that they know a better way. The evidence of our world belies their claims. Damanhur and other similar societies only thrive when they are small. Once paradise opens its doors, entrepreneurs enter.

The religion of Damanhur is far from orthodox. It is, however, peaceful and sensitive to the connection that binds all of earth’s inhabitants together. The society promotes education – a simple commitment that seems beyond the will or ability of many state governments in this wealthy, fully industrialized and technologized society. I wish the Damanhurians well. They have constructed a beautiful world for themselves. If they fare better than most utopian societies, perhaps they can continue to be a light for a world that sees only veins of potential bankable wealth inside mountains.

Temples of Humankind

Happy Labors

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Labor Day Parade

Just as Memorial Day has become the unofficial start of summer, Labor Day has become its unofficial end. Unlike holidays that commemorate an event, Labor Day was a planned holiday dating from the 1880s. To get a sense for this, think about the past. Just try to imagine yourself as a worker in the 1880s. There were long hours, a workday did not go from 9 to 5, there were no regular vacations, no protection from injury on the job, often hard labor. This was daily life for many people since the Industrial Revolution began. Labor Unions were the result of exploited (overworked and underpaid) workers banding together. If one guy quits, work goes on. If everyone quits, somebody’s got to listen! So groups of workers formed unions to get organized and to begin to bargain for more appropriate working conditions.

Credit for Labor Day goes to either Peter McGuire or Matthew Maquire. Both men were laborers associated with unions: McGuire with the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and Maquire with the Central Labor Union (CLU). Whoever actually first suggested it, Maguire’s CLU was behind the first Labor Day in 1882.

It may seem hard to imagine now, what with all the free time people have to sit in front of the computer or television, that there was a time when a day off work could become a national holiday. But on September 5, 1882, the Central Labor Union held its holiday in New York City – the home of many unions. Less than 10 years later, in 1894, President Grover Cleveland signed in the first Monday in September as a legal holiday. Public support ran high for Labor Day, but some favored a May 1 celebration.

As an observance, Labor Day was simply for the enjoyment of a day off. The holiday has a special poignancy given the persistence of unemployment over the past several years. Although Labor Day has no religious basis, the fact is that many of us have been taught that our self-worth lies in our work, our contribution to the good of the whole. For those of us who have been forced into stints of unemployment, Labor Day seems less a holiday than a reminder of what we lack. Have we evolved a society that has outlived the need for a Labor Day?

Restoring Horror

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Few television families are as true to life as the Simpsons. At least on a metaphorical or symbolic level. Last night as I watched the episode entitled “She of Little Faith,” I was reminded of just how large a role religion plays in this sit-com. While the majority of Springfield’s inhabitants don’t ever question the correctness of the local church, Lisa Simpson remains the avowed skeptic. Conflicted over her own sense of what is right and family expectations, she becomes a Buddhist yet continues to attend church with her family. This image of religious compromise strikes many as precisely what is wrong with organized religion today – it lacks the coercive power it once had.

In a free-market economy religious belief is a commodity to be selected and purchased. Most people are far too busy trying to get ahead to spend much time thinking about religion; it is far simpler to allow the clergy to do that. They come back to us, telling us what to believe, like some congressional report from heaven’s house of representatives. We pay them a salary and their service is to make sure we believe what keeps God happy. Religion, potentially the most powerful motivator in the world, is up for grabs like former Soviet nukes. Anyone is free to declare him or herself a religious leader, qualified or not.

So over the weekend thousands flocked to Washington to hear 2012 presidential hopefuls Beck and Palin tell them how to restore “honor” to our nation. Beck commented that his rally marks the point at which America starts to “turn back to God.” Most Americans at the rally (or those at home) seldom think about the amorphous God to which he refers, for themselves. Americans are consumers. We purchase what we like. If the God that is touted will make things better for me, then I’ll buy it. This is the price we pay for refusing to take religion seriously at an academic level. It is not about to go away. I side with Lisa Simpson as the honest individual who has an examined life. Facing opposite me on the Mall are tens of thousands who would rather be led. I am afraid. I am very afraid.

Catskill Waiting

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Catskills epiphany

We’re back from the Catskills and all they imply. One of the more obvious implications was a lack of internet access – one of the many reasons I like to frequent remote locations. I had planned this little get-away with some vague hopes of enlightenment of some kind. The quote from Melville in my last post is more than just nice prose; it is the essence of spiritual striving. I know those aren’t scientific words, but they embody the spirit of several nineteenth century American novelists I’ve read and reread. I did see a Catskill eagle while there, but I returned home still seeking an epiphany.

While briefly away from the constant demands of teaching, the bigger picture starts to come into focus. We visited Ellenville on the day of their Wild Blueberry and Huckleberry Festival – we’d just picked huckleberries ourselves in the mountains outside town – and religious groups were represented aplenty. I had noticed the many churches in this rural region, and one of the feters handed me a tract that informed me “If you have said ‘Yes’ to these three questions [have you ever sinned, lied, or stolen] (by your own admission), you are a lying, thieving, adulterer at heart; and we’ve only looked at three of the Ten Commandments.” And also, John Lennon is dead. Nothing like a little self-righteous judgment with your blueberry pie. Sirens began to blare and a fair-goer collapsed and had to be airlifted to a regional hospital. It was very dramatic.

This is where the big picture came in. When there is an accident, we take astounding measures to save the injured, suffering, or wounded. A fair-goer flown by life-flight to the hospital. At the same time, our society condones, encourages even, an unemployment scenario where even highly trained individuals are cut off from health care and self-esteem as well as income. Left to die a quiet death of desperation. As long as we don’t have to see it, death by redundancy is sanitary and sanctioned. Has this great society ever sinned, lied, or stolen? I have seen that Catskill eagle and I am still awaiting an epiphany.