Highest Education

Leave a comment May 6, 2022 Steve A. Wiggins

The average church-goer is often impressed with the idea of seminary. The thought that someone could devote three years of their lives to theological minutiae in order to take a job with long hours and substandard pay, is mind-boggling. Having been a seminary creature for so many years, however, makes me wonder if many church folk realize that seminaries are businesses. Non-profits, yes, but businesses nonetheless. This is a trait that they share with other institutions of higher learning. Customers pay money for a good or a service (I’m not sure which) in the form of a degree. If a student can’t cope academically, they’re often “grandfathered”through because, well, it costs a lot of money and you deserve to get what you paid for, right?

This business concept of higher education is dangerous and is primarily prevalent where governments do not support education. Schools have to raise money and if alumni don’t give, well you have to raise tuition. And the more somebody pays the better case they have for getting their degree. Seminaries, however, also suffer from generally low-income alumni and sponsoring churches needing clergy. (It’s not difficult to get accepted into most seminary programs.) Only when a candidate is a serious problem will they tend to be weeded out. And congregations get the results of such a system. My level of cynicism probably results from having gone through seminary and then having taught at one for many years. At no point have I been ordained. In fact, even churches facing clergy shortages have shown no interest. Call it sour grapes.

To me, however, the crisis in higher education is the result of business practices being applied to education. The two don’t mix. In a world where job options are limited for those too weak to dig and too proud to beg, ministry has some appeal. You can be considered a community leader and an expert in the relatively innocuous arcane area of “theology.” And most of the people you serve will have no idea what seminary delivers, or doesn’t. I attended events for seminary administrators offered by the Association of Theological Schools—the seminary accrediting body. I learned that they too are under pressure to approve unless there’s a serious problem. Even heads of accrediting bodies have to eat. So we let the system churn on as it has since the earliest universities turned out educated clergy. And we don’t stop to think what all of this means.

Shopping Screed

Leave a comment May 3, 2022 Steve A. Wiggins

Capitalism is insidious. Those of us with modest incomes—and I’m quite aware that many, many people are poor—are constantly being bombarded with new schemes to get us to pay a little each time for something that used to be free. Look, I realize the economy was hit by the pandemic. We’re all paying for it. Still, even basic stores you’ve used your whole life now want you to sign up for schemes that will only cost you a dollar each time and which never really pay anything back. The one that’s got me thinking about this is a drug store. Like it’s a surprise that you’ve decided to buy something at a drug store. They get you to sign something you vaguely understand as you’re trying to rush out the door with your prescription and then they send you daily emails telling you how great it’s going to be.

And surveys—the endless surveys! They sound more neurotic than I actually am. Did we do this right, and could we have done it better? It’ll only take a quarter hour of your time. Each time you stop in. And please do that daily. The last time I did one of these surveys for the promise of a prize worth $90, I ordered their version of a fit-bit as my prize. I’m curious how many steps I take in a day and no, I don’t carry my phone with me everywhere. The “prize” arrived late and when I charged it up and turned it on (it came with no instructions readable in my native language) it worked for a total of literally 3 seconds before the screen died a pixelated death. Now that same company wants me to answer surveys weekly and pay an extra dollar each time I come in. It’s enough to make me want to use the other drug store, but they’ll probably do the same.

The thing is it’s not just pharmacies. All the stores are doing it. You shopped here once? Look what else we’ve got! Some of us shop for what we need. We live on a budget. If you’re going to start charging me for the privilege of shopping at your establishment I’ll have to start going somewhere else. The items on offer for promotional plans are things I just don’t buy. If you want me to spend more, then reframe your economics and pay me more. And I don’t have money to just give away. Have you even taken a look at your last heating bill (thanks Mr. Putin)? I’ll come to the store again as long as it’s free to shop there and it has something that I actually need.

Words and Belief

Leave a comment April 29, 2022 Steve A. Wiggins

Why do we care so little for the poor? Part of the answer is surely the misguided idea of meritocracy—if you merit good you will be successful. This kind of thinking emerges from the wrong end of a bull. There may be poor people who are lazy but the vast majority of the poor are those for whom our systems make it impossible to thrive. It’s very easy to put them out of mind as long as we can keep them out of sight and just let our prejudices do the thinking for us. The poor are the victims of capitalism. Loud voices proclaim them to be a drain on the system, despite the fact that many of them work—some multiple jobs—and remain unable to keep up. Capitalism is kind only to the wealthy.

The Rev. Dr. William Barber is one of the organizers of the Poor People’s Campaign. The full name is the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. The initial part is taken from an initiative that Martin Luther King, Jr. started before his assassination. He was shifting towards a movement meant to address the entrenched unfairness deep in American society. These nearly six decades on, we are just as deeply entrenched. Barber is doing amazing work, organizing, speaking, and advocating. He’s trying to give a voice to the people. I do wonder, however, if using the word “Revival” doesn’t work against the goals of the movement.

Certain words have been poisoned by their abuse among various religious groups. Especially among the young. The word “revival” may fall into that category, calling to mind, as it may, repressed people working up to an emotional fever under the banner of Hellfire and brimstone. Believing a bit too literally a message that was contained in a book viewed magically. Names can be important. Many of the younger generation are put off even by the word “church” since so much hypocrisy (something the Republican party has openly embraced) has come to light over recent decades. I fully agree that we need a moral revival, we need people to wake up and demand that our government promote the justice it claims to seek. I do wonder if religion, as previously packaged, has the credibility to do it. No matter how we take on the task, it’s clear that the poor have been abandoned by the system, through no fault of their own. And some in the church have begun to find their voice in the Poor People’s Campaign.

Search and Research

Leave a comment April 12, 2022 Steve A. Wiggins

Woe to those who live to research but who have no professorship! I have been prone to research since about high school, driven by the need to know. Almost Wesleyan in my need for certainty, I have always been inclined to check things out. It took college and a doctorate to teach me the necessary research skills. It took years of teaching for me to learn how to frame questions on my own. And it took years of being shunned by the academy to realize that as I’ve been pursuing my personal research agenda that I lack the time to fulfill it. I’m a slow learner. Yet I can’t give it up. The thought process that led to Holy Horror was a kind of epiphany. I could write a book without reading every last thing about the subject. The problem, however, would always be time. I’ve read an awful lot about horror media and I’m only beginning to scratch the surface.

I’m not totally naive. Okay, I’m pretty far along on that path sometimes, but I want my readers to know that I understand movies and television are made for money. It’s a business, I know. But I’m an artist at heart and I like to think the creators are fond of their characters. Writers are advised to drown their darlings, to put their protagonists on a cliff and then throw rocks at them. And I also understand that money can make you do even worse to them. Of course, I’m still thinking about Dark Shadows. For me it’s been a rediscovery of my childhood. And just how much time I’d need to make sense of just one television series with a five-year run. There’s far more information on the web on Dark Shadows than I was able to find in print on Asherah for the years of my doctorate.

And the expense involved. Plus, it’s only early April and the lawn needs mowing! I’m still wearing a heavy jacket some days but the grass is always greener. Period. What a time to fall into a research reverie! I need a sabbatical but they don’t have those in the 925 world. And I need a professor’s salary to be able to afford the media required. The Dark Shadows series alone has over 1200 episodes. House of Dark Shadows introduced the fear of the cross to my understanding of Barnabas Collins. My world has been shaken and to settle it I need research. What I have, however, is work starting in just a few minutes.

Buying Copyright

Leave a comment March 30, 2022 Steve A. Wiggins

It our current capitalist, individualist world, copyright is a good thing. It’s often misunderstood, even by those who hold it. It can also lead to confusion. Basically, anything you create is covered by copyright. This applies to written work, artistic pieces, photography, music, and so forth. Even the words on this blog are covered by copyright, although it’s difficult to enforce on the internet. If someone wants to use a work covered by copyright, they have to have permission from the rights holder. You can sell copyright. That’s essentially what authors do when they publish books. They sell copyright for the promotion and, if they’re lucky, royalties the publisher provides. Once money’s involved, everything changes. After publishers, say, have the rights they can do anything with them, if it’s specified in their contract. They can sell them again, or sublicense them. (This is going somewhere, I promise.)

Different countries have different copyright rules and so sometimes a book is available in one country and not another. Now Amazon, and some used book sites such as Bookfinder, have made used copies available. Used copies can get around national restrictions. I remember wanting a certain Hebrew grammar that was only available in hardcover in the US, and very expensive. When we moved to the UK, it was available cheaply in paperback. That’s just one example of how it’s intended to work. Here’s the twist: the same book can be sold under different titles (even in the same language) if published in different countries. It’s possible to mistakenly think that they’re different books and buy them twice. Publishers don’t mind that at all.

Even in the same country, publishers can give the same content different titles by releasing a hardcover version first and later publishing a paperback with a different name. Sometimes it’s difficult even for someone who works in the publishing industry to know if that’s happening. Copyright is meant to protect the creator. For the buyer it’s caveat emptor. There are times when it’s convenient to have two of the same book. Like libraries, however, houses also have limited physical space. And the owners limited budgets. Publishers need to make money, I realize. Hardcovers, being more durable, cost more than paperbacks. And overseas sellers face different markets so sometimes have to give the same book different titles. In this interconnected world, the buyer must beware—capitalism encourages spending and copyright can be most protean. Especially when money’s on the line.

Underestimated

Leave a comment March 5, 2022 Steve A. Wiggins

Under-printing, ironically, can create great demand. Books are generally under-printed because publishers don’t see much of a market for them. Back before the days of inexpensive print-on-demand (POD, in the lingo) books may not have even existed as electronic files. Often a publisher won’t print a book unless it anticipates that it can make back its costs. If they think it won’t sell that well, they’ll print just enough. And they might even melt down the typeset plates to reuse them for other books. I’m not sure if that happened in the case of a book I’ve been looking to consult, but something has made this under-printed book extremely rare. It’s not on Internet Archive. WorldCat shows it in only two libraries world-wide, the nearest one over 3,000 miles away. Its price used (and there seems to be only one copy) is $46,000. I can’t tell you what it is because you might buy it before I can.

For the purposes of my research, this is actually the only book on this particular topic. (The subject isn’t even that obscure.) The book is cited everywhere this topic is mentioned, and at least one person on Goodreads has actually seen a copy of it. I have to conclude that all those who cite it must live within driving distance of one of two libraries worldwide. For the rest of us the book is simply inaccessible. As an author this is one of the worst fates imaginable. Even if some price-gouger is selling a copy for $46,000 the author gains nothing from it. Royalties are null and void for used book sales. The only profiteer is the person who happens to have found a rare book (from the 1990s!) and is determined to ensure only the most wealthy will be able to purchase it.

I’ve known people who sell used books online. Those who want to move books try to undersell the unfortunate under-printed title by pricing a bit lower than the competition. There is no regulation, however. You can charge whatever you like. The funny thing is, if someone eventually forks over $46,000 for this book, and then has it appraised (it is a paperback from the 1990s), its actual worth is probably at most in the hundreds of dollars. Back when we watched the Antiques Roadshow we always knew that the poor person who brought in a book would be disappointed in the appraisal. Last time I was in Oxford I saw rare books from the 1400s for sale for far, far less than $46,000. I only hope that my books, as obscure as they are, are never deemed that expensive. And I would encourage publishers to print a bit more generously, for the sake of knowledge.

Routine Interruptions

1 Comment February 24, 2022 Steve A. Wiggins

Ironically, having just written about routines, we experienced a power outage with a wind storm. Sitting home of an evening, the lights in every occupied room began to flicker. We grabbed flashlights, suspecting what would come next. The power outage led to a temporary loss of the internet, the god of this age. Routine was interrupted. This brought to mind just how fragile all this is. As supply-chain issues have demonstrated, everything has to work just right for our society to operate at expected standards. And an internet outage leads to an interruption of routines. Whenever this happens, it reminds me of how complex our lives have become. And how unfair. There are people across the world who struggle with daily necessities such as clean water, safe homes, and reliable sources of power. And a wind storm in eastern Pennsylvania doesn’t mean that the company’s power in another state is out. Does this mean I take a vacation day?

As this winter winds down I again lament the loss of snow days. They were local holidays, of course, and based on the unpredictability of nature. Our power outage, followed by internet outage, was a personal kind of snow day. Nobody wanted it and we all planned to work today. Other than the outage, we’re fine. Just like a snow day. There’s a feeling of helplessness to it. To fix the internet we rely on someone who knows how to do such technical wizardry. Anyone can stuff a rag in a hole in the window, but to replace the glass it takes an expert. How do you contact them when the internet’s out? (Of course, everything’s back on in time for work.)

No doubt, many aspects of our lives are better. We can pay our bills without using a stamp. We can look up basic information online. Even attend religious services virtually. (Who doesn’t want to linger in their pajamas on a Sunday morning?) Yet, for all of this to happen our power must be on and steady. Our internet connectivity must be strong. We have to be able to connect to work so that we can be paid so that we can keep the power on. It seems an odd way to spend our time. Obviously, if you’re reading this they—that mysterious they—have got things working again. The power is on so that I can type this, and the internet is connected so that I can post it. And yet I don’t feel any more secure. And I know I’m one of those who has it easy.

Pennsylvania Dreaming

1 Comment February 16, 2022 Steve A. Wiggins

“I finally understand what I’ve come here to learn,” I said. I was incredibly happy. I recall the sun was shining, making its way up from my feet to my legs in a symbolic way, soon to reach my head. I was on the cusp of an epiphany. That’s when I woke up, needing to head to the bathroom. Of course, after that it’s difficult to fall back asleep. I knew that even if I did it would be to a different dream and I wouldn’t learn what it was that I’d come here for. So it is with the great experiment of consciousness. Either we’re continuously learning or we’ve already died. Nobody has all of the answers. Consciousness may be the true final frontier. There is no scientific explanation for what it is that is universally accepted. We all, however, know what it is though daily experience.

Dreams are considered part of our subconscious. While we sleep we’re said to be not conscious, although we all know that at times we are. Sleep can be somewhere between. And we don’t even know what consciousness is. The study of dreams is still valued in psychoanalysis—it is a form of thinking too—but in our materialist, capitalist society we tend to dismiss dreams. They generally don’t bring in money. In ignoring them we move further from understanding consciousness. Enlightenment, while not a scientific category, still seems possible, even should it come in dreams. If only we could stay asleep long enough to see it through.

I have a friend who also thinks too much. He sometimes wonders if this constant focus on what the “they” want isn’t a plan to keep us too busy to think things through. I often think that the monastics had it mostly right. At least the part about taking time to contemplate. When you encounter an idea that feels like a key and you know the door that it opens will be profound, it always seems that work comes to interrupt right at that point. The job where you can wrestle with ultimate reality and not worry about not producing “product” for which you’re paid, is rare indeed. That’s why waking from this particular dream was so difficult. I had a semester break while teaching where I read three books that changed my outlook forever. It was possible because I had a few weeks before I had to be back in the classroom. Since then the dream, I guess, has been to return to where you’re paid to learn, for the betterment of all.

Love on a Monday

Leave a comment February 14, 2022 Steve A. Wiggins

I hope you may find love on a Monday. I have a feeling that if we took Valentine’s Day more seriously the world would be a better place. Capitalism, however, abhors interruptions (unless you buy lots of stuff) so many of us are at work this Monday. I was recently reading how the full, unbroken eight hours’ sleep is a product of the industrial revolution. I’d never thought of that before. Everyone is different, of course, but it is natural for our species to wake in the night and be up for an hour or two and then to fall back asleep. That, of course, interferes with the nine-to-five (925) that capitalism holds so dear. In response, humans have altered their natural sleep patterns to conform. The results are predictable: a line at the coffee machine every day at the office.

When I raised this with a friend, I was reminded that much of our life-style has been determined by the industrial revolution. Certainly the concept of the weekend was. And the constant feeling of never having enough time to, well, exist. I awake when my body tells me it’s slept enough. Generally that’s around 3:00 a.m. I begin work early because Protestants have this work ethic going, but then I always get sleepy around 8:00 a.m. Napping on the job is essentially the same as being a communist, so like many others I struggle through the rest of the day, not quite as efficient as I was for the first couple of hours. In many cultures a nap is built into the after lunch slump. Intravenous coffee is preferred by capitalists everywhere.

What if love catches you on a Monday? Is it a sick day? A vacation day? A personal day? Or all of the above? It’s an opportunity to be human, but less than a true capitalist. Someone could be making money off your time! And whoever heard of more than ten paid holidays in a year? I’m not complaining. I love weekends and the scattering of holidays I receive, I really do. Still, I miss the spontaneity of life. The flight from a predator. The shutting of the eyes when tired. The celebration of love when it’s found. A Faustian bargain was made when Christianity wed capitalism. We’re encouraged to buy valentines for our sweeties, but show up to work and be there bright and early again the next morning. May you nevertheless find love on your Monday.

Prolonged Re-entry

Leave a comment January 24, 2022 Steve A. Wiggins

It’s a trope as old as holiday decorations themselves. We all know the house (or plural) where the Christmas decorations remain until it’s warm and light enough to go out and take them down. The same thing happens inside our house, on a smaller scale. Bits of the holiday—whether it be Christmas cards on the mantle, or the not quite spent candles from the Yule log—remain, while we reluctantly reenter BAU (business as usual). It’s a process best taken slowly. I suspect many of us find AU (as usual) to be not really ideal. Too many bills, too much Covid, too much of a demand made on that non-renewable resource, time. I know people happy to see the holidays go, but I’m already counting the days until they come again.

January, whose end is fast approaching, is a waiting time. Waiting to recover from perhaps a little bit too much holiday spending. Waiting for a bit more light and warmth. Waiting for that package to arrive. Waiting for the plumber to call back. Waiting for, well, business as usual. I read about holidays quite a lot. They wouldn’t be special if they happened all the time, of course. And we need the supply chain that demands steady production of goods and services from those not actually chained to a desk all day. Still, I can imagine a different world. One in which there is time to get the non-work stuff done as well as filling obligations to capitalism, pouring out our libation to the emperor. Many analysts are suggesting technology has increased efficiency to the point that a four-day work week is optimal. Who’s going to pay the same for less, however?

Time is a commodity. I’ve got a lot of projects outside work that I really want to finish. Some of them, like that junk car in my step-dad’s yard, could turn a profit if only I had the time to spend on them. Meanwhile there’s work to be done. Long days in front of the computer knowing there’s something more exciting after it’s all over. When work’s done I’m too tired to get much accomplished. It’s like the endless lapping of the waves on the sea shore. Unchanging. Persistent. Aware there’s always a coming storm. So I’m sitting here with Tom Petty, waiting. Even if we don’t know what comes next. Let’s call it a holiday.

Getting Used

1 Comment January 21, 2022 Steve A. Wiggins

Unknowing is a blessing in disguise sometimes. There is so much to learn and, regrettably, little time outside work to do it. Books are my life. I work in publishing, so I know a passable amount about the book business. I have much still to learn. To support my research, which doesn’t include a university library, I often have to purchase academic books. I know quite a bit about academic book pricing (hint: what the market will bear), and I know that it’s assumed academics have university professor-level salaries. The “independent scholar” is as much a ghost as the next revenant. So I buy books used. The best clearinghouse I know of is Bookfinder.com. They list other sellers who have the book and facilitate your buying of it. I strongly suspect they take a small cut.

While looking for an obscure book (it pains me to say, for I met the author), I wondered if Amazon’s used copy had the lowest price. So I went to Bookfinder. The Amazon copy was there, along with seven comparably, slightly lower, priced other copies. Reading the descriptions, I realized these were different vendors hawking the exact same copy of the book. Some of the description wording was oddly specific and that led to this epiphany. Down at the bottom was a lone seller some $4 to $5 dollars cheaper, selling the book directly. Navigating to this page I discovered it was the self-same book—the same physical book being marked up by the other vendors. Each reseller along the way, with wider reach, stopping at Amazon with the widest reach, was charging a finder’s fee for this same object. It was available directly from the seller.

Used books are a thriving business. Many publishers these days are focusing on “the electronic future,” scratching their heads that people are still reading paper. What will happen to walking into that impressive library? Have you ever walked into someone’s impressive iPad or Kindle? It looks the same no matter how many electrons you add. The internet has been taken with the photo of the late Johns Hopkins humanities professor Richard Macksey’s library. Would it be possible to have walked in there and not been impressed with the obvious love of books? As a Hopkins professor I doubt he had to resort to used books much, but I kind of think he probably did anyway. Bibliophiles are like that. A first edition is a thing of beauty forever. And so I find myself on Bookfinder and I’m willing to give them a cut just for the privilege of holding a coveted book.

Richard Macksey’s home library. Credit: Will Kirk/Johns Hopkins University

925

1 Comment January 3, 2022 Steve A. Wiggins

Sometimes you just know. One of the things I know is that nine-to-five schedules are killers. Literally. I grew my permanent teeth as a teacher. Before that I had been set on being a minister. Something they have in common is that neither profession relies on a nine-to-five schedule. The hours are much longer than a forty-hour work week, but they’re flexible. If you’re not in class, or in church, or a committee meeting, or your office hours, you can dash out to the store if you need to. You can shut your eyes for a few minutes if you didn’t sleep well the night before. As long as you get your work done adequately, nobody really bothers you about your time. My initiation into the nine-to-five, in my mid-forties, was a shock from which I’ve never quite recovered.

A few years into this unnatural territory, my nine-to-five (925 is quicker to type) evolved into the commuting variety. I didn’t live terribly near New York City, so that meant catching a very early bus. I’m a morning person, so that’s not really a concern. The problem is that my brain’s not a 925 brain. Like one of my professors, I still awake at 1:30 (having gone to bed about five hours before) with an idea that won’t let me go. When that happens you have to put on heavy layers of clothes against the night’s low thermostat and make your way downstairs to the computer. By three a.m. your body’s in the fully awake commute mode. Thing is, you’ve got a 925 day in front of you. When I was teaching I’d be able to snooze again before even my eight o’clock class (I was never one to object to the early shift) began.

The idea behind the 925 is an atavistic throwback to pre-internet days. Pre-pandemic days. Days when you had to be watched to ensure you were working. When you had to sit in a cubicle where nobody and everybody can see you. If you’re not staring at your screen or not in a meeting you’re not working. So this antiquated thinking goes. Teachers and ministers don’t hold to regular hours. They identify with their jobs—the very definition of “professional.” If it’s what you’re born to do you don’t complain. And if you happen to awake at 1:30 with an idea that just has to be expressed, those who pay you will understand if you yawn a time or two the next day when, ideally, you won’t be stuck staring at a screen.

A Haunting Story

1 Comment January 1, 2022 Steve A. Wiggins

The last book I finished in 2021 didn’t quite make it under the wire for my year-end blog post. It was the second Stephen Graham Jones novel I read in the year. I guess I’ve been reading a lot of American Indian books lately. The Only Good Indians is a horror story and more. There’s reconciliation. There’s tradition. There’s hope. As part of the privileged “white” class, I’m always a little afraid that writers from oppressed cultures will take it out on me. It may’ve happened here, but if so it was done in a way that I didn’t feel the sting. This is a story of friendship, mistakes made, and a monster who has a righteous cause. There’s a lot going on here.

One of the persistent cultural fears of the unwoke, I suspect, is that there’ll be payback if all things were to become equal. Perhaps on the scale of karma that’s true, but in reality the people that’ve been oppressed simply want the oppression to stop. To be recognized and acknowledged as being human. As if that decision is up to white folk to make. This novel simply deals with American Indian life as it’s lived. The characters all pretty much live in poverty but they lack the greed so many white protagonists have. They’re happy if they have a few hundred dollars, or even a few twenties. Life is more than playing the capitalist game. It really all comes down to relationships. And family.

Stephen Graham Jones writes with a deft hand. He offers some humor amid scenes of violence and loss. He speaks plainly and without pretense. And there are parts of this novel that are genuinely scary. Since I had no idea how it might end, I wasn’t even sure even while I was on the last page.

The best monsters are those that teach us to be better human beings. Quite often they teach us that the truly monstrous ones are those who look and act like people usually look and act. We take the natural world, assuming it’s ours. We think our small problems are those of the entire world. Monsters help to fix our perceptions. Without them we carry on as if it’s business as usual. This is a good novel to read in the midst of a pandemic. There’s hope here that we’ll come out of the crisis better than we went in. Perhaps scarred and changed for good. In every sense of the word.

Christmas Classic

1 Comment December 13, 2021 Steve A. Wiggins

While it’s a story I know well, I’d never read the book. I suppose I tend to think of Christmas when it’s already hard upon me, or perhaps I’m just making excuses. After all these decades I’ve finally read Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. The story is so well known there’s no point in laying out the action here. A filmic version of this has been part of our family tradition for many years now and sometimes it’s difficult not to think the cinematic version has somehow got it right while the book might’ve somehow missed something. I’m generally disposed to read the book before watching the movie, but I believe I saw this as a young person and we had no Dickens in the house. Besides, who could miss the endless parodies?

It’s a ghost story, yes, but it’s primarily about redemption. It’s difficult for me to watch (or read) without getting a bit misty about the eyes. Our world, especially during the Trump years, seemed a hard and heartless place. Winter all the time while somehow being Hell also. It will take many years—perhaps I won’t live to see it—before people unlearn the bad habits they saw being modeled each and every day of those four long, long years. Every year as I watched the movie I thought, “I wonder if 45 has ever seen this?” Always the answer came back in a resounding “Humbug.” A miser who cares only for himself doesn’t change as easily as Scrooge. So the world had to suffer, and so it will suffer yet a good long time.

The thing about redemption is that it can’t be privatized. It’s on free offer to anyone who desires it. While A Christmas Carol may not be Dickens’ best work, it nevertheless bears a message well worth the repetition. Perhaps there aren’t ghosts enough in the world. We need to learn to listen. Were it not for the haunting Scrooge never would have changed. The sad part is that there are people actually of his ilk. I hold out hope for redemption to all of them. I’ve known too many people who seem to care only for themselves. I need to remind myself that they may not have the reinforcement of this tale every year. The world could perhaps be better if that were the case. Dickens clearly had fun as a writer. Sometimes it seems to get in the way. But if it makes one’s heart light in December, what can the harm be in that?

True Value

Leave a comment December 1, 2021 Steve A. Wiggins

It’s a funny idea, net worth. (Who says Capitalism isn’t a religion?) We decide what people are worth by what corporate executives and small-minded economics determine what they will be paid. We seem to think entitled, essentially worthless, inheritors of ancestral money are of more value than the workers who actually fuel the economy. Economics is called the “dismal science” for more than one reason. This system can’t help but to make individuals question their self worth, which, according to Capitalism, is different from net worth. (Net requires taking the cost of goods into account, and is less than the list worth.) And you must never tell anyone your net worth. Why do we still hold to this system that future historians will see as just as archaic and cruel as feudalism?

Nashotah House could hardly have claimed to be competitive with salaries. Still, to those hired the title “professor” indicated you were a cut above many other professions. Certainly above most clergy, the future cohort of which you were teaching. Even so, it took a dozen years in publishing for me to reach the salary level at which I was asked to leave said seminary. Net worth? I tend to think of it as idol worship. Many well-meaning colleagues congratulate me on my LinkedIn work anniversary. None ask “How are you doing there?” None wonder “Have you yet caught up with your net income of 2005?” We’re all too busy bowing at the altar of the Stock Exchange.

People are worth far more than money. For some, money, and only money (which is a symbol only), is worth having. Some run for president on that very platform. Holding up a Bible they’re careful that it doesn’t fall open to the place where it says love of money is the root of evil. There is no such thing as evil in the religion of Capitalism. Except Communism. Interestingly enough, the New Testament advocates for a form of communism, but Acts is easily overlooked on the way to Leviticus. I tend to stop about half-way between, at that comfortably uncomfortable book of Ecclesiastes. It’s there that we read that all is vanity. Money is merely a symbol of what we value. Looking at what those who’ve devoted their lives to it have done with it, net worth sends me back to the cynical old preacher wondering about the meaning of it all. It seems an appropriate place for the musings of a mere editor aware that his colleagues are valued much more by this “Christian” society. I think the “net” in net worth should be cast much further.