Marking Time

I’m reading real books again this summer, for a change. There’s a sort of weight and permanence to the printed word, on real paper, especially when bound in a hard cover. Maybe I’m a romantic, an old-fashioned old coot, but books still matter to me –in this age of dying newspaper conglomerates, bad novelizations of bad movies, and blogs (including this one) that seem outdated within mere minutes, as we move on to the next topic or political fetish. 

True to form, I’ve chosen some classic books and highly “literary” authors for my current reading binge: To Kill a Mockingbird. (O Harper Lee, Where Art Thou?) . Americana, a recent John Updike poetry collection. Grace (Eventually)  by Anne Lamott, which is my current book (I’ve slowed down, to savor it, not wanting to be done yet). And A Man Without a Country, a terrific, short, memoir-ish, doodle-filled, social critique sort of thing by the late great Kurt Vonnegut, the last book he ever put out. You might say it was his “parting shot”.

Kurt is someone I need to learn more about, partly because I am hoping to include him as a key minor character in my slowly-evolving Cape Cod novel (he lived there in the late Fifties and early Sixties, the time period of my novel). He’s the perfect mentor for one of the teenage kids in my disgruntled Eisenhower-era family, the McKittredges.

Vonnegut always lived the tough questions and contradictions: he was a WWII vet who became a pacifist, a scientist/anthropologist in disguise as a novelist, a pragmatic Midwesterner in spirit right up to the end (he was from Indianapolis) even while living in New York, a great American who knew that patriotism need not be reduced to jingoistic sayings and blind acceptance of stupid policies, an unapologetic Socialist sympathizer (but only the old 1930s brand of idealistic socialism), and one of the funniest mo-fos ever to walk the planet.

And it was a planet he loved dearly, too. A Man Without a Country has some of the best rhetorical arguments against fossil fuels that I’ve read anywhere. Though he’s cynical, too (or realistic, depending on your outlook), and doubts we can actually save the planet, one which he ruefully reminds us it took a mere hundred years for us to ruin.

Here’s a few choice quotes from Man Without a Country:

“Humor is an almost physiological response to fear. Freud said that humor is a response to frustration - one of several… I used to laugh my head off at Laurel and Hardy. There is terrible tragedy there somehow. These men are too sweet to survive in this world and are in terrible danger all they time. They could be so easily killed.”

“How do humanists feel about Jesus? I say of Jesus, as all humanists do, ‘If what he said is good, and so much of it is absolutely beautiful, what does it matter if he was God or not? …But if Christ hadn’t delivered the Sermon on the Mount, with its message of mercy and pity, I wouldn’t want to be a human being. I’d just as soon be a rattlesnake.”

“For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings… ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ in the Pentagon? Give me a break!”

“Speaking of plunging into war, do you know why I think George W. Bush is so pissed off at Arabs? They brought us algebra. Also the numbers we use, including a symbol for nothing, which Europeans had never had before. You think Arabs are dumb? Try doing long division with Roman numerals.”

“There are two sorts of artists… one responds to the history of his or her art so far, and the other responds to life itself… what you resond to in any work of art is the artist’s struggle against his or her limitations.”

This last quote was actually Kurt quoting another friend of his, Saul Steinberg, who he called the wisest person he ever met. For me, Kurt may be the wisest man I never met, except through his books. His novels take a long view of human history, and they expose our species as the beautiful fools we’re often too afraid to admit we are. He can speak eloquently about science and deny the existence of heaven in one breath, and then by the end of that same paragraph express more genuine gratitude and appreciation for the life and words of Jesus than most Christians I know. In other words, he was wise: he knew enough to admit that he really only knew very little, with any certainty. As an avowed skeptic and misanthrope, he didn’t have what one could call “faith” — in God, in politics, in humans, in anything, actually. But he had the guts to keep asking the tough questions, to stay focused and informed, and to express his brilliant, hilarious opinions, right up to the end (which was in April of 2007).

I can only hope to be so lucky, or even half as gifted.

It’s hard to know exactly when it happened, but sometime between January and June of 2008, my five-year-old (now six) outgrew most of the post-toddler “kid” shows on Playhouse Disney and PBS, and became a crazed fanatic about Cartoon Network.

It would be easy to blame it on my wife, since she does not share my mistrust of the network itself, and started turning it on for him when I had previously been steering him away from it. But it’s my fault, too. For one thing, I’m doing what we said we would not do: using the tv as a babysitter, to keep him occupied and safe while we try to get other things done (like this damned blog! …which magically turns minutes into hours!). Or rather, his body is safe… his mind may be another matter.

I’m trying to nip it in the bud by setting some time limits, but I fear Pandora may already be out of the box, and my kid’s a budding cartoon junkie. He hasn’t asked  to read a book in months. He blurts out random non-sequitr quotes from unknown shows while we’re riding in the car. He doesn’t want to go outside when it means turning the tv off. I don’t want to sound alarmist, but I’m concerned Cartoon Network will make my child into a brilliant idiot.

There are two reasons I don’t like and don’t trust Cartoon Network’s daytime programming:

1. commercials for junkfood, bad toys, and more crap we don’t need but that he will bug us to buy. He’s being groomed as a consumer, and I don’t want the corporate monstrosity that is AOL/Time/Warner reprogramming my child and undoing the good work we’ve done for six years
2. too much ‘toonified violence… watered down, bloodless, but aggressive nonetheless, and pushing values I definitely don’t share. There’s a marked difference between the spirit of conflict between Wile E. Coyote vs. Roadrunner, and the power rays, magic and kung fu of today’s cartoon violence. I can’t always put my finger on it, but something about most of the current “drama” and adventure ‘toons just seems to rub me the wrong way as a parent and a pacificist-leaning Christian. Plus it’s mostly just bad… badly written, badly drawn, badly acted. For example, I won’t willingly let Graham watch Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs until he’s 17… but when he does see it, I want to be the one to show him how good movie and tv-makers can do up violence and double-crossing with great intelligence, humor and style, instead of the cartoonish hollowness and CGI flashiness of The Incredible Hulk.

Just as an experiment, though, let’s switch on Tuesday morning’s Cartoon Network offerings for awhile and see what we get:

7:56am   Ben 10  is just wrapping up. Or is it Ben Ten: Alien Force. I don’t know. There are two current series featuring the same characters, and I think Ben 10 is Graham’s new favorite show. He clearly idolizes Ben, who is ten. (How’d you guess? No wait –on Alien Force, Ben is 15. I’m confused now.) It’s not bad overall. Fairly innocent, with today’s villain being a midget hypnotist who wants all the people at the mall to rob the cash registers and bring him cash. Ben has some wristband thing with a button he can push to transform himself into other entities, like Fireball Guy, or Plant Guy. Silly, but not all that different from the animated adventure/superhero stories that formerly appeared only on Saturday mornings or after school. The downside: I put on Playhouse Disney as Little Einsteins was wrapping up today, and Graham howled, “No! I don’t like this show anymore!” It used to be his favorite. Poor innocent little glasses-wearing Leo, cast aside in favor of one of the “cool kids”, complete with a shape-shifting gizmo and a preteen’s smart-aleck attitude.

7:59am        Wedgies. I had neither seen nor heard about this show until just moments ago. Oh wait, I see – it’s only a little bumper, a time-filler, a 1-2 minute mini-toon called Flapjack. Maybe these pilot-y sorta things are called Wedgies ’cause they’re wedged between two other shows. And unless I miss my guess, that’s Brian Doyle-Murray I hear voicing one of the two featured Flapjack characters. Brian is Bill Murray’s older brother. He’s a fairly decent, funny actor in his own right. But apparently nowadays, in an era where scripted tv comedy is third in the pecking order, behind hourlong dramas and semi-scripted reality tv, A-list character actors like Brian have to take what they can get. That means voicing car commercials (Matt Dillon is the current voice of one of the major car companies), or little wedged-in bumpers, or cartoons, just to keep working steady. (Brian’s done some Sponge Bob, some Disney tv stuff, a wide range… his scratchy voice is good for cartoons.) It used to be that movie actors (I think) did this type of work on the side, for fun, or after their biggest career successes were well in the rear-view mirror. But with increased competition, for fewer on-camera jobs, I’ve noticed more and more recognizable actors slogging away on cartoons. Take the PBS show Cyberchase, for example. It has two: Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future’s Dr. Emmett Brown) and Gilbert Gottfried (better known as a stand-up comedian, and for that aggressively annoying voice). Now maybe these two actors actually like working on a quality show that subtly builds math skills into the plotlines. And I know Mr. Lloyd has done stage work on and off for years as well. But part of me can’t help but wonder if the less expensive, less creative, tenement-style programming that is reality tv is the main reason that cartoons have become the bread-and-butter for a whole class of actors now. Meanwhile, have you looked at most of the crap that passes for live-action network sitcoms aimed at 18 to 32-year-olds these days? Big Bang Theory ? Puh-leeease!

8am      Johnny Test - (Not to be confused with Jonny Quest, for all you old-schoolers out there.) I’ve only popped my head in and watched partial episodes, but when I did watch, Johnny Test had a time machine. This is an old trick: it gives the writers permission to put their own goofy spin on thousands of years of human history. Now Graham will probably think Atilla the Hun was just a scowling ham of an actor with a beard and a clearly un-American look, unlike the dashing, blond and ironic hero, feisty little Johnny T.

8:30am    missed it - TVGuide.com says it was Skunk Fu! - probably typical of the snarky, hugely ironic and self-referential nature of entertainment in the Oughts. Everything’s a lefthanded rip-off of something else…

9am    Tom & Jerry Blast Off to Mars. A feature-length movie, produced by TBS cable network. Actually, Ted Turner and/or AOL/Time/Warner (owners of Cartoon Network) own alot of those old cartoon franchises now. When Cartoon Network first started it was mostly just an outlet for a wide range of those shows I grew up with, like the Hannah-Barbera stuff. (Now , CN shows alot of original and syndicated programming, some of which is imported, much of which is crap that definitely will not stand the test of time.) I blogged about this once, in the context of a discussion on Scooby Doo’s staying power. Meanwhile back here at the ranch, Graham just saw that Tom and Jerry were on, and got very excited. I was gratified that at least two of the more “classic” characters and situations strike his fancy as much as, if not more than, the Pokemons and Ben Tens of the cartoon universe.

Long live Bugs Bunny, Felix the Cat and Fred Flintstone!

I’ve always been a sucker for a good metaphor, and one of my favorite writers on spiritual matters, Anne Lamott, put me in mind of a very good one today: the Wailing Wall, the last remnant of the ancient temple courtyard in Jerusalem. Here’s an excerpt from her most recent book, Grace (Eventually) :

… a picture of a young boy and his father in yarmulkes, pushing prayers written on paper into cracks in the wall. This is something I do all the time, shove bits of paper with prayers and names on them into desk drawers, little boxes, my glove compartment. I have found that… turning the problem over to God or the elves in the glove compartment harnesses something in the universe that is bigger than you, and that just might work.

Anne herself is a recovering alcoholic, and writes quite humorously and eloquently about her journey, about the various ways God chased her around northern California until she finally surrendered and came to Jesus. I’ve been thinking alot lately about the idea of surrender. Certain prayers and attitudes are a healthy form of surrender, as Christian and Buddhist theologians have been teaching us for years. They say that letting go, giving up control, embracing humility, is the way to peace and happiness. Yet in an uptight, me-first, macho, militarized, post-9/11 world, the idea of surrender is not fashionable. Then again, when have I ever been fashionable?

Surrender also came up in church yesterday (Redeemer Lutheran in Park Ridge), as one of the earliest of the Twelve Steps in traditional recovery program language. Here’s how people in “the program” usually put it:

Step 3
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

“God as we understood Him.” This phrase is where the conservative evangelicals that I occasionally keep company with tend to part company with AA, considering it either a respectable but non-Christian system, or else a cultish organization of anarchists and tool of the devil (though not many would go that far… given the number of recovering addicts and success stories, it’s hard to make a case that God does not support the program).

Why don’t conservatives accept Step 3 at face value? Because those who cling tightly to an exacting and narrow interpretation of the Bible would like to believe they already understand all they need to know about God, through relationship with His son Jesus. Surrendering to the possibility that some things just cannot be known or explained scripturally, or that God as someone understands Him would not include Jesus, is too much of a stretch for them. Therefore a more subjective view of God, however one is able to see or experience God, is also too much of a stretch. For me –getting more theologically liberal by the day in how I look at the biblical text itself– the jury is still out on some of what Jesus actually said and did, and what I should therefore do.

Jesus was just such a confusing cat at times, wasn’t he?

Don’t get me wrong, though. I have great respect for scripture, and the utmost respect for Jesus — at least on the days when I’m not a sinful, piggish, opinionated clod only out for myself. On those bad days, Jesus is my perfect older brother, and I have a severe distaste for Him, because how could I ever possibly measure up to such a high standard? Those are my depressive days. My lonely days. My angry days. My self-pitying, potentially addicted days, which I often fill with too much tv or non-prayerful computer use. Basically that’s Mondays, alternate Wednesdays, and any other day upon which I have to take some responsibility for the well-being of myself and my family, and yet don’t want to do that.

And there’s the rub: I have to surrender control, and yet still maintain an attitude of responsibility and steady service to the principles set down by a Higher Power. I can’t just give up, say WTF?, and move on with my own business. I have to follow the path that has been shown to work. I have to have self-discipline, and set goals, even as I give up an investment in the outcome (knowing that it will not exactly match what I want personally). At this moment of surrender, the proud young Turk within me wants to stand up and say, “Wait. What’s in this for me? Why should I follow, if this path is so hard, and the ultimate destination is unknown (or sometimes unpleasant, if you’re doing it right, like Mother Theresa or Martin Luther King)?”

At which point the Holy Spirit shows up (hopefully) and answers for God, saying, “Because this is the path to health, dipshit. The path to abundant life. Do you want to be healthy and growing, or miserable and lost, wandering around some more in your own private 40-year desert?”

See how God is not always as gentle as those nice evangelicals once told me He was?

Meanwhile, remember those old Catholics, the ones who used to whip themselves? Well they may have been overdoing it, but they were still onto something: they knew how to surrender, and they knew how tough it is to do, over and over again, every bleepin’ day of our whole bleepin’ life. 

Which leads me back to where I started, the Wailing Wall. It took God so many years to get the Jews to a point spiritually where they were wise and humble enough to build His City, and then to build those temples properly and with the right attitude. It took both strength and humility, as modeled by leaders like Solomon, to create and maintain the home where Jehovah and his Ark (containing the original “Twelve Steps”) could take up residence. And then God turned around and chastened His people yet again, taking down the Second Temple as well, leaving nothing but an old retaining wall that keeps the mountain from spilling over onto the temple courtyard. That’s our Wailing Wall… it’s a glorified earth dam, a retaining wall.

And here’s something I didn’t know till I looked it up today: that expanded courtyard and its Wailing Wall were built by none other than Herod the Great. This is the same guy who was one of the worst Roman collaborators ever, who was outsmarted by the Magi, Mary and Joseph when Jesus was a baby, and then later killed his wife and two of his sons. So why did they call this guy great? Goes to show you: power does not equal greatness. It’s no wonder God had to get rid of Herod’s precious Second Temple.  It was nothing but a monument to  gross injustices, slave labor and corrupt, reprehensible acts by a man who couldn’t carry Solomon’s jockstrap. 

Besides, with the coming of Jesus, God moved off the Temple Mount and out into the world anyway. So the remaining ruins of the courtyard wall aren’t much more than a tombstone, really — an important landmark to what once was great. The old Jerusalem, the old temple, the old ways — those are all gone now. We have to surrender to the future, to what’s healthy and best for everybody that has a stake in the New Jerusalem (which seems to cover just about everybody, right?).

Thus, a desk drawer or glove compartment will suffice from now on, as repositories for the prayers of those of us who still want to write down prayers for peace in Jerusalem, or for the healing of our wounds so we won’t drink or gamble or compulsively shop anymore, or for anything else that’s too big a problem for us to solve through merely human methods.

A computer and a blog work pretty good, too. Pardon me while I go finish my wailing in private.

As conspiracy theorists go, I am clearly bush league.

This week’s reminder of how far one can go down this strange, winding path is one Michael Tsarion. He was proposed to me recently as a writer who advances the cause of all things Irish and/or Celtic, and thus mystically and/or politically reasonable. However, in wandering around upon his complex private “interweb” of fact and fiction, I see that he’s just another in a long line of goofy astrologists, occultists and conspiracy theorists, those colorful cats out to take wild, random potshots instead of pointing out a productive path toward the truth.

By now, a small but dedicated handful of you are saying under your breath to me: “Oh, you poor simpleton. You deluded soul, already stolen away from us, we who were only trying to free you from the tyranny of lies and deceit, perpetrated over the past 5000 years.”

Nevertheless, I must defer to a higher authority, who calls me to sing out loud and proud:

“I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.”

Meanwhile, Tsarion and his ilk are out to convince us that every U.S. president was a Freemason, that the mystical, philosophical or biological descendents of Egyptian pharaoh/priest Akhenaton are in control of every Western government, and probably that monotheism in itself is the true enemy of mankind. 

Therefore the Yahweh of the Bible, for some of these theorists, does not love His people but has instead abandoned them to the slings and arrows of all these false prophets and tyrants. Or else the One True God is an invention by these past cults, to keep Everyman down, to keep us from accessing our inner power, which would allow us to practice magic, travel by astral projection, and tear down well-armed despots the moment we encounter them. I don’t know, maybe I’m getting it wrong though. These amateur symbologist types draw such tenuous and strange connections that it’s easy to get confused. 

For instance, did you know that Hitler was actually in league with the pre-Zionist Zionists, in England and elsewhere? Mr. Tsarion even has a photo of a young Hitler, kissing the hand of Elizabeth the Second  –though he mislabels her as Elizabeth the First! This is the kind of sloppy, stupid, ahistorical hogwash that his type loves to slip by us, under a veil of actual facts and plausible interpretations, of very vague details and far-reaching symbols.

Here’s another example, taken directly from Tsarion’s site:

The Bohemian Club - Elite members of this secret order (that includes most US presidents) meet at a time when the sun (Aton) is at its highest point during the year - at the summer solstice - June 21st. The summer solstice was adopted by Hitler and his Nazis as their most important day of ritual and celebration. It was the most sacred day in the Nazi calendar.

Dude, if you so smart, where’s my local Boho meeting being conducted tomorrow? I wanna be there! Are they really THAT good at keeping secrets?

Tsarion tries to make a case for the Nazis and others co-opting and altering many basic Druidic or similar ideas. Yeah Mike, it’s well-established already that Hitler co-opted everyone’s mythology, from India to Scandinavia to Ireland to God only knows where else. But that doesn’t mean he was secretly in compliance with some long-standing plan of the Knights Templar to rule the world. It just means he was crafty and evil, a tool of Satan, a disenchanted but brilliant nutjob who veiled his megalomania in intense nationalist, populist, pseudo-religious bullshit.

Tsarion’s not the first one to try connecting Hitler, Pat Robertson, Pope Paul VI, Satanist Anton LaVey, The Illuminati, philosopher Francis Bacon, and the ancient Persian prophet Zoroaster (it’s like some fascinating but intellectually dishonest variant of the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon  game!). Anyone with a will to think creatively can build a case and turn up potential evidence. Remember the Lone Gunmen, from The X Files? (Oh My Gawd!!!  I was such an X-Files fan… and here’s a thought: was it The Man who secretly killed off the Lone Gunmen’s short-lived spinoff show, or just really crappy writing?)

There are thousands of people like this out in the world, who believe they’re doing important work. In my opinion, a few of them actually are. But they get lost in the midst of all the noise, and because of the very nature of evil, which works to remain hidden and secret for as long as possible.

Every once in awhile, I get sucked into exploring this complex web of numerologists, Kabballah enthusisasts, astrology buffs, and ultra-conservative Christian Pentacostals on the lookout for secret but powerful cults to pray against. And again, I’m not saying these groups, alliances and spiritual connections aren’t out there. They definitely are out there (the “powers and principalities” that Paul speaks of), though I can’t claim any expertise in which theories are solid and which are misguided. Frankly, it just makes my head hurt whenever I read all the fundamentalist, neo-paganist or other misguided tripe that tries to explain every last war and historical development as part of some evil Master Plan.

Sometimes, you gotta just pick a lane and drive. The fact is, sin is real. A negative spiritual force or personality does exist in the universe. But so does the eternal Creator and Redeemer. Thus, every human ever born is capable of both incredible mercy and unspeakable evil, depending upon whom we align ourselves with, and how much ethical and spiritual discipline we are willing to practice.

Yet we are lazy and fearful by nature, and prefer to conform, so we mostly tend to aim down the middle, ignoring Jesus’ path of radical love (and political change, and true justice) because it requires us to feel like such aliens in a world gone wrong.  Even Christians, in most cases (myself included), can’t manage to be in constant, peaceful communion with the Creation and Creator, choosing instead to practice religion rather than faithful, risky, loving action and forgiveness like Jesus himself. 

On the other hand, if we are also hungry or powerless, or have not forgiven past wrongs against “our people”, we are then ripe for the picking by every jihadist, neo-con, or self-aggrandizing leader looking to play upon those fears and physical needs by promising a comeuppance for “the godless infidels”.

If you think about it, commiting to remain disenfranchised, to share equally amongst ourselves, to hang with the prostitutes and have nowhere to lay one’s head, doesn’t sound like such “good news”, does it? It’s so much nicer to sit with a big steak in air-conditioned comfort in front of an HDTV at the ESPN Zone and watch the Boston Celtics (BTW, did they have a Druid priest saying incantations, arranging for their victory?… or perhaps bribing the referees to call fewer fouls?). Fasting and praying under the stars in front of a Celtic cross, clothing the naked, taking in and feeding the orphan, admitting you’re wrong once in awhile… these are works of radical discipleship that require God’s grace precisely because  they’re so hard to perform without His help. Ignorance, of both the good and bad in the world, really is bliss. Anyone with the guts to look into his or her own soul will tell you this.

I say “his or her” above, but let’s be honest: most spinners and practitioners of these crazy conspiracy theories are men — emasculated or psychically wounded men, pseudo-religious pirates, a much different brand of “outsider” than the disciples of Jesus. They’re the fickle followers of Barrabas, the Judases who took a wrong turn, or the self-appointed shamans looking to justify themselves, while leaving others (especially in the undeveloped Two Thirds World) to fend for themselves.

Most are looking for a systemic or external explanation for why they’re forever on the outside personally. Some want power, others merely acceptance. Meanwhile they’re in denial themselves, avoiding the “dark night of the soul” that might actually transform them into credible  witnesses to the true Eternal Light and the truth. This is why other outsiders (you may call them geeks, but we all need to embrace our inner geek) find these theories so attractive. It’s cafeteria-style, libertarian, serve-yourself, super-sweet philosophical candy in an attractive package. The theories free us from any responsibility for our own situations, be they personal or political. They let immature, adolescent, me-against-the-world attitudes fluorish and find justification, irrespective of any higher authority or personal call to holiness and service.

What’s more, the anarchic, non-theistic, or factually fuzzy solutions these theorists often recommend don’t account for the contentiousness and will to power that inevitably sets in among all us sinners. They make it easier to attach blame beyond ourselves, to the eternal THEM – whether THEY are the liberal Jewish media, the conservative fundamentalist Zionist warmongers, the Black Jesus-denying racists, the imperialist/royalist/fascist aristocracy, the Wahabist (or Shi’ ite) usurpers of the true Islamic faith, the Socialist/Communist hippie baby-killers looking to give away the store and crucify Christ again, or the Christian witch-hunters out to kill every horned owl and tree sprite that ever sought to set us free.

Sure, a few modern conspiracy analysts are on a genuine quest for the truth. But many are just the next generation of pawns and liars in the eternal struggle of good and evil.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m not advocating we remain ignorant. Just that we consider the source, question authority with a healthy but non-obsessive skepticism, and then lead with our hearts … but without disengaging our heads. Be faithful first. Then be smart. And be careful not to get caught on the wrong side in this battle of disinformation and distraction, only to find out too late you could have instead been enjoying the fulfilling fellowship of true believers all along, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

As Peter once said to Jesus when Jesus gave him leave to abandon their difficult journey: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life? We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

‘Nuff said.

Okay, so time has not stopped entirely. I recognize that. It just feels like it has, because it’s my last day of work, I’m packing up my office, and I’m here all alone.

Minutes have felt like hours today. So since for me, writing always seems to make the time fly, here I be. I have to stay here anyway till an evening sendoff/thank-you event around the corner tonight (why drive an hour home only to come back an hour later?), so  I thought I’d log on and whine a little bit. (You’re welcome.)

To make matters worse, I’m stuck with the unenviable task of closing out not one, two, or three, but up to four separate “departments” that work out of the gym and thus utilize this dusty, dark, windowless storage room/jail cell that has been my ofice for two years now. The music program (which I expanded to include fine and performing arts last year), and the former health classes, and the P.E. department, all have a home in here.

It’s hard, partly because I’m not just making decisions about what to put away for the summer, but also pitching some things for good, given the prospect that the school will be staying closed and thus have to store or give away alot of this material. In some cases, I’m pitching very old teacher texts. At other times, it’s equipment for mysterious unknown games that we never played in two years here, and that I never played as a kid.

In a few cases, I’m pitching perfectly good material… like the free 5th grade puberty-education and hygiene products sent to us by Procter and Gamble (I assume P&G does this to get kids hooked early on their products, since Secret deodorant and Always feminine pads are bundled in there). I feel guilty tossing out a dozen newish trial-size stick deodorants, but it would just feel too awkward to try finding them a good home. (I did, however, take a few for my own family… after all they’re ”strong enough for a man, but made for a woman”…)

I feel guilty throwing away books, too. But it’s clear they’re old, and haven’t been used in years. So whadya gonna do???

And I suppose I’m grieving a bit: another career avenue I once thought viable and semi-permanent, now gone the way of the dinosaurs through no fault of my own. Again I’m left out in the cold (well, …it’s eighty five and muggy here, but you get my drift), haphazardly looking for a job that actually makes sense.

Anyone in the market for a dozen sets of blue plastic basketball cheerleader pompons? Get ‘em while they last… I think trash pickup is on Monday.

My friend Ruth “blog-tagged” me the other day… oops, it’s been over a month ago now, where did the time go? I don’t often get involved with chains, or forwarding stuff, but since this one is more like shameless self-promotion disguised as a game of tag – and I’ve always been a fan of shameless self-promotion – here goes…

Here are the rules if you decide to play along:
1) Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2) Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3) Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4) Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Ahem… and now, my seven facts (for which I make no claims as to their randomness or their weirdness, as I’m too far gone by now to distinguish weird from normal):

1) My earliest memory is a traumatic one: bleeding profusely from my right forearm, after snagging it on a cabinet hinge at about age two and a half, or three. (Yeesh… what a way to start, you sicko.)

2) My first job out of college was with Kartemquin Films, producers of the acclaimed film Hoop Dreams and dozens of other social-issue documentaries featured on PBS and in theaters. My name is even in the credits. I got fired from that job, though. (I was 22, and in over my head in terms of the specific, sales-oriented job I was supposed to be doing.)

3) My middle name is Sebastian, which was my maternal grandfather’s first name. (My son’s middle name is Brice, my dad’s first name, …and his first name, Graham, is similar to my father-in-law’s middle name, Gorham.)

4) I once missed a plane home from Paris, and was forced to stay an extra day or two. Not the worst place in the world to be stuck, let me tell ya…

5) Best comic timing I ever exhibited: my little sister spilled a glass of milk at supper, and some of it dripped into Dad’s lap, and he started screaming and swearing, and she started crying. After ten seconds of that, I piped up with this classic: “No use crying over spilled milk.” Everyone cracked up, including Dad. Crisis over. But my ambition to be a comic, or a humorist, or somehow use words to make people’s lives better was just beginning.

6) I took a date to a Cure concert once in the Eighties, mistakenly thinking it was the Christian rock band The Call. Never felt so out of place and awkward in my life, out there at Poplar Creeek Music Theater among 30,000 pre-goth, brooding, black-clad brethren, and me like a doofus in my yellow Izod LaCoste shirt. It was my one and only date with that girl, too.

7) My favorite food is lasagna. For all my other favorite this, that, and the other, check out my MySpace Profile. It’s one of the few things MySpace is good for anymore…

Seven other blogs I frequent:

1 - Brad Listi - A.D.D. - An actual published novelist. Doing a younger, hipper blog that has as many funny commenters as I’ve seen anywhere. Brad’s also funny, and capable of serious political and cultural analysis, too.

2 - Will Fitzgerald, aka Will.Whim . Words are the air he breathes… and he’s a fledgling Mennonite pastor, to boot.

3 - Jesus Manifesto - started by Mark VanSteenwyck (I think), this blog has grown up into a cool little webzine.

4- Alternadad - former Chicago Reader journalist and sometime novelist Neal Pollack, doing a blog about parenting a wild-ass six-year-old, much more colorful than my own kid. Neal leans more toward the profane side of my sacred/profane duality, but as the only person in this list who makes any MONEY at blogging (at Parents.com), he’s my hero anyway.

5 - Pastor and Author Greg Boyd’s Random Reflections. I first caught this cat on Charlie Rose’s interview show, on PBS. Then I read his book Myth of a Christian Nation. Then I started listening in to an occasional podcast of his sermons, and reading this blog.

6 - Rafiki James - one of my first and most consistent supporters for the MySpace side of MT. He does some fine spiritual and political essays himself, I must say.

7 - Carolynn Todd Burbee’s chatty little blog without a name. It’s primarily personal news and reflections, by an old college friend who teaches history. I mean… she’s not old. A year older than me, but then… oh never mind. I’ve already gone and stuck my foot in it…

In a recent column entitled “George & Dick’s Excellent Adventure”,
(over at Neil Young’s Living With War site, author David Robb reveals the fifty year history of U.S. politicians –especially but not only Republicans– who get us into ill-advised wars, and then deny how ineffective these military solutions are for addressing political problems. Here are a few column excerpts:

 During a video conference with US military and civilian personnel
working and fighting in Afghanistan, Bush said, “I must say, I’m a
little envious. If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I
think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of
helping this young democracy succeed. It must be exciting for you and
in some ways romantic, you know, confronting danger.”
   Such an immature and foolish statement is particularly galling
coming from a guy who in 1968 dodged combat duty in Vietnam by using
the influence of his father — who was then a Congressman representing
Texas’s 7th District — to get into the Texas Air National Guard…
     As any combat veteran will tell you, war is not “romantic.” It’s
bloody and brutal.

Robb also cites some recently uncovered correspondence between Richard
Nixon — who was raised as a peace-loving Quaker — and his psychiatrist, written
when Nixon was Ike’s vice president. The shrink, perhaps to help
Tricky Dick deal with his conscience over Korea and
various Cold War problems, advised Nixon to be bold and work to create
a Department of Peace. Alas, I’m afraid no such courage or imagination can
be found among U.S. politicians, however. Robb then reveals an odd
little fact about Nixon’s tombstone:

…When he became president in 1969, Nixon continued the war in
Vietnam for another six years — and several million more lives. And
yet, Nixon still thought of himself as a man of peace. “The greatest
honor history can bestow,” reads the inscription on Nixon’s black
granite tombstone in California, “is the title of peacemaker.”
   In his novel 1984, George Orwell wrote: “War is Peace; Freedom is
Slavery; Ignorance is Strength.” He could have added: “War is
Romantic.

Today on the radio, I heard another interesting fact: in 2007, the
number of cases of PTSD in the U.S. military was over 14,000. A big
number, which looks even bigger when one looks at the 2006 number and
sees that the increase for 2007 was almost 50%. That’s in just one year… a year
during which The Surge was supposed to guarantee success. But at what
cost? (Besides which: are we actually having success? Recent studies show that outside the province where the Afghan capital is, coalition forces are mostly losing ground and influence, and the Taliban is resurgent.)

That PTSD statistic is only shocking if one believes that
the kind of moral and ethical compromises one makes daily in a war
zone are just a normal part of modern life. In reality, most real
psychological and scientific data supports the opposite case. Thus, since we civilians are far enough removed from the REAL trauma, and so culturally conditioned to romanticize
war, PTSD becomes a huge problem. When the *reality* kicks in for our
soldiers, their fully-functional minds cannot bear the disconnect:
war, it turns out, is nothing like they were told it was.

So there were not actually more weaklings or nutcases in the 2007 military than
there were in 2006 (or in 1956, or 1942). They’re just getting smarter
and more reflective. The real consequences of war, and the real
intractable problems in Iraq and Afghanistan that have almost nothing
to do with us, prove stronger than the soldiers’ capacity to adapt to
them. Oops. Innocence and naivete lost… forever. The “just”-ness of a war, or not, does not make individual acts of violence morally acceptable. Yes, soldiers are realizing in unprecedented numbers that they’re not freedom fighters or peacemakers… they’re interlopers and occupiers after all. Fooled again. Who knew?

Healthy middle-class Americans, and perhaps everyone everywhere, want
to feel that they are essentially “good” people — and that others are
good also (and thus not out to do them harm… the essential
insecurity that is at the heart of PTSD). Combat conditions often
strip them of that partial fallacy, revealing their aggressive,
unforgiving, sinful side, the side that makes us have to CHOOSE to be
good, on a daily basis. Many soldiers, under the stress of actual combat conditions, discover that this inner battle is much harder than a battle with any armed insurgent.

At that point –surrounded by an entire culture that seems so foreign,
where friends and enemies are hard to tell apart, where a mild
paranoia eats away at them– these soldiers might be faced with a
choice: harden themselves, sell off a portion of their soul and just follow orders, or
else admit a few basic truths and perhaps lose their mind a bit, because of the ridiclous context in which they have been placed by their government. Perhaps in an attempt to preserve some of their soul and conscience, PTSD is the “right” choice, even if the harsh reality of its symptoms makes life difficult for months and years to come.

I for one, unlike our childish president, do not envy these soldiers
one bit. Either choice is a bad one. Unlike the lie Mr. Orwell’s Big
Brother once tried to sell us, war is NOT peace. War is unnatural.
It’s bad foreign policy, it’s bad for the body, and most of all it’s
bad for the soul.

Is Teddy faking it? I doubt it. But this weekend’s mysterious seizure sure gives Barack Obama some good press, not to mention providing a chance for Sen. Kennedy to look like a folksy “regular Joe” as he recuperates, watches the Red Sox, and plots the next conquest of the progressive movement in America.

I know it’s low-down and dirty to say so publicly, but the illness of one Kennedy – a universally acknowledged bridge to the heady days of Camelot – would be a big boon for the “next JFK”, as Maria Shriver and dozens of other heavy-hitters have called Obama. It would just be a matter of time, then, before environmentalist/knight-in-shining-armor Robert F. Kennedy Jr. becomes a more significant political role-player, and the Beatles would make a triumphant return, and the Peace Corps would replace the Marine Corps in Iraq, and we’ll all be invited out to the Kennedy compound in Hyannis for a celebratory picnic. (What? Party on Cape Cod? I am SO there… Where’s the keys to my yacht?)

News of Teddy Kennedy’s seizure over the weekend probably struck me a bit differently than many liberals.  Maybe because I just watched the excellent movie The Good Shepherd, director  Robert DeNiro’s serious look at the creation and growth of the CIA from the late 1930s through the early 1960s. Matt Damon’s character Edward Wilson, prompted by his own and JFK’s biggest blunder (the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961), looks back over his life’s triumphs and challenges as a spy. Damon is effective as a quietly hawkish, behind-the-scenes true believer; he’s a killer masquerading as civil servant, though one who never once is shown pulling a trigger or wielding a weapon himself. The film is effective as both drama and political commentary (non-partisan commentary, about the spiritual and philosophical danger of too much paranoia — whether one’s enemies are commies or terrorists).

And lest we forget, George Bush Sr. was once Director of the CIA. So this is not some fringy little entity like the Departments of Interior or Education. It’s the little devil on the shoulder of our nation’s leaders, whispering truth and lies into their ears with little certainty of which is which. (Wasn’t it George Tenet that called Iraq a “slam dunk”, even while sending Gulf veteran Colin Powell to the U.N. with faulty intelligence?)

Military and foreign intelligence is the “black hole” among the many bright stars in our sky, a place where reason, mercy and democracy get sucked in, thus suckering us all into thinking that without some great enemy or epic battle, we’re less of a nation. One might call the CIA’s violence and disinformation our nation’s festering cancer, a cancer that can neither kill us nor be cured.

Not that I’m a lover of terrorists, religious dictatorships, the Soviets, or any other monolithic, casually violent, shadowy institution (including our own overly complex and secretive government). But I do sorely hate that whole Red-baiting, saber-rattling, woefully misinformed and hollow foreign policy attitude held by Eisenhower, JFK, and every president up through at least Bill Clinton. For a great man like John F. Kennedy, anti-Communist paranoia was his achilles heel. For example, it led him to embroil us in the first great, ill-advised, unwinnable guerilla war, in Vietnam. (Let’s not kid ourselves: Johnson was only following up what the CIA and JFK had already set in motion in Indochina/Vietnam.) And as for Dubya, he’s just ineptly trying to finish what his Daddy started. And failing. Again.

Let’s hope that future U.S. foreign policy can be more reasoned and sound, in Iraq and elsewhere, for the next generation of Kennedys and Kennedy clones. Don’t take that as an insult, though. I still like Barack just fine. He thinks for himself, despite patterning himself somewhat on the image-obsessed Kennedy. He’s tough, yet without being fundamentally angry (like both Hillary and McCain tend to be). He’s gutsy and takes chances, like that Bay of Pigs thing, but is honest about what’s at risk or being compromised. He’s not “post-military” like JFK, but “post-local” in his understanding of what makes people tick, both in America and around the world. He trusts in his, and in the American public’s, ability to adapt and put our best foot forward when the pressure is on. And despite his smallish, local political beginnings, he may end up being our nation’s first truly “global” president, in an era when a global identity (instead of local/isolationist naivete) means so much.

Cyclones in Myanmar, and an oppressive dictatorship digs in its isolationist heels before finally beginning to accept international aid. Earthquakes in China. Earthquakes in Illinois last month?! Florida and California wildfires every time we turn around. Devastating storms last week in Oklahoma, Georgia, … heck …find me a state in the past three years that hasn’t faced billion-dollar damages due to extreme environmental conditions. Again and again we’re faced with questions about the climate, the global infrastructure, and humanity’s ability to sustain itself on a planet that we’ve wrecked, like a teenager treats his bedroom.

Is the writing on the wall?

I was teaching my students a few things last week about ancient Aztec culture, specifically the complex glyphs or picture-writing system they used to record their history, laws and religious ideas. Not surprisingly, a couple of my junior high kids asked if I thought the world was going to end in 2012, the last year accounted for on the Mayan calendar (and probably the Aztec one also, though I’m too lazy and rushed to look it up at the moment). It was the first time the question had been posed to me by anyone, child or adult. I responded that I did, in fact, think something huge for the entire world would happen in 2012. It’s been an idea circulating among “pagan prophecy” buffs at least since Erich von Daniken’s 1968 bestseller Chariots of the Gods. I think I was in junior high myself –and therefore ripe for the picking with regard to sensationalist ideas– when I stumbled upon this book. Plus there was also a film version, awhile after the book’s release, which caught my imagination even more.

So despite all rational argument and education to the contrary, I’ve still gone through the past thirty or so years with a vague but noncommittal sense that yes, I would be around to see the end of the world in around 2011 or 2012… despite Jesus’ assurance that we would not know the time or the place of his return, nor of the Apocalypse or Armageddon (not words Jesus himself used, by the way… one reason I take most attempts to interpret John’s Revelation with a grain of salt, because it didn’t seem to be much of a concern for the Son of God when he walked among us).

Yes, I believe I will be here to hear the fat lady sing. It’s an interesting stance to take, precisely because it can’t be proven or disproven until that dreaded/long-awaited target year arrives. It’s fun– in a weird, dark kind of way that only twisted minds like mine can understand– to let that anticipation build as if there’s some kind of grand fireworks display on the way, which I will be priveleged to see firsthand. (Never mind the grinding and gnashing of teeth and the Left Behind and all of that… rapture or no rapture, I don’t believe Yahweh is looking to judge and test and hurt those who willingly choose to follow Him… and He might not even allow those who don’t follow Him to be lost forever. He’s that merciful.)

I know it’s nearly impossible to reconcile these two worldviews (the “pagan” and the Christian, the predictive/magical and the “don’t worry about tomorrow” pragmatism of Christ’s own advice). Nevertheless, whenever things get real messy — either politically or environmentally — I can’t help but experience a moment of both thrill and mild terror, thinking, “This is it! Isn’t it? Wait, let’s look for the signs…” And then I look, checking off items on some unwritten mental list that has no clear qualifications for what IS a sign and what IS NOT. Silly, I know. But probably harmless.

As I mature (a theoretical concept, I will admit…), it’s mostly the environmental stuff that sets me off on that train of thought, not so much the human or political turmoil. When humans mess up, I take that “nothing new under the sun” attitude, like the writer of Ecclesiastes, and dismiss it as just this year’s manifestation of the latest trends in sinning, both personal and global. For example, remember all the people who dug up strange new “after-the-fact” interpretations of Nostradamus in the weeks after Sept. 11th, 2001? Where are those people now? How much does mass hysteria contribute to the snowball effect, once such ideas get started? How many people are out there fearmongering right now, quietly circulating emails proposing that the U.S. presidential election and its outcome will be a sign of the end times? [If you get any of these emails, forward them to me... I'm a big fan...]

With every transition or large-scale human undertaking, superstition inevitably gets mixed in with fact, and we come out the other end with more questions and vague fears than we had going in. Let’s call it a “philosophical earthquake” effect. That’s why, when it comes to “wars and rumors of wars”, that’s one area where I really do let Jesus have the last word:

” Many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and will deceive many. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains.”

(Mark 13:6-8, New International Version)

See, nice and vague, just the way I like it. Leaves room for conjecture, but says not to be alarmed. Could be in 2012, …or else the “beginning” could be something that lasts a thousand years, all by itself.

Which is not to say that some well-intentioned but lazy Christians won’t stretch these words of Jesus in their efforts to scare more people into becoming his disciples. Sure, I’d like to see God have more followers, too. But I want those who genuinely love God, and love their fellow man sacrifically, not some shallow, frightened hanger-on just looking to cover his ass in case this end-times stuff turns out to be true.

I’d rather be a brother to someone interested in serving those in the cross-hairs of history, the ones upon whom these wars are perpetrated, who go hungry or die as a result of these extreme weather conditions. If they’re concerned only for people’s eternal souls, and not their present-day minds and bodies, then they’re not my brother or sister. No, sir. I serve the prophet and Lord who fed the 5,000, who calmed the storms on the seas, who saved Jews, Samaritans and Romans alike, who healed the lopped-off ear of the soldier trying to arrest him, then told his armed disciple not to live by the sword, lest he die by the sword.

To walk in the Spirit of the Lord is to lose your life while you’re still living it. It’s a daily decision not to care if today’s your last day. As long as you live it with integrity, in service to God and His people, take it on faith that you’ll be fine. Make the world a better place, in spite of the fact that it has a limited expiration date.

So I guess it’s okay to be curious about the end of the world, whether you’re 12 years old or 92. But don’t let it keep you up at night. It ain’t worth it…