Marking Time

Fill in the blank.

We’ve all said it. Many times, probably beginning the first month we could string a complete sentence together. Of course, at that point, we were probably saying, “When I grow up, I’m going to eat ice cream for every meal, nothing but ice cream.” 

What I never expected, though, is that I would still be using this phrase at age 42.

Some people, the George Baileys of the world, are just “born older”. Let’s call them the Settlers. I don’t mean anything negative in using this term. All I mean is that they find a groove early, they mostly stay in it, and they take whatever success or failure comes from this basically straight arc of a life path they have “settled into”. If they can get past that nasty old “midlife crisis” thing, they do pretty well for themselves, interpersonally and financially.

Some settlers start working at a young age, maybe even helping support their parents or siblings. Maybe they get married young or have a baby. Maybe they just have a clear vision and an ambition to get exactly what they are after, and they chase it down. High school, college, maybe grad school, then a steady climb up the ladder in a single field of work, until they hit some ceiling either within themselves or in society. They take a pre-worn path that makes sense to them, they have few regrets, and they take for granted certain “facts” and necessary compromises. Many existential questions, for a settler, are easily settled. There’s one right answer, and they live it out as best they can. They may not even be inclined to ask a lot of those kind of questions in the first place. Settlers are do-ers, and generally this is the type of person that makes the world go. 

And then there are the Searchers. I’m a searcher. I envy those damned settlers, with all their certainty and success and non-rebellious bliss. But I’m afraid I can never be one.

Searchers are internally tuned to search, to experiment, to wander through life a bit, to question what the settlers take for granted. A searcher can be like an advance scout, sent out to identify an entirely new path and test whether it’s safe or not, and where it will lead.

Except most searchers are self-appointed. We don’t often choose to be a searcher. No sane, responsible person would do something so foolish. To be a searcher is to agree that it’s okay to be lost for a time. Most seachers either intentionally leave or compulsively lose track of the path, a path that previous settlers so kindly laid out for them.

Sometimes a searcher is enticed to leave those well-worn paths by the promise of something exciting out in the woods, or just over the horizon in the other direction.

Other searchers are just dissatisfied with the path itself, and are compelled to strike out on their own by some vague internalized calling. They leave the path with a hope, and a faith (however they define it), that there is something better out there for them, and perhaps for everyone else as well. 

Searchers are not all narcissists, though. Most still want to play a vital role in the world. They hope to contribute to the community, but they have no choice but to do so by being a maverick (to borrow one of McCain’s favorite words), a discoverer, an outsider, a reformer, an advance scout in previously unexplored territories, using a machete to cut a wide and sometimes painful swath through the jungle.

[Since I brought up MCain, let me say I think the 2008 election may be the first in history, or at least the first since Reagan v. Carter, to pit two searchers against each other. Neither Obama nor McCain has proven themselves a true insider, entirely beholden to or accepted by their traditonal constituencies. If McCain's sidestepping of religious postures and Obama's "oreo" branding by Jesse Jackson and the black community has shown us anything, it's that these candidates are not afraid to go off-script in forging a political path for themselves. Certainly McCain is more a "company man" than Obama, but I think his basic identity is to be a reformer, which places him somewhere to the left of the neo-conservative movement. (My conservative ex-brother-in-law once called him a commie, but he was mostly just being the inflammatory jerk he's always been.) ]

Back to ordinary settlers and searchers like you and me:

I know several searchers now, over 35, who are in a similar place emotionally, professionally, or spiritually. One is adopting a child from Russia, at age 43. One is going to med school - she’s also about 43, though in a recent email she said she still feels 26 on the inside. My sister, now 36, is also back in school to get more training in some sort of design field. Whe she grows up she’s going to be some unique combination of artist and inventor, creating the next Furby, iPod, Post-It note, or other such triumph of creativity through new technology. Even my pastor, a classic searcher, is going back to school full-time to fill in all the gaps he’s felt for years in the what and how of his daily work.

While many searchers do have that hope that I discussed earlier, at our core we are perpetually dissatisfied. It may be a dissatisfaction with the world, and what all those doggone settlers have done to the place. It may be a dissatisfaction with ourselves, a drive to better ourselves, to find some essential answer to that age old question: Why am I here? It may just be a dissatisfaction with one particular area of life, like Dr. Richard Jarvik’s frustration over losing his father to a heart attack, which drove him to create the first artificial heart.

Whichever you are, searcher or settler, the bottom line is that we need each other. I’m married to a settler, for example. She’s very organized, high-functioning, and quite good at helping other settlers and searchers become smarter, stronger, more complete versions of themselves (myself included). But at her core, I don’t think she’s looking to reinvent the world. She’s just living in it, adapting to it, and whenever possible, admiring and appreciating it.

Whichever you are, go be the best you can be. And forgive the other type. They’re only doing what they gotta do, just like you. (Like my wife, who just kicked me off the computer, since I took too long to write all this up, and the day has 101 other little responsibilities that I have to take on.)

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.

“Because, in truth, because they have misled my people, saying, ‘Peace,’ when there is no peace. Therefore thus says the Lord God: In my wrath I will make a stormy wind break out.”

Ezekiel 13:10a, 13

Apparently there has always been a public relations industry, and spin doctors to put a positive face on a steaming pile of lies. If I read this passage correctly, that is.

Yesterday at a simple desire, we had a good look at the difference between exaggerated, metaphoric violence and actual physical violence, between “outer” peace and inner peace among the people of God. I think today’s verses make the case pretty clearly that Ezekiel’s is a story of the battle in the heavens for our souls, not the ones on earth for our property or ideologies. In verse 5 of Chapter 13, the Lord uses the image of the false prophets as those who have not repaired “the breaks in the wall”. This way of equating physical objects (a destroyed temple, a city, a whitewashed tomb) with the spiritual identity of a follower of Yahweh (one who is under threat of attack, who must guard his or her heart from sin, lies and false deities) has precedent throughout both the Old and New Testaments. For example, Nehemiah and other minor prophets put the rebuilding of Jerusalem in this same context: the city IS the people, and vice-versa.

Here, Ezekiel’s Lord talks about “flimsy” walls covered with “whitewash” (v. 10) , walls that will not be strong enough to stand in a coming battle. It’s not much of a stretch to see that they’re not talking about brick and mortar walls here, so much as a religious and political house of cards, based on lies and denial, that will not stand against the coming opponents. It reminds me of something… a battle entered into with faulty, made-up information from the leadership; a shoddy, patched-together, whitewashed mission thought to be “accomplished”; battles for which we’re not prepared… where have I heard this before? Ah well, it will come to me later.

Chapter 13 ends, on the other hand, with a merciful God, a saving Lord. He’s still angry, yes – and not only at the liars but also those foolish enough to believe them. But He just wants His people restored, his family set back on the right path. Here’s more of what He tells Ezekiel to convey to the false prophets, the pundits of that era, making up predictions off the top of their head:

19b By lying to my people, who listen to lies, you have killed those who should not have died and have spared those who should not live.

 20 ” ‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am against your magic charms with which you ensnare people like birds, and I will tear them from your arms; I will set free the people that you ensnare like birds. 21 I will tear off your veils and save my people from your hands, and they will no longer fall prey to your power. Then you will know that I am the LORD. 22 Because you disheartened the righteous with your lies,… 

As a disheartened peacemaker in the 21st century, I take hope from this. The veil behind which a liar hides can always be torn away by our protective Father, revealing what was hidden and scurrilous (but often seductive, complete with flashing graphics and seemingly plausible statistics) about the false prophets’ message. Except nowadays, instead of “peace”, they say “War!” when there is no war… at least not the kind of war – with nukes and guns and IED’s – that they’re telling me we need to fight. 

I may or may not be righteous, but at least now I know that I’m not alone and abandoned here, utterly unable to sort out the truth from the lies, on the eve of still more battles for the hearts and minds of God’s people.

But first another confession: This marks at least my third blog post in which the word “confession” is part of the title - a sure sign that I’m a St. Augustine-aping, whiny, guilt-ridden, post-Catholic, pseudo-intellectual hack trying to catch people’s attention with self-deprecating humor and imitation, half-assed, lazy religious trickery. Nevertheless, here goes…

I went out, alone, for pricy coffee and and a delicious torte after a church committee meeting the other night. I seem to need to do something like this about once a month: fancy coffee and a hipster newspaper, or popping into a blues bar, or walking down to the corner tavern (which for me is about a half-mile away, barely walkable with my arthritic knee). I never plan when I will make these little bohemian excursions — where I act like a carefree single man, or an irresponsible married man, or a down-on-his-luck divorced man who for some stupid reason reveres reckless poets and raging drunks like Charles Bukowski and Arthur Rimbaud. In fact, planning would be in direct opposition to the spontaneity I so desperately need when the urge to excurge hits. (Excurge? Excurse? Play hooky from my boring life? Whatever… you get it.) Plus, I’m multiply disabled in the medulla adultada, that part of the brain where for most people planning occurs.

But my secret fear is that I look out of place when I’m out playing at that bohemian lifestyle. I have no tattoos. No hardware hanging from my appendages. I don’t wear funky hats much anymore. I mostly wear off-brand polo shirts. My jeans are not ripped, nor written-upon, and I don’t wear all black. I do own a classic old leather bomber jacket – one which I can picture the hero of Kerouac’s On the Road  wearing as he immerses himself in some seedy underworld of tenement apartments and broken-down, landlocked houseboats. But the zipper on that jacket is busted, so I often opt for something warmer and more sensible, if less cool.

Out at the cafe the other night, my main clue that I’m getting too old for this sh*t was that I couldn’t see anything in the dim, atmospheric lighting. I had to use my phone as a lame-ass itty-bitty book light, in order to read The Onion, skipping over articles about rock bands I’ve barely heard of, and occasionally puzzling over references aimed squarely at college-age kids. (I still “get” most of the jokes, though I may not think they’re as funny as the youngsters do…) And I cursed under my breath like a crotchety old man when my twenty-year-old waitress moved at the speed of molasses in getting me the check. Doesn’t anybody have pride in their work anymore? (Yeah, I sound like my parents now. It sucks.)

For last month’s excursion, I admit I pushed the outside of the envelope a bit, as I went out late on a Friday, after Sue and Graham were asleep, to play craps on the gambling boats all the way over in Gary, Indiana. I didn’t leave a note. I didn’t ask “permission” (God forbid). And I knew full-well that my father struggled most of his adult life with a gambling addiction, much injuring my mother and yet denying he had a problem every step of the way. But dammit, it was Friday night, I was wide awake and wired, and I wanted to do it. I’d been thinking about it for months, in fact. So I did it. I even won $130. But Sue called me at about 1:30 or 2am, as I was driving back, wondering where I was. When I told the truth she was rightfully ticked off.

So now I have to make confession, to be reconciled to my wife and my life and my boring middle-class, middle-aged existence. Until next month, when I will fall off the wagon again and limp my way through a game of Ultimate Frisbee with kids half my age after church. In a few minutes I will go off to my full-time job, and when I come home tonight I will cook a well-balanced dinner and probably watch Night In the Museum with my family. Between now and Sunday, I have to mow the lawn, the ultimate symbol that I’m no longer bohemian. (Do they even have lawns in Bohemia, or do they just cover their yards with skate parks and cheeky paintings of Elvis on black velvet?)

Plus I probably need to spend some time this weekend looking for work again, as the school I’m teaching at is suspending operations next year due to financial difficulties. Well, at least that’s ONE way I’m still living like a twenty-something bohemian and wanna-be. I have no real CAREER to speak of…

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…

It never fails. I watch a great political movie like Michael Winterbottom’s A Mighty Heart, starring Angelina Jolie as Mariane Pearl (or Blood Diamond with Leo DiCaprio, or Syriana with Matt Damon and George Clooney), and I’m immediately inspired to do something. The courage and grace of French/Cuban journalist Mariane Pearl (as seen in this Oprah interview), during and in the aftermath of her American journalist husband Daniel Pearl’s murder in 2002 Pakistan, demands nothing less than some kind of concrete nonviolent action. I can’t watch these compelling stories strictly as passive entertainment. “I have to do something!”, I always end up saying.

And then it hits: the feelings of powerlessness, the frustration, even self-loathing; the sense that I’m a little dustmite, an annoying mosquito in the drawers of the powers that be. What can I, of all people, do?

Furthermore, what makes me think I have anything to say that anyone could want to hear, or any skills that are of use in the struggle against such powerful and entrenched warmongers? I’m just a pathetic little schoolteacher. I’m a blogger with a readership of about 12, most of whom probably feel as powerless as I feel, otherwise why would they be mucking about here on the internet instead of out in the streets actually doing something. (Yeah, why ARE you here, by the way? I never had the guts to ask before…)

But those feelings of powerlessness are exactly what the enemies of peace and justice want us to feel. That, and fear, are what keep the downtrodden down, and what keep the genuinely powerful but woefully misled majority silent. Therefore, refusing to give in to those feelings of apathy and fear is the first and most essential step in taking victory away from the perpetrators of violence, in dulling the power of the sword (and the bulldozer, in the violence they would do to our planet). This step does not bring me much closer to knowing what I can do to help, but it at least gets me out of that comfy little foxhole/prison they would have me fall asleep in.

Besides, where are the streets anymore? Does protest actually matter? Are these the streets, these electronic alleyways lined with dirty windows, through which we see silly dressed-up kittens, old instructional video footage of James Brown teaching us to dance the boogaloo and funky chicken, and dumpster upon dumpster filled with porn?

In a media-saturated society, it’s easy to shut down, to screen out, to remove ourselves from all this trivia and complicated mess that surrounds us. Yet we can do something else, from right where we are. We do it through real relationships, with real people, out living real life. The “streets that have no name” lead to our churches, our neighborhoods, our schools, our families. We can talk straight, do what we can to educate those whom we see every day, and hope that some of it sticks.

And yes, the Internet is The Street also. Furthermore, it’s as powerful a tool for doing good as it is for spreading, um, …fertilizer. We can use it to stay informed, or to publicize important information so that others are better equipped. We can donate money to some inspired project, like musician Peter Gabriel’s work with WITNESS providing hundreds of video cameras all over Europe, Africa and Asia, to document human rights abuses and bring to light what most abusers would prefer remain in darkness.

And last but not least, we can cry out ourselves –here in our little cul-de-sac blogs and boutiques of opinion– believing that if even one more person is saved (in body or spirit) by our dozens of attempts, by our refusal to stop caring, then we’ve done what we could, and it was good enough.

Or, …we can choose to go where the action is. For example, today I went to Jesus Manifesto and found out that its founder/editor Mark VanSteenwyck is joining with Christian Peacemaker Teams. Which means he’ll soon be putting his own ass on the line to keep local journalists, lawyers, human rights workers and labor organizers safe, in one of the dozens of war zones throughout the world. Mark is a young man with a new baby… a baby he cares enough about to try remaking the world into a safer place for him to grow up in. Furthermore, Mark trusts Jesus with his life, and that of his family.

In Colombia, Palestine, Congo, Iraq, and other conflict zones, hundreds of regular Joes and Janes on Christian Peacemaker Teams act not as soldiers, uninvolved journalists or security contractors but as friends, layman ambassadors, and prayer warriors. They accompany the powerless. They teach conflict resolution. They are patriotic but peace-loving, believing it is just as important to change the hearts and minds of combatants on both sides as it is to preserve the lives of the oppressed, those caught in the middle of it all. As Westerners (mostly American and Canadian Mennonites, Brethren, and Quakers, with a few Catholics, Baptists, Presbyterians and “Other” thrown in for balance) these teams really do show a Power to the People kind of courage and hope. They walk in the Spirit. They keep the conversation going, with the local Joachims and Juanas, while huge nation-states and mindless terrorist organizations prove every day that the way of the gun only results in more confusion and violence.

In Iraq Tom Fox, a CPT human rights worker, lost his life in the midst of that confusion and senseless violence. Tom was one of four CPT members kidnapped in March 2006. Though his colleagues were rescued, Tom was not so fortunate. But the witness that he presented to the world had an impact, and the CPT work in Iraq continues even now.

Last year, I met somebody here in Chicago who knew Tom Fox, who told me about something else Tom had done. There was a working collective of painters and artists in Baghdad that Tom had contacts with, and he acted as a go-between, helping set up channels for some of their remarkable and accomplished paintings to get out of Iraq. Those paintings are still coming over, to the Iraqi Art Gallery here in Chicago, in the Rogers Park neighborhood. This is not far from Living Water Community Church, where my own church (Reba Place) did a church plant in the early 1990s. The nonprofit’s director and curator, Chuck Trimbach (a former colleague of filmmaker Harold Ramis), is still plugging along after three years. But in the present political and economic climate he’s got to be scraping the bottom of the barrel by now. And it’s a shame, because the paintings are both excellent and affordable. More importantly, the artists who get the lion’s share of the profits need help, now more than ever.

Meanwhile in Iran, Mennonite delegations are practically the only Westerners that their president and more moderate religious leaders are willing to talk to or trust. And in a context of trust, even a controversial message (like “stop denying that the Holocaust occurred”) can be delivered face-to-face, which is precisely what those delegations have done. (“Speak the truth in love,” Jesus said. Right?) I know some folks, including my friend Dr. Tom Finger, who participated in these talks.

So I may never get to the front lines. But this is 2008. This is the internet. This is the worldwide church, established and empowered by Christ, which knows no national boundaries, and continues to dismantle the artificial boundaries of denominational division. This is the small world that they kept telling us was on its way. The battle lines keep moving, and they get more blurry every day. The battle to uncover and stand upon the truth is one we are all called to. So come on out of that foxhole now. We’re gonna need some help. Besides, you won’t be alone.

Hillary, she of the two faces, is at it again. I planned on posting about this last week, but I wanted to do some homework on it, and didn’t have time till today.

Here’s the short version: Jeremiah Wright has already been to the White House… as one of Hillary and Bill’s spiritual advisors in the wake of the president’s marital infidelity. So how did Wright suddenly become the one-dimensional, seething, angry representative of a dissatisfied black America, if his advice was so valuable to the Clintons during their biggest personal crisis ever? If known lefty Jeremiah Wright was good enough to stand alongside influential evangelical and Willow Creek Chuch founder, Saint Bill Hybels, back in 1998, then why is he the devil incarnate now?

I heard a mention of Wright and Hillary’s relationship on the radio early last week, when a commentator mentioned in passing that documentarian Michael Moore had cited her historical rewrite as one of the main reasons he was throwing his support behind Obama. Then a day later, I heard Moore himself interviewed on the subject (by Joy Behar – the only worthwhile thing about ABC’s The View ). Moore, no stranger to deep dark secrets, said he was shouting at his TV when Hillary brought up the Rev. Wright’s comments on the same stage as Barack.

“Tell them!” Moore implored Obama. “Tell them Wright was one of the pastors the Clintons looked to for help.” But Obama, not a dirty fighter by nature, chose to keep mum on the subject.

Moore and Behar called it gentlemanly behavior. I call it “politic” behavior, in the only decent use of that dirty word. It was both a turn-the-other-cheek moment, and a smart move. Obama himself has thus far made no reference to Hillary’s most vulnerable personal/family crisis. It would be nasty and un-Christian of him to do so. It also wouldn’t score him any points with anyone – not with the “family values” types who dislike Clinton but may grudingly respect her for forgiving her husband, nor with the patient, ego-bruised liberal women who see Hillary as their champion. Gordon Fischer, a major political figure in Iowa and an Obama supporter, mentioned Monica Lewinsky’s stained blue dress last week in his blog, and got a beat-down for doing so. Apparently people will still empathize with a scorned woman, even when she’s quite strong enough to fight her own battles. (Why else would we have wailed and howled for years in tabloids over the breakup of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston?)

Partly because Wright spoke at the big NAACP meeting last week, and partly because Indiana’s primary is not very “sexy” news fodder, CNN.com has no less than twenty stories discussing various aspects of Jeremiah Wright and the aftermath of his America-bashing retirement speech. Like Barack saying he would have left the church over those comments, if Wright wasn’t already retiring. Or Clinton Cabinet-member Bill Richardson saying Obama’s response speech, on race in America, was the pivotal moment when he saw Obama’s merits as outweighing Hillary’s.

Richardson was recently called a Judas by Clinton’s unofficial attack dog James Carville. James is generally a funny and likable character, though it’s not at all funny to accuse Richardson of disloyalty while Hillary loses other former supporters like Bubba Bill’s Labor Secretary Robert Reich, Michael Moore, John Kerry, actor/activist Tim Robbins, and dozens of others (who probably matter much more than the above-listed fringe-y dudes). Most realistic Democrats and progressives see the writing on the wall (that Barack is the future of the party, that he’s smart enough to make up for his lack of experience, and that Hillary won’t win back even one Reagan-loving, Bubba-bashing Christian Republocrat in the general election this November).

It’s the comfortable, scared, politically-disengaged Baby Boomers that are the problem here – the ones about whom Don Henley once brilliantly wrote as seeing no contradiction in putting “a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac”. My mother, a mild Hillary suporter who bought the whole Wright-Obama connection story hook-line-and-sinker, represents Clinton’s last and only hope. Any preacher, outgoing or not, who says “God damn America!”, is going to scare off some good white people who are nevertheless concerned about a post-O.J. Simpson, post-Rodney King backlash against the white middle class.

I think the Carville comments on Bill Richardson show that Clinton is genuinely worried about losing the support of the influential Latino community, one of her traditionally strong bases, the way she has already lost the black vote. I’ve said it here before, but I will say it again: a ticket with Richardson as a V.P. would be a smart choice. He’d steal some votes from McCain out west, plus he’d win back a few Clintonites with his likability and non-”elitist” ways. Most importantly, the prospect of a half-Mexican stepping into the Oval Office if anything happens to Obama would keep the wolves at bay, all those crackers who might want to do President Barack some form of harm. (”But I keed, I keed…”)

So please move on, Hillary. You make a pretty good Senator. You might even have made a better president than your husband. But like Jennifer Aniston, Bill Richardson and Michael Moore, we’ve moved on now. Reverend Wright is retiring. Louis Farrakhan doesn’t command much attention anymore, even though you brazenly brought up his name in connection with Obama in another public forum awhile back. 

Electing you would be a step backward, Hillary, and we need to move forward. Swallow your pride and be the kind of leader that we know you’re capable of, the moral and ethical leader who does genuinely care about America, about our health and children and growth and international standing. You showed you could Move On with regard to your horndog husband. Now do it for us.

While the prior blog post did feature a couple of personally relevant numbers, it was mostly trying to be outwardly focused in its praises and critiques. Today, on the other hand, will sound more like one of Oprah’s “My Favorite Things” segments, only with a numerical theme.

So here are some numbers that tell stories about my life as of this date :

97: the bowling score put up in the joint game played by ten of my 3rd-5th graders today in P.E. Highlight of the game was when the flakiest girl in the class became the person that scored our first and only strike of the week. We’re using 20 real pins, plus a combination of various bowling balls both official and toy. It’s been a blast.

136: my average last time I played in a bowling league, which was probably at around age 24.

42: My current age. Also the answer to the question “What is the meaning of life?”, according to The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. (If you’re looking for answers, though, don’t come to me… my only suggestion is the same as theirs: Don’t Panic. )

11: my favorite number and/or “lucky number”, for various reasons, though mostly sports-related

34: my second favorite, having mostly to do with the synchronicity of how frequently I spot it at signinficant moments of my life… but it’s also the jersey number of Chicago Bear great Walter Payton, my favorite athlete ever.

670AM : The Score, my favorite radio station – especially Terry Boers and Dan Bernstein during the afternoon drive-time slot. Bernstein is about my age and funny as hell, while Boers is a hip, knowledgeable but crotchety old sportswriter. Their Thursday call-in segment Who Ya Crappin’? is one of the highlights of my week, in which people from all over my fair city and beyond call or write to ironically expose some bullshit spouted by an athlete, entertainer or politician during the previous week. I have patterned at least half of Marking Time (the cynical half) after Boers & Bernstein, Lewis Black, Lenny Bruce, and Dave Barry (must be something about those B names…)

9.2%: the slippery margin-of-victory number for Hillary Clinton in the Pennsylvania primary yesterday. All the so-called experts have their own opinions about how bad a beat this was or wasn’t for Obama. For me, I just don’t get it. He knew she’d win. We all knew she’d win. Can we talk about something else now, please? (Yeah I know I said I was going to go personal and not political today… but EVERYTHING is political, really, or hadn’t you noticed? And in case it’s not clear, I’m an Obama man. )

3: The number of people in my family. The number of kids in both mine and my wife’s families. The number of blue jeans I wear in rotation on a biweekly basis. Also the all-important Trinity number, used and re-used symbolically in children’s rhymes, adult literature, religious writing and numerology (which is mostly b.s.), and most importantly the number of ounces of sweetened ricotta cheese in the center of a standard cannoli, my favorite dessert since I was about nine months old. (Thanks, Ma.)

25: the anniversary of Cornerstone Festival this July, the leading music and Christian culture event in America for some time now. I got a mailing today, with the full lineup. I have not been there since 2000, and may not make it this year either, but it’s always a terrific opportunity to put one’s finger on the pulse of what God is up to in the U.S. If you go, don’t miss The 77’s and The Lost Dogs, some classic supergroups still doing amazing work in the new millenium.

20:150  - my vision without correction. I wear contacts, the change-once-a-month type, which I wear for two or three months at a time, like just about everybody else out there.

20:20  - my vision when I look toward a brighter future. And while I do occasionally celebrate those building the foundation for that future, ultimately I put no stock in politics, pastors, pop stars, or platinum Visa cards to get us there. Instead, this Passover, let us admit that the road to peace and prosperity– that legendary land of milk and honey –is the same road for us as it was for Moses and his gang: 40 years of wandering around like fools, followed by a time of renewal, repentance and finally forgiveness. 1968 was by most accounts the most pivotal year of the Baby Boomer generation. Dr. King. Bobby Kennedy. So I suppose we’re due.

So let’s get our act together by Yom Kippur, on October 9th… we’ll need that long just to make a list of all the things we want to change… plus, it will be just in time for the election.