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this age of dying newspaper conglomerates, bad novelizations of bad movies, and blogs (including this one) that seem outdated within mere minutes, as we move on to the next topic or political fetish.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.

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.

“Here’s looking at you, Dad.”

I know that –as Humphrey Bogart/Rick Blaine said in Casablanca– my problems “don’t amount to a hill of beans” in the context of wars, floods, earthquakes and supermodel Kate Moss’ hair extension malfunction. But the problems are real enough to me, and thus the truest reporting I can do (at least while sitting in a comfy cafe eating biscuits and gravy… I mean, I’m EMBEDDED here, people).

There was supposed to be an 8am tee-ball game at the “big field” today (Sunday) –with a P.A. announcer, teams lining up on the baselines while being introduced, and kosher hot dogs being sold (at 8am?). I looked forward to the whole baseball-fest pageantry – the older kids would follow, getting the same treatment. But it started pouring at about 7:55, and the games (or at least ours) were canceled.

Happy Frickin’ Father’s Day: up at 6:30 for NOTHING!

So I went to breakfast… alone, since Sue dislikes restaurants (and breakfast), and Graham already had a Pop Tart before the rainout. Dropped them off, then found out that Prairie Joe’s, my favorite breakfast joint, isn’t open till 9am on Sundays. Had to settle for Le Peep… this shee-shee (chi-chi?) place in Evanston with no character and middlin’ food. It was packed, especially with grinning dads out to breakfast with their families, and in some cases even the grandparents. Made me feel even more rained-upon.

By most accounts, when they were making the movie Casablanca, it was a mess not unlike my spoiled Father’s Day morning. They had multiple writers trying to clean up the story, Ingrid Bergman was a no-name actress still learning English, some actual WWII events changed the plot midstream, and it was not expected even by the filmmakers to be the classic that it became. Nevertheless, I didn’t hold out much hope that my Father’s Day would improve (and it really didn’t). Maybe I should have brought in a few more writers to clean up the plot: get Sue and Graham to join me for breakfast, have a great breakthrough at church, watch Casablanca together on DVD at night — that sort of thing. Oh well…

Sunday marked the third major event for me affected by excessive rainstorms this spring. The first two were at school: the Peace March for which we’d spent months preparing, and Field Day, where multi-age groupings compete for school bragging rights in relay races, Tug of War, and other events. That one got moved from a Friday to a Monday due to the storm. But the CMLC Peace March was just scaled back to a pathetic little parade around the gym– a complete waste of the attention-getting costumes, signs, and choreographed chants I taught the kids. I was quietly crushed, though I put on a brave face. (A metaphor for how most of the school year went, by the way…)

They say everything happens for a reason. My faith and perseverence notwithstanding, what could possibly be God’s reason for raining on every celebration I had a leadership role in this year? Yeah, I know: it’s not all about me, His rain falls on the just and the jerky alike, but my patience is getting pretty thin by now — enough to turn me kind of jerky.

In Casablanca, Rick and Ilsa would “always have Paris”. Meanwhile, what do I have to look back on fondly in the first six months of 2008, in this Father’s Day war of dampened spirits?

If you weren’t paying attention, you may have missed the fact that about two weeks ago, the U.S. took the first step toward putting a man on Mars. Yup. No little green men. Us. On Mars. By 2025, I predict.

Over at Science Daily is a story on the various analyses being done this week by the superbly engineered (but imperfect) ship that took that first step toward colonization, the Phoenix Mars Lander. It landed near the polar cap of Mars on May 25, and will be functioning there for three months or longer, if all goes as planned. The deceptively difficult process of landing it without crashing or damaging it was a major feat and their biggest worry, as important as the robotic arm design or the analytic processes it can do.  But now that it’s there and safe, it’s analyzing soil samples and searching for microscopic signs of former life on the red planet. We’ve sent smaller craft there in the past decade, which sent back some cool photos and video. But Phoenix is the more promising technology, as it has a wider variety of ways to collect scientific data, and more detailed visual/photographic capabilities. And if it actually finds evidence of previous life forms on Mars… ooh baby, people will definitely sit up and take notice then. It will slightly alter our view of ourselves, God, and the universe from that day on. How could it not, right?

Regarding putting humans up there: the full trip, using current technology, would take about eight months and cost a minimum of $320 million. Various proposals are circulating and competing among NASA-types and academics, and nobody’s making any firm decisions yet, but I’m betting we’ll get there in a few years and start building the actual transport vehicles.

Regarding the present mission, the big splash will be if Phoenix actually finds any organic material in its explorations of the surface. Philosophically, theologically, and scientifically, all heaven could break loose if we have confirmation, finally, that life exists in the universe beyond our own planet. Some stuffed shirt will probably still find a way to take all the fun out of exploring the galaxy (”too expensive… besides, what if we discover others and it turns out they hate us?”), but at least we’ll potentially get out of the present rut and start looking up again, with hope instead of dread.

If we don’t kill our own planet first, that is.

Other tangential, Phoenix-related recommendations:

1) I finally saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix this week. Pretty good, dramatically-speaking, though the plotline is seeming kind of Star Wars-y  by now, and this one’s not as humorous as some of the former films. I’m a complete Muggle when it comes to all things Potter, but for fans of interesting acting, one can’t do much better than Michael Gambon (Dumbledore), Alan Rickman (Snape) and Gary Oldman (Sirius Black), not to mention Emma Thompson (whatever her goofy character is called). Even Daniel Radcliffe holds his own against these all-star Brits, though. The kid can act.

2) One of my three or four favorite pieces of classical music is Igor Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite. I’ve never heard it performed live, or seen the ballet, but it’s so dramatic and mood-altering on CD that I rise up from the ashes of my own sniveling, burnt-out self every time I hear it. Find anyone’s version. The one I use was recorded by the Boston Symphony, and as a bonus has Stravinsky’s stormier, louder Rite of Spring on the same CD, recorded by Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

May the fire of the Phoenix, a passion for artistic and scientific greatness, burn in our hearts.

Laughing about the clumsy attempts of a five-year-old to understand and use the weird English language is a long-established American pastime. Art Linkletter (in the Sixties?), and later Bill Cosby (early Nineties?), did a popular weekly television show called Kids Say the Darndest Things, based solely on this premise. Cosby has also done many a successful standup routine about the tendency of naive but inherently spiritual children to ask challenging questions. An early favorite that I once had on an LP was called Why Is There Air? 

Like many parents, I’ve noticed — and on occasion written down — some of the misunderstandings and invented words that Graham comes up with. The above-mentioned forevergreen is just the latest example, taken from our ride back from Wisconsin yesterday. A prior occasion of amusement was when he discussed his “flam-o” pajamas as his favorites. (That would be flannel, dear.) In both of these cases, I found it so cute that I didn’t have the heart to correct him.

If anything, his word is better than the one we normally use. Even though trees don’t live forever, there’s something really deep about Graham’s version. His implied belief, that some things really can  last forever, is a reminder of why the hope and innocence of children should be highly valued (for their ability to give us all a bit more hope and joy each day). The discussion we then had about evergreens, where I tried to explain somewhat scientifically why evergreens don’t lose what he called their “leaves” in the fall (I did re-introduce the word “needles” to him here), was a highlight of my day.

Soon after that, we saw some deer along the side of the road, and had a lengthy discussion about the two words, “dear” and “deer”, and which spelling to use for various situations. He was very intent on getting this right. Learning a concept in school is one thing. Figuring out real life is sometimes another.

If you have kids, or when you do have a chance to talk to them, always put your best ears on, to hear what they’re really saying. “Out of the mouths of babes…” as they say. Or “Of such as these is the kingdom of heaven made…” If you listen closely, sometimes they’ll end up teaching you, instead of the other way around.

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.

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…