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’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.

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.

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.

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…

Category: Travel and Places

Graham and I had a little adventure this past Sunday. And if Officer Nuccio had gone just on visual evidence, he would have thought I was the worst parent ever, and I’d be on probation right now.

If you don’t know anything about chaos theory except what you learned from Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park, you’re not alone. I don’t really know about it either. But ignorance never kept me from using a good metaphor before, so why start today?

The chaos to which I am referring is that which currently exists in my home. No, it’s not just the standard kid-created chaos of toys on the floor, jelly stains on the couch, and DVD cases in the bathtub. (Why? I ask you. What chaotic logic could have possessed him to… oh, never mind.)

This chaos is intentional and necessary, even if it’s just temporary. For you see, we’re getting new carpeting installed in two rooms today, and had to remove all the furniture to two other rooms. Graham’s bedroom is easy: a bed, a cheap desk, a couple of dressers, a nightstand, some toys — done! But it’s the family room – the legos-between-cushions, video-topheavy, musical, functional, pulsing, beating heart of any house– that took a lot more to clear out and clean up.

It was complicated by the fact that the big entertainment center had to be disassembled (dissembled? … let’s just say “taken apart”).

We had already re-painted much of the room over Christmas break, changing from earthtones to a nice lavender. But all the baseboards, and the whole area behind the big entertainment center, had been left unpainted until such time as we could do this take-apart thing. Which was yesterday. After work. The painting of the baseboards in advance of the new carpeting was saved until then, too. All of which meant that, between shifting furniture and washing out brushes and re-painting a few spots we missed at Christmas, I was not done until 1:30am. Granted, I took a couple of breaks between 5 pm and 1:30am. Nevertheless I was not a happy camper.

In fact, I was an irritable bear all night, as Sue bathed Graham and read to him and generally kept him out of my way. (Thanks, honey.) But I knew I would be like that, so I warned them early on that I would not be available for conferences or spider-killing for the rest of the night.

This is just how I get. I swear under my breath. I sigh. I bark at other people, and at myself for being such an idiot. I just hate the maintenance and upgrade process, both personally or professionally. Whether it’s putting in new bulbs and shrubs, or running new wire for a light fixture or stereo speakers, or installing software, or putting up displays in a classroom, it doesn’t matter. I don’t have the ability to keep that vision of the finished product out in front of me, all cleaned up or in a new color or twice as functional as before. I just go in expecting something to go wrong, and it usually does. (”If you build it, it will break”… I call this the Ecclesiastes Version of Field of Dreams.) Meanwhile, all I can see is the tedious task in front of me: the heavy particle-board shelf with stripped screws that I have to somehow keep together, the shoddy coaxial cable which I have to run to Radio Shack to get a replacement for, the uneven spackling job that I did on the wallboard, despite all my best efforts to scream and seethe and grit my teeth and make my best effort to get it smooth.

Probably the only situation where I actually enjoy the process itself, and taking my time to get it right, is when I’m building a piece of furniture. It’s like sculpting, for me at least. A hand-crafted piece, using very few power tools, takes awhile to complete. But along the way, that piece is a source of peace. I can listen to music. I can get out all the frustrations of the week by pressing a little harder with my electric sander, or shuttling a piece of fine-grit, handheld sandpaper a little faster across the surface of a good piece of maple. Even the writing process, which I generally do enjoy (for finding the right adjective is like finding the right size router bit and making a perfect groove), still has it’s moments of tedium. If it didn’t, if it wasn’t the product of some hard work, then it wouldn’t be worth much, right?

So I guess the real chaos for me, when I do the maintenance stuff that life brings me every day, is an inner chaos. It’s my own creeping frustration, my mistrust of myself — or of the folks in China or Sweden who built this two-bit thing that I’m now having to fix. My inner chaos far outstrips the chaos one can actually see when looking around the house, or my office at school (which is pretty bad, having gotten steadily more crowded with stuff since September). 

On the other hand, it’s my process, and no one else’s – my own brand of perverse perseverence, of bulling my way through a project till it’s done. So perhaps it’s valuable for that reason alone. It may not be infused with hope and cheerful enthusiasm. (And when I think of this, I remember suddenly that my father was the same way.) But it’s still okay. I get things done.

And tomorrow the carpeting will be done (the pros are installing it, arriving in about an hour). The painting, too (which I must admit I’m proud of, and pretty good at… in the sense of being careful, even anal about it… one of the very few things I am inclined to be anal about).

And when it’s done, I will be happy. Not happy that it looks good. No, that level of appreciation will not fully arrive for a few weeks. Tomorrow I will just be relieved we got it done, and it’s all over with – one more thing checked off the five-year to-do list. Sure, it will take over a week to get everything back where it belongs. But the main part of the tedium and heavy lifting will be done by 6pm today.

And then I’ll take my nap. Which I richly deserve, and which I will appreciate immediately –before, during, AND after, as you can probably guess.

“You are receiving this message because you requested occasional updates, special offers and other information from the Walt Disney Company family of businesses.”

Did I? I don’t remember requesting such a thing? And why would I? I already have so many Disney products flying across my radar screen each week, without requesting additional pokes and prods to fill my house, my brain, and my life with still more of them. Products like this, my son’s toothbrush:

And while we’re at it, why do you get to call your 800-armed octopus of a corporation, your monstrosity of cross-marketing and soul-sucking cute-ification, your dumbed-down diabolical destroyer of imagination and tradition — why do you get to call all that a FAMILY OF BUSINESSES?!!! It’s an insult to the word family! Get thee behind me, Mickey!!!

Ah. It’s good to finally get that out. I’ve been sitting on this rant all week, trying to stay positive and complimentary, maybe just snarky enough to amuse, but not so much as to offend younger and more sensitive middle-class suburbanite consumers of all things Pooh and/or Disney. But it’s ON now, people! The gloves are OFF! The Disney-verse is going down! AW YEEEAAAAHH!!!

(Whoops. Sorry about all the shouting. I guess I was watching too much idiotic WWE wrestling last night on The CW Network with my nephew… speaking of too much cross-marketing. I’ll tone it down and smarten it up from now on.)

I clicked through on the above email to DisneyShopping.com, only to find that my man Pooh doesn’t even rate a logo or a special marketing program on the front page. WTF?On the other hand, I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, given the whole guilt-by-association thing.

Among the character-based lines of products at DisneyShopping.com’s front page, here’s the current list: Mickey & Friends, Disney Princess, Disney Fairies (What?! –who, other than sexy little Tinkerbell, would that include? the fat old Fairy Godmother from Cinderella? I doubt it!), Cars, Pirates of the Carribean, Toy Story (that old , worn-out franchise?), High School Musical and, of course, Hannah Montana –or as I like to call her, Mileyanna Montanadana. [Rest in peace, Gilda Radner. We still love you.]

What, no Shaggy D.A.? No Snow White, the hot chick who put you on the American map? And, sadly, no Pooh. Not on the front page, anyway. Let’s see how far I have to drill down to find my son’s toothbrush, or some other Pooh product. First Basement: Home & Collectibles. Nope. Sub-basement: Bathrooms. Ah, here we go: the Pooh Singing Toothbrush Holder! Or should I say the “My Friends Tigger & Pooh” Singing Toothbrush Holder:

If you haven’t heard about this show yet, then you don’t have a 3-6 year-old who watches Playhouse Disney every morning. I can barely contain my contempt for the creators of this latest addition to the wide-ranging Poohsney franchise. (The show runs at 7:30am CST, every day.) 

First of all: where do they get off giving Tigger top billing over Pooh?! He wasn’t even introduced until the second novel. Not to mention: how dare they kick Christopher Robin to the curb like this? The addition of a little American girl (with the androgynous name of Darby) is not a bad idea in itself. But why not make her a friend of Christopher, maybe give these insulated, uneducated American toddlers a glimplse of some culture other than their own? Because that’s not the Disney way, that’s why! Everything’s got to be Americanized, cutesied-up, and updated to include the latest trends. Today’s Tigger & Pooh episode, for example, puts Pooh on an electric scooter. Could anything be more contrary to the spirit of A.A. Milne’s original Hundred Acre Wood?

But the modern marvel/monster that is Disney has gotten their grubby little hands into every corner of American culture, and there appears no way to stop their imperialistic aggression. Their cross-marketing, which really started in 1955 with the Disneyland theme park in California, has now crossed over to various other travel options like Disney Cruises. Then there’s Radio Disney, home video like the Baby Einstein product line, several cable channels, dozens of internet sites, video games (through Buena Vista Interactive), the sports galaxy (via their ESPN and ABC sister companies),  book publishing (through Hyperion), music recording (they own Miley Cyrus, Hillary Duff, Rascal Flatts, the Indigo Girls [huh?], and –OMG! Queen? The Mouse owns my beloved Queen? Take me now, Lord!), Broadway and traveling shows (can you say Lion King? or Disney Princesses on Ice? [yes, with a twist of lemon, please]), and the inevitable network and syndicated television shows (e.g. Regis & Kelly, and Scrubs – which appears on NBC, not their own ABC network, oddly enough).

Then of course there’s the old Disney standby: “family” and non-family feature-length theatrically-released movies. Among their current moviemaking divisions: the formerly quirky independent but now lame and dependent Miramax, the aging Touchstone, and the recently-merged Pixar (circa 2006, in a $7.5 billion deal).

In fact, let’s look at a very instructive USA Today quote from Apple/Pixar visionary and all-around sellout Steve Jobs about that big 2006 deal:

They chose to merge instead of renewing their production and distribution deal that expires in June because “no matter what kind of partnership we had, we’re still two separate, publicly traded companies,” Pixar CEO Steve Jobs says. “Sometimes that stuff just gets in the way of making the best films we could,” as well as using Pixar’s characters in Disney’s theme parks.

The “best films you could”, eh, Steve? Don’t kid yourself. It’s all about the cash now. You know it. I know it. We ALL know it. Don’t lie to us about making capitalist decisions without having to compromise your “art”. It’s about commerce, bud. Or, put another way, “It’s the economy, stupid!”

Which brings us back to Pooh. He’s just not a bankable movie or television star anymore. He’s still a serviceable profit center, like Mickey Mouse (who also has his own newish show, which features his well-known posse), and unlike those classic characters from Jungle Book or Monsters Inc. But he’s not a star. Not like Hannah “Manna-From-Heaven” Montana. Yet he’s Disney’s biggest single moneymaker, every year. Here’s the data, from Don Markstein’s terrific Toonopedia site:

The Walt Disney Company, which for several decades has been the principal benefactor of the wealth he generates, considers him its #1 cash cow — bigger, even, than Mickey Mouse himself, the company finally admitted in 1996. The silly old bear enriches Disney’s coffers by an estimated one billion dollars per year.  

So how’s that being done with a now 82-year-old character? Licensing, my dear. For now the House of Mouse does with quantity what they used to do with quality, Pooh-wise. Which means they license the Pooh characters to hundreds of other companies, like for the Oral B toothbrush pictured above, or the Ambience brand Winnie the Pooh Children’s Lamp ($62-82), or this charming Graco stroller and baby carrier set (just $149.97 at Wal-Mart.com… but don’t you dare give Disney or Wal-Mart another nickel of your money. I will not stand for it! Not on MY watch!) .

There are plate and cup sets for the kitchen, the adult Eeyore Hoodie for Her (and scads of apparel and sleepwear for kids), Kellogg’s Pooh “Gone Fishing” fruit-flavored snacks (no vitamins allowed… the Pooh chewable vitamins are another company’s specialty), a large line of various infant gear called “Delightful Day” Pooh products, Hallmark cards, Hallmark party napkins and Hallmark collectible ornaments. Do they make a Hallmark Pooh samurai sword to cut my kid’s PB&J sandwich? Heck, I could be here all day, maybe all week, just listing all the companies with which Disney has licensing arrangements (and therefore most likely takes a percentage share of the profit, even though they don’t make the products themselves). 

But I’m not gonna do that list. Why do their marketing and promotions work for them? A Waste of Our Valuable Time, as A.A. Milne would put it. For our own Edward Bear and his friends deserve better. Ernest H. Shephard – the artist who drew the original, floppier, less cutesy Classic Pooh –also deserves better. He and his estate probably deserve some of that Disney money, too. Though I’ll bet they probably do pretty well already, by licensing Shepard’s own artwork (which The Mouse does not own) for baby gear and other products. I know we had a diaper bag with Shep’s older Pooh characters on it when Graham was a baby. It was a piece of crap that started falling apart after a year of moderate-to-heavy use, but that’s a rant for another day.

Suffice it to say that we can’t go wrong by going out to pick up a copy of the two original Pooh books — or better yet, the four-book gift set of Milne’s Pooh books and children’s poetry. Don’t bother with all the later products, whether they are decent quality (like the first few Disney movies) or Chinese-made plastic pieces of crap (i.e. everything else). A Piglet plate? No, thank you. A plain plate, or maybe one with colorful stripes, will do just fine. And put a biscuit and a smackerel of honey on it, if it’s not too much trouble.

I read a little satirical piece in The Onion this morning about the accidental washing of the holy relic the Shroud of Turin with a red t-shirt, which as we all know would stain the shroud slightly pink. While the writing there is not the funniest I’ve seen in The Onion, it did get me thinking about holy relics, archaeology, and the odd place they hold in post-modern popular culture.

Remember the Big Flap about The DaVinci Code when it came out, first in book form and then as a film? Or the Slightly Smaller Flap about the recently discovered Gospel of Judas  in 2006 (actually found in an Egyptian cave in the 1970s, but that’s another story…)?

It seems that the tricky-sticky-icky “evolution/intelligent design” debate is not the only subject area where scientists have been squaring off with theologians and historians in this decade. That’s just the most politically-charged area, because it impacts public schools and millions of kids from the primary grades right up through college. And lucky us, we get to watch the sparks fly every time a new nonfiction book stirs up the debate in a new thematic area. And maybe we learn something, about ourselves and what matters most, every time a new book or scholarly journal on other biblical or scientific issues (like Mary Magdalene, Judas, genetic engineering or string theory) leads to a dramatic, fictionalized interpretation of those themes in fiction or on film.

When I finished that Onion article, I found myself thinking back to a certain long-forgotten 1970s miniseries starring David Janssen, in which a newly discovered gospel by Jesus’ brother James turns the religious world on its ear. That Jansen movie involved Irving Wallace’s The Word (1972), a popular novel made into an eight-hour miniseries in 1978.

[Side note: Wallace was the father of author David Wallechinsky, who co-authored 1977's The Book of Lists with his pop. I think BOL is Wallace's only published nonfiction work, but his son David has gone on to quite a career also, as an Olympic historian and socio-political journalist. He currently writes for Parade magazine, and he does a cool blog on The Huffington Post which you can link to here  (including an extended article on his recent undercover visit to North Korea).]

I was 13 in 1978 when The Word was broadcast, with a brain ripe and ready to ask the tough questions about philosophy and identity.  So I think this miniseries may have been the beginning of my long-running fascination with theology and science, and Western ideas about how each informs the other. I remember how the film’s concepts captured my young, developing imagination. Though I had not yet heard about linguistic deconstruction or postmodernism, I was fascinated to suddenly see that our history was not in fact some rock-solid, unchangeable thing, but was formed by various interpreters from various fields! I was further intrigued at the thought that all these interpreters had an agenda in determining the wider public view of historical “fact”. Political agendas. Social agendas. Scientific agendas. And, of course, religious agendas.

It helped that I was Roman Catholic, the part of the church that, even then, was the most fun for our secular society to poke and prod and try to scandalize. I was not a old-style Catholic, though. Vatican II happened from 1962-65, when the Church softened some of its nuttier theological stands on things like the Latin Mass, Purgatory and fish on Fridays. By the late Sixties, it seemed almost all the rules were changing in Europe and America. Therefore many of the taboos about what was impolite to write or speak publicly about were already crumbling by 1972 when The Word came out.

I didn’t know any of this at the time, though. In 1978, watching The Word, all I knew was that here was a great story, an adventure. Better still, it didn’t involve pirates or cops or some other foreign or implausible character, but a regular Joe, a P.R. guy that looked like my dad and traveled the world to find the truth about, of all people, Jesus!  Janssen (an underrated actor) was like Indiana Jones in a three-piece suit, three years before Lucas and Spielberg stumbled onto the same formula.

A bit of fun trivia: the miniseries featured a very young Chistopher Lloyd (of Taxi and Back to the Future) and an equally young Kate Mulgrew (Captain Janeway on the Star Trek: Voyager series — and one of the sexiest voices ever dropped onto magnetic tape). And it has John Huston, the Oscar-winning director, who acted very infrequently but is a highlight of any film in which he appears. Such gravitas.

I’m going to have to see if there’s a DVD version of The Word out there for rental, maybe even for purchase, as I occasionally teach a series of classes for adults called “Faith on Film” and could use a snippet next time I teach the class.

[Warning: Shameless self-promotion ahead -- Email me at mnielsen34@gmail.com if you want to sponsor a single or multi-session Faith on Film course for your church or school. I'll give you a good rate, 'cause I just LOVE talking about God and the movies. I've done portions of the course for Catholics, mainline Protestants, conservative evangelicals, Mennonites, secular students, ... you name the group or age range, I can teach 'em, and better yet without ticking them off. I can even work with home schoolers. Pass the word...]

One of the best treatments on film of this subject (the changing historical face of Jesus) was done in the Oscar-nominated 1989 film Jesus of Montreal. It portrays a troupe of mostly non-Christian actors and actresses, who’ve been hired by a present-day Catholic diocese to put on a Passion Play. Writer/director Denys Arcand clearly knew his stuff, including the linguistics, literary criticism and semi-scientific methods that have been used by historians and theologians in the past 50 years to shed new light on the biblical text. But JoM is a great drama, too, in which the actors really become a sort of religious community unto themselves, and make their version of Jesus into someone we really care about. I know that film is available for rent all over the place, so if you’ve never seen it, check it out. {Disclaimer time: I am not endorsing all the theology in this film, just the creative approach taken by the filmmaker, and the terrific acting by the cast.}

So this Holy Week, go rent a Jesus movie. If you haven’t seen it, Last Temptation of Christ –directed by High Priest of Cinema Martin Scorsese and adapted by the great post-Calvinist screenwriter Paul Schrader (who I met once), is another terrifc film. Harvey Keitel’s powerful Judas and Willem Defoe’s weak, hesitant Jesus are performances for the ages. Again, the theology is hit-and-miss, but the overall film is exquisite.

And then there’s The Passion. But we won’t go there. Mel Gibson’s too hot a topic still… I love him, I hate him, I don’t know what to do with him — which is probably pretty much how God feels about all of us.

[I got a huge number of new hits yesterday... maybe because I mentioned Governor Spitzer's superwhore Ashley Dupre (or is it Dupri?) -- and as we all k