Rat! Pig? Me or them?

May 23, 2009 · Filed under home and hearth, pure journal (more or less) · Tagged

This week I’ve been “bach-ing” it while my husband’s off fishing near the keys. Now that I’m 50-something, apparently my paranoia index has gone up. I obsessed every night over locked doors and strategized what I’d do in a home invasion.

(I’m not COMPLETELY crazy: just last week up the street, a young man was put in critical condition by 2 armed, masked men who have not been caught.)

Wednesday morning I discovered my fears were founded–sort of. A tomato ripening on the counter had a big hole gnawed out of it. A three-inch ditch had been scraped from the pink-orange pulp. Thursday repeated the pattern. I was able then to abandon my alternative theory that a banana had fallen on the first one. I looked around the counter and found some vaguely turd-like pellets among the bottles, crumbs and empty plastic bags. I decided I (we) probably have a rat–or 10 (apparently they come in groups). The exterminator, who came to spray for bugs, confirmed it. He said his colleague would call and come to inspect.

It’s a holiday weekend, so she didn’t call yet. I put the potatoes in the fridge, I left the onions out. This morning the bread bag has a big hole and the side of the loaf is cratered. There are definite droppings in the sink and an empty cat food can on the counter is scoured clean–though whatever creature didn’t eat the cat food in the bowls: interesting.

So here’s the real point–because I know you’re not interested in my rat–there are 131,000 posts on non-toxic rat control and nearly half a million on rodent control genreally.

I get it: you’ve probably been here before.

I have too: 15 years ago (or so) a rat ate through a rubber hose in our washing machine, though he never got into the kitchen. We share that. How community-spirited. Let’s move on.

Here’s why I’m writing: this discovery, coming during my soon-to-be-relieved widowhood, has shown me just how dependent I am on my partner’s help and support. I’m more or less paralyzed. I should be out right now buying a trap or some repellent–just as I should be doing other household chores. But instead: I pursued my usual pattern, a bit of reading and writing to begin my day off, a chore or two to prove I’m not a slob. Then, I expect I’ll indulge my indecisive nature as an excuse to avoid real action on the rat thing until he gets home.

Under the circumstances, that can’t come too soon!

It’s a problem–for me and for our relationship. I don’t mean it will lead to divorce–he long ago accepted and adjusted to my limitations–but the dependency unacknowledged leaves a tension–like a bit of rotting meat beneath your tooth.

Maybe we need to swap roles for a month: I’ll pay the bills and he can cook and do ALL the laundry. To be honest, I think feminism’s impact on us has been strongest on him. He feels obligated to do at least SOME of those things: cooks (pretty well) if I ask him or he’s in the mood; does his own laundry if he needs something; cleans the kitchen (OK there’s some disagreement here: he calls it simply “cleaning after dinner;” I add “helping” to that, because I’m always pitching in–yes always.) My feminism involves having a job and resenting that I still seem responsible for most of the housekeeping–though he has a job and still takes charge of all the repairs, bill-paying, car-tending etc.

You can see it’s an unbalanced list.

Plus, in his absence, even my meager gestures at clean and neat  are sliding. I consider that my essentially slovenly nature accounts, in part, for the presence of our unwanted guest. And I realize that for me as well as the relationship–between humans, not human and rat— I need to commit to higher standards.

Ah, resolution! So easily made, so useless against a lifetime of habitual sloth. Except laziness is not really it. I’m not lazy. I’m easily bored and, this is key, childishly rebellious. Like a terrible two-year old, I confront necessity with excuse or denial: I can’t do it now because I have to . . . write, sing, go to work. It’ll wait; I can do it tomorrow; or the next day.

There’s a good measure of inattention involved as well. If I’m hot, I take off a sweater; 2 weeks later the sweater is still on the couch, along with socks, bras, the Newsweek article I couldn’t put down–until The Mentalist came on, and the journal I meant to mine for poems–until we had a chance to go out to dinner.

So you can see where the pig comes in: that’s me, content to wallow (yes, I’ve heard that pigs are really very clean, so supply your own metaphor; at least this one’s familiar).

But where’s the rat?

Well, practically speaking, that’s still the question: I can’t determine the path–which web sites assure me is along the edges of counters or walls. But obviously there’s a hole somewhere. And the second question is what to do. It seems that there are humane and inhumane approaches: I tried the sticky stuff and don’t recommend it. A cage-like trap might be good–and closing the holes, which could take a good bit of time and for which I’ll actually NEED help.

Am I rat as well as pig? Well, I guess so. Being on my own showed me both how important my marriage is to me and how much I take it–and my husband–for granted.

I need to examine the TRUE limits of my capabilities. Those toddlers spouting investment genius may be charming, but a 50-something with the mind of a two-year-old is something else.

Now, just in case you were really reading because you have a problem with rats here’s my plan: I’m off to the hardware store to find repellent. I read it smells like foxes and rats can’t stand it.

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Sylvia’s Children . . . Make that Child

April 7, 2009 · Filed under literature and books, poetry, pure journal (more or less), religion and spirituality

In second grade, we learned that Lincoln’s mother, Nancy Hanks, had died of milk sickness when he was very young.

I grieved for her. She was dead–would have been dead anyway, it being more than 100 years past that original death when I found out. I felt sorry for Abe, with a step-mother and all (being naive and only 7 I didn’t realize that stance might be prejudiced, hadn’t considered that fairy tales give step-moms a bad rap–probably undeserved.) Anyway, I didn’t analyze the feeling: I was sad. I didn’t want Abraham Lincoln’s mother to have died so young.

Later, I learned that in a billion years the sun will explode–and that made me sad as well. A grade school friend (other people have always been smarter about this than I) pointed out that I would be long dead by then. I was pretty good with numbers, I knew a billion was a big number and meant a long, long time. But I was sad for awhile.

Just now I read that Nicholas Hughes, age 47, son of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes–the world’s champion survivor–killed himself in Alaska just weeks ago. He and his still living sister Frieda live in my memory as the two dead babies coiled at the dead mother’s breast in one of the Ariel poems. We all grieved for Sylvia and for Anne–Sexton. I grieved as well for John Berryman, whose verse I loved and whose wry spirit sparkled in my mind’s eye. I’m glad I never met him. Rumor has it he came to our college campus once so drunk he puked in the car on the way to the airport.

Get close to the dead and you’re done for.

I never grieved for Robert Lowell–who knows why?

Linda Sexton wrote a lovely reflection on Nicholas and the legacy of suicide. Parents who kill themselves leave an awful wreckage. I don’t have to comment on that; it’s quite well known. Berryman’s father killed himself when John was 10. Nicholas and Frieda lost their’s before they were three. Did they remember her at all?

Maybe Nicholas’ life was a triumph of sorts–he outlived Sylvia by 15 years. His father died some years ago–naturally, so at least his son spared him that terrible grinding guilt of thinking having been convicted by many of driving the mother to death he might, thus, be guilty also of his son’s.

So I’m sad. Sad as I only get over people I’ve never met.

Nicholas, as I learned about your mother–as I learned about Abe Lincoln’s mother–you became to me a tiny, indeterminate presence outside the kitchen on a cold morning in London. And she was vivid, blond, desperate, half psychotic and dead in an open gas stove like the one I grew up with. She had fallen asleep and left a legacy I admired more than any I can think of–not you, but three books of exceptional poetry, vivid, charged with intellect and imagination, and deathless.

So I wondered about you. And wondered. From time to time, knowing nothing until today when I opened the NYT online and found this editorial by Linda Sexton, saying how she has wanted to die by her own hand and wondering whether your sister may be OK. And I guess you were for awhile–a longish while. I trust there was some happiness, some love.

And so here I sit with little tears in my aging, well adjusted, half-decent poet’s eyes. I still miss Nancy Hank and John Berryman, wish they’d gone on–to see their children succeed, to celebrate the way life is supposed to succeed life and descent into death as a kind eventuality, not sought, not speeded up, expected, deferred, deflected and finally, inevitable and accepted. And I wish that for Nicholas, as well, who left his research and colleagues who liked and admired him.

Now he’s dead like Nancy and John, as the sun will be one day. And you and I. No doubt that’s the source of the sadness. At age 7 you can be sad and hopeful both. At 57 it’s harder–the dead seem deader and farther away. Especially those we only know as words.

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Could the “Best and Brightest?” be “The Enemy of the Good?”

March 28, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged ,

OK. I just finished a Newsweek article (30 March 2009) by Evan THomas and John Barry about all the empty posts at the top of key federal bureaucracies. Their idea is that by setting the ethical bar very high and making the vetting process feel and look like a witch hunt, those running the search for sub-cabinet posts have made it impossible to fill them. Candidates either have cheated or don’t want to find out that they have (being “best and brightest” but, apparently, not personally responsible). We lost TOm Daschle (a fact I mourn–but, really, what was he thinking?) And poor Geithner is answering his own phones, I hear, on top of all his other woes.

Well, OK, not really, but he can’t do his job right and the author blames it partly on a too high standard for the vetting process that’s keeping the offices empty when we need all hands on deck.

According to the article, we should just let these folks pay their back taxes and move in.

OK. Maybe. But looking at what Mr. Geithner has done so far (and I’m a progressive!), I’m thinking we might have done almost as well with someone a little less conventionally “best and bright” and a little more bound by the legal and ethical standards we “mediocre and low wattage” types must and usually do hold to.

The very idea of OWING 40 thousand in back taxes is inconceivable to me. My family would have had to skip the last . . . well several years I’m sure. . . to reach that number. So right away I’m out of my depth. But really (and I realize this point has been made) how does a Wall Street wizard NOT KNOW he’s missed some taxes?

If Geithner didn’t know, I submit he needs to pay more attention to his own bottom line. On the theory that ethics and management, like charity, begin at home, I suggest that rather than lower the bar we all adjust those famous moral compasses.

Pundits who continually say we’re losing top talent because they need to make 20 million dollars a year to feel satisfied that they’re really valued or because they can’t seem to get the tax laws straight, need to re-examine that argument.

For one thing, given that most people DON’T fall in that bracket, and operating on the good for goose good for gander principle, lots of people will assume this means that they, too, are sort of exempted from really toeing the line on this stuff. What does it matter if you cheat? Who loses after all? Isn’t there a big picture out there that will still look pretty good even if there’s a squashed gnat in the lower left corner?

Maybe. But a lot of dead flies and you have a plague–and you know what THAT means.

Here’s the deal: we probably do need to streamline the vetting process and maybe some dirty laundry doesn’t have to reach the news (good luck with that in the age of Facebook, My Space, et al.) But why not accompany that by adding a good moral compass–and ability to find “true north”–to the definition of best and brightest?

That it seems to me is the only way we’ll really survive this mess.

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Wealth is not Worth: Response to NYT

March 7, 2009 · Filed under economy, politics, war and peace

This morning seeking new viewpoints, I went to the conservatives–conservative Democrats like Evan Bayh (a wonderful governor and senator with whom I probably agree about the spending bill) and a Wall Street Journal opinionist whose argument against Mr. Obama’s approach includes these comments:

” . . . he’s proposed additional taxes on earnings above the current payroll tax cap of $106,800 — a bad policy that would raise marginal tax rates still further and barely dent the long-run deficit. Increasing the top tax rates on earnings to 39.6% and on capital gains and dividends to 20% will reduce incentives for our most productive citizens and small businesses to work, save and invest . . .”

When I saw that, I realized there is a baseline difference in perspective at work here, one that has less to do with taxes and spending than with class. The phrase in bold indicates that money is the proof of productivity–much as it once was of divine favor. Depite the obvious fact that those who got us into this economic mess were making obscene profits while those doing what I would call very pointedly “honest” work have lost thousands of dollars that represent large percentages of their net and gross worth. To top it off, those CEOs, CFOs and brokers retain most of what they “earned;” the big stick aimed at them consists mostly in denying them access to future use of perks like planes and luxury conferences, not in jailing or fining them for their obvious misdeeds.

Hell, from what I can figure out most still have their jobs while millions of Americans–8.1 % of those who want to work and are registered (leaving out those, like my own daughter, who are not)–have lost their jobs, may lose their homes and are terrified about the future.

I don’t pretend to know the right answers here, but I refuse to listen to anyone whose arguments are predicated on the theory that income correlates one to one with productivity. Consider the poor, legal immigrant woman working 2 jobs so her children can go to college. Consider the teacher working for considerably less than 100,000 dollars each year, whose students, nonetheless, excel. Consider police, fire fighters, artists, musicians, construction workers. Then tell me the two five-storey buildings outside my office window are not as “productive” as the airy palaces of greed that swallowed our nation’s true productivity while shipping millions of those truly productive jobs (in the sense that something is produced) overseas.

This kind of attitude is past my contempt and pushes me from attempts to “understand” the other point of view to sheer fury. The more I consider it; the angrier I become.

I suppose the response would be that the author is using “productivity” in some arcane, economic sense. That would still mean, however, that productivity is identical to amount of money generated. And that, I submit, is the enormous error this country has made and the key to our current difficulties. Because money is both power and purchasing potential, its reflection and the status accrued by spending it–whether one has it or not–seduced the majority of Americans into reckless spending. And that includes our government. The desire to increase political power by increasing purchasing power infected not only those on Wall Street and in its tributary enclaves around the globe but also politicians–who demonstrate their effectiveness by bringing home the bacon. And those presiding over this consumer culture which is foundering now on its own addiction to deficit spending have sailed on in their yachts and will reappear with greed intact to prey on us again if we don’t get our priorities straight.

Money may be power, but power, as the suddenly much-praised Canadian government and culture seem to comprehend, is not necessarily healthy. Less craving for both money and power, more attention to values and to each other’s needs, would cause a vast improvement in America’s health: financial, political, and, yes, spiritual as well.

Progressives as well as conservatives must take note. Conservatives must realize that to conflate wealth and worth distorts reality in highly destructive ways. Progressives must recognize that our own lists of must-haves–from high speed rail to solar arrays–may have to undergo the same scrutiny and deferment that we bring to the examination of defense spending. We’re in a huge mess and the fact that we “won” cannot be our governing mantra.

But here’s my final point: as power and wealth are conflated–and have been since time immemorial, military might symbolizes power and is among the most difficult icons to let go. But, again looking at Canada, there is a quiet and persisten prosperity of another sort available to those who tend their own gardens and foster no ambitions to rule the world. I’m not talking about protectionism or isolationism. I’m talking about humility and common sense.

All of us want our country to be “the best.” Americans particularly suffer from this because our so-called experiment seems to us self-evidently proof that our system is superior, our citizens superlative and our right to dictate therefore obvious. But our so-called “enemies” do not acknowledge that superiority and their ascendancy suggests that, as with all dominance, it has passed. This may not be a repudiation of our system. It is a sign that other systems, however flawed they may seem to us, may triumph or at least persist; it is a sign that our system–which has so transformed the world–is severely flawed when seen from an outsider’s (and many insiders’) point of view.

One approach to hostility is to expend all one has on the tools and symbols of power and to attempt to beat down the opposition. All signs point to “no” in that regard. Our global opposition has more people than we, rapidly increasing wealth and technological prowess, and little sense of obligation to us. If we would lead, it must be by example. If we want peace, that example should be pacifistic.

Reduced defense spending may not seem an obvious conclusion to the syllogism that begins with wealth is not worth. But military spending, as I said before, protects and also represents wealth. We are attached to our guns both because we think they protect us and because we think they convey our power and value to the world. But just as the wildly “successful” financial wizards in fact have destroyed nearly 75% of the stock markets’ value in the last two years. While the auto worker and the farmer, in spite of dismal prospects and returns continue to produce machines and food. The benefits of military might–and investment–seem vastly over stated. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan far from making us safer have sapped our coffers, destroyed many lives–most of them non-American–and left an unstable mess. Worth is not wealth. Wealth can promote worth only by investing in what has true value. True value begins with mutual respect based not on consumption or income but on our common plight and infinite potential–when we work together.

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Red Shirts

February 24, 2009 · Filed under politics, war and peace

Wear a red shirt Friday and support our troops. It’s a sign an email says that you love this country, appreciate what the military is doing to protect your way of life, are one of the majority of Americans. Oh, and believe in God.

The people who don’t wear red shirts? Well, they don’t support the troops–or didn’t get the email–or forgot. Maybe they thought that one could support the troops even better by voting for better health care for vets or against revolving door deployments.

Here’s my problem: I do support the troops. I admire men and women willing to risk their lives and grieve for the loss when their sacrifice is total. I know that most believe–naively in most cases–that the United States is always God’s country so what it sends them to do is God’s work. In some cases, I can even conceive (concede?) that wars have been necessary or at least in the last event unavoidable (World War 2 comes to mind, possibly the Civil War? Argue with me peaceniks: I want to be convinced they’re all wrong!)

But I can’t subscribe to the sub-text of this email–that the troops currently deployed are fighting necessary wars to protect the United States of America. And those who disagree by extension repudiate God, country and, of course, troops.

In fact, I am (almost) completely convinced that the war in Afghanistan was unnecessary, justifiable vengeful though we may have been post 9/11. And the argument for Saddam’s demise was trumped up so that I can hardly believe anyone still argues its justification.

The only service troops in Iraq are performing regarding the safety of American’s way of life is in service of our bottomless thirst for oil, our persistent illusion that we are “better,” “stronger,” and more important than other nations and should, therefore, have veto power over their choices of government and friends. In the case of Iraq, we want oil–and “democracy,” if that means we have control. There is no nobility in either the duplicity of those who convinced us to proffer our half-hearted support or in the

So, OK. That’s my point of view and most everyone has heard it before. If you listen to Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, you’ve somehow convinced yourself that I’m a soldier-hating nincompoop who has no comprehension of the dangers imposed by . . . well whatever it is you think the dangers were in Iraq. Or, you draw yourself up straight and declare that I don’t care about the thousands of Iraqi’s who died at Saddam’s hands–while conveniently neglecting to mention those now dead who wouldn’t be if we hadn’t invaded and managing to blame the deaths of the American troops on Al Qaeda or that Baathists.

I may just wear a red shirt this Friday–mostly to make the point that I CAN support military families and enlisted folks without supporting the entire military bureaucracy and aparatus which chews them up and spits them out with too little healthcare.

The email (representative of our entire culture) links support of the troops to a plethora of reliable touch points: patriotism, might equals right, religion. If they really wanted people to support the troops, it would just be about that. Because the fact is that just about everyone does.

And the question then should be what do the troops need and how often should we put these brave, willing, patriotic fellow citizens in harm’s way just to serve our rampant gluttonies?

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Heresy: Wrestling to a Draw

January 25, 2009 · Filed under religion and spirituality

As a self-designated “faithful heretic,” amid my ongoing conflicts, I can continue attending church though so often I end up in battle with the saints and the angels because there are important areas of agreement. In my sermon notes there are frequently panicked comments about a sermon on judgement or Jesus’ exclusive divinity that morph into a kind of surrender when it comes down (as it did in fact today) to the “believer’s” accepting his or her inadequacy and surrendering to God’s author-ity.

I began today before church with some reading in Andrew Harvey’s Son of Man—which attempts to rescue Christ from the death-grip of Jesus-ism. A contemporary heretic of the best (or worst) kind, Harvey declares that Jesus never claimed divinity and that he aimed not to establish but to overthrow all religions. At the same time, Harvey celebrates the unconditional universal love of creator / creation for—itself / itselves, declaring that true Christianity—in the mystical tradition of William Blake and Julian of Norwich—begins with an acknowledgment of the soul’s essential oneness with God.

I felt a little guilty walking into church with this sacrilege ringing in my heart and prepared myself to consume second Corinthians so I could ignore the preaching I knew would focus on Jesus as singular savior and necessarily crucified, etc, etc, etc. I wasn’t completely wrong. the preacher did indeed echo a line I’ve heard before when I questioned whether Jesus is the only path: “Why did he have to die” if not to save us (me, you, everyone) from sin? That is, if other paths will work, why is this one there at all (I guess that’s a standard argument against any new plan: but the old one works fine. But this one seeks to be axiomatic.)

My answer is generally, maybe he didn’t “have to”—not in the sense of the choreographed (a.k.a. “purpose driven”) creation, which so distresses me with its lack of free will and surprise. Maybe he was led to because he had reached a point where self-sacrifice allowed him to accomplish two great things: first, to free himself for true union with the greater self—the Christ-soul, the Atman; and second to demonstrate that radical surrender to his followers.

But in spite of that (endlessly repeated) argument, I found myself completely at peace with several points Alex made and feeling that we’re headed to the same place even though his (and my fellow churchgoers’) path repudiates all other paths as leading to it. Here’s what I found I agreed with.

One, he said that the nakedness of Adam and Eve was not (or not exclusively) a lack of clothing but a complete openness between them and the creator: a mutual consciousness, if you will, a shared psyche. Humanity’s “natural” state is communion with the divine.

He also said that our own (rational) efforts to unite with God are fraught with failure and, ultimately, doomed. We must surrender and let the power of God / the universe wash through us. That power and awareness, which I (and maybe both of us) call Christ, leads us (as the Psalm says) beside still waters and restores our souls. As lilies of the field, we simply awaken to the eternal presence of divinity with and within us and, letting go of our petty claims to knowledge, wisdom and control, are led toward the essence of ourselves—or rediscover it. That enduring essence, bound up as it is with things eternal, outlasts this existence and buffers us against the trials we face—though it does not relieve us of the duty to address those trials when they cause other creatures / beings to suffer. (This remains, I believe, Christianity’s great contribution to sacred tradition: that relieving suffering of fellow beings and, generally, action in the world are part and parcel of the redeemed, enlightened, saved spirit. That willingness to sacrifice for the good of the whole is both a catalyst to and a fruit of spiritual maturity. Unless you’re doing some of that you’re probably not far enough beyond your own ego.)

We can surrender to and become like “God” because we are, first and foremost, “children” of “God.” This means we are by definition lovable—because (in the most central tenet—I think—of any Christian theology) God is love and loves unstintingly. Harvey extends this to plants, rocks, giraffes and fireflies. My church friends probably stop with people, but the essential message, which is naturally for people, remains the same. As offspring of the heavenly (chips off the old block), we can become like God, like Christ. We are of the same nature and stock, “heirs” as Paul says.

Thus redeemed by surrender to Christ (not by Jesus per se) we take up our staffs (and crosses) and follow because the journey leads to reunion—with the family, with the originator, with what we always were.

Sin is separation and blindness. We are separate from God not because we do what is wrong but because we cannot do what is right outside of recognizing that our actions and behaviors originate in God and are redeemed by definition if we simply acknowledge that. Like the prodigal son, just by coming home we receive blessing. It’s the relationship—the identification, even the identity—that matters not what we do.

Except that, once returned to that “nakedness” we must redeem the world. For God’s love mandates that. Other laws, divine or otherwise, are stand-ins for the law of love. As Jesus said, “Love God” and “love your neighbor” “on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” That’s all it’s about: Love.

And on that, my church friends and I most emphatically agree.

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Religulous? He sought. He found.

January 10, 2009 · Filed under film and tv, religion and spirituality

I didn’t want to see Religulous because I suspected it would be a broad-stroke, sardonic attack on Christianity–which it is. Oh, Maher throws in a couple of scenes of rabbis with quirky, non-mainstream views, but 90% of the footage and script concerns those crazy, unscientific, literal-minded Christians–including some particularly juicy footage of glossalalia (or speaking in tongues). What surprised me is that the film is not funny.

Okay. You’re thinking: well obviously she’s a Christian or a Christian sympathizer, of course she wasn’t amused. But, no, really, there wasn’t much laughter in the whole theater and my husband, who DID want to see it didn’t laugh either. Funny, it turns out, wasn’t the point. Maher (as those who’ve seen it can attest) used this film as his addition to the Christopher Hitchens / Sam Harris genre. The film is Maher’s essay declaring religion the greatest threat to civilization.

He has a point as did the others before him. Violence in the name of religion is undeniably a force for evil and destruction and, I would say, the greatest threat to religion itself, ultimately. And blind faith interferes with scientific investigation as it always has. But I’m not here to tease out the ways religion intertwines with other aspects of ethnicity and the fact that people have religions, people live on land with resources and wars are fought over territory and power–on earth–using God or whatever deity or concept as the precept for drumming up fervor at home. And I won’t go into the other side, that some force needs to temper wanton scientific inquiry for its own sake that neglects profound ethical imperatives, some of them as old as Moses.

Maher has another group of points: literal, fundamentalist faith must negotiate a mine-field of contradictions. True. But as his much underplayed and quite funny contact at the Vatican hinted, many people of faith disparage that God-said-it-I-believe-it-that-settles-it bumper-sticker-fitting version of spiritual / religious experience. Maher doesn’t even let this man at the gates of St Peter’s say what he does think. We watch the priest  chuckle through Maher’s challenging questions about literal beliefs (Adam and Eve is his favorite even though even many of the most literal believers in Christ will tell you “Oh, that’s mythology.”) agreeing with Maher. Adam and Eve? Ridiculous, the priest agrees. Does it bother him that people believe these things literally? Yes, abosolutely the priest answers–but what are you gonna do? And he laughs.

But the priest still works there–and don’t tell me he couldn’t get work somewhere else, he’s obviously bright, engaging and of course has a good education. He works at the Vatican because even without those stories (in addition to creation Maher spent a long time on Jonah–did we really believe he lived 3 days in a whale . . . or a great fish?) the priest like many others finds meaning, power, depth and, yes, reality.

Maher’s not interested in that. He’s looking for the most outrageous extremes of the phenomena that exasperate him–and he finds them. He spends a little time on Islam–not much quality time but he gives it lip service. He betrays his own atheistic Zionism speaking with a rabbi who believes Israel is too sinful to live in the promised land. (This guy was my hero in the film because he kept saying, “Let me finish.” Something Maher almost never lets anyone do if he disagrees–a bad habit I observed ten years ago when he had his roundtable discussion show on late night TV.) Unfortunately, even though this guy persevered through several such intrusions, he didn’t finish and we didn’t get to understand his whole point of view. Maher leapt to the conclusion that the man approved of the holocaust and stormed off angrily shouting, “Never again.” This from a half-Jew-half-Catholic who was raised on the catechism. Apparently even without belief he is capable of ethnic loyalty–does that tell you anything?

Maher’s not looking for thoughtful religion. He’s looking for the ridiculous so he can ridicule it (unfortunately without much humor), declare it unscientific and illogical, take that as proof that all religion is wrong (at least all Christian religion) and ultimately declare atheism the salvation of the world. Atheism and science.

Maher is not seeking–and so he misses–the still small voice of God, which he mocks by giving its mention to a man playing Jesus at the Holy Land Experience). He misses the peace of God. And while challenging (with good reason) the notion of a switchboard God, frantically answering the myriad prayers of humans in all languages simultaneously clamoring for attention, he misses the amazed realization even the marginally faithful sometimes experience, that prayers are answered. “Coincidence” declares Maher striding off-. But in small and large things,  answered prayer is a mighty convincing experience.

These fields have just as many boobytraps for the atheist as for the blindly complicit believer. These issues are deep, wide, engrossing and enveloping. Those who really address them confront the ultimate and the infinite in awe and with a humble inadequacy. Mystics all throw up their hands and declare, “Ineffable!” Or they turn to poems, which are all but ineffable by definition. Oxymoron, metaphor and yes, mythology take the place of Aquinas style theology because in the face of our “maker, redeemer, . . . and friend” as the old hymn puts it–as we “lean on everlasting arms”–we are hard put to express our experience and all but prohibited from reconciling the contradictions. Yet, there we stand with the priest at the Vatican laughing at scorn, shaking our heads and going back in to immerse ourselves once more in the presence of God.

Maher is right–very right. And absolutely wrong. He looked for what he wanted to find and, as we might have told him, he found it. If he’d made it funnier I might be more forgiving. But, he wanted to make a point. And he did.

He returns to the site where “Christians believe the world will end”. Standing on a this barren, rocky place–one like so many in the Biblical landscape, he says he’s calling for doubt, because doubt is humble. This is an excellent point and quite soft given the rabid tone of the rest of the film. Doubt is humble and humbling. Willingness to acknowledge contradiction and deal with it is indeed essential to our efforts to bridge the appalling chasms between our world systems and world views which are undoubtedly :-) rooted in the mythologies and rituals we hold dear.

Doubt is necessary for the unbeliever too. Doubt that acknowledges the surprising fact that religion persists in the face of the challenges logic, science and contrary theologies. Doubt that acknowledges as Maher does, too, at one point, “I don’t know. That’s my message.”

The same man who told Maher of the still small voice (and he was a pretty ridiculous figure, I admit) also told him he has a “god shaped hole” one that only God can fill. Ironically, Maher is filling that hole with a quest to trounce God in his sanctuary. He chases him down like a cockroach using the great boot of his not very funny satire, calling all other atheists to join him in the hunt–and save the world (sound familiar?). But he spent two hours of my time talking about God and from all that one of the memorable scenes I carry away is from a truckstop chapel.

In that scene–early in the film–Maher stands in what passes for the pulpit and challenges the men on his favorite issues. They’re literalists to a man. But Maher allows one to make a moving testimony of conversion–he had been a drug dealer and pimp. Then before he leaves Maher asks them to pray for him. Of course their prayer calls for him to find answers to discover God, but it’s heartfelt and across 15 rows of seats I could feel the heavyset trucker’s awkward hand on Maher’s head–a reaching out and contact that ineffably convey the thing both men were seeking–brotherhood, unity, peace of mind. The man’s grace filled up the screen (for me). And Maher too was moved, “Thank you for being Christ-like, not just Christian,” he says.

Then, Maher seeks to undercut the moment by saying, “Boy when he told me he was doing drugs and women, I wanted to say, and what was the problem with that?” But it’s hollow. Anyone who’s known addicts knows exactly the problem with that. Maher found the proof of his point. But the enormity of what he didn’t seek engulfs his message in the end.

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Re: Poisonous Forward on Illegal Immigration

October 18, 2008 · Filed under Uncategorized

This morning I opened an email from someone I love. It was a forward entitled “Are We That Stupid” and purported to supply a great many facts about taxes and illegal immigration. The basic suggestion boiled down to this: Illegal immigration costs more than the war in Iraq so people should not concern themselves with the war’s cost but only with the (supposed) social service dollars being used by illegal immigrants. Here is my response:

The short answer is “Yes, I am that stupid.” In spades. I don’t have time right now to check all the links you sent. But here’s one I did check with the response of the sponsors of the site: http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/22958.html. The site itself takes issues with the “facts” in your email.

Second, the supposed list of costs of “illegal aliens” includes some completely unverifiable guesses–such as 200 billion in lost wages. And the diatribe relies on the 200 billion to come up with a tally of less than 400 billion dollars that remains 1/2 or less of the ongoing cost of the war in Ira–and we haven’t even seen the costs of caring for physically and psychologically wounded warriors from Iraq. Many of the jobs performed by Mexican workers are jobs citizens will not do. And aside from the ethnic hostility such emails stir up (by which I am nothing short of appalled) the fact remains that many of these workers (those with phony soc sec numbers) also contribute taxes–without reaping the benefits.

Furthermore, it’s absolutely not true that Barrack Obama plans to raise taxes on most Americans–although I doubt under the present circumstances that he will be able to offer the tax cuts he has promised. Tax increases (or more accurately returns to previous levels) will occur for those in the top 1% of our popultation. Are you making more than $250,000 a year? If you were, do you think it would bankrupt you to pay some of those thousands in taxes in order to rebuild infrastructure and, yes, support the military? You can look at those taxes as insurance to protect you from the social disintegration and criminality likely to result from the continuing redistribution of wealth in this country to the rich and away from the workers–of whatever origin–at the bottom of the ladder? How many of your own benefits–social security, medicare, unemployment insurance, disability insurance, occupational safety, clean air and water, safe drugs . . . are you willing to give up or reduce?

Finally, it is simply LUDICROUS to blame the present mess entirely on the Democratic congress that has had the slimmest majority for 2 years of the last 15 (Republicans controlled national legislation from 1994 until 2006). Much of what the brief majority aimed to do was thwarted by fillibusters. Recognition that rightful moral outrage against the war’s beginning could not translate into an easy answer to the present situation made it difficult to limit it or bring troops home–and save money there. In fact, for those of you who cheer for the surge, that was authorized under this Democratic congress–should they shoulder all the credit for that?

The mess we’re seeing unravel now is certainly of bipartisan–and CITIZEN–creation. Greed at every level, ignorance of the facts, an unmerited trust in our own righteousness and confidence in our unending economic prosperity, and–as evidenced by this poisonous forward–rampant jingoism have put us in a terrible position. The way out is not misrepresentation of the facts or finger-pointing at a group of people whose clout in this nation is notably NOT impressive. If illegal immigration is anything like the problem this email suggests, then the employers must bear AT LEAST as much blame for the problem because people do not come here for welfare–and you can’t get unemployment insurance unless you’ve HAD a job and lost it. (Ask my daughter who’s been looking for work for six months and has a master’s degree.)

And regardless of what costs more. Which is more immoral: preemptive action against a government and people that had NOT attacked and, it turns out had no capacity to attack, us or taking care of people who are living and working amongst us? People who are our neighbors. As a Christian I believe in caring for my neighbors–whoever they are and wherever they come from. And those social services that you accuse these folks of taking (believe me I’ll check the web sites) are also available and used by citizens–including yourself. Ask yourself which party is behind ideas like disability insurance.

I’m sorry to sound so angry. But I am. Forwards like this make me furious. I have always thought of you as compassionate and gentle, but this anger at a group of people whom we hardly know–that extends to the language they speak–strikes me as anything but. It is scapegoating–and an oversimplification of a complicated and long-standing problem.

Sometimes I do just delete (as the email recommends), but this morning I simply can’t do that. Too much is at stake. If in my checking of web sites, I find some truth in the points you’ve raised, I will apply them to the rest of what I know–and believe to be right. My real problem with this email is its hatefulness and its suggestion that if war is cheaper it is therefore right or shouldn’t be questioned. That is a dangerous as well as an immoral position.

So I am at least as stupid as the people referenced by your email.

And I plan to continue in that path.

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A Left(ish)ist Speaks: Gov’t NOT the Only Answer, But

September 16, 2008 · Filed under Uncategorized

Sometime last week in the course of the media’s gluttonous consumption of Sarah Palin, she expressed her view that government is not the answer to everything—implying, quite reasonably but inaccurately, that her opponents believe it is exactly that.

In fact, as a now rabid supporter of the Democratic ticket my concern is not that government answer EVERYTHING but that it shift what it answers, and in particular what it spends our money for.

My counterparts on the right (footnote: try finding a neutral synonym for “opponent,” “adversary,” that doesn’t connote “enemy”)

OK. My counterparts on the right ASSUME that the military is sacrosanct. So in the same way that my fellow lefties view social security as off limits and inviolable, these Republicans never mention the military budget when speaking of cutting federal spending. Instead, McCain, Palin, Bush, and others pontificate on the government’s obligation to protect the people from enemies.

(Equal time: Democrats rarely invoke the enormous cost of social security. They invoke the sacred obligation to fulfill promises and protect people from hard times.)

Here’s the interesting thing. The right’s version of “protection” includes fetal life and military security. The left’s emphasizes health (certainly an implied sub-category of “life” as a constitutional right and core value), privacy, humane incarceration (including no torture), education (a key component in this economy of “happiness”), the environment (without a healthy ecology life will no longer exist . . . period).

My point is that Palin’s formulation—“government is the left’s answer to everything” –distorts reality. It’s not a question of more or less spending—the Bush budget with its enormous growth and deficits due to military spending proves this emphatically. Instead, left and right offer different clusters of issues and circumstances for which government should provide solutions. And, as a consequence, when they “save” money, they will save it in different areas.

McCain and Palin want to reduce the size of government while maintaining the colossal military expenditures. (If you’re interested, there are some excellent visual representations available to demonstrate how current military budgets dwarf all other expenditures outside the so-called entitlements<http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm>, <http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending>, <http://www.truthandpolitics.org/military-relative-size.php>.) The candidates speak with moral superiority of eliminating “ear marks”—those are the monies you re-elect your representatives to bring home (the “bridge to nowhere” being a prime example). They will almost certainly suggest some level of privatization for future social security (and please remember what’s happening to your stocks right now when you consider whether that should be the basis for “security” in your children’s futures). The only other areas to cut spending are domestic programs, and that’s a code for “programs that help the poor, defend endangered species and environments, support the arts, and so on.

Obama will be hard-pressed to reduce military spending not only because he (like McCain) will inherit wars already in progress—including, it seems likely this morning—one in Pakistan but also because our economy is so militarized (the military industrial complex is no myth) that to reduce spending on the military you have to figure out what to do for hundreds of thousands of hard-working Americans who build weapons and war planes—and not only for the U.S.— to earn their paychecks.

But Obama’s approach will be to seek ways to do that—partly, as Obama has said, by encouraging development of greener energies and industries. And they will want to hold the line on military spending while protecting—if we’re lucky, expanding somewhat– the protections poorer and border-line poor Americans depend on for maintaining a decent quality of life. Democrats will be hard-pressed to do much in this area. But their philosophy will not necessarily be to expand government. Their approach will be to apply its advantages as a giant and over-arching institution and, yes, collector of money, in ways best-suited to its strengths. These include the environment and the social net. Personally, I think education should remain local; the federal government may set the tone but should not attempt to impose achievement and other standards on the states and localities.

Democrats regard the environment as appropriate for federal activity because too many aspects of environment (air, water e.g.) cross state boundaries and many more local actions have consequences that touch the rest of the nation, even the globe, profoundly and irrevocably. Another of these is the grand social net. In part, our mobile society requires a federal answer to generally balancing incomes. This is a now antique (but forgotten mostly) insight from the social activists of the thirties to the fifties. They realized that if New York chooses to take care of its poor while Pennsylvania chooses not to, the poor from Pennsylvania (or Tennessee or wherever) are likely to descend on New York in droves, straining the limits of its charity. The same applies to healthcare, which is not just for the poor.

As a leftist, I do believe government in some sense is the best answer to providing healthcare for all Americans and, yes, to reduce costs somewhat in the process. That view fits nicely with my view that the elderly should not have to be homeless and penniless, at the mercy of failing pensions, risky stock markets (how’s your nest egg doing this month?) and so forth. I won’t get into how much protection that should be, but suffice it to say that I believe the “right to life” ought to include some level of quality. So just as the unwanted child who ends up abused should be protected from beatings, the elderly person with no other resources should be allowed the dignity of “deserving” and receiving at least enough to “get by.” Personally, I don’t have trouble with pro-life—except when it forces a woman to carry a dead child to term or to risk her life for it or to bear for nine months the reminder of a traumatic sexual assault. But if you’re pro-life (as my pastor pointed out just last week), how can you be pro-capitol punishment? And, by extension, how can you condemn those you insist on bringing to term to sub-standard housing, with wages so low they are unlivable, and often the near certainty of prison time based on your color and your neighborhood demographics?

If you can’t do that (and I can’t), then you have to look at the pile of money and the size of the problems and seek solutions. Some solutions will without doubt have to come from private charity. But some solutions are better imposed either by statute and regulation (which cost money to enforce) or by direct expenditure on programs (which cost money for actually delivery of services). My impression is that those of you who can rationalize leaving such folks to fend for themselves or to depend on wonderful but inadequate private charities, will look at that same pile as the price of protection from terrorists and illegal immigration.

I’ll leave aside for the moment whether that’s a good idea and offer a bargain: I’ll agree to stringent oversight for social programs and to seeking ways to streamline the federal bureaucracies that fund them etc. etc. But you must agree to examine the military budget with a careful eye to cutting spending.

Peace, as others have observed, is not merely the absence of war. Life (at least life worth living) is more than the presence of a heartbeat. However, enemies exist—and opponents who might become enemies exist. The job of government is to fulfill the roles most suited to its nature as our collective pocketbook. Of course, we want to be safe from terrorists. But let’s go back to asking what’s the best way to do that. Should we invade a country, take over its government (to prevent a vacuum) and spend 10 billion dollars a day for five or more years on an experiment in nation-building? Or should we arrange for protection of our borders (in airports, bus terminals etc) while exercising the best diplomacy money can buy and redistributing some of the military’s budget toward giving us economic security—not only in the form of direct social programs and health care but also in the form of job retraining, appropriate federal action on education and protection of vulnerable cities from disasters?

That’s what I’d do. And I guarantee, it can be done without raising the cost of doing the country’s business.

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P.S. Go to this link

September 8, 2008 · Filed under Uncategorized

I guess I’m not the only one who sees a link between the Palin pregnancy and sex education. Here’s a link to an article with many more facts than I who reaches a similar conclusion–at least with respect to the kind and availability of sex education.

Enjoy!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/06/opinion/06blow.html?th&emc=th

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