A Provocation on Irony and Cynicism

Novelist David Foster Wallace once observed: “Few artists dare to try to talk about ways of working toward redeeming what’s wrong, because they’ll look sentimental and naive to all the weary ironists. Irony’s gone from liberating to enslaving. There’s some great essay somewhere that has a line about irony being the song of the prisoner who’s come to love his cage.” From newscaster comedians to blockbuster movies to social media, we are drenched in irony and sarcasm and cynicism that pretends to complain about the way things are. But secretly many don’t want to change anything about it. They get too much profit and popularity from the dysfunctional and destructive system we live in. Irony has become the song of the caged bird who is secretly scared to death of leaving its cage. Irony is merely ersatz resistance: It makes us feel like we are rejecting the system and rebelling against injustice, when in fact constant irony imprisons our imaginations to “what is possible” and adjusts our behavior to the “the way things are”. Using irony, we complain as we obey. But we still obey nonetheless. And when irony and cynicism become orthodoxy, then sincerity and hope become subversion of what is “realistic”. So let’s really become realists and demand the impossible with sincerity and hope. 

Flawed Biblical Heroes and Racist Monuments

Recently the WSJ published a deeply flawed argument for keeping racist monuments in public spaces. Basically, the argument is that since churches celebrate flawed saints, then public land should be used to celebrate racist heroes of a racist rebel cause (and if we don't, we are forsaking our "history"). Some points of contradiction:

Remember This

A reminder for myself. 

Maybe it will help you too. 

Be compassionate to everyone,

For we are all struggling 

In ways that are not apparent to others. 

Most of us are far better

Than our worst ideas and ideals, 

And we are far worse

Than our best ideas and ideals. 

None of us is perfect

None of us is whole

All of us rely on a Grace

Bigger than our worst failures

Better than our greatest hopes

To heal us and make us whole. 

So may we strive

To be embodiments of that Divine Grace

To one another. 

Privatize Racist Monuments: A Modest Proposal

In the wake of the George Floyd protests, we are seeing protesters around the world, from every tribe and tongue, rise up and dismantle monuments to human oppression. Monuments to slave holders are being defaced and beheaded, toppled onto the ground, and thrown into the water. Just as we cheered when the Berlin Wall came down, and when statues of Fascists and Dictators around the world have been torn down, so now people are cheering the forcible removal of racist monuments from public lands. What should we do about this?

God as Father or Mother or Parent or what?

Once again, I was reading through the letter to the Ephesians. At the end of chapter 3, one of my favorite prayers occurs. And so, since I have never made a public translation of it, I decided to translate it and post it on social media as "A Prayer for us all". Here it is:

Because of this gift, I bow my knees before The Parent [of us all], from whom all parenthood in the heavens and on the earth is named: I pray,  according to the riches of his Glory, that God would give to you all the power to be strengthened through his Spirit within the depths of your personhood, so that The Chosen One may dwell in your hearts, through his faithful [promise], [that you may] be rooted and grounded in Divine Love, so you are empowered to grasp, with all those set apart [by God], what is the width and length and height and depth [of Divine Love], and also to know the Divine Love of the Chosen One which surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled up fully with all the fullness of God! (St. Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3.14-19, my translation from Greek)

Very soon after posting, a good friend of mine asked why I used "Parent" in verse 14 rather than "Father", since Father is the common translation and most direct rendering of the Greek πατήρ (Pater, from which we get words like paternal, patriarchy, patriotism, and by a long derivation, Father). This is a really good question, which cuts right to the heart of the nature of how we use language about God, as well as how we understand God in relation to gender. And so, what started as a quick explanation turned into this:

Twin Pandemics

The Twin Pandemics of 

Silent Disease and Systemic Inequity 

Have laid bare 

The emptiness of our cultural values

The incessant jangling of our moral superiority

The hollow clang of our promises 

Of liberty and justice for all.

We are witnessing the implosion of a culture 

Whose moral imagination is 

So atrophied 

So impoverished 

It cannot hold together any more. 

The Trinity Matters So Black Lives Matter

Pictured: An Icon of the Trinity from the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

The following is a sermon that was given for Trinity Sunday at Grace Episcopal Church in San Antonio, and online during the COVID Pandemic. Another version of this sermon was preached for Black History Month at TMI - The Episcopal School of Texas (as is linked below). It was an attempt to help our diverse and divided community steer a path beyond the destructive conflict that has occurred in the wake of the George Floyd Murder, toward a more constructive dialogue in light of the fact that we are all made in the image of a God of Love, and beloved as God's children. 

Welcome to Trinity Sunday, where we get to talk about one of the most abstract ideas that Christian History has ever developed, in the midst of one of the most concrete social crises many of us have faced in our lifetime. On one hand, we need to talk about the transcendent, ineffable, infinite nature of the Source of the Universe, who we know as one God in the three Persons of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. You don't get much more abstract than that.

On the other hand, we need to connect this concept of God to the real life, concrete struggles people are facing right here, right now. And we are not just undergoing one major crisis. Or even two. We are hemorrhaging crises! We have a pandemic which lurks around every corner, which can easily make some people sick enough to be hospitalized or even die, while it has absolutely no effect on other people.

On top of this we have a looming economic crisis which has affected about one in four Americans in a major way, from lost jobs to lost businesses. People are struggling from paycheck to paycheck, and worried about keeping a roof over their family's head. And to top all of it off, to use a Biblical phrase, it seems that in matters of racism and violence, the "sins of the fathers" are being visited on the next generations.

The Most Damnable Reason

The most damnable reason for existing 

Is to be liked. 

Mirrors and Mimics

We are mirrors and mimics: 

What has been done to us, 

We will do to others. 

What we do to others, 

Will be done to us. 

Personally. 

Relationally. 

Socially. 

Politically. 

Globally. 

So to create the kind of world we want to live in, 

It becomes imperative 

We heed the ancient mundane ethical truism: 

Always do to others 

What you would have them do to you: 

Personally. 

Relationally. 

Socially. 

Politically. 

Globally. 

Worship is God's Love embodied

I encourage you, brothers and sisters, through the deep compassion of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, which is the worship that harmonizes us with the Divine Purpose. (Romans 12:1, my translation)

The best worship is embodied. Praise God's beauty by creating beautiful things. Praise God's goodness by doing good. Praise God's Truth by being truthful.

I have often pondered the function of our language of praise. I am sure that such language makes our Lord glad (when done sincerely!). And yet, we are not telling God anything God did not know already. And in fact our liturgical acts of praise can only be a faint glimmer of the participatory worship which is the dynamic interpenetrating life of the Trinity (termed the perichoresis, or Divine Dance, in Orthodoxy). 

If anything, our language of praise does more for us than for God. It orients us- aims us- toward the beauty, truth, and goodness of the Trinity. Our real worship - Romans 12.1 style - is to embody and participate in the Triune God, instead of just talking about it. Or rather: Our talking about God's greatness in worship provides us a language to imitate God with. And when we worship a God who IS Love, it should rightfully lead us to embody that Love as we live in a creation which is God's Great Artwork, and relate to people who are God's children. This is God's purpose for all of creation.

A Prayer for LGBTQ+ Pride Month

The Rainbow we display in June to celebrate the diversity and beauty of humans made in God’s image reflects the diversity and beauty of the Triune God who is our Creator. As it says in Scripture: 

“Just like the appearance of the rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day so was the appearance of brilliance that surrounded him. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD.” (Ezekiel 1.28)

A Litany for Protests

Since I cannot make it to any of the vigils or protests this weekend that are seeking justice for George Floyd and other black men and women who have been murdered lately, I decided to do the only other thing I am good at: Write and pray. The following is a Litany to pray for the protests across the country. I would humbly as you to pray with me if you feel comfortable, using these words or words of your own.

Racial Questions from a Suburban Kid

The following is a personal reflection intended to spur public discussion. It is the result of several conversations, online and in person, I had with other adults about the issue of racism in America after the George Floyd murder and the protests that followed. This should not be read as an academic or normative assessment of American culture (I do not have the credentials to begin to offer such an assessment). It is also not a commentary on ethnicity or race or "whiteness" or "blackness" as a monolithic phenomena. I don't think there are such monoliths, and every person's identity and experience is different, even from those in their own category or cohort or group. Rather, this is a personal reflection. To the extent my personal experience resonates with you, I would be happy to talk about it. But if this does not resonate with you, that's fine too.

I’m from the part of Gen X that went through childhood during the Reagan Era. I lived in the North Dallas suburbs, where the majority were WASPy folks like me, but there were also significant populations of African American and Latinx folks, as well as a smattering of South and East Asian families. It was not utopia by any stretch of the imagination, but we all played together on the playground, and went to each other’s houses after school, and competed together in sports. 

And at school we watched “Free to be You and Me” together, and learned that the racial divide had been largely “solved” by Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement of the 1960’s, so that we now lived in a diverse multi-racial culture. When we got into high school, race became a little more of an issue, but I don’t ever remember it stopping us from partying together, or even from dating across racial lines. Then Rodney King happened my junior year and the L.A. riots followed. But that was still far away from me, and different from my experience of race where I lived in the North Dallas suburbs. 

But in the last decade it seems like Rodney King happens every month. Sometimes more. And it happens to young black men and old black men and black men walking and black men jogging and black men standing and even black men sleeping in their own homes. And it happens even in places where I have lived and worked. And it is heart breaking and maddening and disorienting. And I wonder how I could have been so blind to such systemic exclusion and oppression for so much of my life. 

I know the short answer is my privilege: Since it wasn’t me or my class that was experiencing the effects of racism, I was not attuned to see it unless there was a blatant display right in front of me. Which is rarely the case, because most racists will not admit to being racist. Even to themselves. And, if I am really honest, even to myself. Because as I grow older I find these remnants of racism and sexism and prejudice that emerge like festering splinters needing to be taken out. 

But still, I wonder...

Where there's smoke...

I often feel like we are in a culture where most people have been systematically desensitized to smelling smoke or seeing fire. And we are in the precarious position of either (a) screaming “Hey! Your house is on fire! Escape now!” Which almost certainly will get ignored as the ravings of insane people. Or (b) being put in the absurd position of saying “Perhaps you might consider that your house *could* be on fire. I mean, I’m no expert on house fires of course. But here are ten common warning signs of being in a house on fire. Oh? You don’t like those because they come from an anti-fire fake news source? Ok. I understand. Here’s a news source that you like which gives five indicators of house fire. Perhaps you might think about it. And, um, if it’s not too much trouble, I dunno, kinda think about leaving your house. Just for a little while. Nothing too drastic of course.” (cf. Buddha’s parable of the children in the burning house)

The Pentecostal Promise

When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability… This is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: "In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy… Even upon my servants, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy." [From Acts 2:1-21]

I have a confession to make. Perhaps the scariest holy day in the Christian calendar for me is Pentecost. It scares me because it holds within it the promise of unpredictability: The promise of a God who, at any time, could take our carefully manicured status quo, and turn it on its head. With a mighty roar, a cacophony of God's grace could overflow, and spill into the routine parts of our life.

On other holy days it is not this way. With some plausibility we can keep them outside of us. Christmas is about a holy child, born a long time ago, in a land far away. All Saints day is about holy women and men who are nice to think about, but live at several levels of remove from our daily life in 21st century America.

Even Easter, as incredible as it is, is easy to keep outside of us, to stop it from threatening us. It is about a Victory over death that happened long ago, that assures us of eternal life sometime in the future. 

Theological Topology: Placing the Trinity in Reality

At first glance, topology and theology have nothing to do with each other. Theology, on one hand, is "the rational discussion of God" (from the Greek words "theos" meaning God, and "logia" meaning study of, or reasoned discourse about). Topology, on the other hand, is the study of geometric properties and spatial relations between various kinds of objects in space, and the way in which constituent parts are interrelated or arranged. So, theology seems to deal with an Ultimate Reality beyond our world, while topology deals with spatial relations within our world. Nothing could be more different. It is like comparing apples to oranges, or Infinite Being to mere beings.

Adventures in Book Binding 2020

For those who have known me for a while, you know I like binding books. In particular, you know I like re-binding Bibles in new and creative ways. Before my Bible and Prayer Book primarily took up residence on my smartphone and tablet, I even tried printing, compiling, and binding my own English-Hebrew-Greek study Bible. But, for most of my adulthood, that has taken the form of duct-tape binding. I have created duct-tape Bibles with flaps and velcro and extra storage space for pens and pencils. After having several duct tape Bibles for over a decade, I have found that over time they tend to degrade, get sticky on the outside, and have the velcro peel off. So, I started looking for a better solution...

The Temptation of being too clever

The persistent temptation of intellectual pursuit is that we become satisfied with being clever instead of living life better. The reason we have been gifted with reason and knowledge is that we may learn to better live and love and experience the abundance of the world we inhabit. Through us the universe has become aware of itself, as we consciously harness the powers of creation to strive ever onward into countless forms of Truth and Goodness and Beauty. Through us God experiences every possible form of life, and gives Godself in love to every particular situation and person, suffering in love with all of our pains, and rejoicing in love with all of our joys. For Christians this is embodied in the One who embodied Divine Logic and Reason in the form of a human servant, that we all might be joined to the Divine Life of God. It is a tragic loss to view the mind as an end in itself, and knowledge as a kind of trophy that sets us apart from others as a source of pride. This disconnects us from the very reason we are gifted with Reason in the first place: For connection, for relationship, for Love.

On Paul's "I have fought the good fight"

Recently a colleague asked me about what Paul meant in 2Timothy 4.7. He said: "I want to use this passage in something I’m doing, but I lack a greater context for it, and I don’t want to get into a “Road Not Taken” misinterpretation situation. To me the lines of the passage are direct and reassuring, but I want to make sure I’m not missing anything. So... If you have time, I’d love to hear your views on it." So, if this helps anyone, here's my response:

Two Visions of Education

(Click on the chart for a better view of what I am talking about)

Just a quick meditation on what Education is, and why we educate people. What is the purpose of education? Is it transformation or information?