This was definitely not how today was supposed to go, not by a mile. All weekend long, I'd been getting myself pumped up for today; telling myself things like "your entire career could be defined by how Monday goes." That's somewhat pressuring, but it also helped me get excited. Today, you see, is the first day of classes at Cleveland State University. It was also supposed to mark the birth of InterVarsity's newest multi-ethnic ministry in Cleveland.
That didn't happen though, because, right now, I'm sitting in the surgical waiting room at Lakewood Hospital (a Cleveland Clinic hospital, by the way) while my fiancee loses her appendix.
No, this certainly wasn't today was supposed to go.
But this is how today went. My thoughts, my prayers, my heart are with her, in that operating room. But she just gets to sleep through it all. I'm not worried. I had my appendix removed when I was 3, and I lived and turned out alright (at least as appendices go....how I turned out otherwise is up to someone quite unlike the appendix removal surgeon). But I do hate to know the pain she's gone through these past 20 hours. I do hate to know that there's nothing I can do to take it away. Suddenly, even planting a potentially city-and world-shaking community pales a little bit....and I think that's because ultimately, I'm just a guy, and as much as I love my job and can't wait for the school year, I'm just a guy and I'm less the guy I'm supposed to be without the person I'm supposed to be with, in some mystical way.
Things can be rescheduled. Wednesday is now today, basically. If the chapter is toast for the year because we missed today, then the chapter was going to fail all along anyway. God's much bigger than an inflamed appendix and he won't let what he's called me to do in Cleveland fall apart so easily.
I think, perhaps, though it's but a two day swing, I wasn't quite ready for today. I felt ready. I had printed all of the flyers. I had made tea and bubbles, and bought milk, a blender, and ice cream. I was ready. But for whatever reason, I wasn't prepared. I hope to be by Wednesday, but that's at least in part in the Lord's hands.
I have, however, been so touched, in a way that I know will give my strength, by the facebook comments that have come in since I mentioned the situation in my status. Each in their own way, people I love, friends, ministry partners, students have commented and reminded me that though I may be embarking on my first sole-staffing campus, I'm far from alone. I always knew that...but today, God has let me feel it.
I don't think that's why Alexandra's appendix flared up today. But I do know it's an outcome God is bringing to fruition. In the midst of all that is happening (atop all that isn't), he's reminding me that he's in control, over top of, and pulling together all that will be InterVarsity at CSU, my impending marriage, and the rest of my life.
Perhaps today, in the measurable sense, didn't define my career. But perhaps, in the less tangible, but altogether more meaningful way, it is redefining how I believe in who I am.
I'm still sitting in this waiting room. I'm still waiting. For today, that's exactly what God had in mind.
-Zack
"What matters to them doesn't change anything"
-Imogen Heap
Monday, August 29, 2011
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Eating (in) Cleveland #3:The Corned Beef Place across from Tower City
I, in my lack of research that cost me an honors grade on my I.S., didn't realize that "Eating Cleveland" is trademarked by a real website. While I don't foresee that ever actually mattering, I'm officially sliding a parenthetical "in" into the title of these posts because I don't want google to confuse anyone.
Last Friday night, en route to the RTA station beneath Tower City, we were on the prowl. Failing to find a satisfying appetizer while out about time (which was more an effect of our cheapness than our ability), and on the way home, the urgency to find something to eat before we got back to the train was pressing from all sides. As you can tell from the title of this post, it wasn't until the very end of our journey that we actually decided on something.
I have no idea, actually, what the name of the place from which we got food actually is. I didn't catch it, and I'm not sure, if they have one, it's very well presented. The outside just advertises warm corned beef sandwiches, and that's what took us into the shop. It's basically a convenience store that operates a fairly diverse deli. With places like that, there are essentially two options: frozen food heated up and cheaply served for a maximized profit to the store, or something truly legit where expense isn't wasted on the surroundings for the sake of offering good food at minimum pricing. This nameless place (seriously, if you know what's it's called, let me know) is most certainly a member of the latter camp.
The menu featured everything from Gyro's to basically any combination of deli meats you could dream up, but as advertised, the warm corned beef with mustard is appropriately the number one seller, and I doubt I'll ever buy anything else if I ever get a chance to stop in again. I always try to get the "specialty" when I visit a new place, and especially a place that's wholly local in ownership. There might be better corned beef sandwiches in cleveland, but I am positive that they are transcendent, because the one I had late Friday night was flavorful, tender, and positively scrumptious. Though it was simple; just corned beef between rye with mustard, it was legendary. The amicable cook who freely conversed with the customers while preparing the food put at least 4 inches of meat between the bread. If this sandwich were a standard sandwich, Americans would eat 10x more cows per year, I think. It was terrific. My friend, who ordered the same thing, complained of a "dry" sandwich, but I think he ordered his without mustard. Maybe that's a bad sign, that the sandwich needs mustard to remain moist given the amount of meat. I'm not sure. Either way, I know mine was delicious. It's probably unhealthy, to eat so much meat in one sitting. I may have taken days off my life on Friday, so I doubt I'll frequent this unnamed establishment. But on the rare late night when I'm downtown, I can't imagine a better end to the night than a warm corned beef and mustard sandwich on the way back to the train.
-Zack
Last Friday night, en route to the RTA station beneath Tower City, we were on the prowl. Failing to find a satisfying appetizer while out about time (which was more an effect of our cheapness than our ability), and on the way home, the urgency to find something to eat before we got back to the train was pressing from all sides. As you can tell from the title of this post, it wasn't until the very end of our journey that we actually decided on something.
I have no idea, actually, what the name of the place from which we got food actually is. I didn't catch it, and I'm not sure, if they have one, it's very well presented. The outside just advertises warm corned beef sandwiches, and that's what took us into the shop. It's basically a convenience store that operates a fairly diverse deli. With places like that, there are essentially two options: frozen food heated up and cheaply served for a maximized profit to the store, or something truly legit where expense isn't wasted on the surroundings for the sake of offering good food at minimum pricing. This nameless place (seriously, if you know what's it's called, let me know) is most certainly a member of the latter camp.
The menu featured everything from Gyro's to basically any combination of deli meats you could dream up, but as advertised, the warm corned beef with mustard is appropriately the number one seller, and I doubt I'll ever buy anything else if I ever get a chance to stop in again. I always try to get the "specialty" when I visit a new place, and especially a place that's wholly local in ownership. There might be better corned beef sandwiches in cleveland, but I am positive that they are transcendent, because the one I had late Friday night was flavorful, tender, and positively scrumptious. Though it was simple; just corned beef between rye with mustard, it was legendary. The amicable cook who freely conversed with the customers while preparing the food put at least 4 inches of meat between the bread. If this sandwich were a standard sandwich, Americans would eat 10x more cows per year, I think. It was terrific. My friend, who ordered the same thing, complained of a "dry" sandwich, but I think he ordered his without mustard. Maybe that's a bad sign, that the sandwich needs mustard to remain moist given the amount of meat. I'm not sure. Either way, I know mine was delicious. It's probably unhealthy, to eat so much meat in one sitting. I may have taken days off my life on Friday, so I doubt I'll frequent this unnamed establishment. But on the rare late night when I'm downtown, I can't imagine a better end to the night than a warm corned beef and mustard sandwich on the way back to the train.
-Zack
Monday, August 22, 2011
Merely Players
Because it has to go back to the library today, I finished the final book of Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy yesterday. Mockingjay, itself, was probably my second favorite of the three (though it was probably the best of the three...it just didn't have the mystique of the first).
I won't write specifically about the third book and I will try my best not to spoil any plot points. It's not well-written enough to keep you going if you know the end.
The first book is currently in the process of film interpretation and will be coming to a theater near you sometime next summer. I'm looking forward to that and I'll probably go see it, but I already don't expect a great movie. The trilogy's biggest strength is the narrator's voice and no first person narrator has ever been captured well on film because the camera is the narrator, no matter the voiceover, and the limits of a character's perspective are never captured on film. I'm interested though, in what will be captured.
I'm not, however, just going to talk about a movie that isn't out. There is so much I could say about the trilogy but I'm not sure where to start. It was, at times, hard to get through because parts of it are predictable, parts of it are excrutiatingly simplistic and unimaginitive from a prose standpoint.
But parts of it are breathtaking and I couldn't have been more satisfied with the last 10 pages. The first 900 of the series are somehow worth it (though let me say that, no matter how it may sound, many of those really aren't so bad).
As a concept, it's a top 10 of the last 5 years. Basically, if you don't know much about it, something happened and most of the United States was turned into a series of 13 districts and one capital (aproximately Denver). At some point prior to the start of the first book (roughly 75 years and change), the districts revolted and lost to the capital. That's a little far fetched probably, but it "happened." As "punishment" the districts have to provide 2 children each year to fight to the death in the Hunger Games to prove that the capital is so far reaching even the children aren't safe. Amazingly, I'm actually not simplifying the motives in any of that, but it's not as "contrived in a 6 year old's mind" as it sounds, though it often dips into that. This is no measuredly sketched picture of human depravity ala The Lord of the Flies, and yet Collins is a better story teller than Golding. She's probably the worst writer I've devoted this much time to in probably my entire life, but she tells a compelling story. That's why I want to see the movie. Because a troupe of Hollywood talent can't make it feel as flat as Collins. Maybe I have too much faith in Hollywood. But, if you pick up a copy of the Catching Fire and read any single page out of context and flow, you'll blush at the forced dialogue, I promise.
As I said though, it is a good story, and I do indeed urge you to take the plunge. Once you cut past the badly pasted artifice of prose, you'll find a jewel of human heart, right near the end of the final book, that you can and should carry with you for the rest of your life. The trilogy shouldn't be a trilogy. It should be one book because the second book could be condensed to 25 pages. The market doesn't work that way and the demographic couldn't tolerate it, so I understand. But, in better hands, this story could be the best rebut to War and Peace I've ever read. That doesn't mean much to most of the world because most people haven't read War and Peace (including, I imagine, Suzanne Collins), but it's essentially the same story in a different setting, with a very different result. Somehow, Collins created a poorly written trilogy that fits inside the thrust of literary history in ways few novels actually do anymore (especially YA literature).
I was ultimately disappointed in the trilogy, but I couldn't be happier with the story and most especially the ending. If all truly is well that ends well, then the The Hunger Games knows few peers among contemporary novels. Because I don't believe in pithy, untested phrases, I don't believe that. But it is worthwhile, and that's something most readers need to know in a world where so few make the time it takes to really read anymore.
-Zack
I won't write specifically about the third book and I will try my best not to spoil any plot points. It's not well-written enough to keep you going if you know the end.
The first book is currently in the process of film interpretation and will be coming to a theater near you sometime next summer. I'm looking forward to that and I'll probably go see it, but I already don't expect a great movie. The trilogy's biggest strength is the narrator's voice and no first person narrator has ever been captured well on film because the camera is the narrator, no matter the voiceover, and the limits of a character's perspective are never captured on film. I'm interested though, in what will be captured.
I'm not, however, just going to talk about a movie that isn't out. There is so much I could say about the trilogy but I'm not sure where to start. It was, at times, hard to get through because parts of it are predictable, parts of it are excrutiatingly simplistic and unimaginitive from a prose standpoint.
But parts of it are breathtaking and I couldn't have been more satisfied with the last 10 pages. The first 900 of the series are somehow worth it (though let me say that, no matter how it may sound, many of those really aren't so bad).
As a concept, it's a top 10 of the last 5 years. Basically, if you don't know much about it, something happened and most of the United States was turned into a series of 13 districts and one capital (aproximately Denver). At some point prior to the start of the first book (roughly 75 years and change), the districts revolted and lost to the capital. That's a little far fetched probably, but it "happened." As "punishment" the districts have to provide 2 children each year to fight to the death in the Hunger Games to prove that the capital is so far reaching even the children aren't safe. Amazingly, I'm actually not simplifying the motives in any of that, but it's not as "contrived in a 6 year old's mind" as it sounds, though it often dips into that. This is no measuredly sketched picture of human depravity ala The Lord of the Flies, and yet Collins is a better story teller than Golding. She's probably the worst writer I've devoted this much time to in probably my entire life, but she tells a compelling story. That's why I want to see the movie. Because a troupe of Hollywood talent can't make it feel as flat as Collins. Maybe I have too much faith in Hollywood. But, if you pick up a copy of the Catching Fire and read any single page out of context and flow, you'll blush at the forced dialogue, I promise.
As I said though, it is a good story, and I do indeed urge you to take the plunge. Once you cut past the badly pasted artifice of prose, you'll find a jewel of human heart, right near the end of the final book, that you can and should carry with you for the rest of your life. The trilogy shouldn't be a trilogy. It should be one book because the second book could be condensed to 25 pages. The market doesn't work that way and the demographic couldn't tolerate it, so I understand. But, in better hands, this story could be the best rebut to War and Peace I've ever read. That doesn't mean much to most of the world because most people haven't read War and Peace (including, I imagine, Suzanne Collins), but it's essentially the same story in a different setting, with a very different result. Somehow, Collins created a poorly written trilogy that fits inside the thrust of literary history in ways few novels actually do anymore (especially YA literature).
I was ultimately disappointed in the trilogy, but I couldn't be happier with the story and most especially the ending. If all truly is well that ends well, then the The Hunger Games knows few peers among contemporary novels. Because I don't believe in pithy, untested phrases, I don't believe that. But it is worthwhile, and that's something most readers need to know in a world where so few make the time it takes to really read anymore.
-Zack
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
No Shelter
We're reading "Radical" by David Platt this summer, in the Northeast Ohio area for InterVarsity. In a simple sentence, it is sorely disappointing. Until this morning, my opinion had swung back and forth while I was reading it (and I'm still not finished); unsure if I loved what it had to say in sum or disagreed in most ways. In other words, I couldn't tell if the good outweighed the bad, but now I can, and I am sorely disappointed that it's a best-seller and people are reading it, agreeing with it, and considering themselves radical for doing so.
I don't know how many times I can read about how big his church is and how many millions of dollars the building is worth and believe that I'm supposed to take his word on how to be a 100% disciple. He talks much about blindspots, one major being American Christianity's overlooking of poverty. To that, I say "here here good sir," but I must have missed the part of what Jesus said that includes it being okay to spend millions on a church building in the first place. I also missed the part that said church buildings are an inherent part of ministry...but I digress.
David Platt mostly, isn't the enemy. Really, Christians, generally speaking, shouldn't be considered "the enemy". There is only one enemy, and he doesn't have a body. My real grievances with the book are two-fold: it doesn't go far enough and it's constantly putting on the brakes when it comes to the words everything and everyone, and a wholesale purchase of the exigetical tragedy that is the belief that all of everything that ever happened is due to God wanting more glory. I understand that the man was born blind for God's glory to be shown...by Jesus, healing him. I won't believe that Hitler rose to power for God's glory though, no matter what "good" has come of it. I won't believe that evil takes place for God's glory. Because it doesn't. God didn't allow Adam and Eve to sin because he'd be more glorified for it. Okay, that's a bold statement with which many won't take my side. It's just too clean, too easy, too blindly-overlooking-the-rest-of-the-Bible to take a few statements here and there and craft not just a sterile theology but a lifestyle, even one to mostly good ends. It's God's will that none should perish, but, if you're to believe Platt and those like him, it apparently maximizes his glory if not just some but most do indeed perish, so what must be done must be done. That, of course, begs the questions: why then? Why do bad things happen if not so God can be glorified through them? Because God loves us enough to let us decide and, in doing so, we decide to hurt each other. He also loves us enough that he's provided a way for the evil we perpetuate to be forgiven and for us to be with anyway.
It's not that I don't want to ascribe glory to God. But I think we overlook what that really means. Let's jump into Foucalt for a little bit and hopefully you'll know what I mean. Actually, let's not. Let's jump to my neighborhood, the corner of West 85th and Willlard, Cleveland, Ohio. I walk, by myself or with Alexandra, our little Havapoo (Havanese-poodle mix...don't ask me..I'm a Jack Russel man...it's her dog), around our neighborhood every single night. She's a crazy little mutt, but we love her and I'm glad to have her around most of the time. Hazlenut is far from the only dog in our neighborhood though. She is though, one of the smallest. For some reason (actually, I probably know it more than I'll go into here), the majority of the dogs in our neighborhood are pitbulls. That might sound scary. I'll be honest, it kind of is. To see a dog that weighs as much as I do pulling its owner along on a very thick chain, trying to get to Hazlenut, presumably to devour our little fluff ball, is less than pleasant. Pitbulls are the most illogical dog to own. They cost more in insurance if you can even get insurance with them at your house. They might be profitable, but I don't think most of them in our neighborhood are used for fighting. In addition to the pitbulls, there aren't, percentage-wise, and average number of single family homes in our neighborhood, and I would venture to guess most of the single family houses aren't owned by the tenants.
I can't speak for many individual stories. I don't know many people by name in our neighborhood right now. The picture I'm trying to paint though, is of powerful, quite frankly, dangerous dogs kept in homes that aren't owned by those who live there. Beyond being something of an insurance nightmare, there's something deeper going on, or at least there's a metaphor within it. A pitbull may be an irrational thing to own, but what if you can train it? What if you're the only person it listens to? It's like a weapon at that point, whether you train it to attack or not. It's going to strike fear in others, whether they know it's vicious or not. It's a symbol of power in, quite frankly, the hands of those without much social currency. It's a piece of protection in a world preyed upon by slumlords and prejudiced utilities officers.
I think, oftentimes, we allow ourselves to craft our conception of God and theology along the same lines as the pitbulls in my neighborhood. If God's plan is to get glory for himself then we're still written into the script as a major actor. We're (humanity) still the ones who have to give God glory, so it's incomplete without us. God needs us and we're doing God's will when we're helping others glorify God too. That's why big churches, expensive worship equipment, and varied songbooks are so necessary. That's why the 10/40 window is more important than the Madison Avenue neighborhood of Cleveland. It's world domination or nothing. God wants glory and he wants to use us, and guess what? He's on our side! I'm meaning to sound a bit harsh on people with whom I generally associate on purpose: we've got to be positive we're doing what we're doing because it's right...not because we're giving into our personal will to power. If God is all about God's glory, he still needs us because in his omnipotence, he still can't glorify himself. We can, apparently, effectively outdo God because we can do the one thing he can't, which happens to be the one thing he wants most. If God though, as I believe, is all about showering his beloved creation with blessing, then a syngery exists when people are actively working to love each other and God's world well. Those aren't dichotomized opposites by any stretch. I'm saying though, that God isn't motivated by selfish glory hounding as much as he's motivated by his quite literally infinite love for his creation. The question comes back though: did God let Adam and Eve eat the fruit because he loved them? Finally, I do believe, that I can say yes to that: he allowed them free will. They chose poorly.
But I won't get too far ahead of myself. We need better language for what exactly Adam and Eve did. It's true, by Biblical translation they "allowed sin into the world." But culture and power-dynamics have greatly distorted what sin is or ever was. I'm not a greek or hebrew scholar, but I know sin, in concept, is the idea of missing the mark according to the traditional definition. That though, is an approximation for a concept found through the Bible. It's not a translation of the word used in Hebrew and Greek. If we examine what Adam and Eve actually did, it's obvious: they didn't choose to disobey God for disobedience sake. They chose to allow their interests to come before those of God. I'm a proponent of semantic hairsplitting as you may know, but it makes all the difference. Adam and Eve chose to do what was best, in their minds, for themselves; not for the world. Of course, even in that, they were incorrect. But God had to give them a choice to keep his desires first, or else they could never love. They would simply be his subservient creation with no will to love or, perhaps worse, be loved. Love is a dynamic choice in which the beloved and lover are constantly interacting and choosing to take part. It wasn't though, that the tree of knowledge was a "don't love God" choice. It was a choice to trust their own selves more than they trusted God. We were created to love God. We were created to trust God. The world was, initially, created to be stewarded by people who took God at his word because they knew his power, understood his love, and loved and trusted him back. But that's not what we've got on our hands now. That's sin: not being who God made us to be, not loving him and others as we ought; saying to him that we'd rather take our or the deciever's word for it. So often we mistake sin as breaking a commandment. We assume a law and call sin anything that breaks it. I don't discuss it much, but I don't believe in natural law theory, I'll just say that, and my reasoning is because it isn't Biblical. What is Biblical is a right way and a wrong way to live. The commandments, the law we assume that defines sin, was a covenant, akin to a vow. It has little to no bearing on what is or isn't sin...certainly, breaking it is (or was, for the OT jews), perpetuating the wrong way, but it's the same thing: deciding to live in a way that isn't trusting God first. God said, basically, through the covenant: "do all this stuff, and you'll be greatly blessed." To do otherwise is to inherently say that, either A. you believe God but want to suffer, or B. you don't take God's word on it and do what you believe will please you most.
Other than an (not as big of a deal as we want it to be because we want the power feeling objectively right affords us) opening for subjective morality, that probably isn't too Earth shattering. But read between the lines a bit: there's a right way, and a wrong way. There's not an alright way that's at least not wrong. It's one or the other, across every conceivable board. The rub, the deepest, darkest, most rash-leaving rub, comes from the fact that it isn't a lack of sin that Jesus most talks about: it's a lack of action. What condemns the pharisees? Not "sinning" and not taking care of the poor. We praise the widow because we don't read the Bible well. The widow, though valiant in her giving, isn't an object lesson in giving everything you have to Christ. It's an indictment of a system that builds huge temples and leaves the widow having so little. Read mark 12...it's true. We're so bound up in salvation not requiring works that we ignore James' stern remark that true religion is giving to the poor and marginalized...and not just giving, but actually caring for them. Part of me is very much a utilitarian universalist because I'm tired of arguing about how to get to heaven. God's powerful enough to let everyone in, so let's just shut up and start doing what he tells us to do. This is ultimately where I get worn out in reading the otherwise light-reading "Radical." It's a constant "don't worry, we're sharing the gospel while we're feeding the poor." Jesus said to love. He didn't say to do it with an agenda. He said they'll know we're his followers because of our love. That's the starting point. I can't help it but think it's incredibly unloving to only serve someone because you hope you get to share the gospel with them someday, so they can come to your church and worship God with you. It is loving to share the gospel, I'm not trying to say it isn't. But we've got to learn to love in ways that seem loving to the loved, and sometimes, no, all the time, that means laying aside any and every pretense. There's a balance, a limin to be stood within, wherein we've got to take risks in sharing the gospel, but we've also got to realize culture, context, and audience. I don't have the answer for every situation, but I know an honest, real love motivated by the love of Christ renders the question of when and how eventually moot.
There's nothing wrong with worship. I'm not trying to say there is. There's absolutely nothing wrong with sharing the Gospel...and no, I'm not really a universalist. I do think though, that we focus so much on getting to heaven that we ignore the hell people are already in. We go to church and worship because we're free from our misconstrued concept of sin and hell and we dangle that freedom on a string with no answer for the hell that is in the here and now, on the streets where the pitbulls are the only thing between you and an oppressive landlord. Maybe we focus on the gospel as getting to go to heaven so much because we have no idea how to live out the part of it that calls us to make heaven a reality here. Maybe we constructed our theologies about God getting glory through us for himself because we can't come to terms with him actually wanting us to do something about what is in the here and now, we can't come to terms with God calling us to love because he is love and wants to love through us. Make no mistake, if we were to see God's love transform the impoverished parts of our world (and my city), he would get plenty of glory, or ought to. But what's the motivation? Yes, I am basically saying that doing something for God's glory is either incorrect or at least incomplete. We are "to do all things to the glory of God," but we act like that's a pass to do whatever we want and claim some mystical ability to do it to God's glory. We are to do all things to God's glory, but what it is that we actually do matters too. God is love and God loves us, and he wants to love the world through us, for our own benefit and for the benefit of the world. If we do that to God's glory, then, my friends, we will see something real happen....not something artificial and hoped for in the worst possible ways. We've got to relinquish our theologies that favor us and those who look and act like us We've got to start loving, for real, no matter the cost...because that's what Jesus did.
To bring this full circle, I will close in saying that David Platt delivers a message the church needs to hear. But he does so in terms that still favor the American brand of evangelicalism that got us where we are. Maybe it's a step many need to take to get to a place of true radicalism that can change the world, but until we break out of self-favoring ideologies, we'll never actually renew the church...we'll just keep climbing and sliding down the same hill. The trick, dear readers, is to step to the side and get off the hill altogether.
-Zack
"Say hip-hop only destroy, tell 'em look at me boy"
-Lupe Fiasco
I don't know how many times I can read about how big his church is and how many millions of dollars the building is worth and believe that I'm supposed to take his word on how to be a 100% disciple. He talks much about blindspots, one major being American Christianity's overlooking of poverty. To that, I say "here here good sir," but I must have missed the part of what Jesus said that includes it being okay to spend millions on a church building in the first place. I also missed the part that said church buildings are an inherent part of ministry...but I digress.
David Platt mostly, isn't the enemy. Really, Christians, generally speaking, shouldn't be considered "the enemy". There is only one enemy, and he doesn't have a body. My real grievances with the book are two-fold: it doesn't go far enough and it's constantly putting on the brakes when it comes to the words everything and everyone, and a wholesale purchase of the exigetical tragedy that is the belief that all of everything that ever happened is due to God wanting more glory. I understand that the man was born blind for God's glory to be shown...by Jesus, healing him. I won't believe that Hitler rose to power for God's glory though, no matter what "good" has come of it. I won't believe that evil takes place for God's glory. Because it doesn't. God didn't allow Adam and Eve to sin because he'd be more glorified for it. Okay, that's a bold statement with which many won't take my side. It's just too clean, too easy, too blindly-overlooking-the-rest-of-the-Bible to take a few statements here and there and craft not just a sterile theology but a lifestyle, even one to mostly good ends. It's God's will that none should perish, but, if you're to believe Platt and those like him, it apparently maximizes his glory if not just some but most do indeed perish, so what must be done must be done. That, of course, begs the questions: why then? Why do bad things happen if not so God can be glorified through them? Because God loves us enough to let us decide and, in doing so, we decide to hurt each other. He also loves us enough that he's provided a way for the evil we perpetuate to be forgiven and for us to be with anyway.
It's not that I don't want to ascribe glory to God. But I think we overlook what that really means. Let's jump into Foucalt for a little bit and hopefully you'll know what I mean. Actually, let's not. Let's jump to my neighborhood, the corner of West 85th and Willlard, Cleveland, Ohio. I walk, by myself or with Alexandra, our little Havapoo (Havanese-poodle mix...don't ask me..I'm a Jack Russel man...it's her dog), around our neighborhood every single night. She's a crazy little mutt, but we love her and I'm glad to have her around most of the time. Hazlenut is far from the only dog in our neighborhood though. She is though, one of the smallest. For some reason (actually, I probably know it more than I'll go into here), the majority of the dogs in our neighborhood are pitbulls. That might sound scary. I'll be honest, it kind of is. To see a dog that weighs as much as I do pulling its owner along on a very thick chain, trying to get to Hazlenut, presumably to devour our little fluff ball, is less than pleasant. Pitbulls are the most illogical dog to own. They cost more in insurance if you can even get insurance with them at your house. They might be profitable, but I don't think most of them in our neighborhood are used for fighting. In addition to the pitbulls, there aren't, percentage-wise, and average number of single family homes in our neighborhood, and I would venture to guess most of the single family houses aren't owned by the tenants.
I can't speak for many individual stories. I don't know many people by name in our neighborhood right now. The picture I'm trying to paint though, is of powerful, quite frankly, dangerous dogs kept in homes that aren't owned by those who live there. Beyond being something of an insurance nightmare, there's something deeper going on, or at least there's a metaphor within it. A pitbull may be an irrational thing to own, but what if you can train it? What if you're the only person it listens to? It's like a weapon at that point, whether you train it to attack or not. It's going to strike fear in others, whether they know it's vicious or not. It's a symbol of power in, quite frankly, the hands of those without much social currency. It's a piece of protection in a world preyed upon by slumlords and prejudiced utilities officers.
I think, oftentimes, we allow ourselves to craft our conception of God and theology along the same lines as the pitbulls in my neighborhood. If God's plan is to get glory for himself then we're still written into the script as a major actor. We're (humanity) still the ones who have to give God glory, so it's incomplete without us. God needs us and we're doing God's will when we're helping others glorify God too. That's why big churches, expensive worship equipment, and varied songbooks are so necessary. That's why the 10/40 window is more important than the Madison Avenue neighborhood of Cleveland. It's world domination or nothing. God wants glory and he wants to use us, and guess what? He's on our side! I'm meaning to sound a bit harsh on people with whom I generally associate on purpose: we've got to be positive we're doing what we're doing because it's right...not because we're giving into our personal will to power. If God is all about God's glory, he still needs us because in his omnipotence, he still can't glorify himself. We can, apparently, effectively outdo God because we can do the one thing he can't, which happens to be the one thing he wants most. If God though, as I believe, is all about showering his beloved creation with blessing, then a syngery exists when people are actively working to love each other and God's world well. Those aren't dichotomized opposites by any stretch. I'm saying though, that God isn't motivated by selfish glory hounding as much as he's motivated by his quite literally infinite love for his creation. The question comes back though: did God let Adam and Eve eat the fruit because he loved them? Finally, I do believe, that I can say yes to that: he allowed them free will. They chose poorly.
But I won't get too far ahead of myself. We need better language for what exactly Adam and Eve did. It's true, by Biblical translation they "allowed sin into the world." But culture and power-dynamics have greatly distorted what sin is or ever was. I'm not a greek or hebrew scholar, but I know sin, in concept, is the idea of missing the mark according to the traditional definition. That though, is an approximation for a concept found through the Bible. It's not a translation of the word used in Hebrew and Greek. If we examine what Adam and Eve actually did, it's obvious: they didn't choose to disobey God for disobedience sake. They chose to allow their interests to come before those of God. I'm a proponent of semantic hairsplitting as you may know, but it makes all the difference. Adam and Eve chose to do what was best, in their minds, for themselves; not for the world. Of course, even in that, they were incorrect. But God had to give them a choice to keep his desires first, or else they could never love. They would simply be his subservient creation with no will to love or, perhaps worse, be loved. Love is a dynamic choice in which the beloved and lover are constantly interacting and choosing to take part. It wasn't though, that the tree of knowledge was a "don't love God" choice. It was a choice to trust their own selves more than they trusted God. We were created to love God. We were created to trust God. The world was, initially, created to be stewarded by people who took God at his word because they knew his power, understood his love, and loved and trusted him back. But that's not what we've got on our hands now. That's sin: not being who God made us to be, not loving him and others as we ought; saying to him that we'd rather take our or the deciever's word for it. So often we mistake sin as breaking a commandment. We assume a law and call sin anything that breaks it. I don't discuss it much, but I don't believe in natural law theory, I'll just say that, and my reasoning is because it isn't Biblical. What is Biblical is a right way and a wrong way to live. The commandments, the law we assume that defines sin, was a covenant, akin to a vow. It has little to no bearing on what is or isn't sin...certainly, breaking it is (or was, for the OT jews), perpetuating the wrong way, but it's the same thing: deciding to live in a way that isn't trusting God first. God said, basically, through the covenant: "do all this stuff, and you'll be greatly blessed." To do otherwise is to inherently say that, either A. you believe God but want to suffer, or B. you don't take God's word on it and do what you believe will please you most.
Other than an (not as big of a deal as we want it to be because we want the power feeling objectively right affords us) opening for subjective morality, that probably isn't too Earth shattering. But read between the lines a bit: there's a right way, and a wrong way. There's not an alright way that's at least not wrong. It's one or the other, across every conceivable board. The rub, the deepest, darkest, most rash-leaving rub, comes from the fact that it isn't a lack of sin that Jesus most talks about: it's a lack of action. What condemns the pharisees? Not "sinning" and not taking care of the poor. We praise the widow because we don't read the Bible well. The widow, though valiant in her giving, isn't an object lesson in giving everything you have to Christ. It's an indictment of a system that builds huge temples and leaves the widow having so little. Read mark 12...it's true. We're so bound up in salvation not requiring works that we ignore James' stern remark that true religion is giving to the poor and marginalized...and not just giving, but actually caring for them. Part of me is very much a utilitarian universalist because I'm tired of arguing about how to get to heaven. God's powerful enough to let everyone in, so let's just shut up and start doing what he tells us to do. This is ultimately where I get worn out in reading the otherwise light-reading "Radical." It's a constant "don't worry, we're sharing the gospel while we're feeding the poor." Jesus said to love. He didn't say to do it with an agenda. He said they'll know we're his followers because of our love. That's the starting point. I can't help it but think it's incredibly unloving to only serve someone because you hope you get to share the gospel with them someday, so they can come to your church and worship God with you. It is loving to share the gospel, I'm not trying to say it isn't. But we've got to learn to love in ways that seem loving to the loved, and sometimes, no, all the time, that means laying aside any and every pretense. There's a balance, a limin to be stood within, wherein we've got to take risks in sharing the gospel, but we've also got to realize culture, context, and audience. I don't have the answer for every situation, but I know an honest, real love motivated by the love of Christ renders the question of when and how eventually moot.
There's nothing wrong with worship. I'm not trying to say there is. There's absolutely nothing wrong with sharing the Gospel...and no, I'm not really a universalist. I do think though, that we focus so much on getting to heaven that we ignore the hell people are already in. We go to church and worship because we're free from our misconstrued concept of sin and hell and we dangle that freedom on a string with no answer for the hell that is in the here and now, on the streets where the pitbulls are the only thing between you and an oppressive landlord. Maybe we focus on the gospel as getting to go to heaven so much because we have no idea how to live out the part of it that calls us to make heaven a reality here. Maybe we constructed our theologies about God getting glory through us for himself because we can't come to terms with him actually wanting us to do something about what is in the here and now, we can't come to terms with God calling us to love because he is love and wants to love through us. Make no mistake, if we were to see God's love transform the impoverished parts of our world (and my city), he would get plenty of glory, or ought to. But what's the motivation? Yes, I am basically saying that doing something for God's glory is either incorrect or at least incomplete. We are "to do all things to the glory of God," but we act like that's a pass to do whatever we want and claim some mystical ability to do it to God's glory. We are to do all things to God's glory, but what it is that we actually do matters too. God is love and God loves us, and he wants to love the world through us, for our own benefit and for the benefit of the world. If we do that to God's glory, then, my friends, we will see something real happen....not something artificial and hoped for in the worst possible ways. We've got to relinquish our theologies that favor us and those who look and act like us We've got to start loving, for real, no matter the cost...because that's what Jesus did.
To bring this full circle, I will close in saying that David Platt delivers a message the church needs to hear. But he does so in terms that still favor the American brand of evangelicalism that got us where we are. Maybe it's a step many need to take to get to a place of true radicalism that can change the world, but until we break out of self-favoring ideologies, we'll never actually renew the church...we'll just keep climbing and sliding down the same hill. The trick, dear readers, is to step to the side and get off the hill altogether.
-Zack
"Say hip-hop only destroy, tell 'em look at me boy"
-Lupe Fiasco
Friday, August 12, 2011
Erasing Black Lines
I should probably provide a little bit of clarification before I get into the heart of this. I know, a week or two ago, I said I was going to try to post everyday. That's still true. But in all honesty, it's never going to be daily. I probably won't post on most if not all of Alexandra's days off. I'll almost never post when I'm away for a conference. This week was the Great Lakes East InterVarsity Regional Staff Conference. It was a wonderful three days exploring prayer toward authoritative vision, but it wasn't possible to write a post for this, and really, that's ultimately a good thing. It is, ultimately, a line from yesterday, as we were nearly finished, that is spurring at least the beginning of this post. As we talked about a few passages in Hebrews throughout the week that highlighted "Entering God's Rest," our Regional Director made the point that, too often in life, we live as if the dichotomy between "rest" and "activity" is real. In actuality, he said, we can be active in our work (professionally, domestically, whatever) from a posture of rest by living in the reality that God will and does give us the strength to do the things he has for us in life. We don't have to strive to achieve of our own strength and thus, a prayerful, God-ful life is one in which we can experience a form of constant rest even in our "doing." That has got me to thinking, for this blogpost, that we simply don't talk about the presentness of the Kingdom. We use salvation as our selling point. We talk about praying a prayer that apparently saves us from hell, then we talk about living a life in a "right" way so that we can please the God who saved us. At every turn though, it just feels like the Bible calls us to something larger than a heavenbound wish for Eternal life. Eternal life is promised. Don't just believe it; embrace it as a truth and move on to life here and now, where God has a plan for your life much larger than a simple assent that Jesus died and rose for your sins.
I'm coming to terms with the fact that the Bible doesn't tell us how to live a certain way because it pleases him. It does, most certainly. But God wants to give everyone on the Earth the best possible life right now. Right now is flawed and that doesn't happen, not by a far cry, but its obvious that he's given us the charge to make that possible. He's created one huge family from formerly irreconcilable groups of people, and the great mystery, as it says in Ephesians, is that we can be a true, authentic community no matter where we've been or who we were.
I don't know your personal experience of honest, real community, but I believe it to be a gift of God. I believe God's love is best loved through others toward one another. There's nothing better in the world. It's popular, at weddings, to claim that Marriage is great because it's an Earthly image of God's love for the church. I don't like that take because it denigrates marriage as nothing but a symbol. I don't like it either, because it's unbiblical. God's given us one another to experience his love and grace in the here and now...not as a symbol, but really, as the real love of God through one another. I believe marriage is at its best when it too is marked by God's love lived and shown to each spouse through the other. That's power. That's life-altering.
It's popular to say that Jesus didn't say make converts, make disciples. We act like that means don't have people "get saved" and leave them...help them know how to live a Godly life too! But really, a disciple is more than that. It's a person who does as his or her teacher showed them. Jesus created a small community of people and showed them a love that transcended where they'd been and what they'd done. As he traveled around, he invited people into that: to be the loved and the loving.
As I get ready to embark on another semester of ministry, I'm reimagining evangelism in my own way. The hole in our gospel is much larger than its incompleteness: it's its wrong intent. I'm not going to invite anyone to heaven this semester. I can't get them to heaven. Their faith can't get them to heaven. Only God can do that, after a death I hope to be much farther away than my annual review's due date. But I can invite them into a community of love and, I hope, show them how to get enough outside themselves to become full members of the community who can show others love as we add to our number.
-Zack
"Until the lion learns to speak, the tales of hunting will always favor the hunter"
-K'Naan
I'm coming to terms with the fact that the Bible doesn't tell us how to live a certain way because it pleases him. It does, most certainly. But God wants to give everyone on the Earth the best possible life right now. Right now is flawed and that doesn't happen, not by a far cry, but its obvious that he's given us the charge to make that possible. He's created one huge family from formerly irreconcilable groups of people, and the great mystery, as it says in Ephesians, is that we can be a true, authentic community no matter where we've been or who we were.
I don't know your personal experience of honest, real community, but I believe it to be a gift of God. I believe God's love is best loved through others toward one another. There's nothing better in the world. It's popular, at weddings, to claim that Marriage is great because it's an Earthly image of God's love for the church. I don't like that take because it denigrates marriage as nothing but a symbol. I don't like it either, because it's unbiblical. God's given us one another to experience his love and grace in the here and now...not as a symbol, but really, as the real love of God through one another. I believe marriage is at its best when it too is marked by God's love lived and shown to each spouse through the other. That's power. That's life-altering.
It's popular to say that Jesus didn't say make converts, make disciples. We act like that means don't have people "get saved" and leave them...help them know how to live a Godly life too! But really, a disciple is more than that. It's a person who does as his or her teacher showed them. Jesus created a small community of people and showed them a love that transcended where they'd been and what they'd done. As he traveled around, he invited people into that: to be the loved and the loving.
As I get ready to embark on another semester of ministry, I'm reimagining evangelism in my own way. The hole in our gospel is much larger than its incompleteness: it's its wrong intent. I'm not going to invite anyone to heaven this semester. I can't get them to heaven. Their faith can't get them to heaven. Only God can do that, after a death I hope to be much farther away than my annual review's due date. But I can invite them into a community of love and, I hope, show them how to get enough outside themselves to become full members of the community who can show others love as we add to our number.
-Zack
"Until the lion learns to speak, the tales of hunting will always favor the hunter"
-K'Naan
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Eating Cleveland #2: La Strada
About two weeks ago, prior to attending a rained out Indians game and just moments after deciding an hour wait at the Great Lakes Brewing restaurant would make us late for said game that never happened, my dad and I ended up at a quirky Italian/Moroccan restaurant on E. 4th street called "La Strada."
For those of you unaware, E. 4th is a short stretch of what used to be a normal street just a few blocks from the center of Cleveland (hence the low number), now populated with some of the finest dining in the city. It's also taken on a bit of an identity as the part of town to hang out in after and before games at the Q and Progressive field, which makes for a strange mix. It's nice though, and I've never disliked anything I've ate in that food court meets back alley. The coffee shop there, the Lake Erie Coffee Company, is probably my favorite coffee shop in Cleveland, at least so far. It's far too inconvenient to frequent from the semi-near west side, but the coffee and decor are outstanding.
This though, is primarily about our meal at La Strada. To anyone who knows Italian neo-surrealist film, that name means something, and I wasn't disappointed to find out that the connection was intentional If you go here: http://zacharybelchers4.xanga.com/ you'll have enough hints to understand the scope of what that means to me. To say nothing (yet), of the food, consider this: a faux renaissance opera house melding the grotesque (a large ceramic blue and white eyeball) with the regal (plush crimson curtains and expensive-looking bronze sconces) with a Charlie Chaplin film reel played on a section of wall above the main dining area, to a soundtrack of Pink Floyd's full Dark Side of the Moon album. To varying degrees, whomever it was that designed the visual stylings of La Strada successfully transports the patrons to a different place when they walk into the restaurant. It was fun, but from a purely Felliniesque standpoint, the mark is missed wildly. Fellini was and is successful because he allows the viewer to believe, even for a second, that what's on screen is real. At La Strada, the artifice oozes at each turn. It's quite the opposite effect of Fellini's impressionistic style. That's probably a split hair to a degree because I do appreciate that it wasn't just taking a name from one of the most important films of all time and not trying to be as unique as Fellini was and is, but the tie-in is more contrived than holistically experienced.
The food though, was outstanding. I would have hoped for more seasoning in the bread dipping mixture (simply a few drops of balsamic vinegar in a lighter-than-expected olive oil), but that is my only mark against the cuisine. The bread itself was excellent; warm, nicely crusted on the outside with delectably fluffy and moist inner body. My entree, a stuffed chicken atop risotto, was delicious. I prefer my risotto a bit cheesier and it had a strong lemon flavor I could have done without, but that would have made for a different meal. Taking it for what it was, it was excellent. The chicken itself (fully off the bone, tenderized, and wrapped around the filling) was delicious; stuffed with prosciutto, gorgonzola, and generous amounts of fresh basil, each bite, especially taken with the risotto, was, in its own way, wholly unique and delicious.
So. The food was good, the atmosphere strange, and the concept somewhat missed. Would I go back? Well, not anytime soon. It's a bit expensive and there are so many more places to go that are either cheaper or in the same cost-bracket. Maybe, when my culinary adventures around this city are through, then I will return to my favorite places. Maybe then, La Strada will come back around. I can't say I was disappointed, but, for as good as the food was, the experience itself, all told, puts a customer more on edge than it provides a comfortable space. I understand dining as an experience, but I don't understand melding the Phantom of the Opera, Pink Floyd, and Chaplin, then calling it Fellini. Antonioni, perhaps....
-Zack
For those of you unaware, E. 4th is a short stretch of what used to be a normal street just a few blocks from the center of Cleveland (hence the low number), now populated with some of the finest dining in the city. It's also taken on a bit of an identity as the part of town to hang out in after and before games at the Q and Progressive field, which makes for a strange mix. It's nice though, and I've never disliked anything I've ate in that food court meets back alley. The coffee shop there, the Lake Erie Coffee Company, is probably my favorite coffee shop in Cleveland, at least so far. It's far too inconvenient to frequent from the semi-near west side, but the coffee and decor are outstanding.
This though, is primarily about our meal at La Strada. To anyone who knows Italian neo-surrealist film, that name means something, and I wasn't disappointed to find out that the connection was intentional If you go here: http://zacharybelchers4.xanga.com/ you'll have enough hints to understand the scope of what that means to me. To say nothing (yet), of the food, consider this: a faux renaissance opera house melding the grotesque (a large ceramic blue and white eyeball) with the regal (plush crimson curtains and expensive-looking bronze sconces) with a Charlie Chaplin film reel played on a section of wall above the main dining area, to a soundtrack of Pink Floyd's full Dark Side of the Moon album. To varying degrees, whomever it was that designed the visual stylings of La Strada successfully transports the patrons to a different place when they walk into the restaurant. It was fun, but from a purely Felliniesque standpoint, the mark is missed wildly. Fellini was and is successful because he allows the viewer to believe, even for a second, that what's on screen is real. At La Strada, the artifice oozes at each turn. It's quite the opposite effect of Fellini's impressionistic style. That's probably a split hair to a degree because I do appreciate that it wasn't just taking a name from one of the most important films of all time and not trying to be as unique as Fellini was and is, but the tie-in is more contrived than holistically experienced.
The food though, was outstanding. I would have hoped for more seasoning in the bread dipping mixture (simply a few drops of balsamic vinegar in a lighter-than-expected olive oil), but that is my only mark against the cuisine. The bread itself was excellent; warm, nicely crusted on the outside with delectably fluffy and moist inner body. My entree, a stuffed chicken atop risotto, was delicious. I prefer my risotto a bit cheesier and it had a strong lemon flavor I could have done without, but that would have made for a different meal. Taking it for what it was, it was excellent. The chicken itself (fully off the bone, tenderized, and wrapped around the filling) was delicious; stuffed with prosciutto, gorgonzola, and generous amounts of fresh basil, each bite, especially taken with the risotto, was, in its own way, wholly unique and delicious.
So. The food was good, the atmosphere strange, and the concept somewhat missed. Would I go back? Well, not anytime soon. It's a bit expensive and there are so many more places to go that are either cheaper or in the same cost-bracket. Maybe, when my culinary adventures around this city are through, then I will return to my favorite places. Maybe then, La Strada will come back around. I can't say I was disappointed, but, for as good as the food was, the experience itself, all told, puts a customer more on edge than it provides a comfortable space. I understand dining as an experience, but I don't understand melding the Phantom of the Opera, Pink Floyd, and Chaplin, then calling it Fellini. Antonioni, perhaps....
-Zack
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Atop the Margins: Daniel Deronda
Last week, I finished my first George Eliot novel: Daniel Deronda. It wasn't by design that I read her last work first. It was simply the best looking book I could find in my room when I was looking for a new book to throw into the rotation last December.
I feel like I ought to do some sort of penance for waiting so long to read any Eliot. Though Daniel Deronda seems to generally be regarded as her best overall work (not her most famous or significant though; that will always be Middlemarch), it's obvious at all points throughout the novel that Eliot is a master of the English language and deserves as much credit as we can give her.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of DD is its insistence on giving agency to British Jews. For as genuinely forward thinking I believe my favorite 19th century British authors to be, even Emily Bronte has her ethnic taboos to work through as a post-modern, 21st century reader. Eliot, as a white, provincial author, actually wants to give credence to the Jewish race and religion. What's more, she does so without turning her 800 pages into a treatise in favor of better conditions for Jewish people in England. She weaves her commentary into a real plot, with real characters; a move ultimately more affective than any vitriolic political piece would actually be. That is not, however, to put it alongside Huck Finn or Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Both of those emphasize the existence of the Other and try to convince the reader that "they" really aren't so bad after all. But Eliot, more skilled as a writer and at crafting a plot, does what she can with 19th century British sensibilities to blur the lines creating the other. The main character enters as both. He is always already the other and the privileged set. I haven't read Silas Marner or Middlemarch (though I know I must, very soon), but Eliot is ahead of her time by, literally, a couple of centuries.
As an English major with a particular penchant for Dickens, the Brontes, and Austen, I won't lie to myself or to any of you and claim that I can speak to the novels broad appeal to the average 2011 reader. I loved it, but it was probably more "boring" than Wuthering Heights, so be warned.
But if you do decide to pick up this veritable masterpiece, I urge you to finish it (as I always do). It is worth every second. Every word finds its place alongside others in ways you've never before experienced. Wrap your mind around Daniel Deronda and you'll be a better reader. Do so with an open heart, and you just might be a better person too.
-Zack
I feel like I ought to do some sort of penance for waiting so long to read any Eliot. Though Daniel Deronda seems to generally be regarded as her best overall work (not her most famous or significant though; that will always be Middlemarch), it's obvious at all points throughout the novel that Eliot is a master of the English language and deserves as much credit as we can give her.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of DD is its insistence on giving agency to British Jews. For as genuinely forward thinking I believe my favorite 19th century British authors to be, even Emily Bronte has her ethnic taboos to work through as a post-modern, 21st century reader. Eliot, as a white, provincial author, actually wants to give credence to the Jewish race and religion. What's more, she does so without turning her 800 pages into a treatise in favor of better conditions for Jewish people in England. She weaves her commentary into a real plot, with real characters; a move ultimately more affective than any vitriolic political piece would actually be. That is not, however, to put it alongside Huck Finn or Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Both of those emphasize the existence of the Other and try to convince the reader that "they" really aren't so bad after all. But Eliot, more skilled as a writer and at crafting a plot, does what she can with 19th century British sensibilities to blur the lines creating the other. The main character enters as both. He is always already the other and the privileged set. I haven't read Silas Marner or Middlemarch (though I know I must, very soon), but Eliot is ahead of her time by, literally, a couple of centuries.
As an English major with a particular penchant for Dickens, the Brontes, and Austen, I won't lie to myself or to any of you and claim that I can speak to the novels broad appeal to the average 2011 reader. I loved it, but it was probably more "boring" than Wuthering Heights, so be warned.
But if you do decide to pick up this veritable masterpiece, I urge you to finish it (as I always do). It is worth every second. Every word finds its place alongside others in ways you've never before experienced. Wrap your mind around Daniel Deronda and you'll be a better reader. Do so with an open heart, and you just might be a better person too.
-Zack
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Thoughts on the debt
I've tried to keep my generally uninformed opinion on the deficit crisis this country has been through, but I think I've got enough of a grasp and enough of an idea to chime in finally, even if cursorily.
As we all probably know, the deficit is at an all time high and without raising the "debt ceiling" we, as a nation, would default on our loans and the world would implode, or something like that.
As a died-in-the-wool liberal teetering on communist tendencies, I never wanted to see any social programs cut. I don't want anything that helps the disadvantaged to meet any sort of chopping block, and I proactively support increased spending to fight poverty and hunger here and abroad. This crisis, of course, isn't the best backdrop to trumpet increased spending on anything, and I'll even leave my disgust at spending even 1/3rd of what we do on defense out of this for the time being.
I don't though, as someone who has some money, has had money, and will deal with money for the rest of my life, understand how a deficit defeated by cut spending alone, without increased income, is a form of "balance." You've probably dealt with money before too. There are, of course, two ways to increase the number in your bank account: spend less and/or bring in more. The irrational, power-hungry, racist, classist, heartless tea party set is convinced we take in more than enough in taxes to fund multiple unjust, expensive, imperial wars and to pay down the deficit. The answer, of course, is selling our future as a nation short by defunding education for those who can't afford private schools and killing off the lower classes by literally making it impossible for lower-income people to pay for healthcare and food. Taxes, apparently, are a greater enemy than preventable disease and unjust suffering by millions around the globe.
It appears to me that they've basically won by dragging their feet. I'm going to vote for Obama and every democrat on the ballot next year, but I'm disappointed in all of them for giving in to the tyrants. The tea party runs on a platform of standing up for the commoner and fighting the special interest, and yet, the only constiuents that gain anything from their ideology are those with the most money. That's reprehensible and I'm ashamed to live in a country that watches out for the richest people first and hopes for trickle down. Trickle down doesn't work and it never will, because, if nothing else, we can always count on greed and human nature to take advantage of the powerless.
-Zack
"Let me tell you what little I know and if it's worth something, spread it indeed"
-K'naan
As we all probably know, the deficit is at an all time high and without raising the "debt ceiling" we, as a nation, would default on our loans and the world would implode, or something like that.
As a died-in-the-wool liberal teetering on communist tendencies, I never wanted to see any social programs cut. I don't want anything that helps the disadvantaged to meet any sort of chopping block, and I proactively support increased spending to fight poverty and hunger here and abroad. This crisis, of course, isn't the best backdrop to trumpet increased spending on anything, and I'll even leave my disgust at spending even 1/3rd of what we do on defense out of this for the time being.
I don't though, as someone who has some money, has had money, and will deal with money for the rest of my life, understand how a deficit defeated by cut spending alone, without increased income, is a form of "balance." You've probably dealt with money before too. There are, of course, two ways to increase the number in your bank account: spend less and/or bring in more. The irrational, power-hungry, racist, classist, heartless tea party set is convinced we take in more than enough in taxes to fund multiple unjust, expensive, imperial wars and to pay down the deficit. The answer, of course, is selling our future as a nation short by defunding education for those who can't afford private schools and killing off the lower classes by literally making it impossible for lower-income people to pay for healthcare and food. Taxes, apparently, are a greater enemy than preventable disease and unjust suffering by millions around the globe.
It appears to me that they've basically won by dragging their feet. I'm going to vote for Obama and every democrat on the ballot next year, but I'm disappointed in all of them for giving in to the tyrants. The tea party runs on a platform of standing up for the commoner and fighting the special interest, and yet, the only constiuents that gain anything from their ideology are those with the most money. That's reprehensible and I'm ashamed to live in a country that watches out for the richest people first and hopes for trickle down. Trickle down doesn't work and it never will, because, if nothing else, we can always count on greed and human nature to take advantage of the powerless.
-Zack
"Let me tell you what little I know and if it's worth something, spread it indeed"
-K'naan
Monday, August 1, 2011
That Same Power...
Paul said that the same power which raised Jesus from the dead is actively at work in the world today. I don't disbelieve that intellectually, but it's a truth I'm engaged in a constant struggle to actually embrace.
I want to be confident in that fact; I want to take heart in the promise that there's something larger than the power of life and death backing me up. But a lot of the time, I run from the fact. I run from the thought that it's at all something apart from me supplying the power; that it's not me. Because so often, so badly, I want it to be me. I can honestly say that I wish I was doing something, or that it was me unleashing all of the power. But it's not, and I'm just being real by saying that I wish it wasn't the case.
There's a little bit of Voldemort in all of us, or at least I know there is in me. Someday I'll write, at length, about Voldemort. But not right now.
I wish I could try harder and feel more prepared for CSU. I wish I could try harder and love CSU and the people in my life more than I do right now. I wish I could just try harder and be exactly what I need to be, when I need to be it.
But I can't. I'm only human, and I'm not foolish enough to have much confidence in much of anything I do or can do or will do. But God is. God Will. God is what we need him to be, when we need him to be it. He's even bigger than that though. He's everything, all at once, to the point that we can't humanly comprehend at all what that means. He's big enough, that with or without us, his purposes in the world are going to go forth and his present and coming Kingdom will continue to be and do just that til completion. It makes me, as a human, feel positively useless sometimes, if I let it. But God let's us be a part of it. His purpose is, for a reason that, too, is beyond me, to use humans. He's created us all for a purpose in that effort. Thankfully, that will be what happens no matter how much we screw up too. I apologize for tipping right and left on the free-will issue. The best way I can understand it is an incomprehensible coin with two sides that are both fully true.
God doesn't need me at CSU.
And yet, by His will, I pray he uses me in earth-shaking ways every single day. Someday I'll know what it means, that both have always already been true since this whole thing started.
For now, I'll just march on and do my best to let him be in control and use his power exactly how he wishes and in absolutely no other way.
-Zack
"Just listenin to 'Pac, ain't gon' make it stop"
-Lupe Fiasco
I want to be confident in that fact; I want to take heart in the promise that there's something larger than the power of life and death backing me up. But a lot of the time, I run from the fact. I run from the thought that it's at all something apart from me supplying the power; that it's not me. Because so often, so badly, I want it to be me. I can honestly say that I wish I was doing something, or that it was me unleashing all of the power. But it's not, and I'm just being real by saying that I wish it wasn't the case.
There's a little bit of Voldemort in all of us, or at least I know there is in me. Someday I'll write, at length, about Voldemort. But not right now.
I wish I could try harder and feel more prepared for CSU. I wish I could try harder and love CSU and the people in my life more than I do right now. I wish I could just try harder and be exactly what I need to be, when I need to be it.
But I can't. I'm only human, and I'm not foolish enough to have much confidence in much of anything I do or can do or will do. But God is. God Will. God is what we need him to be, when we need him to be it. He's even bigger than that though. He's everything, all at once, to the point that we can't humanly comprehend at all what that means. He's big enough, that with or without us, his purposes in the world are going to go forth and his present and coming Kingdom will continue to be and do just that til completion. It makes me, as a human, feel positively useless sometimes, if I let it. But God let's us be a part of it. His purpose is, for a reason that, too, is beyond me, to use humans. He's created us all for a purpose in that effort. Thankfully, that will be what happens no matter how much we screw up too. I apologize for tipping right and left on the free-will issue. The best way I can understand it is an incomprehensible coin with two sides that are both fully true.
God doesn't need me at CSU.
And yet, by His will, I pray he uses me in earth-shaking ways every single day. Someday I'll know what it means, that both have always already been true since this whole thing started.
For now, I'll just march on and do my best to let him be in control and use his power exactly how he wishes and in absolutely no other way.
-Zack
"Just listenin to 'Pac, ain't gon' make it stop"
-Lupe Fiasco
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