Your World, A Poem for Nathaniel

Nathaniel likes to wake up while it is still dark.  While I held him yesterday morning his eyes were wide open, but they were moist, swollen and red.  He had been crying.  He had his first fever yesterday along with a few other symptoms of illness.  Like most of us, he was uncomfortable and frustrated.  But there was a curious look on his face as well.  A surprised and bewildered look.  Almost as if he was looking up and asking, what is this pain?  Why do I feel this?

And so I thought to write something for him…

___________________________

Your World

Looking into your worn eyes,

It's as if today is the first day,

The first day you feel that something is not right.  

As you look back at me,

You seem to sense

The world is not as it should be.

This is our world little one.

This is your world.

So many smiles and laughs.

So many new tastes and new adventures.

The joys you feel with every new discovery are so incredibly pure.

But not everything you find will be joyful.

Not everything you taste will be delightful.

Something has happened.

This is our world Nathaniel.

This is your world.

Trees and ferns, 

Flowers and fruits,

A forest of delight surrounds you.

But something else has grown up alongside.

A parasite never intended.

A disturbing overgrowth overshadows everything.

This is our world my son.

This is your world.

We often ignore the shadows,

Or minimize them.

But it waits for us all the same.

We isolate ourselves,

We insulate ourselves,

But the corruption you feel today needs another remedy.

This is our world Nathaniel.

This is your world.

Thrills and astonishing beauty,

Heroism and renewing hope.

Every day they live together with

Injustice and ceaseless warfare,

Betrayal and bitter words.

It is two worlds, but it is one world.

This is our world little one.

This is your world.

The darkness hangs above us, deeper still

The darkness lives inside us.

Precious little one, don’t let your eyes adjust.

When the thorns surround you, don’t prune them.

See it around you yes,

But see it inside of you first.

And tho’ the remnants of beauty have not vanished, look closer,

Something more magnificent has begun.

Precious little one, the corruption itself is being remade!

When thorns surround you, see more than silver linings.

See hope that stirs within you, yes,

But see the hope that is stirring outside of you first.

This, my son, this is our world.

This is your world.

Greater than Angels

First-century Judaism had a thorough-going hierarchy of spirits, angels, and demons.  Some Jews would wear amulets around their necks in order to invoke the protection of angels from evil spirits.  One amulet for example was published as saying: “Michael, Gabriel, Ouriel, Raphael, protect the one who wears this... Flee, O hated one, Solomon pursues you.”

Even the Qumran community, which was outside mainstream Judaism at the time, also had quite a vast understanding of the rank and function of angelic hosts.  In a text called the War Scroll, the “sons of light” fight valiantly at the end of the age against the “sons of darkness” with angelic forces leading both armies.  Another text called 11QMelchizedek interprets the Melchizedek figure in the book of Genesis as an angel.  They weave him into an intricate eschatological plot where this angel comes to have certain functions that would later be interpreted as distinctly messianic.  He is to return at the end of the age to bring liberty to the captives and to defeat, once and for all, the forces of darkness.  He is the “Prince of light” and they often seem to equate him with Michael the Archangel.

For a Jewish context that had a very high regard for angels, this is fascinating background for the opening chapters of the book of Hebrews.  The author of Hebrews wants his Jewish readers to know who they are leaving behind if they trade Jesus for Judaism.  And he starts by arguing Jesus is greater than “angels.”  And since angels meant something more to Jews in this period than the harp-playing, cloud-hopping, halo-donning anecdotes we see today, than this argument has an edge we are prone to miss.  It is about rulership.  The delegated authority of God is not given to an angel.  It is given to “a son” (1:5).  Slap one.  The one sitting at the authoritative right hand of God is not an angel; it is the living messiah (1:13).  Back slap again.  The one who will fight God's enemies (the forces of darkness), the one who will rule God's kingdom with a scepter is not an angel; it is the living Jesus (1:8,13).  Double slap!

Although there are aspects to Jesus' superiority in Hebrews 1 that go all the way back to Jesus' fundamentally superior nature and being (1:2-3, 1:8,10), the primary argument is that Jesus has become superior to angels because the name that he has inherited is superior to them (1:4).  Jesus has inherited a rulership over something that angels are merely servants within.  He is forcing his readers to understand that leaving Jesus means you are leaving the commander of God's new kingdom –the very kingdom which is at the center of their enduring hope.  If you long for God's ultimate victory over evil, you probably shouldn't leave the one who holds God's scepter.

Newsweek's Tirade against the Bible

Daniel Wallace gives a patient, thorough, and tactful review of a not so tactful rant by Newsweek's Kurt Eichenwald.  Well worth the long read...

“The Talk”

In a New York Times opinion article Professor David P. Barash, an evolutionary biologist, sketches “the talk” he has to give to his college students at the beginning of every semester.  The foundational creed of modern biological science, evolution by natural selection, cannot be harmonized with contemporary religion –at least those religions that believe in a creator God, he says.  “It (Biological Science) has demolished two previously potent pillars of religious faith and undermined belief in an omnipotent and omni-benevolent God.”  For such a weighty claim being rehearsed every year to a very uncomfortable classroom, I was expecting some new and exciting robust scientific insights that I have not come across.  But instead of robust science from a well-respected biologist, the case being made for these weighty claims is strangely the reflections of amateur philosophy.

Oddly, I agree with Professor Barash that the tenants of religion and science cannot be harmonized by safely compartmentalizing them into their own spheres of influence –or magisteria as Gould calls them. (Gould argues that religion is about values and science is about facts, and so as long as they don't attempt to go pass their allotted boundaries, they can live in harmony.)  It is obvious to both of us that religion wants to talk about facts, and that values are inescapable, even for the irreligious biologist.  But what seems to escape Professor Barash is that this –along with most of his other reasons– are not actually scientific arguments.  They are philosophical ones.

The most obvious is his last reason.  Biological science shows there is loads of painful suffering in the world (do you need to take a biology course to know that?), and therefore the most important theological explanations for this are grossly inadequate.  Again, that would take a theological argument not a scientific one.  And that is actually what he stumbles to attempt:  “Theological answers range from claiming that suffering provides the option of free will to announcing (as in the Book of Job) that God is so great and we so insignificant that we have no right to ask.”  Again, besides the fact he grossly distorts or just plainly misunderstands the theological arguments here, Barash is still under the assumption that his rebuttal to this is actually a scientific argument, not his own philosophical spin-off.  He certainly has a right to his own philosophical spin-offs, but to do them under the banner of “science” is grossly misleading.  His entire reasoning is based on assumptions about moral evils, what a good God would allow, his own truncated definition of “benevolence,” etc…  However substantive these assumptions might be, the one thing that should be quite apparent is that these arguments are philosophical, not scientific.

The same is more subtly true for his other “scientific” reason as to how the uniqueness of man as a pillar of religion has been “demolished.”  I’m not sure what Prof. Barash thinks theologians mean by “image of God” in mankind… but it would seem obvious that it probably has nothing to do with science searching for some supernatural divine trait within human genetics.  While apparently this is not as obvious to Barash, the more important point here is that the entire discussion itself of what it truly means “to be like God” –again– is a theological discussion that Barash is proving to have only a Sunday school level of awareness.

As he mentions in the beginning, the reason for his “talk” is because some of his religious students have communicated a certain level of discomfort as they work through some of the findings of modern biology.  I'm all for interdisciplinary interaction, even if its up front.  But one wonders by the treatment he rehearses in his article if the level of philosophical and theological interaction that he brings to the table goes beyond the troubled reflections of the deep, well-resourced, religiously-inclined 19-year old's who walk into his classroom.

Exodus: Gods and Kings, A Short Movie Review

How do you combine a beautiful ancient narrative in a way that markets itself well to American entertainment and American sensibilities?

Have a “believable” (read: naturalistic) setting, a hefty dose of Die Hard-like action sequences, and sprinkle throughout good-ol' Humanistic values.  This is hard to manage in an ancient story that is really about divine commissioning, cataclysmic divine judgments, and battle sequences where God really does all the fighting.  But somehow Exodus: Gods and Kings finds a way to sanitize the story well enough for American consumption.

As expected this movie has little to say about the ancient biblical story and more to say about the ideals and values of contemporary culture.  Moses is the hero; but he is a 21st century hero not an ancient one.  The ideals and values he fights for are more like those of a contemporary comic book hero, than anything resembling a noble figure within the Ancient Near East.  First, Moses is spiritually confused almost the whole movie.  Interestingly, this is actually seen as a strength in our culture.  When you have tons of gods and all this supernatural fluff, any respectable American hero will be skeptical.  And more importantly a person who is confident, unconfused, and unwavering in his version of spirituality and beliefs is just dogmatically narrow-minded... or so says the value-makers of our culture.  So if Moses is going to be any sort of noble hero for American audiences, he must be very spiritually confused. 

Second, Moses is definitely not confused about his moral stances.  The pure humanism that flows out of him surprised me.  Although it probably shouldn't have.  The final purpose of all moral efforts and moral values begins and ends with man.  And so we get a Moses who loves democracy, fights against forced labor, loves his wife “more than anything,”  and who ultimately wants (his) people to just be treated equally (like every Egyptian!).  Again, ironic that this is almost exactly inverse of the real Moses.  God was the real motivation behind everything Moses did.  Moses refused the riches of Egypt because... God.  Moses called (his) people to freedom because... God.  Moses even pleaded for mercy for his own people not because of anything intrinsic to their worth, but because God's reputation was at stake. 

I suppose there are other aspects to this film that would also disturb pious viewers.  But for some reason the humanism disturbed me the most.  And to those with an ear to these things, it is the exact same thing you get in Kingdom of Heaven and other Ridley Scott productions.

Language Adventures

I go down to a local dӧner stand to get some take-out.  The cook asks me if I’d like to stay and have some chai.  I say, “Sorry...  next time... my wife and I... come… have tea with you.”  He smiles graciously and says “Okay, sounds good.”  I say goodbye and walk back home.  Then I go back over the conversation in my head and realize I actually didn’t say —“and I.”  So I basically invited him to have tea with my wife...  I laugh about it.  But I’m embarrassed just the same, and in these moments [they happen a lot :) ] a lure toward reclusiveness pulls on me.

Believe it or not, speaking with the vocabulary of a toddler takes humility.  Especially for people (like me) who take a measure of pride in communicating well and in being articulate in how I present myself.  In these moments, I’m finding I have much less humility than I imagined.  It is disheartening and sobering.  Basic language lessons have quickly become pressing spiritual lessons.  And at this point surprisingly, growth in both is now very much connected.

The Streets I Feared To See, A Poem

By George MacDonald (1824-1905):

I said: “Let me walk in the field;”

             God said: “Nay, walk in the town;”

I said: “There are no flowers there;”

             He said, “No flowers, but a crown.”

I said: “But the sky is black,

There is nothing but noise and din;”

But He wept as He sent me back,

“There is more,” He said, “there is sin.”

I said: “But the air is thick,

And fogs are veiling the sun.”

He answered: “Yet souls are sick,

And souls in the dark undone.”

I said: “I shall miss the light,

And friends will miss me, they say,”

He answered me, “Choose tonight,

If I am to miss you, or they.”

I pleaded for time to be given;

He said: “Is it hard to decide?

It will not seem hard in heaven

To have followed the steps of your Guide.”

I cast one look at the fields,

Then set my face to the town;

He said: “My child, do you yield?

Will you leave the flowers for the crown?”

Then into His hand went mine,

And into my heart came He;

And I walk in a light Divine,

The streets I had feared to see.