Pants?

We are all familiar with the sign, "No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service."

OK, but what about pants?

Ridiculous Truth

Once, on a plane, I sat next to a president of a successful software company that provided computer applications for the insurance business. We had a fascinating conversation about his business, and also about the nature of engineering, and problems solving. We also spoke about India, as my father-in-law was from Bangalore, and this gentlemen is also from India. He was a very thoughtful, well educated and obviously intelligent man.

We reached one of those pauses in the conversation where we both retreated into our own space for a few minutes. Then he asked me if I believed in Astrology.

I answered that I really had not thought much about astrology. He then began explaining to me the scientific nature of the discipline and why it is so helpful and valuable. I asked about differences between Indian astrology and the astrology commonly practiced in the states. He did not seem to think there was much difference. This conversation continued on for some time and then ended as the plane landed.

I remember thinking about how odd it is that a man of his education, an engineer no less, would put such faith in such a system. He is obviously trained in western scientific method, and in the kind of analysis and problem solving necessary for an engineer, and yet he believes in astrology. Go figure.

Then it struck me that I am not so much different. I had a conversation recently with another friend, regarding a central doctrine of the Christian faith, that little thing called the Trinity. My friend does not believe that God is three and one. When she started explaining why it doesn’t make much sense to have One God also be three persons, I had to agree with her. It does not. And frankly, this very improbability actually makes the concept more appealing and even more sensible to me.

If one were to invent a god, and make him really really big and powerful, it would be relatively easy to come up with a Simple God (my own term. I’m not sure I like it, but bear with me). But why would anyone ever come up with this concept of Three and One? In some sense, one might take this as evidence (certainly nothing to clinch the case, but evidence nonetheless) of the truth of the matter. So many things in this world are stranger than we might think, and Occam’s Razor notwithstanding, the world is much more complex than we imagine. Now if God actually revealed himself, might there be certain things about Him that are exactly the opposite of what we might expect? No one would invent a Triune God, but a Triune God might indeed reveal Himself as such. The very unexpectedness of it rings true.

Not that astrology is on the same level as the Trinity. Rather, I find that in some ways, I am on the same level as the astrologicalizing engineer.

Not a sound biblical argument, I grant you. Just a random thought I’m inflicting on you, dear reader.

Intersection

Most of us are in the habit of thinking of the world we live in as comprised of matter and spirit. We may not, however, give much thought to how these two aspects of God’s created order interact. We tend to think of matter as operating on one plane, and spirit as operating on another. In fact, to pick my own people, the evangelical protestant tradition of Christianity, we tend to want to fall into the Gnostic heresy with ease. We view matter as evil, and spirit as good. I would like to deal with that whole issue in other posts. What I want to look at here is how matter and spirit interact and even intersect.

Intersect is really the right word. This, I think, is perhaps what makes humanity unique in the created order and what gives us preeminence. It is in us, humanity, that physical matter and spiritual essence are uniquely connected. We are both body and spirit. When the two are separated, we are no longer alive nor fully human. Consider this quote from Wendell Barry’s essay Christianity and the Survival of Creation. He comments on Genesis 2:7 thusly:

My mind like most peoples, has been deeply influence by dualism, and I can see how dualistic minds deal with this verse. They conclude that the formula for man making is man = body + soul. But that conclusion cannot be derived, except by violence, from Gen 2:7, which is not dualistic. The formula given in Gen 2:7 is not man = body + soul; the formula there is soul = dust + breath…The dust, formed as a man and made to live, did not embody a soul. It became a soul.

The implications of this understanding are enormous and profound. As Barry goes on to explain, the very dust that we are made of is an expression of God’s spirit. As created by the Living God, our bodies are not dirty, sinful or unholy in any way. If this is true, then so many things that seemed forbidden become gifts of God.

How else could the incarnation be possible?

How else could the Church actually be the Body of Christ? Do we think this is just a metaphor? If it were, why would Jesus have asked Saul why he was persecuting Him (rather than saying “why are you persecuting my people.)?

If this is so, then suddenly grace can be given to us through mundane material objects like the water of baptism and the bread and wine of the Eucharist. Now the sacraments become a work of Christ, a gift to us. How then can the regular and common acceptance of these gifts become "commonplace" or "mean less?"

Why else would God then make it clear that He plans to remake Heaven and Earth? He will simply fix whatever has gone wrong with the physical world he made. But he will not annihilate it completely. We are made to inhabit a world of matter with both our bodies and our spirits joined together forever. We will not be disembodied sprit beings hovering in the heavens.

I grew up in a milieu that liked to imagine that if we could only peel off this mortal coil and live in the spirit, we would be holy. Not so, I think. We are called to holiness now and in this life and in this body. And Christ has given us the means to do so.

Somewhat to my surprise, I am becoming a sacramentalist.

Breaking the Code

My youngest daughter just waltzed herself downstairs and read me a story.
I am just astounded at the alchemy that occurs when one looks at black scratches on a sheet of baked wood pulp and derives from them some sort of meaning. I know that the experience of learning to read has been a profoundly lifechanging event that continues for me even today. I am constantly shaped and reshaped by what I read. When I think of the worlds that will open up for my daughter from this, I feel a deep and abiding satisfaction, amazement and pleasure.
Here's what especially funny. Her choice of reading for fun? Calvin & Hobbes. When she is done with her "school" books, she goes straight for C&H. Not an easy primer for someone who is just learning the ropes. She needs a little coaching through a lot of the bigger words. And much of the intended humor goes over her head. Nevertheless, she enjoys it so much that I take immense plesure in just watching her laugh for the pure joy of reading.
Reading is good.

Family Simuliidae

The leaves are coming out now, not just buds, but actual fresh green leaves. The frogs are slowing down, their nightly chorus diminishing in density as they complete their seasonal rituals. Yesterday morning as I was preparing coffee I heard a loon crying out from the lake across the road. The ants and the bees and wasps are out and they are hungry after a long winter.
And then, there are the black flies. They are the surest and most powerful sign of spring. For those of you who are not privileged to live in the Great North Woods of the East, Black Flies are a species of the Family Simuliidae. They are renowned for the way they love to swarm around your head, crawl into the hair around your hairline, or behind your ears, and bite. There are also some species that don't bite, but still love to fly around your face. They start in soon after the snow melts and the running water in the streams warms up just a bit, and the will continue in this part of New England until mid June, depending on the weather. Further north and in higher elevations they may last until mid July. After that, we don't really notice them again until next year.
While they are here, they are much worse than mosquitoes for their sheer aggravation factor. Because their appearance and disappearance are so pronounced, we call this time of year Black Fly Season.
For all their aggravation, I find that I actually feel a certain fondness for for the Black Fly. Mostly I think this is because the Black Flies keeps the tourists from becoming too numerous too early in the season. Tourists are actually just another form of swarming insect that infests the region on a seasonal basis. The primary difference between the two is that tourist bring money, and so we generally tolerate them better.

The Team Sport Conspiracy

I’m getting fairly suspicious of this contemporary trend toward organized sports for children. In fact, I have always been fairly suspicious of it, even as a child. One could accuse me of sour grapes, since after all, I did not make the cut for most organized sports teams, and the few that I did allowed me to see little, if any, playing time. OK then, just to clear the air let me say right now that those coaches were clearly blind to the talent that lay before them, as an amateur rockhound might miss the rough diamond sitting at his feet amongst the pebbles. I also take consolation in the fact that I’m pretty confident that today I could kick the collective asses of 98% of those kids who were just “great athletes” in school.
Without going too deeply into our specific family situation here are my basic objections in outline:

• The benefits of highly organized and supervised sports for young children are limited. Free play is much more valuable. Nothing wrong with playing ball, but let the kids get together and have a game. If there aren’t enough to field a full team, let them figure out how to adapt.
• Over-emphasis on competition as opposed to the joy of play and movement will stunt their growth as surely as smoking cigarettes.
• By my observation, adult organized sports for kids younger than 10 do not teach social skills. They learn social skills through interaction. I see limited interaction in these settings. Free play seems much more effective.
• Team sports have a limited lifespan for all but the gifted and disciplined few. Better to teach a sport that one can take into adulthood: tennis, golf, skiing, running, paddling, hiking, climbing, walking, yoga, pilates, weight training, calisthenics, etc.
• Team sports do not teach physical fitness. They train children to think that the only reason to get up and run around is to win the game. When the game is removed, then they sit and watch others play games.
• Team schedules take too much time away from home and family. In short order, I can see that if my daughter wants to pursue softball that will mean 4-5 nights a week we are out of the house of several hours.

So, just who is pushing this crap? It's just expected. And I'm in a situation where the pressure is minimal compared to some high-powered suburban sub-cultures. I reject their pathetic notions of healthy well-rounded physical education. I reject the notion the team sports are necessary to success in life. I reject the assumption that team sports must become progressively more competitive and time consuming as children become older.

I gotta go. My kids wanna play tag. Wanna play?

Another Parable

There was a farmer and his wife who had been married for several years. Like all married couples, they had started out with the fire of love burning hot in their hearts. They also carried the same vision of a large, orderly and prosperous farm. For this reason, it did not matter to them that their land was marginal at best, with thin soil, an overabundance of rocks, and too little water. They would stay up late talking many nights about their vision and their passion for their labor and for each other.
As time went on they both worked extremely hard to build their home and their farm. They worked so hard that they saw each other seldom and communicated mostly through notes left on the kitchen table. It became their habit to write the notes in bullet points to keep things brief and to the point. With this system they were able to very efficiently communicate most of their day-to-day needs to one another. Every month they would sit down at the table to review the books and cover any important issues that required decisions. The ate their meals quickly with little time to savor the food. At night, they would go to bed early, tired to the bone, beyond speaking, and fall into restless, dreamless sleep, far apart on a king size bed.
Their farm prospered and they became wealthy.
During one of their monthly meetings, they came to the end of their agenda. It has been a very good year. In fact, all that they had set out to do so many years ago had been accomplished. They sat across from each other in silence drinking in the fact of it. They realized that while they had been speaking the snow had been falling. The animals had plenty of food and bedding. There were no crops to tend or plant, for it was the dead of winter. The house was quiet. The farmer got a bottle of wine from the cupboard, opened it and poured each of them a glass. She lit a fire in the fireplace. They sat together at the fire. They did not talk for a long, long while, for they felt they had said enough about the farm that night. Instead they simply sat close together. They fell asleep right there in each other’s arms.
They continued their habit of monthly meetings, but now always ended it with wine and fire, sitting together and holding each other. Eventually they found that they did not need to write notes, because they began to find time to meet each day, often several times a day to talk. They often talked about other things besides business – a story about something that happened in town, or a description of a delicate mist rimmed sunrise on a fall morning on the field back by the river.
Their farm continued to prosper, but now they noticed that when they ate together their food was more flavorful and fulfilling, and their sleep was long and deep and full of dreams. Now they remembered the early days, when it was not just about their work, but also about their love. Now they realized that they had figured out how to build on that too.
Their farm prospered, and they continued to enjoy the blessings of their wealth, and they were filled with joy in the midst of it.

Parable

A little child wanted to give a gift to her father. She sat down with her crayons and a piece of paper and began to draw. She drew a beautiful picture with all of the things she loved most on it – her family, her house, her dog. She included the sun and trees too. When the picture was finished it filled the whole page with many colors and shapes. She was very excited about it as she walked over to him and stood in front of him, and held up her picture.
Now before she made this picture, she had been having a snack, and her face was very messy with chocolate and fruit stains. Her hands had left finger prints and smudges on the paper, and although she wasn’t quite sure how it happened, the paper was no longer nice and flat, but had many creases and crinkles in it. When her father saw her standing there, he smiled and knelt down to look at her. He took out a bandanna from his pocket and gently and carefully wiped all the stains from her face – even the syrup that had gotten into her hair. Then he looked at the picture she was offering him and she smiled again. He was a man who had seen many things, and knew a great deal about life. He himself was a great and renowned artist with his pictures displayed in museums and the homes of immensely wealthy patrons. He took the picture and could see beyond the smudges, creases, crude figures and scribbles, right into her heart. He loved it and told her so. He loved her, and told her so. She walked away feeling that very special joy of one who knows that she is loved completely. As she grew, and continued to speak through the work of her hands, she became in her own right a great artist – a beautiful woman full of grace and power. One day, her father invited her to work with him in his own studio. Even today she continues to create work of surpassing beauty, and she always does her best work for her father.