Battleground Imagination (in which the author very nearly rants)

Recently there's been a fair amount of furor over the topic of entertainment for women. I'm thinking specifically of issues like the wildly popular pornographic literature 50 Shades of Grey, and the release this week of the film Magic Mike, about a male stripper. That these items and others are increasingly aimed at women is what is generating much of the conversation. And while thoughtful and articulate Christians are contributing many good things to the conversation, I'm looking at it along a different axis.

One thing I'm wondering is why we as Christians, the proclaimers and upholders of moral standards, always seem to be on the defensive in these discussions. While the world is proclaiming some new depravity as liberating or empowering or whatever-the-new-catchphrase-is, we seem to keep coming back with “Yes, but...” There are certainly many reasons for this, but I think I've identified an important one.

We're losing the war of imagination.

Christians, particularly thoughtful Catholics and Evangelicals, can be impressively armed with rhetorical skills. We can swiftly identify where our culture is going wrong, and we tend to respond with incisive analysis. Make no mistake: I appreciate this, and even indulge in it. For instance, this is a superb critique of 50 Shades of Grey, and this is a truly fantastic piece using Magic Mike as a point of departure. We answer threats with argument, exhortation, and education, often doing that very well. Yet still we seem to be losing.

Perhaps part of the reason is because we're not only responding to the assault using a different form, we're answering in a different arena. We're responding almost exclusively with appeals to reason, trying to get people to ponder what they're thinking and experiencing, and ask themselves questions about their lives. Not that I think this is a waste of time – I think people need to do a lot more pondering than they do – but I think it is simplistic of us to think that this is all we need to do to respond to the problems of our culture. We need to look at the avenues used by the world, and figure out how to respond effectively.

Maybe it's just the artist in me, but it seems to me that one of the avenues used most effectively by the world, and least effectively by the Kingdom, is that of the imagination. People don't read works like 50 Shades or go to movies like Magic Mike because they sat down and thought about it. They do it because the prospect forms an appealing image in their imagination. It makes them feel a little naughty, or self-indulgent, or adds a salty edge to an otherwise bland life. The images (visual or verbal) aren't formed in the rational mind but in the imagination, where they allure in a manner that bypasses reason.

It's useless to argue that people shouldn't do that. Of course they shouldn't. They should be integrated humans whose imaginations are informed by their reason and are guarded from incursions by good moral habits and well-formed consciences. But our culture is what it is, and the hard fact is that when people are led astray into dangerous and damaging beliefs and behaviors, it is rarely because they were argued out of them. They were allured by music that painted particular pictures in their mind and shows that presented attractive (and unattractive) images. Any arguing seems ex post facto, rationalization of a change that has already happened.

How to deal with this? Of course we shouldn't give up appealing to reason. Thoughtful argument will always be necessary. But another thing seems equally sure: we can't going on doing just that, or we'll keep ending up where we end up so often: on the defensive, responding to something the world is doing. We have to launch offensives of our own, and we need to do it in the same space that our foes are having so much success – the imagination.

This has been done, and with stunning effectiveness. Looming large in recent literary history are the masterpieces by Tolkien and Lewis, The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia (and, to a lesser degree, Lewis' equally masterful Space Trilogy.) These are the obvious examples – works so stunning that they effectively invented an entire genre of literature. These are superb examples of what I'm talking about. They are many wonderful things – powerful Christian myths, superb insights into human nature, literary masterworks – but what they are first and foremost is great stories. They speak powerfully and directly to the imagination, without violating the reason. They do this so well that many non-Christians love the tales for their own sake, despite the overtly Christian themes. That's what I call success in the arena of imagination.Yet we seem to have forgotten their example. Too often when Christians turn their hand to imaginative work, we can't seem to leave behind our rhetorical framework. Our attempts at art often turn out to be little more than an appeal or exhortation with a story wrapped around it (I'm thinking Fireproof, but there are other examples.) These end up being modern-day morality tales of the type that so disgusted Tolkien and Lewis in their youth.

And yet, I don't think the problem lies entirely with Christians trying appeal to the imagination. (Here's where I'm going to have to be careful not to lapse into a rant.) I think there are artists out there who are trying to come up with appeals to the imagination, yet keep coming up against the mindset of fellow Christians, as well as what seem to be deeply ingrained institutional biases.

I'm an author myself, one that's even been critically acclaimed for the quality – not the message – of my work. Yet my sole work was published over 20 years ago, and despite several other works since then, I've had no further success. I keep writing – in fact, I have a set of short stories in to a publisher right now for consideration – but I'm not optimistic about my prospects for publication. The bind is simple: my works are not morality tales, but the Christian themes are clear enough for secular publishers to be skittish of them. The world knows how important a channel the imagination is, and they're not about to casually yield such an important advantage. Yet the Christian publishers I contact aren't interested in fiction – they're focusing on theological or apologetic or devotional works.

See the bind? From my perspective – literature – it seems the publishers are mostly interested in fortifying the very walls we've already strengthened, yet are barely attending to the breaches through which the enemy is carrying our children. I remember hearing some Christians hand-wringing and breast-beating over the success of Rowling's Harry Potter series (which I do not consider to be a dangerous work, but not all share my view.) So many wondered why Christians couldn't come up with anything like that. Well, at about that time I'd just finished a fantasy novel geared toward young people. Many who read it considered it better than anything they'd seen in print. But no publisher was interested in it. Maybe I wasn't persistent enough, or maybe it wasn't as good as all that. But it was grating to hear people complaining that nobody in the Kingdom was doing anything when I was doing my best – and getting rejected by Christian publishers.

But whether I ever have another work published isn't the primary point. The point is that we need to assess the axis of threat and respond in an appropriate manner. The soundest of arguments presented with winning eloquence will not succeed when the opposition is appealing through other channels. We have to find a way to use those same channels in ways that are appealing enough to capture people's imaginations. It should be easier for us – after all, we're on the side of the Author of truth, beauty, and wonder; the very source of creativity. It should be home turf for us. But to do it, we're going to have to expand our view of what it means to speak the Truth to the culture around us. Until we do, we'll keep losing to stories like 50 Shades of Grey and Magic Mike.

Our Hellenistic Heroes

Having a weakness for comic book movies, I recently saw, and rather enjoyed, The Avengers. It was nothing more than it was billed to be: a smash-em-up summertime popcorn movie with decent characterization and a non-taxing plot. However, it did get me thinking about a topic I've been pondering rather often of late: how Hellenistic our culture has become.

Hellenism has been a particular study of mine, especially since it was in the Hellenistic seedbed of the Mediterranean world that the Gospel first took root. Hellenism followed the conquests of Alexander the Great, and was probably the first large-scale example of cultural imperialism in history. Unlike empires like the Babylonians and Persians, who had been content with booty and tribute, the Greeks made an effort to convert their subjects to the Greek ways of life and thinking (not that there wasn't booty and tribute involved.) This stands to reason, since the Greeks thought they had the superior culture, and they would be doing nothing but a favor to the barbaroi whom they'd conquered to pass it along to them. Throughout the conquered territories they established cities on the model of the Greek polis, promoted Greek culture and political thought, and offered instruction to the locals on Greek manners. For those natives willing to buy the whole Greek program, including worshiping the gods of the polis and embracing Greek values, the door to citizenship was open, an entrée into the ranks of the powerful.

At least, this was the Big Carrot. If any conquered people resisted, and chose to cling to their own ways and gods in the face of Greek blandishments, eventually The Stick of oppression came out. You can read about that in First and Second Maccabees. Despite the image of tolerance and openness, ultimately the Hellenistic gods would have no other gods before them.

But who were these gods? Hellenistic culture was rich with legends of gods and heroes – in fact, most of what we know as Greek mythology rises out of that period. From the Hellenic thinkers there was a tradition of One God, but he was distant and unreachable, an abstract god of philosophy who was unconcerned with man. But when you looked past the legends and superstitions, which were used primarily for amusement and light instruction, you find that the true god of the Hellenistic world was man himself: his might, his dominance, his advancements in culture and learning and political sophistication. Heroes like Hercules and Perseus were common, portrayed in sculpture with idealized physiques and in legend with superhuman powers (or devices that conveyed them.) They battled gods, monsters, and other heroes to achieve notoriety. Though some gained immortality by ascending to Olympus, most died (usually heroically or tragically), achieving immortality by their renown, living on in fame and legend.

This is what I thought of as the carefully crafted and presented images of The Avengers flashed before me. These characters were Hellenistic heroes, and the fact that they were so popular says things about our culture. But what, exactly, does it say? That's hard to pin down in a blog post, but let me suggest a few things that it might indicate.

One thing it reflects is a moral detachment. As good Hellenists, we like our heroes – and our villains – “super”. This means the struggle between good and evil has nothing to do with us directly, and will demand nothing of us. We certainly aren't evil, at least in the sense that we're not seeking to introduce an alien army from another dimension to conquer the earth, or use an interstellar mega-ray to destroy a planet, or whatever. But we can't be expected to be “good”, not having had the serum injections or been bathed in the proper gamma rays or having the billions necessary to produce the omnicapable personal armor or whatever. Rather than being participants in the struggle, we become spectators, cheering and booing as appropriate.

Another level of detachment comes from the idealization of the characters. Perfection of face and form has become such an obsession with us (as it was with the Hellenists) that even those who are favored with physiques in the “perfect 3%” cannot escape digital retouching and enhancing. No human flaws are allowed, nothing to indicate that the subject was anything short of perfect. After all, imperfection stands right next to mortality, and nobody wants to be reminded that they're mortal.

But the thing that strikes me as most Hellenistic about our culture is the anthropocentrism. It's all about Man – his world, his perceptions, his reality. “Good” is the goods of this world (health, wealth, long life, “freedom” - usually defined as absence of commitments), death is the ultimate evil, and there's nobody out there to help us (and nowhere else worth worrying about). Salvation is up to us – our strength, our ingenuity, our cleverness. Threats are big and dramatic, and saving deeds are bigger, even more dramatic, and invariably take the form of the triumph of the might of the hero(es) and the putting down of the villain(s).

To me, this is the most telling point. Our moral imaginations have been allured by a vision of salvation that is the polar opposite of that presented by the Gospel. Christ's example, and vision for His Church, involves strength through weakness, even to death; the foregoing of the goods of this world for the goods of the next; utter reliance on the grace of God as expressed through the Cross for our salvation; acknowledging our weakness and helplessness in our sinful state. We are called by Christ to personal moral struggle, and in His grace we help in the conquest of evil in the world – first and foremost in the venue over which we have most control: our own hearts. The evil we face does not take the form of roaring monsters or sneering supervillains  and we don't conquer it by smashing it with powerful fists. We face it in our own mirrors, and grapple with it in moral struggle every waking hour. Certainly nothing dramatic about that! But if the True Superhero is to be believed, that's the path of true salvation – all other paths are illusion.

As I mentioned, I'm as attracted as any to this flashy, enjoyable view of the human drama. But it's helpful to remember that by the time the Gospel appeared in the Hellenistic world, the narrative was ringing hollow. People were realizing that man's problems were heart-deep, and freedom from them could not be won with a magic sword or enchanted cloak. But how this freedom could be won eluded men.  Many were becoming jaded and cynical, hopeless before the bleakness of existence. Into this world burst the foolish, impossible tale of a God who had conquered death and offered immortality to His followers. Following Him meant walking away from the amusing tales and illusions and grappling with reality as it was, but for those willing to leave the fantasy behind, true hope was there for the taking. Perhaps we need to more carefully examine how the Gospel was originally presented in order to understand how to re-present it to our modern Hellenistic culture.

Irresponsible parenting

These days, when the discussion turns to families and children, a term commonly heard is “responsible parenting”. The precise meaning of this phrase depends upon context, but almost always it is interpreted in terms of prudent use of resources – most commonly economic resources, but sometimes resources of time and personal energy of the parents. Though this goal of responsible parenting is universally lauded as good, it is interesting to notice that the almost inevitable conclusion of any discussion is that the path of responsible parenting means fewer children – sometimes as few as possible.

This is a predictable consequence of viewing humans as merely economic entities, expending effort to address scarcity and juggling supply and demand. This is one reason you see so many studies published that “prove” how expensive it is to raise a child^*. These studies, combined with the testimony of legions of “experts” on how psychologically damaging it is to deprive a child of adequate parental attention or material goods, send a clear message: to have more children than you can “afford” to raise is irresponsible – and who wants to be an irresponsible parent?

There are many levels where one could engage the weaknesses of this attitude, but I'd rather let the record speak for itself. By this economic understanding of childrearing, Ellen and I could be a case study in irresponsible parenting. We got married long before we had a steady source of adequate income – in fact, between my first and second years of college. Our first baby came between my second and third years of college, at which point Ellen withdrew permanently from the workforce to attend to the vital task of raising children (not that she'd been earning much as a part-time substitute teacher.) By the time I graduated from college we had two children. My entry-level salary enabled us to buy an older home in a “working-class” neighborhood which we reconverted from a rental unit. We had two more children in the following four years.

Five years after receiving my degree, I took a step of what some would consider economic insanity: I left my corporate job to become self-employed. There went a predictable income, benefits, and anything like a career path – I was now totally dependent upon the Lord to provide for my family. But this also meant that I was no longer gone for 13+ hours a day, and was able to be around to help raise the children. The irregularity of my income made us very shy of debt, so we stayed in our old house, maintaining and remodeling rather than following the property trade-up path that was supposedly the path to wealth. We drove older cars, vacations were drives to Pennsylvania to stay with relatives rather than trips to Disney World, none of our children knew what it was like to have a cell phone, and all of them understood that there was no college fund awaiting them when they graduated high school. They had to drive old Buicks and Dodges while their high school friends were given new Mustangs for 16^th birthday presents, and had to share rooms in a small old house while friends had suites of their own in opulent waterfront houses. Their friends had the privilege of considering which college their parents would send them to while my children could only consider which schools offered them sufficient scholarships and financial aid. It certainly looked like their friends were the beneficiaries of responsible parenting while my kids were not.

Now our children are all grown and gone into adult life, and it's instructive to see how they live, and view their lives. They are the true authorities, these victims of our irresponsible parenting, for they were the ones who suffered the economic and psychological deprivations of such scarcity. And you know what? When they speak of their upbringing and family life, they don't discuss what they never got. What they talk of is the richness of growing up in a household full of love, and the tremendous gift they are to each other. The complaints about another vacation in Pennsylvania (and there were a few, especially when friends were headed to Florida) have been eclipsed by fond memories of green hills and rappelling lessons from their uncle. As adults, they're each others best friends, supports, and confidants. They routinely thank us for the gift of each other. They're all well-balanced, loving, and generous. All who wished to go to college got through, and those that yet have to are serving in the armed forces, partly for the education benefits.

There was another interesting dynamic, even when my children were suffering through their deprived childhoods. Those friends of theirs – the ones with the cars and the big bedrooms in the waterfront homes – often ended up at our house.  That's right: our old, cramped house in the working class neighborhood was a favorite destination.  We had “the best food”, and plenty of fun, and our doors were always open. Friends were always welcome, cooking projects were encouraged, and “hanging out” was the order of the day. I remember one time one of my daughter's friends was seated at the kitchen table while the cheery bustle of our home whirled around him. He looked up with an expression of wonder and said, “There's so much love here!”

That was our goal. Though by the standards of the world our parenting was hopelessly irresponsible, by the grace of God we were able to fill our home with love. Our children didn't have the economic benefits of many of their peers, but they learned how to love God, each other, and everyone they met.

If that's irresponsible parenting, I'll take it.

^* Most of which are demonstrably false. I know this because I know how many children I've raised across the years and precisely how much I've earned over that period. The simple mathematics proves that children can be raised for far less than the experts contend.

A long, circular path

Just the other morning I was sitting on a hotel balcony watching the early morning sun play across the breakers washing the beach while the wind buffeted (yes, buffeted – it was quite windy) the beach grass. I was reflecting on how life can lead you along paths you don't expect, and that sometimes those paths are circles that bring you back to places you never expected to see again.

In January of 1976 I headed off to Coast Guard Basic Training in Cape May, New Jersey. Though my driver's license said I was of age, in truth I was just a kid, less mature than many of my age. Basic was a brutal plunge into the demanding world of responsible adulthood, as well as the start of a period of severe spiritual trial and maturing for me. January 12, 1976 was truly the beginning of my adult life.

I didn't see that much of Cape May because recruits in Basic usually don't. If they do well, they might earn a little off-base liberty late in training, but largely their world lies within the base gates. Once finished, they make tracks to their first duty station. They may appreciate, but few relish, their weeks of Basic. So it was for me: “Cape May” was synonymous with stress, trial, and hard-won maturity. It was a place for passing through on my way to the rest of my life.

That was also largely true of my brief Coast Guard career. Though I appreciated what I learned and how I grew during my enlistment, from the outset I intended it to be a temporary time, and so it proved. I did my obligatory four years, got out, and availed myself of the educational benefits to get my degree – which had always been my intent. Though I was proud of my service, it wasn't the most defining thing about me. I didn't trim my house with spar paint, or have a Semper Paratus ringtone, or even join a veteran's association. Some nautical terms in my vocabulary (like “deck” and “belay” - not those other ones), a veteran's license plate, and some Coast Guard coasters are about the most obvious things about my history.

My eldest son, however, decided even from his high school days that the Guard looked like a good option, and made it his goal to join. He called the recruiter the day after graduation and within six months was off to Basic himself. About eight weeks later we followed him to observe his graduation. My parents hadn't come to my graduation, but we thought it important to be at his, so I ended up returning to where I'd never expected to – Cape May. There were the expectable memories, but little nostalgia, for the old place. I was proud that my son was following my footsteps, in a small way, but I would have been equally proud if he'd chosen another service, or gone to college, or done whatever he'd chosen to do to take responsibility for his own life.

My second son chose to go to college after high school, and loved it, but after the first year did a financial analysis and decided that he'd prefer to do what I did – get the educational benefits in advance before going for the degree. Though any service would have done for that, the only one he really considered was the Coast Guard, and was willing to wait quite some time to join. But in early March of this year we sent him off to Basic, so that meant at the end of April we made another trip to Cape May – me, Ellen, and my eldest son, who flew down from his duty station in Alaska.

Which was how I ended up on the balcony overlooking the Atlantic shortly after sunrise on the morning of April 27^th. Just over 36 years before, I'd left that same city to embark on a path of adulthood that would lead me places I'd never expected and give me experiences I'd never forget. Now I was back to see the second of my two sons start out on the same road. Later that morning I watched as my elder son handed his brother his graduation certificate. It was a proud and touching moment.  

True hunger, true food

I'm on a slightly more rigorous fasting regimen this Lent, which means I spend more time hungry (and trying not to think about it.) But I'm also noticing some interesting things which have got me thinking. I've been doing one-day fasts for so long that I hardly notice them. But when you go longer, your system starts to respond in interesting ways.

This manifests itself in many ways, but the most noticeable is general restlessness. Your conscious is aware that you're fasting, but your body just knows it isn't getting what it's used to. You might try all kinds of distractions: working on a project, tuning a presentation, taking the dog for a walk, resting a bit, drinking some juice, or whatever. But no matter what you try, it never works for long because it isn't addressing what you're really lacking: food. The work doesn't engage and the exercise doesn't satisfy like usual and you can't relax because none of that is what you really need. You need a meal, which you aren't going to get until your fast ends. But knowing that doesn't convince your body, so it won't let you settle for anything else, at least not for long.

That got me reflecting about spiritual hunger. Our spiritual “metabolism” is less obvious than our physical one, and its needs can be harder to discern, but it nonetheless needs feeding. It certainly needs to feed on the Truth, and worship of God, and proper orientation (i.e. toward something other than the Imperial Self). God Himself even went so far as to become food to feed this spiritual hunger.

But what if we didn't know about this hunger, or had bought into lies about it? What if we were convinced that there was no such thing as spiritual hunger, or that some lesser substitute would do? We'd probably find ourselves in the same state I am well into my fast: trying this and that and the other thing as distractions, attempting to fill the void. The difference would be that when I'm fasting, I know what I'm lacking and what it will ultimately take to resolve things. A man who was spiritually hungry but wasn't aware of what he was hungry for would be in worse shape. He would keep trying distractions and inadequate substitutes, never getting what he really needed because he didn't know what it would take.

In other words, he'd be much like our Western culture: awash in entertainment and utopian politics and business and just about anything else, trying to fill the spiritual void with whatever we can find.

Maybe that's why the New Evangelization is so important. Maybe we as Christians need to be more sensitive to spiritual hunger, and not try to mask it or divert ourselves with lesser things. Maybe we need to go to the True Source to be truly filled, which will enable us to feed those around us with the Bread of Life.

Interestingly, as I was preparing this, I noticed this post by Msgr. Charles Pope along very similar lines. 

The cat is out of the bag

In the midst of all the (quite appropriate) turmoil about the Obama Administrations frontal assault on religious freedom, there's one thing that I've seen very little commentary on – yet.

What I'm referring to is the categorization of contraceptives, sterilization, and abortifacients (i.e. the “morning after” pill) as “preventative services”. This is the guise under which this mandate is being sold to the public, and nobody seems to be questioning it. After all, aren't “preventative services” always a good thing? Isn't it better to prevent a problem than to have to deal with it?

It depends on what's being prevented. Most preventative services are therapies (e.g. vaccines) or tests (e.g. mammograms & colonoscopies) designed to head off a dangerous disease or condition. Clearly, preventions such as these are good and desirable.

But what disease or condition are contraceptives, sterilization, and abortifacients preventing? Most moderns would answer “pregnancy”. But pregnancy is simply a stage in human development, a form that humans take. So what are these “services” really “preventing”?

People.

That's the “plague”. That's the danger that our government fears so much that it is willing to go to such lengths to prevent. In these modern times there are a lot of reasons offered for this, from neo-Malthusian dread to the selfish creed of radical individualism. But it's an old fear – we see it in the first chapter of Exodus, where the Egyptians are alarmed at how fruitful the Hebrews are while they (as is common with sophisticated cultures) were not. This hatred of people, particularly of children, is the creed for which contraception is a sacrament and which does not shrink from murder to spread its “gospel”.

This is the voice of hell itself. This is Alcasan's head talking. Movie scenes portraying the demon-possessed uttering maledictions in alien voices are penny ante. When the leader of the richest, most powerful nation in history publicly mandates “preventative services”, by that meaning preventing children, that is echoing the oldest evil in history. And when we as a culture not only understand what he means, but think it typical and unremarkable, then we have passed into darkness far beyond any Hollywood theatrics.

The cat is truly out of the bag, for anyone who takes the 30 seconds necessary to think clearly about this issue and see past the smokescreen being thrown up to fool the foolish. This is not about freedom or healthcare or anything else. It's not even “about” religious freedom (though that is being trampled along the way.) It's about using the resources and power of the secular state to insure there are fewer children. Mandated access to chemical and surgical castration, and chemical (and ultimately, surgical) abortion. (Don't think for a minute that isn't part of the plan, or that they can't do it because it's illegal. The law isn't stopping them now, and it won't stop them when they decide to make that part of the package.)

The days are dark, and getting darker. Blood is already being shed in this fight, and even more will be shed before it is resolved. Resolution may lie on the far side of complete societal collapse (or the Lord's return – maranatha!) But none of us should be in the least confused regarding what this is really about.  

A Father's Birth Story

Usually it's the mothers who tell the birth stories.  This is one of mine.


Ninteen years ago today was a sunny, snowy, cold January day.  Ellen and I were awaiting the Next Big Event in our life: the birth of our next child.  It was, especially for our culture, a "late pregnancy" - Ellen was just a month shy of her 42nd birthday.  Ellen had been experiencing - something - from the evening before, but it never settled into a pattern that resembled her earlier labors, so we didn't call the midwife.  However, as the day progressed, it became clear that things were indeed happening, so we called our friends who were to assist at the birth, and I prepped the requisite materials, as I'd done for our three prior home births.

We called the midwife twice - once earlier in the day just to give her warning that something was probably imminent, and again in the early afternoon.  Ellen's contractions weren't settling down into a pattern, so she didn't want to sound a false alarm.  But after talking to Ellen the second time, the midwife told us she was on her way.  But by then it was midafternoon, and the midwife was driving from a neighboring county over country roads thick with schoolbuses, so her trip took longer than she expected.

As it turned out, it was too long - at least for Kelson's purposes.  Perhaps the knowledge that the midwife was coming gave Ellen "permission" to get on with labor - we'll never know - but shortly after hearing that she was on her way, Ellen's labor progressed rapidly.  She went through a very quick and mild transition, and before we knew it was struggling against the urge to push.  The midwife hadn't yet arrived, and our friends were rather alarmed, but Ellen and I had both been through three home births and knew that if the baby was coming quickly, the odds were that it was a problem-free delivery (most delivery problems are related to overly long, not overly swift, labors.)  So when, after panting through one serious contraction, Ellen gasped, "baby's coming!", I was much less alarmed than the assistants.  I gave them orders about what they should have ready while I got Ellen into position for delivery.  Suddenly a little head was not just crowning, but emerging.  I'd seen it before, but this one looked different.  I realized that I was seeing that very rare occurrence: a baby born under a caul.  Because this birth had been too swift for interventions of any kind, even rupturing the amniotic sac, Kelson came out wrapped in his.  There was no problem - it was the work of a moment to sweep it aside and welcome him out.  He opened his eyes and started breathing without any trouble.  As with all of our births, there was no howling or crying.  Our friends swept in to wipe him clean and wrap  him in a warm blanket, then Ellen took him in her arms.

About 15 minutes later the midwife arrived.  She gave mama and baby a look-over and affirmed what we knew: everyone was all right.  We had the siblings in to see their new brother, and Ellen at last got her wish: having a "party" after the birth.  Not a real party, of course, but welcoming visitors and celebrating the new arrival.  All our prior births had been in the night or early morning, and everyone had assumed Ellen wanted to go right to sleep after the rigors of labor, but she insisted that she was so "up" from the experience that her real desire was to have lots of friends around to celebrate. (She slept a lot in the weeks that followed.)

Now, nineteen years later, that hasty baby who couldn't wait to show up is getting ready to embark on the next major phase of his life.  He's done well and made us proud in so many ways, and he's making us even prouder - not just because he's going into the service, but because he's continuing to take responsibility for his own life, make his own decisions, and accept the burden of maturity with grace and dignity.  In this he's following the superb example of his elder siblings, but it's not just out of imitation of them.  Sure he's building on their example, but he's also doing things his way in a manner that honors God, respects his family, and is true to his own vocation as a man.  We're proud of all our children, but on this, his birthday, I wanted to specially honor him.

God bless you, Kelson Reuel Thomas.  May His grace follow you every step of your life.

A life worth staying in

I don't often quote “experts”, particularly medical experts.  This isn't because of disdain for medicine per se, but rather out of suspicion of those who pretend that expertise (or advanced education) in one field makes them automatic experts beyond that field.  Thus when some MD weighs in attempting to provide a medical answer to a moral problem, or a psychological solution to a spiritual struggle, I take their statements with large helpings of salt.

But once in a while one of these experts comes up with a statement that's spot on, even if it's strictly outside his area of training.  Such was this column by Dr. Keith Ablow of the Fox News Medical A-Team (whatever that is.)  As a doctor, Dr. Ablow does a good job of explaining some recent statistics published by the CDC and unpacking their implications.  But as a man, he goes further and discusses the dire significance of these developments, painting a somber picture of our culture.  He's not scaremongering or doomsaying, but he is gravely concerned about what it means when “A significant portion of our population wants to not be present for significant portions of every single week.”  He sees what so many of us have been ringing the alarm bell about for some time: that a culture whose members want to regularly check out is a culture in trouble.  As he puts it, “The fact that we are doing this as a culture is the single most ominous psychological trend we have ever faced. I am not exaggerating.”  For the sake of those of us who (fortunately) have never had to deal with chronic drunkenness up close, he goes on to detail just how it saps the will and guts the character of those who do it, with dire consequences for individuals, families, and society.

The best prescription Dr. Ablow can offer is “decisiveness” - that people should just choose well and “be present” for the critical decisions in their lives.  Granted and fully agreed.  The problem is that most of those who are drugging themselves senseless on a regular basis have heard some variation on that argument, but can't for the life of them find a good reason to follow it.  It reminds me of a comment once made by a priest when he heard of a campaign urging youth not to take drugs because it was slow suicide. “First,” the priest explained, “you have to convince them that they shouldn't commit suicide.”  I think Dr. Ablow succinctly summarizes the dangers we face and even prescribes a correct solution, so far as it goes.  Where it falls short is providing an incentive to those who need it to follow the prescription.

This week in our parish Bible Study we're covering chapter 10 of the Gospel of John, which contains Jesus' explicit statement of one of the reasons He came to us: “I have come so that they may have life, and have it more abundantly.” (v. 10)  Think of that: abundant life.  That's what's really lacking here.  People who have an abundant life don't gut their way through the week so they can drink (or smoke, or snort) themselves insensible on the weekend.  How can it be surprising that when so many in a culture have “gotten beyond” God Himself, they find themselves with something-short-of-abundant lives?  And this in the most generally affluent culture in known history.  If security, freedom, and material wealth could provide abundant life, then surely the modern West would have more than enough.  Instead we find ourselves in a bind that even the secular world recognizes as dire.

All the likes of Dr. Ablow can tell us is that we need to take charge of our lives.  But we need an incentive to be decisive.  Jesus provides the incentive: love.  Absenting ourselves from our lives and the lives of those who care for us is not a loving thing to do.  We should be present because we love those around us and want to help them.  When we don't love enough to care for those around us, or when we don't think anyone does love us, then we suffer deep loneliness and alienation.  That's just the sort of pain that calls for an anesthetic of some sort, and so the cycle continues.

For any who acknowledge the accuracy of Dr. Ablow's prognosis but despair of implementing his prescription, permit me to direct you to the One who can not only help you accomplish it, but give you a good reason to do so: Jesus Christ, author of abundant life.  The life He gives is so rich that you won't feel the need to escape from it.

The 100%

While the various Occupy movements fade away with a whimper, what impact they might have had linger in phrases like “the 1%”. Lots of the chanting and debate sparked by the Occupy movements center around those sort of catchphrases.

It seems to me that the problem is that this sort of thinking restricts the debate to the economic and political sphere – a far too common fault of modern thinking. Supposedly “the 1%” exercise disproportionate control over a too-large amount of the world's wealth, and “the 99%” should have more of that control, and (presumably) that “the government” should do something about it. This is answered by questions about liberty, and legitimacy of government power, and free markets, and so on. But the whole debate ranges along economic and political lines, as if these were the only areas of human activity that really mattered.

In the midst of this discussion we find this almost unnoticed incident . Los Angeles County recently buried 1639 “unclaimed” bodies – people who had died for whom nobody ever showed up to attend to their burial. They lingered in the morgue or wherever they're kept until they were interred in a mass grave with a civil ceremony. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is to be commended for making this minimal sign of respect for their fellow humans, as are civil authorities everywhere to attend to such matters, but even they acknowledge that it was far short of what those people deserved.

Some would notice that some of the unfortunates were “poor or homeless”, and resume the 99% vs. 1% argument with renewed fervor. But I think this misses the point. It was not because of a shortage of money that these 1639 people died abandoned. Only “some” of them were poor – probably a good number had sufficient means to at least pay for a simple burial. The shortage that necessitated this mass burial was a shortage of love. Nobody loved them enough to bother providing a simple burial, so the responsibility devolved to the civic community.

We have no idea how this came to be. Perhaps some of them lost all their close relatives. Perhaps some had children who they'd lost through death or estrangement. Perhaps some had walked away from love offered to them to pursue abstractions like “independence” (I've seen it happen). Whatever the reason, these people died with nobody to love them enough to know about their death and do something about it.

That is the ultimate poverty.

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta used to say that the world she served in, what wealthy Westerners referred to as “the Third World”, was poor in material goods but rich in love, while the West was rich in material goods but poor in love. This mass burial of unknown, unclaimed people could be Exhibit A of this. In one of the richest, most envied counties in the world,1639 nameless people were buried in a mass grave with no marker to record them and nobody to mourn their passing. This is an impoverishment of what matters most.

Ultimately, discussions about which percentage of the population controls which percentage of the wealth are meaningless. In the end, 100% of us are stripped of all economic goods. That's when we find out how much real wealth we have. Who cares enough about us to stay by our side through our final days on this earth? Who loves us enough to honor our memory and insure we're laid to rest with dignity and respect? Who remembers our names, and why? In short, what is the balance of our “love account”?

One of the classic works of mercy for Christians is burying the dead. This meant more than just cleaning the landscape of corpses – it meant expressing God's love to even those who no man loves. The reason it was a duty was not to remind us to do it for those we loved and respected.  Burying them comes easily. It so that we'd do it for those like these 1639 forgotten ones of Los Angeles County.

Because 100% of us die without earthly wealth. But thanks to what happened at Bethlehem, and Calvary, none of us should die unloved.

My Father Was Half Right

I'm sorry for not having posted here for a bit.  Life has been happening at a good clip, and it still is, but I didn't want to totally neglect this small portion of it.

One of the kindest things my father ever said was me was, "Once you get outside your family, nobody gives a damn about you - they only care about what you can do for them."  He meant this in the kindest possible way (really!) with the intent of bracing me for what I could expect in the Big Wide World.  And indeed, that advice was very helpful in adjusting my expectations, and I have always kept it in the back of my mind, especially as an independent consultant.  People might be cordial and even kind, but I'd better deliver the value if I'm going to be handing them a bill at the end of the visit.

But as I've grown older, I've come to see that my father was only half-right on that point.  It was helpful counsel so far as it went, but taken straight is is overly pessimistic, almost to the point of being cynical.  It may usually be true that strangers, particularly employers, will not invest more in you than they can get out of you, but that does not mean that others will never invest in you.  In my personal history, it has sometimes been people I barely knew who invested in me out of sheer charity.  A high school teacher and football coach, who saw potential in an introverted sophomore that nobody else had spotted.  A second class petty officer saddled with a boot who'd never even been underway, who nonetheless took the time to instruct him in character and manhood.  There were others, and though it isn't a long list, it is long enough to prove that sometimes people do give a damn about strangers, and go out of their way to help them thrive and grow.

One irony about my dad's dictum was that he'd had experiences that proved that it was not universal.  One was in Colorado, on his way west to California, when his car broke down on a lonely mountain road.  A stranger driving by stopped to help, then drove my dad 20 miles back to the last town to get the requisite part, drove him back to his broken-down car, waited while he installed the part, and then followed him until he was safely to the next town. (Furthermore, that man was black, which was a real shock to my father, who'd been raised in a racist Missouri home.)  Another irony was that he tried to raise all of us children to be the sort of people who extended Christian charity to strangers - in short, to be the sort of people who'd defy this principle.

I've tried to keep dad's proverb in mind, particularly in the business environment.  But I've also learned that it's "more like a guideline", something to keep in mind when out in the world, but not something to assume is always applicable everywhere.  True love, charity toward another - even strangers - does exist.  Furthermore, we should stive to be people who spread it.  Granted, it's hard to deal with everyone at a level of intimate love.  Courtesy is possible and desirable, and we should always be on the lookout to do good, but we may be called to invest deeply in the lives of a few others - who may be strangers.

Of course, there have been a few who have attained to expressing deep charity toward everyone they encounter.  We call them saints, and we just celebrated them yesterday.  Wouldn't it be great to be that kind of person?