Sad day for indie/emo music
The end of apocaplypse?
In a lecture here about two weeks ago, theologian Harvey Cox–while speaking on Tim LaHaye’s fundy Left Behind novel series–called for the end of apocalyptic Christianity.
That’s quite an apocalypse in itself. If infamous radical theologian Thomas Altizer (of “God is dead” fame) is right, the embrace of (a Hegelian typology of) apocalypse is the essence of Christianity, which climaxes with the death of God on the cross. But I suspect Altizer gets as much respect as Tim LaHaye, so I won’t press the point.
The point, then, is what would it take? What would it take to rid Christianity wholly of apocalypse, especially since its founder figure is credited with speaking a little apocalypse of his own?
Becoming bourgeois
This Saturday we moved our life and our stuff into our first house. The process is still overwhelming. There is still the sense of impermanence that goes with apartment living, the knowledge that you’ll only be there for so long and aren’t allowed to make many changes anyway.
I say this looking at freshly painted walls and recently sconced windows, which my parents helped me with over the last few days. They came in from Oklahoma City to catch the OU-Texas game and help us get settled. Their work ethic is amazing (even if it’s not replicable, by me anyhow).
Boxes and bags still litter the floor, but the shape of things to come now overpowers the clutter yet to be put away. A new feeling is creeping up on me: the sense that something needs to be done. Not so much the putting away of clothes and books–that’s nothing new. Mowing the lawn, cleaning the gutters, caulking the bathtub–these thoughts now haunt my mind. Countless homeowners have told me about this flavor of feeling–that there’s always something to be done–but until now it’s been someone else’s reality. Now I know, and I vacillate between dreading and anticipating the work for what’s now my house.
Part of me hopes I never move again. The trouble of moving is almost painful. But I cringe as I write “painful.” There is nothing painful about being lucky enough to own your own home. Billions don’t, so there should be no sense of entitlement about it. I’ve read enough liberation theology to know at least that much. The color of your skin and the place of your birth are much more predictive of your odds of owning a home than your just desserts. Owning your home makes you part of a global elite–whether you deserve it or not–and its naive to pretend otherwise.
So another part of me is ready to move again, and keep moving. There’s a homeless part of our soul, a nomadic urge to keep moving, keep moving. The call to identify with the poor can only stir this ancient urge, or rather what for the rich is an urge and the poor is a demand and necessity. “Mobility of labor” it’s called abstractly by Market™ theologians and promoted as one of the Market™’s primary graces. If it catches you on the backside, they say, you must not have been rightly quickened to the still small voice of the Market™.
So I sit here on the couch typing on my laptop (supplied to me by my job) feeling immensely proud of myself yet troubled by my (mostly unfelt) wealth and then troubled again for letting myself indulge in liberal guilt. But short of selling everything I own and giving it to the poor, I can see no other path before me. Besides, it’s time to clean the gutters.
Pentecost 19
O divine wisdom, whose life fills our bodies: may we do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our god, that we may recognize the voice of the prophets when they speak. Blessed be.
(Drawn from An Uncommon Lectionary.)
Why I hate thank you notes
While the good folks at The Morning News provide an excellent guide to writing thank you notes, my ire was raised nonetheless. Why do I hate thank you notes?
- They’re bourgeois. Impoverished people do not write each other thank you notes, nor does anyone expect them to. So neither should you expect them from anyone. Would you expect a thank you note from Goodwill? That would just be rude.
- They’re expected. If you’re giving a gift to get a thank you note, skip the gift and write yourself a thank you note. You obviously need the attention.
- They’re a pain in the ass. Newlyweds, for instance, have enough stress without having to thank you for the third identical broom-vac they were given by a distant relative, who mother forced them to invite.
- They’re a con job. Like the quintessential Halmark holidays–Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Boss’ Day, etc.–we should simply substitute for thank you notes a national Halmark tax. If we’re so obligated, why not make it official?
- They’re resentment made nice. As Nietzsche pointed out, thank you notes are a way to say, “Yes, I officially acknowledge you gave me something, so don’t think you can hold it over my head or anything.” After all, what if you ran into them at a cocktail party?
- They’re bourgeois. Anything bourgeois is not a moral or social obligation. Period.
That said, I’m off to write my brother and his wife a thank you note. They helped out around the house this weekend, and I really appreciate it.
Slavery to god?
Author Yair Caspi had a religious experience once, what psychologist Abraham Maslow would term a “peak experience.” It’s content? We can only find true freedom by making ourselves slaves to god.
Caspi then built that experience into a psychological method that relies heavily on Jewish god-talk. A secular Jew, Caspi find traditional psychology to be a false religion.
Because the basis of Caspi’s concept is that all of us — secular, Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox — worship idols of some sort, the student must identify his idol and what he sacrifices to this false god.
A test: What difficulties or suffering am I required to endure here? What is my complaint to God? Revelation: What new and surprising insight have I received? How did I know God in this exercise? Vision: What is a true vision that should guide me? What is a false vision? What is my mitzva? What am I obligated to do, what am I commanded to do out of all this? And what will my reward be? What is my prayer to God? That’s the format. That’s the language.
And that’s the method of work.
Tillich defines idolatry as the lifting up to ultimate concern something which only deserves limited concern, and in that respect I can agree that the removal of idols is a positive thing. But the Augustinian truism–that we are only truly free when we are slaves to god–gives me pause.
Click to continue reading “Slavery to god?”
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