Britches

                                                                   Where do you look for theater in Missouri?

If you venture to the Women’s Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center for theater, go with faith that a company of incarcerated women can produce a comedy in high theatrical style. They are a delightful troupe of sisters having fun and bringing their audience along for the ride.

Britches, their latest performance, brings to life the story of Charlotte Cushman, the bold actor of the 19th century, who shocked and thrilled audiences with her portrayal of Romeo along with her sister’s Juliet.  “When Queen Victoria saw Cushman as Romeo, she said she couldn’t believe it was a woman playing the part” (https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/romeo-charlotte-cushman/).

Trailblazing the Stage: 10 Facts about Charlotte Cushman

The play Britches invents a love triangle of Charlotte (Dylan Staudette), her sister Susan (Natasha White), and the understudy Joan (Tessa Van Vlerah), as their company makes a comedy of performing the tragedy Romeo and Juliet, complete with a dark figure who threatens to upset the joie de vivre of the play.  In Britches the actors, including Wanda, the nurse (Patty Prewitt), perform the famous tragedy in rehearsal, then at an evening show, then at  an intoxicated cast party, then at the matinee the next day, then with a final celebration.

Six “Scholars” (Tara Carroll, Natasha Orender, Sandra Dallas,Kylie Shepherd, Angaline Ryan, Marie Pursley) cross the stage at convenient intervals to explain the customs and motives of the comedy, adding context and humor.  A black-cat-costumed actor (Yvette Mahan) crosses the stage occasionally or settles down at stage center to interrupt the flow of action as only a cat can.  The random interruptions add insight and lightness to the dialogue of the acting troupe as they prepare, perform and then reflect on their rendition of the play.

“I asked them to add their insight to this ‘Lady Romeo’s’ story. Incarcerated people who reside in a women’s facility are no strangers to playing male Shakespeare roles; in fact they may be the greatest experts on this performance practice in today’s theatrical ecosystem.”

Her instincts proved exactly right. The brassy playfulness of the women is perfectly attuned to the boldness of Cushman’s renditions of protagonists such as Hamlet, Romeo and Lady Macbeth, which delighted nineteenth century theater-goers from Boston to the British Isles. In Britches Cushman performs her most famous role as Romeo opposite her sister’s Juliet. “This bold choice further solidified her reputation as a groundbreaking actress willing to break down barriers in the pursuit of artistic excellence” (program notes).

The play celebrates the joy of an acting company first in its rehearsal, when Juliet balks at climbing the lofty stepladder to her balcony, then in the after-party of the evening performance, when a massive black cauldron is rolled out with the traditional fare of actors–beans and rice. They celebrate their modest provisions with a rousing musical tribute to “Beans and Rice,” reminiscent of a drinking song in a local pub. In the finale, the company reprises their tribute to Beans and Rice.

The play was directed by Prison Performing Arts’ own Artistic Director, Rachel Tibbets, assisted by Costume Designer Liz Henning and Set Designer Erik Kuhn.

Britches gave its only two performances on Thursday, March 14. The next Prison Performing Arts production will be 12 Angry Men, at the Northeast Correctional Center. See the PPA website for more information: https://www.prisonperformingarts.org/about-ppa.

Prison Performing Arts, the facilitator for performances like Britches, “nurtures the discipline, teamwork, and communication skills necessary for successful re-entry into society.” PPA also works in the Missouri Eastern Correctional Center, the Northeast Correctional Center, the St. Louis City Juvenile Detention Center, the Transition Center of St. Louis, the Hogan Street Regional Youth Center, and the Division of Probation & Parole – District 17.

Donations may be sent to:

Prison Performing Arts

3333 Washington Ave.
Ste. 203-B
St. Louis, MO 63103

 

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Assurances and Hopes

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

William Butler Yeats “ The Second Coming”

What is faith? Is it an unshakable conviction? Is it the bottom line for what we believe? Is faith a certainty? Is it sometimes  fragile trust in God?  Is it a hope that battles with doubt?

Certainty

“Faith of our Fathers . . . We will be true to thee till death.”

“T’is so sweet to trust in Jesus, Just to take him at his word . . . Just to know, Thus saith the Lord.”

“Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine.”

These lines of favorite old Protestant hymns reminded me that nothing has been more sure than my faith in God. In a life that might be upset, faith was a guarantee that I  was safe and confident. My parents and grandparents passed down a faith that could not be shaken.

In Sunday School I was taught that faith was the opposite of doubt.  Cautionary tales of doubting were important: Peter walking on the water till his confidence failed, and he sank;  Zechariah struck dumb by his lack of faith that his wife would become pregnant with John the Baptist; “Doubting Thomas” challenging the resurrection until he touched the nail prints in the hands of Jesus.

Faith was an available commodity we could pass on, but should not lose. We needed to be steadfast: “We will be true to thee till death.”  Our unsaved friends also treated faith as a commodity. “I wish I had your faith,” some said to me, as if I had a stash of it in my wallet.  It existed as a scarce, but reliable resource.

Jesus reinforced this concept of faith by scolding his disciples for their lack of faith, especially in the Gospel of Matthew (6:30, 8:26, 14:31; 16:8;17:20; 21:21). Yet Mark shows the paradox of having faith, yet needing faith, in the healing of the boy possessed by demons. When Jesus tells the father of the possessed boy, “All things can be done for the one who believes,” the father exclaims, “I believe; help my unbelief! (Mark 8:24).”  Jesus proceeded to heal the son despite the father’s admission of doubt.

Matthew’s concept that faith defied doubt and physical evidence found its way into the dictionary definition of faith:

  1. “unquestioning belief that does not require proof or evidence” (Webster’s New World College Dictionary)

Constancy in faith is the understanding that does not require “proof or evidence.” True faith dismissed the appearance of things. Jesus healed contrary to the evidence of hopeless infirmity. Jesus ignored the political predicament of his people. He also counseled against fortifying our material security with wealth in Matthew (6:19-21).  The only reality was the coming of an invisible kingdom, “not of this world.”

In my family our middle class poverty was compensated by our future heavenly wealth. A lack of regard for money was considered a sign of faith.   My mother’s favorite hymn was:

This world is not my home

I’m just a-passing through

My treasures are laid up

Somewhere beyond the blue

It can be liberating to cast off materialistic goals, but in our family it minimized our savings or investment for retirement.  We imagined spiritual wealth, and so believed we were never poor, even though a day never went by when my Dad did not say, “We can’t afford . . . .”

Because of our hope for heaven, we did not see social and political events as consequential. For example, we saw the Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s as a compromise of faith in our future heavenly liberation. Faith meant that the material world did not matter as much as the spiritual world.

Faith devoted to permanent beliefs, independent of experience, could be described as “dogmatic” from the Latin word meaning “an opinion which one believes.” Experience does not threaten or revise dogmatic beliefs.

In my early experience, faith was certainty, and certainty became a disregard for material reality, a detachment from facts and evidence. Peter walking on water was total faith; his sinking in the waves was a loss of faith.  Enduring faith dismissed the material circumstances of life.

Uncertainty

After a mid-life battle with doubt, I looked back at what the Christian Bible said about faith. I found a new definition in the Epistle to the Hebrews, attributed to a contemporary of the Apostle Paul:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.  (Hebrews 11:1)

This version of faith seemed more paradoxical, less certain than what I had been taught.

“Convictions” and “assurance” were something we chose to believe. Not banked commodities, but high-stakes beliefs.  As defined in Hebrews, faith seemed less a legacy or acquisition, but a gift. This faith is “organic,” because experience could revise our beliefs, allowing us to grow in understanding, as well as faith.

The biblical epistles are likely to show faith as a gift, as in the letter to the Ephesians “By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (2:8). Or when enumerating the gifts of the Spirit, Paul says, “To one is given the utterance of wisdom . . , to another faith by the same Spirit (I Corinthians 12:9).

Faith was not about guarantees, but about hopes. Faith was not about a substitute reality, but about a conviction we could not empirically prove.  Therefore, faith was not certain, not a foregone conclusion,  but an “organic” faith that could change with experience. We had a faith that could struggle with doubt.

I think of the Yeats poem, quoted above, as prophetic for this time and place. My alternatives for faith relate to the famous lines from “The Second Coming:”

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity

 

Sometimes “passionate intensity” can be dangerous.  With passionate intensity, Crusaders killed Muslims; Muslims killed Crusaders.  With passionate intensity the Spanish Inquisition killed both.  With passionate intensity Protestants killed Catholics in the war Yeats wrote about.

There’s something about the tension between faith and doubt that makes us humble. We are not so vindictive, when we realize we are blessed with a gift of faith, not a guarantee.  It may be all right to have convictions, not certainties.  We can hope to listen and hope we can be heard.

Little Shop of Horrors

Is the sixty-three year old tale The Little Shop of Horrors a tragedy, a comedy, tragi-comedy, a farce? Yes!

But there are at least three versions of the story– a 1960 movie, 1982 musical, a 1986 revised movie musical with two endings.

All three versions have the same principal actors, the innocent, bumbling Seymour Krelborn; the sweet, victimized girl he works with, Audrey;  their irritable, materialistic boss, Mr. Mushnik; and the voracious exotic plant that consumes them all–Audrey II.

 In the ’60 original, Audrey Jr. hypnotizes Seymour into doing his bidding  . . . . The cops discover that the plant has been eating people and they chase Seymour through the streets of Skid Row. He comes back to Mushnick’s shop and tries to kill Audrey Jr. once and for all, but fails, and is himself eaten. https://widescreenworld.blogspot.com/2015/10/little-shop-of-horrors-1960-vs-1986-and.html

In the original stage musical of 1982, not only does Audrey II also kill Seymour, Audrey and Mushnick, it spreads all over the country, enticing other people the same way it enticed Seymour with promises of fame and fortune. (https://widescreenworld.blogspot.com/2015/10/little-shop-of-horrors-1960-vs-1986-and.html). The final number “Don’t Feed the Plants” suggests a world wide takeover is in progress. Yet the music tends to carry the story back toward comedy.

 

 

 

However, in the musical filmed in 1986, the grim ending of the previous versions was re-designed for the popular whim that Seymour and Audrey should fulfill their dreams and live happily ever after in suburbia. The director, Frank Oz, originally conceived the ending as gleefully hinting of plant takeover, and was bitterly disappointed with the ultimate product.

What about the latest rendition, just finishing a run in the Cincinnati suburb of Finneytown? This version offers more of the sinister take-over of Audrey, but her offspring appear as the familiar main characters sporting the flowery coronas around their heads. Everyone seems delighted with the absurd invasion of Audrey’s descendants.

However, the absurdist excitement is almost overwhelmed by the soul-grabbing solos of the leads, Audrey (Anya Revelle), singing “Somewhere That’s Green”  and Seymour (Marcus Miller) singing “Suddenly Seymour,” who give the musical a romantic updraft. We are  pulling for these two down-and-outers so much that their ingestion by Audrey II feels too tragic to be redeemed by sunny little flower buds around their heads at the end.

Does the booming-voiced (Brennen Volz) monster Audrey II become a warning against materialism and the passion for fame? Do we hear a message amidst the merriment of Little Shop of Horrors?

The finale, which retains the warning “Don’t Feed the Plants,” retains its glee, but no dire warnings. It’s a horror musical with a thin filling of caution. Even the sadistic dentist (Brady Volz) returns looking less threatening.

We noticed exceptional stage managing of props and set, organized by Jason George, and exceptional drama enhanced by spotlights under the steady hand of Karah George.  Their under-appreciated skill behind the scenes make a grand musical so much grander.

So what is it- a tragedy,  comedy, farce,  some maniacal concoction of all three?  Every performance brings a different taste of the botanical marvel, and sometimes your mood determines what you see in Audrey II.

“Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think.”― La Bruyere

 

The Jonah Complex

But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. 2He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.  Jonah 4:1-3

The pr0phet Jonah is expected to deal with a divine-ordered reform: the acceptance of repentant pagan people. As a traditional Hebrew prophet, Jonah holds the belief that Gentiles, all non-Jewish people, are not favored by God. What God says at the conclusion of Jonah is: And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals? (Jonah 4:12).

The implied response to God’s question is “Of course,” but Jonah’s final words in this book are: Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live. (Jonah 4:3). Laughable, but also pitiable, because even three days in the whale could not shake Jonah’s fixation on “chosen people.” The tale instructs us that God is more tolerant and merciful than his chosen people.

I call the rigidity of faith against compromise or reform the “Jonah complex.” It means a faith that expects a certain universal order and rejects anything that disrupts it. Jonah is the extreme case. He says, Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live. 

Many Christians have no fluid concept of doubt except as abandonment of faith. Doubt can be battled, but it cannot be confronted,  except to run from it. As former evangelical pastor, Brian McLaren, writes:

Good Christians (and I’m sure good people of other religions) were expected, quickly and privately, to mend their doubts like an embarrassing tear in the pants and, failing that, to silence and suppress their doubts, to fake confidence and certainty in desperate hope that the next sermon, hymn, praise song, conference, book, or prayer would be the silver bullet that would vanquish doubt forever. (Faith After Doubt, 208)

For some Christians, faith and doubt may be seen as a dualism with a deep gap between.  Faith and doubt can also be conceived on a spectrum, one flowing into the other. You may you find yourself in a pit of disbelieving at any point in the day. Rachel Held says, “Sometimes it frightens me how effortlessly I can move from belief to unbelief as one would move from room to room . . .” (McLaren, 210).

McLaren’s ground-breaking reflections on numerous pastors and church leaders, who revealed their doubts to him, shows that doubt follows faith more often than we realize.  McLaren has comforted and counseled so many who thought they had nowhere to go with their doubts, without compromising their status as Christians, because doubt seemed like a one-way trip to rejection and exile.

Faith, as a certainty, can lead to rigidity. Nothing new can enter a faith constructed to be stable and unmoving.  The rigor of certainty can lead to defensiveness and prejudice about things new.  Believing generates a creed that cannot be compromised, because compromise would be a slippery slope that leads to perdition.

For me, the slippery slope was the acceptance of gay men and women. I remember having a discussion about homosexuals with a friend and former Lutheran pastor in the first church I had attended after a long while in a desperate period of my life.  He asked me to consider the identity of those born to prefer their own sex. I had preconceptions that I could not see through, and I told him I thought the gay identity was an aberration, learned in the culture.  I remember his disappointed expression, when he realized I was implacable.

Two years later Kathy and I moved to Ypsilanti, MI to take my first academic appointment at Eastern Michigan University. We moved to Depot Town, a lovely historical neighborhood. After a year I realized that my new next-door neighbors were lesbians, and my back yard neighbors were gay men.  Then I realized there were several gay professors where I worked.  It was a classic case of cognitive dissonance: believing something that was contradicted by circumstances.

Kathy was much more tolerant of homosexuality than I, and she invited our next-door neighbors over for coffee and conversation. I was nervous about entertaining them, because of my own hang-ups, but I found we had much more in common than I imagined.

They were married. They were musicians and had met in Europe, where gay marriage had been normalized. They wore ordinary clothes, more mannish than a heterosexual might expect, but nothing disturbing to me. They were interested in acquiring a dog. We had three dogs, and Kathy obliged with most of what she knew about small dogs. We had two Papillons and had bred another Papillon twice, and they were interested in all the details. Kathy loved gardening. So did they. They were the most compatible neighbors we could ask for, and they won my heart over a period of months. It was obvious they were truly in love with each other no differently than that Kathy and I were in love.

The guys over the back yard fence were very friendly. In the summer we would meet at the fence to share the news of the city and the neighborhood. It took me longer to accept gay men, but my prejudices toward lesbians had been broken, so I gradually felt comfortable with my male neighbors.

As for the workplace, my department head was gay as well as many in my department, so I learned acceptance just by working with people I had never known.   The city of Ypsilanti brought forth an equal rights referendum, including same-sex rights, within two years of our moving there, and it was passed by a three to one vote. Clearly, we were in a new culture! My experience convinced me that integrating with people was a powerful way to learn to accept them.

So maybe I wasn’t rigid. I certainly had my prejudices changed over a couple of years, and nothing has happened since then to challenge my reform. But I know what I believed before we moved to Ypsilanti, and probably nothing but a transplant into another community could have changed those beliefs.

The research on rigidity of people of faith deals mostly with prejudice toward other groups, rather than susceptibility to changing opinions.  “Prejudice” suggests entrenched beliefs, whereas opinions may not always be rigid. The question is: what makes an open mind become rigid? Could the certainty of some people’s faith instill a defense against human differences? Differences in gender preference, the role of women, race, political preference ? “True faith” people can sometimes mean stubborn people.

 

The narrative of Jonah ends quite differently than the book of Job,  a narrative written about the same time. In the very end, Job is restored to double his original family and fortune, but first he says to God, who appeared from the terrifying whirlwind:

I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,

But now my eye sees you;

Therefore I despise myself

And repent in dust and ashes.  Job 42:5-6)

How different from Jonah, who hears the dreaded truth and says, Lord, take away my life. Job survives with a new understanding of God. Jonah despairs, because he cannot accept the new understanding. He is trapped in an ethnocentric view of God, instead of the new vision of an omnipresent God who favors all people.

It is harder for me to identify with Job, who bears so much and hangs on to fragments of faith, in spite of unfathomable hardship. It is easier for me to see myself as the sad sack prophet who cannot accept what I now believe: that God’s mercy is to all people, not just a select few.

I find it easier to learn from Jonah. His lesson is basic: don’t assume you know who God favors and doesn’t favor. Let faith be a matter of “the conviction of things unseen,” things I don’t already know or think I know. Faith is not only what I believe, but what I could believe, as God reveals it. God may be unchanging, but God is not always who I think God is. I can learn from the hapless, whale-devoured prophet, Jonah.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

Nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. (Isaiah 55:8)

 

 

Where is Your Faith?

Faith of our Fathers! Holy Faith!

We will be true to thee till death

Frederick William Faber, 1848

Steadfastness was traditionally a sign of true faith in my early Christian education.  In Sunday School we were taught not to doubt. Cautionary tales of doubting included: Peter walking on the water till his confidence failed and he sank; Zechariah struck dumb by his lack of faith that his wife would become pregnant with John the Baptist; Jesus prevented from healing in Nazareth, because of their lack of faith;  Jesus scolding his disciples for their lack of faith; Thomas doubting the resurrection until he touched the nail prints in the hands of Jesus.

Faith was a commodity we could not do without. We could have a lot of faith or a minimal faith, but not “no faith.”  No one I knew could see faith as a continuum, a work in progress.

On the other hand, the Hebrew Bible honors a tradition of questioning or negotiating with God. Abraham, the paragon of faith, questioned the angel, who promised that his elderly wife would bear a child. Lot famously cross-examined God about his mercy on the city of Sodom and Gomorrah (Shall not the Judge of the earth do what is just?” (Gen 18:25). Jacob wrestled with the angel of God the night before confronting his estranged brother, Esau. Moses tried to escape the role of prophetic leader by insisting he was inarticulate. Called by God to lead his people against the powerful Midianites, Gideon insisted on sign after sign to prove God’s call. Despite the awesome power and holiness of God, Jewish history and literature honors dialogue, even argument, with God.

Contrast this with the one incident in the Christian Bible when Jesus is challenged by Peter for predicting that the Messiah must suffer and die.  Jesus harshly rebukes him: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” (Matthew 16:21).

And what does Jesus say after Peter bravely walks on the water to meet Jesus, then has a panic attack? “You of little faith. . . .why did you doubt?” What about the other disciples who cowered in the boat? How little was their faith?

If Peter were a character in Genesis, he would be honored for his nerve like Jacob, who wrestled with God, but in the Gospel of Matthew he is an object lesson for his lack of faith.  The disciples of Jesus are frequently chastised for their lack of faith, whereas when Moses balks, he is given Aaron as a spokesperson and manages to become the most honored prophet in Jewish history.

The examples from the Christian scriptures have made Protestant Christians consider faith dualistically. You either have it or you don’t. If you had it you were favored or “saved.”  If you lacked it,  you were judged or “unsaved.” Even my unchurched friends saw this dualism in me. They might say, “I wish I had your faith,” as if I had a secure stash of faith in my wallet.

The discrepancy between the God of  Jacob and the God of the Gospels may turn on what faith means in different traditions. In the Hebrew Bible the prophets were respected for their audacity for questioning God, but, for some Christians, challenging God shows a lack of faith. And faith is a commodity that you have or you don’t have.

Father Richard Rohr notes the limitations of this dualistic way of thinking or believing:

The dualistic mind is essentially binary, either/or thinking. It knows by comparison, opposition, and differentiation. It uses descriptive words like good/evil, pretty/ugly, smart/stupid, not realizing there may be a hundred degrees between the two ends of each spectrum. 

Should faith and doubt be considered a dualism, where the absence of one reveals the existence of the other? Or are faith and doubt relative to each other, where faith may lapse into doubt, while doubt may restore faith?

Brian McLaren, in his study of doubt (Faith After Doubt, St Martins Essentials, 2021), suggests that honest doubt can actually enrich faith. In profiles of numerous pastors and church leaders, he claims the struggle with doubt can restore an abandoned faith, that doubt should be faced, not stigmatized, that doubt may be a sign of a healthy faith.

This is apparently the view of doubt in the Hebrew Bible, where some of the exemplars of faith actually challenged God.  And some of the pretenders of faith were called “false prophets.”  When Elijah, the heroic antagonist of the wicked King Ahab, fled from the wrath of his idolatrous wife Jezebel, he cowered in a cave at Mount Horeb, where God had first spoken to Moses:

Lord God who rules over all, I’ve been very committed to you. The Israelites have turned their backs on your covenant. They have torn down your altars. They’ve put your prophets to death with their swords. I’m the only one left. And they are trying to kill me.”

15 The Lord said to him, “Go back the way you came.” (I Kings 19:14-15).

Elijah turns from faith to fear to faith again in a few chapters of I Kings. The Apostle Peter ran the same course, from confessor to denier of the Messiah to the inspiring leader of the church at Pentecost.  Doubt propelled these two heroes into stronger faith.

And yet many Evangelical Protestants conceive of doubt as abandonment of faith.  Doubt can be battled, but it cannot be confronted as a viable option.  It can only be opposed with fierce opposition. As a lapsed Evangelical pastor, Brian McLaren, writes:

Good Christians (and I’m sure good people of other religions) were expected, quickly and privately, to mend their doubts like an embarrassing tear in the pants and, failing that, to silence and suppress their doubts, to fake confidence and certainty in desperate hope that the next sermon, hymn, praise song, conference, book, or prayer would be the silver bullet that would vanquish doubt forever. (Faith After Doubt, 208)

Yet following  the example of the great heroes of faith, Jacob, Moses, Elijah, Peter, we see that faith can be lost and regained. Further, that the  exploration of doubt can bring a later resurgence of faith. McLaren and so many pastors he counseled found doubt as a counterpoint to faith, potentially a route to a restored faith.

Perhaps the “Faith of our Fathers” has come full circle, where doubt can be acknowledged without condemnation. “We will be true to thee, till death,” may not be the last word in the hymn.  Faith and doubt are more similar than we know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beholding

 

Trudging

I raise my eyes

from the pavement

To a sudden presence

From behind a house to

The edge of the sidewalk

A doe

Staring downhill at the

Terrifying concrete river.

She ignores me, concentrating

On the serpentine road . . .

I  breathe, Look both ways!

She decides to cross, her legs

Opening gracefully across the alien flat rock

 in a sudden second to the other  side

Quickly one, two more chasing her

without the slightest glance down the street,

Fording the perilous river

Gone through the opposite yard

Into the woods.

Could I behold her world

With my dull eyes

So suddenly?

Of Prophets and Skeptics

Jonah is probably most famous for spending three days inside the belly of a whale. A few readers may remember his ridiculous attempt to escape God by taking a boat to the reaches of the known world.  But Jonah’s most critical lesson is the failure of his faith to grow, when it is challenged to understand the mystery of God.

The story of a man with a purpose but trying to escape it.  He tries to run  from God. He’s trapped for three days in the belly of a “sea monster” and forced to confront his doubts. He decides to accept his destiny by preaching to wicked Nineveh and moves an entire city to change their way of life.  God reverses his plan to destroy the city. The man is disillusioned with the outcome, because his prophecy was negated by God’s mercy. He bitterly complains to God because his life seems pointless. A parable tells the reason for God’s forgiveness: mercy on a repenting pagan city. The story ends affirming the universal mercy of God and the bitterness of his prophet.

If you went to Sunday School you probably heard about the whale and Jonah’s  ultimate decision to submit to God’s call. The result saved a city. The featured character was the whale, more accurately translated as a “sea monster.” But there is more, that the teacher left out.

In modern biblical studies Jonah is considered a satire on the privileged status that the Jewish people claimed after the loss of their homeland (after 539 BCE). They anticipated God’s deliverance for his chosen people, but they had no concept of a universal God, who shed grace on all nations.  A few elements supply the humor in the story:

  • a prophet running from an omnipresent God
  • a sea monster getting the prophet’s attention by swallowing him
  • the prophet’s sulking after God’s mercy overturns his prophecy
  • a bush as an object lesson on the mercy of God.

Some Christians balk at a less-than-literal interpretation, but the idea of surviving the ingestion of a whale suggests it is fiction, yet no less important in its message. The whale seems more like comic relief from a desperate prophet’s rebellion.

But between the lines of satire, the message of God’s mercy to the Gentiles (non-Jews) is thematic from start to finish. It is a funny story with a serious message. Is God just or merciful? Is God selectively merciful to a chosen people? What is faith and what happens to faith when it confronts a reversal?

1But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. 2He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. 3Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live. Jonah 4:1-3

Jonah has a static faith. He doesn’t believe in a non-partisan God who favors all nations. He doesn’t debate with God like Moses or Abraham. He doesn’t express his skepticism like “Doubting Thomas.” about the resurrection: “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands . . .I will not believe” (Luke 20:25). Instead, when God calls him to Nineveh, he runs.

Jonah’s  faith is based on his judgment of the heathen. He interprets the mercy of God as undermining his prophecy.  He cannot fathom a God who does not follow through on his threats. Unlike Moses or Abraham, he doesn’t question God, he just says, “Now Lord take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

It is this brittle faith that Jonah satirizes. Jonah cannot adapt to the universality of God, of God’s mercy extended to the heathen. Rather than learn and adapt, Jonah asks to die. Even when God offers a parable about preserving the life of a bush that protected Jonah from the sun, Jonah doesn’t get it. Or we assume he doesn’t, because he has nothing more to say in this story.

What does this story say about faith? Faith needs to expand as our vision of God grows, as God reveals a nature we never knew. Faith must expand to accommodate what we are learning about God, not insist on old dogma.

This message shows the modernity of this story. Some believers are sure their faith is unchanging, because God is unchanging. That was Jonah’s problem. He thought an unchanging God meant Jonah’s understanding of God was also unchanging. He insisted that God’s mercy was only for the Jews so stubbornly that he wanted to die rather than consider it. But our understanding of God can change. The infinite, merciful God has more to teach us.

When a true believer says, “God said it; I believe it; that settles it,” that suggests that God has nothing new to say.   Jonah’s story says otherwise. It taught an ethnocentric people that the mercy of God is universal.

 

 

The Addiction of Dualism

Addiction: we know it’s bad for us, but how hard it is to stop! I’ve had battles with caffeine, sugar, sports ranting with relative success, but in the past month I have had to abandon all three, just to preserve my sanity.

Caffeine was the most obvious one. I stayed up all night twice in a week, and when I was sleeping, it was the wrong time, such as during sermons and when my wife was telling me something important and when the evening news was on.  So I bought some de-caffeinated coffee, and the sleeplessness stopped. I found out the other antidote was afternoon naps.

I beat the sugar habit decades ago, but I have occasional lapses. We went on a cruise in early February, where unlimited drinking was part of the package. Since I am not an alcoholic I enjoyed trying some mixed drinks for my inexperienced palate. It was fun, but I soon began to feel like I was getting a cold. Then the cold started to go away, when I stopped the mixed drinks, and I knew it had been my old nemesis sugar taking hold. Fortunately my sensitivity allows me to drink beer.

I decided to give up “angry writing” for Lent, because it created a permanent seething in me, instead of relieving my anger. I decided to stop ranting about the Cardinals’ not signing another top-of-the-rotation pitcher. A couple of weeks ago I deliberately went on Twitter to chew out the Cardinals’ President of Operations, John Mozeliak, for being too cheap to sign Jordan Montgomery. I’m very good at spending other people’s money.

So I stopped the ranting, and it wasn’t that hard, because the baseball writing at the beginning of Spring Training is so optimistic and hopeful, it is soothing to the soul.

Now political ranting is another thing. My blogs are full of political ranting, even though I always present evidence and counter-arguments. In the last thirty days I have posted twenty political pieces, and I write only about four times a week.  I really try to write on varied topics, but my favorite theme is the political, because, when I read the Op-ed’s and listen to “Morning Joe” on MSNBC every morning, they usually get my juices flowing.

None of these addictions are bad for most people, but I can’t keep up with the Happy Hour crowd, and I have to step back when I am with the ice cream gourmets, because I know I will feel bad tomorrow.  Caffeine is like poison to me, but I spent the first 75 years of my life loving it.  Political writing has become a guilty pleasure since I retired, but I notice it feeds the beast in me. Now I have something nasty to say about the Christian Nationalists every morning.  They may deserve it, but they have become my favorite scapegoat. I don’t like that.

Political writing has stirred up my dualistic self.  Jung would call it the “shadow self.” It’s the”us vs. them” mentality, almost the definition of politics. The professional politicians know how to keep this beast under control. It is a sign of the amateurs getting into politics that divisiveness has become the order of the day.

The dualistic mind is essentially binary, either/or thinking. It knows by comparison, opposition, and differentiation. It uses descriptive words like good/evil, pretty/ugly, smart/stupid, not realizing there may be a hundred degrees between the two ends of each spectrum. Richard Rohr.

Sports fans are a prominently express dualism. They range  from true fanatics to connoisseurs of the game, who can cheer when an opposing outfielder makes a sterling play.  It may take a home run away from the home team, but the educated fan will probably sigh and say, “Good play you f – &^%$. ” It is often said that certain cities have savvy fans, because they appreciate good play, not just plays that favor their home team.

At the other end of the spectrum are the majority of fans who call into sports-talk radio shows. They are usually provoked by the host of the show, who knows the people who listen to him. The callers are all self-proclaimed experts who disagree about everything.  Where two or three sports fanatics are gathered, there are usually six or seven opinions. Avoiding the dualist trap, I will say that most of us are on the spectrum between the connoisseurs and the fanatics.  We are fans, but we love our team, even when they are losing.

Politics has a similar spectrum of experts and self-proclaimed experts. Some want to discuss issues to understand why the opposition thinks differently. Some want to prove their party is better than your party. And all of us in between.

For me politics is complex and needs untangling, so I often want to listen. But don’t get me started about the topics I think I know about: Christianity or public education.  Then you are in for a diatribe with enemies named and scorned.  Lately my anger has waxed about Christian Nationalism. I mean it, don’t get me started.

Nothing creates bitter enemies more than politics and religion, and that is one reason I need to fast from political writing. This is the dualism that hurts others, but it hurts the provocateur as well. In religion, especially, the dualistic mind turns us into self-righteous prigs. As Richard Rohr says

 Most of us settle for quick and easy answers instead of any deep perception, which we leave to poets, philosophers, and prophets. Yet depth and breadth of perception should be the primary arena for all authentic religion. How else could we possibly search for God?

Just as there is nothing wrong with drinking if you are not an alcoholic, there is nothing wrong with political writing unless it turns you into a raving dualist.  Sports ranting and political ranting are not that different. As we say, they generate more heat than light.

To replace the ranting of politics,  I will try to write more affirmative writing: inquiry, reflections, memoir, poetry, that kind of thing. My recent post on “Angry Writing” would qualify in the category of “reflections.” Probably this piece would qualify, as an inquiry into rants and diatribes.

But, to my surprise, my withdrawal from political writing has been much harder than my withdrawal from sports ranting.  Every morning I get incensed by political news and want to spout off about it.  There is evidence of addiction here, evidence that I want the Christian Nationalists to get my message, because they are sooo wrong and self-serving.  Maybe they are, but I probably will not be the one to convince them. I am too incensed.

See? I sneaked a little politics even in my “apolitical” writing. This is going to be a long Lent.

 

 

Sunrise

 The naked sun rises stark

 striking in singularity

 sharp circumference

commanding presence

red rubber ball.

 

The refracted sun rises

 glorifying clouds

                                                             Overtoning pastel, flamingo

                                                                    Rose, coral pink

                                                                Glowing, illuminating.

 

                                                                    Humankind

                                                           striking in singularity

                                                        lovely in gathered refraction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sleeper, Awake!

Well, I’ve finally humiliated myself for dozing during the day, in this case during a sermon, in this case sitting in the choir loft for all to see. The choir sits in public view on the congregation’s left in our sanctuary, so we are part of the service, even as we wait to sing after the sermon. Here I was, enacting my disregard for the Word spoken, sleeping in public.

In recent years I’ve had trouble sleeping more than six hours in a night. This is a new issue since most of my life I’ve been a sound sleeper, easily enjoying the standard eight hours a night. The result has been midday dozing, a habit that has offended Victoria, because of my checking out, taking absence, while she remains awake and alone in the living room. I’ve even faded out as she was talking to me. That, I understood, was offensive. The rest seemed to me the innocent behavior of a sleep-handicapped person.

I’ve seen a sleep therapist. I’ve taken on the onerous burden of a C-Pap gadget. I’ve taken afternoon naps. I’ve succumbed to decaffeinated coffee. I’ve tried, and still I doze during the nightly news and sometimes begin to fade while Victoria is in mid-sentence. I just check out without warning until she says, “Are you falling asleep?” with a slight edge in her voice.

I’ve also found it hard to distinguish between meditation and sleep. When I have tried to meditate in my morning devotions or respectfully during the sermon, I pass into oblivion. That is not what meditation calls for. And yet meditation is a relaxed form of prayer, a sense of peace before God. How do I convert sleeping into worshipful prayer?  Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, while his disciples dozed. How did his earnest prayer for “Not my  will, but thine?” contrast with the weary catnapping of his followers?

Until now I have felt like the disciples, just trying to recover from a long day’s labor. I felt like Victoria was unnecessarily annoyed by my innocent drifting off. I remember my father taking a siesta during the sports segment of the late night news and my mother finding him in his recliner, chastising him, “Tuck, wake up and come to bed!” Then my Dad would rouse himself and say,” I just want to hear the sports,” after he had already missed the lead story. Why can’t a man sleep, when he wants to?

I felt it was an innocent dalliance, until I missed the last five minutes of the sermon, bent over in full view of the congregation and the choir during the Sunday service. This was a full-Monty from meditation to public humiliation. I’m not sure if the pastor observed my insult to his preaching the Word, but I hope my offense was ignored or forgiven.

Now it was public and chronic. Now it was failed meditation. Now it was ignoring the Word of God,  boring or not.  The sleeper was not innocently slipping into the Land of Nod. He was obstructing the Spirit from bringing home the message.

I get it. Sleeping at the wrong time is rude. Sleeping can  say, “I don’t think you are important enough for my undivided attention.” Sleeping can even say, “Don’t bother me, God. This sermon lacks relevance.” Or to anyone, “I’ve given you enough time; let me sleep.” Sleeping is the opposite of listening.

As Victoria has pointed out, I used to make my living as a listener. I hardly ever lectured as a college professor. I spent about 60 % of my class listening to my students. My students were future teachers. I was trying to model good listening for them, and they appreciated it. So I was pretty good at listening for 75-minute or 90-minute intervals. Not so sure about after that. I can be easily distracted, even when I stay awake.

I  need to apply some of those skills to my non-professional friends, not to mention my spouse. Actually I will mention my spouse, who has to live with this annoyance every day. I need to adopt a more alert posture. In fact I will begin with posture.

Through reading, I have been taught that it helps to stay as upright as possible while meditating, to maintain the boundary between listening and sleep. Not slumped or even bowing in the alleged posture of prayer. I have also learned to keep attention by focusing on my breathing and letting idle thoughts drift away. This works pretty well in prayer.

Could I apply this to people and TV?  Maintain an erect position and focus on the person, not on stray thoughts. This sounds a little formal, but recall this is a recovery behavior, not a casual reform. My falling asleep is so abrupt that I can’t catch myself in the act. It’s like a sudden blackout. I need a deliberate approach, kind of like abstinence for an alcoholic or an overeater.

So now, if I pretend to focus by closing my eyes, as I am wont to do, that should send an alarm to my conscious brain to straighten up and pay attention. I can try this during the news or when listening to Victoria’s sometimes rambling stories. I know, if I ask her to summarize and stop, she is very cooperative. No excuses there.

As for the twenty-minute sermon, I need to take the alert posture and turn to my left and follow the pastor as he journeys to the front of the platform and back to the pulpit.  Bowing in meditation is out for now, just as the alcoholic resolves not to take a small sip of alcohol. Maybe I’m distracted, but no one can tell from my focus, my alert posture, my portrayal of listening. As they say, “Fake it till you make it.”

Sleeper, awake!

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