cold war

about five years ago i was writing articles for a small denominational magazine in canada. this article was the only one that was rejected, on the grounds that the theology was too 'reform.'

although there is a troublesome idea about the sovereignty of God that i still wrestle with today, i have been thinking a lot about the morning after the 'night of His betrayal...'

seemed appropriate to post this on Good Friday.

*sidenote: the greatest rationale for Good Friday services is that we go from palm sunday with all of the 'hosanna heysanna' hoopla to Easter and the resurrection, having not really dealt with the cruelly torturous passion of the Christ. without Good Friday, Easter would be just another sunday, right?


being an early gen-X canadian, i remember few things from 1972 that impacted my life like the amazing canada-soviet hockey series. i remember sitting in the open-area (the big educational trend of the day) with a hundred or so other third-graders watching the games on a 20" black and white tv during school time. i remember rushing home afterward to the paved driveways and the back streets to live out those great hockey moments in our own luke-warm version of the cold war. i had no idea what the series was all about, other than national pride. this was, after all, why we sang O Canada in the first place... it was the unofficial 'hockey night in canada' theme song.

so I was troubled, as were most canadians, when I saw what bobby clarke did. he was a canadian ambassador from flin flon manitoba who had lived out the canadian dream. he'd made it all the way to the nhl and even had a puck-shaped hole where his front teeth had been. he was playing in a series that would be remembered more as a series of battles than a series of games, but when he swung his stick down upon valery kharlamov's ankle, fracturing it and thus impeding one the soviet's key offensive weapons, he stepped over a line for me. coach john ferguson, no stranger to warlike play, had chosen clarke to carry out the deed because "i couldn't tell that to rod gilbert but i could certainly talk to bobby clarke and he'd do it."

shrewd coaching or abandoning an ideal in order to accomplish a desired outcome, the result was the same. i saw kharlamov hobbled on tv by one of my heroes.

***
how could i have done this to you, Lord?!”

the tragic voice cries out in the coldest moment of the night- that moment that lingers seemingly forever as darkness pauses in chilling solitary stubbornness before surrendering to the first hints of morning light that at once begin to whisper the coming of day from somewhere in the eastern abyss.

“oh God- i’d give anything to take it back! please remember me as a sin offering to I AM!”

the tortured voice cries again to be followed by a sickeningly sonic quadratic of rope pulled tight, creaking wood, cracking bone and escaping air. after this there is only that whisper of morning across the clouded sky. just hours later another dying man will cry out from an entirely different tree of pain before darkness claims this troubled mediterranean district for three hours in the middle of the afternoon.

*****
“goddammit, I told you- I DON’T KNOW HIM!” a gruffly frustrated, heavily accented voice snarls from the comfort of the warmly burning embers and billowing smoke of a courtyard fire. even now the details of this night with its cryptic words, its symbolic gestures and its empty embraces are hazy. one thing seems certain: whoever this voice in the shadows belongs to clearly knows the man of the hour who turns to look straight through the firelight at him as that same darkness surrenders that same piece of sky. off in some barn in the distance, a cock acknowledges the coming of friday morning for the third time in just minutes.

*****
we are really good at judging. we have had a lot of practice. it is as comforting to be able to point at someone in gethsemane as it is to berate adam and eve for getting us all thrown out of eden. we know that judas kissed Christ with a divided heart many times before the garden, and that peter's bloody sword could only temporarily hide the lack of resolve that his words betrayed for all to hear. yet in our heart of hearts we know who we are, and we wear those same labels again and again in our own lives. perhaps that’s why we judge so effortlessly. the ability to do that came once we tasted of sin for ourselves and discovered first hand the difference between faithfulness and disobedience.

but here's the thing. each of the disciples betrayed Christ in that moment when they were required to be faithful, yet didn't the gospel go ahead anyway? as a matter of fact, didn't the gospel require the Christ to be betrayed by those whom he trusted? as i look at the story of judas, i am struck by the idea that perhaps God simply chose judas because he knew that judas would, on his own, do what needed to be done in order for Christ to be ultimately glorified. how could Christ have conquered death and the grave for real without that horrible thursday night? without the death there could be no resurrection- and the resurrection was the point. had judas not been the type of man he was, he would not have been in the position he was, nor could he have been as involved as he was. he was there because Almighty God knew that he would do the job, and an ugly job needed to be done.

such is the sovereignty of God- to know our failings and somehow be glorified even in them.

i believe that the real difference between judas and peter came after the moment of betrayal. betrayal takes on many forms, and both peter and judas were guilty of the severe where we are guilty of the subtle. nonetheless, as the sun came up, one man took his own life and one man recommitted his. the difference between judas and peter was the simple acceptance of the grace of God. whereas judas could not allow himself to be forgiven- in truth he could not forgive himself- peter went away praying a different kind of prayer, and upon that praying rock did Christ build his church.

God is honoured in many ways. he chooses to allow us the freedom to be fallen or faithful, because the choice itself glorifies him. through our faithfulness, we invite others to ask "who is this God that he/she serves and why is he/she able to remain straight while the rest of the world curves?" our lives are to be a plumbline showing how far the rest of this life has slipped away from truth.

because God is omnipotent, his will is accomplished in all things whether anyone, even he, likes it or not. God doesn’t want us to hold out on him, but his will will be done with or without our acquiescence. the choice as to how actively we are involved in bringing honour to his name is up to us, for even fallenness can be used of God to accomplish his intentions.

bobby clarke’s coaches knew their players well. they knew who to call upon for any given play in the game.

although the comparison between the coaching staff of that historic hockey club and the creator of the universe is tragically flawed, the comparisons between the players involved might not be so far off. when God is looking for someone to do a job that accomplishes his will and ultimately brings him honour, when does he call upon us? does he have our faithfulness or our lack of faithfulness in mind when he thinks of us?

I RETURN ONCE AGAIN TO A PLACE I OFTEN VISIT
THE PLACE OF BEGINNINGS
WHERE I ASK YOU TO BEGIN AGAIN

THE LONGING OF MY SOUL
IS TO WALK WITH YOU
WITHOUT A BURDEN TO SLOW ME DOWN

TO CHERISH EVERY MOMENT
AND TRADE AWAY THIS LIFE FOR YOURS
MORE THAN TO BE ALIVE IN YOU I WANT YOU TO BE MY LIFE

TAKE MY HAND- JESUS LIFT ME UP
BECAUSE IVE FALLEN AGAIN
RESTORE MY HOPE, JESUS, WITH YOUR STRENGTH
I WANT TO FOLLOW ONLY YOU
(© 2000)

poetic license

john (http://penseethoughts.blogspot.com/) said:
"The relationship between poetry and truth is key but it seems power resides with poetry when, as Christ puts it 'the people are hungry' whereas power resides with truth when people are being fed meat and potatoes."

i like the notion that poetry is sometimes the only means by which the truth can get in.

language is like digital sampling. the greater the bitrate, the truer the sample is to the sonic essence of the original sound. poetic language contains not only the factual information, but the emotive colour of the factual information as well- in many ways it is a more complete 'sample' of an idea. not only this but metaphors are so much more participative, inviting thoughtful interpretation which takes so much more involvement than simply accepting or rejecting an idea does.

Jesus' use of metaphor seems to go intentionally in one of two directions: obscuring truth to invite greater hunger for it and greater satisfaction upon its discovery; and fleshing truth out in order to make it palpable for willy lowman.

i debated this idea at length with a friend of mine once. he was a seminarian, and was in love with his books (as can happen when you spend so much quality time with them!) the idea that we were attempting to find middle ground on was this: the bible is written in ancient aramaic (old testament) and greek (new testament) with odds and sods of linguistic hybrids thrown in here and there... therefore one needs to have experience with the ancient languages in order to properly handle scripture- in order to divine truth from the words.

obviously, not knowing a stitch of any of the languages in question, i disagreed on the grounds that God's word is truth and truth is timeless and unchanging. the trick for us today is to be able to discern the difference between timeless truth and culturally specific traditions. truth or tradition: how can we tell the difference if we don't know squat about ancient peoples? well that's probably a whole nother blog, but the way i tried to make my point was using poetry...

i asked a bunch of questions which basically underscored the richness of our shared cultural experiences:
both born in the same country in the same basic time period
both speaking the same mother tongue
both raised in traditional nuclear families
both schooled in the same language
both religiously raised and trained in the same denomination
both pursued secular employment before heading into ministry

alright enough already... so the point?
easy. i asked him what i meant when i wrote these lyrics:

circumstances change but the needs are still the same
people still need love and people still love to complain
everybody dances but no one wants to stay behind to pay the band
at the foot of the cross we gape at our loss
holding bloody hammers in our hands
its the moment of choosing between life and simply living alone

well that's hardly fair. i held all the cards. no matter what he said i could have said he was wrong... but i didn't because that would have nullified anything of value that i was trying to say. he gave the perfect answer anyway...

"i don't know- i can tell you what it says to me, though."

bingo. now obviously my stuff is pretty skimpy on truth, and helplessly incompatible with scripture, but the idea that, with poetry, many lessons can be learned from the same passage is a good one. every time i pick up my bible i try to discover something new in it that i've never seen before. the search for a new idea amidst ancient words is staggeringly humbling, because of all the defaults that we have to undo, but it is also incredibly rewarding because we grow in the process.

(note- VERY important: upon arriving at a 'new spin,' the next task is, of course, to run it through the gauntlet: there are things that are very hard to prove, but very easy to disprove. what can you find that disagrees? on what grounds do the disagreements stand? is this consistent with the deep water issues of scripture? all that. otherwise, a creative person can arrive at some pretty weird conclusions if studying the bible in a vacuum! i love the ongoing theological dialogue between frankie dunn and his priest in 'million dollar baby'... take your local preacher or scriptural authority out and bounce ideas around- benefit from HIS/HER years of study to further enrich your relationship with the God of the scriptures.)

however, i'm not getting the 'power of meat and potatoes' bit of john's post. what i take from it is that when people are accustomed to logical and factual discourse, there's not a lot of power in linguistic colourature. i certainly have friends that would agree with a memo more readily than they would agree with a sonnet.

me? i believe that while some books pontificate, other books sing-
yet both can contain truth.

“Wisdom sets bounds even to knowledge… there is a great deal I do NOT want to know… even the bravest of us rarely has the courage for what he really knows…”
(Nietzsche- Twilight of the Idols)

"What is truth?" Pilate asked. (John 18.38)

planet of the zen apes

an old debate heated up again in a recent mbleslie blog
(www.mbleslie.com/blog/2005/03/evolution-debate-rolls-on.php)

matthew blogged:
But even if we knew for 100% fact - which is never the case or there wouldn't be a need for faith - that God did make the universe, the 'separation of church and state' would prevent it being taught in school! How can the truth ever be pursued when one possibility is shunned and rejected automatically based on some deep-seated resentment for anything supernatural?

Another interesting case. Say Joe Christian believes that God somehow acted along with evolution to bring everything to the way it is today. When pressed, Joe admits that he doesn't want God taught alongside evolution in schools. What we can conclude is that Joe either doesn't really believe in the God of Christianity, or that he doesn't mind children being taught what he believes to be a lie - which in turn casts serious doubt on his beliefs. Moreover, Joe appears as a man with no conviction.

and davekugler said:
...Not teaching religion in public settings is of respect for those whose religious backgrounds differ from our own – it protects diversity of thought and belief, while placing responsibility on the teaching of religion on the family. Private schools have offered an alternative for decades for people who don’t want to face the responsibility on their own.

so Icarus said:
Davekugler's comment reminds me of certain Christians I have seen on campus who were shocked and appalled when a travelling minister said that anyone who doesn't believe in Christ is going to Hell. They were so indoctrinated with "tolerance" and "diverstiy" that they didn't even believe what they believed! In the world of gray and relativism, no one is wrong and everyone gets to be right, in their own way, of course.

and finally jollybeggar said:
wow.

although i've never actually given myself that name, i'll step out here and say that you can call me joe. at least, one version of joe. i'm in a quirky spot on this one because i am a 'bi-vocational pastor' (which basically means that i do the church thing and when i'm not doing that i am doing my other job) who teaches public school. not average joe, but an interested joe nonetheless.

however, when i'm pressed, i can't say that i don't want God taught alongside evolution in school- i really do because they address different aspects of who we are and what we need in this place and time.

belief in God and acceptance of the evolution theory are not necessarily contradictory ideas. the notion that they are is old scripting- it is a modern matrix being applied to something holistic. the thing that both of them have in common is that they are both really critically difficult to nail down...(i like what matthew said about faith- in a sort of douglas adams' "hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy" kinda way) ie: you can't put God in a box for examination and you can't really prove evolution- you can only disprove it.

a few years ago while i was learning through an internship how to be a teacher, we had the big creation-evolution debate in an eighth grade public school class. parents were sent notes to sign saying that they were fine with this and yada yada yada. one side debated evolution from an anthropological standpoint, the other debated creationism from a christian standpoint.

the christians learned a lot that day about what lions will eat and what they will spit out.

although the 'scientists' had charts and diagrams and quotes from everyone from darwin to vonnegut, the christians had only the bible. their logic was flawed in that they used the one source, upon which their theory is based, to prove that their theoretical interpretation of that source was correct and therefore everyone else is wrong. sound familiar?

when was the last time you won a bet that way?

well, we had two authorities come to speak to the kids following the dramatic student debate. on two successive days, a minister from a local church and an anthropologist from the university were slated to speak to the students- sadly, we still felt the need to keep science and spirituality apart in a public school setting.

the first day the minister came. “i understand that you are engaged in a debate for science class over theories of our origin, and are discussing God and creation. firstly, you need to know that this book (the bible) is not a textbook. it wasn’t written that way and it wasn’t meant to be read that way. the bible doesn’t tell you what happened, the bible tells you about who did it…” and so on.

well, i thought ‘great, sounds nice, but the anthropologist from the university is gonna wipe him out tomorrow…’

the next day we waited patiently for our friendly neighbourhood anthropologist, who eventually arrived, albeit late, ready to speak. “i understand that you are engaged in a debate for science class over cosmology theories and are seeking the best explanation of how everything began: creation versus evolution. firstly, let me say that science and the bible speak to different things: if your car happens to break down on a day like today in frigid, sub-zero temperatures, no amount of praying will probably get the thing going again. (here he was being autobiographical, i found out later) however, if you are looking for the meaning of life on a day like today, science has nothing to say.”

the kids were confused and, in a zen sense, that’s when their enlightenment began, I think.

well, except that i think that science does in fact qualify the meanings we take from life by allowing us to more carefully consider the observables, i agree with both men... not in spite of the fact that they seemed to meet right in the middle of the controversy, offering no tidy conclusions, but probably because of it.

i believe what i believe (although i often have a terrible time articulating it) but i don't feel that it is relativist to choose to breathe the free air instead of suffocating with one's head buried so deeply in theological sand that choking, oxygen-starved hallucinations form his spin on 'life, the universe and everything.'

(and, by the way, i too concur with arzhang that evolution is really about continuations, not beginnings...)

hells and confessions

dan said:
"Jolly Beggar, you might be interested in dans inferno's newly begun blog. It's dans search for hell...........dans inferno "
(www.dans-inferno-search.blogspot.com/ )

well, i went there, (dan's blog that is, not hell itself!) and the thing about newly begun blogs is that they are more interesting if you begin them with an initial post, buddy- anyway, i'm interested in where you go with it...

i bought copies of the three volumes of dante's divine comedy years ago, but i have yet to read them. they do look particularly impressive on my bookshelf, along with volumes of milton, kierkegaard, rand and others which i haven't read either, and a copy of 'portrait of the artist...' which i recently checked out of the library. i read bunyan's 'pilgrim's progress'- does that count? oh the masks we wear. someday i'll get around to them- until then i'll just ask questions of people who have.

does joyce actually quote dante in that bit that rhymes apologize with 'pull out his eyes' or is he just name-dropping in order to take us somewhere? marcy? dan? icarus?

well at any rate, an empty blog on hell seems about right. having, as i have already confessed, not read dante's piece (although being mildly curious as to why joyce makes reference to dante as if he were a contemporary of daedulus' uncle- spiritual, aesthetic, mentoring or otherwise) my understanding of hell is a bit more traditional. (well, it appears traditional until you consider that the bible was first translated into english in 1611 and dante was writing his divine comedy in italian around 1306-1321... but i think that these are just details. the authorship of the biblical texts on hell predates dante by a fair bit so whatever...)

do you ever have one of those days where everything you say is bogged down by subclauses and parentheses?

the biblical descriptions of hell are figurative. the stuff about fire and brimstone and all that is, in my opinion, meant to somehow describe what being eternally separated from God might be compared to in physical torment- dante's epic poem is probably a powerful exploration of what the ultimate spiritual void might 'feel' like as well. the fact that copies of inferno seem to greatly outsell copies of the other 2/3 of dante's trilogy suggests to me that humankind after the fall is still more interested in darkness than light- for some reason people are fickle and bored with the presence of God and turn earnestly in fancy to his absense.

i punched out something along these lines as the liner notes for an industrial cd that i recorded in 1998 called 'buffet taboo- if no one witnesses the crime'.

went something like this... (sorry for the caps- i just don't want to type it out again)

NOTES: HELLS AND CONFESSIONS

MANY CHOOSE A MORTAL PRELUDE TO HELL AND CALL IT LIFE- A LIFE OF ISOLATION, LONELINESS AND STUBBORN SELF-SUFFICIENCY WHICH REFUSES TO ACCEPT THE POSSIBILITY OF PERSONAL FAULT OR NEED. I IMAGINE THAT THERE ARE TWO MAIN DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THIS TEMPORARY HELL AND THE PERMANENT ONE.

FIRST, A TEMPORARY HELL IS GOVERNED BY TIME AND, BECAUSE OF THAT PROPERTY OF TIME THAT CAUSES IT TO BE USED UP, IS ALWAYS TOO SHORT. THERE IS NOT ENOUGH TIME LEFT TO THE DYING MAN TO ACTUALLY CHANGE THE COURSE OF HIS LIFE- JUST ENOUGH TO REGRET THE COURSE HIS LIFE HAS TAKEN. THERE IS NO TURNING BACK AND NOTHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO, BUT AT LEAST THEN IT IS OVER. THE SECOND HELL IS ALSO A SOLITARY ONE, BUT ONE WHICH EXISTS OUTSIDE OF TIME AND THEREFORE INFINITE- NO MORE OR LESS TORMENT, JUST AN ENDLESS SEPARATION FROM GOD WHICH WILL ALWAYS BE MORE THAN IS BEARABLE BECAUSE THE OPTION OF REPENTENCE IS NO LONGER OPEN.

THE SECOND MAIN DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO HELLS HAS TO DO WITH SIGHT. IN THE FIRST HELL, MAN TRIES TO CONTROL THE UNCONTROLLABLE, BEING BOTH TOO IGNORANT TO TRULY RECOGNIZE HIS FALLEN NATURE AND TOO STUBBORN TO ACCEPT HELP FROM EITHER GODS SON OR HIS PEOPLE. IN THE SECOND HELL, MAN IS ABLE TO SEE EXACTLY WHAT WAS NEEDED TO BE DONE, AND MUST EXIST FOREVERMORE WITH THE KNOWLEDGE THAT HE CHOSE THIS ETERNITY. LIVING FOREVER IN HINDSIGHT; HAVING NOTHING TO FOCUS ON BUT FAILURE AND CONSEQUENCE; NO LONGER BEING BLIND- SIMPLY POWERLESS; EXISTING IN PERPETUAL REGRET- THIS IS THE STUFF THAT THE SECOND HELL IS MADE OF. THERE ARE NO BUSRIDES OR WEEKEND PASSES, JUST AN ETERNITY OF KNOWING WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE...

OR MAYBE, SEEING ALL AND HAVING TO CHOOSE BETWEEN SELF-LOVE AND SURRENDER, NOTHING WOULD BE DIFFERENT. PERHAPS IT IS AS C.S. LEWIS SUGGESTED- ETERNITY BEGINS TODAY AND TODAY WE DWELL IN HELL OR IN PARADISE, DEPENDING ON WHO SITS ON THE THRONE OF OUR HEART. ONE CANNOT BOTH CLING TO THE EARTH AND REACH FOR THE SKY.

ONE THING IS SURE-
AFTER EVERY SIN,
NEW OR REMEMBERED,
ETERNITY IN PARADISE
BEGINS AGAIN
UPON MY CONFESSION.

our favourite game

Icarus continues the dialogue. interestingly, his comments in the second paragraph (red) echo the ideas from the 'side note' of his earlier posting (blue) that originally drew me into his circle... good to see you are consistent, buddy!

"As for life support systems and christian belief, it seems like prolonging life through manmade technological interventions is equivilant to prematurely ending life. It is, in a way, playing God. Perhaps Christians should take the view that when God calls you home, when it's your time to die, that you just let it happen, you dont leave early and you don't arrive late. Leave it to God.

Frankly I don't understand why, knowing that once you die you will go to heaven, a christian would use technology to prolong life past what God, or nature, has ordained. I suppose, even knowing you will go to heaven, there still exists some anxiety about death and seperation from loved ones. "

"On a side note, why is it that people, especially Christians it seems, are so afraid of death. Often I see Christians cling on to any sliver of life as though they knew they were destined for damnation. If you believe you are going to heaven, and you know how wonderful heaven is, why the hesitation. You'd think they would be leaving at their first opportunity, yet I often see them vehemently fighting to keep people alive who are shells of human beings, and who are only being sustained through extensive medical and technological intervention. I just don't get it. "

yeah- playing God has been our favourite game since the fall...

well, that and killing each other- kinda sad how those two are related. the power over life and death has been sinister solace for us since we failed to deal well with the knowledge of good and evil. death follows sin- sin implies death. but it's like, if we can't master the cause then we will at least take charge of the effect. we bought (and continue to purchase updates) into the lie that being 'like God' means power when actually being 'like God' means perspective... at least that's what genesis 3 and its fallout say to me.

robert gerzon, author of "finding serenity in the age of anxiety" (i know i know, it was on oprah's reading list a few years back... it was a gift from somebody!) speaks of 'sacred anxiety' which is simply the knowledge that we are going to die. he identifies this as the foundation for all religious thought- ie: death is inevitable, but then what follows death? very few of us are comfortable with the idea that done is done. some would contest that we have created a heaven in our minds to help us feel better, others assert that heaven is hope and hope is crucial to survival... but i think that i agree with tim rice (i've taken to quoting jesus christ superstar lately) when he speaks of people having 'too much heaven on their minds.'

i don't know- i don't think of heaven much in the sense of spiritual geography. the key for me is not the place of the 'unclouded day' or the 'crystal sea' or 'streets of gold' (all nice metaphors, but limited in their scope to physical creation- weather, elements, precious metals, riches and beauty.) my theology of heaven and hell is probably too simplistically relational: heaven is eternal now, God present; hell is eternal now, God absent.

c.s. lewis carved it out neatly in "mere christianity" (i think it's in this one...) when he describes heaven as an eternal trajectory that begins upon the moment of surrender to God. in other words, when we decide to walk with God daily- allowing his presence to impact our thoughts, our relationships, our art, our industry, whatever- then heaven for us has already begun. it's like a geometric ray, having a fixed starting point and no endpoint. death is just another point on the line.

(i'm not even going to try to argue my quaint and convenient little theory of time severence in death, because lewis' cosmic ray is such a nice picture. like i would have anything valid to say to clive anyway.)

perhaps the main reason that people fight so hard to save those that they might be more merciful to simply release, has nothing to do with playing God, but everything to do with basic human selfishness and technological progress- perhaps the playing God thing is our attempt at preserving our own relationships and interpersonal connections as far as we can see for sure. (i think that i've just completed a loop that began at the conclusion of the 'rollerball' posting.)

my blogfriend ShortStoryDude (http://haveyouexperiencedthis.blogspot.com/) recently lost his father. i sent him a comment that had someone else's incredible (in my opinion) wisdom on mortality and perspective and human loss... i hope that these words helped but not hurt. they have always been reason for me and whatever the case, they serve as probably the best thing i think i have to say on this one:

"i went to a concert a few years back performed by a guy who had just lost his best friend to a heart condition at 40. noticeably melancholy, he apologized to the crowd using words that i've never forgotten (although i'd better say that this is a paraphrase, not a quote):'i'm sorry, but i just don't feel like playing tonight. some of you know that i just lost my dearest friend to something that i just don't understand. although when i 'cross over' myself i will scan that sea of faces looking for that one familiar smile, there's this short in between time that i'm having trouble with... called the rest of my life."

faithless?

we were talking about assisted suicide. icarus goodman, who has a blogspot called 'the flights of icarus' (very cool hook, man) has a really interesting post dealing, yet again, with the terry schiavo story. it's worth reading. (http://icarusgoodman.blogspot.com/2005/02/let-her-die.html)

i sent him the 'rollerball' link and the dialogue continues:

icarus says (edited highlights)
I wonder, from a Christian perspective, when is ending one's life ok? I do remember reading about Abimilech in Judges, and he orders a servant to kill him because he has been mortally wounded by a woman, and he doesn't want to die by her hands. Nothing is said condemning that action. So is killing yourself early, to avoid pain or shame acceptable in Christian views? Does it have to do with being artificially kept alive? Just wondering

good one- what to make of abe?
well, he seized the 'throne' (if it can be called that- he became king of shechem, which was a city that might have been about the size of fargo, north dakota) by murdering his seventy brothers, and didn't prove to be a leader of any real integrity after that, just in case anyone was thinking that he might. the fact that a woman from thebez (just down the road) dropped a rock on his head and he found that too embarrassing to accept so he had himself killed by the guy who was hired to carry around his armour for him just seems like some sort of ironic, spaghetti western frontier justice.

that action is just one of many of his actions that get tagged as 'wicked' and accursed. i don't think that he is a very good example of a man after God's own heart. in fact, it seems that there were very few people in any position of power at the time that actually represented the way God had envisioned people to behave. it's like israel in that period was populated and ruled by tolkien's uruk-hai. the book of judges ends with this summary of the whole mess:

"in those days israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit." (judges 21.25)

what kinda spooks me is that, in the absense of any moral absolutes, we find ourselves in our more-or-less comfy western world doing as we see fit.

there's a similar story a little later in israel's history. king saul, israel's first king, is once again at war with his official nemeses the philistines. after some pretty fiersome fighting, saul's sons are dead and he is overtaken by archers- overtaken says to me that he's running away- in a scene mildly comparable to that one in 'dances with wolves' where the coach driver is overtaken and executed at close range by warriors with bows and arrows.

when the archers leave, probably to get some of the buddies to come back have some barbaric fun humiliating a king, saul bids his servant, in the tradition of abimilech, to kill him. the servant refuses and so saul 'falls on his sword', after which the servant does the same. no more philistine fun today.

anyway, what is surprising is what happens one chapter later. a suspicious survivor of the battle (kurt vonnegut once said 'never trust a survivor until you know what he did to survive') arrives at the encampment of david. david is the newly annointed king who has been on the run for years, awaiting the conclusion of the reign of saul with respect and honour. this guy arrives and tells the story of saul's final moment with one key revision: he says HE is the servant who honoured the last wish of saul by assisting him. producing saul's crown and royal armband, this refugee is probably hoping to get in with the new regime. david's reaction is surprising, but indicative of the type of king he would be: he and his men tear their clothes and fast for the rest of the day in mourning over the death of the king and his sons. then they have the refugee promptly killed for assassinating God's annointed.

really, though, when i am looking for answers from Jesus, these stories are context. Christian spirituality is about Jesus, not his distant ancestors, yet we are correct in looking to the old testament as well as the new for teachings on God's perspective. what i see when i read the gospels is Jesus doing everything he can to heal the sick and raise the dead. life is precious to God- he is its author. never do we see Jesus placing his hands over someone's eyes because they are just too far gone, releasing them from time and space. rather, we see him speaking rather curtly about faithlessness to those who suggest that this or that scenario is hopeless.

i think that, if Jesus' life, ministry and death are any indication of how he would have spoken to the question of avoiding shame and pain through assisted suicide, then the Christian view is pretty clear. Jesus' death was a painfully prolonged public shamefest.

however, as to the whole question of being kept alive artificially, i am still trying to process that one myself without being found faithless.

rollerball

so here's a blog about a letter about a letter about a blog...
(thanks for forwarding this on, marcy...)

"let’s be real, when one is comatose, one is only having nightmares... A nurse wrote to me describing what it is like to care for a comatose patient. Read it and weep. Read especially the part where the only person who changes the comatose person’s diapers was the nurse, not the so-called grieving family... Reality is reality- (marcythewhore)

"reality- what a concept" (Robin Williams album, circa 197_)

The email from a nurse (edited highlights):
In every instance, but one, the family was so convinced that their loved one was responding to them.
Sort of like those situations where a nonspeaking child gives it's mother (or father) long messages of truth and understanding... I stay away from such people. And there are a lot of them.

Like the 19 year old who survived a cardiac arrest, but lived in a vegetative state for the next 5 years. I took care of this lad most of that time. I saw the changes in his family. What happened could be the start of a very long story. Well...

It WAS a very long story. Too long, if you ask me.Yes, he had seizures. Oh they were doozies. Nothing subtle at all. No he didn't breath on his own, nor did he feed himself. He didn't do anything.
Oh... begging pardon.... He stared. All day. And when he didn't stare, he blinked. A lot.
He was a human-sized doll baby, and I fed him, bathed him, dressed him. You know... If I didn't do that, who would? Mommy? Daddy? Bruddy? Oh heavens no!
And when he coded for about the 11th time, and the mother screamed, ranted, threatened direst threats if he didn't survive, it was finally over.
I'm sure no lawyer in this land could not say that everything had not been done. By that time, no one cared, except that it was finally over.
Over, that is until the next one like him.
Of which, I might add, Terry Schiavo and her family are very much alike.
Does Terry Dream? I would venture to say that TS hasn't got two neurons to talk to one another in over a decade.
Poor Terry.

i remember watching rollerball on the late movie when i was a kid.

the part that troubled me was not the violence (it was one of those quasi-dystopian portrayals of an emotionless and desensitized society that were so popular in the 70's, with people cheering while gladiators fought for God and country on a roller derby track littered with burning motorcycle parts and the blood of fallen comrades... the irony of it has been lost today as we grapple with reality tv) but the idea that one moment a person could be laughing with his friends, completely oblivious to the fact that his personal consciousness timeclock was in its final minute, and the next he could be cross-eyed and painless, dragged off the track that had become his whole life- his whole identity. its a great metaphor for gerzon's 'sacred anxiety'... we all know we are going to die, although the circumstancial details concerning the minute and the means are kept from us.

james caan's character, a famously melancholic rollerball superstar from houston named 'jonathan e' goes to visit one such character- his once cocky and likeable, now comatose best friend called 'the swoop'- in intensive care. upon his arrival, he discovers that he is the closest thing to family that the swoop has, so it falls upon him to sign the release form which will result in the pulling of a plug.

i watched intently, wondering what the hero was going to do in response to this whole euthanasia scenario in which he and i had unwittingly become embroiled. i was thirteen and my world view was being formed- even now i remember so desperately needing 'the right answer' for the question on the table.

jonathan e answers the question with a question. "does he have dreams?"

the reply? another question: "who can say?"

exactly.

jonathan e, in the face of the protests from the man with the clipboard, walks calmly out of the room, having lost the only person left on the planet who actually knew him without requiring anything from him but relationship. i'm not sure which character had it worse. who can say?

i turned the question around and around in my head. playing back hope-filled scenarios and trying to somehow imagine what i would do or what i would have done to me... i still don't know, but i think my perspective has changed a bit since then.

i find i think about my soul a lot more now. i find i ask a lot more questions now, receiving fewer and fewer satisfying answers. i even find myself wondering if the asking of the questions is far greater proof of life and faith than any answer that might presume to satisfy me.

does God recognize inevidabilities that we cannot possibly embrace due to our encasement in space/time, and respond to them with mercy... freeing a soul from its space/time packaging before the final respirator-aided breath?

what is the 'breath of life' described in genesis? is that the soul?

where is the soul kept? where is the 'heart?' is it the mind? is it the human body? does the beating of a heart keep the soul bound and gagged, or is it the breathing that does it?

selah (a word we find in the psalms. it basically means 'hmmmm')

i read a really interesting book called 'what dreams may come' by richard matheson(it eventually became a pretty cool film starring robin williams, but the book is better) which attempts to explore these questions while tipping its hat to almost every form of faith and spirituality on the planet. to his credit, matheson doesn't just write an intriguing story, he cites page upon page of resources and interviews on post-death experiences for anyone interested in pursuing the topic further- he has simply synthesized the 'data' into a narrative.

another book which i found amazing was 'the great divorce' by c.s. lewis, which fancifully deals with the questions of eternal destinies and relationships by describing a busload of the damned who receive weekend passes to paradise, only to one-by-one get back on the bus and choose the hell to which they had been originally condemned. the super-reality of paradise is too much for the 'man-shaped stains on the air' that are the cosmic tourists in the story. that and the fact that the acceptance of God's grace has been the key factor in 'who gets in' sends a number of them storming angrily back to the bus over what's fair, turning their backs on those who, having known them in life, have been charged with trying to talk them into staying.

both of these books, although coming from different places and arguably headed to different places as well, seem to agree on this one idea: relationships matter eternally. we were created for relationships and are spiritually equipped to take those relationships with us.

who can say?