Engineering My Faith

This Independence Day, I’m thinking about our national myth. That is, the vision of the United States of America as a glorious democracy, colonized by those seeking religious freedom, born of revolution by noble heroes who believed that all men were created equal against a tyrannical king, and purged of the sin of slavery by a leader who sought true equality. A close reading of history reveals most of that preceding sentence to be false, exaggerated, or at least selective memory.

I’m currently listening to an audiobook about Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island. First the Pilgrims came to Plymouth, who sought to establish a new theocracy, separate from the Church of England. Next came the Massachusetts Bay Company, founded by Puritans who saw themselves as still a part of the Church of England but with differences of opinion over the “right” way to worship and believe. In both cases, there was a pervasive connection between church and state, with compulsory church attendance (punished by fines), voting rights tied to church membership, and government legitimacy deriving from divine favor, not the consent of the governed. Williams’s compact governing Providence was the first in the New World—whether in English, Dutch, Spanish, or Portuguese territory—omitting reference to God. Williams himself was thoroughly religious, but believed that civil government had no authority regarding the “first table” of the Ten Commandments, that is, the first four Commandments dictating Christian duty to God. This was a revolutionary concept, and fairly unique in the colonies. Our First Amendment separation of church and state was primarily a way to accommodate Anglican, Presbyterian, Catholic, Quaker, and other Christian sects, each of which would have preferred to see their denomination raised to dominance over the others.

The public conversation these days is reckoning with the mixed record of our forefathers on racial equity. Let’s set aside the Confederate monuments, which memorialize people who were traitors, losers, and opposed to our supposed belief in equality before our Creator. Let’s talk instead about people like Washington, Jefferson, and even Lincoln, who have more mixed legacies. Washington and Jefferson led the creation of a nation that had far more freedom than its predecessors, while at the same time owning slaves and participating in all the worst aspects of slavery, including rape (e.g. Sally Hemings, a product and victim of white owners’ exploitation of their Black slaves). Lincoln’s primary motive was to save the Union, and he ultimately realized that the only way to do so was to end slavery.

The question these days is whether to literally put these men on a pedestal, that is, to honor them with statues, monuments, state and city names, etc. For answers, let’s look at the history of Israel as recorded in the Bible.

Genesis 12-50 is devoted to Israel’s ancestral history, from Abraham down to the Israelites first moving to Egypt. These are the men and women who founded a great people, the equivalent of our patriotic forefathers. The account as we currently have it was assembled centuries after the fact by redactors who combined a variety of stories into a cohesive account. The overarching message is that Israel is a chosen people, specially blessed by God. So one might think that the patriarchs would be described in glowing terms. But that’s not what we read.

Abram twice tried to pass off his wife, Sarai, as his sister. Even after God entered a covenant with him, renamed him Abraham, and promised him a son by Sarah, he did not trust in God and concocted a scheme that ended with him sending his slave, Hagar, and her son, Ishmael, into the wilderness and near-certain death in order to protect Sarah and her son, Isaac. Isaac’s son Jacob, who was renamed Israel and whose sons defined the twelve tribes of the nation of Israel, is a particularly deceitful character. He cheats his brother, Esau, out of his inheritance, and his father-in-law, Laban, out of a disproportionate share of his flock. His favoritism to two of his sons resulted in Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers. Joseph is at times deceitful himself, perhaps taking revenge on his brothers over their mistreatment of him.

These are not impeccable, glorious heroes. These are just men who are trying to make their way in the world. The women in these stories are no better—Sarah was the one who conceived of the plans regarding Hagar and Ishmael, Isaac’s wife Rebekah helped Jacob steal Esau’s inheritance, and Jacob’s wife Rachel stole her father’s household idols. What makes them all worthy of honor are their roles in founding a nation devoted to God.

People are complicated. Only one person in all of history lived a spotless life, Jesus. The rest of us have our good days and bad days. Some of us are able to rise above our sins against God and neighbor to help their community or nation more nearly approach the Beloved Community that Martin Luther King, Jr., described.

Speaking of Martin Luther King, Jr., he was another complicated person with his own failings, a fact often pointed out by those who would defend America’s Founding Fathers with whataboutism. But a person should be judged by the totality of their life, the totality of their legacy. MLK was a powerful force for racial justice and equality, a man unfortunately lost before his vision was realized. Lincoln saved the Union and ended slavery. Jefferson was, on the whole, an excellent statesman, from his authorship of the first draft of the Declaration of Independence through his presidency. Washington was possibly the only man who could have been an effective President at the time he was chosen, and was a good enough general to defeat our British opponents.

Let us celebrate the good that these men did, not by ignoring the bad parts of their lives, but by acknowledging that they were humans like the rest of us who were able to rise above their sins to produce the flawed, but promising, nation we have.

Over the past few decades, five presidents have needed to address well-publicized incidents of race-related police brutality, starting roughly with George H. W. Bush and Rodney King in 1991 and still continuing today. (George W. Bush’s terms in office were surprisingly devoid of such incidents.) Each president has sought to comfort a hurting American public. Archetypal was the elder Bush’s responses, first to the initial incident:

Those terrible scenes stir us all to demand an end to gratuitous violence and brutality. Law enforcement officials cannot place themselves above the law that they are sworn to defend.

It was sickening to see the beating that was rendered and there’s no way, no way in my view, to explain that away. It was outrageous.

George H. W. Bush on March 22, 1991

And then to the rioting:

The wanton destruction of life and property is not a legitimate expression of outrage with injustice. It is itself injustice. And no rationalization, no matter how heartfelt, no matter how eloquent, can make it otherwise. …

None of this is what we wish to think of as American. It’s as if we were looking in a mirror that distorted our better selves and turned us ugly. We cannot let that happen. We cannot do that to ourselves.

George H. W. Bush, in an address to the nation on May 1, 1992

It seems we follow a standard script. Outrage at the original incident, handwringing over what we could possibly do, headshaking at some people’s inappropriate responses, then back to business as usual. Somehow, 2020 seems different. The outrage has spread around the country, and indeed around the world. Aside from George Floyd, a number of other incidents have come to light at the same time. Media have exposed some of the worst reactions of police: instead of seeking to serve and protect, too many have adopted a warrior mentality and tried to dominate the protesters.

But perhaps the most telling difference has been the reaction of President Trump. In between the normal compassionate-sounding prepared remarks he delivered at press conferences, he tweeted:

I can’t stand back & watch this happen to a great American City, Minneapolis. A total lack of leadership. Either the very weak Radical Left Mayor, Jacob Frey, get his act together and bring the City under control, or I will send in the National Guard & get the job done right.

These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!

Donald Trump, via tweet on May 27, 2020

This was just the beginning of an increasingly hostile attitude towards protesters, peaceful or violent. In response, Americans broadly—including white Americans—have realized that behind all of the soothing rhetoric over the past thirty years, Black subjugation has continued apace, with brutal policing enforcing the racial divide that has been baked into our society by 400 years of laws and policies.

 Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

John F. Kennedy, remarks on the first anniversary of the Alliance for Progress, 13 March 1962.

For fifty years, Black Americans have continued the struggle for real equality after legal barriers were technically removed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Their simmering anger occasionally erupted into protests and riots, but was quickly settled down by promises to change. Change never came. Now everyone is realizing that asking nicely and playing by the rules is never going to achieve real progress.

In Ancient Greek, there are two different words for “time.” The conventional word is chronos for sequential time, quantitative time. Kairos means something more qualitative, something like “timely.” The proper or opportune time for action. I believe the Trump presidency has created the conditions for change. America is under extreme stress right now, between COVID-19, political polarization and realignment, and economic spasms. Race has long been in the background for many, many social and economic issues in America, and suddenly it has been thrust to the foreground. White people are finally connecting the dots.

2 On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, ² and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ³ When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

⁴ “Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”

⁵ His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

…

¹² After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days.

¹³ When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴ In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. ¹⁵ So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. ¹⁶ To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” ¹⁷ His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

John 2:1-5, 12-17

As one might expect, Jesus had an excellent sense of kairos. Yet sometimes conditions forced his hand. I don’t know why first he said that his time had not yet come, but then agreed to go along with what his mother asked. Perhaps to indulge her; perhaps because they both knew that it was indeed time, and she saw an opportunity. Whatever the case, he realized also that it was time to begin his public ministry, knowing that it would put him on a path towards crucifixion. He knew that he would come into conflict with powerful religious leaders and civil authorities, but accepted that as the price of justice.

Society is always lacking. There will indeed always be poor among us, and the powerful will always take advantage of the weak. In that sense, the time is always right to push for change. But sometimes, society becomes especially pliable, especially open to progress. Right now, I feel like the accumulated stress of the past 50+ years has broken forth into an earthquake. Time to do what we can to fix what has been, and is being, broken, and then to rebuild society in a better form.

When people say they don’t want to change what they really mean is they don’t have an incentive to change. Change the incentives and the behavior follows suit.

James Clear

Change is in the air these days. Between the fallout from COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter protests, it’s hard to imagine January 2021 looking much like January 2020, even less like January 2008 when I started at Missouri S&T. While S&T claims that the fall semester will go on as usual—with the same calendar, just behavioral modifications TBD—I have my doubts. The lockdown of spring 2020 basically just bought us time. Medical professionals have learned a lot, but not enough. There is still no vaccine, only one anti-viral drug (which is in short supply), and just a little more knowledge about treating symptoms than before. I would not be surprised to see a major surge in COVID-19 cases in late summer.

The main tool we have available right now is behavior modification, not to treat the disease but to prevent its spread. Wash your hands, wear a mask, and keep your distance. There is some indication that these methods are all effective. For example, two hairdressers in Springfield continued to work while they had COVID-19 symptoms, but both they and their clients wore masks and otherwise modified their behavior. So far, there have been no new cases from that incident. So perhaps masks really can slow or stop the spread.

Keeping distance is much harder. Typical personal space in America for good friends is 1½ to 3 feet, much closer than the six-foot distance we have been told is necessary. Six feet is really a lot of separation. Stores now have spots on the floor to indicate proper spacing, but even still, a person does not appear to be in a queue when they are that far apart. Will we permanently change our perception of personal space?

Our church resumed in-person worship on May 24. People are all anxious to be back worshiping together, and it’s nice to be in the same room, but it’s just not the same. What people really mean about “returning to worship” is “returning to fellowship.” Those times when people chat, shake hands or hug, and just enjoy each other’s presence. We are not yet greeting one another with a holy kiss (1 Cor 16:20).

The people and organizations that will be successful in the long run are those who realize that going “back to normal” is impossible. Instead, each of us need to think about what is essential and what can be discarded or modified. Our incentives have changed. No longer does a business simply exist to make money; now it must also consider serving its customers safely.

Meanwhile, there is a sense that real change is coming in response to the Black Lives Matter protests. Every time one of these incidents provokes protests, there is a counter-protest. “All Lives Matter. Blue Lives Matter. We should have a national association of white people. I’m white—where can I get some of this white privilege you talk about?” That sort of thing. “Confederate statues are necessary to honor our history. The Confederate battle flag is just about heritage.” Uh, yeah—the heritage of owning Black people, committing treason, losing a war, and then winning the peace by using arcane laws and customs to maintain domination. Why do we have military bases named after losing, traitorous generals? By that logic, we should have a Fort Benedict Arnold.

The problem, though, is incentives. BLM protests have paid police on one side whose jobs are in jeopardy, and unpaid crowds on the other side. Eventually, protesters need to go back to work. Many white people are coming out in support now; ultimately, white Americans have little to gain and a lot to lose in tangible benefits, so their support may wane.

As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’” He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

Mark 10:17-27

There are two parts to the Great Commandment: love God and love your neighbor. Jesus correctly intuited that this rich man loved his possessions more than he loved his neighbor. He purportedly wants to earn eternal life, and yet the incentive of some future reward is insufficient to overcome the incentive of a good life now.

Are we witnessing a sea change in the incentives regarding race? Will society really change? Or will this just be another story that people tell as a reminder that nothing matters?

Since America’s birth through armed rebellion, war has been used as a metaphor in a wide range of scenarios. Since the end of World War II, we had wars on poverty, drugs, and terrorism, plus a Cold War, in addition to conventional shooting wars. We use battle language when discussing cancer and other deadly diseases, addiction, evangelism, politics, and sports.

The principles of the justice of war are commonly held to be: having just cause, being a last resort, being declared by a proper authority, possessing right intention, having a reasonable chance of success, and the end being proportional to the means used.

The Jus Ad Bellum Convention

War pre-supposes that there are two sides. In just war theory, in order to have a “just” cause, one side must be wrong; hence, the other side, usually the side making the argument, must be right. The side that is in the right is justified in taking proportionate means to achieve the desired end, which is to destroy the side that is wrong.

There are many problems with the jus ad bellum convention. Indeed, each of the six principles are slippery. What exactly is a “just” cause? What else must be tried before war is a “last” resort? But most especially, what does it mean for the means to be “proportional” to the end?

Often, once we decide to go to war, the enemy against which we declare war must be destroyed no matter the cost. Convinced of our righteousness, we perpetrate such atrocities as the firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo, the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the My Lai massacre, and many others that are less well-known. The enemy is not just wrong, but evil, subhuman, deserving of any terrible thing that we can imagine, plus some we can’t.

If we use war as a metaphor to approach a problem in society, we can no longer see the problem clearly. The declared “enemy” must be destroyed. We use every tool at our disposal—including violence and deception—to achieve our desired end.

And so our political opponents do not simply hold different opinions than we do. No, they are evil, un-American. All of their ideas are worthless. All of their statements are, by definition, false, probably intentionally. They must be destroyed—not just at the ballot box, but by any means necessary.

What exactly does it mean to declare war on poverty? There is no actual way to “destroy” poverty. Well, perhaps by destroying all the people who are poor. War on drugs? You can destroy individual drug-running operations, but not “drugs” as a whole. War on terrorism? Again, you can destroy individual terrorists or terrorist organizations, but not terrorism as a concept. Like the mythical Hydra, if you kill one, two more spring up.

As I watch the news these days, I must conclude that we, as a nation (though not necessarily every state, city, or town), have declared war on black neighborhoods. We have decided that black neighborhoods are full of crime, and therefore we must increase police presence in them. In between the wars on poverty and drugs, there was a war on crime, one that has never really ended. Well, if the police are at war, then they must need military equipment, tactics, and training. Oh, and especially if they are the last line of defense in the war on terrorism.

If you start with a war metaphor, you end with the situation we saw in Buffalo. Two police officers were part of what looked like an army platoon marching to dominate the battlespace. An elderly man got in their way, so they pushed him down. He fell and hit his head, and as of this writing is in stable but serious condition. The two officers were first suspended, and then charged with assault. After the suspensions, how did their colleagues respond? With sympathy for the man in the hospital? “Fifty-seven resigned in disgust because of the treatment of two of their members, who were simply executing orders,” Buffalo Police Benevolent Association President John Evans told WGRZ. Yes, they were just following orders—a defense with such an illustrious history.

But such an attitude is the logical conclusion if you start looking at a situation as war. Let’s find a better metaphor, one based on love. I propose two alternatives: healing and building.

“Healing” is distinct from “curing.” A doctor or medicine or other treatment may cure a disease, but it is the person who heals. The external agent enables the person to regenerate internally. Sometimes the cure leaves a residue, a scar, which could be physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual. For example, Rhonda had face pain eight years ago that changed both her and our whole family. Once we found a set of medications that eliminated the pain, we could all begin to heal. The healing would not be possible without the cure, but the cure alone did not change the way she and I interact, or the way we plan for the future. The cure just enabled internal healing, which in turn enabled us to return to wholeness.

“Building” takes us from where we are to some desired future that is bigger and better. I’m an engineering professor. One of the key requirements for success in my profession is to get funds coming in from grants, which support students who do research, which is then presented at conferences and published in journals, which establishes a basis for the next funding round. Getting proposals funded starts the virtuous cycle. I have been successful in building a research program despite constant rejection. Most grant proposals are rejected; all of my journal papers were initially rejected. The rejection notices include comments from reviewers. Often, the review comments are just ridiculous, things like, “The authors did not address X,” when “X” is clearly addressed on page 2. When I get such a review, I could go to war. I could contact the associate editor or program manager and argue my case. I could appeal the decision to higher levels. I could fight to destroy the anonymous reviewer somehow. All of that would be totally fruitless. I would anger everyone involved in the process and establish a negative reputation. Even if I were successful, I would only get one grant awarded or one paper published—maybe my last one! Instead, I take the reviewers’ feedback and use it to build a better submission next time. Over time, I have built my skills so that I can get grants funded and papers accepted, and I have built a program that is helping to build up the field of power electronics.

War cannot achieve any positive good. The best it can do is to destroy something bad, and sometimes even that is impossible. Let’s instead turn our hearts and minds to healing—so that the existing good can overcome the bad—and building—so that we can have a bigger, better, more bountiful future.

A society’s baseline economic and political principles tend to infect, or at least affect, interpersonal relationships. I’m reminded of “Paint Your Wagon,” the Lee Marvin/Clint Eastwood movie adaptation of a musical. The setting is a gold rush town in 19^th century California. A woman gets auctioned off as a wife (complicated story). The auctioneer is asked what the rules will be, and he answers, “She’ll be married by the prevailing law of this community, which is mining law, and she will be treated like any other legal claim!”

We live in a capitalist democracy, and so prevailing attitudes about love are capitalist in nature. (Please note I’m speaking of “love” broadly, including romantic, familial, friend, etc.) You love someone because of some value that they bring to your life. For example, maybe they share a common hobby with you, or they make you laugh, or they are your mentor or protégé, or they share a belief system. There’s nothing wrong with this, just as there’s nothing wrong with capitalism per se. But with this basic perspective, relationships are flat. They are simply transactional.

An alternative economic system is socialism, which I will caricature here. Bear with me. A socialist type of love is one that ignores differences between people and instead is shared with everyone equally. White, black, gay, straight, old, young, rich, poor—no matter, you are equally loved. Sounds great, right? And yet, this kind of love is just as flat and lifeless as what I described above. If you do not acknowledge differences, you are denying the basic humanity of each person. In a sense, you love someone despite their value.

There is a better kind. I don’t know what to call it exactly, except perhaps that it approaches agape. In this form, you encounter the whole person, and love them. Not because of or in spite of any particular attribute; you simply know and accept them as they are. Let me give you an example. A dear friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, is an amazing woman—kind, loving, Spirit-led, and all-around wonderful. And yet she is almost congenitally unable to be on-time. I don’t love her despite her lack of punctuality. I simply acknowledge it as part of who she is. Indeed, in a sense it is her ability to be fully present wherever she is that keeps her from getting where she “should” be.

Right now, there are protests and riots going on because of the murder of George Floyd. This latest incident has rejuvenated the #BlackLivesMatter movement. A common response from whites is that “All Lives Matter.” That’s the socialist response: everyone is the same, every life is equally valued. That response misses the point. In saying that “Black Lives Matter,” protesters are saying that systemic racism has effectively reduced the value of a black person, so in true capitalist form, things that have less value are discarded, mistreated, de-prioritized. Instead we should say, yes, all lives matter, and that includes George Floyd. Floyd was not just some random person who died; he was a black man from Houston who played some college basketball in Florida and recently moved to Minneapolis. He was a father and grandfather. He was arrested—as far as I know, the arrest itself was appropriate—and then pinned to the ground by a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, until he died. Floyd’s black-ness matters; Chauvin’s white-ness matters. Everything matters.

Life is messy. People are complicated. Saying that you love someone because of some small part of them is transactional. Saying that you love all people equally is denying individuality and humanity. We should all strive to love as Jesus loved: particularly, but universally.

Consider, Jesus looked on someone in need and always loved them. But he loved them particularly. He knew them as God knew them. From the Samaritan woman at the well to blind Bartimaeus to the “good thief” crucified with him, Jesus always showed love of the whole person. He was unafraid to rebuke people who were failing in their duties to love God and neighbor, but did so out of love, not condemnation and hate.

I see this kind of love at The Mission every time I visit. Patrons of The Mission usually have hard lives, whether they are homeless or food-insecure or otherwise in a precarious financial position. These hard lives bring out the best and worst in people. When someone behaves inappropriately, the other patrons, volunteers, and staff gently correct them. Sometimes the behavior is unacceptable and the patron needs to lose some privileges, but they are still loved for who they are.

Let us strive to love each other, not in some bland “love everyone equally” way nor in a transactional way, but in a way that acknowledges the complex reality of each person.

Je pense, donc je suis.

Cogito, ergo sum.

I think, therefore I am.

René Descartes

Modern western thought traces its lineage through Descartes and his famous dictum. In essence, he created a mind/body dualism. Our senses may deceive us, so all we can really know for sure is what is inside our minds. Taken to the logical extreme, only the mind matters.

This is a false dichotomy. I will admit that I was once firmly in that camp. As a kid, I was basically the anti-jock. It wasn’t until the last ten years that I acknowledged the importance of physical fitness and health, and its close coupling with the mind. For what is the mind but a manifestation of something happening in the brain? And the brain is clearly physical, and is tied into the rest of the body. In fact, we continue to learn more about how much “thinking” happens outside the brain even.

A while back, I started using a Monk Manual, which is sort of a life planner. Each month, you pick a theme. My theme for May 2020 is “self-care.” These past few months have been very disruptive. It is time to care for my mind, body, and spirit. This pandemic has revealed how fragile our bodies are, and how much our mind and spirit rely on physical contact for renewal. I am fortunate to have my family with me in lockdown, so I don’t need to go without human contact. While I need some alone time each day to recharge, I also need the physical presence of those I love to feed my spirit.

I’ve listened to several audiobooks about wisdom, joy, spirituality, self-improvement, and seeing God in all things. In virtually every book, there is a focus on bringing your awareness into the present, and into your body. Indeed, the first step in meditation is to focus on your breath, the most fundamental autonomic process in your body.

The way I care for my body is to run. Running serves many purposes simultaneously. First, it gets me outside, which is inherently a good thing. Second, it gets my blood pumping so I’m more energized in general. Paradoxically, the less you exercise, the more tired you become over time. Third, running helps me get in shape for elk hunting. The season opens in 153 days, so I need to start getting serious about my fitness!

I am fortunate to be able to run, to have a basically healthy body. Many people, including my wife, are not able to use their bodies in the way they would like. While this obviously takes a toll on their general physical abilities—inactivity leads to other negative health outcomes—it also takes a toll on their mental health. Mind and body cannot be separated. The challenge is to find some way to maintain a connection between mind and body and therefore to feed your spirit.

I am also fortunate to be “straight,” that is, cisgender and heterosexual. In queer theology, there is much discussion about bodies. People who are gay or transgender have a difficulty reconciling what is in their minds—what they know to be true—with how their bodies are built and with the messages told to them by their families and society. Spiritual healing begins when they are able to repair the mind/body split that has been forced upon them.

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … ¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:1, 14

God cares deeply about our bodies. God cared so much that God became human, so that God might experience just what we experience through the person of Jesus. Sympathy is an outsider emotion; empathy requires becoming like the other. God needed to become human to truly have empathy with us. Somewhere I read recently that Christianity is strangely esoteric and abstract for a religion that is based entirely on a visceral, tactile, intimate experience of a particular man in Judea and Galilee. If you read the Gospels (rather than the epistles), you get a real sense of a man who experienced everything we all do, and yet was able to live a faithful life.

Just as we need to care for our own bodies, we need to care for other people’s bodies. I am grateful that The Mission is open again, serving meals to those who are in need, and providing all of their other services. To an outsider, The Mission appears to only take care of today’s urgent needs, but in reality, it is a place of deep connection. A place where everyone, and most especially the dedicated staff, seek ways to fulfill each person’s physical, social, mental, and spiritual needs. It is not a “ministry,” per se, but as Ashley sometimes says, you can just feel Jesus’s presence in the building. Just as Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, The Mission cares for people’s bodies so that they can also be healed in mind and spirit.

We are gradually, as a nation, opening things up so that people can get back to work. In small part, this is an acknowledgement that life requires connections. As much as we can do online now, there is a real need for in-person interaction. My hope is that we will remember that our bodies are sacred, that our bodies are just as important as our minds, and that our lives are inextricably bound together through our shared physical needs.

Program Notes

First, you may have noticed that I re-named this blog. I’m going just a little more public now, so I wanted a more distinctive name.

Second, I created a Facebook page that is separate from my personal page. That way, people who like to get their news through Facebook and who want to read what I write can choose to do so; others who want to remain my Facebook friend without reading these blogs can do so as well.

Third, I linked my blog to that new Facebook page and to my Twitter account. Since I don’t tweet about anything else, I’m just using my personal account, @KimballJonathan. (All of my other tweets are re-tweets.) You can of course also sign up for email as before.

A common refrain in some circles is that we need more tolerance. We should tolerate people who look different, think different, act different. I think tolerance is just another word for weakness: being too weak to say what you really think, too weak to call out destructive behavior, too weak to identify actions that bring pain and sorrow.

No, wait. Tolerance is strength. Tolerance means being strong enough in your own convictions that you can tolerate someone having a different opinion. You know that they won’t change you, and so it doesn’t matter what they say or do. You tolerate their existence, even knowing that they’re wrong and possibly evil.

On Good Friday of 1998, an agreement was reached in Belfast that achieved peace between the UK and Irish governments. Northern Ireland would have a devolved government that shared power between the unionists and nationalists—or in short, the Protestants and the Catholics. In a sense, though, it was more of a cease-fire than a true peace treaty. John Paul Lederach, Professor Emeritus of International Peacebuilding at the University of Notre Dame, visited some time afterwards. He wrote the following haiku:

Maybe, he says, this

is as good as it will get.

Peaceful bigotry.

John Paul Lederach,
as quoted in an interview with Krista Tippett

Given the choices of a hot war, a cold war, and peaceful bigotry, I suppose the peace that tolerance brings is sufficient. And yet, it remains far from true peace—shalom—and reconciliation.

You know what requires strength? Acceptance. Welcoming. Humility. Vulnerability. Being open to treating another human as your equal, no matter the differences between you. Welcoming them as a fellow child of God, an earthly vessel that contains a divine spark. Being humble enough to realize that another person may be more right than you are about something important, or to realize that if you had had the same experiences, you may believe as they do. Being willing to learn something that you don’t like about yourself, and then being willing to change it.

Tolerance is usually brought up in the context of racial and ethnic differences, or the LGBTQ community. In those contexts, “tolerance” means, “I recognize that you are inferior to me, but it’s OK that you are.” That’s a pretty low bar, and the fact that some people can only aspire to tolerance brings me sadness. If we, as individuals, as a community, as a nation, and as a species should aspire to anything, it should be to love.

Love is strength. Truly loving a person for who they are means that you’re willing to put their well-being ahead of your own, even if just in a small way. Another haiku from Lederach, this time written after a visit to Burma:

Don’t ask the mountain

to move. Just take a pebble

each time you visit.

John Paul Lederach,
as quoted in an interview with Krista Tippett

Love is having the courage and wisdom and strength to take a pebble of the load the other person is carrying. Love is being willing to see the world through another person’s eyes, to strive to understand who they really are.

Tolerance is weakness.

“God Friended Me” is a show on CBS that just ended. The basic premise is that this guy starts getting friend suggestions from an account named “God,” all of whom need some special help from him and his friends. It’s a little bit of a weak premise, but a decent show nonetheless. It’s very progressive in its characters—the main character, Miles, is a black atheist who is the son of an Episcopal bishop and whose sister is gay. The female lead character, Cara, is white, and of course becomes Miles’s love interest. In the series finale, a major story thread revolves around whether they should tell each other how they feel. Cara knows second-hand about Miles’s feelings but doesn’t reciprocate, yet doesn’t want to ruin the friendship. I know, kind of a cliche.

I started thinking about relationships more generally. The issue that Miles and Cara were confronting is this: everything that happens in and around a relationship affects it irreversibly. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, but always the relationship is different afterwards.

I currently advise seven graduate students and one postdoc. We meet once a week to discuss their work, their progress, their plans, and anything they may need help with. For the most part, I’m pretty easygoing, perhaps too much so. Occasionally I need to get tough with one of them and push them to be more productive, or to focus more on one topic rather than another. Other times, they are struggling with some non-work-related issue and the discussion ventures outside the norm. In either case, the relationship is different afterwards. Usually, showing some humanity—on both sides—means that we come out with a greater understanding of each other and future discussions are better.

Sometimes, though, it goes sideways. I had an advisee a few years ago with whom the relationship soured. I think we were both at fault. Basically, our expectations of each other were not aligned with reality. After each incident, there was no going back. We eventually reached a point where we could not work together. He switched advisors and successfully completed his Ph.D. The problem wasn’t his ability to do work, nor was it my ability to advise students. Our relationship just didn’t work any more. There was no way to take back things we said and did in the past.

A few years ago, when Rhonda was dealing with facial pain and things were pretty bleak, our pastor, Lou Ellen, wrote me a note. She reminded me, among other things, that “the only way out is through.” We cannot change the past, and the past always affects the present and the future. There is no forgetting what happened–it remains in our subconscious. All we can do is trust that there is a way out, and that God will walk with us through the valley of the shadow of death.

And yet sometimes, there is rebirth. Consider the nation of Israel after their captivity in Babylon. They could have chosen to assimilate with their conquerors, but they chose instead to retain their identity. After Nehemiah returns…

¹⁷ Then I said to them, “You see the trouble we are in, how Jerusalem lies in ruins with its gates burned. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, so that we may no longer suffer disgrace.” ¹⁸ I told them that the hand of my God had been gracious upon me, and also the words that the king had spoken to me. Then they said, “Let us start building!” So they committed themselves to the common good. ¹⁹ But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard of it, they mocked and ridiculed us, saying, “What is this that you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king?” ²⁰ Then I replied to them, “The God of heaven is the one who will give us success, and we his servants are going to start building; but you have no share or claim or historic right in Jerusalem.”

Nehemiah 2:17-20

God was with Nehemiah. He knew that they could not turn back time and avoid the destruction of the Temple. But they could rebuild it. In so doing, though they never again achieved the glory of David and Solomon’s kingdom, they became a holy people, dedicated to God, a nation out of which Christianity would emerge to spread God’s name to the farthest corners of the earth.

We cannot reverse the damage done to our relationships, but with God, we can rebuild them.

²⁴ He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; ²⁵ but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. ²⁶ So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. ²⁷ And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ ²⁸ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ ²⁹ But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. ³⁰ Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”

Matthew 13:24-30, emphasis mine

Anyone who has pulled weeds in a flower bed has had this experience: you pull a weed, and along with it comes a clump of dirt, possibly attached to another plant that you want to keep. Once it’s pulled, though, replacing the good plant is difficult, and the flower bed is never really the same.

In this parable, “an enemy” sows the weeds among the wheat. In truth, though, weeds grow naturally with no outside assistance. That’s what makes them weeds. Domesticated plants—wheat, corn, rice, etc.—need carefully controlled conditions to grow. Weeds, on the other hand, can grow naturally wherever their seeds happen to land.

Jesus is speaking by analogy about the good and bad things in the world. The traditional view, supported by Jesus’s explanation later in the chapter, sees the plants as people. This is the “hellfire and brimstone” view: the weeds are the wicked people who will be cast into eternal flames. However, I find it to be more helpful to myself and my own growth to imagine the plants to be different parts of a single person’s psyche, soul, and being.

When I look back on my life, I see that lots of people sowed seeds in my heart. Some were good seeds: seeds of love for God; seeds of kindness and generosity towards others; seeds of justice, mercy, and grace. Seeds of the person I want to be, and that I think God wants me to be. If I nurture them, they will grow into an abounding love. Sometimes I feel that coming out, even if just a little sprout.

Some seeds were not so good. For example, I have screwed-up priorities sometimes. Which is most important: God, my family, my community, or my career? In the abstract, I know the correct order; in my actual choices and actions, they get all jumbled up.

Yet pulling these weeds from my life might have pulled out some wheat, too. I definitely put too much emphasis on my career for a long time, until my family’s needs for me became obvious and overwhelming. My life has more balance now. And yet, that over-emphasis on career enabled my current life, in which I’m able to provide a house that is appropriate for my disabled wife and able to send my kids to the colleges that provide them the best opportunities. My career has also enabled me to meet many wonderful people, colleagues close at hand and far away who helped to make me who I am.

So, is my life full of weeds or wheat? Yes, both. And some of them are indistinguishable now. I can only hope and pray that in the end, looking back, I will see that God has planted good seeds that have produced an abundant harvest. That the weeds of worldly desires have not overwhelmed the wheat of God’s grace.

---

Today, I participated in a class called “Spiritual Writing,” part of the LIFE program at Eden Theological Seminary. The class was taught by Bill Tucker, professor emeritus of English from Eastern Michigan. The above reflection was an exercise in lectio divina, in which the oratio step was done in writing instead of speaking. This was a wonderful class.

I should also mention that I’ve lately been receiving daily prompts from Saleika Jaouad called The Isolation Journals. Jaouad is Jon Batiste’s partner; he mentioned her journal project on The Late Show a couple weeks ago. I haven’t actually written anything in response to the prompts I’ve received, but my day is still enriched by them.

Recently, I’ve been listening to an audiobook of On Grand Strategy. The author, John Lewis Gaddis, is a history professor who has taught at the Naval War College and various universities, and now at Yale. In a section where he discusses Queen Elizabeth I of England and King Philip II of Spain, he makes the point that some leaders expend more resources trying to reclaim what was lost or retain what they have than they expend trying to expand.

That seems relevant to our current situation. In the midst of the COVID-19 global pandemic, people are starting to talk about getting back to “normal.” But what is normal? On the one hand, we could try to simply rebuild the economy and society exactly as it was. In other contexts, though, such an attitude would be seen as reactionary and ridiculous. After World War II, we didn’t try to simply return to pre-war society. We re-built with a different approach to industry. Mobility was different. Civil rights struggles came to the forefront. On the world stage, the United Nations was born so that we would have a different approach to diplomatic relations.

So what will the future look like? A recent column discussed the long-term psychological and sociological impact. Will we change our approach to public gatherings on a permanent basis? I don’t know. I do know that a lot of institutions that were on the edge of viability will fail. A lot of churches are financially struggling. A lot of colleges are financially struggling. I’m not optimistic about the near-term future of the travel and tourism industry.

This is our chance to build a better society. The pandemic has exposed many glaring weaknesses of the existing one. The idea of health insurance being tied to employment, born during WWII as a response to wage controls, is now revealed (to everyone, not just the more insightful) to put people at serious risk when they lose their jobs due to economic contraction. In the education sector, we are seeing what works online and what requires physical presence. We are learning how much we rely on each other—that the US is not a collection of individuals, but rather an interconnected community that depends on symbiotic relationships among us all.

I read a devotion on this week’s lectionary text about the road to Emmaus in The Christian Century (thanks, Robert, for the gift subscription!).

¹³ Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. ¹⁴ They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. ¹⁵ As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; ¹⁶ but they were kept from recognizing him. ¹⁷ He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?” They stood still, their faces downcast. ¹⁸ One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”

¹⁹ “What things?” he asked.

“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. ²⁰ The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; ²¹ but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. ²² In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning ²³ but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. ²⁴ Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.”

²⁵ He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! ²⁶ Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” ²⁷ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. ²⁸ As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. ²⁹ But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.

³⁰ When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. ³¹ Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. ³² They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

³³ They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together ³⁴ and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” ³⁵ Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.

Luke 24:13-35

The gist of the devotion is that Jesus was not just saving the world, but also that he savored life. We see here that Jesus spent time in relationship with two of his close friends. This was not about transferring information to individuals. This was about enjoying their company, growing with them, savoring the little things that make life worth living.

What comes next? I don’t know, but my intention is to focus more on relationships, both professional and personal. The Great Commandment tells us to love God and love our neighbors. This is our chance—my chance—to turn away from what’s convenient or expedient and focus instead on what’s important: showing this love, my love of God, my love of my neighbors, and God’s love of the whole world.