June 2009 Archives

1. Walking to the gym the other day I saw the younger Japanese man owner of the sushi restaurant around the corner bow to the older Japanese owner of a convenience store across the alley. It was very early in the morning, and I felt I had stumbled upon some private sacred ritual that conveyed such a deep respect for the humanity recognized in the other.

2. Although I know that the line in the old hymn says that "his eye is on the sparrow", but I have pigeons with mangled feet in my neighborhood, and I don't think that God would mind if I sang "his eye is on the pigeon" as the meaning of this is far more radical and relevant. I can't imagine giving a second glance to a pigeon in Los Angeles.

3. Brad and I did our Church alternative last week by walking through skid row and praying. I noticed several instances of the words "holy ground" written on buildings and trash cans along the way. Could skid row be holy because the people in this neighborhood are closer to holiness by the obvious nature of their dependence?

4. How responsible am I for the human rights abuses that must occur in the garment district that is my neighborhood? The other day I saw a flyer posted on the building next to ours that stated that if you were being forced to work against your will you could take one of the the phone numbers written on little sheets of paper below. A few were torn off.

I was challenged recently by DOOR'sdevelopment director to read a book-Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony that the Dweller's in Miami read during their year in community. Since it was written by an author I have long heard of but never had the opportunity to read I began. While being frustrated by Stanley Hauerwas' constant denunciation of both Richard Niebuhr (I really enjoyed Niebuhr's Christ and Culture) and the translation emphasis of theological concepts to philosophically accessible language, I did appreciate his emphasis on the unique role of the Church in our society.

He makes the point that rather than trying to logically undermine demanding Scriptural passages like the Beatitudes we ought to ask ourselves what kind of community would we need to be in order to live out the call to be perfect like our heavenly father is perfect. Clearly we cannot do this on our own, but the call to live out the Biblical description of reality must be done at the level of the Church. This clearly means that the church must be different than a socially designed helping agency intended only to make our society better. We are not called as the body of Christ to help people but to follow Jesus and in following Jesus we learn what help means. The Church, Hauerwas says, is crucial for our epistemology, as we are not called to convince people to do what they already know they ought. Our task is to live faithful to Christ by being a subversive colony of believers in a hostile world. This lifestyle will require suffering, but "no ethic is worthy that does not require potentially the suffering of those we love".

The radical nature of Christ's call I am certain of, but I am also as certain that I have no idea what this level of intentional community looks like.

"The Danger is not lest the soul should doubt whether there is any bread, but lest by a lie it should persuade itself that it is not hungry"

--Simone Weil

I have mixed feelings about the field of Christian Apologetics, but I enjoyed Beyond Opinion Ravi Zacharias' newest work because it combines reservations of the heart and the heart regarding Christian faith. A couple of insights that stood out to me:

1. The historical growth of atheism dating from the eighteenth century was fueled in part by the French revolution in which the church was deemed on the side of the establishment, and so an oppressor rather than a liberator. Atheism has since had little appeal when the church is on the side of the people. [p. 25]

This seems to resonate with my experience working with the homeless and my knowledge of the account of Desmond Tutu's autobiography, as well as the incredible account of Archbishop Romero's work in El Salvador.

2. The difference between the way redemptive violence is portrayed in the Koran and the Old Testament is that in the Old Testament the reader is not encouraged to take up arms.

This has been a point of interest for me after reading certain Surah's in the Koran and the Old Testament book of Joshua. I could tell there was an objective difference between the emphasis and intention of the two but this seems to capture the difference.

For as long as I can remember I have marveled at the feats of engineering to the point where I have almost felt a little guilty for my lack of contribution. Who am I do be able to use these roads, ride these elevators, and fly in these planes that my hands and mind have had no contribution in creating. Maybe it is the fact that my mind is not even slightly bent towards mechanical analysis that causes such personal admiration for engineering.The Devil in the White City perpetuated this astonishment in its' fascinating description of the World's fair in Chicago in 1893. A true story of the narrative behind the fair's development and the life of a mass murderer, this book takes you into this moment in time and presents one with the awe resulting from both human ambition and depravity.

I think that I have spent most of my life thus far dealing with the fear of failure. Most people probably would not have described me as a fearful person. I have skydived, eaten monkey meat, and am regularly out after dark in my skid row neighborhood. I do not, however, make it my general practice to try things I am not good at. I may make a little attempt at a lot of different things, but when I meet resistance I do not usually persevere. It is almost as if I have promised myself that I will not try as hard as I can because if I actually give it my all and then fail this will be personal damning verdict. So, I routinely give up to 60% to various endeavors and so I can portray to myself and others a daring individual who is living life to the fullest.

The truth is I am scared, and I have only begun to explore what it means to give my all to something. But I have begun the journey.......

It started last Spring when I enrolled in a Kaplan LSAT prep course. I invested a lot of time and money in the course and gave what I thought was enough to get by. I had anticipated scoring in at least the B range given my practice tests, but my score was more around the C range. I was devastated and considered having that be the final verdict on my law career- not good enough. Then something rose within me and I signed up to try the test again. I then gave way over 60% and went on to get a score that was more in the A- range. This try and fail and then try again process of applying to law school has been amazing for my character growth and I'm sure a lesson I will only build upon in the next year as I begin Loyola Law this fall.

My little glimpse of the value of failure and perseverance was given eloquent elaboration in Mark Batterson's In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. The whole book is a kick- your- butt encouragement to see the opportunity that lies in out fears. One of the most significant points he makes is that the cure for the fear of failure is not success but failure. Previous to my LSAT experience I would have only given timid affirmation of this paradoxical truth, but now I have a more "bring it on" approach to failure. I am trying to identify hidden fears so I can confront them and am looking at the unknown with expectation. I don't know exactly what I will do with my law degree, but isn't that exciting!

Go for it my friend the regrets of inaction are always greater at the end of life than the regrets of action!

"To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways; we do not know what a day ay bring forth. This is generally said with a sigh of sadness; it should rather be an expression of breathless expectation."
--Oswald Chambers

"There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood leads on to fortune.
Omitted, all the voyages of their life
Is bound in shallows an in miseries.
On such a sea we are now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
--Julius Ceasar

The Same Kind of Different as Me was a book right up my alley. A true story about the relationship between a modern-day slave and an international art dealer, the book is an amazing authentic depiction of what can happen when the boundaries of race and economic class are overcome through love. Following the book there is an interview between the two men. In partial response to the question, "What three things can we do to bridge the societal gaps that exist in our culture today?" Ron Hall, the white rich art dealer says, that "we must move beyond our comfort zones and make a friends of a different race and socioeconomic group and be accountable to them"

This seems like simple advice, but I am sorry to say with the exception of one friend of another race (not socioeconomic class), I don't have anyone close to me who I can honestly say is a close friend. Yes, there are people I care about that fit this description (the three homeless friends I see every week for instance) but I cannot say that any of the people in life who are closest to me are of a different race and socioeconomic group. This was not a conscious choice, but I now want to be intentional about making choices that change this reality. I am under no illusions that this will be easy.

Although I have read The Screwtape Letters many years ago several people lately have told me that I should read it. I am not sure if their advice was more of a result of their recent enthusiasm for a good book (which is now apparently a play) or a concern for my capacity for deception.

Aside from a needed reminder of the presence of intentional, targeted deceit in the world, (aka the devil) I particularly enjoyed Lewis amendment to the book which contains interesting commentary on various political themes such as the following:

Describing the way the the word democracy can be manipulated Wormwood says to Screwtape:

"The first ans most obvious advantage is that you thus induce him to enthrone at the centre of his life a good solid resounding lie. I do not mean merely that his statement is false in face, and that he is no more equal to everyone he meets in kindness, honesty, and good sense than in height or waist-measurement. I mean that he does not believe it himself. No man who says "I'm as good as you" believes it. He would not say it if he did. The St. Bernard never says it to the toy dog, nor the scholar to the duce, nor the employable to the bum, not the pretty woman to the plain. The claim to equality, outside the strictly political field, is made only by those who feel themselves to be in some way inferior. What it expresses is precisely the itching, smarting, writhing awareness of an inferiority which the patient refuses to accept.
And therefore resents. Yes, and therefore resents every kind of superiority in others; denigrates it; wishes its annihilation. Presently he suspects every mere difference of being a claim to superiority. No one must be different from himself in voice, clothes, manners, recreations, choice of food. 'Here is someone who speaks English rather more clearly and euphoniously than I- it must be a vile, upstage, lah-di-dah affection. Here's a fellow who says he doesn't like hot dogs- thinks himself too good for them no doubt. Here's a man who hasn't turned on the jukebox- he must be one of those highbrows and is doing it to show off. If they were the right sort of chaps they'd be like me. They've no business to be different. It's undemocratic.'
Now this useful phenomenon is in itself by no means new. Under the name of Envy it has been known to humans for thousands of years. But hitherto they always regarded it as the most odious, and also the most comical, of vices. Those who were aware if feeling it felt it with shame; those who were not gave it no quarter in others. The delightful novelty of the present situation is that you can sanction it- make it respectable and even laudable- by the incantatory use of the word democratic."

Unfortunately I must admit that I can identify with the strange insistence on equality and am not yet prepared to call it envy without qualification. This certainly deserves some additional thought. I just wonder how many other stages there are in my life in which my self- praised noble character may actually cast dark shadows in the wings.