you left when I was eight to be with your father
I sat at your desk--in the country,
by an oiled gravel road in a wooden house
in a dank basement-- and let the lamp light your papers
your drawings
your precise
your signed and dated
I undid your locked box
the one you made of cheep wood and a dollar lock
I found your porn
your not even porn just ads trying to sell porn
a breast, stars covering the other place
you left when I
had no door to walk through
played on the stairs
hung down arm stretched out like Stallone in Cliffhanger
commandeered your dinky cars
your stinking smell
your Peanuts bed sheets
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Lifting Emerson (an Edition)
I've expanded on a few things and fixed it up a bit, changed some details, that kind of thing. Hope I made it better.
Once there was a man named Emerson. He was strong. He could lift 100 pounds with one arm.
There was just one problem. He worked in an office. So he never got to lift stuff. This made him sad. So he walked to his boss’s desk and said, “Hey, I like to lift stuff.”
“You have to type and talk to people on the phone. That is your job,” said the boss. “You’re not paid to lift stuff.”
So Emerson went back to his desk. He was sad but he didn’t cry.
Then when he was walking home he saw that there was a house on fire. The firemen were not there yet. Emerson walked into the house and saw that there was a woman stuck under a stove. Emerson picked up the stove and threw it out the window. Then he picked up the woman and put her on the lawn. She was OK.
Emerson found out later that the woman owned a car crushing…
Micah stopped and thought for a moment. He stood up from his desk in his bedroom and yelled from the door. “Hey Lexy, how do you spell ‘business’?”
“Business,” Lexy said from another room as if she was weighing it on her tongue, “Uh, B-U-S-I.”
“K, wait.” Micah walked back to his desk and wrote the letters down then went back to the door again. “Okay.”
“N-E-S-S.”
“Thanks.”
“What’s this for?”
“Nothing,” Micah sat back down before he forgot the last letters.
…business and that she needed somebody to lift cars in and out of the machine. So Emerson quit his job at the office and married the woman. Her name was Iris.
Micah was writing for school, but somehow it was still thrilling. The story had to have a beginning, middle and an end. This story had them all. He thought it was good. He never had to do this sort of thing in grade five. He sauntered into the living room where Lexy reclined, watching Seinfeld, canned laughter and groovy slap bass notes emitting from the screen.
Micah handed the dog-eared pages to Lexy, “We had to write a story for school. I wrote about my mom and dad.”
“That’s great, let’s see.” She clicked on the lamp and read the story, nodding along. She turned up to him, smiling. “I like it. Where did you get the idea?”
“I don’t know. It’s just the way I see them. My dad worked in an office. That’s what you said.”
“I’ve never said anything about car crushers. And I think your dad liked his job.”
Micah kept a picture of them by his bed but it gave few clues about what they were like or even the way they looked. In it Emerson wore large sunglasses and had a scraggly beard; his mother had her eyes closed and was laughing, her whole face a pink blur, features trying to settle into place. Micah’s parents remained a mystery to him; every clue went into rebuilding their lives like a detective rebuilding a crime scenario.
“What should I write then?” Micah took the pages back.
“I think you should leave it as is, honey.”
“But it’s not what they were really like.”
“That’s ok. It’s a story.”
“When can I know?”
This was a question often asked.
Lexy looked back at the TV then turned back to look into his eyes staring intently back at her. This was it. He had to know. I’ve waited so long, she thought, I’ve tried my best. She took a deep breath, preparing herself like you would before a dive. She said, “Okay.”
Micah smiled. Lexy had a sick feeling in the bottom of her stomach.
Her instinct was to place him on her lap; they moved into the kitchen and sat at the table.
“Your father was sick,” Lexy began. “But not like a cold or cancer. He was on medications but they only helped a little.”
“Sick?” Micah asked, squinting.
“He sometimes couldn’t tell what was real.”
Lexy remembered the phone call. The only call she received from Iris which did not involve some advertisement for a bible college or an invitation to a “woman’s group”.
“What should I do?” Iris asked, helpless.
“Call the god damn cops.” Lexy answered.
“But what will they do?”
“That’s not what you need to worry about right now.”
Iris never called though. She took Emerson to a doctor, but the problem was down played by both of them. Emerson was only prescribed a mild drug “for depression”. Iris combined this treatment with a proper, unabrasive prayer circle.
“So he was, like, crazy?” Micah asked.
“Well,” Lexy paused, “sorta.”
But in the beginning, it wasn’t like that. They were happy, but he must have known though, he must have.
“Then what? How did they die?”
“He had an accident,” she said as if it settled the matter.
Micah sighed and put his hands on his face. “Not this ‘accident’ crap again. Just tell me what happened. I’m eleven, I can take it.”
“Alright,” She paused gathering her words together like groceries in a bag. “He was frightened of things that weren’t there… He was sick and one day he ended his own life.”
“How d—“
“That’s not the point,” she said, stopping him. He had blown bother their brains out. But could she tell him that?
They said nothing for a while.
“My mother?”
Lexy saw an image in her mind’s eye, her sister slumped and bloody next to her crying child. She had never seen the actual scene but dreams and imagination had filled in the gaps with all too much detail.
“She,” but the words wouldn’t come out, she broke into tears. She focused and tried to unattach her self from the words. Through the sobs she said, "he killed her."
Micah stared at the table as if he was trying to change the color of the tabletop; not knowing how to react to her loud cries.
She reached out to take Micah’s hand. He moved it away and then got up to leave the room. She reached out and clutched his shirt. He stopped and wiped his runny nose with his shirt sleeve. Lexy looked at his face and could tell he was holding tears back. She let him go. He walked to his bedroom and closed the door.
Lexy chewed on her nails. Iris would have known what to do. She would have read some bible verse or prayed. That was her answer to everything. Iris thought praying could heal her husband, thought it could save her sister. Praying! Lexy thought, it’s just wishing, it’s just getting on your knees, pulling out a list and saying “gimme”. Still Iris would have tried.
Lexy stood up then bent down with her knees on the linoleum she said, “dear—oh fuck it.” She quickly stood up and went to her bed room.
Light from a street lamp streamed through the blinds, making lines of shadow. Lexy undressed and got under the sheets. This was when she thought of Iris the most. When she felt inadequate, when dreamy heightened ideals of what a mother should be filled her head, when she knew that only Iris could ever do the job justice.
They had been close before Iris went and married Emerson. Iris had been more than a big sister. Their parents had not been much help before they died. The two of them simply had to make it on their own. Then Iris ran off and became a ‘goody-goody’ and the family was just not good enough, clean enough. Then after the wedding everything moved fast. Iris gave up her job, moved to a new house and then was pregnant in just a few weeks. It wasn’t right, but she seemed happy. It wasn’t until Micah was six months old that Emerson finally cracked. Papers called it a tragedy, lamenting the rise in these incidences, it always happens in such nice families. Crazy people can pop up anywhere, Lexy thought, people just don’t want to admit to themselves that they just might know one. Knowing, or having suspicions, it spreads out the blame, how can you blame some crazy guy, chemically imbalanced, especially when the people around him wouldn’t even help.
When the social worker had handed Micah over, Lexy had had question, but not about feeding and changing.
What do I tell him? How do I raise him? How do I protect him?
The social worker didn’t seem the type to answer. She needed Iris. They had had no hospital room where they could have had a last word, a room where it all could have changed. Apologies happen easily in a room like that. When the past means nothing and the future is short.
The teacher had encouraged him, or at least tried to. “Looks great uh…” the teacher searched for his name.
“Micah,” Micah said.
“Micah. Right. Sorry little buddy.”
Returning to the picture, Micah drew brown lines coming out of the triangle and three prongs on the ends as fingers. Now he needed the green for hills in the back ground. Another boy was using the green crayon to scribble circles on a page.
Micah asked for the crayon.
“I’m using it,” the boy replied as the crayon went round and round, shrinking as the wax was layered on the page.
“But your just drawing stupid lines,” Micah said.
In response the boy drew a green line down Micah’s page. Micah pushed the boy and the boy started, with far too much ease, to cry. The teacher came to the boy’s rescue and Micah was brought out to await his aunt outside the sanctuary.
Inside, they were singing a slow, drowsy hymn. Lexy came out to meet Micah following the teacher. A chorus of voices sung, “As the deer pants for the water…” The sound quieted when the door to the sanctuary closed, the three of them on the outside.
The teacher spoke to Lexy. “You’re supposed to come to the classroom when his number is displayed. He hit my son.”
“Number?” Lexy said, confused.
The voices, old and righteous, surged, becoming more impassioned. Micah heard, “You alone are my strength, my shield…” The voices died back down, blocked by the large wooden door.
The teacher opened the door and the voices erupted again. He pointed to a set of red digital numbers shining on the wall near the empty wooden cross along the back wall of the sanctuary.
He closed the door again.
“Every child has a number. Weren’t you told?”
The voices became loud in his ear as if hundreds of voices were singing all around him. “You alone are my strength, my shield. You alone are my strength, my shield.” The line repeated again and again ringing in his head, becoming more shrill and louder with every repetition.
Just then both of the adults turned down to look at Micah, in unison they said, “You come when your number is called. Never before though. Never!”
They started to laugh, shrill angry laughter. Micah felt his body falling, the voices fading. He was leaving the church and he was falling rapidly down. It was getting hot and he realized he was in a cave, red from flames. He could still hear the song repeating like a skipping CD but muffled and far away. In front of him was a man. It was Emerson. Huge drops were dripping from his head. He was in torment, screaming and panting, huge chains tying him down to the wall.
Never before!
Lexy was awoken by Micah’s screams. She grabbed a bathrobe and ran in to find him sweating and ranting. “He’s in hell,” he screamed. “I saw him. I saw him.” His breathing faltered, Lexy could tell he was still trying to wake up. She sat by him on the bed, petting his wet hair.
She said, “Shh, it’s okay. He’s not in hell.”
“But that’s where,” Micah sniffed, trying to catch his breath.
“Shh, just go back to sleep, okay?”
“He was tied down and burning.”
“No, shh. Go back to sleep.”
“But I…”
“Shh.”
His breathing slowly returned. His eyes closed. He slept. Lexy left the door open and quietly walked away.
The next morning Micah walked to school and read over his story. He felt as if he had written it years ago. It seemed unimportant now as if the story was a failed math test.
Micah read through it again, but was surprised to find an amendment written to look like his writing added to the end of what Micah had thought was a finished work.
Then one day Emerson got stuck in the car crusher and died. For some reason he went to hell.
He woke up and had chains on his arms. So he broke them and started to fight all the bad guys that were there. They had horns and claws.
He punched them and threw them in the lava. Then he went to a wall and started to dig with his bare hands. He broke the rock until he got to the other side.
That was where Iris was. She died too but was in heaven. They hugged. Now Emerson was in heaven too.
The end.
Micah scratched out ‘they hugged’ with a pen. Way too girly, he thought and placed the story in his backpack
Once there was a man named Emerson. He was strong. He could lift 100 pounds with one arm.
There was just one problem. He worked in an office. So he never got to lift stuff. This made him sad. So he walked to his boss’s desk and said, “Hey, I like to lift stuff.”
“You have to type and talk to people on the phone. That is your job,” said the boss. “You’re not paid to lift stuff.”
So Emerson went back to his desk. He was sad but he didn’t cry.
Then when he was walking home he saw that there was a house on fire. The firemen were not there yet. Emerson walked into the house and saw that there was a woman stuck under a stove. Emerson picked up the stove and threw it out the window. Then he picked up the woman and put her on the lawn. She was OK.
Emerson found out later that the woman owned a car crushing…
Micah stopped and thought for a moment. He stood up from his desk in his bedroom and yelled from the door. “Hey Lexy, how do you spell ‘business’?”
“Business,” Lexy said from another room as if she was weighing it on her tongue, “Uh, B-U-S-I.”
“K, wait.” Micah walked back to his desk and wrote the letters down then went back to the door again. “Okay.”
“N-E-S-S.”
“Thanks.”
“What’s this for?”
“Nothing,” Micah sat back down before he forgot the last letters.
…business and that she needed somebody to lift cars in and out of the machine. So Emerson quit his job at the office and married the woman. Her name was Iris.
Micah was writing for school, but somehow it was still thrilling. The story had to have a beginning, middle and an end. This story had them all. He thought it was good. He never had to do this sort of thing in grade five. He sauntered into the living room where Lexy reclined, watching Seinfeld, canned laughter and groovy slap bass notes emitting from the screen.
Micah handed the dog-eared pages to Lexy, “We had to write a story for school. I wrote about my mom and dad.”
“That’s great, let’s see.” She clicked on the lamp and read the story, nodding along. She turned up to him, smiling. “I like it. Where did you get the idea?”
“I don’t know. It’s just the way I see them. My dad worked in an office. That’s what you said.”
“I’ve never said anything about car crushers. And I think your dad liked his job.”
Micah kept a picture of them by his bed but it gave few clues about what they were like or even the way they looked. In it Emerson wore large sunglasses and had a scraggly beard; his mother had her eyes closed and was laughing, her whole face a pink blur, features trying to settle into place. Micah’s parents remained a mystery to him; every clue went into rebuilding their lives like a detective rebuilding a crime scenario.
“What should I write then?” Micah took the pages back.
“I think you should leave it as is, honey.”
“But it’s not what they were really like.”
“That’s ok. It’s a story.”
“When can I know?”
This was a question often asked.
Lexy looked back at the TV then turned back to look into his eyes staring intently back at her. This was it. He had to know. I’ve waited so long, she thought, I’ve tried my best. She took a deep breath, preparing herself like you would before a dive. She said, “Okay.”
Micah smiled. Lexy had a sick feeling in the bottom of her stomach.
Her instinct was to place him on her lap; they moved into the kitchen and sat at the table.
“Your father was sick,” Lexy began. “But not like a cold or cancer. He was on medications but they only helped a little.”
“Sick?” Micah asked, squinting.
“He sometimes couldn’t tell what was real.”
Lexy remembered the phone call. The only call she received from Iris which did not involve some advertisement for a bible college or an invitation to a “woman’s group”.
“What should I do?” Iris asked, helpless.
“Call the god damn cops.” Lexy answered.
“But what will they do?”
“That’s not what you need to worry about right now.”
Iris never called though. She took Emerson to a doctor, but the problem was down played by both of them. Emerson was only prescribed a mild drug “for depression”. Iris combined this treatment with a proper, unabrasive prayer circle.
“So he was, like, crazy?” Micah asked.
“Well,” Lexy paused, “sorta.”
But in the beginning, it wasn’t like that. They were happy, but he must have known though, he must have.
“Then what? How did they die?”
“He had an accident,” she said as if it settled the matter.
Micah sighed and put his hands on his face. “Not this ‘accident’ crap again. Just tell me what happened. I’m eleven, I can take it.”
“Alright,” She paused gathering her words together like groceries in a bag. “He was frightened of things that weren’t there… He was sick and one day he ended his own life.”
“How d—“
“That’s not the point,” she said, stopping him. He had blown bother their brains out. But could she tell him that?
They said nothing for a while.
“My mother?”
Lexy saw an image in her mind’s eye, her sister slumped and bloody next to her crying child. She had never seen the actual scene but dreams and imagination had filled in the gaps with all too much detail.
“She,” but the words wouldn’t come out, she broke into tears. She focused and tried to unattach her self from the words. Through the sobs she said, "he killed her."
Micah stared at the table as if he was trying to change the color of the tabletop; not knowing how to react to her loud cries.
She reached out to take Micah’s hand. He moved it away and then got up to leave the room. She reached out and clutched his shirt. He stopped and wiped his runny nose with his shirt sleeve. Lexy looked at his face and could tell he was holding tears back. She let him go. He walked to his bedroom and closed the door.
Lexy chewed on her nails. Iris would have known what to do. She would have read some bible verse or prayed. That was her answer to everything. Iris thought praying could heal her husband, thought it could save her sister. Praying! Lexy thought, it’s just wishing, it’s just getting on your knees, pulling out a list and saying “gimme”. Still Iris would have tried.
Lexy stood up then bent down with her knees on the linoleum she said, “dear—oh fuck it.” She quickly stood up and went to her bed room.
Light from a street lamp streamed through the blinds, making lines of shadow. Lexy undressed and got under the sheets. This was when she thought of Iris the most. When she felt inadequate, when dreamy heightened ideals of what a mother should be filled her head, when she knew that only Iris could ever do the job justice.
They had been close before Iris went and married Emerson. Iris had been more than a big sister. Their parents had not been much help before they died. The two of them simply had to make it on their own. Then Iris ran off and became a ‘goody-goody’ and the family was just not good enough, clean enough. Then after the wedding everything moved fast. Iris gave up her job, moved to a new house and then was pregnant in just a few weeks. It wasn’t right, but she seemed happy. It wasn’t until Micah was six months old that Emerson finally cracked. Papers called it a tragedy, lamenting the rise in these incidences, it always happens in such nice families. Crazy people can pop up anywhere, Lexy thought, people just don’t want to admit to themselves that they just might know one. Knowing, or having suspicions, it spreads out the blame, how can you blame some crazy guy, chemically imbalanced, especially when the people around him wouldn’t even help.
When the social worker had handed Micah over, Lexy had had question, but not about feeding and changing.
What do I tell him? How do I raise him? How do I protect him?
The social worker didn’t seem the type to answer. She needed Iris. They had had no hospital room where they could have had a last word, a room where it all could have changed. Apologies happen easily in a room like that. When the past means nothing and the future is short.
…
Micah laid face up, his mind somewhere between anger and tears. He tried to punch his pillow but it didn’t help, so he just tried to sleep. He’d never tried to sleep before, staying up seemed to always be the best thing. Now he just wanted the night to be over. He looked to the wall at a picture that he painted in Sunday school when he was seven. It Jesus walking on water, but it looked more like a bearded triangle resting on top of blue spikes.The teacher had encouraged him, or at least tried to. “Looks great uh…” the teacher searched for his name.
“Micah,” Micah said.
“Micah. Right. Sorry little buddy.”
Returning to the picture, Micah drew brown lines coming out of the triangle and three prongs on the ends as fingers. Now he needed the green for hills in the back ground. Another boy was using the green crayon to scribble circles on a page.
Micah asked for the crayon.
“I’m using it,” the boy replied as the crayon went round and round, shrinking as the wax was layered on the page.
“But your just drawing stupid lines,” Micah said.
In response the boy drew a green line down Micah’s page. Micah pushed the boy and the boy started, with far too much ease, to cry. The teacher came to the boy’s rescue and Micah was brought out to await his aunt outside the sanctuary.
Inside, they were singing a slow, drowsy hymn. Lexy came out to meet Micah following the teacher. A chorus of voices sung, “As the deer pants for the water…” The sound quieted when the door to the sanctuary closed, the three of them on the outside.
The teacher spoke to Lexy. “You’re supposed to come to the classroom when his number is displayed. He hit my son.”
“Number?” Lexy said, confused.
The voices, old and righteous, surged, becoming more impassioned. Micah heard, “You alone are my strength, my shield…” The voices died back down, blocked by the large wooden door.
The teacher opened the door and the voices erupted again. He pointed to a set of red digital numbers shining on the wall near the empty wooden cross along the back wall of the sanctuary.
He closed the door again.
“Every child has a number. Weren’t you told?”
The voices became loud in his ear as if hundreds of voices were singing all around him. “You alone are my strength, my shield. You alone are my strength, my shield.” The line repeated again and again ringing in his head, becoming more shrill and louder with every repetition.
Just then both of the adults turned down to look at Micah, in unison they said, “You come when your number is called. Never before though. Never!”
They started to laugh, shrill angry laughter. Micah felt his body falling, the voices fading. He was leaving the church and he was falling rapidly down. It was getting hot and he realized he was in a cave, red from flames. He could still hear the song repeating like a skipping CD but muffled and far away. In front of him was a man. It was Emerson. Huge drops were dripping from his head. He was in torment, screaming and panting, huge chains tying him down to the wall.
Never before!
Lexy was awoken by Micah’s screams. She grabbed a bathrobe and ran in to find him sweating and ranting. “He’s in hell,” he screamed. “I saw him. I saw him.” His breathing faltered, Lexy could tell he was still trying to wake up. She sat by him on the bed, petting his wet hair.
She said, “Shh, it’s okay. He’s not in hell.”
“But that’s where,” Micah sniffed, trying to catch his breath.
“Shh, just go back to sleep, okay?”
“He was tied down and burning.”
“No, shh. Go back to sleep.”
“But I…”
“Shh.”
His breathing slowly returned. His eyes closed. He slept. Lexy left the door open and quietly walked away.
...
The next morning Micah walked to school and read over his story. He felt as if he had written it years ago. It seemed unimportant now as if the story was a failed math test.
Micah read through it again, but was surprised to find an amendment written to look like his writing added to the end of what Micah had thought was a finished work.
Then one day Emerson got stuck in the car crusher and died. For some reason he went to hell.
He woke up and had chains on his arms. So he broke them and started to fight all the bad guys that were there. They had horns and claws.
He punched them and threw them in the lava. Then he went to a wall and started to dig with his bare hands. He broke the rock until he got to the other side.
That was where Iris was. She died too but was in heaven. They hugged. Now Emerson was in heaven too.
The end.
Micah scratched out ‘they hugged’ with a pen. Way too girly, he thought and placed the story in his backpack
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Kindness and Hellfire: Motives in the Christian Life
This was a message/sermon I gave at the Lantern Community Church in Calgary Alberta July/27/2008.
John Stewart Mill wrote in his book called On Liberty that, “However unwillingly a person who has a strong opinion may admit the possibility that his opinion may be false, he ought to be moved by the consideration that however true it may be, if it is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth.”
By the way I hate it when people start with a quote but I couldn’t help myself. This rings too true.
I have one goal in this talk. Instead of trying to give you the meaning of the passage we’re going to talk about, I want to help you figure out how to go about reading the bible. I’m no master by any stretch, but I read a lot. I’m even going to school to read. And write and think critically. It’s not easy to think read critically especially with a book like the bible. How do we balance our faith with the hard edge of reason? Is it even possible? What I try to do is read critically and lovingly at the same time, the two constantly working in tandem.
Instead of trying to find a theme, instead of placing this passage in a box, interpreting it to give you an overarching idea, I am going to just read it and then highlight what I think is interesting, the oddities. And then instead of telling you what it means, I’m just going to suggest what it could mean, it’s a scattered method, but then there might be a bit for any one of you. I don’t feel qualified to tell you what it means, I would rather like to show you where some paths are but not necessarily where those paths go.
So, lets read it and see where it takes us. This is Jesus talking near the end of Matthew before he hung on the cross:
31-33"When he finally arrives, blazing in beauty and all his angels with him, the Son of Man will take his place on his glorious throne. Then all the nations will be arranged before him and he will sort the people out, much as a shepherd sorts out sheep and goats, putting sheep to his right and goats to his left.
34-36"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what's coming to you in this kingdom. It's been ready for you since the world's foundation. And here's why:
I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.
37-40"Then those 'sheep' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?' Then the King will say, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.'
41-43"Then he will turn to the 'goats,' the ones on his left, and say, 'Get out, worthless goats! You're good for nothing but the fires of hell. And why? Because—
I was hungry and you gave me no meal,
I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
I was homeless and you gave me no bed,
I was shivering and you gave me no clothes,
Sick and in prison, and you never visited.'
44"Then those 'goats' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or homeless or shivering or sick or in prison and didn't help?'
45"He will answer them, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me—you failed to do it to me.'
46"Then those 'goats' will be herded to their eternal doom, but the 'sheep' to their eternal reward."
Lets start with some problems in the text. One of the first steps when thinking critically.
The first thing I notice about this passage is all the hell talk. “Fires of hell;” other translations say “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels”. I have to be honest and say it makes me uncomfortable; the very idea of a place where all the people who didn’t know or never heard about Christ go and burn forever is a hard concept for me. To fit it into the idea of a loving God is a hard sell. I don’t see the justice or the love. But within just this passage we have to ask the question, and I think it’s an important one, why do the goats go to hell? What sin placed them in this position? We’ll come back to that.
Another problem I have, similar to the problem I have with hell, is the strict separation between the sheep and the goats, there is no middle ground, no mild sentence for those who are only mildly goat-like. And (this may be a side point) it is odd that Christ uses the language of species. A person cannot change what species they are, is being a sinner the same as being a certain species? What this tells me is that the metaphor or simile should not be brought to that extreme of a conclusion. Because I think a person’s ability to choose is key to this passage. I think we could all agree that a person’s action cannot be punished if they had no choice but to act that way.
I think it’s key to ask these kinds of questions whenever we approach a text. If the bible is the bible it should be able to stand up to criticism. When we read the bible, we should never approach it ready to just take what it says, we should look deep and if a certain interpretation leads to a quacky conclusion like ‘sinners are a species’ then maybe we should look deeper or from a different angle. Here’s a story to highlight this point.
When I first started to work at Starbucks there was one thing that I learned right off the bat. There were a lot of rules. There was a specific way to do everything. Every drink had a recipe to follow, pumps to pump, shots to pour, lines of drizzle to driz. There were things to do when you started work and before you left. They taught you the right way to talk to customers, bag pastries, and line up merchandise. I did my best to learn them all, to do the best job that I could. I even became a supervisor. It’s true.
But even with all these guidelines, I did what I could to have a personable attitude whenever I ran the floor. I’m the type of person that I will often choose comfort over a guideline if I see no real reason for the rule. I was a good supervisor, people liked me, and then I met Jae Kang.
I would be on the bar making drinks, the supervisor, the veteran, and Jae would come and enlighten me about a step I had missed, or criticize my foam. Which, if you have ever worked in the coffee industry you would know how insulting it is when people beat on your foam. On not a few occasions, he would bring out the Book. He would lay it on the counter, and flip to the page which would be proof of my transgression, right there in black and white.
Sometimes he was right. Sometimes I just got lazy and I had to pull up my bootstraps. But there were other times when Jae would be so sure I had done something wrong, against the rules, but I would use the opportunity to show him that there were times when the rules needed to be tossed – an idea he was hard pressed to accept.
On one occasion we were in the middle of our evening rush when a lady came up to where I was making drinks and handed me tickets to a Dixie Chicks concert. She couldn’t go, she said and the concert was that night, we could use them or give them to somebody. She left them with me and I decided I’d give them to the next customer who would take them. That’s when Jae stepped in. He had it on good authority that we were not supposed to give out gifts to customers. I’m not sure where he had read it but he seemed really sure. I think the rule had something to do with keeping customers from thinking we were giving the tickets out as a raffle, we had to keep people from complaining that we were being unfair.
I think I was right in giving out the tickets. I think I was right to make somebody’s day. But was I? Was it right? Can something be right if it is against the rules?
Now bring this back to the bible. What happens if you are doing something that you feel is right and good but somebody corrects you with a bible verse, New or Old Testament?
I don’t think we should allow anything to stop us being kind to another. If the bible is used to hinder kindness it can’t be right.
Here’s a guideline for reading the bible, and I think it’s a good one.
Never allow anything you read, in the bible, the paper, don’t allow anything you hear, from a sermon, a commercial or news cast impede your ability to be kind to others. If you read something that brings you to the conclusion that you should have a prejudice against a certain group, or that you should dismiss them out of hand, it is wrong. It can’t be truth. This is not as easy as you may think. The Church, historically speaking, has had a hard time accepting this as a guideline, most of what we would call atrocities in the Western world went hand in hand with Christian dogma. Too many evils are backed up by a biblical text or argument. And sometimes the bible is encouraging the evil. Sometimes it can’t be denied that the bible is propagating a cruel inhuman way.
Today we read in the bible that homosexuals are a plague on the earth, that they should even be stoned to death. Does this idea encourage kindness? Is not love our guide?
And this is where we invoke the mantra of all enlightened Christians, “love the sinner hate the sin”. What wisdom! We cannot hide behind this dogma any more. What happens with a person who defines him or herself by this “sin”? When there is no distinction between the sin and the person? What should we hate and what should we love? Is it our job to hate anything? An important question I think. What did Jesus hate? I’ll come back to that too.
This guideline, to allow love or kindness to be your guide rather than just words on a piece of paper, is not just out of my head, it is at the heart of this passage. I touched on the question of why the goats go to hell earlier. Lets go back to the passage, the grounds the King gives for the goat’s damnation. He says to them,
I was hungry and you gave me no meal,
I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
I was homeless and you gave me no bed,
I was shivering and you gave me no clothes,
Sick and in prison, and you never visited.'
Interesting. This goes against every protestant bone in my body. Nothing is said about faith, or belief, just action. What happened to faith alone? What happened to grace? It is just not here. Why? Some people would bring in other passages in order to soften this fact. Talk about Paul and the theology he expounds but I don’t think that’s fair. Jesus words should stand alone, should they not? So, why do the goats go to hell? Or better yet why does anybody go to hell?
Kindness. The goats go to eternal punishment because of something they didn’t do. An action. Does that make anybody feel uncomfortable? Like I said this goes against some long standing protestant notions, like faith. I’m no theologian, but I know the words of Jesus to know that this notion fits perfectly within the framework of Christ’s ministry on Earth.
Jesus was angry with unkind people. What did Jesus hate? He hated hypocrisy. Which is really the worst kind of unkindness, it is unkindness in the name of God. It is a total misuse of God’s word and in the Pharisees situation it is a misuse of God’s authority. How can it be that the Pharisees can be within what the bible says, be called authorities, but not love the downtrodden or the untouchable? Can this still happen today within Christianity?
Does Jesus only care about action? No. But this passage highlights just how important it is. Action, and I don’t mean things like Jewish laws or going to church or even personal sins. I mean acting in a kind way one to another. Jesus cannot imagine a person following him and not taking every opportunity to love the people around him. In this sense the passage is very simple. Do not neglect your neighbor, your wife, your uncle, your employees, or your boss. You know this. But what we tend to forget, in the midst of all the controversy over certain sins or lifestyles, is that this is the sin in Jesus’ eyes. Read Matthew, whenever he condemns a Pharisee it is for this sin. This is the sin that gets his blood going. I am not aware of any other sin that he condemns as strongly to the point that all others either stem from it or pale in comparison to it.
Next we move to questions of motives. What motivates the sheep? This is, for me, one of the most interesting aspects of the passage and it still confuses me. It is confusing only for the fact that Jesus makes no mention of motive. Remember how the sheep answered Jesus at the beginning of the passage?
'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?'
What kind of faithful sheep are these? They aren’t even aware when their master is around. They are completely unaware of the judgment awaiting them, Oblivious to the fact that their actions would in some way reflect on the outcome of their lives in the hereafter.
Fear of hellfire is not a part of what motivates the sheep. The days when preachers preached hellfire and damnation are over. I don’t think I ever heard a sermon where the central message was “be very afraid”. And, if anything, this passage enforces the movement we’ve gone through in the way we speak about hell. The general feeling today is that hell is no longer aloud to motivate a Christian. But this leaves us in a predicament; this is where it gets interesting.
How can you not be motivated by hell once you are aware of the reality of hell? We do not have the luxury that the sheep have; we are not just blissfully unaware of h-e double hockey sticks. What does motivate the sheep? I don’t really know, the text doesn’t really say. It only says that they were unaware of the repercussions of their actions. They didn’t do it for a reward or to escape punishment. Then what? The good feeling that results from doing good? Maybe. Or maybe there can even be more pure motives. What is a good motive when it comes to living a Christian life?
I’m lost by this question. I’m hard-pressed to believe that a human being can have pure motives in any area of their life. It would be great to have a simple answer to this question. Because, it seems as though the human mind is far too complex to land on a simple answer in respect to motives. All we can really do is try to know our own motives. Critically approach our own mind, our own heart. Critical thinking comes down to honesty, allowing our conscience to have full control. Seeing right from wrong, seeing truth from lies. If you look at your heart and life and see that your living under false pretences in any aspect of your life then it’s time to let the truth sink in, and then to make a change.
Like I said at the beginning I had no over-arching idea. This is just a part of what I gleaned from the passage. I’d like to continue the discussion. If any of you are on facebook I will be posting the whole message on the Lantern group site. And you could also talk to me in person. And I encourage all of you to talk about what you hear in church every Sunday, if you go to this church or any other, never just accept it. Knowledge is not digested the same way as food. It has to be mulled over and challenged before it can truly go to the heart.
John Stewart Mill wrote in his book called On Liberty that, “However unwillingly a person who has a strong opinion may admit the possibility that his opinion may be false, he ought to be moved by the consideration that however true it may be, if it is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth.”
By the way I hate it when people start with a quote but I couldn’t help myself. This rings too true.
I have one goal in this talk. Instead of trying to give you the meaning of the passage we’re going to talk about, I want to help you figure out how to go about reading the bible. I’m no master by any stretch, but I read a lot. I’m even going to school to read. And write and think critically. It’s not easy to think read critically especially with a book like the bible. How do we balance our faith with the hard edge of reason? Is it even possible? What I try to do is read critically and lovingly at the same time, the two constantly working in tandem.
Instead of trying to find a theme, instead of placing this passage in a box, interpreting it to give you an overarching idea, I am going to just read it and then highlight what I think is interesting, the oddities. And then instead of telling you what it means, I’m just going to suggest what it could mean, it’s a scattered method, but then there might be a bit for any one of you. I don’t feel qualified to tell you what it means, I would rather like to show you where some paths are but not necessarily where those paths go.
So, lets read it and see where it takes us. This is Jesus talking near the end of Matthew before he hung on the cross:
31-33"When he finally arrives, blazing in beauty and all his angels with him, the Son of Man will take his place on his glorious throne. Then all the nations will be arranged before him and he will sort the people out, much as a shepherd sorts out sheep and goats, putting sheep to his right and goats to his left.
34-36"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what's coming to you in this kingdom. It's been ready for you since the world's foundation. And here's why:
I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.
37-40"Then those 'sheep' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?' Then the King will say, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.'
41-43"Then he will turn to the 'goats,' the ones on his left, and say, 'Get out, worthless goats! You're good for nothing but the fires of hell. And why? Because—
I was hungry and you gave me no meal,
I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
I was homeless and you gave me no bed,
I was shivering and you gave me no clothes,
Sick and in prison, and you never visited.'
44"Then those 'goats' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or homeless or shivering or sick or in prison and didn't help?'
45"He will answer them, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me—you failed to do it to me.'
46"Then those 'goats' will be herded to their eternal doom, but the 'sheep' to their eternal reward."
Lets start with some problems in the text. One of the first steps when thinking critically.
The first thing I notice about this passage is all the hell talk. “Fires of hell;” other translations say “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels”. I have to be honest and say it makes me uncomfortable; the very idea of a place where all the people who didn’t know or never heard about Christ go and burn forever is a hard concept for me. To fit it into the idea of a loving God is a hard sell. I don’t see the justice or the love. But within just this passage we have to ask the question, and I think it’s an important one, why do the goats go to hell? What sin placed them in this position? We’ll come back to that.
Another problem I have, similar to the problem I have with hell, is the strict separation between the sheep and the goats, there is no middle ground, no mild sentence for those who are only mildly goat-like. And (this may be a side point) it is odd that Christ uses the language of species. A person cannot change what species they are, is being a sinner the same as being a certain species? What this tells me is that the metaphor or simile should not be brought to that extreme of a conclusion. Because I think a person’s ability to choose is key to this passage. I think we could all agree that a person’s action cannot be punished if they had no choice but to act that way.
I think it’s key to ask these kinds of questions whenever we approach a text. If the bible is the bible it should be able to stand up to criticism. When we read the bible, we should never approach it ready to just take what it says, we should look deep and if a certain interpretation leads to a quacky conclusion like ‘sinners are a species’ then maybe we should look deeper or from a different angle. Here’s a story to highlight this point.
When I first started to work at Starbucks there was one thing that I learned right off the bat. There were a lot of rules. There was a specific way to do everything. Every drink had a recipe to follow, pumps to pump, shots to pour, lines of drizzle to driz. There were things to do when you started work and before you left. They taught you the right way to talk to customers, bag pastries, and line up merchandise. I did my best to learn them all, to do the best job that I could. I even became a supervisor. It’s true.
But even with all these guidelines, I did what I could to have a personable attitude whenever I ran the floor. I’m the type of person that I will often choose comfort over a guideline if I see no real reason for the rule. I was a good supervisor, people liked me, and then I met Jae Kang.
I would be on the bar making drinks, the supervisor, the veteran, and Jae would come and enlighten me about a step I had missed, or criticize my foam. Which, if you have ever worked in the coffee industry you would know how insulting it is when people beat on your foam. On not a few occasions, he would bring out the Book. He would lay it on the counter, and flip to the page which would be proof of my transgression, right there in black and white.
Sometimes he was right. Sometimes I just got lazy and I had to pull up my bootstraps. But there were other times when Jae would be so sure I had done something wrong, against the rules, but I would use the opportunity to show him that there were times when the rules needed to be tossed – an idea he was hard pressed to accept.
On one occasion we were in the middle of our evening rush when a lady came up to where I was making drinks and handed me tickets to a Dixie Chicks concert. She couldn’t go, she said and the concert was that night, we could use them or give them to somebody. She left them with me and I decided I’d give them to the next customer who would take them. That’s when Jae stepped in. He had it on good authority that we were not supposed to give out gifts to customers. I’m not sure where he had read it but he seemed really sure. I think the rule had something to do with keeping customers from thinking we were giving the tickets out as a raffle, we had to keep people from complaining that we were being unfair.
I think I was right in giving out the tickets. I think I was right to make somebody’s day. But was I? Was it right? Can something be right if it is against the rules?
Now bring this back to the bible. What happens if you are doing something that you feel is right and good but somebody corrects you with a bible verse, New or Old Testament?
I don’t think we should allow anything to stop us being kind to another. If the bible is used to hinder kindness it can’t be right.
Here’s a guideline for reading the bible, and I think it’s a good one.
Never allow anything you read, in the bible, the paper, don’t allow anything you hear, from a sermon, a commercial or news cast impede your ability to be kind to others. If you read something that brings you to the conclusion that you should have a prejudice against a certain group, or that you should dismiss them out of hand, it is wrong. It can’t be truth. This is not as easy as you may think. The Church, historically speaking, has had a hard time accepting this as a guideline, most of what we would call atrocities in the Western world went hand in hand with Christian dogma. Too many evils are backed up by a biblical text or argument. And sometimes the bible is encouraging the evil. Sometimes it can’t be denied that the bible is propagating a cruel inhuman way.
Today we read in the bible that homosexuals are a plague on the earth, that they should even be stoned to death. Does this idea encourage kindness? Is not love our guide?
And this is where we invoke the mantra of all enlightened Christians, “love the sinner hate the sin”. What wisdom! We cannot hide behind this dogma any more. What happens with a person who defines him or herself by this “sin”? When there is no distinction between the sin and the person? What should we hate and what should we love? Is it our job to hate anything? An important question I think. What did Jesus hate? I’ll come back to that too.
This guideline, to allow love or kindness to be your guide rather than just words on a piece of paper, is not just out of my head, it is at the heart of this passage. I touched on the question of why the goats go to hell earlier. Lets go back to the passage, the grounds the King gives for the goat’s damnation. He says to them,
I was hungry and you gave me no meal,
I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
I was homeless and you gave me no bed,
I was shivering and you gave me no clothes,
Sick and in prison, and you never visited.'
Interesting. This goes against every protestant bone in my body. Nothing is said about faith, or belief, just action. What happened to faith alone? What happened to grace? It is just not here. Why? Some people would bring in other passages in order to soften this fact. Talk about Paul and the theology he expounds but I don’t think that’s fair. Jesus words should stand alone, should they not? So, why do the goats go to hell? Or better yet why does anybody go to hell?
Kindness. The goats go to eternal punishment because of something they didn’t do. An action. Does that make anybody feel uncomfortable? Like I said this goes against some long standing protestant notions, like faith. I’m no theologian, but I know the words of Jesus to know that this notion fits perfectly within the framework of Christ’s ministry on Earth.
Jesus was angry with unkind people. What did Jesus hate? He hated hypocrisy. Which is really the worst kind of unkindness, it is unkindness in the name of God. It is a total misuse of God’s word and in the Pharisees situation it is a misuse of God’s authority. How can it be that the Pharisees can be within what the bible says, be called authorities, but not love the downtrodden or the untouchable? Can this still happen today within Christianity?
Does Jesus only care about action? No. But this passage highlights just how important it is. Action, and I don’t mean things like Jewish laws or going to church or even personal sins. I mean acting in a kind way one to another. Jesus cannot imagine a person following him and not taking every opportunity to love the people around him. In this sense the passage is very simple. Do not neglect your neighbor, your wife, your uncle, your employees, or your boss. You know this. But what we tend to forget, in the midst of all the controversy over certain sins or lifestyles, is that this is the sin in Jesus’ eyes. Read Matthew, whenever he condemns a Pharisee it is for this sin. This is the sin that gets his blood going. I am not aware of any other sin that he condemns as strongly to the point that all others either stem from it or pale in comparison to it.
Next we move to questions of motives. What motivates the sheep? This is, for me, one of the most interesting aspects of the passage and it still confuses me. It is confusing only for the fact that Jesus makes no mention of motive. Remember how the sheep answered Jesus at the beginning of the passage?
'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?'
What kind of faithful sheep are these? They aren’t even aware when their master is around. They are completely unaware of the judgment awaiting them, Oblivious to the fact that their actions would in some way reflect on the outcome of their lives in the hereafter.
Fear of hellfire is not a part of what motivates the sheep. The days when preachers preached hellfire and damnation are over. I don’t think I ever heard a sermon where the central message was “be very afraid”. And, if anything, this passage enforces the movement we’ve gone through in the way we speak about hell. The general feeling today is that hell is no longer aloud to motivate a Christian. But this leaves us in a predicament; this is where it gets interesting.
How can you not be motivated by hell once you are aware of the reality of hell? We do not have the luxury that the sheep have; we are not just blissfully unaware of h-e double hockey sticks. What does motivate the sheep? I don’t really know, the text doesn’t really say. It only says that they were unaware of the repercussions of their actions. They didn’t do it for a reward or to escape punishment. Then what? The good feeling that results from doing good? Maybe. Or maybe there can even be more pure motives. What is a good motive when it comes to living a Christian life?
I’m lost by this question. I’m hard-pressed to believe that a human being can have pure motives in any area of their life. It would be great to have a simple answer to this question. Because, it seems as though the human mind is far too complex to land on a simple answer in respect to motives. All we can really do is try to know our own motives. Critically approach our own mind, our own heart. Critical thinking comes down to honesty, allowing our conscience to have full control. Seeing right from wrong, seeing truth from lies. If you look at your heart and life and see that your living under false pretences in any aspect of your life then it’s time to let the truth sink in, and then to make a change.
Like I said at the beginning I had no over-arching idea. This is just a part of what I gleaned from the passage. I’d like to continue the discussion. If any of you are on facebook I will be posting the whole message on the Lantern group site. And you could also talk to me in person. And I encourage all of you to talk about what you hear in church every Sunday, if you go to this church or any other, never just accept it. Knowledge is not digested the same way as food. It has to be mulled over and challenged before it can truly go to the heart.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Just Simply
Gawd loved the little children
He made them a fence to keep them from trouble.
Troublesome, troublesome kids.
Gawd loved the little children
And told them to keep off the trees.
Oh the fall, the fall.
Gawd loved the little children
He only smacked there little hands when they done bad
But what he could have done!
Gawd loved the little children
He did it to himself don’t you know.
On a hill. He done what he coulda done ta them.
But spare the rod spoil the god
Isn’t that what they say?
They say Gawd works in mysterious ways.
They say it takes Gawd only six days
What takes them Atheists zillions.
And all dem bones, all dat bull.
Gawd loves the little children.
To the museum He takes them
To learn the lie.
Gawd loves the little children
Home schooled Jesus
Wrote the textbooks Hisself.
Genesi One s’all you need
Leviticus 20: 13 I don’t mean to be mean
I just read the page, I just read the Word.
Gawd loves the little children
That’s why he can clear the land
That’s why he can move the armies.
Gawd loves the little children
And when those boys love eachother more than friends
Gawd is an envious Gawd
And when they keep the oil to themselves
The black gold, made over millions of years, so they say
Gawd hates injustice
Gawd loves the little children
When they follow his precepts
When they don’t love too much
When they keep back from the fence
When they don’t fall far from the tree
(But he only spanks their little bottoms if they do)
When they don’t go an do like Eve.
When they just simply read these words.
He made them a fence to keep them from trouble.
Troublesome, troublesome kids.
Gawd loved the little children
And told them to keep off the trees.
Oh the fall, the fall.
Gawd loved the little children
He only smacked there little hands when they done bad
But what he could have done!
Gawd loved the little children
He did it to himself don’t you know.
On a hill. He done what he coulda done ta them.
But spare the rod spoil the god
Isn’t that what they say?
They say Gawd works in mysterious ways.
They say it takes Gawd only six days
What takes them Atheists zillions.
And all dem bones, all dat bull.
Gawd loves the little children.
To the museum He takes them
To learn the lie.
Gawd loves the little children
Home schooled Jesus
Wrote the textbooks Hisself.
Genesi One s’all you need
Leviticus 20: 13 I don’t mean to be mean
I just read the page, I just read the Word.
Gawd loves the little children
That’s why he can clear the land
That’s why he can move the armies.
Gawd loves the little children
And when those boys love eachother more than friends
Gawd is an envious Gawd
And when they keep the oil to themselves
The black gold, made over millions of years, so they say
Gawd hates injustice
Gawd loves the little children
When they follow his precepts
When they don’t love too much
When they keep back from the fence
When they don’t fall far from the tree
(But he only spanks their little bottoms if they do)
When they don’t go an do like Eve.
When they just simply read these words.
Monday, June 2, 2008
heat
you radiate.
with the friction
it’s unbearably
warm. we curl up
we touch knees
I think of all the times I’ve done this with other people
no one.
now back to back
my spotted touches your perfect white
Monday, April 28, 2008
so much depends upon
so much depends
upon
upon
iced, extra drizzle
splash in the white milk
distillation, bovine secretions
farms
tiny glasses
cup
perspiration
everybody has one
I post this poem to commemorate leaving Starbucks, for good this time...
The echo's of Willam's poem The Red Wheelbarrow are purposeful. I love his poem but wanted to express a negative image of it with his piece.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Beauteous are the Cranes
Beauteous are the cranes swinging in dazzling red contrast against the blue skies fading to a gorgeous gray.
Steel piles higher and higher,
A pillar to hold the floodgates closed.
Collapsing, bending at the foot of the structure.
Hard hats look in awe.
When for a new escalator they cut a hole in the mall.
Rectangular
Deep
Dark
When the god of the mountain decides they are too tall.
The skyline was Christ’s domino set.
He flicked. We fell.
He rearranged the pieces, did it all over again.
With your views and your balconies,
Underground
Parking
Security
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