New Blog for Writing

Started a new blog when I realized I needed a different branding than the one I've come to be known for here. 'Cuz here I'm a little bit of a firecracker. In the pants (that didn't sound wrong at all)

Jason Dye PhDJ is where I'll be putting stories and articles related to teaching, fatherhood, parenthood, and all that other sissy stuff I like to write about as well. I'll try and divide my time equally between these two sites - while writing books at a near-feverish pace (for me, at least) and

Speaking of writing books: Shout It from the Rooftops should be - if all goes according to plan - released by the end of this week. This is the first book in the Left Cheek series and it's about how Evangelical Christians tend to read the Bible. You can check for more updates here, on Facebook, on Twitter, and at the author page here.

I'm sure you'll like it, but you might be scared to get a copy. Don't worry, I plan on introducing it for the low, low price of $1.99 over the weekend.

So, again, check out the new blog. You may like it, no?

Sitting at the Right Hand

"Grant us," they said, "when you're there in all your glory, one of will sit at your right hand and the other at your left."

Luke 27:30

I'm trying to approach philosophy, ethics, and theology in a more specific, localized manner rather than general and universal. I find that this appeal that such-and-such is universally true to be a bit more imperialistic and colonial than we're led to believe. This doesn't always mean the same to everyone everywhere. Even terms like feminism mean different things in different locales. In some places, it's about access to education, or equitable health care, childcare, pay. In others, it may just be about raising the spark of independent awareness, to say that we're not all dead.

All that said, however, I find self-righteousness to be awfully common. And amongst Christians! I am struck with how counter-intuitive Jesus' humility is throughout the texts, especially as I re-read them again during Lent. It strikes me particularly personally because, despite my intense shyness, despite the fact that I try to stick up for others more so than myself, I can become awfully convinced of my own moral superiority.

Shocker, right?

And there's the rub. Even us partners and advocates can get lost in our own heroism and, as a result, become spiritually drained. And when that happens, we're more susceptible to attack and our cause loses ground, no matter how righteous it is.

Stop.

Breathe.

Meditate.

Stop.

Breathe.

Meditate.

This isn't all about you, Jason. It can never be.

Poverty Colonialism in Chicago and Uganda

Several years ago, a church that I was heavily involved in spent good parts of its summers bringing in youth groups from White suburban and exurban churches. This fulfilled a few needs. The need for the church to bring in some funds so it could pay its youth pastor full-time. The need for White youth a million miles removed from urban poverty to see it for a few days and feel better about themselves. The need for our neighbors to shake their heads at lost white kids in their neighborhood.

They usually did service projects, like picking up scattered trash in the neighborhoods and running Vacation Bible Schools. But, come to think of it, cleaning trash is probably a perfect metaphor for this type of poverty colonialism. White people coming to make a difference, not aware of their surroundings, not aware of who they are coming to serve, involved in futile projects that effectively shame those they are there to help. And then leaving - themselves feeling a little frustrated by the wind that blows all the trash back, by the generational sands of poverty that didn't recede during the three days of their visit, and by the humiliation of public service.

Although, I hasten to add, as far as these things are concerned, the church learned to take steps to educate their guests in a primer of urban living, using natives from the church for that task*. And I got to sit in during a screening of a local PBS documentary on the decades-long project of tearing down the notorious (but strategically located, prime real estate) Cabrini Green housing projects. The Greens were being shuttled for a mixed-income privatized project of town homes. The idea behind it is that the poor Black families that will remain (after the displacement of hundreds of families) will benefit from having upper middle class neighbors who diligently go to work every day to earn their keep and better their lives.

Some protest arose from the young viewers: How can the residents not want their help. It's obvious they need whatever help they can get!

Cabrini Green, from "Life in Chicago" by Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist John White, 1982. Found on Flickr.

This all struck close to home. After all, gentrification had been happening (and is still happening) in the surrounding neighborhoods and our own congregants were finding themselves unable to live in their neighborhoods anymore nd found themselves scattered from their networks of support and family. To those with plenty of money and who can afford alternatives methods of networking and support, this may not be such a primary need and they may not recognize it for what it is. But that's the heart of the matter of Poverty Colonialism: Educated white males are trained from an early age to truly believe we know better. This belies the heart of racism. We think we know better because - whether or not we have come to grips with it - we think we are better...

Teju Cole does an outstanding job of laying out the problems of Poverty Colonialism - what he and most others call the White Savior Industrial Complex (page 2 here) - in the Atlantic. I think the article needs to be required reading for all of us would-be saviors.

Some long-ish excerpts:

I disagree with the approach taken by Invisible Children in particular, and by the White Savior Industrial Complex in general, because there is much more to doing good work than "making a difference." There is the principle of first do no harm. There is the idea that those who are being helped ought to be consulted over the matters that concern them...

I am sensitive to the power of narratives. When Jason Russell, narrator of the Kony 2012 video, showed his cheerful blonde toddler a photo of Joseph Kony as the embodiment of evil (a glowering dark man), and of his friend Jacob as the representative of helplessness (a sweet-faced African), I wondered how Russell's little boy would develop a nuanced sense of the lives of others, particularly others of a different race from his own. How would that little boy come to understand that others have autonomy; that their right to life is not exclusive of a right to self-respect? In a different context, John Berger once wrote, "A singer may be innocent; never the song."

One song we hear too often is the one in which Africa serves as a backdrop for white fantasies of conquest and heroism. From the colonial project to Out of Africa to The Constant Gardener and Kony 2012, Africa has provided a space onto which white egos can conveniently be projected. It is a liberated space in which the usual rules do not apply: a nobody from America or Europe can go to Africa and become a godlike savior or, at the very least, have his or her emotional needs satisfied. Many have done it under the banner of "making a difference."...

How, for example, could a well-meaning American "help" a place like Uganda today? It begins, I believe, with some humility with regards to the people in those places. It begins with some respect for the agency of the people of Uganda in their own lives. A great deal of work had been done, and continues to be done, by Ugandans to improve their own country, and ignorant comments... about how "we have to save them because they can't save themselves" can't change that fact...

If Americans want to care about Africa, maybe they should consider evaluating American foreign policy, which they already play a direct role in through elections, before they impose themselves on Africa itself. The fact of the matter is that Nigeria is one of the top five oil suppliers to the U.S., and American policy is interested first and foremost in the flow of that oil. The American government did not see fit to support the Nigeria protests... This was as expected; under the banner of "American interests," the oil comes first. Under that same banner, the livelihood of corn farmers in Mexico has been destroyed by NAFTA. Haitian rice farmers have suffered appalling losses due to Haiti being flooded with subsidized American rice. A nightmare has been playing out in Honduras in the past three years: an American-backed coup and American militarization of that country have contributed to a conflict in which hundreds of activists and journalists have already been murdered. The Egyptian military, which is now suppressing the country's once-hopeful movement for democracy and killing dozens of activists in the process, subsists on $1.3 billion in annual U.S. aid. This is a litany that will be familiar to some. To others, it will be news. But, familiar or not, it has a bearing on our notions of innocence and our right to "help."

Let us begin our activism right here: with the money-driven villainy at the heart of American foreign policy. To do this would be to give up the illusion that the sentimental need to "make a difference" trumps all other considerations. What innocent heroes don't always understand is that they play a useful role for people who have much more cynical motives. The White Savior Industrial Complex is a valve for releasing the unbearable pressures that build in a system built on pillage. We can participate in the economic destruction of Haiti over long years, but when the earthquake strikes it feels good to send $10 each to the rescue fund...

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* Full disclosure, I had an opportunity to go over the script with one of the groups. I laid it in a bit heavy. I try not to be such an arse in public anymore. But anybody who follows me here or on Facebook knows where I put that energy.

H8r Crimes & White Christian Privilege

"Suspicious... These assholes are always getting away."

Fox News and other White, male, heterosexual, Christian supremacist spokespersons like to pretend that Hate Crime legislation give potential victims - particularly Black, Arab, and Latino people, females, those with mental and/or physical disabilities, homosexuals and bisexuals, trans*, Muslims, Hindus, and atheists - more rights than they have. As one of my friends put it, those people groups would belong to a special "protected class."

This type of thinking, and the acceptance of it by much of White American Christianity, belies the fact that those groups already belong to a special attacked class. But it also reveals privileged thinking.

Privileged thinking doesn't comprehend the fact - largely because privileged people are safe from these types of realities - that entire people groups are constantly, systemically, and substantially attacked. And because it can't comprehend this fact (and because we're human and if we don't need to be aware of an ugly fact that makes us look bad, we most likely won't), it has to make up silly disclaimers that minority groups are seeking extra rights.

• School desegregation and busing? Extra rights. Black children already have their own schools; they shouldn't be allowed to overrun ours.
• Civil rights laws? Extra rights. See, black citizens already have the right to vote; they just need to quietly apply like the rest of us. They'll get their turn when it's their time.
• Anti-bigotry laws? Extra rights. Gays are trying to force their views on God-lovin' straights. If I want to voice my disapproval at their lifestyle in a demeaning and threatening manner, that's my Constitutionally-protected right.
• Ramps, elevators, special bathrooms, and handicap accessible doors? Extra rights! Why do we have to accomodate them? We'll take care of them when they come, not before.
• Same-sex unions and/or marriage? That's extra rights, right there! Straights can only get married to a person of the opposite gender. It's not fair that they get to marry somebody of the same sex! (Yes. I have talked to somebody with this view. In 2010. He must've thought he was so clever.)

And so on and so on, ad infinitum...

/HaterJustificationText...

And if you disagree with them, then it's reverse racism. And if you tell them that they're supporting a racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist, classist system, they take it personally and deny the fact that they've ever had a hating bone in their body.*

Of course they missed the point. They're privileged. Not only can they afford to ignore the very institutions that don't challenge them, but they also profit from ignoring those systems.

A number of young Christian slacktivists, like myself, have done a good job of cataloguing oppressions of the US empire overseas. We recognize the horrible costs of war, cheap oil, and cheaply-produced consumptives. We call it by its name: murder.


Yet, are we recognizing the implications of this murderous system when it's at home and so obvious it smacks us in the face with its obviousness?

Trayvon Martin's murder - instigated by racial fears and racist subjugation - is one such obvious case.

For more:
GraceIsHuman (where I first was made aware of this travesty): "Look, I don’t give a shit how George Zimmerman or Bill Lee personally feel about black people or what their personal relationships with black people are like. I am not in the least interested in whether they’re “really racist” or not. I care what they did. I care about the cultural and institutional realities that made what they did (and are still doing, on the part of the Sanford PD) possible, and made them think – with very good precedent for thinking so – they could get away with it."
Sarah Over the Moon argues that White Christians love to patristically defend African children - as if we were their only hope - but we ignore racism in our own backyard.
And Fred at Slacktivist does a journalist's job of consorting and compiling - in an effort to amplify - the voices of those who understand oppression and privilege.

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*Much like the KKK and White Citizens Council did in the 50s and 60s.

You're My Brother, You're My Sister

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 

Galatians 3:28 (NIV)

When did the all-guiding, moral-making Free Market work?

In 1492, when Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue and found himself what he thought were Indians? And enslaved them in efforts to find gold? And worked them to death until the population was a few percentage points what it was before?

Or when Cortes and his crew of marauders scampered through the Americas, wholesale slaughtering anyone who stood in his way of finding vast resources of gold, which would economically enrich his burgeoning capitalist country?

Or when the intercontinental slave trade was in full swing? It must have been then, because it brought tremendous ROI's to the traders, despite the fact that they lost a third of their "goods" on the sea route.

Or when the tribes and societies in eastern Africa captured and sold slaves from deeper within the continent?#

Or when the pious New Englanders made some pretty bucks using their ships for the trade? They were also beneficiaries of the capitalist system of chattel slavery. The free market seemed to work wonders for them...

Or when those working for Nike, Apple, WalMart, Target, or any number of fine contemporary capitalist corporations that are raking in billions of dollars are paid a couple dollars a day (if that) while chained to their desks?

Capitalism didn't start with Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. It started with Machiavelli's The Prince. The idea that to build and accumulate wealth through competition through any means was now accepted as a virtue.

This is not to say that communism - as practiced by states - is the solution or so much better. In efforts to throw off serfdom and capitalist systems of oligarchy and oppression, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro and others have turned to excessively violent force - sometimes committing outright genocide themselves, killing millions. And repressing, as authoritarians make their practice, any form of dissent by expulsion, criminalization,

This is also not to say that capitalism doesn't work. Obviously, it's worked quite well for a lot of people over time. And it may be argued that it's benefited the vast majority of individuals in both the US and the world.

But I don't buy that. Capitalism, at its core, is about the necessities of inequality. In order for it to work, some will get most, most will get some, others will get just enough to survive on - if they're lucky. Capitalism is about the fact that we are not all equals.

And I have nothing but embarrassment for my fellow Christians who would argue that we aren't all of equal value. That some people are worth more than others.

That kind of imperial thinking has crept deeply into the American church. And surprisingly, I see it mostly amongst contemporary Baptists. The same movement where members introduce themselves and greet others as Brother or Sister. The same meta-congregation that has refused a hierarchical institutional structure. The same one where church government tends to be a democracy within the congregational members.

This is the movement, however, in its White American incarnation, that has long had the largest association with slavery and Jim Crow. And now, in its most prominent form in the states (as the largest non-Catholic denomination), woman are not allowed to preach or share their gifts. And they are encouraged to strictly take homemaker's courses. In seminary.

Jerry Falwell, long before his political days, used his pulpit to preach against the evils of racial integration. In doing so, Falwell was also preaching against communism. Not so much because of the gulag. Nor because of the massacres or the repressions of free worship or free speech.

But because communism fundamentally teaches that we are all equal.

To Falwell, all people are equal as souls before God. But that's where equality ends. For him, being made in the likeness of God and being people ready for the salvation pitch (like the Africans that his church sent missionaries out to preach to and convert) did not equate, in the

To Falwell, a capitalist Christian who saw his faith as an activity of marketing, branding and broadening his reach - marking his city on a map at the beginning of his pastoralship like a salesman marks out his territory - equality is wrong because equality breaks down the art of capitalism and the structure he had learned, as a young man and the son of a businessman, to be essentially moral.

Even though it wasn't.

And isn't.

Ban the Teletubbies - DidbyGraham on Flickr

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#Note that while Africa also practiced slavery, their forms of slavery were not comparable to the European slavery in the New World. It was more like the classical slavery of ancient Greece or Mesopotamia. Which is to say it was bad, but not effing inhumane. So the Africans who who engaged in this slave trade - for personal gain - were doing something immoral for profit. But they were misled, to put it succinctly. Some argue that they wouldn't have done it if they had an idea

My Birthday Gift to You

Tomorrow, March 14th, I turn 37! And I'm giving out the gifts this time.

Your gift to me, my dear friends, is to accept this gift.

Get my book These Mornings Are Rough on March 14th for absolutely free!

From the description:

An acerbic yet idealistic young man wants to save the world through teaching. He fails miserably - and hilariously - but learns more than school has ever taught him in the process. For fans of the writing style of David Sedaris and Robert Wilder, as well as of the teaching mockumentary Chalk. But most definitely for those weary of the depictions of the Lone Teacher Savior in such films as Stand and Deliver and Dangerous Minds.

And, best part: It's absolutely true... -ish. And it's about me. It's my sacrificial gift to the world...

Now, I didn't post any reviews here because I don't have any. So, if you get the book and like the book, I do ask that you post a review. And pass along the good word to your friends.

Now, at this point, it's only available at Amazon as a Kindle e-book. Sometime later I'd like to turn a couple volumes of this into an honest-to-goodness paper book.

Yeah, that'd be nice...

But in order to get the free book, you'll need to download a Kindle App reader (also free) to your desktop, laptop, smartphone, iPad, iPod, iPhone, iRobot, tablet (I have mine. It's wonderful),

Once again, FREE (and I would add, nice) book.

Wednesday.

Spread the word and come and get your lovin'. :-)

Pro-Life: Death and Control (IDMWYTIM, pt. 3)

This is third in a series on Evangelicals and abortion

About four years back, "America's pastor," Rick Warren, asked America's President, Barack Obama, at what point he believes that life should be protected.

His non-answer went down in infamy in some quarters.

"That answer is above my pay grade."

By this, he meant that only God really knows when we can say that human life actually begins - when what many would consider the soul would enter in through the uterus and into the embryo to grant it humanity - so only God can grade when life should be protected by government intervention. .

Despite the drubbing from the "pro-life" lobby, and perhaps despite his own (genuine) interest in deflecting the question, Obama was right. Ask most evangelicals and conservative Catholics and they'd most likely tell you, "Life begins at conception."

And they wouldn't flinch in saying that.

Here I think I should clarify a bit: I have trouble with abortion. As a parent, as an oldest brother, as a (admittedly male) human, I've tried to go over the option of abortion and wrestled with it for a very, very long time. But even during the darkest periods of my deepest depression (largely set off by major life changes that occurred during a relatively short span), even when I was angriest and most despondent at my dissolving marriage, and despite her various and chronic health complications, I've never regretted my daughter's birth.

I have, however, been constantly cognizant of the fact that it would have been much easier if the situations were different. I am also pretty darned aware that I'm a male, and thus incapable of giving her birth in the first place. Alas, from my perspective, waiting for the right time would have given me a completely different child. Too many variables and all that.

Now, however, these are my beliefs. And they influence how I live and act. They, for better or worse, influence and help make me which I am. But in this scheme, I also find it hard to believe that life begins the moment a seed enters into an egg.

Perhaps life begins in the first trimester. I am willing to go along with that. Maybe it begins when the egg is planted in the womb. Maybe after the ears fully form. Maybe at the moment the fetus is able to function outside of the womb. Maybe at birth, and not before. I have to acknowledge that for some cultures, life isn't fully recognized until the age of five or so.

The point being that there has never been a universally understood standard for when human life begins. And until the 1980's, there was no consensus even amongst Evangelicals.

There certainly wasn't in the bible.

So when the anti-abortion forces mandate that abortion a) is murder and, b) should be outlawed at any stage, they (we) are being presumptuous, to say the least. Coupled with our track record on women's rights, we are being downright cynical and controlling.

To attempt to legislate our views on abortion upon the populace is akin to trying to legislate religion*. And we all know how that ends, right?

Spanish Inquisition poster photo by Ben Sutherland on Flickr

We have every right to hold the view that all life is sacred. I believe that this is consistent with the Christian view of Creation and humanity. But then we need to follow through with that. That includes all life. That includes female life. Which includes the acknowledgment that they are fully-developed human beings and that they are to be guaranteed full access to all their rights. To do otherwise is to control - which is a form of active death.

As long as the Contemporary "Pro-Life" movement continues to fight a woman's right to self-determine, we deliver a message of death and control. As long as the CPL continues to allow victim-blaming, we deliver a message of death and control. As long as the CPL continues to shame and ignore the voices of women, we deliver a message of death and control. As long as the CPL continues to be silent while the US continues atrocious wars against Middle Easterners, we deliver a message of death and control. As long as the CPL continues to lobby for laws limiting abortion - and through deceptive, backdoor practices - we deliver a message of death and destruction.

There are better ways, and we'll discuss them next time.

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* I would suggest a much more anarchist view, which I think is also the answer to most of our other societal issues, including access to healthy, whole and affordable food and shelter.

Pro-Life: It Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means (pt. 2)

Second in a series on abortion and Evangelicals

The anti-abortion movement is now setting its sights on birth control and labeling it a Religious Freedom issue. Rather than what it is, a Religious Tyranny issue.

Just like with same-sex marriage laws, this has nothing to do with the ability of religious practitioners to follow their conscience without the constraint of government upon them. This is about their right to impose their morality onto others - even if they have to entirely devise new definitions in order to do so.

Nobody ever expects the Spanish Inquisition!

But this isn't anything new to Randall Terry, Chuck Colson, Richard Land and other leaders of the contemporary "pro-life" movement. They're used to flubbing and fibbing when it suits them. They do this every time there's a new same-sex marriage equality bill going around. "The government is trying to determine who churches should marry," they say in a horrible chorus of horribleness. "The gays is trying to get special treatment," ignoring the fact that they are the one given this special treatment to live life as married individuals without being persecuted for it.

Preventing every last form of abortion, to them, is caring for the least of these. Poverty reduction, pacifism, any other type of activism that leads to protection of any other post-born life - according to the Contemporary Pro-Lifers, these are mere distractions and cannot be solved before Jesus comes back.

So don't even bother. The only fight worth having is against abortion - and related areas. Like homosexuals.

Seriously. That's the response.

They worry incessantly that through universal healthcare they may someday, possibly, through their taxes, have to pay for contraceptives and even some abortions. 

Even if those abortions turn out to be medical emergencies, it's still a non-starter.

Which brings us to another point. The CPL leaders deny that abortion is ever a viable option. Even when the woman's life is at risk. They are committed to the idea that, not only is the fetus a human life, but it is a superior life - superior to criminals, superior to soldiers, superior to civilians of foreign states, superior to the poor, superior to immigrants. And certainly superior to the women who would give birth to them.

This commitment is justified by the theological concept that the pre-born have yet to sin. So, unlike their slutty mothers, they have no right to die if at all preventable.

That is, until after they are born and they sin.

Then they're allowed to starve...

That Term Does Not Mean What You Think It Does (pt.1)

First in a series on abortion and Evangelicals

In this time of national confusion, I'd like to clarify something. The term "pro-life" - like the term "Christian" - has been co-opted and carried away by the violent.

To be pro-life originally meant to be actively pursuing for the protection and good of all of human life. When we hear that term today, it is used to self-describe those who are merely against abortion - usually in almost all cases. Often they are against euthanasia, but not necessarily. And usually against all forms of that as well.

Most of those that proudly carry the label "pro-life", however, are pro-expansionism. The Evangelical Christian Neo-Con mouthpiece WORLD Magazine, for example, was cheer-leading the War Upon Iraq (I'd be surprised if they weren't currently pushing for war at Iran as well) before and throughout the attack. So was honorary Evangelical Rick Santorum. And the vast majority of staunchly Contemporary Pro-Life Evangelical churches, including the one I was heavily active in at the time. With few regrets towards that war or, really, any other war enacted upon by the United States. They are all "Just Wars" because the United States is a "Just Nation."

Pro-life.

Although they are often active in impoverished communities throughout the world through such charitable agencies as Compassion, Int'l and Franklin Graham's Samaritan's Purse, they rarely ever accept a call for global justice (as Compassion tries to nudge them towards) as that would mean giving up their relative comforts.

So, while millions die yearly from preventive causes, these Contemporary Pro-Lifers actually advocate against broader justice concerns that would save those lives.

Pro-life.

They also overwhelmingly defend the death penalty. This is another area where the original pro-life constituents fundamentally, overwhelmingly disagreed. They understood that pursuit of vindictive punishments lead to trials not pursuant to justice but to guilt and appeasement of the lust for blood. They know that not only are there many innocent people on death row, but that the capital punishment does nothing but perpetuate the cycle of lethal violence. The current crop of "pro-life" individuals and institutions has cheered on the multiple dozens of executions that Texas Gov Rick Perry oversaw.

Pro-life.

The currently co-opted pro-life movement tends to be also be pro-guns rights. They advocate for looser gun control laws. Guns, by the way, not used for survival or even gaming. Guns used to kill or maim another human being. One "pro-life" commenter at a pastor friend of mine's Facebook page said that it's practically a moral obligation to shoot off the head of someone who breaks into his house. I'd hate to see the gun rack he's put under his bed, or think about the very real danger he's putting his family in. Which is much more real than the dangers of a night-time raid on his house by a bandit. Does it matter, though, as long as he labels himself...

Pro-life?

It seems that, to the majority of those that label themselves pro-life, it is okay for the US government to be involved in taking lives, but not in sustaining them.

This is the bastardized current version of Pro-life.

I can't even say it's Orwellian. Newspeak would corrupt a term by implying the its intended end results - so the department overseeing war would be the Dept of Peace, and the department overseeing brainwashing would be the Dept of Love.  If that method were used here, the contemporary pro-life movement would be described as pro-death.

And that would sadly but actually be a more accurate descriptor.

Read pt 2 here

The Full Force of the Kingdom of God

Some of you standing here are going to see... the Kingdom of God arrive in full force.

Mark 9 (The Message)

They did. Some of those within earshot of Jesus witnessed the Kingdom after Jesus' death and resurrection, after the Spirit came upon them. As Jesus ascended into the heavens, the disciples began not just to travel together (which they did do, too), or fight amongst each other (ditto that), or share some things in common.

In the second chapter of Acts, we have the scene at the Pentecost. The Holy Spirit comes upon the gathered disciples like something out of Joseph Campbell influenced scifi/fantasy, sans centaurs. They start speaking in other languages like they took Rosetta Stone courses via the Matrix. They share the Kingdom Message, a new king, a new way of living, a new life. The Jesus Movement grows exponentially.

The Kingdom of God comes upon them.

And most of these people live fully together, sharing everything out of abundance and need.

This euphoric moment doesn't last forever, however - especially as it becomes insular rather than expanding. But it is then that we got a glimpse of pure heaven on earth. Something we Christians long to recreate - and for brief, fleeting moments, we succeed in pockets.

Something that I'd argue non-Christians also long for. We see glimpses and pushes for it in socialism, in the various Spring and Occupy movements - the idea that we are all in this together, that we share not just earth, but her goodness. That we can indeed fight against the corrupting influence of impericism and its resultant death culture.

This was Jesus' way. His movement. And he alluded to how to get there just before, at the end of chapter 8:

Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You're not in the driver's seat; I am. Don't run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I'll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for?

Self-sacrifice.

The Arawak Indians understood this long before Columbus and his anti-Christ Christian men - informed more by the fledgling imperialism of European nationalism than by the teachings and life of Jesus - killed them off. All of them. Every. Last. One. Of. Them.

"Yet though he slay me, thus shall I share with him..."

May we Christians demonstrate what it means to live in the self-sacrificial and other-centered Kingdom, even in the face of the self-centered and other-sacrificial empire.

Life at the Big House

A fierce but height-challenged young lady stands atop a soap box to be position herself above eye level with a masked, shielded, heavily-artilleried, full-body-armored police officer surrounded by dozens of other masked, shielded, heavily-artilleried, full-body-armored police officers.

She's obviously a threat, right? I mean, that's what we're being told by the police state and its apologists. All protesters anywhere that protest against corporate powers and on behalf of the rights of women and minorities are a threat to civility and democracy, amirite?

They have to be a threat to democracy. What, with their loud voices and their demonstrating and opinions and perspectives down our earlobes.

You would think that's what democracy is all about. A "marketplace of free ideas" and some such communist bullshevik propaganda, right?

But, nope. The common folk can't be trusted with such powers. We are not smart enough to know what's best for us.

And it turns out what's best for us is aually what's also best for BP, GE, Citicorp, McDonald's, Bank of America, Boeing, WalMart. They're the smart ones! That's why they're making so much money and we're not.

Ha ha. We're just sooooooo stupid it hurts.

So, when political leaders like Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell throw machine guns and SWAT teams in the face of women protesters, they just need to realize that he is a benign, good-hearted man who only wants what's best for them.

Chicago Mayor Ram Emanuel is also a kind, benevolent soul. Out of his inner-gentleness, he is making sure that the world is safe for the backdoor dealings of the world's largest financial states and their wonderfully kind beneficiaries.

Beneficiaries. Now, doesn't that word have the ring of goodness to it?

I mean, why else would he draft a law that effectively outlaws protest? And if he weren't such a kind-hearted, wise man, why would the city's elected aldermen overwhelmingly and with little protest sign the bill into law? And then why would the people's watchdog, our television and print media practically cheer the law?

It must be because our leaders are so good to us...

Legion and the Pigs

Today's rumination is on Mark chapter 5

They arrived on the other side of the sea in the country of the Gerasenes. As Jesus got out of the boat, a madman from the cemetery came up to him. He lived there among the tombs and graves. No one could restrain him—he couldn't be chained, couldn't be tied down. He had been tied up many times with chains and ropes, but he broke the chains, snapped the ropes. No one was strong enough to tame him. Night and day he roamed through the graves and the hills, screaming out and slashing himself with sharp stones.

This man was hurting, to say the least.

When he saw Jesus a long way off, he ran and bowed in worship before him—then bellowed in protest, "What business do you have, Jesus, Son of the High God, messing with me? I swear to God, don't give me a hard time!" (Jesus had just commanded the tormenting evil spirit, "Out! Get out of the man!")

And he's conflicted by his demons.

Jesus asked him, "Tell me your name."

He replied, "My name is Mob. I'm a rioting mob." Then he desperately begged Jesus not to banish them from the country.

DemonS. A mob of them, taking on this one poor dude. In other translations, he refers to himself as "Legion."

But here's where it gets a bit murcky. The demons know that Jesus wants to rescue the man. And that he's going to do it. So they ask for some mercy in how he does it. He grants their wish, but it doesn't end up as they had hoped. There's a lesson in that too, I'm sure.

That the bad impulses, the easy-way-out isn't necessarily the best way. And that evil gets its cummenpance, even when it seems to get everything it wants.

A large herd of pigs was browsing and rooting on a nearby hill. The demons begged him, "Send us to the pigs so we can live in them." Jesus gave the order. But it was even worse for the pigs than for the man. Crazed, they stampeded over a cliff into the sea and drowned.

I'm not an animal rights activist by any means, but what's done to the pigs here is unsettling. I recognize I'm imposing a fairly modernistic perspective back to an ancient text, but even in the Old Testament there were passages about treating your dogs well. It's perfectly fine to ask, "Was this a proper response? Could there have been an alternative way to ve the man without killing so many pigs - and in the process hurting the local economy?"



Those tending the pigs, scared to death, bolted and told their story in town and country.

They freaked. They're day workers and they witnessed their livelihoods going off a cliff. I'd have freaked too!

Everyone wanted to see what had happened. They came up to Jesus and saw the madman sitting there wearing decent clothes and making sense, no longer a walking madhouse of a man.

Those who had seen it told the others what had happened to the demon-possessed man and the pigs. At first they were in awe...

Wait for it... wait for it...

—and then they were upset, upset over the drowned pigs. They demanded that Jesus leave and not come back.

Now, here's my question. And maybe this will shed some light on the cunnundrum here.

Jesus, being an observant Jew, really didn't care for pigs, did he?

In what other passages in the Gospels was Jesus confronted with pigs? How did he view them then?

In one sense I'm truly curious. I understand that pigs are considered unclean by the Abramic faiths well, the other two), but this seems to be an honest issue of actual contemptuous disregard for the pigs lives as well as disregard for the economic well-being of a town that needed that pig money.

This Is My First Book

For roughly four years, I've been working on much of These Mornings Are Rough on Many a Night: A Hazy Memoir of an Urban Teacher - my oh-so-hahalarious memoirs as a failed teacher in Chicago. Some parts for even longer. I had been holding out for that elusive book deal for so long that I never actually got it published. But I bit in when I noticed that the technology is ripe for self-publishing. Particularly e-publishing.

It's $2.99. It helps out a worthy cause (me not starving) and allows me the opportunity to kick-start a second career.

So, please, pick up a copy. It'll work in your Kindle or Kindle app (mine looks nice on my Asus Transformer Droid tablet. Which I wish I never bought and got a laptop instead. But that's a different story...). If you're an Amazon Prime member, you can borrow it for free. If you're not, you can preview the first few pages for free as well.

I'd appreciate any feedback (and, yeah, that cover has to go. I know. Was working on it at 4 am).

I'd like to release a second e-book in the middle of next month, that one more closely associated with this blog.

Shrewd Advice

Be wary of the shrewd advice that tells you how to get ahead in the world on your own. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity. Stinginess impoverishes.

- Mark 4 (The Message)

The poor tend to know this. Out of spirit, we share, knowing that we usually get back when it is necessary and when we least expect it. And often a hundred-fold. It's a communal, involuntary insurance.

And it leaves us being gracious for what we have in terms of not just property, but family.

But sometimes we give out of our poverty and we're hurt for it.

A fellow, a neighbor, a stranger, a cousin, burns us. Steals from us when we house him. Lies to us about her kid's hunger or medical needs. Jimmy bums loose squares, always promising to pay back and never delivering. Some real nice lady does a business transaction with us but she runs into some problems and in an effort to speed up the process, we end up losing thousands of dollars that we don't have. Roy comes over for dinner every other day but then starts mocking the food and service.

It's easy to forget. To become stingy at this point. To take on the work and personality of the world around us.

Let's not. Let's not succumb to use the tools of the mean-spirited. He is in solidarity with no one; he cannot even trust himself. He dies alone and miserable, and lives alone and miserable.

Let us be continuously generous, for then we live as free men and women. Our wages may be restricted, our generosity even trampled on, but when we abandon our sisters and brothers in their time of need, when we refuse to share in the bounty of our meager harvest, we break the bonds of humanity, of friendship, of family, of our own very selves.

Share. It will be given back to us. A thousand-fold.

Calling Evil for What It Is: Refusing to Help

Yesterday's Lenten reading was in Mark 3, where Jesus finds himself in the awkward position of defending his healing and feeding habits during the Holy Day. And in this, Jesus asks a simple question:

What kind of action suits the Sabbath best? Doing good or doing evil? Helping people or leaving them helpless?

(The Message)

What kind of action is truly holy? What kind of action is actually religious?

This brings us to austerity. Austerity is sanctions against the poor and assistance to the rich. Maybe that sounds disengenuous to some readers. But it is what it is: Leaving the poor, the elderly, the sick, and those with the least amount of help with little-to-no help. Under austerity, workers, seniors, and the working poor lose assistance, benefits, or sometimes even wages under the guise of state poverty. The state cannot afford to continue to sustain such lavish payouts, austerity advocates proclaim.

Yet on the other hand... Austerity gives humongous tax breaks to those who can most afford to pay their taxes. These corporations and extraordinarily wealthy people make their riches through the infrastructure afforded them by a free state. Yet the Austerians defend them and decry the leeching poor.

Yes, it's backwards. This that benefit the most are "heroes" and those exploited for the profits of the heroes are lazy parasites. Ayn Randism all over again.

Austerians claim that the way to help the poor is to hurt them into self-reliance. "Give a man a fish," begins their favorite proverb, "and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime."

This is agreeable on the surface. Those of us who have had to or presently rely on some form of government aid would love to be able to make it by our own means. We do not want to rely on someone else's assistance and often feel worse for it. So getting help to provide for our own selves by our own means is something we tend to desire.

But that's not happening. Certainly not within Austeria.

- In Austeria, educational funding for the poor - already tremendously deficient - has been drastically reduced for profit. And despite what the Austerians are declaring, they themselves are not teaching the poor.

- In Austeria, the poor do not have access to the good water with the good, healthy fish. Those lakes and streams have been closed off - with high and wide electric fences, pinching dobermans, security guards with bees coming out of their mouths, moats filled with living fire.. Austerians claim that this is necessary. Their argument is that only the rich know how to properly care for the best resources. Somehow, we believe this nonsense.

- In Austeria, the waters that are available to the poor are tremendously polluted, dangerous, and filthy. The fish are limping along, gasping, gills cluttered with waste, scales covered with oil residue, vision impaired despite the new third eye. Yet it is the rich who have poisoned our waters and then charged the rest of us for their crimes.

--------

All of this is not to say that the poor are helpless, wailing away in incompetence. They have done stunningly well for generations with what little they are given. But that's a relative "stunningly well". As in, the poor may live meaningful and productive lives, but we constantly worry about our next meals, about our children's health, about our parents' care.

To allow the poor even less assistance while continuing to deny them access to the means to live securely is, simply put, evil.

Have mercy on our souls for allowing this evil to flourish, Jesus.

There's the Proof in Your Puddin'!

After a few days, Jesus returned to Capernaum, and word got around that he was back home. A crowd gathered, jamming the entrance so no one could get in or out. He was teaching the Word. They brought a paraplegic to him, carried by four men. When they weren't able to get in because of the crowd, they removed part of the roof and lowered the paraplegic on his stretcher. Impressed by their bold belief, Jesus said to the paraplegic, "Son, I forgive your sins."

Some religion scholars sitting there started whispering among themselves, "He can't talk that way! That's blasphemy! God and only God can forgive sins."

Jesus knew right away what they were thinking, and said, "Why are you so skeptical? Which is simpler: to say to the paraplegic, 'I forgive your sins,' or say, 'Get up, take your stretcher, and start walking'? Well, just so it's clear that I'm the Son of Man and authorized to do either, or both . . ." (he looked now at the paraplegic), "Get up. Pick up your stretcher and go home." And the man did it—got up, grabbed his stretcher, and walked out, with everyone there watching him. They rubbed their eyes, incredulous—and then praised God, saying, "We've never seen anything like this!"

- Mark 2:1-8 (The Message)

Which is simpler: To say, "These are your sins and if you don't follow the rules, you are a horrible, lowly person. You should be full of shame and fear because of your body/stance/sexual attraction/color/doubt/economic stance," or say, "You are forgiven. Act as if it's a new day because it is. Let us seek healing together - as one"?

All of Me = None of Us

The Lenten Season in the Christian calendar is a time to reminisce and reflect on the sufferings of Jesus toward his crucifixion. Many connect this period - remembering the humble, suffering servant - with reflecting on the suffering of those whom he suffered with and amongst: the hungry, the outcasts, the strangers, the widows, the orphans, the prostitutes, the sick.


As Liz Lemon would say, "I want to go to there."

In my efforts of solidarity with Jesus and those he identifies with, for the next forty days (with breaks on Sundays) I'll be limiting my diet to non-processed foods with rare meats and at a budget of five dollars a day.

That may be a bit difficult, sure, for this spoiled American with food addictions. But that's not going to be the difficult part for me. In fact, suffering won't be hard for me right now.

Frequent bouts of depression. Near drastic and chronic under-employment. Marital woes.

I do know how to cry. Extensively.

But I need to get out of me. I'm full of me. I want to be full of something healthier. I want to be a part of something greater.

Woe Is I!

May I surrender as Jesus did, for the glory set before him (us): Not my will, but thy will be done.

No True Christian

No true Christian would ever...

Let's draw a Venn diagram, shall we?

Here we have two, very, very crudely drawn circles. One is labeled "Christian", the other "Christ-follower." Notice that the two are neither mutually exclusive nor are they equal. Meaning that one can be one, or the other, or both, or neither. But just because one falls under one label doesn't mean she falls under the other one.

And now you may have one or two questions. I'll see if I can figure them out and then answer them for you.

1. What's the difference between the first circle and the next?
2. What does this all mean and what is your point?
3. Couldn't you have used the circle drawing tool in the SuperNote app? It would've looked so much better?

Well,
1) To say that one is a Christian is to say that one follows or is a member of a particular religion that is attached to not only the person and deification of Christ, but also the religious ties that have been drawn up since then. Rules, guidelines, prescriptions, seasonal celebrations (such as Lent coming up right now), worship, ascribed doctrine, regular (or irregular) gatherings with co-religionists, offerings and other sacrifices, etc. On the other hand, to say that one follows the Christ himself is to say that he or she follows the examples and teachings - as best as can - that Jesus set out during his ministry years.

2) This is done to point out the fallacy of the No True Scotsman rule as applied to public figures and their claims to Christianity. Men like Franklin Graham are going around affirming Gingrich and Santorum's Christian credentials while plausibly denying Obama's Christianity. As a retort, many on the left are declaring that Gingrich and Santorum cannot be true Christians. But to say that is to deny that Christianity is a religion fraught with horrible atrocities committed in the name of Christ. Christians supported religious wars against Muslims and other Christians, genocide against American Indians, Palestinians,

Though without Jesus' approval and quite contrary to his teachings and examples.

3) Only two questions, please. So shut up.

So what we see here are two distinct but intermingled identities - one easy to identify (the particularly religious one) and one with different sets of criteria that can be seen through an engagement with the Gospels.

Please notice, unlike a particularly viral video posted by a young Christian, I don't want to give off the impression that religion is bad. Christianity, for many Christ-followers, can give us an anchoring, an identity, a spiriual home, and a community that we may otherwise flail about without. Joining in the suffering of Jesus that is Lent helps to remind us and keep us focused as to the person, work and focus of Jesus. Prayer and meditation keep us connected to our source and heart and can energize us - or at least calm us down.

But one can - as we used to say - go through the motions without actually following Jesus.

Most self described Born Again Christians would agree with that statement. But I don't mean the same thing they do, necessarily. Jesus said a tree is known by its fruits. We would have some overlap as to what those fruits look like (specifically, the fruits of the Spirit), but considering the de-emphasis on Jesus' teachings on the sheep and the goats (the most obvious qualifications he gives), not much.

Let's look at those qualifications:

• Love God.
• Love your enemies. (This means, particularly and without equivocation, we need to shun war and other acts of violence done against our neighbors and enemies.)
• Pray for those who persecute you.
• Let go of wealth. (This one is especially de-emphasized in modern times. We tend to say Jesus was okay with wealth, but the truth is he wasn't. He considered it evil and he shunned it, personally. The creator god of the universe, for example, came to earth not just as a baby, but as a peasant. And then he lived homeless, as a vegabond. It's within this context that we should understand his talk with the rich young ruler, or his lesson about the evil eye.)
• Work towards peace (Not just ending war, but all sorts of violence we do toward each other - including poverty)
• Visit those in prison (Rather than throw them in there to forget them under the auspice of "keeping us safer".)
• Give water to the thirsty and feed the hungry (In other words, those arguing for an end to social programs for the hungry - without any real, tangible plans to alleviate the suffering of those who are dependent on them are in direct defiance of this order.)
• House the homeless (Ditto)
• Clothe the cold (Well, most of us seem to get that one right. For the most part. Seriously.)
• Love your neighbor as yourself.

Now, keep in mind, the parts in parentheses are interpretations of the more direct exhortations in the Gospels (and the epistles as well). They are not direct commands, but I tend to think they're pretty obvious from the context of Jesus' culture and socio-political surroundings, as well as from the way that Jesus and the first few centuries' worth of his followers practiced out their faith. But again, my interpretation.

Which, I think, goes to show how complex it can be to try to point and say, "He's in; she's out; she, in..." I'm not so sure that's our place. Because if we were to go by specific rules, then we "all fall short of the glory of God." To follow Christ is to acknowledge that we are traveling, and that there is no destination, only journey.

I was highly tempted to list those I felt belonged in certain groups. But I think I'll refrain from that pharisaism. If public figures want to go around and act like anti-Christs while they claim the name of Christian, then they make their own rotten fruits evident. 

Debtor Love Is No Love At All

I'm reading a fascinating interview in The Boston Review with David Graeber, activist, anthropologist, and author of the book Debt: The First 5,000 Years, about the history and trap of debt, about how money is largely a way What the book does as a reading exercise is enliven one’s imagination to the multitude of possibilities there are in how we can think about debt.

One reason to spread the canvas so broadly—the same thing that drew me to anthropology—is that you fight the idea that all these questions are settled, that there’s really only one way to run the economy, the political system, society. What you see when you look at history, if you look anthropologically across the world, even at any one time, is a dazzling infinite variety of social possibilities. Which you would never have dreamed possible until you see them. It makes it much more difficult to make the argument that nothing except what we’ve got is possible.

One of the primary arguments that Graeber makes is that throughout history, the financing system has largely been rigged toward the lender. Even prior to money, there was lending and even then the lenders had the upper-hand. It follows that coin/paper currency was used as a way to broaden and strengthen the debtors' margins of profit.

This fits in with what we've been thinking here: That we need to rely less on paper and globalized currency and more on localized systems of organic economies. Not so much that currency is evil, but that a strict reliance upon it leaves most of the world indebted and imprisoned to the monied few. And this isn't how nature works nor how we act naturally. Currency-based economics actually colors and poisons our relationships.

Most interactions with people that you trust, people that you love, or people that just need to cooperate with on an immediate basis, take the form of “From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.” It doesn’t matter if you’re working for the government, working for a corporation, or working in your family; if you need to fix the toilet because it’s leaking and you say “Hand me the wrench,” the other guy doesn’t say “What do I get for that?” It’s not an exchange; people act according to their abilities to chip in.

That's how we tend to operate amongst people we live with and amongst. We've had many friends and relatives stay with us at their time of need, and many have had me during my times of need. Not because I'm awesome, but that's how we do people we're close to. There is no record of debts or wrongs.

Which only further convinces me of the need for a local-based organic, sustainable economy. Before we talk more about this later this week, I'll leave you with this.

[O]ne of the more dramatic consistencies I’ve noticed in the history of debt: debts between equals are not the same as debts between people who are not equals.

Debts between either poor people or rich people, that they have with each other, can be renegotiated or forgiven. People can be extraordinarily generous, understanding, forgiving when dealing with others like themselves. But debts between social classes, between the rich and the poor, suddenly become a matter of absolute morality.

Yeah, see, equals.

h/t to Slacktivist for the interview find.

Futile Complications of Wagery

According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, back in 2007, back before the massive foreclosures:

On any given night, approximately 750,000 men, women, and children are homeless in the US.

* 56% are living in shelters and transitional housing, while 44% are unsheltered.
* 59% are single adults and 41% are persons living in families.
* 98,452 are homeless families
* 23% are chronically homeless according to HUD’s definition.

Regarding hunger:

The [Greater Chicago] Food Depository defines "food insecurity" as "reports of reduced quality, variety, or desirability of diet," or, put simply, "unsure where they will find their next meal." Overall, Chicago has a 20.6 percent rate of food insecurity. That means 581,558 people are food insecure, a fairly terrifying number. Even worse, 36% of those who are food insecure are thus not eligible for federal nutrition programs because of their income - suggesting that the income cap for those programs may be too low.

In the impoverished, underresourced, segregated South side neighborhoods of Englewood and East Garfield Park where I've taught, nearly a third of residents (31.2%) face food insecurity.

We don't, oddly enough, have a shortage of houses or food. Just as we don't have a shortage of doctors or pharmaceuticals. We have a shortage of meaningful, living-wage jobs that provide adequate means to food, shelter, medical care, transportation, and a degree of economic security. There need not be a shortage of ingenuity nor of resources*. But there sure seems to be a shortage of imagination. Not because we are not intelligent, but because all of our thoughts of work and resultant earnings have been reduced (by the Powers That Be and, sadly, by our own complicity with them) to thinking about making paper money. How one job or another can afford us more paper money than another, what that can afford us, and how far that can last or get us.

Rather, I propose, we should be thinking in terms of direct ownership of our tools, talents, work, hands and how these can get us direct access to that which we need.

The world as it is set up is simply needlessly complicated. Wagery. That's what we live for. A certain amount of money that may or may not have anything to do with our skills, use, talents, passion, vision, focus. Nor the usefulness of those to people or the environment. Our aspiration is largely wasted on wagery.

The non-irony in all of this is that the most-compensated - the best waged - are those who control and run the Big Wagery. The Money People are those who, in general, receive the Most Money. And their control over us is predicated on our need for wages. Wage jobs give us money and with money we get...

Stuff.

Stuff like food and clothing and and electronics and housing and transport to our distant jobs and schools and stores where we may continually purchase food and clothing and... stuff. Much of which we know we could live without.

We are like fish who have been incepted to love us some bicycles.

It's all both largely important and immeasurably futile. We are playing a game of life and death - with someone else's rules, and on his island.

And until we loosen their control over our lives and get off their damned island, we have little control over our own lives.