Saturday, 13 April 2013
Brennan Manning, a former priest, alcoholic, and author of the spiritual classic The Ragamuffin Gospel, who wrote extensively on the theme of grace and God's love, died yesterday at the age of 78. He would have been 79 this month.
From his memoir, All is Grace, his last book:
My life is a witness to vulgar grace -- a grace that amazes as it offends. A grace that pays the eager beaver who works all day long the same wage as the grinning drunk who shows up at ten till five. A grace that hikes up the robe and runs breakneck toward the prodigal reeking of sin and wraps him up and decides to throw a party, no ifs, ands, or buts. A grace that raises bloodshot eyes to a dying thief's request -- 'Please, remember me' -- and assures him, 'You bet!'... This vulgar grace is indiscriminate compassion. It works without asking anything of us. It's not cheap. It's free, and as such will always be a banana peel for the orthodox foot and a fairy tale for the grown-up sensibility. Grace is sufficient even though we huff and puff with all our might to try and find something or someone that it cannot cover. Grace is enough...
Sin and forgiveness and falling and getting back up and losing the pearl of great price in the couch cushions but then finding it again, and again, and again? Those are the stumbling steps to becoming Real, the only script that's really worth following in this world or the one that's coming. Some may be offended by this ragamuffin memoir, a tale told by quite possibly the repeat of all repeat prodigals. Some might even go so far as to call it ugly. But you see that doesn't matter, because once you are Real you can't be ugly except to people who don't understand...that yes, all is grace. It is enough. And it's beautiful.Christianity Today published a good piece on Manning and his ministry -- and influence on American evangelicals -- in 2005. The article notes how Manning's message of grace spoke to those who felt like they were faking their way through life, but wanted something more than the usual self-help fare:
His light denim jeans are cheekily patched up with colorful squares. It's as if to remind himself and me, 'Don't think I'm a saint. I'm a ragamuffin, you're a ragamuffin, and God loves us anyway.' In his bestseller The Ragamuffin Gospel (Multnomah, 1990), he writes that 'justification by grace through faith means that I know myself accepted by God as I am.' He explains, 'Genuine self-acceptance is not derived from the power of positive thinking, mind games, or pop psychology. It is an act of faith in the grace of God alone.'[....]
We sit down, and Manning tells me that there's nothing he'd rather do than what he has done for 41 years: help sinners journey from self-hatred to self-acceptance.
He's been there -- or, to put it more accurately -- he is there, traveling this road daily, never too far from a character he calls the Imposter. Everyone's got one. It's 'the slick, sick, and subtle impersonator of my true self.' The persona craves to be liked, loved, approved, accepted, to fit in. 'It's the self that refuses to accept that my true self, centered in Christ, is really more likeable, more attractive, and more real than the fallen self.'On his facebook page, a statement from Manning's family reads: "While he will be greatly missed we should all take comfort in the fact that he is resting in the loving arms of his Abba."
Friday, 12 April 2013
Travis Alexander was a Mormon.
He converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in high school. He did his two-year mission in Denver. He abstained from alcohol, tobacco and caffeine, in keeping with the common understanding of the church's health codes, and cared about eating nutritional meals, which isn't always true for financially successful 30-year-olds. He wanted to live in a community with a strong Mormon presence. That was part of why he moved to Mesa, Az. He wrote a spiritual self-help book, titled Raising You, and was trying to get it published when he died.
When he died, the Arizona Republic said Alexander was a "a devout Mormon." It was the first sentence of their first story about how he was murdered in his shower: "Travis Alexander was a young, successful businessman, a well-known motivational speaker and a devout Mormon."
It's never really clear what news reports mean by "devout." It's often a kind of content-free intensifier, like "really" or "literally." The stylebook for religion reporters discourages use of the word, since "It's a subjective term without a precise meaning to all readers." Sometimes it seems to mean the person adheres more to a religion's teachings than others do (with the journalist sweeping right by the always-present internal struggles over the right understanding of a religion's teaching). Sometimes it seems to mean measurable practices, like prayer or proselytizing, are practiced by this person -- practiced, sometimes, vaguely more, or a lot, or even at all. Sometimes it doesn't even mean anything observable, but is a gesture at how the person presented themselves as if religion and religiousness were important. Or maybe the word works to justify religion's inclusion in a story, since after all the vast majority of people in America identify with
In any case, it's all very hand-wavy.
When Travis Alexander was murdered, though, the Arizona Republic made mention of his Mormonism and did the hand waving, and dubbed him "devout."
That was five years ago, though. In more recent stories, covering the high-profile trial of Alexander's girlfriend, who is charged with murdering him, the man's Mormonism has been described a bit differently. On Jan. 2, for example, as the trial began, the paper summed up the court case this way:
Why?
It is still true that Alexander converted in high school, did a mission, didn't smoke or drink alcohol or caffeine, wanted to live in a place where there were lots of other Mormons, wrote a spiritual self-book, etc., etc. What's different now is that with the trial, information about Alexander's relationship with Arias have come out, and there's lots of evidence that lots of that relationship did not conform with his church's teachings. There's evidence, too, that he lied about the church's teaching in order to manipulate his girlfriend, a new convert, to perform certain sex acts.
As the Associated Press reported, "Alexander's religion and sex life have been a constant theme throughout the trial."
More precisely: the contradiction between how this man apparently believed he should live and how he did live, have been a critical aspect of the accused's defense. And a critical aspect of the trial. The very first witness called in this case -- herself described as a "devout" Mormon by the Arizona Republic -- was grilled about "what constitutes sin in the Mormon religion."
She ranked sexual immorality the second worst Mormon sin, right after murder.
Whether or not Arias is guilty of the worst sin is still up to the jury to decide, but there's a lot of agreement that Alexander was definitely guilty of the second worst sin. In one report, Alexander is said to have convinced his girlfriend that sodomy was not frowned on by the church. Arias testified "She believed the Mormon vow of chastity, based on Alexander's interpretation, meant that most sexual acts were 'more or less OK' as long as they did not involve premarital vaginal intercourse -- which they eventually engaged in." In the accused's testimony, she further said Alexander gave her her own copy of the Book of Mormon the same day he asked her to perform oral sex on him in a parking lot. He had sex with her the same day he baptized her into the faith. He apparently also lied to another girlfriend about being a virgin, and pursued multiple women at the same time.
There was also a phone sex recording, nude photos, and claims of public sex, acted-out fantasies, pornography, and day-long trysts. Alexander and Arias were, of course, also unmarried.
As the Arizona paper glosses this: "although they both professed to be faithful Mormons, their relationship was anything but chaste."
This is what it means, in the paper's estimating, to be only outwardly Mormon. Inwardly -- or, perhaps, better, privately -- Alexander wasn't really Mormon, because he behaved in ways disapproved of by his church. When they didn't know about his sexual behavior, the paper deemed Alexander devout. Now that they know, his faith is seen as just for show.
It's certainly true that the Latter-day Saints actively teach against the behavior that this murdered man was engaged in. Alexander likely would have agreed, if asked by his bishop, that he was sinning. The church does not teach, though, that one somehow ceases to be Mormon when one sins. Acting badly, by ones own lights and even in the judgement of the church, doesn't delegitimize one's conversion, or undercut one's Mormon-ness. The church teaches morals, but it doesn't simply equate being a part of the church with consistently living in accordance with the morals that are taught.
Inward and private struggles to live up to the standards of one's religion do not mean that one only has that religion outwardly, at least not in Mormonism, not in how it's understood by Mormons or by the church hierarchy.
The paper, however, has confused a moral code for the whole of a religion. Adherence has been interpreted as hypocritical, or even fraudulent, unless it means perfectly doing what you say you believe you're supposed to do. This is a misunderstanding of Mormonism, and more than that a gross overreach on the part of the paper, going well beyond the bounds of what a newspaper has the authority to say.
Alexander himself could have said whether or not his was a devout Mormon, or whether he was only one outwardly. Other Mormons could judge his piety, based on their understanding of Mormonism. The church has authorities who, as part of their job, do make such judgements.
A newspaper, though, is not a religious authority, and shouldn't pretend to speak as such. According to the rules of American newspapers, reporters are only allowed to say what's verifiable, what's known to be fact or can be attributed. Really, in this case, the Arizona Republic should have avoided the evaluations of the murdered man's piety, and kept it simple:
Travis Alexander was a Mormon.
He converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in high school. He did his two-year mission in Denver. He abstained from alcohol, tobacco and caffeine, in keeping with the common understanding of the church's health codes, and cared about eating nutritional meals, which isn't always true for financially successful 30-year-olds. He wanted to live in a community with a strong Mormon presence. That was part of why he moved to Mesa, Az. He wrote a spiritual self-help book, titled Raising You, and was trying to get it published when he died.
When he died, the Arizona Republic said Alexander was a "a devout Mormon." It was the first sentence of their first story about how he was murdered in his shower: "Travis Alexander was a young, successful businessman, a well-known motivational speaker and a devout Mormon."
It's never really clear what news reports mean by "devout." It's often a kind of content-free intensifier, like "really" or "literally." The stylebook for religion reporters discourages use of the word, since "It's a subjective term without a precise meaning to all readers." Sometimes it seems to mean the person adheres more to a religion's teachings than others do (with the journalist sweeping right by the always-present internal struggles over the right understanding of a religion's teaching). Sometimes it seems to mean measurable practices, like prayer or proselytizing, are practiced by this person -- practiced, sometimes, vaguely more, or a lot, or even at all. Sometimes it doesn't even mean anything observable, but is a gesture at how the person presented themselves as if religion and religiousness were important. Or maybe the word works to justify religion's inclusion in a story, since after all the vast majority of people in America identify with
In any case, it's all very hand-wavy.
When Travis Alexander was murdered, though, the Arizona Republic made mention of his Mormonism and did the hand waving, and dubbed him "devout."
That was five years ago, though. In more recent stories, covering the high-profile trial of Alexander's girlfriend, who is charged with murdering him, the man's Mormonism has been described a bit differently. On Jan. 2, for example, as the trial began, the paper summed up the court case this way:
An outwardly religious young man is shot down and slashed apart by the angry young woman who was his secret sex partner. Prosecutors call it first-degree murder; [...] defense attorneys call it self-defense. The network TV news magazines call it the trial of the year.On Jan. 30, as the defense phase of the trial began, the Arizona Republic repeated the description of the murdered man as an "outwardly religious Mormon." The story reads:
[Jodi] Arias is on trial in the 2008 killing of Alexander, 30, an outwardly religious Mormon who was found shot and stabbed in the shower of his home. Arias, his secret sex partner, admits killing Alexander but claims it was in self-defense.Presumably Alexander's piety -- his Mormon-ness -- has not changed in five years of being dead. How the major Arizona paper describes that piety has changed, however.
Why?
It is still true that Alexander converted in high school, did a mission, didn't smoke or drink alcohol or caffeine, wanted to live in a place where there were lots of other Mormons, wrote a spiritual self-book, etc., etc. What's different now is that with the trial, information about Alexander's relationship with Arias have come out, and there's lots of evidence that lots of that relationship did not conform with his church's teachings. There's evidence, too, that he lied about the church's teaching in order to manipulate his girlfriend, a new convert, to perform certain sex acts.
As the Associated Press reported, "Alexander's religion and sex life have been a constant theme throughout the trial."
More precisely: the contradiction between how this man apparently believed he should live and how he did live, have been a critical aspect of the accused's defense. And a critical aspect of the trial. The very first witness called in this case -- herself described as a "devout" Mormon by the Arizona Republic -- was grilled about "what constitutes sin in the Mormon religion."
She ranked sexual immorality the second worst Mormon sin, right after murder.
Whether or not Arias is guilty of the worst sin is still up to the jury to decide, but there's a lot of agreement that Alexander was definitely guilty of the second worst sin. In one report, Alexander is said to have convinced his girlfriend that sodomy was not frowned on by the church. Arias testified "She believed the Mormon vow of chastity, based on Alexander's interpretation, meant that most sexual acts were 'more or less OK' as long as they did not involve premarital vaginal intercourse -- which they eventually engaged in." In the accused's testimony, she further said Alexander gave her her own copy of the Book of Mormon the same day he asked her to perform oral sex on him in a parking lot. He had sex with her the same day he baptized her into the faith. He apparently also lied to another girlfriend about being a virgin, and pursued multiple women at the same time.
There was also a phone sex recording, nude photos, and claims of public sex, acted-out fantasies, pornography, and day-long trysts. Alexander and Arias were, of course, also unmarried.
As the Arizona paper glosses this: "although they both professed to be faithful Mormons, their relationship was anything but chaste."
This is what it means, in the paper's estimating, to be only outwardly Mormon. Inwardly -- or, perhaps, better, privately -- Alexander wasn't really Mormon, because he behaved in ways disapproved of by his church. When they didn't know about his sexual behavior, the paper deemed Alexander devout. Now that they know, his faith is seen as just for show.
It's certainly true that the Latter-day Saints actively teach against the behavior that this murdered man was engaged in. Alexander likely would have agreed, if asked by his bishop, that he was sinning. The church does not teach, though, that one somehow ceases to be Mormon when one sins. Acting badly, by ones own lights and even in the judgement of the church, doesn't delegitimize one's conversion, or undercut one's Mormon-ness. The church teaches morals, but it doesn't simply equate being a part of the church with consistently living in accordance with the morals that are taught.
Inward and private struggles to live up to the standards of one's religion do not mean that one only has that religion outwardly, at least not in Mormonism, not in how it's understood by Mormons or by the church hierarchy.
The paper, however, has confused a moral code for the whole of a religion. Adherence has been interpreted as hypocritical, or even fraudulent, unless it means perfectly doing what you say you believe you're supposed to do. This is a misunderstanding of Mormonism, and more than that a gross overreach on the part of the paper, going well beyond the bounds of what a newspaper has the authority to say.
Alexander himself could have said whether or not his was a devout Mormon, or whether he was only one outwardly. Other Mormons could judge his piety, based on their understanding of Mormonism. The church has authorities who, as part of their job, do make such judgements.
A newspaper, though, is not a religious authority, and shouldn't pretend to speak as such. According to the rules of American newspapers, reporters are only allowed to say what's verifiable, what's known to be fact or can be attributed. Really, in this case, the Arizona Republic should have avoided the evaluations of the murdered man's piety, and kept it simple:
Travis Alexander was a Mormon.
Tuesday, 9 April 2013
Dale McGowan, author of the recently released Atheism For Dummies, on 20 things he learned while writing the book:
No. 17 seems deeply methodologically problematic. And McGowan, in this talk at least, also seems to have a tendency to decontextualize nuanced theological statements from diverse historical periods and construe them as basically like contemporary anglophone atheism. There are important differences between points made in disputes during Islamic golden age philosophy and what the teenage McGowan was saying, which the adult McGowan seems to miss. I worry, too, about the extent to which the field of atheist history is being shaped by atheists' need for a canon and the drive to hagiography.
This is, of course, only the For Dummies series, but these things have a way of shaping popular understanding and public discussions.
The introduction of the book is available at The Friendly Atheist.
This is, of course, only the For Dummies series, but these things have a way of shaping popular understanding and public discussions.
The introduction of the book is available at The Friendly Atheist.
What holds American Hispanics to their faiths? Community.
That was the claim made at the American Atheist's 2013 convention in a talk by David Tamayo about how to reach out to Hispanics. According to a conference report, Tamayo thinks a substantial number of Hispanics in America are skeptical of religion -- even "natural atheist allies" -- but trapped by their families and their communities, and their needs for the infrastructure and social support that religion provides.
Whether or not this is generally true, it is the case that this is what happened in Tamayo's own life, as he told a Virginia newspaper last year. The paper reported:
The promotional material available from Tamayo's website, though, takes a different approach. There the approach is more New Atheist, in style, depicting non-believers as heroic and strong for the ability to dispense with the fictions relied on by the mentally and morally feeble. A brochure that's billed as something that can be given to family and friends, for example, states:
"Unlocking the demographics" has brought about a lot of interest in Hispanics, recently, political and religious. A number of Catholics have been talking about Latin American immigration as a source of possible spiritual renewal. Political conservatives have speculated that "mass immigration" could save social conservatism in America.
The most interesting comparison for atheists wanting to reach Hispanics, however, might be Pentecostals.
It strikes me, at least, that American Hispanics joining Pentecostal churches can face similar serious opposition from friends and family, of the same sort that Tamayo describes. These matters of faith are matters of communal rupture. In addition to the questions of specific beliefs and practices, it can be issues of community and support and connection that are decisive in such conversions or de-conversions.
Arlene Sánchez-Walsh, for example, a professor at Azusa Pacific University, writes that for many, becoming Pentecostal means a life of tension with fathers and mothers, siblings, aunts and uncles. Of herself, she writes:
At least one of the ways Pentecostalism has helped converts maintain the decision they've made is to offer alternatives to the communities they've known.
A third-generation Pentecostal woman (who's now pursuing a degree in the sociology of religion) writes, for example, of how her whole life, growing up, was wrapped up in her church. Erica Ramirez writes:
"There isn't anything a church can do that a secular organization can't do," Tamayo told the Virginia newspaper.
It's not clear to me that, strictly sociologically speaking, that's true. But it does seem right that if your goal is to de-convert American Hispanics and liberate them from the "comfort or help of imaginary beings,"talking about the existence of supernatural realities may be less important than offering social replacements for baptisms, confirmations, funerals, feast days, family prayers, and all the other ritual, social ways in which beliefs are communal realities.
That was the claim made at the American Atheist's 2013 convention in a talk by David Tamayo about how to reach out to Hispanics. According to a conference report, Tamayo thinks a substantial number of Hispanics in America are skeptical of religion -- even "natural atheist allies" -- but trapped by their families and their communities, and their needs for the infrastructure and social support that religion provides.
Whether or not this is generally true, it is the case that this is what happened in Tamayo's own life, as he told a Virginia newspaper last year. The paper reported:
Tamayo cites his own life as a case in point. Raised in a Catholic household, he described himself as an extremely devout youth who even pondered whether to become a priest.
By the time he realized he was an atheist at around 40, it still took him years to explain his beliefs to his parents, who remain skeptical, he said.
He has been asked not to attend marriages of friends and why he hates God. He feels uncomfortable discussing his beliefs at work, where a prayer group meets regularly.Tamayo said many Hispanics, especially younger Hispanics, are religious mostly for such social reasons. It's not belief, per se, in these of individual propositional statements one mentally affirms, that makes them religious, but social reality. The good that religion does in their lives is the good of community and support systems -- somethings he thinks freethinking groups and networks can replace. And should replace. And must.
The promotional material available from Tamayo's website, though, takes a different approach. There the approach is more New Atheist, in style, depicting non-believers as heroic and strong for the ability to dispense with the fictions relied on by the mentally and morally feeble. A brochure that's billed as something that can be given to family and friends, for example, states:
Some Hispanics live without the fear of imaginary beings and superstitions. Some of us put our hope in science instead of prayer, witchcraft, or homeopathic medicine [....] Sometimes we have struggles, heartaches, disappointments, and trials just like anyone else, but we solve our problems without the comfort or help of imaginary beings such as angels, ghosts, gods, fairies, or even chupacabras.Such statements seem to be more about affirming atheists in their non-belief and promoting antagonism towards the religious, rather than outreach or recruiting allies or giving people community support alternative to the established religious communities. Perhaps their are other forms of outreach, though, that Tamayo and other atheists are using to reach Hispanics and, as the conference commentator put it, "unlock the demographics."
"Unlocking the demographics" has brought about a lot of interest in Hispanics, recently, political and religious. A number of Catholics have been talking about Latin American immigration as a source of possible spiritual renewal. Political conservatives have speculated that "mass immigration" could save social conservatism in America.
The most interesting comparison for atheists wanting to reach Hispanics, however, might be Pentecostals.
It strikes me, at least, that American Hispanics joining Pentecostal churches can face similar serious opposition from friends and family, of the same sort that Tamayo describes. These matters of faith are matters of communal rupture. In addition to the questions of specific beliefs and practices, it can be issues of community and support and connection that are decisive in such conversions or de-conversions.
Arlene Sánchez-Walsh, for example, a professor at Azusa Pacific University, writes that for many, becoming Pentecostal means a life of tension with fathers and mothers, siblings, aunts and uncles. Of herself, she writes:
I was born and raised Catholic, and you can ask just about anyone who made this sojourn to Pentecostalism, whether through a dramatic Damascus-like narrative, or, like me, through a painful year-long process of searching, it is, as my colleague Fr. Allen Figueroa Deck has written, "a familial rupture" that separates you from the weddings, funerals, quinceaneras, and family get togethers that have marked our lives for years. Where, if they are anything like the family gatherings I have had -– the dancing, drinking, and partying is part of the package. As my colleague tells me, once the music played at the weddings, his Pentecostal mom took her kids and left–before all the craziness ensnared her impressionable young boys. Well I don’t know anything of that high-tension piety, I don’t know what its like to have one’s faith played out on that field -- and perhaps one reason why I study this community, is because I am trying to understand how my community lives, how it worships, and if I ever will cross over from the feeling I have had for nearly 20 years, that I am an interloper.One of the ways Pentecostal churches help Hispanics maintain the decision they've made, despite family and social pressures, is a steady flow of anti-Catholicism. A sustained fusillade against the church, its teachings and practices, works to counteract or at least tempter the tolerance new converts might otherwise have for the validity of family members' faith. Promoting antagonism -- such as public displays of disapproval like leaving a party when the dancing starts -- is one strategy. Another, though, is exactly what Tamayo was talking about at the conference of atheists, Easter weekend.
At least one of the ways Pentecostalism has helped converts maintain the decision they've made is to offer alternatives to the communities they've known.
A third-generation Pentecostal woman (who's now pursuing a degree in the sociology of religion) writes, for example, of how her whole life, growing up, was wrapped up in her church. Erica Ramirez writes:
I spent my adolescence at Westover Hills Assembly of God, in the Northwest side of San Antonio, completely immersed in the life of the community there. I sang in the choir and was part of the youth group. I went to camps and conventions because I wanted to. I imagined there: I imagined myself whole, I imagined the world meaningful; I envisioned a future for myself that replicated the most healing experiences I have had in my life -- I would lead worship I would help people. It was simplistic, but it was a safe space to be, emotionally. I could remake myself in the space of that church and people would, people did help me.It's this sort of social reality, and especially the attendant personal imaginaries, that Tamayo is saying would have to be replaced by freethinking associations in order for Hispanics who are actually (he says) already skeptical of religious claims and supernatural stuff, to be freed from what they don't believe.
"There isn't anything a church can do that a secular organization can't do," Tamayo told the Virginia newspaper.
It's not clear to me that, strictly sociologically speaking, that's true. But it does seem right that if your goal is to de-convert American Hispanics and liberate them from the "comfort or help of imaginary beings,"talking about the existence of supernatural realities may be less important than offering social replacements for baptisms, confirmations, funerals, feast days, family prayers, and all the other ritual, social ways in which beliefs are communal realities.
Sunday, 7 April 2013
On the wall of the bathroom stall at the Wal-Mart where I worked stocking shelves my last year of college, someone had scratched the start of a game of tic-tac-toe. X in the center. O in the upper corner. (The start of a stalemate, a cat's game).
On the wall of a corridor in the hospital in Tübingen where I've been this last week, there are framed portraits of famous people who had diseases. FDR had polio, and look what he did with his life. Gauguin had syphilis, but didn't let it hold him back.
The lesson of the first wall is one I am only slowly unlearning.
The man who put the tic-tac-toe game on the wall probably didn't have health insurance. I certainly didn't have health insurance working at Wal-Mart. My hours were kept below the minimum for full-time employment, the point at which certain labor laws would have kicked in and required benefits. I made 50 cents an hour more than minimum wage, if memory serves. Part of training was a video on what to say if approached by union organizers. One of the benefits that did come with the job, after a few weeks of a paperwork and a probationary period where you could be fired without cause, was an employee discount on groceries. With the money I saved from that I got a tattoo -- a cheap tattoo -- when I quit the job, and graduated college, and moved south to where I met my wife.
I tell people the tattoo is from a book that was really important to me, when they ask. I tell people, sometimes, that it's what the aliens say in this book whenever someone dies. I could also say it's an answer to the set-up for a cat's game, a phrase that's important to me for how it acknowledges and accepts the world as it is, but makes a decision against despair. This was one of the first conversations I had with my wife, though at the time of course she wasn't that yet, and I couldn't yet know how amazing she would be if you fell off your bike in a field and were in excruciating pain and had to go to a German hospital.
She reminded me of this conversation this week as I recovered from surgery to fix my broken shoulder with a metal plate and eight screws. "Thank you," she said, "for not despairing."
When I broke my shoulder, I was in the middle of a field, on a path with an unfortunate rut in it where my bike slipped and I flipped onto my shoulder. I had to walk to a nearby landmark where a taxi would pick me up. It took about a hour, because of the pain. Every step jostled the three fractures where my arm no longer lined up with my shoulder. I kept walking, though, and got there, and the taxi came, and we went to the hospital. This would not have always been the case. When I signed into the hospital left-handed, and did the necessary bureaucratic form-filling, I wasn't overwhelmed by it. Even though I am basically always overwhelmed by even the most benign bureaucracies. Just the thought of bureaucracy is normally enough to fill me with shaky dread, a frantic certainty that such institutions loom with secrets and rules to hurt me. I didn't think about the cat's game, though, the lesson of the X and the O already where they are. I signed wrong-handed, shaky and uneven, and then signed the next thing, and focused only on what was next.
I walked around the hospital a little, waiting for the surgery, on pain meds and with my arm safe in a sling. That's how I found the wall of pictures of people who had had bad stuff happen to them but were okay anyway. The person who put that on the wall probably had health insurance. Which I do too now. It's a very different kind of a lesson, on this wall. One that's hard for me. That may be why the message was so unsubtle: stuff goes wrong sometimes, but it's okay.
The writer Kurt Vonnegut once wrote of someone in one of his books, "she never thought of her awful luck as being anything but accidents in a very busy place. Good for her."
As I replace the bandages over my sutures, that sew up the two surgical incisions now perpendicular to my tattoo, I know how that feels. It feels pretty good.
Like things are going to be okay.
On the wall of a corridor in the hospital in Tübingen where I've been this last week, there are framed portraits of famous people who had diseases. FDR had polio, and look what he did with his life. Gauguin had syphilis, but didn't let it hold him back.
The lesson of the first wall is one I am only slowly unlearning.
The man who put the tic-tac-toe game on the wall probably didn't have health insurance. I certainly didn't have health insurance working at Wal-Mart. My hours were kept below the minimum for full-time employment, the point at which certain labor laws would have kicked in and required benefits. I made 50 cents an hour more than minimum wage, if memory serves. Part of training was a video on what to say if approached by union organizers. One of the benefits that did come with the job, after a few weeks of a paperwork and a probationary period where you could be fired without cause, was an employee discount on groceries. With the money I saved from that I got a tattoo -- a cheap tattoo -- when I quit the job, and graduated college, and moved south to where I met my wife.
I tell people the tattoo is from a book that was really important to me, when they ask. I tell people, sometimes, that it's what the aliens say in this book whenever someone dies. I could also say it's an answer to the set-up for a cat's game, a phrase that's important to me for how it acknowledges and accepts the world as it is, but makes a decision against despair. This was one of the first conversations I had with my wife, though at the time of course she wasn't that yet, and I couldn't yet know how amazing she would be if you fell off your bike in a field and were in excruciating pain and had to go to a German hospital.
She reminded me of this conversation this week as I recovered from surgery to fix my broken shoulder with a metal plate and eight screws. "Thank you," she said, "for not despairing."
When I broke my shoulder, I was in the middle of a field, on a path with an unfortunate rut in it where my bike slipped and I flipped onto my shoulder. I had to walk to a nearby landmark where a taxi would pick me up. It took about a hour, because of the pain. Every step jostled the three fractures where my arm no longer lined up with my shoulder. I kept walking, though, and got there, and the taxi came, and we went to the hospital. This would not have always been the case. When I signed into the hospital left-handed, and did the necessary bureaucratic form-filling, I wasn't overwhelmed by it. Even though I am basically always overwhelmed by even the most benign bureaucracies. Just the thought of bureaucracy is normally enough to fill me with shaky dread, a frantic certainty that such institutions loom with secrets and rules to hurt me. I didn't think about the cat's game, though, the lesson of the X and the O already where they are. I signed wrong-handed, shaky and uneven, and then signed the next thing, and focused only on what was next.
I walked around the hospital a little, waiting for the surgery, on pain meds and with my arm safe in a sling. That's how I found the wall of pictures of people who had had bad stuff happen to them but were okay anyway. The person who put that on the wall probably had health insurance. Which I do too now. It's a very different kind of a lesson, on this wall. One that's hard for me. That may be why the message was so unsubtle: stuff goes wrong sometimes, but it's okay.
The writer Kurt Vonnegut once wrote of someone in one of his books, "she never thought of her awful luck as being anything but accidents in a very busy place. Good for her."
As I replace the bandages over my sutures, that sew up the two surgical incisions now perpendicular to my tattoo, I know how that feels. It feels pretty good.
Like things are going to be okay.
Tuesday, 2 April 2013
Southern white Pentecostals, from the documentary, Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus.
The late novelist Harry Crews, in another part of the documentary, makes the point:
Truth of the matter was, stories were everything and everything was stories. Everybody told stories. It was a way of saying who they were in the world. It was there understanding of themselves. It was letting themselves know the way they believed the world worked, the way that was right and the way that was not so right.
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