It’s Not Censorship (Technically-Speaking), But It Still Stinks

This will be a rambling post.

In a sense, I can identify with the companies that have pulled their sponsorship from Rush Limbaugh’s radio program.  These companies support such values as civility and respect for people, and they do not feel that Rush practices those values.  Consequently, they choose not to support Rush.  I understand and I respect that.

But I myself have no intention of trying to get Rush kicked off the air.  In fact, I’m getting sick of conservatives getting kicked off of programs, period.  I think of Pat Buchanan being fired from MSNBC due to pressure from a left-wing group.  In my opinion, we lose out when voices are silenced.  And, while we may think that society would be better off if certain voices were simply not heard, I believe that those voices should be addressed and countered through debate, not silencing them.  (I’m refraining from using the word “censorship” here because the government did not remove Pat Buchanan from MSNBC, and I define censorship as the government repressing freedom of speech.)

“But you’re a right-winger, James.”  Well, I’m more middle-of-the-road nowadays, maybe even center-left.  But let me say this: I’m not going to join right-wingers to get things kicked off the air, either!  The conservative American Family Association has long liked to target sponsors to get certain programs kicked off.  I have not joined them, for I happen to like the shows that the religious right dislikes (i.e., Desperate Housewives, Picket Fences, Brothers and Sisters, etc.).  L. Brent Bozell (nephew of William F. Buckley, Jr.) has for years sought to remove Family Guy from television.  I happen to like Family Guy.  I think it’s funny.  It goes too far at times, but I’m not going to support getting it kicked off the air.

Another pet-peeve I have: When someone expresses an opinion, people act surprised and outraged that he has expressed that opinion.  I have in mind Kirk Cameron’s recent comments on homosexuality, which GLAAD has criticized.  Look, criticize away, for this country is all about debate!  But should we really be surprised that Kirk Cameron made those comments?  He’s a conservative Christian!  Of course he feels that way!  There are many people in the United States who still believe that way!  I hope Kirk Cameron is not pressured to contrive some phony apology.  People are still entitled to their opinion, even if that opinion is wrong and (in the eyes of some, such as GLAAD) outdated.

I tend to admire people—-on both the Left and also the Right—-who acknowledge and respect that there are people with different points-of-view, whether or not they agree with those viewpoints.  Let’s go a step further.  I admire those who also try to understand why other points-of-view exist.

Inconsistent Abraham?

Today, I’ll write about a couple of items in Thomas Thompson’s Origin Tradition in Ancient Israel.  On pages 35 and 204-205, Thompson talks about the diversity of the character of Abraham in the Book of Genesis.

On page 35, Thompson argues against the view that Abraham and the other patriarchs were half-nomads.  (Nomadism comes up a lot in discussions about the patriarchs and ancient Israel.  For example: Was there a migration of nomadic people-groups from the North into Palestine, showing that there’s historicity to Abraham traveling from the North to the Promised Land?)  Thompson states the following:

“I fail to see a sufficient basis in the patriarchal narratives for describing the lives of patriarchs as half-nomads, or indeed as belonging to any specific socio-economic class.  Lot lives in a tent (Gen. 13), but also in a city (Gen. 19); Ishmael is described in a manner reflective of a nomad (Gen. 21.20f.), and Esau of a hunter (Gen. 25.27).  Abraham and Jacob are shepherds in some stories (Gen. 13; 27.9), and at times they live in tents (Gen. 18.1; 25.27), but Abraham and Isaac are guests of royalty in cities (Gen. 12; 20; 26).  In one story Abraham has an army, but in another he is helpless and lone and afraid for his life (contrast Gen. 14 with Gen. 12).  Isaac and his family live in a house (Gen. 27.15), as does Jacob in Harran (Gen. 28).  Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are, in fact, strangers in the land; they travel from place to place and from story to story.  Their wandering is a literary motif and a literary device, not a socio-economic Grundzug.  That the ancestors of Israel are often viewed as shepherds (by no means the same as nomads) is also found in the Joseph narratives, and in the story of Israel’s entrance into Egypt.”

Thompson’s point here may be that the stories about the patriarchs are not historical, for they contradict themselves on the patriarchs’ socio-economic class.  The above observations also coincide with Thompson’s view that there were independent patriarchal stories that were combined into a larger narrative.  In my opinion, there are indeed some tensions within the larger patriarchal story: Lot wants room for his flocks and herds, and he ends up settling in the city of Sodom.  What did he do with all his flocks and herds?  But some of the other things make a degree of sense within the narrative, rather than necessarily being contradictory: Abraham could have gained an army between Genesis 12 and Genesis 14, for Genesis 12 was where Abraham got his wealth.  The patriarchs could both live in a tent and also pasture animals in the open countryside.  Could they live in a house and do so?  That depends on what constituted a house.

On pages 204-205, Thompson contrasts Abraham in Genesis 14 with Abraham in the other stories.  In Genesis 14, Abraham, with an army, delivers his nephew Lot and a group of cities from aggressive kings.  Thompson thinks that Genesis 14 and Genesis 13 were placed next to each other because both present Abraham as selfless and generous.  And yet, Thompson notes differences between Genesis 14 and other tales about Abraham:

“This is not the fatherly Abraham of Genesis 13, careful to avoid even the occasion for conflict, anymore than Abraham is here the bunco-artist of Genesis 12, who could sell his wife to get rich at the expense of the Egyptians.  Nor is Abraham in Genesis 14 the holy prophet of Genesis 20, whose cowardice has to be excused by the narrator, on the plea that Sara was, after all, his half-sister.  Nor is Abraham in Genesis 14 the stoic, obedient servant of Genesis 22—that horrifying saint—ready to kill his own son if God should demand it.  And Abraham of Genesis 14 is certainly not the doddering old man, waiting by the oaks of Mamre, whose heart was full of hospitality for the stranger.  It is very difficult to see him as identical to the husband of Genesis 21, so helplessly torn by the conflicts of his wives as to accept the abandonment of his first-born son—even if it was on God’s instructions!  No, here in Genesis 14, we have a military hero, of the like of D’Artagnan or Robin Hood—ever careful of and ever generous for his friends and his men, but careless for himself.”

But could Abraham demonstrate different characteristics in different situations?  I think of Elijah, who one minute was boldly killing the prophet of Baal, and the next moment ran a long way from Jezebel.  I haven’t watched many of the episodes of Ally McBeal (which stars Calista Flockhart, who is now on Brothers and Sisters), but one part that stood out to me was when a female lawyer felt strong after winning a case, and that gave her the strength to make certain decisions that she was previously timid about making.  I identify with that, for I myself am inconsistent.  Many people probably are.

A Spiritual Desperate Housewives Episode

I really enjoyed tonight’s episode of Desperate Housewives, and I say this as a viewer who hasn’t cared much for this particular season.  The reason that I enjoyed it so much was that it was a spiritual episode—about repentance, forgiveness, change, love, and understanding.

There were four sub-plots in tonight’s episode.  First of all, there were the events surrounding Paul Young and Susan Delfino.  Susan needs a kidney to live, and Paul Young’s wife recently shot herself, right after declaring to the hospital that Susan will receive her kidney.  The problem is that Paul Young does not want Susan to receive his dying wife’s kidney, for he hates the people on Wysteria Lane, including Susan.  Years before, when he went to jail for killing Felicia Tillman (who actually was alive and faked her death to frame Paul), he was hurt that his so-called friends showed no concern for him through his ordeal.  The first half of this season was about Paul Young’s attempt to exact revenge on Wysteria Lane—to show them that they are no better than he is, and thus have no right to judge him.  (And, in a sense, he succeeded, for the community rioted to protest a half-way house for convicts that Paul was trying to set up.)

When Susan tries to assure Paul that his wife’s death would be worth something because she would have her kidney, Paul is livid.  He does not see Susan having his dying wife’s kidney as any sort of consolation prize.  He asks Susan why she thinks that she even deserves his wife’s kidney—when she and her friends did not reach out to his wife and accept her when she was alive.  Basically, the people of Wysteria Lane rejected her on account of her relationship with Paul, who was known to have killed Martha Huber, the sister of Felicia Tillman.  That was why Felicia Tillman faked her death and pinned the blame on Paul: to get back at him for killing Martha.  When Felicia Tillman was found to be alive by the police who arrested her, however, Paul was released from jail, and Felicia herself was sent to prison.

But here was the twist: Paul’s wife was actually Felicia Tillman’s daughter, who was part of Felicia’s continuing plot to get back at Paul.  Paul did not know this for a while, but he was livid when he learned about it.  He threw his wife out of the house, even though she loved him, and had forsaken her mother’s plot.  And her mother rejected her.  Alone and desperate, she committed suicide.

On tonight’s episode, Paul visited Felicia Tillman in jail, and they both lamented that their feud cost the life of an innocent person.  Paul reflected on how his wife loved him, even though he did not deserve it, and how she was like that towards others who rejected her, as well.  And that gave him the strength to let Susan have his wife’s kidney.  Paul learned to let go of his rage.  He repented, and he forgave.  (At the end of the episode, however, we saw that Felicia Tillman did not.)

Second, there was the story of Renee, who is played by Vanessa Williams.  Renee was planning to throw a party, even though a number of her neighbors thought that was tasteless, considering that someone in the community had just shot herself.  When Gabby confronted Renee for being so shallow, Renee responded that Paul’s wife was selfish to kill herself, for she hurt the people who cared about her.  The reason that Renee felt so strongly about this was that her own mother had killed herself when Renee was really young.  Gabby could empathize with Renee because she had lost her father as a child.  Gabby replaced her judgment of Renee with understanding—seeing where someone else was coming from.

Third, there was the story of Bree and Andrew.  Andrew is drinking too much, and his husband is leaving him.  Andrew’s mother, Bree, is concerned, for she herself is a recovering alcoholic.  It turned out that Andrew was drinking too much because of his loneliness, emptyness, and boredom.  In the aftermath of the suicide of Paul’s wife, Bree feels strongly that she cannot sit by when someone is lonely and isolated, especially when it’s someone she cares about—her son.  And Andrew, although he is annoyed by his Mom’s intervention, reaches out to receive her help.

Finally, there was the story of Tom Sciavo.  Tom is offered a high-ranking position in a company, on account of the recommendations of his friends and neighbors.  But Tom doesn’t want to abandon his friend, Carlos.  Tom’s wife, Lynette, confronts him about his hesitation and timidity, and asks him why, even at age 46, he has not yet established himself in the business world.  Tom is angry at Lynette at first, but her talk with him motivates him to get his act together.  Tom changed from being a passive person, to becoming someone with a little more initiative.

This was an awesome episode!  Next Sunday, Desperate Housewives will not be on, but there will be a two-hour Brothers and Sisters.  I liked last year’s two-hour episode, which I blogged about here.  I hope that next week’s two-hour episode will be good as well.  I have been disappointed by Brothers and Sisters this season, but next week’s episode may surprise me!

Veterans’ Day and Justin’s “Cool” Life

Happy Veterans’ Day!  It gets to the point where I don’t know what to say about the holidays that come around each year.  But, come to think of it, I did watch a show about veterans’ issues last night: I was watching more of Season 3 of Brothers and Sisters, since I need to return the DVD as soon as possible.  It has a hold, and so I can’t renew it.  On Brothers and Sisters, Justin is a veteran of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.  In one of the episodes that I saw last night, Justin’s nephew is presenting Justin to his elementary school class, and the nephew says that Justin has a really cool life: he lives with his Mom, has no homework, and plays video games all day.  Justin then realizes that he’s in a rut and has to get out of it somehow.  Justin was kind of aimless even before he went to war.  But war can still shoulder a person with a lot of baggage that can make it difficult for him or her to proceed through life.

Ecclesiastes 4

For my weekly quiet time this week, I studied Ecclesiastes 4.  It reminded me of a variety of things. 

Its statement that it’s better to have a little with rest than a lot with turmoil called to my mind last Sunday’s Brothers and Sisters, which I re-watched last night.  Kitty’s husband has passed on, and Kitty does not know what to do with her life.  She was offered the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee (replacing Michael Steele, I take it), but she hasn’t accepted the job yet.  Her mother, Nora, gave her a copy of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, in which Nora had crossed out the masculine words and pronouns and substituted feminine ones, for Kitty’s benefit.  The passage Nora had Kitty read was the one in which Thoreau said (with Nora’s substitutions) that, if a woman finds that she can’t keep up with others, then she needs to take time for herself so she can hear her own inner music.  I was glad that I watched this episode a second time around, for I wasn’t paying attention to the quotation of Thoreau the first time that I watched it.

I find that I have difficulty keeping up with others.  I’m in a Ph.D. program, but, unlike many of my colleagues, I’m not a walking encyclopedia.  I haven’t written books or articles, nor do I have a clear idea what I can write that would be published.  I don’t have a clear vision about what or how I can teach religion.  To be honest, I’m not even sure if academia appeals to me, with its ruthlessness, its personality conflicts, and its preoccupation with what strikes me as trivialities.  And I sometimes feel that my areas of interest aren’t really the same as much of academia’s.  It’s like I’m on another planet!

But I’m taking the time to hear my own inner music.  I’m reading books for my comps, looking for things in them that interest me (as well as identifying the parts that I have to know for the tests).  But I’m also reading other scholarly and religious books that intrigue me.  I’m not forsaking academia, but I’m enjoying it in my own way—in a manner that brings me rest rather than turmoil on account of me not “keeping up”.  Maybe productivity will come out of my approach—in the form of articles, books, classes I can teach, etc.  Or perhaps I’ll keep reading books and blogging about them, as I enjoy doing right now.  Personally, I wouldn’t mind working at the Goodwill during the day, and reading and blogging at night!  I’d like to do my work in a state of some rest.

Qoheleth’s statement also calls to my mind a woman whom I heard recently.  She said that she was once a top salesperson in her field, and she made loads of money.  But she has given up the long hours and big money for a simpler life, in which she can cultivate her spirituality.  And she is happier as a result.  Better is a little with rest, than a lot with turmoil.

Qoheleth also talks about the importance of companionship.  For Qoheleth, friends can help us when we have problems, and Qoheleth also mentions friends (perhaps they were travellers) who keep each other warm at night.  I remember attending an Intervarsity Bible study, in which the leader was discussing this passage in Ecclesiastes 4.  He said that we can write our dissertation and neglect building friendships within the Christian community, but, if we follow that path, we’ll basically be left with ourselves—alone.  Someone in the group then said that people like to interpret this passage tritely—”it’s good to have friends”—but they fail to realize that, in the ancient world, a person needed others to keep warm in the cold.  Friendship was a necessity!

Someone else said that two Christians could be bound together by their common love for God, and a young woman then remarked that, if you’re not getting along with Christians, then that’s an indication that you’re not getting along with God.

I hated that Bible study.  I have a hard time making friends.  I feel alone in Christian groups.  I do not feel bound together with other Christians based on our common love for God.  And, quite frankly, I don’t get along with Christians, nor do I know how to do so.  Some of it’s my social awkwardness.  Some of it is because, right now, I’m not on the same page that they are.

But I can see Qoheleth’s point that it’s good to receive help and support from others, and to give it as well.  There have been times when I’ve had problems—with my computer, or my finances, or simply knowing what to do in life (e.g., How can I stay cool in the summer, without increasing my electric bill with the air conditioner?), or in terms of my health.  I’m grateful for my friends and family who have helped me out, and I’m not sure what I’d do without them.  There are plenty of times when I want to be alone, for people are complicated, and I can easily be hurt or offended.  That’s one reason that I’m hesitant to make friendships.  But I can’t make it through life all by myself.

Qoheleth then talks about the rise and fall of the powerful and powerless.  He discusses a poor, wise youth who manages to replace an old, foolish king.  But, in the broad scheme of things, that’s just a blip on the radar screen.  Several people lived before this political upheaval, and many will live after it, without even remembering it.

That’s sobering—how things that are considered important today won’t be deemed as important years from now.  But this reminds me of something I once heard Joyce Meyer say: she remarked that she’s not expecting to be a prominent preacher forever, and so she’s not going to let her fame go to her head.  There will come a time when she must decrease, and God will have a different stage of life for her.  I admired her sense of perspective.  Fame comes, and fame goes.  But what do we do when we’re famous and not famous?  What kind of people are we?  What matters to us in these different situations of life?  These are the important questions.

Losing Their Edge?

I had a hard time feeling inspired by Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters just now.  I taped them so that I can watch them again this week and see if I feel inspired after a second viewing.  Otherwise, I’ll wonder if the shows have lost their edge.

I have watched a lot of TV this weekend, and part of my problem may be TV fatigue.  I’ve been going through the first season of Stargate-SG1 with Netflix, while doing reading or homework, of course.   So far, the characters crack me up, especially that serious general, but they don’t strike me as having that much depth.  Some of the characters are over-the-top.  I’m thinking of the villains here.  But I do get a comfortable feeling when I watch the show.  Plus, I think it’s interesting how it handles religion (people see aliens as gods).

Regarding Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters tonight (or last night, since, technically, it’s now Monday morning), I just had a hard time caring for the characters.  They were like cardboard cutouts.  I’m not sure if it has to do with my mood, for I watched a couple of Brothers and Sisters from Season 1 last night, and they inspired me.  I’ve been watching Season 1 episodes of Desperate Housewives whenever ABC has presented them on Saturday nights, and I’ve relished them.  For some reason, I didn’t have that good feeling tonight.  Are the shows losing their edge?

But it could be me.  I remember when Season 6 of Desperate Housewives was going on, and I felt nothing the first time I watched the episode in which the characters shared their memories about Eedie, who had died.  But I enjoyed the episode when I saw it again a year or so later.

On Desperate Housewives tonight, I liked Felicia Tillman saying from her jail cell that she has friends in Wysteria Lane who will deal with Paul Young.  As I said in my last post, I was afraid that we’d see a rehash of Seasons 1-2, in which Paul Young and Felicia Tillman were at each other’s throats.  Indeed, it does appear that they’ll be in conflict this season, but there will be a different plot-line demonstrating that conflict.  Felicia will somehow get her revenge from jail, and we’ll have to wait and see how that will pan out.

Another thought on the episode tonight: I have a hard time getting used to Carlos without a beard!  He always looked so manly with his beard.

And what was with Tom’s social faux pas tonight? 

Regarding Brothers and Sisters, Justin looked buffer and grayer after his time in Iraq or Afghanistan, and he appeared to have his act together, which is rare for Justin.  I liked how he was encouraging the family to talk to each other and get things out in the open, for, after the car accident that closed off last season, they were hiding from their feelings and their problems.  Kevin had given up his dream to adopt, and he was pouring himself into pro-bono work, without really listening to his clients.  Sarah was making a deal to sell Narrow Lake and to move to France with her French boyfriend (who, alas, is still around, but, I have to admit, he is a source of stability and wisdom in Sarah’s life).  Kitty is holding out hope that her comatose husband, Robert (the Rob Lowe character), will come out of his coma.  And Nora, who’s ordinarily a concerned, busybody mother, is not getting involved in her kids’ problems.  As Justin said, it’s like they all went to their own rooms after the accident.

I admired how Justin was strong enough to take Kitty’s verbal-thrashing.  Justin wanted his family to be honest with each other, and he was willing to take the consequences of that.  But I had problems with how he was telling Kitty that Robert had no chance to come out of his coma, and was encouraging her to pull the plug.  I admired Kitty’s devotion to her husband, and how she was holding out hope for his recovery.  For her to ditch that devotion for her own self-fulfillment struck me as, well, kind of shallow—not that I judge those who may choose to pull the plug on a comatose relative and allow him or her to die with dignity.

Those are my scattered reactions for tonight.

Still Tithing?; P and Ezekiel; No Pre-Exilic Messianism; Second Coming; New Seasons Tonight

1.  I read more of Jacob Neusner’s Judaism: The Evidence of the Mishnah.  On page 82, Neusner states, “The basic notion at this time between the wars was that priestly gifts remain required, even though the priesthood has momentarily lost its liturgical justification.”  So Jews had to give gifts to the priests between 70 C.E.—the time when the Romans burned down the Jerusalem temple—and the Roman defeat of Bar-Kochba in the early second century C.E.  Were Jews after that point no longer required to tithe?

2.  I started Avi Hurvitz’s A Linguistic Study of the Relationship Between the Priestly Source and the Book of Ezekiel.  Hurvitz, like many other scholars, notes linguistic similarities between the priestly source in the Pentateuch and the Book of Ezekiel.  In this book, he tackles a question: Which came first, P or Ezekiel?  In accounting for the similarities between the two writings, should we hold that P drew from Ezekiel, or vice-versa? 

On pages 8-9, Hurvitz says that he has argued in the past that P was pre-exilic, but that he’s open to modifying his position.  If P is pre-exilic and Ezekiel is exilic (roughly speaking), that would mean that Ezekiel drew from P, right?  I’ll see where Hurvitz goes.

3.  I started Randall Heskett’s Messianism Within the Scriptural Scrolls of Isaiah.  On page 3, Randall attempts to define Messianism.  He views Messianism as a belief that God will restore the defunct Davidic dynasty to power.  Under this definition, Messianism could not have existed in Israel’s pre-exilic period, when the Davidic dynasty still stood, but only in her exilic and post-exilic periods, when it did not exist.  Randall acknowledges that there’s more nuance to Messianism, however, for there was a belief within post-exilic Judaism in a priestly Messiah.

In a big picture sense, I agree with Randall’s definition.  But I wonder if Judaism only viewed the Messiah as a restored figure.  Yes, rabbinic Judaism believed in a Messiah who would be a Davidic king, emerging after a long period of time in which the Davidic monarchy was dormant.  But there’s also a rabbinic tradition that King Hezekiah blew his opportunity to be the Messiah, the Davidic king who would reign over an era of peace (see The Messiah in Ruth Rabbah).  Hezekiah was a pre-exilic figure, yet a rabbinic tradition thought he could be the Messiah, even though he didn’t live in a time when the Davidic monarchy was inoperative.

4.  At Latin mass this morning, we had the priest who speaks about love.  He said that we shouldn’t fear the Second Coming of Christ.  Yet, he asked us: if Christ were to come soon, what would he find?

This reminds me of what I used to hear in Seventh-Day Adventist churches: “Are you ready for Jesus to come back?  Don’t get ready.  BE ready.”  How do I get ready for something like that?  Become morally perfect?  Like that will ever happen!

I agree with the spirit of what Jesus talks about in Matthew 25: I should conduct myself in a manner that won’t disappoint my Master were he to return unexpectedly.  I shouldn’t oppress people.  I should help others when I can.  I guess I should use my talents rather than burying them in the ground.  These are good ideas to follow, whether or not Jesus is returning soon.

On the other hand, I’m at the point where I’m jaded by intense eschatological expectation.  Why should I assume that I’m living in the last days?  Numerous people before me have believed that Christ would return in their lifetimes, and he didn’t.  Several (but not the more conservative) New Testament scholars have contended that Jesus believed the end was near when he lived in Palestine about two thousand years ago.  But it wasn’t—at least not as I understand “end.”  Life went on.

Like the scoffers in II Peter 3, I wonder at times if I should even buy the Christian notion that Christ will come back.  The notion has usually accompanied fear—that I’ll be persecuted, or end up following the Beast, a dilemma I don’t ever want to face.  It’s also been an excuse for some Christians to dodge trying to improve the current world—through voting, or (if you don’t believe voting accomplishes anything) through helping make society better.  After all, why rearrange furniture on a sinking ship? 

But I hope that life won’t be forever horrible—that a good God will intervene in this world to bring forth justice and to end suffering.  I believe in a loving God, so I can’t envision him not doing so at some point.

5.  A new season of Desperate Housewives starts tonight.   Paul Young has returned, and Felicia Tillman will be coming along at some point this season.  I hope this season isn’t a rehash of Seasons 1-2, in which they continually fought.  I love their characters, but I want to see new plot-lines, not recycled old plot-lines.

Vanessa Williams will be an addition to the cast, playing a rival to Lynette Sciavo.  I would never want to be a rival to Lynette, for she could destroy me!  But I haven’t watched much of Ugly Betty, so I don’t know how ruthless Vanessa Williams’ characters can be.

Brothers and Sisters also starts another season tonight.  Saul has HIV.  The Rob Lowe character dies.  I’m saddened by that, to be honest, since Rob Lowe was a big reason I started watching Brothers and Sisters.  I loved him on the West Wing, in which he played a Democrat, so I wanted to see him play a Republican, which he did on Brothers and Sisters.  And I just liked him: he’s funny, he’s approachable, his characters are principled, even if they’re a tad-bit intellectually arrogant.  I’m going to miss him.  But I love the other characters by this point, and so I’ll live.  But I’ll still miss him.

Brothers and Sisters will fast-forward years into the future, as Desperate Housewives did a few seasons ago.  I hope Sarah has dropped the French guy by then!

Authentic; Fearless; Not Fully Alone; Patriotism; Memes; Tithes; Julia in My Mind

1. Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People, page 208:

Another word of warning.  I know from experience that some men…will try to use the same psychology mechanically.  They will try to boost the other man’s ego, not through genuine, real appreciation, but through flattery and insincerity.  And their technique won’t work.  [N]obody wants insincerity.  Nobody wants flattery.  Let me repeat: the principles taught in this book  will work only when they come from the heart.  I am not advocating a bag of tricks.  I am talking about a new way of life.

In my blogs about this book, I’ve often presented it as a work that offers sound advice on how to manipulate people: to get them to like you so that they’ll do what you want.  And, in a sense, the book markets itself as such: it tells you that following its principles will help you to succeed in business, for example.  But, as Dale Carnegie notes in the above quote, suppose we practiced these principles while actually valuing the people we want to befriend?  Suppose we saw others as people of dignity and worth, with their own needs, problems, and struggles.  Then, we would be sincere when we practiced the principles, not merely trying to use others for our own elevation.

I think about seducing women.  There are womanizers who are adept at pretending that they care for women in order to get them into bed.  How do the women feel when they learn that they’ve been manipulated?  Probably not too good, in a lot of cases (unless they were looking for a cheap fling).  But suppose a man acted as if he cared for her, and truly did care for her?  What if her fantasy were a reality?  That would be beautiful.

Personally, I have difficulty coming across as if I sincerely value other people.  If I don’t like a person, then that comes through somehow.  Even if I point out things to that person that I admire about him or her, they comes across as insincere, even when they’re not.  But it’s better to give than to receive, I guess.  I have to do good and trust that God notices, and will bless me accordingly.

2. Robert Heinlein, Sixth Column, pages 184-185:

The Prince Royal watched with great interest as Ardmore approached him.  The man walked without fear.  And, the Prince was forced to admit, the man had a certain dignity about him, for a barbarian.

The absence of fear is something that most people admire.  Women are often attracted to confidence, even though they may also sigh at such things as sensitivity and vulnerability. 

I think of an episode in this season of Lost.  The Smoke Monster comes to a drunken Sawyer in the form of John Locke, and Sawyer picks up that something is not quite right.  “Who are you, because you sure as hell ain’t John Locke!”, Sawyer says.  The Smoke Monster asks Sawyer why he thinks that, and Sawyer responds: “Because John Locke had fear, even when he was pretending that he didn’t.”

I’d be afraid to be around Sawyer, if he could sniff the fear that I was trying to hide!  I’ve been told that all sorts of people can sniff fear: beautiful women, unruly kids, CEOs.  But, if you’re trying to hide your fear and they can sniff it anyway, is there any hope?  For me, fear is always there.  It’s just a part of me!  I feel a little better, though, when I hear about successful people who admit that they have fear, yet somehow rise above it, or cope with it. 

3. Erhard Gerstenberger, Psalms, Part I with an Introduction to Cultic Poetry, pages 52-53:

When attached to an individual complain psalm, the blessing is evidence that the suffering individual was not alone but rather in the midst of a group of worshipers while praying for recovery and well-being…

The outlawed, suffering, and depressed person easily feels persecuted by hostile crowds…The social group, which should protect its members, may become wary of him (see Psalms 4 and 55), so enemies may arise from one’s own environment (…”Suspicion of sorcery and poisoning tactics within the village runs high at times”…).  The enemies may also include hostile groups or even demonic powers…(…against the one-sided view of Birkeland, who declares every single enemy in the book of Psalms to be a foreign intruder).

I often feel alone in groups, in the sense that I don’t think that others like me.  But, even then, there’s a sense in which I don’t feel alone.  When I’m at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, I’m around people who (like me) are crazy: they have fears and resentments and worries and shyness.  Yet, we all look to a higher power to restore us to sanity.  The same goes for some churches that I’ve attended.  When I’m at a charismatic church and a woman is praising God with tears in her eyes, I feel a connection to her: like me, she’s a vulnerable soul approaching the throne of grace.

Gerstengerger’s reference to “demonic powers” stood out to me because, for a time, that’s how I read the psalms in which the Psalmist asks God to deliver him from enemies who seek to do him harm.  I read them in light of spiritual enemies—Satan, sin, the flesh, the world—since there was nobody who was literally trying to kill me. 

4. R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship, page 249:

Although an indefatigable traveller through the whole Greek world (not beyond it) Polemo did not lack a sense of local patriotism…

My Internet connection was down yesterday afternoon, so I watched an episode from the first season of Brothers and Sisters.  Justin Walker has enlisted to go to Afghanistan shortly after 9/11, and his mother, Nora, expresses concern that he’s allowing himself to be caught up in some “nationalistic fervor” that will put his life at risk.  I somewhat appreciated Nora’s statement, for, shortly after September 11, I too was disturbed by the group-think that was pervading the atmosphere around me.

Do I love my country?  I certainly admire the men who founded it, who placed their lives on the line in a risky move to create a free and independent nation.  I like how our nation has grown over the years: we once allowed slavery and racial segregation, but we came to realize that such institutions ran counter to the principles that we proclaimed.  In a sense, we are a beacon of light for other nations, which look to us for deliverance from evil and oppression.  And we have certain freedoms here—freedom of speech, of religion, of privacy—which many other countries cannot take for granted.  Plus, we’re prosperous.

But I can’t say that we’re perfect.  There are times when we stomp on other nations in pursuit of our own self-interest (or that of elites).  Our health care system is broken, as care is too costly for a number of Americans.  Some people fall through the cracks of our economic system.  There are other countries where people can freely speak and practice their religion, and they don’t have these kinds of problems, at least not at the level that we do.  Why are we better than them?  Because we’re America, and I’m just supposed to take for granted that America is the best country in the world?

I’m not sure if I buy into the sappy patriotism that I used to embrace.  But I should probably see my country as similar to all people and institutions: it’s a mixture of good and bad.

5.  Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion, pages 15-16:

…after the overthrow of Babylon by the Persians the Old-Babylonian religion ceased to be a state-cult attached to the political center and bound up with its functions of rule…Both support and restriction fell away with the loss of statehood.  The release of the religion from a political function was an uprooting comparable to the territorial uprooting of Israel.  The fate of subjection and political impotence in the Persian Empire forced the Babylonian religion to stand henceforth on its spiritual content alone.  No longer connected with the institutions of a local power-system and enjoying the prestige of its authority, it was thrown back upon its inherent theological qualities, which had to be formulated as such if they were to hold their own against other religious systems which had similarly been set afloat and were now competing for the minds of men.  [T]he older cult was transformed into an abstract doctrine, the reasoned system of astrology, which simply by the appeal of its thought-content, presented in Greek form, became a powerful force in the Hellenistic world of ideas.

This reminds me of something that atheist Richard Dawkins discusses in The God Delusion: memes.  Ideas in religion that help people cope and survive remain in that religion, and are perpetuated; ideas that fail to do this die. 

On Netflix, I was watching the film for Christian apologist Lee Strobel’s The Case for Faith.  Although I was rolling my eyes through all the predictable drivel that apologists consider a “case”, I actually liked something that Lee said.  Lee referred to skeptic Bertrand Russell, who declared that anyone who sits at the bedside of a dying child will disavow the existence of a loving God.  Lee asked what an atheist would say at the bedside of a dying child.  “Oh well, that’s the way life is”?  His point was that Christianity at least offers hope.

Sure, if the child is a Christian; otherwise, Christianity says she’s going to hell—unless it believes in an age of accountability, and, even then, her parents would go to hell if they’re not Christians, which negates any notion that there will be a great reunion in heaven of people and their families.  Sure there will be, if they’re all Christians!  But I appreciated Lee’s point that an atheistic viewpoint doesn’t offer a great deal of hope.  That’s why I respect skeptics, such as Ken Pulliam, who look at life and realistically assess that religion will be with us for a very long time.  It offers us hope and the ability to cope with life, and that has assisted us in our survival up to this point.

But I do wonder if Christianity will remain the same, or if it will change.  Liberal John Shelby Spong wrote a book a while back, entitled Why Christianity Must Change or Die.  He made a good point when he referred to the intellectual challenges to Christianity, but I think he’s reaching if he holds that his non-theistic version will appeal to people and meet their needs.  Sure, rich intellectuals may like it, but I doubt it will be popular.

Yet, there are things about Christianity that turn off a lot of people.  Some of it’s connected with what the Bible says.  Some of it is not.  Will Christianity change?  And, if it ends up disavowing certain things in the Bible, will it do so while pretending to be true to the Bible? 

6. Richard Sarason, A History of the Mishnaic Law of Agriculture: A Study of Tractate Demai, page 46:

Since the produce was purchased abroad, we assume it to have been grown abroad.  It therefore is exempt from tithing…

Yet, the Israelites outside of the land of Israel tithed in some capacity.  See The Mishnah: Tithes from Ammon and Moab.

7.  Do you admire certain celebrities?  Do their talents appeal to you, or have you gained wisdom and inspiration from their life stories?  Suppose those celebrities didn’t like you.

That’s a question I’ve asked myself whenever I watch television or read an author I enjoy, but it was brought to the forefront of my mind as I watched the movie, Julie and Julia. 

Julia Childs was a famous television chef.  Years after Julia Childs’ heyday, Julie Powell decided to blog through Julia Childs’ recipe book.  Julie achieved success as a blogger and a writer.  She thought the world of Julia Childs, and she imagined Julia Childs speaking to her as she followed her recipes.  But, sad to say, Julia Childs did not like her.  Julia never met Julie, but she knew about her well-publicized blog, and she didn’t appreciate what Julie was doing.  She thought that Julie’s project was trivial, and Julie’s occasional four-letter word did not endear her to Julia.

In a profound scene on the movie, Julie is really heart-broken to learn that Julia Childs does not like her.  Julie believes that Julia Childs is perfect, and so the fault must be hers (Julie’s).  But her husband, Eric, tells her that the Julia in her mind is perfect.  I thought his point would be that we shouldn’t idealize people, but that’s not what he went on to say.  Rather, Eric told his wife that the Julia in her mind was the only Julia that mattered, and that, if Julia didn’t understand what Julie was doing, then that’s not something that Julie should fret about.

I’m still trying to unpack this scene, for it’s probably much deeper than I presently realize.  Julie and Julia were both alike in a lot of ways: they dealt with struggles and failure and, eventually, success.  And yet, Julia did not like Julie, for she didn’t understand what Julie was doing.  One lesson may be that we can admire people, even if they don’t like us.  We all share the common experience of humanity, and, yet, for a variety of reasons, certain people don’t click: due to differences in temperament or culture, or misunderstandings.  But what’s important is the Julia in our minds: what we admire about a person that inspires us to be better and to get through the day.

Kevin Walker’s Journey Towards Forgiveness

I haven’t done a Brothers and Sisters write-up for some time, but last night’s two-hour episode was awesome.  I’ve always liked Kevin, the gay character.  He’s a cocky, intelligent, liberal lawyer with a bunch of sarcastic one-liners.  But I like him because he’s hilarious.

But, last night, we get to learn a little more about him.  When he was a teenager in the 1980′s, he was insecure, socially-awkward, and had no friends.  Sometime during that stage of his life, he was at a party at his dad’s business (Ojai foods), and he brought a friend from another school, Aaron, who was a swimmer.  He and Aaron went outside late in the party, and Aaron tried to kiss him.  Kevin liked Aaron, but he felt uncomfortable because homosexuality was stigmatized in the 1980′s, and Kevin was confused.  Kevin and Aaron got into a fight, and Aaron fell off a cliff.  Right at that moment, Kevin’s dad, William Walker, shows up and sternly instructs Kevin to get into the car.  (William probably showed up because Kevin’s brother, Tommy, had just been in a drinking-and-driving accident.  Tommy turned out to be all right, though.)  Aaron is taken to the hospital, and William and his wife, Nora, tell Kevin that Aaron’s all right.

But Aaron’s not all right.  He’s paralyzed.  William sends checks to Aaron on a regular basis, and Nora continues that practice after William dies.  Kevin knows nothing about this until he’s 38 (his current age on the show).  Nora realized when Kevin was a teenager that he was sweet and insecure, and she didn’t want to burden him with the guilt of accidentally causing somebody’s paralysis.  And Nora couldn’t find a “right time” to tell Kevin the truth.  When Kevin was in law school, that wasn’t the right time.  And, as the years went by, the harder it became for Nora to come clean.

Until Dennis York forces her hand.  Dennis York was William’s hit-man, if you will.  He made problems (with unions and other things) miraculously go away.  Years later, Dennis York wants to buy Ojai foods from Nora, her family, and Holly, William’s mistress.  People suspect that he’s after a valuable piece of property called “Narrow Lake,” which the Walkers own, and which we learned last night was an anagram for “Nora Walker.”  Dennis threatens to Nora that he will reveal to her family that William and she have been paying checks to Aaron for several years, if she doesn’t get her family to sell.  And so Nora frantically urges the people in her family to give up their shares of Ojai.

But Kevin learns what really happened to Aaron, and he’s upset with his mom, Nora, for hiding the truth from him for all of those years.  He pays a visit to Aaron, who now has a partner and has moved on with his life.  Aaron tells Kevin that he (Kevin) needs to come to terms with what he did and move on, but he can’t do that with Aaron.  Meanwhile, Kevin’s family is telling Kevin’s partner, Scotty, about what Kevin’s going through.  Scotty wondered why Kevin didn’t show up earlier that day to something related to a baby they want to adopt, but now he knows, and he’s in a position to support his husband.

Kevin’s family tries to reassure him.  Sometimes, Kevin feels suffocated and needs to leave his relatives and husband to sort things out for himself.  At other times, his family offers him helpful insights.  His sister Kitty tells him that, just as she cannot control whether or not her cancer will return, so Kevin could not have controlled which way Aaron fell.  Accidents happen, and this one was not Kevin’s fault.

But Kevin still has a hard time forgiving his mother, Nora.  At the end of the show, when the family is celebrating Justin and Rebecca’s elopement, Kevin is getting up to leave, and Nora says to him, “Please, talk to me.”  Kevin replies, “I can’t, at least not right now.”  Nora tells him to remember that she loves him, and he responds, “I know.”  Then, he leaves.

This last scene reminds me of the movie, Dolores Claiborne.   In it, a lady named Selena was upset at her mother, Dolores, for killing her father when she was younger.  Selena loved her father.  In the course of the movie, however, we see some things that Selena had suppressed for many years: that her father had physically abused her mother and had sexually abused her.  At the end of the movie, Selena says to her mother, “I do not approve of what you did, but I can understand why you did it.” 

That’s pretty much where Kevin is.  Sometimes, I get the impression from certain religious people that forgiveness is supposed to be easy: that I can simply wave a magic wand and perform a labotomy that causes me to forgive what a person did to me and to make peace with it.  But forgiveness is not always easy.  Often, it’s a process.  Kevin and Selena are not at the point where they can be chummy with their mothers, for there are such factors as hurt pride (in Kevin’s case) or loss (in the case of Selena).  But at least they have reached a point where they understand that their mothers were looking out for them, and that can lessen whatever anger they may feel.  At this point, that’s the best they can do.  We’re called to forgive, but we’re human beings with emotions, not robots.     

Feminine Mystique 10

In my reading today of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, Ms. Friedan blamed all sorts of things on the Feminine Mystique, the view that women should only be wives and mothers.  Here are four problems that she cites, along with my impression of how she connects them with the Mystique:

1.  Immature young people: Ms. Friedan states that the young people of her day have no focus, ambition, or strong opinions about anything.  She mentions POWs in the Korean War, who couldn’t survive their way out of a paper bag.  (I thought that, according to Ms. Friedan, the Feminine Mystique began in the 1950′s, or in the late 1940′s at the earliest, when men returned from World War II and wanted a warm, cozy home where they could be nurtured.  By contrast, the women’s magazines before that time encouraged women to be independent.  What’s my point?  Soldiers in the Korean War couldn’t have grown up under the Feminine Mystique, if it began in the late 1940′s.  How old were they when they were in Korea?  Five years old?)  Her thesis is that the Feminine Mystique encourages mothers to dote on their children and to spoil them, since that’s one of the few things that the Feminine Mystique allows women to do, as it discourages them from working outside of the home.  That produces spoiled bratty children, who grow up to be spoiled bratty adults, people who are dependent and expect the world to cater to them, without them putting forth any effort.

I wonder what she said about the younger generation’s leftist politics during the 1960′s-1970′s.  She wrote in 1963 that young people lack initiative and don’t care about any causes.  Did she change her mind on that (at least slightly) when she saw their political activism during the Vietnam War?  Of course, come to think of it, many conservatives looked at the young leftist activists and said the same things about them that Ms. Friedan wrote in 1963: “They’re spoiled.”  “They’re lazy.”  “Why don’t they get a job?”  “They should’ve gotten a firm, hard spanking when they were kids, but too many parents trusted that Dr. Spock doofus.”  Okay, Ms. Friedan didn’t mention spanking, but she does act as if some mothers were overly permissive!

2.  Child abuse: According to Ms. Friedan, mothers spoiling their children is caused by the Feminine Mystique, and so is child abuse.  Women are so angry because their role as a housewife is unfulfilling, that they take it out on their kids. 

3.  Autism: Apparently, this was an issue in 1963, just as it is today.  According to Ms. Friedan, there are cases of autism that can be attributed to the Feminine Mystique.  Basically, under the Feminine Mystique, women don’t have a self or an identity of their own because they are somebody else’s wife and mother.  That sort of attitude passes on to some of their children, who cannot distinguish between themselves and the world around them.  The mom has a problem with her identity, and that leads the child to have a problem with his.

I’m not an expert on autism, but my problem as a person with high-functioning autism is not that I don’t realize that I have an identity.  It’s that I’m in my own little world.  And some people have this more severely than I do.  But I could be missing something.

4.  On page 292, she refers to love-affairs between people and animals, and I thought she was about to blame bestiality on the Feminine Mystique—women are sexually unfulfilled, so they turn to animals!  But she didn’t go that route (fortunately).  By love-affairs, she meant that animal images show up more often than those of humans, and she sees that as indicative of the infantilism that the Feminine Mystique has produced, since children love animals, whereas adults should focus more on people. 

I want to share one of Ms. Friedan’s quotes on homosexuality.  Page 264: Homosexuals often lack the maturity to finish school and make sustained professional commitments.  (Kinsey found homosexuality the most common among men who do not go beyond high school, and least common among college graduates.)

I wonder to what extent this is true nowadays.  It’s not just that Kevin on Brothers and Sisters is a gay lawyer.  I’ve gone to college with gay people, plus right-wing literature parades statistics showing that many gays are in the higher-income bracket, in an attempt to show that they don’t need a protected civil rights status. 

Another point on feminism: I watched a beautiful movie last night on the Hallmark Channel, Elevator Girl, which premiered on Valentine’s Day.  I understand why there are people who think that it’s cheesy, and, as with most Hallmark movies, there were characters whom I wished were developed a little bit more.  Basically, it’s about a hot-shot corporate attorney who meets a free-spirit in the elevator.  Her name is Liberty, and she does various things with her life: DJ-ing, catering, etc.  She flirts with going to culinary school, but she’s not disciplined enough to pick one goal and to stick with it.

The lawyer loves her, even though his high-class friends think she isn’t good enough for him.  And she loves him, even though her friends see him as a stuffy workaholic snob (but she knows the real him).  But he thinks that she’s undisciplined and immature, and she feels that he’s missing out on the fun of life because he’s overly committed to his work.

Anyway, here’s where feminism comes in.  A review of the movie said: Feminism has apparently triumphed so soundly in the world of Hallmark movies that all societal forces are against a corporate lawyer dating anyone who isn’t a badass VP or similar. Sorry, but as much as I love Lacey [who played Liberty], I was kinda rooting for the poor blond career gal who was also vying for Jonathan’s affection. She is going to have a much harder time finding her professional equal. But, hey, it’s the season of love, and opposites who meet in stuck elevators are obviously always meant to be.  (see here)

I guess the reviewer’s point is that the movie makes it look like feminism has triumphed, more than it actually has in real life.

Speaking of the blond career girl, she’s a character who should’ve been developed more.  She was jealous of the lawyer’s relationship with Liberty, but she didn’t do much about that.  She didn’t try to undermine Liberty, except for the one time when she asked the lawyer why he was with her.  At the end, however, the blond career girl told the lawyer that Liberty’s the woman for him.  The blond career girl reminded me somewhat of the Baroness on the Sound of Music, who was jealous of Baron Von Trapp’s apparent crush on Maria, the Governess, and manipulated Maria to run away, yet at the end she encouraged the Baron to marry Maria, a woman who “will never become a nun.”  But the Baroness was more developed than the blond career woman on Elevator Girl!