The economy hits home...

A little over four years ago I lost a job as a glorified manager for a non-profit facility whose board of directors (well, one person in particular...) viewed the facility as a tuxedo-laden opera house when, in reality, it's a public auditorium. I left the job of being a grocery store manager an hour's drive from my home with insane hours, either early morning start time or late night end time, along with physical exertion (which actually, minus the weight loss, got me in decent shape).

Anyhow...

When I lost this job, rather than go for unemployment, something I've never done, I took a temp job. From a suit and tie in the public spotlight to a day laborer running presses in a metal stamping plant, my career muttness took a strange twist. At the time, however, and at far less than half my previous salary, I found contentment in it. Perhaps it was shedding the suit and tie, perhaps it was leaving the hassle of a board of directors looking for a puppet, but I enjoyed the rhythm and monotony of putting a part on a press and pushing a button. I enjoyed the people I met and found getting my hands dirty to be a form or therapy.

At the time I also picked up a weeekend job working midnights. Not a hard job, mind you, but the midnight shift was rough, especially considering the fact that it was Saturday/Sunday midnight, Sunday leading right into Monday morning for a 16-hour shift to start every week.

But between the two jobs, we made it work at about half the salary I had previously. There were cuts in usual activities, bills that fell behind, medical bills that accumulated with the loss of insurance, filing for assistance with utilities. I soon learned what it was like to have bills go to collections, to have collections agencies calling my house and to watch my credit fall from immaculate to being rejected for credit card applications, things which had never previously happened. My credit score was a symbol of my identity, an indication that I was responsible and had financial freedom when it came to credit options.

But I was living on the edge. Not dangerously. No. Just my debt to income ratio was higher than was wise. But the bills were being paid so it was ok. Due to a life of relative modesty and not too much interest in "stuff" we were not devastated by the turn of events. We struggled, certainly, and had to change things, but overall we managed to be ok.

Over time I was fortunate enough to move up in various positions at the company, surfing the changes and doing quite well. Not quite the salary I had previously but, between the two jobs, getting pretty close. My hours adjusted, I began obtaining training and a viable career path. I picked up an additional shift on the weekend, working 24 hours over the course of a weekend for a 64 hour work week.

Realizing that I had been very fortunate in terms of my career muttness, I began to realize how privileged I had been without being aware of it. I spent a few years "slacking" but I still had the cushion, untouched, of an IRA accumulated from reaping the benefits of working in the cellular industry during its early 90s boom. This was a security blanket of last resort, a "well, if I lose everything I can cash this out..." kind of thing.

However, I had to tap out the IRA to fix the roof on the house and pick up another beater to replace my other beater. So we began to get the bills under control again, the long process of cleaning up collections accounts and past due bills began.

And then came late 2008. The economy tanked. The facility I work in was not exempt and, as a manufacturing facility tied to the automotive/truck industry, the business felt its impact. It impacted my wage and, as of this week, hours at job two. I have now lost roughly 25% of my income. Add to that the need to raise the withholding tax as we owe the IRS this year and life has gotten interesting.

No longer in the position to which I was promoted, I am back running presses. But I still run the hell out of them. There is a sense of pride in running them quickly, looking for ever more efficient ways to do things.

Standing and bending for eight hours a day now while breaking in a new pair of steel toe boots and going home and continuing P90X at a high level of intensity did a number on my hip. Now I can't even exercise at the moment.

So at once my faith has gotten stronger, independent of, or at least not causally related to, my job and at the same time my other forms of security to which I once clung so tightly, has slipped.

Add to that the darkness of an addiction coming to light and I feel the power of resurrection.

Irony indeed.

I believe it...

Not sure when this happened but I believe. It's the strangest thing. As I contine digesting The Roots of Christian Mysticism with highlighter in hand, I get it. And I believe it. And slowly, every so slowly, I am healing.

Where is the proof? In my life. The more I find myself immersed in it, the more I find the things of this world to be illusory and I am less and less attached. This is not hating the world. That's not it at all. More and more I begin to see the real value in it.

Life is relationship. And as I heal I am able to relate to people in ways I haven't been able to when locked up inside my shell. My hope is that as I come out of my shell what people see is not me but Christ in me.

A few years ago I would have thought such a sentence sounded fundamentalist, looney even. Now, as I say it, I get it.

Jesus died for you? Continued...

But now [are they] many members, yet but one body.
And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if {one} member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.
Now you are Christ's body, and individually members of it.
(1 Corinthians 12:21, 26-27, NASB)

We are part of a whole. If one of us is ill, we are all ill.

This passage may be talking in context to a particular group of believers but if Jesus died for the sins of the whole world then the whole world is, in essence, his body. If one member suffers, all the members suffer. This is the heart of compassion. I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together...

The choice is ours as to whether or not to participate. The "mission" of the Christian is not to "get people saved" but to bring people back into the fold, to restore them to their rightful place as children of God.

When Jesus told those he healed to go show the priests it, the healing wasn't the point. The larger picture was that Jesus reintroduced those outcasts (and the list of those outcast was large) back into the community.

With this change of focus we realize that it really isn't about me. I am only a part. So it isn't about how much stuff I can accumulate, how spiritual I am, how cute and charming I am. The only thing that matters is others.

What a hard task! But Jesus emptied himself to the point of death on the cross. Even as he was being crucified he sought the forgiveness of those crucifying him.

What does it mean to say that Jesus died for you?

Jesus did not come to save you. Jesus came and restored fallen humanity, of which you are a part. This doesn't mean God isn't thinking of you, nor that He hasn't thought of you before you were formed.

But it takes the emphasis off of the great em ee, away from this "personal" salvation which Christianity has become. It's about me. I am saved, I am going to heaven, look what God has done for me. Me, me, me.

To say that Jesus has restored fallen humanity, of which we are a part, places his finished work in a greater context. It is about us only as much as it is about everyone else. We, as a whole, are his body. Not just you, not just me. All of us.

Found this in Olivier Clement's The Roots of Christian Mysticism:

...for it is not the isolated individual but humanity in communion, or rather, all human beings together, who truly constitute the image of God. (p. 81)

And, quoting, Gregory of Nyssa, from his On the Creation of Man:

"It is the whole of [human] nature, extending from the beginning to the end [of history], that constitutes the image of Him who is." (p. 82)

Christ thus provided human nature, as a whole, with what Gregory of Nyssa called "the capacity for resurrection..." In other words, the 'body of Christ' is not you and me but all of us, everyone, throughout history, whether or not they have participated or not. Clement again:

"He rose from the dead in secret, and is recognized only by those who love him. In the Holy Spirit, he walks at everyone's side, but he waits for the response of loving faith, that Yes like Mary's, by which our freedom is set free." (p. 57)

The work is done. Once and for all.

The Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit.

I have been captivated by the Trinity. It is not thinking about the Trinity but thinking in the Trinity.

Yes. I do believe.

How do you define success?

I was talking with a friend of mine today who is head of Catholic Charities Services, the agency I worked for while working with the homeless as an outreach coordinator. It was perhaps the pivotal period of time in my faith. I was a "new" Christian then, studying religion and Biblical criticism at the university level, my intellect outweighing my heart at the time until I began working with the homeless.

Anyhow, he has been involved with a group of local evangelical Christians who are business leaders/owners and the question in the title came up. All the men, though they struggled with the question, tended to answer it in terms of financial terms, i.e. their business is doing well, their needs and wants are filled, they have financial security, etc.

My friend point out Philippians 2:5-8:

"Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,
who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,
but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, {and} being made in the likeness of men.
Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." (NASB)

Now in many neo-Protestant circles, these passages are for one thing only: to prove that Jesus is God (never mind the Trinity, never mind theological subtles, just that Jesus is God). The finer point of the passage is glossed over.

"...but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, {and} being made in the likeness of men.
Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." (NASB)

In other words, how does blessed (i.e. success) translated in material terms line up with Jesus? It would seem to me to contradict his message. His message was radical.

"Jesus said to him, "If you wish to be complete, go {and} sell your possessions and give to {the} poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." (Matthew 19:21, cf. Mark 10:21, Luke 18:22)

No getting around it. This is the ideal.

This doesn't mean we have to be poor. Just as being wealthy is not indicative of one's faith, neither is being poor. It's the other side of the coin. This is looking at the outside of the cup. It says nothing of what is in one's heart.

But any wealth is to be used for others. Give to the poor. We are vessels, stewards of what is God's.

"The earth [is] the LORD'S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.

It is God's. We are thus stewards. If it is given to us, it is for a purpose and just as Christ emptied himself, so too are we to empty ourselves and become a vessel through which God can reach others. We are to be the light of the world.

Sadly, our notions of "salvation" and "saved" and "blessing" have become self-centered, personal, me-oriented with material/financial overtones. In other words, we define success by the standards of the culture at large and not the other way. No wonder people can't distinguish a Christian from anyone else, other than the oddball culture that many Christianities have birthed.

The oddest preachers, the celebrities on television or viral videos (think of the Farting Preacher) and that is the closest Christianity comes to a "culture" of its own.

Yet too often Christians go the other route and try to be cool, hip and down with the culture at large.

C'mon. Bumper stickers, crosses on chains, the ubiquitous Jesus fish, pamphlets, leaflets, flyers, business cards, hats, Jesus on a motorcycle, Jesus playing hoops and on and on and on they go cluttering up the landscape.



They are trinkets. You can be cool and be a Christian. The culture drives the faith rather than other way around.

Debt and the mess we are in...

The root cause of the current economic situation is not the banks, nor the government, nor corporations, nor the decline in manufacturing. No, the root cause is me. And you. We are culpable. We want. We desire. We crave. We are self-centered and consumerism is simply the manifestation of this inner drive. Think about it.

All these other institutions stem from the individuals involved, not from the institutions themselves, as if they run without human intervention.

If we didn't have to own things or want newer or bigger things or the latest technology, the instant gratification of everything now, would we have all this debt? Would we have credit cards? Mortgages we can't afford? Car loans on automobiles worth less than the loan value?

I am just as guilty. I pay my bills on time though I have a debt load that has become a prison. The choices I made years ago still haunt me. Had I followed my own advice then I wouldn't be in the mess I'm in now.

I don't expect a government bailout and don't believe the bailout will fix anything unless we change our behaviour.

"The rich rules over the poor, And the borrower {becomes} the lender's slave." (Proverbs 22:7)

"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth." (Matthew 6:4)

And the famous, and misquoted:

"For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." (1 Timothy 6:10)

Yet Paul hits the essence of the matter on the head:

"Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled {the} law." (Romans 13:8)

The Jubilee code of Leviticus 25 is a hidden gem in the Bible. It is often overlooked or ignored, perhaps because it is not know if it was every truly practised or if it is because it is buried in the midst of Leviticus' rather dry and lengthy list of shalls and shall nots. But it is well worth visiting.

Here is an interesting article pulled up by a quick search:

The Jubilee Code

I had studied this in some detail while in school but have become rusty on it. Perhaps it is a good time to revisit it and join the debate.

Musings on the Trinity

Q: Can someone explain to me the doctrine of the trinity?

A: It's something of a mental framework through which to filter what we find in the Bible. It’s a hedge, something you come to not something you begin with. Ultimately, however, it is more experiential than anything else.

Q: Why are some Christians so attached to it?

A: Perhaps they've never thought much about it. Perhaps it has been hammered into them from childhood and they’ve accepted it without questions.

Perhaps it is the most sensible explanation for the Biblical text.

Perhaps the Church Fathers who struggled for about 300 years or more to put into language what is deeper than words came up with the best explanation of a framework in which to provide a structure that would enable a Church to survive for 2,000 years.

Q: Do you really lose anything by just saying that God is one person, not three persons?

A: How do you understand the term person?

Attachment and desire...

"Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, "One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." (Mark 10:21, NASB)

"Jesus said to him, "If you wish to be complete, go {and} sell your possessions and give to {the} poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." (Matthew 19:21, NASB)

"When Jesus heard {this,} He said to him, "One thing you still lack; sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." (Luke 18:22, NASB)

That is revolutionary.

Is this selling of all and giving to the poor a mandate in itself? Is Jesus calling this charity or simply a means to another end? Jesus says elsewhere that the poor will always be with us so he isn't calling for a form of communism to eliminate poverty. The scenes in Acts 2 and 4 show this played out but even there the call isn't to form a commune but to free one's self from the 'stuff' of the world.

Not only are we called to sell all our stuff, we are asked to give up ourselves in the process. This, it seems to me, is the second step in the process. First we must eliminate the stuff of the world, the possessions to which we attach ourselves, giving it power that is not there. The next step, then, is to deny ourselves.

"And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me." (Mark 8:34, NASB)

"Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any [man] will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." (Matthew 16:24, NASB)

"And he said to [them] all, If any [man] will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." (Luke 19:34, NASB)

What has happened to the Christians?

How is it that Christianity has become a means to wealth creation?

Revolution...

Any longlasting and effective change has come when the people get together and speak up. Most recently we saw this in the U.S. elections. In 2004, the people spoke but everyone knows that election was basically stolen. That's ok, I'm not so sure Kerry would have been anything more than the not-Bush vote. Ditto 2000 with Al Gore.

Anyhow, in 2008 people actually voted for Obama. Sure there was a definite "we're sick of this Republican regime" sentiment but the people spoke and Obama was elected. The people spoke.

But the people cannot depend on government to effect change. This can only come from people.

But what is this revolution? What is it we want? There are so many revolutions to be fought that it renders them all ineffectual.

A spiritual revolution? We hear this in the Churches. But which Church? There are far too many denominations or non-denominational denominations, each with their own version of revolution, Catholic vs. Protestant, Oneness vs. Trinitarian, mainline vs. non-denomination, megachurch vs. storefront church, Christian vs. Christian.

An economic revolution? A green revolution? What is it we want?

I want less stuff. But it's not as easy as it appears as I type away on my computer, listening to my mp3 player with my special headphones, waiting to head for my house in my pickup truck where we are overflowing with stuff. We are not "into" stuff but when you live somewhere for a long time, stuff accumulates.

Perhaps that is my revolution. To make a move toward eliminating stuff. This would include my books. I've thinned out over the years but still have way too many books and way too many forms of media containing music. CDs, vinyl albums, cassettes, even the ethereal stuff of over 100 GBs of music on my computer.

No wonder Jesus says it's hard for the rich man to get into heaven. He's got too much baggage for the journey.

Sell everything we have to follow him?

An American Poem - Ras Baraka

Every so often, a lyric, or a poem, or a song comes along and just knocks you to your senses. I've lately been reading up on workers' movements at the early part of the twentieth century and just finished watching the movie Reds, about John Reed, the I.W.W., the Soviet Revolution in Russia and all the labor struggles that took place.

How far we've come; how far we've fallen.

So I'm listening to Ame's Fabric 42 mix and get to Edward's Raw Structure and hear this line:

"Are there any American poets in here?
I wanna hear an American poem
Something America, you know
Something American, you know.
Some sassy shit.
A South Carolina slave shout or
Alabama backwoods church shack call and response"

And I'm hooked. What is this? Who is this? It is gripping and reinforces what is true about this country. Not our ideals, not this "American" vision but this American reality.

Variations of it are floating around the electronic dance scene and you can see Ras Baraka himself perform it here:



Here are the words (and a few question marks) from the link above. There are variations of the poem out there (see bracketed verses). If some of the references aren't familiar, check 'em out, educate yourself a bit.

"Are there any American poets in here?

I wanna hear an American poem
A South Carolina slave shout or
Alabama backwoods church shack call and response

I wanna hear an American poem
An American poem
About share croppers on the side of the road
Of families in cardboard boxes.
Not about kings or majestic lands or how beautiful ugly can be
I wanna hear some American poetry
[I wanna hear some American shit
Some American poetry
Something about ghettos of Italians, of Jews, of Germans, of niggas]
About abandoned projects and lead poison and poverty and children in jail.

I wanna hear a poem about a picket line and the Joe Hill legend, struggle for an eight our day
Hey you, hey you
Where are all the American poems about Harlem number runners and barbershop conversations about colored faces on color tvs

I wanna hear an American poem, something American, as American as jazz,
Or a South Bronx burner brandished on abandoned buildings
A scratch tune
A breakbeat
A backspin
A beatbox
A rap song
In Congo Square
Niggas beatin' on buckets on Broad Street,
As American as the Zulu Nation and the Latin Kings

I wanna hear an American poem
About a dead girl on Chadwick Avenue with a bullet in her neck
From a cop doin’ his job ordered by Fascism and crack cocaine
You know, something made in the USA
Something American

An Afro Cuban New Yo Rican Latin tinged beatin' bomba and plena
Sprawling out of the wide open tenement windows in the middle of the winter
On the verge of East Harlem on North Newark
Poems of brown colleagues (?)
Of Albizu being tortured for breathing Taino blood
Screaming African tongues
Dialoguing in Spanish for being him (?)
Puerto Rican self and worst of all loving it

My God where is all the American poetry

[Not poems about your attic
Not poems about how your clothes fit
Or f***ing poems
And stale slobber
Nor the night before
Or the morning after
I don't wanna hear about your shoes
Or your statues
And your fantasies
There's no more American poetry]

Just death marches and stoic laughter
Niggers being funny
No American poets
No I won't boost your morale
Or play your songs
Or make you feel comfortable
Or build your ego
Or play my part
I just wanna hear an American poem
Something native like the Trail of Tears
Wounded Knee or smallpox and blankets
You know American
Something that represents us

[I wanna hear an American poem
With American images like Welcome Back Kotter
Or White Shadow or Different Strokes
About white gods who guide helpless niggas to the light
American you know
Something that represents us]

A colorful rainbow, a big bright fist
An uncorrected sentence
Improper English
As American as Cointelpro
Peakskill New York
Robeson singing out of the back of a truck
Nina Simone playing at the Village Gate
With Baldwin playing next to her on the piano stool
And Amina [and Amiri] Baraka in the audience
Air filled with cognac and Mississippi Goddamn

Capture that moment
Write something about that
An American masterpiece
You know an American poem
Something strictly American

Like Red summer
Strange fruit
Palmer Raids
Hey you, yeah, you, yeah, you, you
Something American
U.S.A. America
America U.S.A.
As American as the KKK

[Hayes Tilden 1877
Dred Scott 1857
Brown vs. Board of Education
Sweat vs. Painter
Smith vs. Allwright
Smith vs. Charlotte-Mecklenburg
Us vs. them
Them vs. us
Us vs. them
Them vs. us]

A poem about Emmett Till will do
Tallahachee River
Church bombings and child murderers
About Alabama red dirt and boycotts in Montgomery
About families migrating north with dignity and shotguns

I wanna hear a poem
I wanna hear an American poem
About a beautiful black boy
Can’t you see him
A beautiful black boy colored into the night
His eyes the stars, his hands are willed (?)
About a beautiful black boy in the middle of a project playing checkers with glass and stone who beats buckets as drums and plays the horn in his sleep

I wanna hear a poem about a beautiful brown girl
A incredibly, beautiful brown girl
With an aged mahogany smile and flower petals for lips
And a beautiful brown girl with a poem in her eyes
With a poem in her eyes
A poem in her eyes and a gun in her hand sitting in a puddle of tears in Clinton’s women’s facility in the Garden State in the land of the free
You know, something American
Something that represents me."