Time keeps tickin' like a melancholy friend...

Time keeps tickin' like a melancholy friend
Ticks the beginning and the middle and the end
But if I close my eyes and just pretend
There is shelter in this song
Like a river flowin' home...

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of the death of Alvine Clausen, my wife's grandmother, and the woman who raised her. (To see more about Alvine, and why she was so special to us, please read these two posts: Goodnight, Dear Saint, and Bookends.) Last night, Sami's mother - who lived with Alvine for the last two decades of her life - came over for dinner, not wanted to spend this anniversary alone. We never directly mentioned Alvine, though through three people who were shaped by both her genes and her presence in their lives (if you're keeping score at home, Adam is the third, having more in common with his maternal great grandmother than he is ever likely to notice) her memory filled our time together.

Death, and the remembrance of it, always leads me to meditate on the nature of time. For me, in a very existential way, death and time have been forever linked. I remember as a little kid, running circles around my bedroom, unable to sleep late at night, running from the specter of the inexorable passing of time and the inevitability of death. It is time that links the three sufferings first noticed by the Buddha as he snuck out of the shelter of his father's palace: old age, sickness, and death. As Howard Schnellenberger famously said (about something altogether more optimistic), "The only variable is time."

We will all die. The only variable is time. We will all become ill. The only variable is time. And, if we are lucky, we all grow old. The only variable is time. Time, as Steven Delopoulos sang in his song "Jungle Train," "keeps tickin' like a melancholy friend." In the Western model, the model that shapes our unconscious understanding and even the way that we perceive everything else, time might best be described as a train that chugs along in a straight line, a single direction, with perfect precision and a singleness of purpose. With it all things come. In it, all things pass away.

It was the unrelenting nature of time that haunted me as a child. I could not stop it. I could not slow it down. I could not persuade it to change course. Its slow but steady march told me in a voice that I could not ignore that all things are impermanent, even me; that all moments are impermanent, even the ones I would cling to. This impermanence, so evident from the silent march of time, is at the heart of the First Noble Truth of the Buddha, a truth that I did not hear until much later in life, but that I understood from the first moments of consciousness:

Life is suffering.

While this, in its most common English translation, sounds extraordinarily pessimistic, it is neither optimistic nor pessimistic, but instead merely a simple statement of fact. All life is marked by suffering, by dukkha, by a "dissatisfactory" quality. That dissatisfactory quality is its impermanence. Impermanence, unless we truly understand it for what it is, turns even our greatest moments of joy into occasions of great sorrow, as we realize that while we seem happy now, this too shall pass. This moment, like all other moments, will go as quickly as it came, leaving with it the emptiness that comes from clinging to a moment of joy only to watch it, like so many others, slip through our grasp.

I remember as a young child sitting in the back seat of my parents' car - I think it was the old Mercedes that my Dad loved so much back then, though it had seen its best days long before he ever saw it - thinking about the impermanent nature of life in the face of the inexorable passing of time. I was haunted by the possibilities that presented themselves to me.

Life was either finite or infinite; impermanent or permanent. If it was the former, then I would die, the flame of my consciousness extinguish. There would be no more "me." That was unimaginable. But, if it was the later, perhaps that would be worse. I would be subject to the endless passing of time, stretched out forever without end.

Those were the choices as I understood them. Those are the choices as most of us understand them. Either we are subject to the final extinction of death, or, we are not. And, if we are not, then still subject to time (for we cannot imagine anything without the passing of time) then we must eventually feel like Bilbo Baggins just before he gave up the ring of power, stretched thin like too little butter on too much toast.

So, death and the remembrance of it drive me to meditate on time. This meditation is not necessarily a philosophic one. It does not drive me to re-read my volumes of Augustine and Aquinas, testing the internal and experiential logic of their distinction between time and eternity. It does not drive me to posit a Scholastic "arch of time" beyond which lies a metaphysical realm not subject to time's eternal march. It does not drive me to mentally explore the metaphysical nature of time, like the Einstein character in Alan Lightman's first novel. And, it does not drive me to try to imagine the unimaginable, existence and even consciousness without time. Rather, it drives me to explore the emotional and existential implications of my long adversarial relationship with time, to see if I have finally come to peace with the structure of my world.

You see, suffering - true suffering, and not mere pain - comes from the distance between our expectations and our reality. It comes from looking at our reality and finding it wanting. While in some small scale events our tendency to look at situations as they present themselves to us as obstacles to overcome rather than as a reality to adapt to might be good, insofar as it drives us to achieve all that it is possible to achieve; that same tendency, when it cannot distinguish between what can and cannot be changed, is the source of all of our suffering.

It is one thing to look at injustice in the world and vow to end it. Despite the verdict of history, injustice can be ended. It is not a necessary part of the world, but instead a human invention which can, under exactly the right circumstances, be ended. It is another thing altogether to look at time and vow to stop it, or to look at death and vow to survive it. Time passes, and with it comes old age, sickness, and death. And, if your happiness is contingent upon being the exception to that rule, you are condemned to a life of abject suffering. The universe will never change its basic mode of operating just to satisfy our immature desires, our craving for immortality, or for immunity from sickness or the aging process. Time will not cease its march or slow its pace just to suit our whims.

This has caused me to suffer for most of my life. Fits of sleeplessness. Paralyzing anxiety attacks. A fundamental rejection of the reality of my life. For as long as I can remember I have been fighting the structure of the universe, trying to stop or slow time like a deluded man who, after seeing a Superman comic decides he too can stand on the railroad tracks and stop or slow the oncoming train. And, like that man, I have been dashed to pieces as reality collides with my expectation of immortality, both for me and those I love.

But the march of time does not bring with it just the suffering that comes from the distance between our desire for permanence and the realization that we are, as James wrote, "a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." Old age, sickness, and death are not the only products of time's immutability. With it, too, comes progress. And while we romantics may long for the purity of a day when each person coaxed the earth into providing their food, we must also remember that when it was up to us as individuals to coax that food from the earth, the earth did not part with it so willingly.

While we often decry the word "progress," saying as C.S. Lewis did that progress is not truly progress if we are progressing in the wrong direction; we have to acknowledge that our situation, at least materially, is much better than it ever has been before. One of my philosophy professors in college, an atheist and an Aristotle expert who loved to teach Medieval Philosophy, and who retired right after I studied under him, remarked that when he was growing up the world was a very different place. Much less safe. Almost anything could kill you at any moment. He remembered a friend of his mother who died a couple of weeks after getting a blister on her hand from playing tennis. The blister got infected, the infection spread, and soon she died. From playing tennis.

You already know about my own tennis mishap. While it probably wouldn't have killed me, if it had happened at almost any other point in history it would have permanently crippled me, rendering me a beggar not long for this world. But, of course, if I had been born at almost any other point in history I would have been crippled long before I fell on the tennis court, as that was neither my first broken bone nor my first surgery. Except that, if I had been born at almost any other point in history, I would not have survived infancy in order to suffer the various calamities that would have left me a cripple. If I had been born at almost any other point in history, my death in infancy or childhood would have been the rule, not the exception. That I was born premature, and that I have asthma, move my death in infancy from a strong probability (most children died at most points in history) to a certainty.

But, as time marches on, so do we, solving previously unsolvable problems. And, as we solve those problems, we make the world a better place. Historic optimism, the quaint liberal notion that history is teleological, direction, purposeful, that it is moving somewhere, fell out of fashion as modernism faded into postmodernism and as the devastation of two world wars and the development of nuclear weaponry showed us in no uncertain terms that technological progress does not equal moral or spiritual progress. But, if we truly understand both our history and our present situation, those blind optimists of the first quarter of the twentieth century do not sound quite so mad. That they overstated their case is obvious. We are not marching unimpeded to Zion. But, we are still marching. And we are marching somewhere. And that somewhere is better than here as surely as here is better than where we once were.

And I am marching. And I am marching somewhere. I may be marching to heaven, or I may be marching to the grave. But in that march I am also marching to a better life here and now. My anxiety gives way to wisdom and faith; wisdom which identifies the roots of my anxiety, and faith which tells me that I have no better choice than to trust the universe to be good. My loneliness gives way to a wife who understands me and a child who adores me, just as I adore him. My restlessness gives way to a peace that passes all understanding.

Time keeps tickin' like a melancholy friend
Ticks the beginning and the middle and the end
But if I close my eyes and just pretend
There is shelter in this song
Like a river flowin' home...

Baker Monkeys!

For those of you who don't think that I publish enough cute and/or silly stories about my family, my brother Tom has a suggestion:

Check out his!

Adam's cousins are now immortalized as the subject of a new blog, Baker Monkeys! The source of the title is not just their primate ancestory, but also a lovely little ditty by Steve Hindalong and Derri Daugherty of the Choir, "Yellow-Haired Monkeys," a tribute to the unexpected joys of parenting:

I hope you're glad
to be where you're at.
I don't mind living where we are.
It's a suitable climate.
A fine habitat
for the yellow-haired monkeys in the yard.
Yellow-haired monkeys in the yard.

A friend of mine,
ya know he's flat broke,
just handed me a fine cigar.
It's a beautiful excuse
for a celebrative smoke.
It's a yellow-haired monkey for the yard.
Another yellow-haired monkey for the yard.
Yellow-haired monkeys in the yard.

So check out Tom's monkeys!

Recommended Reading

I don't know why it has taken me so long to slip in a plug for this, but it is about time that I gave a unique series of theological posts some "mad props." I haven't had this much fun reading theological reflections on rock music since Tyler's infamous post on punk!

Patrik at God in a Shrinking Universe is doing a series on Paul Tillich's Theology of Indie Rock. It has all of the depth that one would expect from a theologian, and all of the creativity that one would expect from a Radiohead fan who blogs. And, mercifully, unlike certain long-winded blowhards (who, me?!?) he has the decency to break his up into sections, so that you can actually read it without your eyes glazing over. So, check it out. Here are links to the four parts of the series:

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

May there be many more posts to follow; and may this inspire Tyler to offer more half-baked theological reflections on rock!

Bobby

I love the magic of the cinema, but I don't get out too much anymore. Being a parent has that effect. To go see a movie in the theater at this point requires the kind of logistical planning that should be reserved solely for flights to the moon. But, since my parents took Adam off our hands for the weekend, last night Sami and I finally saw a movie we'd been dying to see since we first heard that it was going to be made: Emilo Estevez's Bobby.

As much as I'd love to, I'm not writing a movie review here. If you're inclined to read such things, you've probably already read 50 or so reviews of this film, and all of them were by people who know movies better than I do. And, if they're anything like the reviews I read, they all told the truth. This is a good film, sure, but technically speaking, not a great one. It aims for the best of Robert Altman, and misses ever so slightly. It is complicated, weaving unrelated stories together with some deft craftsmanship, but not quite seamless artistry. Some story lines are not well developed enough, others demand more time and attention than they reward.

It is an ambitious film, and ambition should be rewarded. But, anytime a filmmaker whose highest grossing films are the Mighty Ducks series suddenly gets artistic ambition, that ambition can too often get smacked down by reviewers who seem only to notice pretension when it comes from known commodities, directors whose work has already been devoured by the public and found a little less than filling.

I'm not qualified to say that Emilio Estevez has created an artistic masterpiece here. I simply don't know enough about the craft of film making to say how well he executed his vision. I don't have a discerning enough eye, I suppose, to see all of the mistakes that were undoubtedly there. Or, for that matter, to see all of the subtle moments of brilliance that never get noticed by people like me, who go to the movies to have an experience, to encounter the mythic, life changing power of a story.

But I can say this: When the movie was over, no one left the theater. As the credits rolled, we all stood up, reverently, and milled about it awed silence, tears welling in our eyes. The young women behind me wept openly. The group of "older" couples sitting just to the right of my wife sighed with their whole bodies, realizing that their rare trip to the movies was rewarded. (Sami has a movie-going principle: if you find yourself surrounded in the theater by people older than you, you're in for a good film. Older people don't waste their rare ventures into the theater on duds.)

Were we in awe of the film, or of the life memorialized by the film? I can't say. While Estevez's picture spent most of its time circling around the story of Bobby Kennedy's last days, telling the stories of those who would witness his final speech; the strength of the film is that the filmmaker's love of Kennedy shone through it. It stole its strength from its subject. The most powerful moments, in fact, were the video and audio clips of Kennedy spliced into the film.

Whether it succeeds as a work of art in the eyes of the guardians of artistic integrity, Bobby was and is the perfect historical-mythic vehicle for our times. So immersed in the turbulent sixties, it speaks perfectly to the turmoil we experience today. And it leaves us searching for the next Bobby, the next transcendent political figure to offer us hope.

Let us hope that someone like John Edwards or Barack Obama can rise to the challenge, offering us that ineffable mixture of vision and charisma that unites our fragmented nation.

Crtitique of McFague's Concept of Sin

Patrik of God in a Shrinking Universe is asking for some help picking a book. His criteria includes the following:

The book should be:

1. fairly recent (post 1980-ish)

2. immensely important, a future classic

3. deal with systematic theology

4. between 200 and 300 pages

5. I prefer originality to the kind of book that claims to offer the final version or overview of some ancient debate

I especially appreciate the fifth one. For me, it is so much more exciting to read someone's developing thoughts than it is to read a historical overview which may include a couple of original ideas disguised as new interpretations of old arguments.

Anyway, I very cautiously recommended Sallie McFague's The Body of God, a treatise on the ecological implications of a particular interpretation of incarnation. I say "cautiously" because not only is MacFague's basic framework barley recognizable as Christian (a fact which in no way detracts from its value), but it doesn't really meet his need for a work of systematic theology. Rather, it is an exploration of the relationship between our concepts of God and the ethics we derive from them, with a more thorough exploration of the way in which a particular understanding of what it means to say that God is incarnate should inform our environmental ethics.

McFague's main theological project concerns a radical re-interpretation of the Christian doctrine of incarnation. In chapter 5 of The Body of God, she turns the traditional Christian concept of the incarnation on its head. While traditional Christianity holds that God was made incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ, and that this was a unique occurrence of incarnation, McFague holds that, in fact, the entire created universe is a part of the body of God. That everything that exists participates in God’s incarnation.

To make her argument, McFague uses a unique interpretation of Exodus 33:23b, which reads: “And you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen.” She interprets this as saying that all that is visible is the backside of God. The entire universe, everything that we see, comprises that backside. This avoids pantheism by saying that the universe does not comprise the entirety of God. After all, we cannot see the face of God. But, all of the universe is contained in God, and is a part of the incarnation of God.

This does not immediately jive with traditional Christian theology. After all, if the entire universe is God incarnate, then Christ is not uniquely incarnate. But, whether it is Christian or not, as a theistic model, it is very helpful. How can I pollute the rivers or the air if I view those spaces as being God incarnate? How can I stomp on the rights of another person if I view that person as part of the incarnate God? How can I exploit animals if I view each one as being, in nature, God incarnate? How can I look down on anyone if I see in them the nature of God?

According to McFague, this is also important because whenever any part of the universe, which is the body of God, suffers, God suffers too. And this is where her theistic model begins again to mirror traditional Christianity. In traditional Christianity God, through Christ, enters into the suffering world, taking on all of the world's suffering, fully participating in that suffering. So, whether or not the details of incarnation match, McFague’s concept of incarnation mirrors the Christian concept of incarnation insofar as it has God, through being incarnate, sharing in the suffering of the world.

McFague uses this unique version of incarnational theology as the basis for an environmental ethic, showing the essential link - at least in the lives of religious people - between theology and ethics. Simply put, what we believe about God matters, because it informs (or, at least, ought to inform) our moral attitudes and behavior.

Reflecting on McFague's book, and whether or not it was worth mentioning to Patrik, reminded me of a paper I wrote for an undergraduate course, "Religion, Ethics, and the Environment." This course, an upper level religious studies course, looked at two different books, and used those books as jumping off points for an ongoing discussion of how various religions have dealt with the natural environment, both in theory and in practice. The two books, both well worth the time and energy it takes to read them, were McFague's The Body of God, and David Abram's damning indictment of the Western philosophical and religious tradition's treatment of the environment, The Spell of the Sensuous.

Anyway, for those with nothing better to do than contemplate the merits and demerits of MacFague's theory and arguments, here is the paper I wrote in that class, a critique of her concept of sin:

___________


In The Body of God, Sally McFague outlines an original and quite informative concept of sin. As theologians are wont to do, she takes traditional Christian terminology and turns it on its head, providing a very original ethic which may make Christianity more palatable to liberal academics; many of whom have intellectual problems with traditional Christian teachings and moral problems with the way that Christianity has traditionally been practiced.

McFague says, simply, that sin is our “refusal to accept our place.” We, as humans, need to realize the earth is our home. But, while this realization is profound and ethically informative; we also need to realize that while the earth is our home, we are not its only residents. And, not only are we not its only inhabitants, we are not necessarily its chief inhabitants. We are one of many forms of life which depend on the earth for survival. We are one of many groups on the earth which compete for the resources which the earth provides to ensure our survival. And yet, we tend to act like we own the place, and are justified in imposing our will on it. We act as though we are justified in taking more than our share of resources, harming other humans, other animals, and the natural environment as a whole. We need to understand our place within the context of the entire natural environment.

And, what is our place? It is a place of dependency. McFague points out a simple rule about the nature of life: “The higher and more complex the level [of life], the more vulnerable it is and [the more] dependent [it is] upon the levels that support it.” In other words, we depend on other forms of animate and inanimate life to support us; but that dependency is not reciprocal. They do not depend on us. If we did not exist, the world, and the less complex forms of life which occupy it, would continue to exist just fine. But, if the world, or even the less complex form of life which occupy it, were to cease to exist, then we too would cease to exist.

And so, knowing our place implies knowing the extent to which we are dependent on things outside ourselves for our survival. Knowing our place also, then, means allowing our knowledge of our dependency on others to inform our ethics and our actions. So, we depend on other humans, other animals, and the natural environment (with many inanimate or unconscious forms of life) as a whole; and we must exist in ethical relationships with other humans, other animals, and the natural environment as a whole. This is knowing our place. This is accepting our place.

And so, since sin is refusing to accept our place, sin manifests itself in our lives when we live a lie. The great sins which we commit are just this: living a lie. We can do so in relation to other humans, in relations to other animals, or in relation to nature. Our relationships in each of these realms of action, then, must be characterized by our knowing our place and by our accepting our place.

In the realm of human to human interaction, we live a lie when we pretend “that all the space or best space belongs to some so that they can live in lavish comfort and affluence, while others are denied even the barest necessities for physical existence.” In the realm of interaction with other animals, we live a lie when we fail to recognize “the interrelationship and interdependence of all living beings as well as the distinctive individuality and differences among living forms,” and so treat other animals as objects rather than experiencing subjects who exist in the context of a relationship of interdependency. In the realm of interaction with the natural environment, we live a lie when we “objectify nature so totally that [we] human beings are essentially distinct from it.” In doing so we fail to accept or appreciate that we do not exist except within the context of the natural environment.

This concept of sin, as living a lie and refusing to accept our place, is, while novel, not entirely different from the way in which sin is traditionally presented within Christianity – though some of the conclusions drawn by McFague on how humans ought to interact with other humans, other animals, and the natural environment are not conclusions that Christians traditionally draw from their concept of sin. After all, most Christians accept that sin is a violation of the will of God. They also tend to accept that individuals are given their identity by God. And so, going against your own identity (in other words, not knowing or accepting your place) would be going against the will of the God who gave you your identity; and so it would be a sin. So, McFague’s concept of sin is, while quite unique, not totally incompatible with traditional Christianity, even though the ethic that she draws from it would seem strange to most Christians.

However, is McFague’s concept of sin a good, comprehensive concept of sin? In my opinion: not really. While she has developed a concept of sin which could help inform our actions toward and interactions with other humans, other animals, and the natural environment, it is not broad enough to cover all, or even many possible ethical situations. It is also does not allow for a number of important moral distinctions.

There are several sorts of distinctions which, in my opinion, ought to be made in any comprehensive concept of sin. The first such distinction is, perhaps, the most important, and it is one which is left out altogether in McFague’s concept. It is the distinction between volitional action and situations or actions which arise from unconscious conditioning. Simply put, the motives for our actions and the intentions behind our actions are morally relevant. One cannot be held morally responsible for actions which arise totally outside one’s volition, and which are, as such, not acts of will.

We are conditioned by a great many things. We are conditioned by our genetic make-up. We are conditioned by the environment in which we were raised. We are conditioned by the experiences we have had. We are conditioned by the culture in which we live, and the religion with which we were raised. Each of these conditions on us came up totally outside our wills. We have made and can make no choices concerning the nature and identity of our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc. We have made and can make no choices concerning the nature and identity of our siblings or our cousins, our uncles and aunts, or even our first-grade teachers. Further, we have made and can make no choices concerning the impact that each of those people have had on our lives, or the choices which each of those people have made which have effected and continue to effect us. We have made and can make no choices concerning our genetic make-up. We have made and can make no choices concerning the environment in which we were raised. These factors, and many other like them, lie outside our volitional will, and have conditioned us to a great degree. And, we cannot be held morally responsible for our conditioning.

But, now that we are conscious, experiencing entities, we can become aware of the extent to which we have been conditioned. That state of awareness is something which can be accomplished at least in part by an act of our will. And, once we, by an act of introspection and self-observation, become aware of our conditioned nature, we can consciously change aspects of our identity. We can, through an act of our will, consciously begin to condition ourselves.

And, even within our own conditioned nature, we can be aware enough to make choices. We can commit volitional actions, and those volitional actions do have moral value. So, any comprehensive concept of sin must, while allowing for unconscious conditioning, must also hold people morally responsible for their volitional actions. As such, any comprehensive concept of sin must make a distinction between volitional actions and unconscious conditioning.

This is a problem for McFague because many of the instances of sin which she cites could be considered instances of unconscious conditioning rather than volitional action. While, for instance, the kind of commercialist capitalism found in America is exploitive of other people, other animals, and the natural environment; most Americans are culturally conditioned to behave this way and are unaware of the harm done by their actions. And so, while their actions may serve as evidence of a cultural sin, it is a different kind of sin than an intentionally harmful volitional action, such as if I were to take a baseball bat and hit someone with it. While harm is done in both cases, the nature of the acts are not the same. Any comprehensive concept of sin must allow for this distinction to be made.

Another distinction that should be made in any comprehensive concept of sin is the distinction between sins of commission and sins of omission. Harm may be done by a particular action, or harm may be done by the withholding of a particular action. And, while harm is done in either case, the cases are not the same. It is not the same thing to intentionally, by an overt action, cause someone harm, such as by hitting them (again) with a baseball bat as it is to refuse to help them after they have been hurt. It is not the same thing to steal from someone as it is to refuse to give them some kind of monetary aid. Both actions cause harm. Both actions may be instances of sin. But, they are not both the same sin. They are not both accurately described by the same description.

Finally, another distinction must be made in any comprehensive concept of sin: the distinction between harm caused by action or inaction in the external realm, and the internal harm done by holding in improper state of mind. The way that we think has, in its ability to cause harm, and in its ability to influence action, moral value. But, the moral value of our states of mind is not the same as the moral value of our actions. While harm is done both by thinking about hurting someone and acting out that thought, the harm is not the same. And so, while each may be sin, they are not the same sin. Any comprehensive concept of sin should also allow for this.

A comprehensive concept of sin which makes the distinction between volitional action and unconscious conditioning, the distinction between sins of commission and sins of omission, and makes the distinction between harm done externally and harm done internally through improper mental states; is a concept of sin which can be more morally informative than McFague’s helpful but limited concept of sin, while avoiding the unhelpful tendency found in McFague to blame people for situations beyond their control and outside their volition. Such a concept of sin could affirm two precepts, which could guide most moral or ethical situations – if not all of them. The first precept is: cause no harm, by action or inaction, by act of will or thoughtlessness, by state of mind or external situation. And the second is: do as much good as you can, through you actions and your restraint of action, through your thoughts and your intentions. Cause no harm, and do as much good as you can. These do not, of course, tell us what we should do or think in each situation. That is not the purpose of a precept. But, they do help us evaluate our own actions, thoughts, intentions, and conditioning. In doing so, we can overcome some of the unconscious conditioning which has given rise to the problems which McFague attempts to address in her book. That will inform our actions toward and interactions with other humans, other animals, and the natural environment.

So, Is Robertson God's Accomplice?

I just saw a link to this at BlugrassReport.org.

God has spoken, and His faithful servant was listening. So, you'd better stock up on supplies and find a nice, comfortable bunker, because a whole bunch of people are about to die horrible, terrifying, painful deaths. Real soon.

So says televangelist and would be prophet, Pat Robertson.

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. Instead, I'll try to do neither, and offer some sort of semi level-headed commentary, if I can muster up anything other than "Seriously, this dude is whacked!"

It's been a long time since I've written anything about Robertson's disquieting propensity to prophesy doom and gloom. That is not, mind you, because Robertson hasn't said anything outrageous since then. Rather it is because I keep hoping that if you ignore someone for long enough, maybe they'll finally go away.

Perhaps more disturbing to me than Robertson's patently insane assertions is that many people - and not just fundamentalist Christians - keep taking them so seriously. Somehow Robertson, by virtue of building a media empire through his misuse of Christian doctrine, has bought for himself the right to speak for a not so small segment of American Protestantism. As such, his every ridiculous move is covered by the secular media to the point that, in one of my undergraduate philosophy seminars one atheist student seriously asserted that he was the Protestant equivalent to the pope. Of course, that student's belief was as ridiculous as anything Robertson has ever said, but that a philosophy student at a public university could have and articulate a belief like that without being laughed out of the room speaks volumes to our inability to simply dismiss out of hand Robertson's desperate attempts to draw attention to himself.

So says the semi-enlightened being who is now so fed up that, once again, he is taking the bait and writing about Robertson. Oh, well, Kettle, you're still a little black.

So now, after saying that 9-11 happened because God removed His "hedge of protection" around the United States for our tolerance of abortion and homosexuality; after declaring that Hurricane Katrina was evidence of God's vengeance against New Orleans for its manifold sins and wickedness; after hinting that Prime Minister Sharon's stroke was punishment for his land-for-peace initiative; after forecasting President Bush's "landslide" re-election, the nomination of conservative Supreme Court justices, Social Security "reform," and a devastating tsunami; Robertson now declares that God told him that a terrorist attack will occur on US soil this year, possibly killing millions of people.

At least God didn't say it was going to be nuclear.

To state the obvious, it takes some serious hubris to claim that God speaks directly to you. If you follow the Biblical tradition, most prophets were reluctant prophets, fighting against their calling. They did not seek out the gift of prophesy, they just couldn't avoid it when it fell on them. Authentic prophets, if there has ever been such a thing, are not self aggrandizing media kingpins constantly craving after the public's eye. They are humble servants of the Lord.

Look, for instance, at the calling of Moses, the most important prophet of the Hebraic tradition. (For an in depth look at Moses' calling, see Moses and the Burning Bush: Existential Questions from the Divine-Human Encounter.) When God speaks to Moses in Exodus 3, calling him to a prophetic mission, Moses fights God every step of the way, finally asking Who am I that You should send me? While there may have been some fear, and more than a little bit of task avoidance, on the part of Moses here, there is also a healthy understanding that he is unworthy of the calling of God. You don't get that feeling from Robertson's endless self-promotion.

Also, even the most destructive of prophetic messages carry with them some constructive content. The message, in the end, is not You're all going to die! It is, instead, Repent! Of course, the God of the Tanakh, the God of the Torah, the Nevi'im and the Kethuvim, is not always a kinder, gentler God. There is some serious doom and gloom, and fear of that impending doom is a perfectly legitimate motivator for change.

But still, these two facts remain:

1. While fear is used as a motivator by Old Testament prophets, it is not a fear of inevitable destruction. Rather, it is fear of avoidable destruction. It is not simply a matter of forecasting that bad things are about to happen. It is a matter of explaining why bad things are about to happen, and how those bad things can be avoided.

To my mind this does not excuse the fact that fear is used to drive people to repentance, a tactic which is neither pastorally advisable nor morally permissible. But it does at least show that even the most fervent "old school" prophets have an obligation not only to predict doom and gloom, but to prescribe spiritual behaviors which can calm the coming storm.

2. As I argued the last time I took on Robertson and his ilk, this prophetic mode is not the Christian way.

In the ministry of Jesus we see not a God of Wrath but a God of Mercy. Christianity is founded on the notion of the incarnation of God. That notion of the incarnation flatly contradicts the theology of the God of Wrath. The God of Wrath is a God that stands over and apart from creation, looking down on it, judging it, and punishing it. The laws of the God of Wrath are as absolute as they are arbitrary, and the penalty for disobeying those laws is swift and severe. But, the defining attribute of the God of Wrath is separation. Sin is separation from God, and as all have sinned, all are separate from God. Just as all are separate from God, God is separate from creation. This is why God can so harshly judge creation. But in the ministry of Jesus, and the theology of incarnation, we see God, in Christ, entering into the world. This God of mercy enters into the world in Christ to take on the sin, and the suffering, in the world, to reconcile the world to God.

The Christian message, if we take Incarnational Theology seriously, is not Repent or die! Turn or burn! Yes, this message is part of Christian history, but it is not part of the essence of Christianity. The essence of Christianity is found in a God who enters into the world, working with the world to alleviate suffering, not standing apart from the world justifying the suffering that is already in it and even adding new suffering to our daily troubles.

Theological and Biblical concerns aside, there are also some serious ethical considerations here. If we take Robertson at his word, he now has credible knowledge of an immanent threat. Lives are in danger here. Doesn't he have a moral obligation to disclose everything that God has told him, and to work with authorities to try to neutralize the threat? If God is behind the threat, shouldn't he cut off all ties with God, and actively work to thwart God's plan? If God is not behind the threat, but is instead merely using omniscience to learn about and expose the threat, shouldn't there be more specific information in God's message to Robertson? And, if there is more specific information in God's message to Robertson, and Robertson has simply missed that information, shouldn't God find a new vessel to work through?

OK, maybe those aren't so serious, since we can't seriously take Robertson at his word. I doubt that even he believes that God literally spoke to him and revealed an impending terrorist threat. But it seems clear that if Robertson really does believe that this is a message from God, he doesn't seem to believe that he has any sort of duty to do anything about it, save for use it to promote his television show.

Meanwhile, there are a number of negative outcomes from Robertson's declaration of doom. First off, in people who do believe him, Robertson is sowing the seeds of fear and anxiety. This, of course, creates fearful, anxious people, and those fearful, anxious people not only suffer emotionally, but also often make their own suffering contagious. It is, after all, this anxious fear of a dangerous world run by a wrathful God that is at the source of so much bigotry and hatred.

Second, in the people who don't believe him, Robertson has contributed to a polarizing cultural atmosphere, characterized by the extremes of fundamentalism on the one hand, and the suspicion or even fear of religion on the other hand. The religious community is increasingly suspicious of the secular world, and secularists are returning the favor. The more that people like Robertson make ludicrous claims about direct communication from the deity my brothers and I call "Whack-A-Mole" (I once gave a sermon against the "Whack-A-Mole model of God, a wrathful God that stands over and above us, looking to smack us down whenever we stick our head out; the title stuck), the more many secularists will see in religion only the ridiculous and the violent. This view of religion, whether it is held by the faithful or the faithless, doesn't help anyone.

Finally, I have to wonder about the mental health and moral fabric of anyone who seems to take such glee from suffering, whether it is potential (in this case) or actual (in the case of 9-11 or Katrina or any of the other disasters that Robertson has used to promote himself and his religious and political views). I John teaches us that "God is love," and the apostle Paul, in his first letter to the church in Corinth, teaches us that love "does not delight in evil." While it is dangerous to splice pity Biblical quotes together and extract from them some sort of theology, it seems safe to say that such "delighting in evil" is not the way of God, if the New Testament is any indicator of God's nature. In any event, delighting in evil is certainly not a sign of a healthy human being, much less a servant of God.

If Virtue is Self Interest, is it still Virtue?

As I wrote in this post, I've long been fascinated with the connection between virtue and self interest. That is, I've noticed that often the universe seems structured in such a way that behaviors which are generally considered to be altruistic virtues are in fact in the best interests of the person exhibiting those behaviors. Of course, that they are in that person's interests does not necessarily make them selfish, as it turns out that the ancients may well be right, and our universe may be so interconnected and interdependent that there is finally no real conflict between the best interests of persons. Or, to put it more plainly, virtue may be in the interests of the virtuous, but it is also in the interests of everyone else. When people act in ways that have long been identified by ancient philosophies and religions as virtuous, everyone benefits.

For me this notion has been an intuitive suspicion, with no hard data to back it up. I have observed it, but by no means in any kind of clinical or scientific way. Rather, it has been the sort of folksy it seems to me... kind of intuition derived from anecdotal observation. As I do more reading, however, it seems that sometimes hard science really does support folk wisdom.

For Christmas by brother Tom got me Gregg Easterbrook's book The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse. Easterbrook, who's been mentioned here before, is perhaps best known for his football column the Tuesday Morning Quarterback, now published on ESPN.com's Page 2. Being a geek who likes sports, I love the geek take on sports. But, in addition to being a geeky sports writer, Easterbrook is also a fellow in economics at the Brookings Institution, a senior editor of The New Republic, and a contributing editor of The Atlantic Monthly, an intellectual "heavy dude" who may be an insufferable know-it-all, but is by God a witty insufferable know-it-all.

As you can probably guess from its title, Easterbrook's book is an attempt to understand how it can be that, while most indicators of quality of life in the West (the United States and the European Union, though Easterbrook is primarily concerned with the United States) have been constantly improving for generations, happiness (to the extent that it can be measured) has remained static while unhappiness has increased dramatically. Having been enthralled with this book I've been meaning to write about its broader project since I started reading it last week. However, today I am interested in a much more narrow part of it.

Easterbrook, as you might have guessed from the context, devotes a chapter of his book to the relationship between virtue and self interest. That chapter, titled "Selfish Reasons to Become a Better Person," depends heavily on recent scientific studies which support my contention that the universe is structured in such a way as to reward virtue. Perhaps the best example of this, though by no means the only, is forgiveness. Easterbrook, by way of summary, writes:

Forgiveness is good not only for the person forgiven, but for the person who forgives.

That being forgiving is good for you, in addition to the person you forgive, is among the most compelling findings of positive psychology. Research now suggests that those who take a forgiving attitude toward others not only make better friends, neighbors, and coworkers - anyone would guess that - but are themselves happier, healthier people who live longer than others and know more success in life. Are they forgiving because happiness makes them magnanimous, or does forgiving improve their well being? Studies suggest the latter.

If this is true, if it is in fact the case that virtue in general and forgiveness in particular actually produce ultimately better outcomes for the virtuous and the forgiving; what does this have to teach us about the nature of the religions which have long taught the value of virtue, and especially forgiveness? My own faith, Christianity, is built on the virtue of forgiveness, stressing both the liberating power of God's grace, and the moral mandate to extend that grace to others. Jesus taught that forgiveness is an essential part of the nature and will of God. In a very real sense, if to be Christian is to be a follower of Jesus, then Christians are (or ought to be) marked by forgiveness, both as receivers (being fundamentally forgiven by God) and especially as givers (forgiving all others in light of God's forgiveness). Forgiveness is the virtue modelled by the incarnation, and should be present in the lives of all Christians.

So, is religion in general and Christianity in particular vindicated by modern studies which, if Easterbrook has summarized them correctly (and it seems to me that he has, though I am no expert on recent trends in psychology) teach that the universe is structured in such a way as to reward the virtue of forgiveness? In at least a limited sense, I think the answer must be "yes." But it is a very limited "yes."

Much has been written recently about the harm done by religion. We are all too aware of the violent dangers of fundamentalism. We are surrounded by the very credible claims that, at least in some cases, religious devotion makes people much worse, both in terms of their own happiness and in terms of their moral behavior. While the events of 9-11 or the violence in the Middle East are the most poignant examples of the corrupting power of at least some expressions of religious devotion, we have also probably all experienced this in at least some degree in our own lives.

We have probably all known someone who, in the sublime ecstasy which follows a religious conversion experience, became so self-absorbed and self-righteous that we simply couldn't stand to be near them any longer. And, of course, while the recently converted may see the conflicts that arise between the newly converted and their former social circle in more spiritual terms (rejecting the ways of "the world" creates conflict with "the world," etc.) many of us know that at least in some cases this conflict is brought about because, simply put, when the convert "found religion" they became an insufferable ass.

But, to the extent to which a religion correctly identifies virtues and encourages virtuous behavior, these studies suggest that it has manifested a very tangible good. This good is felt both in the life of the virtuous and in all those touched by that virtuous behavior. As Christianity encourages forgiveness, it encourages a trait which brings about positive outcomes.

But this raises a couple of troubling questions:

First: is it in fact the case that Christianity encourages forgiveness? As a theological question, the answer must, of course, be "yes." Forgiveness is at the heart of Christian teaching. But, if this is a sociological or historical question, I am sure that the answer will be more nuanced. At its worst, rather than encouraging publicly beneficial virtues like forgiveness Christianity can become the kind of purity cult that Jesus so strongly protested against.

Second: even if it is the case that Christianity encourages forgiveness, and that other religions through history have correctly identified various similarly beneficial virtues; does the fact that the universe seems to reward virtue point to the existence of a benevolent creator, or instead does it simply mean that religions have identified traits which natural selection tends to favor, and labeled them "virtue"?

That question may well be impossible to answer, though research does indicate that the benefit from forgiveness does not depend on any religious motivation for forgiving. Easterbrook writes:

[F]orgiveness can have either a spiritual or secular basis, and both seem equally effective at improving the life of the person who forgives. One of [Kenneth] Pargament's [note: Kenneth Pargament is a psychologist at Bowling Green State University, whose research on forgiveness came up earlier in the book. One of his theories is that, despite the health benefits of forgiveness, many therapists do not discuss forgiveness with patients because they assume that is can only have a religious motivation. - CB] studies, published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology, compared three groups of subjects who had been wronged by someone in a significant way and sought counseling. The first group received forgiveness counseling based on religious precepts; the second group received forgiveness counseling that made no mention of faith, simply argued for the benefits of forgiving; the third group, which was the control, received conventional anger-management counseling that said nothing about forgiveness. The study found that people in the first and second groups had better outcomes than those in the third, and by about the same margins in each case. This is to say, whether someone forgave for reasons of faith or of secular ethics, the benefits were the same. What mattered was not the reason the person forgave, but simply that he or she decided to forgive.

Jesus was right, then, when he asserted that clinging to the claims of self brings about a kind of death, while releasing those claims, "dying to" those claims and learning how to forgive and let go brings about a kind of liberating rebirth. But Jesus is not the only on to teach the merits of forgiveness, and, clinically speaking it doesn't matter whether you forgive someone because Jesus told you to, or simply because you realized it was in your best interests to. The outcome is the same in either case.

This brings up an interesting paradox. If altruism (at least of a kind) is in a person's self interest, can someone be motivated by self interest to be altruistic, or does it then cease to be altruism? Can someone give and forgive selfishly, or is there merely a self interest benefit for the selfless?

That question may never be answered, and it may not even be that important. We have already discussed (in an earlier post) the Buddhist concept of "giving without attachment." But, does it matter to the person receiving the gift whether it was really given without any sort of attachment, so long as the attachment can never be detected? In other words, if you were motivated to give a gift without attachment because you were convinced that doing so would eliminate your own potential for suffering in the act of gift giving, but held on to the cessation of suffering as a sort of attachment, would that kind of attachment, which could never be detected by the person receiving the gift, matter to the receiver? Would it detract from their ability to enjoy the gift, which has all the appearances of being given freely?

Similarly, should it matter to me whether someone forgives me, or acts charitably towards me, because God told them to, they thought it was the "right" thing, or simply because they honestly believed that a little bit of charity might make them happier? In any case, I will have benefited from their act, whether it is truly altruistic or a case of enlightened self interest. In any case the world would be much better off if people acted virtuously, whether their motivation comes from God, ethics, or self interest.

If virtue is self interest, is it still virtue? That question is the title of this post, though so far this post has not directly considered it. It seems to me that, if virtue is defined as acting in such a way as to bring about positive outcomes for all people impacted by a particular action, then it matters not one whit why someone acted the way that they did, what their motive was, so long as that motive was not to harm. If good is the collateral benefit of a selflessly selfish action, then so be it. May the universe reward virtue wherever it appears. And may there be more virtue to reward.

Update on Debate Over Domestic Partner Benefits at Kentucky Universities

Boy, that headline sure is a grabber, isn't it? I tried to come up with something funny to say, but as our flagship universities and the more conservative population of our state seem destined (doomed) to duke it out over this flashpoint issue in the culture wars, I'm running out of ways to make light of the issue.

Twice before I've written about the possibility of the major state universities in Kentucky offering domestic partner benefits (see here and here). Now, the Lexington Herald Leader is reporting that the University of Kentucky seems closer than ever to offering domestic partner benefits to its employees, following the lead of both the University of Louisville and the private sector.

That's right, the private sector, often so loathe to part unnecessarily with the money needed for good benefits packages, has long taken the lead on this important social issue. As the Herald Leader article notes:

Domestic partner benefits are offered at several companies with a large presence in Kentucky, including Ashland Inc., Lexmark International Inc., UPS, Delta Air Lines, Ford Motor Co. and Amazon.com, according to the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, a 600,000-member organization that works for equal rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Why? Because offering such benefits make these companies more competitive when it comes to hiring talent, a fact not lost on the state's universities. The Herald Leader article goes on to say:

If there is urgency on the part of UK to consider the benefits, its origin can be traced to the ambitious goal the legislature placed on the state's two largest universities in the higher education reform act of 1997. Lawmakers mandated that by 2020 UK should become a Top 20 public research university and U of L should become a preeminent metropolitan research university. The ramifications of these goals are many, but they definitely call upon the two schools to attract professors and researchers of greater stature.

Many UK faculty said the university cannot get the kind of people it wants unless it offers domestic partner benefits, either because a recruit will want the benefits available or because their availability will be a sign of a university with an open atmosphere that fosters change.

Of course, self righteous moralists are unfazed by such pragmatic appeals. Our good friend Stan Lee has, in keeping with the Republican party's rejection of traditional conservatism in favor of a view of government as supreme moral enforcer, " has prefiled a bill that would prohibit domestic partner benefits for same-sex and unmarried opposite-sex couples at all of Kentucky's eight public universities and 16 community colleges."

In his attempt to impose his personal moral views on state universities Lee is opposed by an unlikely crusader, possible Democratic candidate for governor and current Speaker of the House, Jody Richards. Richards his hardly progressive. Consider this damning comment from Mark Nicholas of BluegrassReport.org:

Richards is the longest serving speaker in Kentucky history, yet on his watch a woman has never ascended to leadership and only one of 16 committees is chaired by a woman. If Richards opts for a gubernatorial bid, he should heed the fact that 20% more Democratic women than Democratic men vote in primary elections and they'll certainly want to know why the legacy of their long-serving Democratic speaker is so woeful when it comes to putting women in leadership roles, especially considering how many Republican women have a seat at their table.

(For context, see this post)

Someone who can't be counted on to treat women as equal partners can hardly be expected to lead the crusade for LGBT equality. But at least Richards is a pragmatist, understanding that universities understand their own needs far better than politicians. He is quoted in Herald Leader article as saying, "I think it will be the position of the House that we do not micromanage the universities."

Regardless of where you stand on the personal moral issues involved, that is a sensible position. Universities are best run without constant interference from politicians, whose immediate political interests do not always (or even often) align with needs of academic institutions.

___________

Update: 1-5-06

Jody Richards has finally appointed female committee chairs, naming:

Rep. Kathy Stein, D-Lexington, chair of the House Judiciary Committee,

Rep. Tanya Pullin, D-Greenup, chair of Seniors and Military Affairs, and

Rep. Joni Jenkins, D-Louisville, chair of Licensing and Occupations.

I, for one, can't speculate on his motives. I can just say that it is about time he recognized that women are fit for leadership. Now if only he'd stop saying that Intelligent Design shoud be taught in public schools alongside Evolution!

Anyway, he's finally on the right side of the women in leadership issue, and he's also on the right side of the Domestic Partner Benefits issue. But no one can claim that he's liberal, without sounding more than a little bit silly.

Medical Update

I just got back from my bi-weekly visit with the hand surgeon. He said two very encouraging things. First, my scaphoid (the broken bone in my wrist that he surgically repaired) has "fused nicely." So, while I am permanently "screwed," the surgery appears to have been an unqualified success. Now I can start rehabbing more actively. Second, I don't have to see him again for six weeks. I can progress towards reclaiming my life without medical interference for the next month and a half.

This whole bout has caused me to rethink my disposition, perhaps (I hate to sound like a theodicy here) making it an almost good thing that I broke my wrist. Since I broke my wrist I read a study on optimism, which basically said that optimists are almost always better at handling situations like this than pessimists. While I often cringe at the optimist/pessimist distinction, realizing that, of course, there are far more than two possible dispositions, the study was nonetheless informative.

My general disposition has always been one of guarded, defensive pessimism. Don't get your hopes up, I often think, or you will be simply devastated when things go wrong. But sometimes that produces a kind of fatalism. Rather than providing a psychological buffer against disappointment it acts almost as a preemptive disappointment, carrying the psychological baggage of a negative outcome without the actual presence of said negative outcome.

Optimists, the study said, actually have more of a buffer against disappointment because, while it is true that they do in fact get their hopes up, they are also, simply by virtue of their default mental position, better equipped to find the good in any situation.

Before gravity tossed me to the ground and a reflex snapped my wrist, I had a decidedly pessimistic outlook. My finances weren't good, my career prospects weren't good, I was working a job that I hated, and I could find what was wrong in almost any situation. It wasn't that things were bad, it was that I saw things as bad, seeing the worst in every situation. I was constantly on guard against negative outcomes, but far from preventing those outcomes my outlook simply acted as a kind of self-fulfilling prophesy. If it didn't exactly cause things to turn out badly, it at least encouraged me to see the worst in whatever situation I was in.

When my wrist snapped on a tennis court I finally had an authentically negative outcome, and realized that I simply couldn't afford to dwell on it. It became my new reality, and within that reality, if I didn't want to be overwhelmed by negativism, I was simply going to have to find the good.

This mindset has aided my recovery. I can see incremental progress, and as I see that progress I realize that I am constantly moving toward a goal. Within the process of healing, then, pain stops being a negative and starts being a vital component to healing. Pain is communication, it tells me what is going on in my wrist, and what I can and cannot do with it. Pain is also a barrier to be pushed through. As I rehab my wrist, rather than being an annoyance or worse, pain becomes almost a goal until itself. Move the wrist until you reach the wall of pain, and then push through that wall.

That is not to say that I delight in pain - I am not a masochist. But I no longer feel the need to artificially divide my experiences into good and bad and label the pain as bad. Rather, without judgment or discrimination, I can experience the pain for what it is, and allow it to help guide my healing. As I press through pain, listening to what my body is telling me with the pain, I am able to reclaim my wrist. My range of motion expands. My strength returns. I reach some of my short term goals, and my long term goals, so distant for so long, become just visible enough that they no longer feel like a foolish fantasy.

I am improving, and because I refuse to see the world through my naturally pessimistic eyes, I can see that improvement. Instead of gauging my wrist against how it was before I hurt it and, seeing the distance between where I once was and where I am now despairing and lamenting my plight, I gauge my wrist against where it was last week, and the week before, and the week before. I can then feel good about the progress instead of bad about the injury. I can see the healing instead of the wound.

To change one's mindset, one's default position, is almost impossible. This is because we are rarely able to see our own mindset. Rather, we see the world through it. Everything is colored by it, while it remains the perceiver rather than the perceived. But if you are able to step back from yourself and see the way that you look at everything else, you just might find that life isn't so bad when you stop seeing the bad in everything, and start seeing the good.

The Best Live Band You've Probably Never Heard Of

Another Christmas has come and gone, the seventh with Sami as the primary person in my life, and the sixth with her as my wife. Hard to believe. I know that most of you have only known me with her in my life, but of course there are whole chapters in my mind without her. Some days it seems (I know this is a cliche, but some cliches survive because at some point they pointed to a profound truth) like only moments ago that the swept into my life, cleaning my mental house and ordering my personal chaos. Of course, since she joined me many of my memories have been re-written to include her. The mind is funny like that. I'll say something like, "Honey, do you remember when..." only to realize that, of course, she couldn't remember that as she wasn't there. But even with the creative editing of my memory, there is still so much of my life that she hasn't yet touched. As the years go by, however, more and more mental territory is claimed by the benevolent invader. I suppose that in a few more years it won't be so strange that we've been together for years.

But wasn't this post supposed to be about an as yet unidentified rock band? you might ask if you've read the title, then the first paragraph, then the title again, just to make sure, scratching your head wondering what the hell the title has to do with the first paragraph and vice versa. But, dear reader, if you're reading this then you've probably read my other stuff, and so you know that I'm prone to near-fatally disjointed digressions. Yes, it's rare to digress before you've even started, but this time of year it is possible.

You see, since Sami has bravely joined my life, I've noticed that she is simply the best gift giver. I know that earlier I wrote about giving gifts without attachment, but, damn it, I'm human, and every year she gets me a better gift than I get her. My philosophy with giving gifts is you match the gift to the person (duh). The trick is, of course, how you go about doing that. I try to find something that, based on what I know of their interests, they would have always wanted if only they knew it existed. My wife doesn't share this philosophy. Rather, she listens to me all year as I rattle on and on about the various items that a covet, but ultimately can't justify buying because of my perpetual guilt at the fact that she makes all the money but in karmically unfair twist somehow I end up spending it. She then waits until - fickle as always - I forget that said item exists. She then hunts it down on the Internet, has it shipped to her mother's house (knowing full well that I would never go there on my own volition!) and keeps it from me until Christmas.

So while I'm out at the last minute fighting through the mobs of holiday shoppers trying to find something she doesn't know about but would simply love (and, most importantly, never buy for herself) she can sit at home, comfortable as she sips her hot chocolate, knowing that once again she will have done better by me than I've done by her.

This year, once again, she got me a collection of odds and ends that amount to a veritable goody basket of the best music you've probably never heard. I won't divulge all of the treats here, but there are two DVDs I'd like to mention, one of which is the source of the title, which has still failed miserably to correspond with any of the actual content of this post.

The first DVD I opened from her this year was by The Lost Dogs, a rootsy Americana group that started as a novelty act put together by some of the most pioneering evangelical Christian rockers. (I've written about them here before.) Originally comprised of Mike Roe of the Seventy Sevens, Terry Taylor of Daniel Amos, Derri Daugherty of the Choir, and the late Gene Eugene of Adam Again, the "three legged dog" of Roe, Taylor, and Daugherty have pressed on in the wake of Gene's tragic death in 2000. This DVD, titled Via Chicago (all we left unsaid) has the three of them strumming their acoustic guitars, swapping songs, telling stories between tracks, and singing some sick harmonies.

The beauty of their music is a testimony to artistic collaboration. While they've each had at least some success on their own, they're at their best together. Both Mike Roe and Terry Taylor have what can be most charitably described as intriguing voices, full of character. While they've fronted rock bands most of their adult lives, their bands have never exactly been commercial powerhouses, and what success they've had fronting them has more to do with their ability to convey the deep meaning behind their songs than with any conventional beauty in the voices. But when they add their voices to the voice of Derri Daugherty (who can sing a little bit) the harmonies nearly stop your heart. The breathtaking beauty of three artists who fit together perfectly.

The disk runs only 28 minutes, but ending as it does on the majestic "Golden Dreams," you realize there's nowhere to go from here. The 28 minutes then, instead of being disappointingly short, is the perfect dose of music which moves from absurdly silly (their cover of the bluegrass "classic" "Dust on the Bible") to hauntingly familiar (the country ballad "Real Men Cry," penned by Taylor, with Roe singing lead) to almost desperate worship in a moment of despair ("Be My Hiding Place," assembled by Taylor from various Psalms, penned in the wake of 9-11). If it had gone on much longer my soul, so filled with music, might have exploded.

But, for as much as I loved watching that DVD, The Lost Dogs are not the band I had in mind when I typed in the title of this post. Rather, that honor belongs to band that produced the second DVD I opened this year, Mike Roe's primary band, the Seventy Sevens. Their newly released DVD collection is a loosely assemble compilation that spans most of the last 24 years. Disk One features the 7 "official" 77's videos, along with some rare bonus footage of the band. Historically interesting, if not artistically significant. A must have for fans of the Sevens, even if the rest of you might wonder, watching these, just how they became nearly a cult for a few of us. As Mike Roe says in the DVD insert,

Unlike most other pop music bands that came of age during the music video explosion of the early 1980's, the 77's were mostly camera-shy and, for the most part, visually and stylistically confused and unfocused. The reason for this is simple. We never got into this game by design - we were chosen. Someone asked us for help, and we obliged. The result was a mixed bag of weird musical combinations, bad hair, even worse clothing, and a career path made up of mostly lame choices coupled with missed opportunities, poor timing and doggone the rotten luck.

But this retrospective product is not a tragedy, it is a triumph. It's triumph is due mostly to Disk Two, simply the most creative music DVD I've ever seen. Rather than having a single menu and a single track listing, the second disk in this set is a collection of menus, one for each fragment of a live show contained on the disk. The shows, listed chronologically, are pulled from various points in a 17 year period, from 1982 to 1999, and offer musical time capsules. If you'd like to see what the band looked and sounded like in, say, 1989, you'd click on the icon that says Warehouse Ministries/ Sacramento, CA 1989, and that will take you to a track listing from that show. You can then play any of the featured tracks you'd like, or all of them in sequence.

Growing up in Lexington, KY, I particularly enjoyed watching the one track included from their performance at Ichthus '85 in Wilmore, KY. Ichthus was the first Christian music festival, started as an evangelical response to Woodstock, and hosted by Asbury Theological Seminary, a mere 20 or so miles from my parents' house. I went to Ichthus almost every year as a teenager, and then later took groups there as a youth minister. Both of my brothers played there once, in a now defunct group called Dave's Not Here.

In all there are parts of 13 shows which can be accessed individually. Each of these offers a window into one of the best live rock and roll bands to ever play anywhere. You see, the Seventy Sevens were rock. As Mike Roe says, again from the DVD insert, they weren't/aren't "a big rock band playing before the whole wide world in front of God and everybody." They simply rocked anywhere they were allowed to rock, in front of anyone who showed up.

While their sound has morphed considerably over the last 24 years (along with their line-up, as Mike Roe is the only member to have survived with the group the whole time), shifting from New Wave, to 80's pop, to blues, to jam band, to hard rock, to easy listening, and nearly everything else, it has always been authentic. They have artfully avoided the extremes of prog and arena rock (two guilty pleasures, I must confess) and the now artificial iconoclasm of commercial punk, finding instead a rock so pure that it doesn't have to be purist. It is free to venture out, try new things, all the while returning to blues based rock.

While the Seventy Sevens have never been all about Mike Roe, the line-up has changed so many times in its various incarnations that it is difficult to fully explore the various contributions of each of the members surrounding Roe through history. We could spend weeks discussing the drumming of Aaron Smith and Bruce Spencer, each brilliant in their own right, but belonging to different eras. The same could be said for every incarnation of the Sevens. Do you prefer the Roe, Tootle, Eric and Smith line-up that produced All Fall Down, Seventy Sevens, and Sticks and Stones? What about when Jan Eric and Mark Tootle were shed for Mark Harmon and David Leonhardt for Pray Naked (a saga unto itself) and Drowning With Land in Sight. And, of course, the aforementioned Spencer replaced Aaron Smith for 1995's Tom Tom Blues, a period which also saw the departure of David Leonhardt, making the band a power trio.

Each person surrounding Mike Roe at any moment (and Spencer and Harmon have been with him for over a decade now, qualifying them for much more mention than they'll get here - they even wrote much of the material for the past few albums) has been crucial to the success of the music at that moment. But Roe is the constant, and his unique genius makes the band what it is - the best live band you've probably never heard of.

Each of the tracks on Disk Two's time walk show us a band that, when off, is nigh unlistenable. But, when they were on the room could levitate. That begins with Roe, the frontman and guitarist. I've already described his singing when discussing the Lost Dogs' DVD, but I was surprised looking back at the earliest performances of the 80's that he was once a credible singer. He's always had ridiculous range, though you couldn't describe it as "effortless" range since he often looks like his eyeballs might fly into the front row if he tries any harder. But with the Seventy Sevens, though he is the primary vocalist, it isn't really about his singing. It is about that electric six string in his hands.

Roe is not a conventional guitarist. He certainly isn't a technique freak, though, like with Eric Clapton or Dave Gilmour, the ability to make a single note say exactly what you want it to say has as much to do with your technique - even if it is a different sort of technique - as the speed and precision of a Eddie Van Halen or John Petrucci guitar solo. He can often be almost clumsy, going up and down the fretboard with all of the precision of blunt force trauma. There are times when it looks like not even he knows just what he is supposed to be playing.

But there are moments - and not rare ones, they happen much of the time - when his eyes glaze over like the artist who paints the future in the NBC show Heroes, and the resulting sound is angelic, otherworldly. His best solos take you to the deepest, most spiritual places. They force you to explore your emotions, making you laugh and cry at the same time as a nearly divine beauty overwhelms you.

There are other moments when his guitar explodes in a fireball of sound, bursting forth from the primal beat of the bass and drums, the dirtiest rock and roll. The Seventy Sevens have always been pigeonholed as a "Christian" rock band, because they are Christians and they make rock music, and because they got their start making music for evangelical Christians. But, though they love Jesus and the Rolling Stones, they never wanted to be Jesus' answer to the Stones. In those fiery moments you can see that what they really wanted to do was test themselves against the Stones, making kick ass rock that isn't bound to a genre or ideology.

And, on their best days, they were and are simply the best live band you'll ever see.

So, as you can see, Merry Christmas to me!

Both of these DVDs were released by Lo-Fidelity Records, and can be purchased either from Lo-Fidelity or directly from the bands.