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A recent link to Eric Schwitzgebel at Metafilter caused me to reflect on a conversation I had with a friend.  The philosopher in question critiques classical notions of self-knowledge and consciousness, that we are generally unaware of how we experience the world.

There were a few reasons I became a theist.  It wasn’t because I believed in Platonic Cosmology, or subscribed to the medieval imagination.  I never quite bought into the structure of classical theology either, with it’s emphasis on omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence, although I’ve read some interesting interpretations from the Eastern Orthodox tradition.

But I did get stuck on consciousness, free will and order.  Once I decided that we could not quite solve the problem of consciousness, God became a possibility.   My atheism could not be certain, nor could it be judged as beneficial.  It simply concealed other Gods within, a different puppeteer.   Perhaps it was internal, but it need not be.  What I wanted was a God that allowed some kind of consciousness to be true, and Christianity provided a convincing narrative for me to understand my own experiences.

Free will provided a different problem.  Is our agency our own?  How do we actually choose?  Is our perception correct?  Theology has often linked conscience, choice and free will as moments, as events of the spirit.

And last, is the world ordered or not?  It may not be, but once we declare it is ordered, it seems that God takes on that place where order and disorder meet, but the even deeper ground of order between the two.

Granted, philosophers provide some precise and elegant ways of talking about the mind; scientists have some understanding of the brain.  But our experience of freedom remains a mystery, and the wonder, awe and reverence we have toward our capacities and the infinit universe we find ourselves, the most accurate words to describe that state most properly remain religious.

Admittedly, there’s a part of me that is fascinated by the debate and wants to see what happens when the insane, math averse side of the Republican Party throws its weight around.  Will its funders, or the supporters of the GOP, enjoy the US willingly reliquishing its economic authority?

The Dems don’t seem to have any counter balancing organization.  They’ve been held hostage by “realism” and are perhaps frightened by the economic and political power of the class that funds elections.

The question I’m considering is how are parties supposed to govern?  One is the politics of vindication.  One side gets complete control, or seeks complete control, and destroys the system enough to manipulate it permanently.   Politics is fundamentally about winning  and holding power.  It seems that the Republicans are fundamentally opposed to the Democrats wielding any kind of power.

But vindication can come through coercion or through mutual sympathy.   When we elect leaders, we don’t merely elect representatives, but we elect people who can make hard decision.  We do not vote for someone who always feels the way we do, but, through access to a wider variety of relationships with people representing institutions, can make better decisions than the everyday voter.  Ideology can be take a backbench to relationships based on trust.  And this is a crucial aspect of good governance.

One friend remarked, “what we need is to set term limits on everyone.”  I disagree.  Politics is a learned discipline.  It requires a soft touch, an intuitive sense of human relationships, and an ability to bring together the private and the public that take a long time to learn.  Term limits don’t diminish greed, but may exacerbate it as job seekers may be even more inclined to trade conscience for guaranteed work upon retirement.

One of the greater issues may be that our country has become more balkanized.  The extraordinarily wealthy do not engage the poor, but may be sheltered from them in a way that has never previously been possible.  Rural and urban America remains divided; the non-religious remain flummoxed by how religious values get mediated in the secular sphere.  Until we are able to occasionally diminish our need for certainty for the good, we will remain unable to make the necessary decisions to keep our government working.

However, what might be the case is that the current Republicans are ideologically opposed to a working government, and are disinterested in a functioning economy as long as Obama is president.

With the number of disasters that have happened in the last year, I wonder, if in the midst of all the tragedy, people are connecting the dots between weird weather and climate change.   It may be too raw for people to consider.  They may choose merely to blame chance and fate.  The possibility, however, that we are collectively responsible seems too unbearable.

Prayers for the families of the victims, and for mercy.

Say unto them, [As] I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?

There is no particular feeling that Christians must have about Osama’s assassination.   Christians may cheerfully celebrate the death of any tyrant, or be surprised at an assassination’s precision, or skeptical of the merit of all violence.

I can understand the reaction of any person whose family member was killed the attack on 9/11 or our consequent wars abroad.  I can see the explanations who blame our own government’s sordid history.   But although the killing may have vindicated some, marked a completion for others, we may still affirm a reverent agnosticism about God’s presence in that violence.

Certainly scripture repeats the sense of joy when defeating one’s enemies; it also reveals and limits that joy.  The tradition demonstrates our tribe’s eagerness to destroy our enemies for good reason:  they would destroy us also, and are intent on doing so.   Although I personally cringe when I witness any delusional, premature triumphalism, the delicious taste of victory and revenge is appealing. It offers a seductive, compelling kind of meaning.

Still, the truth is this:  we still have enemies.   Others will arise.  Perhaps Bin Laden had unified our own balkanized, fractured society.  Both those who oppose and support capitalism; those who oppose and support gay liberation, could each take some shared concern thatOsama sought to destroy all the markets and liberalism the west held dear.   This truth was not up for debate, the evidence was there in his speeches and videos, at Ground Zero.  He made it easier for one president to invade two countries without asking for any financial sacrifice.

However, we treated Osama like a God.  We constructed him as an embodiment of evil, framed him as a madman, evading any inconvenient reflection about what he represented.  It was easy to do.  He dismissed the power of non-violence.   He did not seek peace, nor forgiveness.  He thought that the west, and its Muslim sympathizers, only understood the power of the gun and deserved it’s judgment. It was enough that he carried the sword and encouraged others to do so, and perhaps that’s all our leaders needed to know.

Although we want the future to become clear, aside from God’s victory on the long side of history, the details will remain obscure.  I doubt there will be more targets for the angry then there already are.  And I’m not sure how deeply Osama will become a martyr, for after the recent events in the Middle East, there are more heroic, less violent martyrs from which to choose.  We don’t know if this will bring us some space, greater focus, or direct us to important issues.

But aside from the exhilaration of unity, it will not establish the Kingdom of God, and whatever grace we feel will be temporary.  Victory’s sweetness won’t redeem our own mistakes, change the minds of our remaining enemies, or lead us into full employment.

And although it is useful for us to make moral critiques of our leaders, we must remember that leaders must engage a messy world.   Their choices are limited, and few of them are good.  In this case, we were fortunate.  Instead of invading an entire country at great cost, Obama kept his promise find OBL with reverence and gravity, as a leader who understood his own power and responsibility.  He used evidence that was found without torture. He chose against alternative attacks that would have most likely caused enormous damage to life and reputation.  He clearly understood that he’d bear the consequences of a failed attempt.  And he nonetheless went after an enemy who provided great political cover for previous presidents.  The tradition does not insist that our political leaders be saints; it merely hopes they be wise, with God’s grace and mercy.   Their decisions will be imperfect.   But may they understand the consequences of their actions and do what is just, knowing randomness and luck determine the fate of the most well considered decision.

Those of us committed to the tradition, may nonetheless take the challenging view against a culture that understands vindication as the ultimate lens of correct judgment.  The Holy Spirit that Jesus breathed upon the disciples was established like so:  if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.  When we are mocked, challenged, disabused, we forgive so we may not be like them; and when we cannot forgive the sins of others, we remain like them.  This description of the Spirit revealed that only forgiveness has any hope of halting the violence as culture’s dynamic force.   It does not mean we have been unrealistic:  those who do forgive will inevitably be faced with carrying their own crosses.   They may become victims themselves.  And this is a choice our political leaders cannot be expected to make as a choice on behalf of others.

We must also remember that this world is broken, and we have no choice but to participate in its brokenness.  We stumble along, not knowing what the future brings, sometimes hurting people along the way.  We may become soldiers, not merely to defeat our enemies,  but to protect the innocent, knowing that there will be individuals so wounded they cannot admit the healing possibility of grace and peace, and insist on revenge and retaliation, seeking to wound, harm and satisfy the urge to punish.   We become soldiers aware we may kill people just like us.

Clearly, when we do take a life, the tradition says we do not behave like God; but we may also never know what acting like God would look like, except as Christ, who remained vulnerable, without judgement, and offering his own life so that others would live.  We say violence can not permanently end violence; it merely relocates it, while it waits to reappear another time.

The cross exposes the mechanics of violence and its secret pleasures, revealing its limits, disenchanting our urge to destroy, placing the responsibility on our own heads.  The blessing of empire, as Paul and early Christians knew, was to be able to conduct violence with relative impunity and attribute it to God.  The blessing of God is that forgiveness may allow us to see a glimmer of a world that works differently, that understands violence is about our own envy and fear about God, and not from God herself.

We should always tell the truth of the kingdom: the world need not be this way. It does not, however, excuse us from having dirty hands.  May we not be so righteous that we cannot do the work in this world, believing only in the virtues of the next.   But also may the love we show one another, through God’s grace, be the ablutions that wash the stain of blood and victory from our own fingers, even in our own righteousness.

But my confession:  if this killing means our troops come home a little earlier; that our country focuses on the economy; if we can breath a little more easily,  I’ll take it.  But I also pray that the Lord’s mercy will be infinitely more generous than my own.

Recently a young priest was accused of pushing a parishioner in a tony Episcopal Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  After service, he had been confronted by several members; the exchange grew heated; and he pushed an elderly lady out of the way.  She stumbled back, astonished by his physicality.  She was unhurt.

I’ve seen heated exchanges in churches between priests and parishioners.  Usually  there’s a back story about family dynamics and church history.  Priests and parishioners exasperate each other due to the conflicting demands and the unintended slights.  I understand the motives of some good priests who are frustrated by churches that cannot change.  It’s also clear that priests can get the blame for work that isn’t done by parishioners.    And, of course, plenty of priests are lazy, narcissistic and entitled.

One of the complaints about this particular priest stood out to me: a lack of pastoral care.  It’s a common one, and perhaps more so as the priest’s job description has changed to include fundraiser and building manager.

I’m often ambivalent about this criticism of clergy for a few reasons.  Although pastoral care has traditionally been the central part of a priest’s responsibilities,  pastoral clergy have been unable to build sustainable, mission oriented parishes.  When communities seek pastoral clergy, they can implicitly prevent clergy from doing the work of encouraging communities to look outward, of being responsive to their immediate, unchurched, surroundings.  Clericizing (kind of like exercising) pastoral care also excuses congregants by abdicating their responsibilities to care for one another.  My intuition is that the law of community organizing holds:  “never do for someone else what they can do for themselves.”  Needy congregations often find themselves served by needy priests who end up becoming resentful and angry at their congregations in the long term.

Part of the problem is that a coherent understanding of  “pastoral care” is elusive.  Is it sacramental? a ministry of “showing up?” Cheap psychotherapy?  Or a formalized friendship?   Is it merely being a “non-anxious presence?”   If so, how is this different than a community’s expectations of their priest?

But there is one crucial aspect of pastoral care that clergy dismiss at their peril.  Pastoral care is one way of defining staying connected to the parish.  I admit the strong, willful, visionary priest.  But the only way such a priest can get the work done is to know the people in the parish and stay connected with them.

Some people in a parish have clearly identified roles; they are large donors; they are the social hubs and opinion-makers.  As early as a priest can, it is crucial in their ministry they identify who they are and consistently maintain open communication with them.  They need not, and should not, be obsequious in what they do or say, but be the present, non-anxious, responsive sorts of persons who their communities can trust to offer honest feedback, maintain focus, and encourage thoughtful participation.   We do not need priests who are brilliant at pastoral care while their communities flail about while they try to rediscover their purpose.  We need priests who can stay connected in the midst of chaos and disorder.

I was going to go to a rally for Women’s Health today, but I was waylaid.   There is a pretty aggressive political faction that seeks to cut funding for reproductive health, and some of my close friends are active in that group.  I’m personally astonished at the short-sightedness of those who would cut such funding for organizations like Planned Parenthood (or even NPR), as it is prudent policy in many ways.

But that said, I’ve got my own quibbles with not-for-profits.   Over the last 30-40 years, they’ve become their own dens of iniquity where the CEO makes six figures while their idealistic interns work at a pittance.  Most of their work constitutes making money from values, rather than distributing it.  Generally, however, I don’t inherently begrudge high salaries for good work, but like governments that overlap their services, not-for-profits themselves could use some consolidation.  And with all the money that goes to not-for-profits, I’m perplexed we haven’t yet found the kingdom of God.

But I wonder if sucking at the government teat is generally good for not-for-profits.  Sometimes I think it makes them soft, less adversarial and less creative.

Do not mistake me for your garden libertarian.   Government should ensure people play by the rules; that there is accurate data taken; research made; and liberties protected.  There are good reasons for the government (taking a cue from Arrow) to protect people when the market fails; and to offer some kind of insurance that diminishes misery and harm.   Government should support not-for-profits when it’s clear they can do a more efficient job (which, because not-for-profits have access to information on the ground, and have a sense of the intangibles, is often).

But not-for-profits that rely on the government risk their own souls when they take that money.  Admittedly, individuals rarely give enough; the government provides some stability and breathing space for not-for-profits to be more present.  Yet, unless there is someway to account for the inevitable dependency, government funding can diminish the passions and commitment that make organizations strong.

When the Great Society programs began, radicals such as Saul Alinsky noted that this could easily result in great failure because government hand outs broke the basic rule of community organizing:  never do for people what they can do for themselves.  This is not to say the government has no role in helping others.  But it is probably more effective  if they simply handed out money than funded institutions to hand out money.    Then, perhaps, poor people could have the resources to do something.

The church is a powerful organization in the US precisely because it relies on the power of its members rather than the largesse of the government.  It’s priests are paid modestly, and its ambitions often modest.  Even so, the potential of any community is enormous if they want to do the work.

So although I lament the politics that may defund some of my favorite organizations, I do not believe the sky is falling.  Instead, it may also be the moment of their liberation.