I am the Bread of Life

Yesterday I contined with the David story.

David’s been, as one parishioner noted, “a cad.”  His moral choices have been questionable and have undermined confidence in his leadership.  His son has decided to take matters into his own hands.  He’s a rebel.   He’s not the first son to rebel against his dad.

Not only that, Absalom had twenty thousand Israelites supporting him.  Now that the Israelites have vanquished their enemies, they are turning on their own.   This number is meant to convey total war.    Civil war.

Absalom has one adviser who is honest, reliable, and close to David.  Yet, he’s also the traitor to David.  The other is shrewd, self-promoting and slimy.   When the first is absent, the second moves in and gives Absalom bad advice.  Absalom becomes trapped.  The other, realizing that this will not end well, commits a sort of seppuku:  an honor suicide.

In spite of David’s orders, when Absalom is trapped, Joab kills Absalom.  The rebellion is crushed.  He’s completed what David commanded him, while also, perhaps rightfully, questioning David’s military judgment.  Can’t have any hint of future rebellion.  The slaughter must be total.  Think Scarface.

It’s not a simple story about a military action.  This is not how the military works, not the military we know.  It’s not how nation states work, except, perhaps, subconsciously.

It’s more like the Mafia.  David is the don; Joab is a boss or captain.   We’re in a world where pride, honor and face are important commodities.  They are worth dying and killing for.    If you want to understand this story – watch mafia fills.

When David finds out his son is killed, however, he asks himself if his position is worth it.  He is confronted with the consequences of his own narcissism and power.  Violence is impossible to control.

David asks why?

I imagine that several of you are asking “why” noting several tragedies that have become icons for our national condition:  the shooting of four young women; the homicide of eight people in the accident on the Taconic.   It’s easy to want to give God some advice here, but what we have to remember is that we know God through our freedom to make choices; and we have here two people who were enslaved to their rage; or to alcohol.  When Jesus says, “I am the bread of life” he is offering a metaphor, a symbol that is supposed to remind us that in him, we are free.  The alternative is a world where we are simply puppets in God’s grand plan.  But such a world would be dull and ugly.

Now there are constituent parts to this.  I will divide it into three parts – just for simplicity’s sake.  The first is gratitude – a remembering of the good things we’ve done and experienced.  The second is joy – experiencing the pleasures of this life now.  The third is hope that tomorrow is going to get better.  At different points in our lives we will find that the balance between gratitude, joy and hope will change.  But those are your emotional tools, constituent elements of what we call “love.”

But to access those tools, to open the toolbox, you’ll need a key.  And that key is the bread of life.  When Jesus  says “the bread of life” he invites us to stay connected, to be present for each other.  This means, in practice, the work of calling, gathering, even partying, working on the common task.

The murderer and the mother were both isolated.  The man couldn’t get a date; he probably spent most of his time on the computer.  He probably found social skills hard, and couldn’t get out of the despair and resentment that would kill him.   The mother was so isolated that nobody knew of her addiction and loneliness.  With such separation, it’s easy to make decisions that will get people killed.

Paradoxically, our current system of cooperation makes us both more interdependent, and isolated.

David, being at the top, is in an isolated position.  It’s part of the nature of being on top.  But he realized how deeply his connection to his son meant and wept when he lost what was most dear to him – not his status, but his son.    That is a hard lesson to learn.

I am the bread of life, Jesus says.  The community understood that only gathering together, or sharing each other s stories, of sharing gratitude, joy and hope, would they have any way of surviving into the future.  It would not be easy.  The end of time would not happen as soon as many had hoped.  But it was enough to know that their lives were worthy, and that they didn’t need to be isolated or forgotten.

We’re connected, Jesus says.  You have part of me in you.  You will always have my love.  Don’t ever feel I am so far away.    I am as close as your family, your friends, and even the strangers you live so near but barely know.  You are not alone.  I am the bread of life.

Gawain de LeeuwLeave a comment

How to Talk about Health Care

How should we discuss health care?

One of my favorite theologians wrote:  “”Conversation is a game with some hard rules: say only what you mean; say it as accurately as you can; listen to and respect what the other says, however different or other; be willing to correct or defend your opinions if challenged by the conversation partner; be willing to argue if necessary, to confront if demanded, to endure necessary conflict, to change your mind if the evidence suggests it.”

I’ll expand.

First, get the story right.  Old people won’t be euthanized under a new health care plan.  There’s no risk we’ll suddenly become like Albania.    Be accurate.  Don’t be the guy who angrily said to his representative, “Don’t let government touch my Medicaid!”

Learn about how other countries handle health care.  Read about Kenneth Arrow’s famous essay on health care economics to learn why we are where we are.   Check out the Cato Institute and their arguments and compare to the Economic Policy Institute.

Second, discern the best argument from the side you disagree with.   Will there really be rationing of health care?  Will the quality change?  Will it overwhelm the system?  What if there is less inventiveness in technology or medicine? Is health care economics different than buying food?  What is “recissioning?”    Does more technology always mean better health?  How does fee for service compare to results based care?

Third, be aware about why you believe what you believe.  Have you had good health care?  Have you had to fight insurance companies?   Did you have poor or excellent experiences in countries where insurance was regulated or provided by the government?  What are YOUR criteria for assessing a good or a bad health care plan?

Fourth, give yourself some distance from slogans.  Although there are many uses of the media, it tends to manufacture conflict via sound bites.  The news cycle spent a week of pontificating on the word “stupidly” rather than on health care. The media will sometimes repeat wrong facts that go viral. Not everything on the internet is true.

Fifth, remember that change rarely happens neatly.  It took 40 years for the Israelites to find freedom; it took 100 years between the civil war and the Voting Rights Act.     There will always be some messiness.   There will be unexpected and unintended consequences.

Last, no plan will be perfect.  There will be trials along the way.   A comprehensive health care plan will surely change the economy and our society in some fashion, but it will not mean the end of what makes our faith or country worthy.

Gawain de LeeuwLeave a comment

Thomas Frank on “Stupidly.”

And now comes Gates-gate, this latest burst of fake populism from the right. Waving the banner of the long-suffering working class, the tax-cutting friends of the top 2% have managed to dent the president’s credibility, to momentarily halt his forward movement on the health-care issue….

But when he sits down for that can of beer in the White House, it is another passage from his book that I hope Mr. Gates remembers. Speaking for liberal academics, he wrote in 1992 that “success has spoiled us; the right has robbed us of our dyspepsia; and the routinized production of righteous indignation is allowed to substitute for critical rigor.”

Today the cranking out of righteous indignation is a robust growth industry, and it threatens to do far worse than cloud our critical faculties. Help us to put the culture wars aside, Professor Gates. Too much is on the line these days.

The entire article.

Gawain de LeeuwLeave a comment

Happiness Secrets

I’m a “happiness junkie.”

After reading an Atlantic article on George Vaillant, I found his suggestions for happiness, especially for men

  • A good marriage before age 50
  • Ingenuity to cope with difficult situations
  • Altruistic behavior
  • Stop smoking
  • Do not use alcohol to the point where your behavior shames you or your family
  • Stay physically active. Walk, run, mow your own grass, play tennis or golf
  • Keep your weight down
  • Pursue education as far as your native intelligence permits
  • After retirement, stay creative, do new things, learn how to play again
    		•

    Gawain de LeeuwLeave a comment

    Lectionary for Proper 13

    2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a, John 6:24-35

    I’ll be preaching a bit on David, Bathsheba and Nathan tomorrow.

    David was a success in battle.  Now he is at leisure and has too much time on his hands.

    He has a wandering eye.  He sees Bathsheba.  She’s the wife of Uriah, who is a good guy, a bubba, a reliable chap, a good soldier.  You can rely on Uriah.  He might be a team leader or a commander himself.  He’s fought for his country well.   He was probably descended from an immigrant, the sort of immigrant who loves his new country and is very proud of it.  He’s a military man.

    So David commits adultery with his wife, and she gets pregnant.  And everyone will know that it will be David’s child.

    People in the court know.  They fetched her.  We don’t have her voice in the text, so we’re not sure if it was consensual, or if she submitted passively, or if she was seduced by his good looks and status, or if she was an opportunist.

    David does not want to be found out.  So he wants Uriah to lie with his wife so that David won’t take the blame.

    He hatches a plan, a clumsy one, to have Uriah killed.  The soldies will go to battle, and pull back.  But it is a transparent ploy; so to protect David, Joab sacrifices other soldiers so that it will remain a secret.  Most  likely, not only Uriah, but other soldiers died.

    In order to avoid being blamed, other people got hurt.

    David says, “oops.  Collateral damage.  We didn’t mean for that to happen.  We were at war.  And we had our enemies.  It is such a tragedy.”  It’s cynical, but he didn’t want to be discovered.

    I will probably discuss how easy it is to blame other people, rather than look at our own behavior.  It seems that lots of righteous people like to think of themselves as anointed.  Then they find ways, excuses, to justify their own actions.

    Jesus says, “for the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives lif to the world.”  Jesus is referring to the transcendent future.  Apart from the immediate world to which we easily react, Jesus is talking about the long view:  eternity.  This is the food that endures for eternal life.

    Most of the time, “thrill wins over will,” but with knowledge of the transcendent, a belief in eternity, we can live better lives now.  The really good stuff is a belief in a healthy future that helps us shape what is truly valuable.  But it is a narrow path, and requires discipline and vigilance.

    The benefits of magnanimity; of honesty; or restraining our desire is not always immediate.  They are long term.  And the scriptures commend and warn us:  our enemies are not undocumented workers, soldiers, gay people, straight people.  The work we must usually do begins with our own hearts.

    Gawain de LeeuwLeave a comment

    Returning from Vacation

    I’m back from vacation.

    A homeless woman asked me to fill her perscription for percocet.  My secretary, warning me not to be such a softie, said “We’ve got a big bottle of ibuprofen.”   My associate says, “Priest.  Drug dealer.”

    A parishioner tells me, “I don’t want him to burn in hell later.  I want him to burn in hell now.”

    Another parishioner thanks me for helping her body heal from cancer.  I don’t take credit.

    Four of us gather to discuss the bulletin for an hour.   We discuss for an hour topics like:

    1) why put music in the leaflet?

    2) why use 12 point font rather than 11 point font?

    3) Garamond vs Helvetica

    4) Why we should use incense during the mass?  Even if we don’t swing it around.  (This was, of course, a digression.

    5) Does everyone know the lord’s prayer?  Should we take it out of the leaflet to save space?

    6) Why do we have a leaflet anyway?

    7) Is it a homily or a sermon?

    8) Do we know when the bishop’s coming?

    Gawain de LeeuwLeave a comment

    Reflections on General Convention

    I’ve generally stayed out of the General Convention fray. After reading the long missives, the assertions, the arguments, the proposals and the plans I’ve come to a realization.

    I’m addicted to the internet.
    I need a media diet.

    Sometimes I’m moved by the occasional blog; inspired by a just cause; convinced by a conservative. But most of the time I think, “I just spent an hour, or two, doing what?”

    I could have written a small pamphlet explaining the liturgy to newcomers, or given Paul V a call. He just had a pacemaker put in. I should have taken out the trash and done some weeding. I could have reconnected with friends.

    Instead, engaging a screen.

    I can’t resist, however, making a few observations.

    • Although I’m a fan of the Archbishop, he is becoming more obscure.
    • When conservatives leave a church, there will be a greater number of liberals making policy.
    • Conservatives will remain surprised that there are more liberals in the church, confirming that conservatives are bad at math, except when calculating how many people are leaving the Episcopal Church.
    • Liberals aren’t very good at reading scripture.
    • GC wanted to remind people that we don’t submit to the queen of England anymore.
    • We submit to our own queens.
    • Although LGBT have positions of authority in every part of the Episcopal Church, they continue to think they don’t have power in the church. Don’t they know all the bishops still wear pink and lace?
    • GC addressed other issues besides sexuality. I’m not sure what, but they did.
    • And finally, the ABC has suggested a two track system for the church. I’m disappointed that it is only two.

    Gawain de LeeuwLeave a comment

    Obama’s Leadership on Health Care and DADT

    Obama seems to have disappointed liberals with his suggestions that progressives should stop hammering senators about health care, and his (lack of) speed at reforming “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.” I think they are examples of astute political leadership.

    First of all, even though Obama may make these suggestions, it does not mean Progressives should listen to dear leader and stop saying stuff. If anything, Obama is implying organize better. By simply not impeding progress, he is actually enabling forward movement – but the work will revolve around groups organizing popular support.

    What ideological progressives forget is that good politics is not a matter of diktat. Political calculus requires constantly negotiating between different competing interests. For this reason, Obama’s comments to progressives should be seen as shoring up as many favors and political capital as he possibly can among conservative Democrats. And it seems to be working. He has an impressive number of victories. Obama is carrying out his agenda with steady, if slow, progress, laying down a solid foundation for future political victories. He understands that politics is not done by shouting ideological platitudes at people. It’s done by building relationships. By showing loyalty to conservative democrats, he builds good will with them – capital he can spend later. It is a smart maneuver on his part.

    It does not mean we should obey him.

    If Obama presses too hard on DADT at this time, he may force conflict in a fashion that will undermine his tenuous relationship with the military establishment. If he were to push DADT now, he risks both losing that battle and making it impossible in the future to manage other important political issues, such as curtailing defense spending. He has stated his position about DADT clearly already: it will end. But he will do it when he has his ducks lined in a row so that other important policies don’t get sacrificed.

    This does not mean we should stop complaining. Not at all. I believe that Obama expects and desires that we organize. In fact, by being temperamentally conservative, he helps progressives avoid political complacency – which is exactly what happened under Clinton. They should not be frustrated that the organizer in chief is as conservative as he seems.

    His implicit message: continue organizing. It is enough that we have a president that will listen.

    Gawain de LeeuwLeave a comment

    Deliver Us From Evil

    Greta Christina has a review of the movie.

    Often I get visitors from the Roman Catholic Church. Many of them have been in congregations where priests have, in some way, abused their authority. A local pastor had a gambling addiction; the bishop had an affair; a priest in Croton had molested young boys. They say to me, “I love God and the church. I just can’t be in that family any more.”

    Andrew Greeley once argued that the fundamental problem is pride and secrecy. The priests don’t listen to the people; the bishops don’t listen to their priests, and the holy see doesn’t even listen to its bishops. People can report to priests; priests can report to the church, but as long as the imperial church places itself above the rule of the state, without being held accountable, it will continue to harm people and open itself to further disaster.

    In the early 1940’s a priest in my current church exposed himself to a young boy. He argued it was “sex education.” There was a local controversy. The wardens and half the vestry wanted to excuse the priest, but the bishop stepped in and in a letter argued, “what if it were your boy?” The bishop let the state handle it, and upon their verdict defrocked the priest. The bishop wrote a letter to the priest: “Our prayers are with you. But you have done irreparable harm to the family and to the church.” The case went to court. The bishop followed through.

    Thus, my experience has been of bishops doing the right thing, even when parishioners themselves were convinced otherwise. The church is a wide organization.

    I know the movie’s story. I get it a lot. I hear from people fleeing the church. Even my uncle, a Roman Catholic, joked with me after telling him about a break-up I’d had: “you aren’t the kind who likes little boys, are you?” He laughed, thinking he’d told an innovative, hilarious joke.

    “Heh. Funny.” I replied.

    I did not think it was funny.

    Ms. Christina is an Atheist. She isn’t content to be a secularist or a humanist, a skeptic or a materialist. Atheism is the true way of understanding the world. Religion is for idiots. It’s really about the supernatural. Justifiably, she carefully unpacks the inconsistencies of particular propositions uttered by the religious.

    It’s like shooting fish in a barrel, but she does it with passion.

    Here isher review.

    And I have a couple complaints.

    First, she believes she’s learned the entire nature of the church from a movie.

    Yes, a movie. Not much reading on the early fathers, or Aquinas, a church historian or even the New York Times.

    Here is what the church is about for Greta: When you teach people — especially children — that the only way to God and Heaven is through the rites of the Church, administered by Church authorities? When you teach people — especially children — that Church authorities have a special connection to God and goodness that ordinary people don’t have? When you teach people — especially children — that defying the Church and its earthly representatives will condemn you to permanent, infinite burning and torture?

    The Children!     I thought this was the standard fundamentalist cry!

    I understand: if you want to example the insanity of American Foreign policy, analyze Cuba; if you want to learn about graft, just examine how stadiums get built. We learn from lenses. And this is Christina’s lens. Is it the right one?

    While she turns to the harm that religious institutions do, I wonder how empirically different it is than the eight years of mismanagement and real harm done to the entire world by the previous political administration. Were they religious? Not really. The religious right were their electoral pawns. Most of the neo-conservatives weren’t Christian, or religious. But she seems, however, to think the church behaves differently than other institutions that are shaped without checks and balances.

    It’s a fairly pedestrian view: our culture doesn’t support sex and children. Blame the Catholic church! It just seems a little more tawdry than when it’s done in a public school or the boy scouts.

    Why doesn’t she ask what the church really says about itself, and what its intentions are? I learned it was motivated by a love of the world and all people, not merely political power, working for their interests. It may be that the two are intertwined, and that it is difficult to tell one from the other. It is a view that can, and should be challenged. But all the evidence should be laid out, not just the ones of the detractors.

    Arguing she understands the true maliciousness of religion through this movie is a lot like saying we know a lot about Germany by watching movies by Leni Riefenstahl. Or, saying that Stalin is a good example of Atheism in power. Is it absolutely true? Probably not. Did Germans participate? Are there atheists who would like to round up the dull and send them to Siberia? I’m sure a few. As she condemns the entire church, rightfully, for the coverup, there is an insinuation that somehow sexual abuse is worse because the church is the church. It reminds me a bit of how Michelle Malkin critiques Obama.

    It’s not as if atheists are the only people critiquing the church. So is the church. Plenty of Roman Catholic priests are already critiquing the institution. Ms. Christina overreaches in implying these terrible events represents the entirety of religious work, or that finally damns the religious “experience.” There is no doubt that the secrecy and lack of accountability destroyed the lives of many. Where as she might say it is all too religious. I would argue, it is all to human. Alas.

    Gawain de LeeuwLeave a comment

    The Consequences of Dealing with Iran Diplomatically

    In 2003, President Khatami offered a broad peace proposal to the US. He was rebuffed. The next election, Ahmedinejad was elected president.

    The previous president, while perhaps correct in assessing Iran’s ambitions, was successful in two things: making Iran the most powerful player in Iraq; and consolidating Iranian – and all Muslim – public opinion against the US. The president of Iran could use his own propaganda to cultivate a nationalist fervor that suppressed internal opposition in his own country.

    Iran is a deeply divided country. As the riots indicate, change is on the way against the mullahs. A good way to empower the theocrats, however, is to take a threatening stance against them.

    I believe that the consequence of Obama taking a softer, yet clear, stance toward Iran is the unleashing of the Iranian opposition. Without America acting like the great Satan, the hard-line element in Iran loses it’s greatest ally: an aggressive USA.

    But if Israel or the USA bombed Iran, it would be the greatest gift for Ahmedinejad and the revolutionary guard. All they know is war, and are egging for a fight.

    Obama knows that the real battle is not the USA vs. Muslims. Right now, it is really Muslims against Muslims.

    We are a side show. Best to stay out of the way and watch the wheels of progress turn.

    From an Iranian human rights advocacy group:

    American policy makers will feel the need to react. But they need to remember this isn’t about us. This is about Iran and Iranians seeking the right to determine their own future. The United States can help little and harm much by interjecting itself into the process. The Obama administration’s approach to the election — keeping its comments low-key and not signaling support for any candidate — was exactly the right approach. While tempting, empty and self-serving rhetorical support for Iranians struggling for more freedoms serves only to aid their opponents. History has made Iran wary of foreign meddling, and American policy-makers in particular must be sensitive to giving hardliners any pretense to call reform-minded Iranians foreign agents. That’s why Iran’s most prominent reformers, including Nobel-laureate Shirin Ebadi, have said the best thing the U.S. can do is step back and let Iran’s indigenous human rights movement progress on its own, without overt involvement from the U.S–however well intentioned.

    What were the real results? Here.

    Gawain de LeeuwLeave a comment