Dear Blue States

Someone sent me the following "dear red state" letter. In the spirit of promoting understanding I composed and sent back a "dear blue state" letter. Below is the first letter and my response. The level of ignorance in our culture sometimes astounds me, but education must always take an appropriate form or it will not be received.

Dear Red States:
If you had managed to steal this election too, we'd decided we would be leaving. We intended to form our own country, and we'd be taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren't aware, that includes California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split would have been beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.
To sum up briefly:

• You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states.
• You get Dollywood.
• We get Intel and Microsoft.
• You get WorldCom.
• We get Harvard.
• You get Ole' Miss.
• We get 85% of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs.
• You get Alabama.
• We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay heir fair share.
• Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22%lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families.
• You get a bunch of single moms.

Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq , and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire.With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control
of 80% of the country's fresh water, more than 90% of the pineapple and lettuce, 92% of the nation's fresh fruit, 95% of America's quality wines, 90% of all cheese, 90% of the high tech industry, 95% of the corn and soybeans (thanks Iowa!), most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT. With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88% of all obese Americans (and their
projected health care costs), 92% of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100% of the tornadoes, 90% of the hurricanes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100% of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia. We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you. Additionally, 38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62% believe life is
sacred unless we're discussing the war, the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% believe that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61% of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.Finally, we're taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico

Peace out,

Blue States

Dear Blue States,

We are so glad you are willing to split amicably.

Thanks to you, we get all the current cures from adult stem cell research, you get all the unrealistic promises of embryonic stem cell research along with the problems of tumor formation, with the added bonus that our women will not be forced to act as egg donation machines.

You get all the culture of death, we get to rest easy in our old age content in the knowledge that you will not be killing us off for our organs or simply because our care costs too much.

It is true that we will get all the disabled because we offer them the chance to live and participate in society, but we stand firm in the belief that they are worth every dime and effort.

We get Alaska and the Arctic Wildlife Refuge....drill, baby, drill!!

We won't have to worry about Iraq because Al-qaeda and the other terrorist freaks don't care about Alabama either. So don't expect us to defend your pacifist backsides.

You get most of the earthquakes and volcanos.

We get Glacier National Park and Yellowstone and all that great hunting. Plus the guns to get the job done.

And let's talk about that fresh water thing since we will also have the head of the Missouri, the Snake, Columbia and many the other rivers, not to mention most of the Ogallala aquifer. Seems like California will continue to have a fresh water problem.

We have the best geography for renewable energy sources and we're not afraid to use them, so keep your dirty coal!

You get to bail out the banks, auto industry, steel industry....have fun.

You get all the polluting industries. We get all the new biotech industries coming from the actual cures from adult stem cells, including custom grown body parts like tracheas. You get to kill embryos and chase promised future cures.

We LIKE religious people, we may even get more muslims, hindus, etc, since they don't like the culture of death either.

Without your nanny state interference mosquitoes won't be a problem because we will start using DDT again. Yahoo!

You get to keep Hollywood, thank you.

We get the bald eagle.

And finally, in spite of the fact that you keep calling us names, we still love you.

God Bless,
Red States

Curiosity is a precondition for attaining wisdom

"I directed my mind to know, to investigate and to seek wisdom and an explanation, and to know the evil of folly and the foolishness of madness." Ecclesiastes 7:25

Wisdom and knowledge seem to have become the rejected cornerstones of civilization in today's world of sound-bite discourse which seeks only to assign blame and evil motives to "'the other/enemy" for causing one unpredictable and unsolvable "crisis" after another. I have observed that many of the people who claim to so ardently support "world peace" or "the environment" or any other such grandiose ideal, actually know very little about their cherished subject. When pressed about what exactly should be done about the subject they respond with a vague course of action but without any comprehension of any complexities or awareness of counter or alternative arguments. Mostly, they just want to talk about how someone or some group is evil and responsible for the mess. But, once again, when pressed they cannot point to anything with specificity. And most certainly there is never the attempt to demonstrate causality.

For example, today, I watched a debate on foreign policy and economics, and both sides talked grandiosely, but only one side acknowledged that our country's interests were not the only ones in the world. Only one side seemed to realize that other countries have their own motivations and goals and that those might be in direct conflict with ours. Neither was willing to admit that they could not deliver everything promised. Both sought to assign blame. Only one came close to admitting responsibility. It was a depressing excuse for a "debate". But more depressing was the so called analysis where the talking heads distilled the sound bites as to tell everyone whose sound bite was the most "memorable" and thus who "won". Nothing about the issues, nothing about anything of substance or detail.

I have talked to people who were for "world peace" but had only the vaguest of ideas what was going on in the world outside their borders. They usually have heard of the "war du jour" that the media is currently hyping, but when pressed are profoundly ignorant beyond the partisan "talking points". They admire certain world leaders but know absolutely nothing about any policies said leaders are enacting in their country. They admire certain philosophers without ever really thinking about where the advocated philosophy would logically lead if followed.

None of this disturbs me as much as the current trend of people who profess strong emotional opinions about certain issues while exhibiting a complete lack of curiosity about those same issues. They do not search out information about the topic. They do not consult with anyone or read anything that offers a counter opinion. They do not care if the "facts" bandied about are actually true.

This willful ignorance could be tolerated if it were not so often coupled with a complete contempt, even irrational hatred, of anyone professing a contrary opinion.

But it makes sense, after all, if you suspect your cherished and emotionally satisfying opinion is wrong, you will tend to discount the evidence against it. After a while you won't be discounting the evidence, you will simply not see it. Soon, there is no reason to suspect your cherished opinion might be wrong, because you haven't seen or heard anything to the contrary. And besides, everyone you know agrees that anyone saying otherwise is a malicious liar. Hence, there is no place for curiosity because you have certainty.

Its a dangerous place to be. Remember "when they say 'peace and safety' then will the end come upon them" (I thess 5) People instinctively know their peace of mind is precarious so they seek to preserve it by forcefully silencing any voice that might cause a crack in their dam of righteousness. Because once the truth penetrates, then indeed it is a disaster for a mind that has closed itself off from inquiry, from self-examination, from awareness of sin.

When we finally stop wondering "why"? When we begin to think we know and understand it all, when we begin to leap first to evil intentions for explaining the motivations of those we disagree with... then suddenly ignorance clouds our minds and we become thoughtless. We are no longer self-aware and so do not even realize the magnitude of what we have lost. Lord, preserve me from self-blindness and willful ignorance. Grant me always an awareness of my sins, a contrite heart, and the grace to continually move closer to you and further from myself.

Ultimately, peace at any level is a matter of a correctly ordered relationship to God. We cannot achieve peace by silencing others, or coercing them. We can act to protect the innocent, of course, and seek to enact and uphold just laws that protect human dignity from conception to natural death. But beyond that we must always pray. Pray for those who do not yet see Truth, for those who turn a blind eye, for those who plug their ears and harden their hearts. And we need to remember that God is at the heart of every truth.

On rationalizing wrong (part I)

Prov. 17:15 "He who condones the wicked, he who condemns the just,
are both an abomination to the Lord."

It occurs to me that not once did Jesus ask the sinners why they sinned. He did not ask the tax collector why he felt he needed the money so much that he cheated his fellow man. He did not inquire into the circumstances of the adulterous woman. No, he just forgave and told them to go and sin no more.

It seems to me that we as rationalizing, not necessarily rational, creatures, are always trying to excuse our wrongs. Collectively we seem to have decided that if a person has a sufficiently "grave" reason to do something that the church calls evil, then it somehow becomes not only permissible but a positive good. In effect we have become a people who condone evil.

But Jesus was not interested in our excuses. It did not matter why the woman had turned to adultery or why the tax collector stole. Our circumstances and intentions may affect the level of punishment due, but they never alter the fact that punishment IS due. A sin is a sin is a sin regardless of why we commit it. We are, after all, fallen creatures and sin is inevitable.

However there are certain habits of thought that seem to think that because we are inclined to sinful behaviors that it follows that such behaviors are natural to humans and thus not really sinful at all, or conversly some people are only inclined to forgive others for those sins they personally do not really consider sinful but hold "real" sins unforgiven. Either way evil becomes dependent on our individual or collective human judgment and not on what God has revealed.

There are no acceptable excuses for sinning in the bible as far as I can tell and the list of sins is, quite frankly, terrifying. There is also the honest acknowledgment of our fallen nature and a continual call to repentance. God forgives us freely....but first we have to see we NEED forgiveness and then we must ASK for forgiveness and then we must KEEP TRYING to live a holy life.

It is not easy. But Jesus did not want us focused on the reasons for our sinful behavior per se, so much as He wanted us to focus on our salvation. Jesus said the way was hard and the path narrow. Saint Paul wrote about it as running a race. Excuses sidetrack us, they redirect our focus from the finish line and instead tempt us to stop running or worse lead us to run down a side path that leads us away from Him. Why we sin should concern us only in that such understanding can help us to avoid continually falling into the same sin and help us to refocus our ultimate goal.

It was never intended to be easy....thank God His grace is sufficient.

Proverbs 15:10

Proverbs 15:10
"Severe punishment is in store for the man who goes astray;
he who hates reproof will die."

I was reading this verse awhile back and, as often happens with scripture, I suddenly saw a verse I had read so many times in a completely different light. I had always thought it a tad redundant to point out both punishment and death for sin. 'yes' I thought to myself, 'the wages of sin is death'.

But that is not really what this verse says. It starts with the standard 'sins are punished' terminology, but then the second part of the verse is not talking punishment for our sins in general anymore. It is speaking to a very specific sin.

"He who hates reproof will die" speaks to the unrepentant sinner. Jesus promises us that death has no hold on us now. But of course that promise is contingent on our behavior. Not that we are expected to never sin, but we are expected to repent and keep turning away from sin and back to God.

I have always viewed guilt as a gift from God because it keeps me humble. A virtue that is not natural to my personality. Left to my own devises I would rest content in the rightness of all my actions. It is God's reproof of my actions that allows me to hear my conscience, see the sin, acknowledge that I was wrong, and turn to God in sorrow asking for forgiveness. I rejoice in confession!

I suspect I am in the minority. So many see it as a necessary torture to keep from going to hell instead of an apology that keeps my relationship with God healthy. It comes down to motivation. Do we go to confession in order to avoid the negative consequences of our sin or because we wish to repair the damage that sin has caused in our relationship with Christ?

This attitude toward apologies is echoed all around us in our human relationships. How many of us know those who are quick to acknowledge fault and seek forgiveness? How many of us know those who insist apologies are never needed? How many of us know those who offer an apology only when discovered and then only to deflect the well earned anger and hurt of the offended party?

Those in the first category are those we count among our most cherished friends. They make us feel special to them, and more importantly, the quick and sincere apology is a balm on the inevitable hurts inflicted on all relationships between two fallen creatures.

When we interact with those in the last category, who only offer an apology to avoid some consequence, we may limp along in the relationship, but it is never quite as joy-filled as it could be. We are never as eager to share our joys and sorrows with them as we would with the first group. The relationship survives but at a minimum.

Do we ever remain in relationship with the second category of people? Can you have a relationship with someone who would hurt you and never acknowledge your pain? Never acknowledge what they did was hurtful to you? Should you remain in a relationship with someone who is willing to hurt you and let you continue hurting rather than say 'I'm sorry'?

When we think about our relationship with God do we consider His side? What kind of relationship are we creating with Him? I want to be a person in the first category. When God reprimands me because of my actions I want to be quick to say "I am so sorry, I didn't know I had hurt you so much, I will honestly try never to do that again, but please understand it may be hard and I may have to keep apologizing for the same thing for awhile".

I hope never to be in the second category and refuse God's reprimand. Sin damages my relationship with God. Unrepentant sin destroys our relationship with God. God is life and without Him there is only death.

Thy Brother's keeper....not!

Luke 6: 37, 41
"Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven."
Why do you notice the splinter in your brother's eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own?"

How often do we pause to reflect on the unintended harm we have caused in our lives? I mean harm we might not even be aware of causing. The unintended insult, the scandal we caused that may still be leading others astray, the tactless way we speak the truth, etc. How often do we pray for all those we might have hurt or led into sin? I know that confession removes our guilt, but we must still deal with the temporal consequences of sin.

How often to we receive with gratitude correction of our wrong behavior? How often are we thankful when someone points out that we have failed? Do we pray for those who cause us the shame and guilt that comes with having our faults pointed out and our behavior corrected? I know we all say we want to follow Christ, but are we willing to be led?

I am reminded of an incident in my own life over a decade ago. I worked at a restaurant where a friend of mine was an assistant manager. I only worked there for a few months, but during that time, a young, unmarried co-worker of mine had miscarried and I said something to the effect of "its all for the best" by which I meant to offer her comfort in her loss. (Yeah, I now know how stupid I was.)

Now, I became aware of my COLOSSAL failure to give comfort nearly three years later when the manager announced that he had finally fired her because she kept refusing to serve anyone in my extended family when they went to the restaurant where she and my assistant manager friend still worked.

I quickly went to my friend, the assistant manager, who was also friends with this young woman. I asked her how long she had known that this woman was hurt and angry by what I had said. She replied that she had known all along and it was wrong of the manager to let me know about this ongoing saga. Of course I was hurt and embarrassed to find out that I had been accused of being mean and everyone knew about it except me. Which brings us to the above quotes.

Both of these quotes are well known and often cited, even if they are often incorrectly understood by our modern culture. My friend, the assistant manager, was being very "non-judgmental" in not "getting in the middle" of a dispute. She had not rushed to point out the splinter of "lacking empathy" in my comments. She did not condemn my insensitivity or the young woman's retaliation. She remained friends with us both and nothing changed as far as her relationships with each one of us was concerned. But was this a christian, or even a wise, thing to do? Her non-judgmental position required that she take two very unkind actions.

First, she did not seek to offer the young woman true comfort, hope, and peace. Oh I'm sure she said something to the effect of "don't let it get to you" or "what does she know". But she most definitely did not tell her friend "I'm sorry she hurt you, but I'm sure she didn't really mean what you think" or "she probably didn't mean it that way, she was probably just trying to make you feel better and did a very poor job of it." There is a world of difference between commiserating and seeking to bring peace and consoling to others.

The former means you let stand the interpretation of the person you are commiserating with, while the latter means that you must actively try to change their interpretation of what happened. The latter means we try to help others to see the good in everyone, give them the benefit of the doubt, or, if that fails, try to help them forgive the one who has hurt them. We do this not because we necessarily care about the person who caused the hurt but because we very much care about our friend and want to see them grow in holiness. We wish them to be at peace and not tossed on the ocean of unforgiving emotions. The path of un-forgiveness is ugly and we should not only strive to avoid it ourselves, but help others to avoid it as well. It is a path that stunts us and turns us into envious, angry, resentful creatures lacking in all empathy and concern for others. Such a path lets us see only the bad in others while seeing only the good in ourselves. Which brings me to the second part of the quote.

By "not taking sides" in the dispute, my friend left the splinter in my eye. She assumed that I meant to my words in the spirit in which they were received and I remained ignorant of the pain I caused. She missed the opportunity to help me to be a better person. I cringe when I think that I may have said something similar to other grieving mothers in an attempt at compassion. How many others did I hurt in my insensitivity? I will probably never know how much damage I caused in those three years until it was brought home to me just how insensitive my remarks were. Just because they were offered in the correct spirit, their damage is not excused. Further, our effectiveness in communicating requires that we have a good foundation in understanding our audience and how to say what we have to say in the manner most likely to be heard by others. I obviously failed to offer consolation in a manner which would actually give that young woman comfort. In fact, I did the exact opposite and hurt her when I meant to help.

I did apologize to the young woman and explain that I never meant to hurt her. Our mutual friend had denied both of us the opportunity to grow into better people. She had failed to help either of us develop greater empathy. She had let the young woman live with a bleeding wound on her soul for almost three years and let me go on remaining ignorant of just how unkind my words were. But her actions were not meant to hurt anymore than mine were. She acted as our culture teaches us to be: in a very non-judgmental and commiserating way.

You never see Oprah pontificating on the need for us to view the actions of other people in the best, most forgiving light possible. You never hear about anyone actually going to an offending person about something they have done wrong because they care about the person and want them to become better people. Instead the culture around us encourages us to take offense and view what was said/done in the worst possible light. Conversely, that same culture tells us that we cannot "judge" other people even if that means we must ignore, or even accept, their bad behavior.

So my friend, acting in a very "non-judgmental" way, did not try to change the young woman's interpretation of my comments. Nor did she confront me about my insensitive behavior. Instead she was exactly the kind of friend the world encourages. And it breaks my heart because I so desperately need friends who will lead me to forgiveness and correct me in my ignorance. We all do.

Choose you therefore life!

Deuteronomy 30:15-20
"Look, today I am offering you life and prosperity, death and disaster. If you obey the commandments of Yahweh your God, which I am laying down for you today, if you love Yahweh your God and follow his ways, if you keep his commandments, his laws and his customs, you will live and grow numerous, and Yahweh your God will bless you in the country which you are about to enter and make your own. But if your heart turns away, if you refuse to listen, if you let yourself be drawn into worshipping other gods and serving them, I tell you today, you will most certainly perish; you will not live for long in the country which you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. Today I call heaven and earth to witness against you: I am offering you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life, then, so that you and your descendants may live, in the love of Yahweh your God, obeying his voice, holding fast to him; for in this your life consists, and on this depends the length of time that you stay in the country Yahweh swore to your ancestors..."

The book of Deuteronomy doesn't get a lot of respect in todays sophisticated age. It seems to be the book everyone turns to when they want to demonstrate that belief in the scriptures as the inspired word of God leads to a whole host of stupid, irrational, brutal or silly things that believers used to believe in but now we moderns "know better" and can just put all those rule things to rest once and for all.

It speaks of a different age and for many it might as well speak to a different age. What with all the accursings and the stoneings and the dos and don't, it just comes across as so intolerant. But looking deeper we can see that human nature has not changed. We still fail and fall and must be constantly exhorted to do the right thing.

When I first opened a bible over fifteen years ago, I was captivated by the passage quoted above. I had long believed that we chose almost every action we took in life. We may not like the choices we were faced with, but to my mind, that did not negate the fact that we had a choice. Becoming a practicing Roman Catholic has altered my ideas about what a good choice means, but my underlying belief in our affecting deliberate and conscious decisions has not.

Of course, I have since come to realize that not everyone (hardly anyone) really spends all that much time analyzing their actions and determining the points where they choose one path over another and trying to determine the motivations behind choosing one path over another. But its my blog so I can analyze to my hearts content.

Back to the quoted passage. It struck me then that God did not say "I put two really good options out there for you to try', nor did he say "You have one good choice and one bad choice". Instead He first tells us that He is offering us life and death (salvation or damnation). Then He points out the criteria for receiving life: love God and obey Him; and the criteria for receiving death: refusing to listen to Him and following other gods.

Then, after laying out what choosing life entails (loving God and obeying his commandments) and what choosing death entails (loving other gods and not obeying God) he FINALLY offers us a choice and even gives us a hint on the correct answer (choose life). Can't get any clearer than that.

And indeed you can't get any clearer. But that doesn't mean we can't get murkier. It depends on what the definition of sin is. And we decide that choices made in less than ideal situations aren't really exercises of free will. Pretty soon we forget our purpose on earth and our eternal homeland.

Deuteronomy isn't the first time in scripture that God calls us to love Him, to choose Him, and it isn't the last time, but it is a particularly poetic reminder of our choices... and their consequences.