A Pair of Post-Something Band I Like

The Decembrists

The Decembrists have emerged as one of my favorite bands over the last couple months. I was originally intrigued on Pandora, but it was my friend Justin’s recommendation that got me to actually purchase an album. They can be incredibly dark, but very sweetly so. People die in Decembrist songs with a frequency comparable the novels we read in high school English. By my count 61% of the songs in 'The Crane Wife' and 'Picaresque' involve a death of some kind[1]. The Shankill Butchers is the best example. It is an intoxicatingly beautiful song about religious massacre that I find myself singing to my little girl in the grocery store:

And everybody knows if you don't

Mind your mother's words

A wicked wind will blow

Your ribbons from your curls

Everybody moan, everybody shake

The Shankill Butchers want to catch you awake

But they can also be sweetly dark (with the stress on the sweet). Charis and I have often danced around the living room to After the Bombs:

After the bombs subside

And this long, low campaign

Calls it good for the night

We meet in the streets

Will we meet in a bar’s cold light?

We grip at our hands

We hold just a little tight

Then we’ll go dancing

Yes, we’ll go dancing

Won’t we go dancing?

Until it all starts over again

But the other day it suddenly struck me, the Decembrists are the quintessential postmodern band[2]. Now I use the word postmodern[3] neither as a pejorative nor as an epistemological savior. I don’t believe in ‘the good old days’ philosophically but I don’t believe we are marching triumphally forward either.[4] Postmodern values and tendencies are often beautiful and true and often flawed and dangerous…putting it in good company with every world view permutation that we have been through. But at the heart of what postmodernism means[5] is the rejection of meta-narrative, large stories with explanatory power for vast swaths of reality, in favor of situated story telling that has limited scope but can be easily adopted as part of a fragmented mosaic of meaning. Most indie bands might be horrified to learn that they are still desperately modern, appealing to broad moral categories to tell their angst ridden, over arching tale of establishment failure.[6] But not the Decembrists. They are all about situated narrative.

Colin Meloy is a story teller. Nearly every song The Decembrists sing has characters and a narrative arc. And, as if being a story telling inde band didn’t make them distinctive enough…as if to exacerbate the role of situatedness in their music…the stories often are set against a backdrop of a specific historical event.

The Crane Wife 1, 2, and 3 are based on a Japanese folk tale
Yankee Bayonet is a love story from the Civil War south
Many think The Island is based on Shakespeare’s Tempest
The Shankil Butchers is about anti-Catholic violence and terrorism in the Northern Ireland conflicts of the 1970’s that included late night abductions and throat slashing
The Bagman’s Gambit is probably based on the late 80’s sex for secrets scandal
The Mariner’s Revenge Song and A Cautionary Song are set against the nineteenth century Atlantic maritime trade though the former definitely borrows themes from the book of Jonah

Even their name – The Decemberists – refers to a specific movement of proto-communist revolution in early 19th century Russia

Additionally, they experiment with non-linear story telling, often cited as another symptom of postmodern sensibility[7]. The Crane Wife album opens with its most lovely song. The Crane Wife 3, however is the conclusion of the album’s 11 minute bifurcated ninth track.

The Decemberists are certainly not ideology free. Colin has some strongly held and widely know beliefs. But they do not engage in a didactic, ideological frontal attack. Instead they tell stories that can be adopted as discrete units of meaning into our navigational apparatus fragmented by information overload.
Rilo Kiley

I am relatively confident that Rilo Kiley would also self identify as a postmodern band. At times it even seems like they are trying too hard with song titles like: Don’t Deconstruct[8] or Science vs Romance. But, while they intentionally tap into postmodern themes, they are not as experientially postmodern as the Decembrists[9]. However, while I was listening to my favorite Rilo song the other day (Picture of Success), it struck me, they are the best example of a post-Feminist[10] band I listen to. By post-Feminist, I neither mean that feminism has failed nor that it has yet accomplished all of its valuable societal goals. What I mean is that it has been a widely accepted ideology and we are currently living with two types of consequences of that acceptance: (1) intended and (2) unintended.[11] I think Rilo Kiley’s music explores the emotional costs and benefits of navigating these consequences.

First the relational and sexual themes:

They question the value of marriage on the title track of More Adventurous:

Wanting to say I will as my last testament

For me to be saved and you to be brave

We don't have to walk down that aisle

Because if marriage ain't enough

Well, at least we'll be loved (More Adventurous)

Yet seem to long for a sustaining beauty and commitment that is, at the same time entirely original and unlike the relational norms provided by previous generation:

I'm only a woman

Of flesh and bone

And I wept much

We all do I thought

I might die alone
…
So let's take a loan out

Put it down on a house

In a place we've never lived

In a place that exists

In the pages of scripts

And the songs that they sing

And all of the beautiful things

That make you weep

But don't have to make you weak (I Never)

But she is startlingly honest about the fundamentally unsatisfying nature of contemporary relationships and sexual gender roles, where sex comes too soon and seems encapsulate the vast majority of male interest. She seems disillusioned with the results of post-Feminist sexual expectations:

There's blood in my mouth Because

I've been biting my tongue all week

I keep on talking trash but I never say anything

And the talking leads to touching

And the touching leads to sex

And then there is no mystery left

And it's bad news Baby, I'm bad news

I'm just bad news, bad news, bad news

I know I'm alone if I'm with or without you

But just being around you offers me another form of relief

When the loneliness leads to bad dreams

And the bad dreams lead me to calling you

And I call you and say, "C'MERE!"
…
There's a pretty young thing in front of you

And she's real pretty and she's real into you

And then she's sleeping inside of you

And the talking leads to touching

And the touching leads to sex

And then there is no mystery left (Portions for Foxes)

It seems to me that the sexual revolution was a remarkably clever hoax. The male sexual urges were projected onto women by suggesting that equality of professional and personal opportunity was somehow validated by, in the famous words of that skinny, shoe-philic, blond character that used to be on HBO, “having sex like a man”[12]. I suspect that if I was an alien that was studying earthlings during the 60’s and 70’s[13] I might have concluded that an arrangement had been made: men would open professional opportunities to women in exchange loosening the extramarital sexual ethic. This is, obviously not how it went down. Professional and sexual opportunities were both intended consequences of the movement. But, in my opinion, only the former was pro-woman.

I think Rilo’s more interesting post-Feminist themes, however, deal with the juxtaposition of opportunity and expectation. Consider the following excerpt from Picture of Success.

build your own television receiver

staying home can't be that bad for me

cause i'm not scared

but i'd like some extra spare time

easily earn me big money

i'm a modern girl but i fold in half so easily

when i put myself in the picture of success

i could learn world tradeor try to map the ocean

they say california is a recipe for a black hole

and i say i've got my best shoes on

i'm ready to go (ready to go)

i'm ready to go X15

these are times that can't be weathered

and we have never been back there since then

The line ‘I’m a modern girl, but I fold in half so easily’ is at the heart of why I consider this a post-feminist anthem. She has nearly unlimited options, and is equipped with a world view of equality and capability, but finds the world brutal and dehumanizing (highlighted by a ubiquitous, alternate theme of death interspersed throughout the track).

I guess Picture of Success could be a basic coming of age song. I personally resonate with the themes deeply. But there is something decidedly feminine about it. The resolution of strapping on your best shoes and taking on the task of being a modern girl gives me the impression that Jenny Lewis is facing different coming of age challenges than I am.[14] Lewis skillfully articulates the tyranny of unlimited possibility…the loneliness of individual expectation…and uncertainty in the face of multiplying demands. Most of us resonate with these themes, but I think contemporary western women have more societal expectations than either gender bore in previous generations.

I am much more interested in the intended and unintended consequences of Feminism since I became the father of two girls. Honestly, I think I really started connecting with this band after Charis was born. I am thrilled that she will have nearly unlimited professional opportunity[15]…but I am nervous about what the cacophony of contemporary (and often conflicting) demands women navigate in our culture will do to her. And I desperately hope that she rejects the hoax of female sexual conquest and anti-marriage sentiment. I want to do what I can to raise her with a brave and confident expectation that she can do anything she puts her hand to…but that her value and humanness are not defined by those tasks. _________________________
[1] More disturbingly, he will sometimes sing about rape like in The Island or A Cautionary Song. I read somewhere: ‘One thing I like about the Decemberists is that they put really horrible stuff in their lyrics without trivializing them.” I think that is a pretty interesting analysis. (Footnote on the footnote: I love this youtube clip that also includes A Cautionary Song. They are at Messiah College, a Christian school where my friend Tiffany went...and someone throws a bra at Colin.)
[2] There are occasional existential themes as well…most notably “A terrible autonomy/Is grafted onto you and me/Our trust put in the government/They told their lies as heaven-sent” – which is surely influenced by Sartre.
[3] I know that ‘postmodern’ has never had a single meaning and has become even less descriptive as time has passed. But I have not encountered a better signifier of the half dozen or so, cultural moods that typify our post-Cartesian thought forms…so I will doggedly continue use it.
[4] As Tim Keller says, ‘Our grandchildren will almost certainly be embarrassed by huge swaths of what we believe.’
[5] Or at least used to mean.
[6] And, to be fair, I usually love it.
[7] You can see how this would undermine the importance of meta-narrative and focus attention on the specific contribution of a narrative fragment.
[8] This might indicate that they see themselves a post post-structural or something like that.
[9] It has often been said that as soon as you start talking about post-modernism in categories of system you are being modern. This is certainly what I am doing in this essay, and strikes me as what Rilo is up to.
[10] Again, I realize my categories lack precision here. But this is a theme I would like to explore so I will proceeded within the limitations of my sparse understanding.
[11] Feminism has also had positive and negative consequences (and I would argue, more positive than negative), but these do not have a 1-to-1 correspondence with the intended and unintended.
[12] I have never been able to tolerate ‘Sex in the City.’ But I do think that, in a sense, they were dealing with the same post-feminist themes of opportunity, expectation and, mostly, if the sexual revolution was actually a win for women…or a masculine hoax.
[13] So I could make visual observation undetected by didn’t understand language.
[14] And then there is her voice, which (I think intentionally) exudes brave little girl in a big scary world.
[15] And am hopefull that this will be even closer to a reality when she actually leaves our house.

Fragments and Links 3: Blogs, Television and Other Random Thoughts...

From time to time I like to post fragmentary ideas that are not extensive enough for their own posts and links that I have found helpful or fun. I can’t think of anyone who would find every one of these entries interesting. But I think most of you will get into some of them. I encourage skimming and skipping.

I would like to recommend a recent post by my friend Joel. Joel lives in Tennessee and decided to take a road trip one day to ‘the world’s largest 10 commandments.’ He brings his characteristic dry wit and eye for tactile detail to the outing. It is a deeply enjoyable bit of prose. Here is my favorite excerpt: “The prayer mountain also included the Witness Tree, which was, as the sign explains, destroyed by lightning (an act of God?) after it was designated to be the Witness Tree” You can’t make this stuff up.

I don’t know Stacy…I don’t even remember how I happened on her blog…but I HIGHLY recommend her brief guide to sabotaging a Sunday school white elephant gift exchange. I can almost guarantee that you will laugh out loud.

My brother, Nic, has been writing on the topic of contentment and ‘what life consists of’ lately. I think this idea ‘manly domesticity’ is a resource men of my generation simply were not provided. I think Nic is building something of real value here (and here).

…daylight – a blog I have started following, pointed me to this exchange:

Some guy is whining about Kimball’s thriving church in Santa Cruz. This is a tune I have heard with disturbingly frequency since I started perusing blogs…’anyone who has a big church must have sold out, only misisonal house churches are biblical.’ The discussion goes back and forth. Kimball gets involved. And then Tim Keller joins in. There are 3 things I love about this exchange:

1. Keller lays the smack down. “What I am wary of is lifting up just one of the models as ‘the wave of the future’ as some in the missional church movement seem to be doing.”[1] I could not agree more. I will post on this in more detail later but ‘biblical ecclesiology’ is intentionally underspecified. God intended freedom.
2. Keller posts at 6:27 am and calls it “late-night reverie” Even when you take the max continental time change into account…Keller[2] is sticking up for Kimball on a blog around 3:26 am. That is pretty cool.
3. After Keller’s quote a guy named Andy Rowell, who must have been as surprised as me to see Keller weigh in on a blog, joins in with this: “At first I was wondering whether Tim Keller’s comment was really him or an impersonator–you know Deutero-Keller[3]. But then I pulled out my tools–used for determining whether Paul or one of his students Deutero-Paul wrote the Pastoral Epistles–and you will be glad to know that by comparing word choice and theology with widely attested Keller writings, I was able to determine that indeed that it is highly plausible that Keller left the comment above.” This is the hardest I have laughed in weeks…if that makes me a nerd, so be it.

This, of course, reminds me of the brilliant xkcd cartoon.

It recently occurred[4] to me that Adam (the first one, you know, back in Genesis) was a scientist. He did biological taxonomy[5] before he got into gardening. Does that make science 'the world's oldest profession'?

Matt Chandler, pastor of The Village church in Dallas said, during his sermon on Luke 12, that there are 2103 verses in our scriptures that address the poor and the oppressed. It seems to me that is something like 2090 more than address homosexuality. It also seems to me that the Bible is authoritative not only in its content but also in its emphasis. I have no response to the $73 million that was spent in support of prop 8 except ‘I am really, really sorry.’[6]

I have been enjoying the TED website. TED is an ideas conference sponsored by NPR that takes place in California each year. I often dump several of the free talk MP3s onto my player with audio books, good sermons and philosophy/theology lectures. I think James Howard Kunstler’s has been my favorite so far.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_suburbia.html

It’s bombastic and overstated[7], but I really agree that, as a culture, religious and non-religious people have been united in the idea that the aesthetic value of our built environment does not really matter[8]. We are architectural pragmatists and it has left us with places not worth caring about. The two biggest mistakes Buffalo ever made were putting the Bills in Orchard Park and UB in Amherst. When you could buy huge tracks of downtown for a song, they decided to put their cultural assets in the suburbs and so their urban renewal has not remotely kept pace with those in Pittsburg, Cleveland or other rust belt communities...except for Detroit. Our built environments impact our humanness and our spiritual vitality. Why do you think the New Jerusalem is so AWESOME. Because the built environment matters.

My favorite song right now is ‘Passing Afternoon’ by Iron and Wine

There are things that drift away like our endless, numbered days

Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made
And she's chosen to believe in the hymns her mother sings
Sunday pulls its children from their piles of fallen leaves

There are things we can't recall, blind as night that finds us all
Winter tucks her children in, her fragile china dolls

There are names across the sea, only now I do believe
Sometimes, with the windows closed, she'll sit and think of me
But she'll mend his tattered clothes and they'll kiss as if they know
A baby sleeps in all our bones, so scared to be alone

I love the use of the seasons and the details of life as the markers and metaphors for mortality. It is beautiful and heartbreaking…in the best possible way.


Hall and Oats were on the Daily Show a little while ago, which reminds me…when I was a kid I thought they were a band called Hallin' Oats (as in what a trucker does).

So I am preaching and hanging out at our Church’s on campus ministry. It has been a blast. I have found the students to be refreshing, authentic and creative…here is the best example yet of the later:“

…Freedom indeed.” Just a quality effort by Nic, Cory, Joey, Frank and Gary.

The guys were riffing off of the Youtube legends Barats and Barreta who have put together a number of transcendent shorts. Here is one of their recent masterpieces. The Bible in under a minute:.

…boring genealogy… Outstanding

I was listening to a Dricoll MP3 the other day and was shocked to hear him say "I find most preachers are introverts." At first I didn’t believe him, but then I realized that the hypothesis held up empirically against my data set. And it makes sense. Even thought preaching is a deeply public act, if you follow standard rules of thumb (1 hour of prep for each minute of preaching…which is about what it takes for me) the vast majority of your time is spent alone.

I am reading Augustine’s City of God with a few guys. The 1000 page tome is dominating much of my discretionary reading time, which means this blog will be the ‘beneficiary’ of a steady diet of Augustine quotes. So let’s start with this one from Book III that startled me since I had always heard how anti-woman Augustine was:

"In the period between the first and second Punic wars, the law called Lex Voconia was passed, forbidding the appointment of a woman, even an only daughter, as heir. I can not quote, or even imagine, a more inequitable law.”

And here is a talk I gave on Augustine at my brother’s church:


I, like most of the people I share a generation with, hate to be thought of as simple or unsophisticated. So it is with not-insignificant shame that I confess that my favorite show on television right now is 'Chuck'. If you gave up on Chuck after the campy pilot or just thought the set up seemed ridiculous, I recommend giving season 2 a shot online (for example, on Hulu.com). The characters are extremely fun and the love story has a legitimate obstacle, allowing the relationship to grow in a gradual and organic manner.

Speaking of pilots, they tend to be a poor convention. A pilot has to do lot of exposition and back story and tend to be uncharacteristic of what the show will actually be like. The pilot for Chuck, for example, came off campy and preposterous because they just had to do too much too fast.

This reminds me of one of my classic rants that I have trotted out a couple times recently. I feel like the ideal narrative arc tends to be between 15 and 30 hours for visual media. A movie tends to be too short to really build character and revel in dialog. But by the time you get a couple seasons into a television series, you have to undo some of the stuff you have done (e.g. break up couples, diminish previous achievements, etc) in order to maintain narrative tension. So, I think that one to two seasons is the ideal narrative length for visual media. For example, Band of Brothers was only one season and there was no hint of artificial plot twists to keep the story moving forward. Unfortunately, the holy grail of syndication is not available until a show has run for 4 seasons, forcing the creative class to stretch their premise thin so they can make the 'real' money in syndication.

Even the best television show of all times (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) dropped off between seasons 3 and 4. While seasons 4 through 7 are better than almost any thing else on television right now, they did not hold up to the dramatic quality of the first 3 seasons.

If it seems like I have a lot to say about TV for someone who doesn't have one, the Netflx/online streaming technologies has healed me of my cinematic snobbery[9]. I realized that some of the best stories we are generating are on the small screen. I just want more control over quality and supply, so these newer technologies protect me from my addictive personality.

I have seen some disturbing junk marketed to Christians in my time…ruthless profiteering off Jesus, his message and his people.[10] But I can’t remember a more disturbing product than this.[11] If you don’t get the ‘joke’ consider yourself fortunate. So, I can’t help but wonder, shouldn’t the interpretation come on the back or in a matching ‘I’m with stupid’ sort of set.

In the unlikely event that you were interested in my actual research, the citation and abstract for my latest paper is online: Here.


My next post will likely be on The Decemberists. But until then, the most entertaining interview I have read in some time was this brief exchange with Colin Meloy’s wife Carson Ellis. Here is the highlight:

SM: T.S. Eliot, C.S. Lewis and William Blake have all separately asked you tothe upcoming prom. Who gets to pin the corsage?
CE: C.S. Lewis, but I might get drunk and leave with William Blake....
…


SM: Please compose a short poem or haiku about whatever you'd like.
CE:Ode to C.S. Lewis'
Neath crepe paper ornaments
We talked all night
You brought me punch
And by candlelight
We talked about Narnia
I said I always felt for Edmund
But William Blake was a wonderful dancer
He said, "Let's take a walk"
I swooned in answer
But O white witch!
I never saw him again
And lost my chance with you, sweet C.S.

_______________________
[1] If Keller came on this blog and smacked me around like that (all be it, in his characteristic winsome and gentle fashion), I think I’d cry.
[2] Who might be twice my age.
[3] A reference to Deutro-isaiah or Deutro-Paul…the critical biblical theory that a number of biblical texts were written not by the claimed author but by a student keeping the teacher’s name. There is a suspect method to determine if it is the actual author or an imposter by comparing the style to known writing samples of the hypothesized author.
[4] While reading Donald Miller’s ‘Searching for God Knows What’
[5] God gave him the task of naming all of the animals before he created eve. The picture books depict this as a relatively trivial task, but Miller suggests that it would have been monumental.
[6] I have written two complete blogs about prop 8 (explaining my ‘no’ vote and making general commentary) but have not posted them because I can not seem to write on this topic without getting angry and bitter.
[7] I find his peak oil stuff overstated and alarmist but his stuff on the built environment, suburbia, and human density is spot on.
[8] It is a hilarious that this is sponsored by BMW.
[9] For years I refused to get a TV because I asserted that film was the preeminent artistic media of our generation.
[10] I just studied the passage where Jesus drove the money changers out of the temple this morning. I don’t get the idea this is the kind of stuff he would be happy about.
[11] My reference for this is Mork’s Pragmatic Eclectic blog…but it recently disappeared so I can’t provide a link.

My Problem With Religion: A Quantitative Inquiry

A common objection to the unique value of any particular religion is that all religions essentially teach the same things. This is deeply mistaken. For example, Christians are trying to gain eternal life, while Hindus teach that they have eternal life and are trying to get rid of it. In so many ways, the major religious world views could not be more different. But there is a sense in which I resonate with this objection. There does seem to be a basic ‘religious’ way of looking at the world (that many hold regardless of whether or not they actually believe in a cosmic god figure). It goes something like this: the ultimate outcome in this life or in eternity is the result of your moral achievement in this life. Religions differ wildly on what constitutes a good outcome and what constitutes moral achievement…but this is not my point here.

Computing Goodness

I’d like to look carefully at this basic line of thought: ultimate outcomes are based on our temporal moral achievement. I think the first interesting question is how does a god score morality? Let’s assume that it would be some sort of equation of the form:

A*x+B*Y+C*Z[1]…

Where A, B and C are weighting factors, the sum of which would be 1 and
X, Y and Z are certain moral behaviors or transgressions (in which case the weighting factor would have a – sign).

For example, if Muslims are right, if X=eating pork, A = a significant, negative multiplier. However, if Hindus are right, if Y = give grain oblations to Ganesh, then B = a non-trivial positive multiplier. And if yuppie liberal Christians are correct, if Z = driving a Prius then C = close to 0.9

But would every one use the same equation? Would there be a constant added for overcoming poor environment or propensity genetics? A degree of difficulty multiplier if you will?

Setting the Grades: To Curve or Not to Curve

But let’s assume that a god is good at math and can come to a univariate quantitative evaluation of our lifetime moral performance. Let’s assume that global, historic morality is normally distributed.[2] So below, I have plotted an arithmetic scale of human goodness (from 1 to 0, with 1 being the best person ever and 0 being the worst) versus the rate of occurrence of each of these moral states.

So, how does god decide where the cut
off is between the positive religious outcome and the negative religious outcome? Does he/she/it grade on a curve? Does he have a percentile that he is shooting for? If so, does it suite me to sabotage the moral state of others in order to augment my relative position? Or, by helping those close to us (say, those in our church/mosque/synagogue/neighborhood) pursue moral goodness, are we damning others by allowing those we care about to surpass them? It doesn’t make much sense to me that God would grade on a curve.

So maybe God has an absolute standard for a positive cosmic outcome. But where is it? Most people place it above Hitler, Stalin, Sadam and abortion clinic bombers, and conveniently below themselves. Consider any placement of the demarcation[3] that is neither 100% nor 0%. Let’s place it at 50% for argument (i.e. ‘heaven’ is a lot like lake Woebegone). Consider someone who comes in at the 50.000001 percentile and someone who comes in at the 49.9999999 percentile (represented by the small circles in the plot below). These people lived remarkably similar moral lives. The difference between them would be a single lie or a single malicious thought or eating a single doughnut during Ramadan or buying a car with slightly worse gas mileage, yet there is a dramatic non-linearity in consequence for a minor difference in achievement.[4]


Two Attempts to Smooth the Outcomes

Purgatory is a doctrine that was developed that seems to mitigate the non-linear outcome. There is a zone of graded consequence between the good and bad outcomes, such that consequence is more of a smooth function of lived morality. But purgatory doesn’t really work on a number of levels. It only appears in Christian sects and is so foreign to the Christian worldview that even the sitting Pope doesn’t accept a classic version of it.[5]

Reincarnation is another form of mitigating the non-linear outcome. But I find it morally deplorable and politically dangerous to suggest that people deserve their lot in life because of unseen, presumed moral failures from previous existences.[6] Shoot, I don’t even believe that someone’s lot in life is entirely (or even mostly) the result of the moral choices they made in THIS life.

A Stochastic Approach

The Muslim worldview handles this differently. They say that the sovereign will of Allah is not predictive in this way. Righteousness is a factor in who goes to paradise and who does not. In fact they get quite quantitative about it. For example, some teach that prayers during Ramadan are 30X more valuable than prayers offered at other times. In an honest moment one of my Muslim friends admitted to me that he spent a significant amount of time worrying about if his life was sufficient to avoid hell.

But in the final analysis Allah can do whatever he wants so it is more of a stochastic approach. Your goodness can only buy more balls in the proverbial NBA lottery.[7]
Being higher on the moral continuum increases your chances of ‘getting in’ but it is not a deterministic function. It is more like a quantum state than a Newtonian mechanic. So you could, theoretically get a situation like the one below (where the yellow dot indicates a good comic outcome and the red dot indicates a bad one).


Two Types of People

Another approach would be to group the ‘goodness’ data the same way a college professor would group academic achievement. Professors often look for achievement ‘groupings’. There is a cluster of 3 students at the top, they get the A’s. The next cluster gets the B’s. You can’t do this if the data is normally distributed, but, since there are only two consequences, you could do it with a bimodal distribution (below). This is actually a surprisingly common view of the world. One republican friend said to me once ‘the world is full of good people and bad people.’[8] This is the polemical approach taken by ‘The Dark Knight[9].’ Heath Ledger’s brilliantly disturbing turn as the Joker was simply described as a fundamentally different mode of human existence.

It is common to look at crass villains and say, ‘whew, I may do occasional bad stuff, but at least I’m a good person’. Even Imus, after the Rutgers basket ball team debacle claimed ‘I’m a good person who did a bad thing.’ But repentance is the burden of the self aware. My response to my republican friend was ‘I am bad people.’ I reject this idea of a bimodal distribution. We all carry the divine image and the scar of a cosmic corruption. Plus, even with a bimodal distribution, you have the same problem in the shared ‘tail’ (see enlargement in the figure above). You still have the non-linear consequence for the incremental difference.
The Special Cases of 1 and 0

So let’s finally consider the two special cases. You can put the line at 0 saying that all surpass it (universalism) or you can put it at or above 1 saying that none achieve it (the gospel). Both of these approaches get away from the problem of non-linear consequence for incremental differences in morality. I prefer both of them to religion. Many people find the former (see figure below) to be more palatable, more just. They tend to be comfortable suburban westerners who have never had a cause for vengeance.


Consider what Miroslov Volf says about the idea that a just God would finally accept all and judge none: “If God were not angry at injustice and did not make a final end to violence-that God would not be worthy of worship…The only means of prohibiting all recourse to violence by ourselves is to insist that violence is legitimate only when it comes from God…My thesis that the practice of non-violence requires a belief in divine vengeance will be unpopular with many in…the west…(But) it takes the quiet of a suburban home for the birth of the thesis that human non-violence (results from a belief in) God’s refusal to judge. In a sun scorched land, soaked in the blood of innocents, it will invariably die…(with) other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind.”[10]

Volf grew up in Croatia and experience the violence of the Balkan crisis. He will not worship a God who does not judge the horrible atrocities of human villainy. And neither will I. I will not worship a God who embraces evil…including mine. Only a God who judges me and my dark heart and wicked propensities with those of Hitler, Stalin, St Francis and Mother Teresa can be completely other…what the Bible likes to call Holy.

So I am left with the final alternative. I, with Jesus and Paul, put the line light-years to the right. That we each are good and valuable beyond measure but are also vial beasts unworthy of God’s presence. This is why Christianity does not teach moral performance…heaven as a cosmic reward for moral performance …it teaches unilateral, cosmic rescue. It teaches grace and mercy and, in this way, is not, fundamentally, religious.

____________________________
[1] I suspect it would be far more complex than a simple multi-variate linear regression (which I am not even quite doing)…but you’d stop reading if I went into some sort of anthropological dimensional analysis or set up a big old matrix.
[2] Scientists are famous for assuming phenomena are normally distributed. I suppose I could use a Gumble or Lévy distribution (I’d love to hear someone make a case for either of these), but the argument would progress in the same way, so let’s just assume a normal distribution for now.
[3] Based either on a curve or an absolute standard.
[4] This, somewhat comically, disintegrates into the BCS/Playoff debate from college football. The debate invariably goes like this: “Let’s just have a 4 team playoff.” “Well what about that year when the best team in the nation was #5.” “Ok, lets have an 8 game playoff.” “Yeah, but this team had one fluky loss and was playing really well. Do you really want them out of the playoff?”
[5] See NT Wright’s Surprised by Hope
[6] This comes up from time to time in a careful watching of ‘My Name is Earl.’ They have trouble navigating this consequence of their Karmic vision that everyone deserves their current state because of past actions. But it is still a hilarious show.
[7] To discourage teams from tanking their season for draft position the NBA decides draft position by a lottery. But they still want to give the worst team the best shot at drafting good players. So all of the teams that did not make the playoffs get balls in the lottery. The worse you are the more balls you get. So badness increases the chance of a good outcome but does not assure it. This strikes me as similar to Islam where goodness increases your chances of a good outcome but does not assure it.
[8] Why are the bad people bad? Is it the result of poor moral choices on their part? Is it a big loss in genetics roulette? Assigning culpability for innate badness is fundamentally problematic.
[9] Incidentally, Leger’s role was the single redeeming quality of this epic train wreck. Let me be the first one on the internet to say ‘This movie sucked.’
[10] From Tim Keller’s Reason For God

A Tale of Two Existentialists…and a Puritan: An Exercise in Classics Mad Libs.

One of the things I have wrestled with since I started blogging is the question, ‘What’s worth posting?’ I have a half dozen pieces that I have written that I haven’t posted because I’m not sure anyone would be interested.

A couple include:
My top 8 sports events (watched or experienced)
The top 14 hikes from our pre-baby hiking days (in 4 parts)

I have decided to post them and let you decide. And since I am working on a kind of massive post for next week, here is one of them.

We always open our small group with some sort of game/contest to get everyone talking and to learn a little about each other. I was in charge of this activity a couple weeks ago and decided to read half a sentence from three classic books. Everyone finished the sentence on a piece of paper, then I read them and we all tried to guess who’s it was. Here are some of the responses:

First, from the greatest novel of all time: The Brothers Karamazov by Feodor Dostoyevsky

"You're a pretty monk! So there is a little devil sitting…"

…on your shoulder telling you that “yes that robe makes your butt look fat.”
…on the toilet.
…on the side of the road trying to sell lemonade for 25¢ a cup.
…that’s all. He’s just sitting. Oh and he has severe diarrhea.
(Note: I somehow lost most of these. If you are reading and remember yours please add it in the comments.)

Next, from Camus best novel, The Plague:

"Everybody know that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world, yet somehow everyone finds it hard to believe that…"

…that Britney Spears is making yet another comeback.
…that you don’t actually have to buy anything to enter the Publishers’ Clearing House sweepstakes drawing.
…it can happen in their time.
…that they need to know how to use their HMO insurance.
…that I sold a single copy of this ridiculous book.[1]
…that they are cased by aliens from mars that visit over and over…I believe.
…that pestilence has nothing to do with knights jousting groundhogs.[2]
…that melting glaciers are releasing previously trapped microbes and that global warming is to blame.
…that the lives of their neighbors, friends, or family could possibly be claimed by sickness, not to mention their very lives.
…W[3]
And, Finally, from Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress:

"Then he said with a whip, it is the flatterer, a false apostle that has transformed himself into…"

…the most fearsome WWF wrestler to walk this earth.
…a turtle, a dove, something from above. A bird, a hawk, a never changing clock. A ring a wrong, a really lousy song.
…a frog prince awaiting a beautiful maiden’s kiss.
…a pink hippopotamus.
…Mark, 13th Viceroy of the Emyrean Embassy of Wannahaka Loogiesant and Impersonal Ambassador of his exalted majesty Sir Pork Chop the Magnificent, wearer of fluffy hats and purveyor of Backstreet Boys slappers.
…our modern social demand that you deserve and need it all.
…Brittney spears wearing unflattering monk robe and carrying an alien abducting devil with diarrhea and who can’t use her HMO to cure it.
…a heavy handed puritan metaphor.
(Note: Yeah, that one is mine too. Driscoll, Piper et al would be very disappointed to find out that I enjoy the existentialists much more than the Puritans[4]….though I have yet to read Owen. I hear that could change things)


So there it is…Feel free to take a shot at one or more of these in the comments section?

________
[1] Let’s just say Steve Haffly doesn’t share my literary tastes.
[2] Get it, pest (groundhog) lance (knights). Pest-i-lance. Jousting groundhogs. This was mine, I’m very proud of it.
[3] Two+ year old Elizabeth Spencer did this one. For democrats it could kind of work. Though, in fairness, it could also be ‘M’ or ‘bird’ depending on which way you turn the paper.
[4] Though the puritans really get a bad rap. Check this out.

I am Not a Toaster: The Unhelpful Cliché of Self Discovery

I have been reading books about writing fiction lately. One of recommendation that struck me was that fiction should be hyper-real. No one wants to read about the events of daily life. I suppose that is why two attempts at ‘realistic’ teen drama in the 1990’s failed.

My So Called Life (MSCL) was a depiction of the High School experience those of us who were did not live in the 90210 zip code. It didn't really work and was canceled. The genre of the realistic teen drama didn't actually work until Apatow[1] and his now famous crew gave us Freaks and Geeks (F&G) in ‘99. F&G was also canceled after a single season but Amanda and I resonated deeply with it.[2] The latter show had some really weighty, interesting themes as the basic plot line was Lindsay’s moral and social search following her rejection of God.

F&G was, without question, the better show. But for all its resonance, there was nothing in its narrative structure that matched the uncanny familiarity of Angela’s monologues in MSCL. So much of high school was internalized; thought rather than articulated. And Angela wrestled with many of the same questions that plagued me during those volatile years, in a more mature way.

The whole thing reminded me of the line in Stranger than Fiction[3] where Harold Crick describes the narration in his head, “It's a voice in my head…It's telling me what I've already done... accurately, and with a better vocabulary.” But I think the most redeeming aspect of MSCL was that themes of self discovery were sanely tempered by uncommonly thoughtful insights. Here is my favorite quote from the show:

“People say you should always be yourself, like yourself is something definite, like a toaster.”

The ubiquitous artistic polemic is that of self discovery. Film, music[4] and print all heartily recommend that no matter what ‘they’ may throw at you, you must be yourself. Art can no longer call us to an objective standard of moral good or aesthetic beauty, so it simply offers a self referential cliché.

This has always confused me. There is a sense in which I resonate with the sentiment. I am a proto-typical X-er. I value sincerity, authenticity, and transparency over etiquette and propriety, and a great many other things. But this is rarely what is meant by ‘be yourself’ or ‘be true to yourself’. It suggests that there is a Platonic form of ‘me’ that must be discovered rather than forged. It’s fatalistic. And the primary navigational apparatus we are offered for this quest is to ‘follow our hearts,’ which nicely sets up my second favorite quote from MSCL:

"It’s such a lie that we should do what's in our hearts. If everyone did what was in their hearts the world would come to an end"

One of Christianity’s most helpful resources is the warning to view the 'self' with suspicion and the ‘heart’ as a deceitful guide. Of all the things I could be, who I fundamentally am is near the end of the list. I am petty, bitter, materialistic, bigoted, arrogant, selfish, apathetic, deceitful, lazy, self serving…all in all a real fist class a** h***. That is my template, and where my heart leads. It is about as close to a worst possible scenario as I can imagine. I want to be any one but that complete waste of humanity. Fortunately, who I am is who I become and I put my hope in grace and God’s self disclosure as reliable navigators. I just may escape ‘being myself’ yet.

______________
[1] Incidentally, how much do I wish that Apatow et al was producing great art like F&G these days instead of drivel like Knocked Up, 40 Year Old Virgin and Sarah Marshal etc…
[2] Amanda identified deeply with the 'good girl pushing social boundaries' protagonist, Lindsay. I completely identified with here dorky little brother, Sam (until Sam’s unrequited love was requited).
[3] Indisputably Will Ferrell’s Best work…and I am a Ferrell guy…maybe one of the most entertaining movies of the last 5 years.
[4] There are no less than 5 songs or albums named ‘Be Yourself’

Motor Oilish Beer and Christian Hypocrisy: Audio Version

A couple months ago I posted a brief argument regarding ‘The Problem of Christian Hypocrisy which I expanded into a talk. A couple weeks ago I gave the talk again at my brother’s church. My wife said it wasn’t nearly as good[1], but I think it does the job. It includes some thoughs on the Historical Injustices of the Church as well. The mp3 is here.

If the topic interests you, I also recommend Dr. Os Guinness[2] on the topic here. Guinness actually contradicts me at one point, but that is part of the fun of taking on these questions.

__________________
[1] I was sick, jet lagged, teaching for the 3rd time that day and my rhetorical style was not thriving in the southern milieu, shaking my confidence a bit.
[2] Yes, THAT Guinness. He starts with a hilarious anecdote about the family business. It is worth clicking on the link just to hear this story. The great thing about an apologist in the beer industry is that he tends to not be constrained by standard strictures of propriety observed by many Christian speakers (which he evidences in the Q&A).

The Singularity of Bethlehem

I am always looking for ways to make Christmas an actual celebration of the event of Incarnation. By rejecting the liturgical year but keeping Christmas, Protestants have left themselves with a single day that can not bear the weight of all the expectations (both Christian and ‘secular’) that we have put on it. So for the last 5 years or so I have tried to embrace the rhythms of the liturgical calendar, working advent readings into my devotions and observing Christmas for more than just the 25th (as the church historically has done). So I am always looking for new ways to make Advent and Christmas reflective and worshipful.

Recently I have been leaning on poetry. This year I tried to create some. I challenged myself to write a poem in the last week of Advent that I would post regardless of its quality on Christmas Eve. I have already given my disclaimer for my brutal poetry, but I recently encountered this quote in Martian Luther’s Bondage of the will:

“What if any one, intending to compose a poem…should never think about, or inquire into his abilities, what he could do, and what he could not do…what would you think of such a poet?”

Hopefully you would think well of such a poet…or at least one who has considered his abilities, found them wanting, and tried any way.

The Singularity of Bethlehem

A misplaced star
awkwardly indicates
the singularity of Bethlehem.

The God-man paradox
even more befuddling
in its God-baby instance.

The infinite packed into
an adorable, finite vessel
Glory squished so dense.

The intractable mystery
suffers not from a deficit of intelligibility,
but a surplus.

Incarnation,
God con-carne, meated
redeeming and ennobling flesh.

God soils his swaddle.
Meconium declares the glory of God.
The co-suffer has come to share our shit.

Wizards from distant deserts
and sheep wranglers from proximal hills
seekers and the sought
worship the baby

‘Who can abide the day of his coming’
Today as a helpless baby
Tomorrow, tatted up and into swords.

This annual training in waiting.


Well if you got through that, here is one of my favorite actual poems that I use in my Advent devotions. I don’t know if it is actually a Christmas poem (or even a Christian Poem), but it certainly does the job:

Black Rook in Rainy Weather

On the stiff twig up there
Hunches a wet black rook
Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain.
I do not expect a miracle
Or an accident

To set the sight on fire
In my eye, not seek
Any more in the desultory weather some design,
But let spotted leaves fall as they fall,
Without ceremony, or portent.

Although, I admit, I desire,
Occasionally, some backtalk
From the mute sky, I can't honestly complain:
A certain minor light may still
Leap incandescent

Out of the kitchen table or chair
As if a celestial burning took
Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then ---
Thus hallowing an interval
Otherwise inconsequent

By bestowing largesse, honor,
One might say love. At any rate, I now walk
Wary (for it could happen
Even in this dull, ruinous landscape); sceptical,
Yet politic; ignorant

Of whatever angel may choose to flare
Suddenly at my elbow. I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize my senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grant

A brief respite from fear
Of total neutrality. With luck,
Trekking stubborn through this season
Of fatigue, I shall
Patch together a content

Of sorts. Miracles occur,
If you care to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait's begun again,
The long wait for the angel.
For that rare, random descent.

-Sylvia Plath

Have a great Christmas.

Is the ‘Neon Bible’ Right?

The Arcade Fire[1] is indisputably one of the most successful indi/alternative rock bands of the last 5 years. I honestly wish I had a nickel for every chat room or comment block mention of them as ‘the greatest rock band of our generation.’ So I approached their first album, Funeral, with eager expectation. While I found the hyperbole overstated, it was a very fine album with fertile themes of community, neighborhood, family and the human condition. The Arcade Fire certainly falls on the list of my favorite things that are Canadian with hockey, beaver tails[2], Toronto, Banff, the Burgess Shale, Samantha Bee, the Drumheller dinosaur museum, the ‘two-ny’[3] and our friends Richie and Allen. So I moved on to their second album with heightened expectation.

The first time I listened to Neon Bible, I knew it was a thematically provocative piece. As pipe organs and orchestras swelled I caught lines like:

“…It's in the Neon Bible, the Neon Bible…”

“…Working for the Church while your family dies…”

“…Dear God, I'm a good Christian manIn your glory, I know you understandThat you gotta work hard and you gotta get paid…”

But, because their lovely artistic mumbling I didn’t catch half the words until my third time through it. By then I was pretty sure that it was an acerbic anti-Christian album. But after many more listens and a careful reading of the lyrics, I think it is far more complicated than that. Neon Bible is unquestionably dark. It is bitter and cynical about culture, commerce, media and the church. But upon more careful reading, I don’t really think they are making a full frontal attack on Christianity or faith. There is no doubt that faith is the pejorative theme of the work, but it is not so much faith itself, but the unholy alliances it makes with politics, television, celebrity culture, consumerism and the like. Win said in one interview “There's definitely an aspect of religion always combining with culture and becoming a third thing.” I think this idea is the thematic heart of the album. In this sense, it is a prophetic album, with themes that I often resonate with. Here are some thoughts on the most overtly spiritual tracks. But since this is an interpretive exercise it will also be a reflection on hermeneutics[4] in general:

Neon Bible

A vial of hope and a vial of pain
In the light they both looked the same
Poured them out on into the world
On every boy and every girl

It's in the Neon Bible, the Neon Bible
Not much chance for survival
If the Neon Bible is right

Take the poison of your age
Don't lick your fingers when you turn the page
What I know is what you know is right
In the city it's the only light

I have read a wide variety of interpretations of the title track. They range from the wholesale dismissal of Christianity to a critique of television.

The former interpretation takes its clues from “Not much chance for survivalIf the Neon Bible is right”

The latter takes the opening verse as a description of how the news delivers genocide and famine (a vial of pain) in precisely the same ‘entertainment’ medium as it reports amusing trifles or stories of beauty, justice or courage (A vial of hope…/In the light they look the same)

I think the meaning is something between these. In an interview Regine said that she thought of the title when she saw a church with a neon sign.[5] But there are themes of Television and consumerism as well. I think, fundamentally, they are decrying the contamination of religion in general and Christianity in particular with the more vapid aspects of our culture.
Intervention

The king's taken back the throne
The useless seed is sown
When they say they're cutting off the phone
I tell 'em you're not home

No place to hide
You were fighting as a soldier on their side
You're still a soldier in your mind
Though nothing's on the line

Who's gonna throw the very first stone?
Oh! Who's gonna reset the bone?
Walking with your head in a sling
Wanna hear the solider sing:
"Been working for the Church while my family dies
Your little baby sister's gonna lose her mind
Every spark of friendship and love will die without a home"
Hear the soldier groan "We'll go at it alone.

This is the most obvious Rorschach of the album. Many think it is about Bush and Iraq and the idea of a Holy war. I think that is pretty likely. If I could employ the hermeneutic of analogy[6] it fits in with the larger theme of contaminating Christianity with the dark institutions of our world…in this case, politics.

But this interpretation does not seem to account for all of the themes. And so since I have nothing else regarding an ‘authorial intent’ interpretation, let me give you some reader response.

This song reminded me of the many soldiers I know[7] that subsequently went into the ministry.
The line "Been working for the Church while my family dies” also conjures the image of my broken propensity to put the programs of the church above my responsibility to be emotionally and temporally available to my family. I actually think this second point fits into my hypothesized, overall theme, of human institutions as impediments to faith. I love the Church,[8] but the church’s programs can undermine its mandate.

"Antichrist Television Blues"

I don't wanna work in a building downtown
No I don't wanna work in a building downtown
I don't know what I'm gonna do
Cause the planes keep crashing always two by two…

Dear God, I'm a good Christian man
In your glory, I know you understand
That you gotta work hard and you gotta get paid
My girl's 13 but she don't act her age
She can sing like a bird in a cage
O Lord, if you could see her when she's up on that stage!...

Wanna hold a mirror up to the world
So that they can see themselves inside my little girl!

Do you know where I was at your age?
Any idea where I was at your age?
I was working downtown for the minimum wage
And I'm not gonna let you just throw it all away!
I'm through being cute, I'm through being nice
O tell me, Lord, am I the Antichrist?!

This is, without a doubt, the most disturbing song on the album. The interpretive key is
that it used to have a working title ‘Joe Simpson.[9]’ If this is true the line “So that they can see themselves inside my little girl!” is beyond disturbing.

Like the political interpretation of Intervention, this track paints a picture of a man who uses his faith to justify, or even encourage him to throw his daughters under the machine of our celebrity culture.

My Body’s a Cage

I'm standing on a stage
Of fear and self-doubt
It's a hollow play
But they'll clap anyway…

I'm living in an age
That calls darkness light
Though my language is dead
Still the shapes fill my head

I'm living in an age
Whose name I don't know
Though the fear keeps me moving
Still my heart beats so slow…

My body is a cage that keeps me
From dancing with the one I love
But my mind holds the key

You're standing next to me
My mind holds the key

Set my spirit free
Set my spirit free
Set my body free

To me, the most obvious interpretation of this is a longing to be free of moral corruption. In Paul’s words:

1Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, 3because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

There is very little doubt in my mind that that is eisegesis based on my perspectival biases. Yet for lack of a better interpretation I am going to go with it, making My Body’s a Cage my favorite track.

__________
[1] The band is built around a husband wife team of Win Butler and Regine Chassagne, is based in Quebec and is known for nearly orchestral arrangements. Both Funeral and Neon Bible were nominated for Grammys
[2] Not the actual tails, they are far too chewy. This is a version of fried dough we used to get every time we went to ottowa on family trips which was more than anually
[3] Canada’s first dollar coin had a loon on it so they named it ‘the loony.’ When the two dollar coin came out it was just an exercise in theme and variation.
[4] The study and practice of interpretation.
[5] My favorite part of this interview is when Regine talks about the church the bought to record in and says ‘It is funny that they get turned into condos where no one speaks to their neighbour. Nobody even knows who lives next door!’
[6] This is an interpretive method that suggests that if a certain pericope proves resistant to interpretation you should, at least, bound your interpretation by the themes of the larger work. Of course the problem with the hermeneutic of analogy is that if you get the overall theme wrong you will find many pericopes difficult to harmonize and will just impose your erroneous interpretation on them…which I may very well, in fact, be doing here.
[7] I became a Christian at an on base youth ministry at Ft Drum in Northern NY. Much of my early spiritual development was overseen by mentors that received much of theirs from the West Point Navigators chapter.
[8] I will post on this idea soon.
[9] The ex-pastor single parent father of Jessica and Ashley

An Explanation of Fantasy Ink

Every six months or so Bill Simmons re-pitches an excellent idea for an annual NBA publication. He proposes a document that contains pictures of players’ tattoos (by team) accompanied by explanations of what the ink means and why they chose it. I would SO read that. I find the psychology of tattoos fascinating…mainly because I am thinking about getting one. Here is a goofy fake interview which is how I would like my page to read in the Simmons Guide to NBA Tattoos if (A) if my unguarded field goal percentage didn’t hover around 7% and (B) if I actually had a tattoo:

________________
‘Sacramento Kings’ twelfth man[1] Stanford Gibson (#7) has a single tattoo on the inside of his left forearm. It is a mixture of traditional and unconventional body art themes featuring a skull (traditional) held pensively by some sort of robed monk (untraditional). Here is the conversation we had with him:

SG: It was inspired by Caravaggio’s St Francis in Prayer . It is an existential theme that life is most fully experienced in light of our mortality.

SGTNT: So, it’s sort of a Heidegger thing you’ve got going on.

SG: I’m closer to Kierkegaard than Heidegger. And actually, I’d like to think I’m closer to Jesus than either of them. Meditation on mortality is a source of joy rather than despair. And I think the figure of Francis illustrates this more than almost any one else living or dead. He was a man of desperate joy and he lived like he knew that each of his moments was filled with ultimate value. I think this is, in a strange way, what the Christian and the secular existentialist have in common. For a Sartre or a Camus each moment was filled with ultimate value because this life is all we have. For Francis and the rest of us who hope in Christ, each moment is filled with ultimate value because the implications reverberate through eternity. Remember, two of the three authors[2] credited as proto-existentialists were Christians. The movement has its roots in both visions of ultimate value.

SGTNT: When did you get it and why?

SG: It was in my early 30’s when I was diagnosed with Graves Disease. I felt like I was too young to be loosing organs[3]. But it connected me experientially to my mortality at a relatively young age. I got the tattoo as a reminder of the ultimate value of each moment. There is a line from one of my favorite ancient poems[4] that pretty much articulates why I got it: “The length of our days is seventy years-eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass and we fly away…Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

The other thing is that I was raised to think that getting a tattoo was the surest sign of poor judgment because you have it forever. But that is precisely why I got it. Because I won’t have it forever. It has an expiration date that is approximately the same as mine. I will only have the thing for something between 30 seconds and 60 years. It is a reminder to both celebrate the deterioration of my body and to struggle with each breath to make my few moments count.

________
[1]Another Simmons theory is that NBA teams go about 7 to 9 deep and have no need for their 12th man, so they should use the slot as a marketing scheme and make it a blogger like Paul Shirley. I am afraid that that is as far as my imagination can take this.
[2] Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche
[3] The main treatment for Graves disease is to ingest a dose of radioactive iodine that kills your thyroid.
[4] Psalm 90