"The earth doesn't care if you drive a hybrid." So proclaimed Nobel Prize winning physicist Robert Laughlin recently, in a line that was promptly picked up by George Will and has resonated widely among those who prefer to ignore environmental issues and inconvenient truths like what I recently dubbed "global weirding."
Interestingly, I agree. The earth really doesn't care what happens to it, and it will do perfectly well if most (or all) of the species currently living die out. The point that Will and others seem to miss (I won't presume to speak for Laughlin) is that our children and grandchildren will care. That's just one of the many reasons I drive a hybrid and buy electricity generated exclusively by the abundant Texas wind.
Let me dig deeper, though, because this really is an existential and even theological issue, and I want to make it clear where I stand, and where I believe others stand.
Human beings are unique. That is one of the central claims of most religions, even if they find very different ways of expressing it. Our place in the world - our uniquely fragmented, contentious relationship with the rest of creation - is, in a real sense, the issue on which everything else depends. That's why, as I've said several times before, our relationship to the environment is my number one moral issue.
The fact is, human beings are the only things in the universe capable of caring about what happens to the environment in which we live. Other species may reproduce at will and die out when the food supply is exhausted, or when predators grow too abundant. That's more or less how natural selection works. The earth, indeed, doesn't care. It also doesn't care if beautiful mountain vistas are distorted by earthquakes or worn down by erosion. It doesn't care if beautiful seacoast scenes are devastated by hurricanes. This is all in a day's work. Only people have a sense of beauty, and will mourn the loss of these things - if we survive to do so. This is our blessing and our curse. It is the seed of the divine that we bear within us. It is the shame we also bear for not being able to carry the burden.
Those who - correctly - point out that the earth doesn't care what happens to the environment just don't get this. They are the innocents among us: those who have not known sin. They cannot possibly share the horror that J. Robert Oppenheimer felt in quoting the Bhagavad Gita: "We are become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds."
So here is my response. Indeed the earth doesn't care. Whatever we do to the precious ecological balance that has allowed us to thrive and enjoy our brief lives of pain and beauty will be but a small blip - an unnoticed deviation - in the grand geological history of the world. It truly won't matter to anybody but us. However, since we are the ones whose glory and fragility are both exposed and challenged by the current environmental crisis, we should indeed care very much. We stand at one of the great dividing points in human history, in which both our limitations and the divine spark we bear within us are being exposed and tested as never before. Our response will have moral, theological, ethical, economic and cultural ramifications that will dwarf anything we have previously faced in our history. On all of these fronts, driving a hybrid is the very, very least that we can do.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Friday, June 10, 2011
In denial
I began my last post by saying that I intended to write about music for a change. I'm going to begin this one with an extended quote from the Irish writer Peter Rollins that I encountered this week, and that has been haunting me ever since. My thoughts on what Rollins has to say are intended as a followup to my Easter post from back in April. It's now almost Pentecost, so here goes.
"Without equivocation or hesitation I fully and completely admit that I deny the resurrection of Christ. This is something that anyone who knows me could tell you, and I am not afraid to say it publicly, no matter what some people may think…
"I deny the resurrection of Christ every time I do not serve at the feet of the oppressed, each day that I turn my back on the poor; I deny the resurrection of Christ when I close my ears to the cries of the downtrodden and lend my support to an unjust and corrupt system.
"However there are moments when I affirm that resurrection, few and far between as they are. I affirm it when I stand up for those who are forced to live on their knees, when I speak for those who have had their tongues torn out, when I cry for those who have no more tears left to shed."
What I love about this quote is how it interrogates our understanding of what it means to believe in something. I believe all kinds of things, usually because I have direct evidence that they are true. I believe that the sky is blue, or at least looks that way to most people. In case I forget, there's pretty direct evidence that I'm not mistaken about this. I believe that the sun will come back up tomorrow morning; even though it hasn't happened yet, the evidence for it is pretty strong, so it seems like a safe bet.
I also believe, as I said on Easter, that Jesus rose from the dead. I also said then that I didn't intend to spend any time defending this belief, which is contrary to all logic and counter-intuitive in the extreme. I do not receive daily evidence for it; in fact, I have never really received any evidence at all. Nevertheless, I'm now going to take up the challenge of defending it. As I do so, I can hear the echo of many people in the past who have told me that they believe in me. Those people did not, of course, mean that they believe I exist. They know I exist. What they meant was that they believed me to be up to some particular challenge that I was facing. Almost always, they turned out to be right.
That's why I think it's worth taking some time to think about whether most American Christians really do believe in the resurrection of Christ. Many would say that it means they are completely, 100% convinced that on that first Easter Sunday, the tomb was empty because Jesus had come back to life. Being able to believe this is sometimes even held up as a test of orthodoxy. In terms of the analogies I gave earlier, though, this would be equivalent to my saying that I believe a dog can turn into a salamander, and that the reason for this is that some people writing 2000 years ago described having seen this happen. If I can only convince myself that they were right, then I get to join an exclusive club that offers me an ironclad promise that, at some future date, my dog will turn into a salamander as well. (Of course, I don't have a dog, so I'd have to get one first.)
I don't mean to be frivolous in making this comparison. What it exposes is exactly what is so extraordinary about believing in the resurrection of Christ. It is not simply an assent to the idea that, against all logic, somebody came back to life 2000 years ago and then mysteriously disappeared again, ascending into a "heaven" that we now know consists mainly of empty, oxygen-less space in which human life could not possibly survive. It is an assent to the idea that when Jesus said "the kingdom of God is at hand," he was saying something that was true, and still is true today. [Thanks, Hugh Hollowell, http://www.redletterchristians.org/do-i-deny-the-resurrection/,
So, for me to believe in the resurrection means the same as it would mean for somebody to believe in me. It means I believe what Jesus himself said he believed, and asked others to believe. It means I believe that the world's conflicts can be solved without war or violence. It means I believe that looking out for my own interest is a fool's errand, and that others need my help far more. It means I believe that trusting a system based on human nature - say, capitalism or free market economics - to solve the world's intractable problems betrays a huge lack of imagination and moral courage. It means I believe that acting decisively to save God's physical creation, on which our very life defends, is not only possible but morally imperative. It means I believe God is calling us to believe all these things and more.
It also means - and I'll have to say this bluntly - that those who do not believe all those things do not believe in the resurrection of Christ. They don't believe that when he said "the kingdom of God is at hand," he was talking about something real that was worth dying for, and hence worth living for as well.
This Sunday is Pentecost. May the spirit move our weak, unfaithful world toward belief in the central, decisive tenet of the Christian faith. We really don't have much more time to waste.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
A Wild Ride
This is my first blog post since my surgery two weeks ago. That means a couple of things. First, I'm now feeling good enough to sit at my computer and write (Applause, please!). Second, I've been giving some thought to "branching out," and have decided to claim my professional privilege as a musicologist and write about music in this space. This decision was only partially prompted by a current discussion on the American Musicological Society listserve about the putative failure of musical academics to communicate with the public.
A few weeks ago - after turning in my grades but before going under the knife - I attended the live simulcast of Wagner's Die Walküre from the Metropolitan Opera. Let me begin with a confession: Although the local Hollywood Jewel 16 theater has been brave enough to show these screenings for the past few years, this was the first time I had attended one. I had been hearing so much, though, about Robert Lepage's new high-tech production of The Ring of the Nibelungs that I had resolved months earlier I would not miss this showing for any reason. I even persuaded my son Jeremy to come along, by the simple expedient of not telling him in advance how long it was going to be. (It's a good thing, too; here in CST, the broadcast began at 11:00 am and, with a 40-minute technical delay at the beginning, lasted until after 5:00.)
Let me first assure those who have never see a live opera in a movie theater before that it was - different, but surprisingly exciting. Before the show began, we had scans of the theater, which seemed strangely underpopulated compared to Saturday matinees I can remember attending. Shortly before the delayed start (caused apparently by a computer malfunction in the elaborate stage machinery), we had a pep talk by Placido Domingo, and then got to watch a closeup of James Levine as, seated before the orchestra due to ongoing back problems, he drew his baton through an almost savage arc to prepare the downbeat of each successive act. From this point on, neither conductor nor orchestra was seen again until the final chord.
What we did see was the singers from an intimate perspective that would have been impossible from even the best seat in the house. Sometimes, as when Jonas Kaufmann as Siegmund shed a large amount of saliva onto the stage toward the end of the first act, it was clear that this constituted a rather bold experiment. It certainly helped that all of the singers looked the parts. Both Kaufmann and Bryn Terfel, as Wotan, sported about a four-day growth of facial hair that must have been calculated with the closeups in mind. As a result, Kaufmann looked like he had been wandering lost in a storm after a furious battle, while Terfel, with his metal eye-patch, was clearly his father, but not your father's Wotan (more on this later). Eva-Maria Westbroek as Sieglinde looked more than plausible as his twin sister. Deborah Voigt, as Brünnhilde, though, seemed almost slight for the role. This was a result of her decision to have gastric bypass surgery a few years ago - presumably due, at least in part, to the pressures of modern operatic staging, in which very heavy women are not as acceptable as they used to be. By contrast, Stephanie Blythe as Fricka was impressively large and imposing, as she sat nearly motionless on an ugly-looking horned chair and utterly nailed her 20-minute turn as the tedious, outraged voice of conventional morality. Unfortunately, the mighty sword Nothung, though highlighted by mysterious lighting effects, looked all too obviously like a cheap prop, just waiting for Wotan's spear - or anything else, for that matter - to shatter it to pieces.
The sound was surprisingly good for a movie theater, but it was not at all what you would experience in an opera house. The voices sounded amplified - not in a way that distorted them, though; it simply removed the thrill that one gets from hearing unmiked voices compete with Wagner's huge orchestration. That thrill - impossible to duplicate in a movie theater in any case - was replaced by the slightly lesser satisfaction of hearing every line carefully enunciated, with never a threat of being submerged in the wash of instrumental sound. Everything was audible, but the voices dominated. The experience of watching the singers, impossibly close up, deliver their lines before Lepage's constantly shifting scenery and projections thereon, the orchestra and audience unseen, was riveting. I have a sneaking suspicion Wagner would have approved.
That leads to my most surprising conclusion, and my main reason for writing this. I had grown accustomed to viewing Wagner as a great composer who was, at best, a passable dramatist. As such, he was able, more often than not, to redeem his impossibly long, needlessly repetitive scenes with stunning musical effects. Sometimes, as in the case of Parsifal, this problem is intensified further by the knowledge that he deliberately incorporated anti-Semitic ideology into the very substance of his plots. It has caused me untold soul-searching to realize that the shimmeringly beautiful music of Parsifal, which entranced me from the first time I heard it as few works of any kind have ever done, is coupled with a story that deals with the purging of foreign (read Jewish) influences from a church that needs to establish a purer, more refined identity. I try very hard to listen to the music and hope that it can somehow exist in its own sphere, unburdened by all that ideological baggage, and, as often as not, I fail.
So it was a revelation to see Die Walküre emerge, in this production, as a dramatic masterwork in which the elusive promise of human freedom, caught in tension with the inexorable, destructive impulses of the will, finally achieves an ecstatic, if limited, victory. This is why Bryn Terfel's heavy metal interpretation of Wotan was so crucial. Almost impossibly, the famously long monologue in the second act in which he explains how he mortgaged his freedom of choice in exchange for an elusive prize of power and control emerged as the dramatic center of the opera. This was only partly the result of the large, constantly changing single eye projected on the scenery while Terfel, his own eye covered by a chintzy but somehow disarming piece of chain mail, conveyed a deeply human anger that made his plight seem more than credible. It was Terfel's presence, and the musical conviction behind it, that made this scene transfixing.
As I've said, this was quite a trick. The Ride of the Vaylkries and Wotan's final dialogue with Brünnhilde work dramatically in even mediocre performances. The first act is richly romantic, and you can ignore the incest if you realize that for a man to fall in love with his twin sister means discovering and embracing his anima - his feminine side - while recovering his father's sword signifies the completion of his identity. Siegmund emerges from the first act as fully human, while Wotan begins the second as a hen-pecked, indecisive, pathetic god whose weakness in creating an incestuous pair and bringing them together is immediately exposed by his archly proper consort. She is the archetypal figure here, and Wotan is simply the victim of what turns out to have been his thoroughly misguided belief that he could do something worthwhile with his existence. Everything he's ever created, he now realizes, is a piece of crap just like himself. He is tormented, torn, furious and betrayed by turns. All of this Terfel conveyed brilliantly.
The final farewell, then, in which he kisses away Brünnhilde's "godhood," became manifestly an act of creation: the very thing that had been denied him up to this point. By delivering his favorite child unto human weakness and frailty, yet finding a way to protect her, Wotan became, simply, a human father, and she a human child. The catharsis for both of them in this final scene was truly the point and goal of this five-hour-long drama, not a minute of which seemed wasted. The musical greatness of this opera I had always understood. I think I now "get" its dramatic greatness as well.
A few weeks ago - after turning in my grades but before going under the knife - I attended the live simulcast of Wagner's Die Walküre from the Metropolitan Opera. Let me begin with a confession: Although the local Hollywood Jewel 16 theater has been brave enough to show these screenings for the past few years, this was the first time I had attended one. I had been hearing so much, though, about Robert Lepage's new high-tech production of The Ring of the Nibelungs that I had resolved months earlier I would not miss this showing for any reason. I even persuaded my son Jeremy to come along, by the simple expedient of not telling him in advance how long it was going to be. (It's a good thing, too; here in CST, the broadcast began at 11:00 am and, with a 40-minute technical delay at the beginning, lasted until after 5:00.)
Let me first assure those who have never see a live opera in a movie theater before that it was - different, but surprisingly exciting. Before the show began, we had scans of the theater, which seemed strangely underpopulated compared to Saturday matinees I can remember attending. Shortly before the delayed start (caused apparently by a computer malfunction in the elaborate stage machinery), we had a pep talk by Placido Domingo, and then got to watch a closeup of James Levine as, seated before the orchestra due to ongoing back problems, he drew his baton through an almost savage arc to prepare the downbeat of each successive act. From this point on, neither conductor nor orchestra was seen again until the final chord.
What we did see was the singers from an intimate perspective that would have been impossible from even the best seat in the house. Sometimes, as when Jonas Kaufmann as Siegmund shed a large amount of saliva onto the stage toward the end of the first act, it was clear that this constituted a rather bold experiment. It certainly helped that all of the singers looked the parts. Both Kaufmann and Bryn Terfel, as Wotan, sported about a four-day growth of facial hair that must have been calculated with the closeups in mind. As a result, Kaufmann looked like he had been wandering lost in a storm after a furious battle, while Terfel, with his metal eye-patch, was clearly his father, but not your father's Wotan (more on this later). Eva-Maria Westbroek as Sieglinde looked more than plausible as his twin sister. Deborah Voigt, as Brünnhilde, though, seemed almost slight for the role. This was a result of her decision to have gastric bypass surgery a few years ago - presumably due, at least in part, to the pressures of modern operatic staging, in which very heavy women are not as acceptable as they used to be. By contrast, Stephanie Blythe as Fricka was impressively large and imposing, as she sat nearly motionless on an ugly-looking horned chair and utterly nailed her 20-minute turn as the tedious, outraged voice of conventional morality. Unfortunately, the mighty sword Nothung, though highlighted by mysterious lighting effects, looked all too obviously like a cheap prop, just waiting for Wotan's spear - or anything else, for that matter - to shatter it to pieces.
The sound was surprisingly good for a movie theater, but it was not at all what you would experience in an opera house. The voices sounded amplified - not in a way that distorted them, though; it simply removed the thrill that one gets from hearing unmiked voices compete with Wagner's huge orchestration. That thrill - impossible to duplicate in a movie theater in any case - was replaced by the slightly lesser satisfaction of hearing every line carefully enunciated, with never a threat of being submerged in the wash of instrumental sound. Everything was audible, but the voices dominated. The experience of watching the singers, impossibly close up, deliver their lines before Lepage's constantly shifting scenery and projections thereon, the orchestra and audience unseen, was riveting. I have a sneaking suspicion Wagner would have approved.
That leads to my most surprising conclusion, and my main reason for writing this. I had grown accustomed to viewing Wagner as a great composer who was, at best, a passable dramatist. As such, he was able, more often than not, to redeem his impossibly long, needlessly repetitive scenes with stunning musical effects. Sometimes, as in the case of Parsifal, this problem is intensified further by the knowledge that he deliberately incorporated anti-Semitic ideology into the very substance of his plots. It has caused me untold soul-searching to realize that the shimmeringly beautiful music of Parsifal, which entranced me from the first time I heard it as few works of any kind have ever done, is coupled with a story that deals with the purging of foreign (read Jewish) influences from a church that needs to establish a purer, more refined identity. I try very hard to listen to the music and hope that it can somehow exist in its own sphere, unburdened by all that ideological baggage, and, as often as not, I fail.
So it was a revelation to see Die Walküre emerge, in this production, as a dramatic masterwork in which the elusive promise of human freedom, caught in tension with the inexorable, destructive impulses of the will, finally achieves an ecstatic, if limited, victory. This is why Bryn Terfel's heavy metal interpretation of Wotan was so crucial. Almost impossibly, the famously long monologue in the second act in which he explains how he mortgaged his freedom of choice in exchange for an elusive prize of power and control emerged as the dramatic center of the opera. This was only partly the result of the large, constantly changing single eye projected on the scenery while Terfel, his own eye covered by a chintzy but somehow disarming piece of chain mail, conveyed a deeply human anger that made his plight seem more than credible. It was Terfel's presence, and the musical conviction behind it, that made this scene transfixing.
As I've said, this was quite a trick. The Ride of the Vaylkries and Wotan's final dialogue with Brünnhilde work dramatically in even mediocre performances. The first act is richly romantic, and you can ignore the incest if you realize that for a man to fall in love with his twin sister means discovering and embracing his anima - his feminine side - while recovering his father's sword signifies the completion of his identity. Siegmund emerges from the first act as fully human, while Wotan begins the second as a hen-pecked, indecisive, pathetic god whose weakness in creating an incestuous pair and bringing them together is immediately exposed by his archly proper consort. She is the archetypal figure here, and Wotan is simply the victim of what turns out to have been his thoroughly misguided belief that he could do something worthwhile with his existence. Everything he's ever created, he now realizes, is a piece of crap just like himself. He is tormented, torn, furious and betrayed by turns. All of this Terfel conveyed brilliantly.
The final farewell, then, in which he kisses away Brünnhilde's "godhood," became manifestly an act of creation: the very thing that had been denied him up to this point. By delivering his favorite child unto human weakness and frailty, yet finding a way to protect her, Wotan became, simply, a human father, and she a human child. The catharsis for both of them in this final scene was truly the point and goal of this five-hour-long drama, not a minute of which seemed wasted. The musical greatness of this opera I had always understood. I think I now "get" its dramatic greatness as well.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Loose ends
It may be a while before I write another blog post, so here are a few things I need to get tied up first.
• On Monday I'm going under the knife (under the laparoscope, actually) for abdominal surgery that I hope will fix the diverticulitis problem that has cursed me throughout the past year. I was originally supposed to have this done on July 18, after my summer teaching was over, but it's become increasingly evident that it can't wait that long. The recovery will take a few weeks, and then I may feel up to serious intellectual challenges again. In the meantime, they'll have to wait.
• As of today, guns on campus appears to be dead in Texas. It took an awful lot of phone calling, testifying and petitioning by an awful lot of concerned people, but it looks like we actually beat the NRA. Let me repeat that: WE ACTUALLY BEAT THE NRA! (And in the process, we affirmed the will of the majority of Texas voters.) Of course, I've been wrong about this before.
• The joint recital that I was planning to give with my son Jeremy will have to be postponed until late summer or early fall. We absolutely will be giving it. In the meantime, Jeremy will have sung Donaudy at the state-wide solo and ensemble competition in Austin and traveled throughout the United Kingdom as a People to People Student Ambassador. He will sing and play the piano better than ever. Watch this space for the final recital date.
• My daughter Jennifer just finished her freshman year at Baylor, has moved back into the house, and is cleaning up her room. This is almost as remarkable as the last two points.
• My father had some extraordinary complications after his bypass surgery, but he's home and doing much better.
• My blog had its 4,000th pageview sometime this week. I know this isn't much of a post, but I appreciate all of you who have been reading what I have to say. Assuming I'm right and the Rapture doesn't happen tomorrow—in fact, assuming I'm right and the Rapture is a gross theological distortion that nobody who understands any of the three major Abrahamic religions could take seriously—I'll be back.
• On Monday I'm going under the knife (under the laparoscope, actually) for abdominal surgery that I hope will fix the diverticulitis problem that has cursed me throughout the past year. I was originally supposed to have this done on July 18, after my summer teaching was over, but it's become increasingly evident that it can't wait that long. The recovery will take a few weeks, and then I may feel up to serious intellectual challenges again. In the meantime, they'll have to wait.
• As of today, guns on campus appears to be dead in Texas. It took an awful lot of phone calling, testifying and petitioning by an awful lot of concerned people, but it looks like we actually beat the NRA. Let me repeat that: WE ACTUALLY BEAT THE NRA! (And in the process, we affirmed the will of the majority of Texas voters.) Of course, I've been wrong about this before.
• The joint recital that I was planning to give with my son Jeremy will have to be postponed until late summer or early fall. We absolutely will be giving it. In the meantime, Jeremy will have sung Donaudy at the state-wide solo and ensemble competition in Austin and traveled throughout the United Kingdom as a People to People Student Ambassador. He will sing and play the piano better than ever. Watch this space for the final recital date.
• My daughter Jennifer just finished her freshman year at Baylor, has moved back into the house, and is cleaning up her room. This is almost as remarkable as the last two points.
• My father had some extraordinary complications after his bypass surgery, but he's home and doing much better.
• My blog had its 4,000th pageview sometime this week. I know this isn't much of a post, but I appreciate all of you who have been reading what I have to say. Assuming I'm right and the Rapture doesn't happen tomorrow—in fact, assuming I'm right and the Rapture is a gross theological distortion that nobody who understands any of the three major Abrahamic religions could take seriously—I'll be back.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Grace in the Making
It has been, to put it mildly, one hell of a way to end a semester. The second week in April, just as the first set of research papers came in for my attention, my publisher emailed me two chapters of the book I am writing and asked for immediate revisions. This took my full attention for a week and a half. Then a job search in which I had been involved went into high gear and consumed most of another week. By the time Easter Break rolled around, I had two sets of research papers I hadn't looked at yet and was ready to do some serious catching up. That was when I was ambushed by the 5th flareup of diverticulitis I've experienced this year; it literally struck during the final meeting of the search committee. I was laid out flat for several days, and ended up farther behind than ever. The most important thing to keep in mind, my doctor reminded me, was that recovery requires lots and lots of rest, and I absolutely must not push myself too hard. Meanwhile, final grades were due in two weeks, and the mountain of work I had to do in that time seemed insurmountable.
During the final week, I learned that my father had been hospitalized for what turned out to be nearly complete occlusion of two major arteries, and would require emergency quadruple bypass surgery. The operation went well, but complications set in, and at first every report I heard on how he was doing was more discouraging than the last. As far as I know, he has now turned the corner and will be home sometime next week. As I was finishing my grades, however, I didn't even have complete confidence that he would recover - and since he's in Florida, there was obviously no way I could go visit him when so many people were counting on me to turn in their grades so they could graduate.
I was hoping for one significant satisfaction during this ordeal. May 10, the day before my grades were due, was also the final day on which Sen. Jeff Wentworth's guns on campus legislation could clear the Texas State Senate before being declared dead for another two years. I was prepared to post a triumphant status on Facebook as I finished the grades last Wednesday proclaiming that we had succeeded against all odds in blocking this phenomenally misguided legislation from becoming law. Instead, on Monday, as my father lay in pain in a Florida hospital room and I struggled to force myself to keep grading one paper after another so the grades would be in on time (my doctor's advice to get lots and lots of rest and not push myself too hard resonating like an ironic mantra in my brain), Sen. Wentworth managed through some stealthy trick to attach his bill as an amendment to a completely unrelated piece of legislation and get it onto the Senate floor, where it promptly passed. For those of us who had invested everything we could possibly muster in opposing a bill that we found literally inconceivable, defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory. Wentworth and the gun lobby had triumphed. I went to bed Monday night with the heaviest heart, and the most crushing sense of utter, complete defeat that I can remember having experienced in a long, long time.
It just seemed like the world was coming to an end. In that context, I posted a link to the news story about the gun legislation on Facebook, and stated that after the grades were in, I expected to be writing a blog post explaining why I no longer wished to remain in this country when I retired. It drew a few comments.
Fortunately for my sanity, the first thing I did when I turned in the grades was to get away to Fredericksburg with my wife Barbara for two days of relaxation and regeneration. I left on Wednesday still thinking my father was at death's door, still thinking guns on campus was inevitable, and with a series of indignant emails I had received from a student I had just failed on a paper rankling at the edge of my comfort zone. Those two days turned out to be the greatest gift I could have given myself (and Barbara, of course).
Now I'm back home, and with an absolutely clear conscience I will be skipping both Baylor commencements today to watch the simulcast of Die Walküre from the Metropolitan Opera. My father seems to be doing much better, and at least for now, the companion bill to Sen. Wentworth's piece of folly has failed to clear the Texas House with a guns-on-campus amendment attached, so the struggle continues. I feel like a different person. In particular, the time we spent visiting Texas wineries (Did you know that the stretch of Highway 290 east of Fredericksburg is now the second most popular wine destination in the US, after the Napa Valley?) helped to ground me in a sense of local identity that I'd momentarily suppressed. This is where I live, and it's good to know we're doing something people like that doesn't involve guns.
Make no mistake: I still feel profoundly out of place in 2011 America. I still ask myself if I belong in the same country with the Tea Party mobs I've been seeing on the news regularly for what seems like forever. If the legislature does end up passing guns on campus, it will feel exactly as though they had shown up at my house dressed in white sheets and burned a cross on my lawn. Even though I teach at a private university that will be allowed to "opt out" of letting students bring guns to class, the passage of such a bill would in itself constitute a massive slap in the face to everything I ever thought my life and my profession stood for.
However, I have also been reminded that this is where I live, and that's also part of who I am. Not only am I an American, but I have now lived most of my life in the South, and settling down anywhere else would feel pretty strange. Therefore, I can only hope to find the grace to continue affirming my rootedness in this time and place, since no other real option is available. As tough as it may be, I'm ready to stay.
During the final week, I learned that my father had been hospitalized for what turned out to be nearly complete occlusion of two major arteries, and would require emergency quadruple bypass surgery. The operation went well, but complications set in, and at first every report I heard on how he was doing was more discouraging than the last. As far as I know, he has now turned the corner and will be home sometime next week. As I was finishing my grades, however, I didn't even have complete confidence that he would recover - and since he's in Florida, there was obviously no way I could go visit him when so many people were counting on me to turn in their grades so they could graduate.
I was hoping for one significant satisfaction during this ordeal. May 10, the day before my grades were due, was also the final day on which Sen. Jeff Wentworth's guns on campus legislation could clear the Texas State Senate before being declared dead for another two years. I was prepared to post a triumphant status on Facebook as I finished the grades last Wednesday proclaiming that we had succeeded against all odds in blocking this phenomenally misguided legislation from becoming law. Instead, on Monday, as my father lay in pain in a Florida hospital room and I struggled to force myself to keep grading one paper after another so the grades would be in on time (my doctor's advice to get lots and lots of rest and not push myself too hard resonating like an ironic mantra in my brain), Sen. Wentworth managed through some stealthy trick to attach his bill as an amendment to a completely unrelated piece of legislation and get it onto the Senate floor, where it promptly passed. For those of us who had invested everything we could possibly muster in opposing a bill that we found literally inconceivable, defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory. Wentworth and the gun lobby had triumphed. I went to bed Monday night with the heaviest heart, and the most crushing sense of utter, complete defeat that I can remember having experienced in a long, long time.
It just seemed like the world was coming to an end. In that context, I posted a link to the news story about the gun legislation on Facebook, and stated that after the grades were in, I expected to be writing a blog post explaining why I no longer wished to remain in this country when I retired. It drew a few comments.
Fortunately for my sanity, the first thing I did when I turned in the grades was to get away to Fredericksburg with my wife Barbara for two days of relaxation and regeneration. I left on Wednesday still thinking my father was at death's door, still thinking guns on campus was inevitable, and with a series of indignant emails I had received from a student I had just failed on a paper rankling at the edge of my comfort zone. Those two days turned out to be the greatest gift I could have given myself (and Barbara, of course).
Now I'm back home, and with an absolutely clear conscience I will be skipping both Baylor commencements today to watch the simulcast of Die Walküre from the Metropolitan Opera. My father seems to be doing much better, and at least for now, the companion bill to Sen. Wentworth's piece of folly has failed to clear the Texas House with a guns-on-campus amendment attached, so the struggle continues. I feel like a different person. In particular, the time we spent visiting Texas wineries (Did you know that the stretch of Highway 290 east of Fredericksburg is now the second most popular wine destination in the US, after the Napa Valley?) helped to ground me in a sense of local identity that I'd momentarily suppressed. This is where I live, and it's good to know we're doing something people like that doesn't involve guns.
Make no mistake: I still feel profoundly out of place in 2011 America. I still ask myself if I belong in the same country with the Tea Party mobs I've been seeing on the news regularly for what seems like forever. If the legislature does end up passing guns on campus, it will feel exactly as though they had shown up at my house dressed in white sheets and burned a cross on my lawn. Even though I teach at a private university that will be allowed to "opt out" of letting students bring guns to class, the passage of such a bill would in itself constitute a massive slap in the face to everything I ever thought my life and my profession stood for.
However, I have also been reminded that this is where I live, and that's also part of who I am. Not only am I an American, but I have now lived most of my life in the South, and settling down anywhere else would feel pretty strange. Therefore, I can only hope to find the grace to continue affirming my rootedness in this time and place, since no other real option is available. As tough as it may be, I'm ready to stay.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Seduced again
An empire needs a lot of validation. In particular, it needs to make up stories about itself. If you are a powerful empire at the crossroads of the world, it might make sense to tell one like this: A vigorous young god grows tired of his mother's constant meddling, so he murders her and stretches out her corpse to form the cosmos. The many splatters of blood become stars, resulting in the pretty but violent world we all inhabit.
This is essentially the creation myth of ancient Babylon, but it lives on as what theologian Walter Wink has called "the myth of redemptive violence." According to this myth, a wrong can only be avenged through violence. At its most powerful, such violence is indeed a creative force, and the god, person or nation who exercises it performs an act of redemption.
The most stunning realization of the myth of redemptive violence I have ever seen is the movie Independence Day. After millions of people have been killed and an entire alien civilization destroyed by our nuclear weapons in retaliation, we are asked to leave the theater believing that we have seen a "happy ending." After all, "they" were not even human.
Before I go on to make the obvious parallel with current events, I would like to point out that there is another creation story with which we are ostensibly more familiar: one that grew up in the shadow of Babylon, and in opposition to it. In this story, God does not use violence to create the world. God stands outside of creation, yet cares deeply enough about it to find it good. We have also heard this story many times, but we may not realize how strongly it contrasts with the Babylonian creation myth - because it is the latter that still often guides our most important choices.
Things do not go smoothly in Genesis either, of course. Cain kills Abel, planting a seed of violence that grows and festers until it creates a cancer that seems impossible to eradicate. In many ways, our imaginations are still bound by the limitations of the creation myth of ancient Babylon.
We have been asked this week to accept that the death of Osama bin Laden is an act of justice. Perhaps it is. Let me be clear. I am not sorry that the man is dead. He was evil, and he brought what happened on himself many times over. We may well be safer because he is no longer alive.
Nevertheless, I have come to believe that a truly evil person can do no greater evil than to cause others to rejoice over his or her death. I refuse to grant bin Laden that final victory over my soul. I will not be happy that he is dead. He does not deserve it.
This is essentially the creation myth of ancient Babylon, but it lives on as what theologian Walter Wink has called "the myth of redemptive violence." According to this myth, a wrong can only be avenged through violence. At its most powerful, such violence is indeed a creative force, and the god, person or nation who exercises it performs an act of redemption.
The most stunning realization of the myth of redemptive violence I have ever seen is the movie Independence Day. After millions of people have been killed and an entire alien civilization destroyed by our nuclear weapons in retaliation, we are asked to leave the theater believing that we have seen a "happy ending." After all, "they" were not even human.
Before I go on to make the obvious parallel with current events, I would like to point out that there is another creation story with which we are ostensibly more familiar: one that grew up in the shadow of Babylon, and in opposition to it. In this story, God does not use violence to create the world. God stands outside of creation, yet cares deeply enough about it to find it good. We have also heard this story many times, but we may not realize how strongly it contrasts with the Babylonian creation myth - because it is the latter that still often guides our most important choices.
Things do not go smoothly in Genesis either, of course. Cain kills Abel, planting a seed of violence that grows and festers until it creates a cancer that seems impossible to eradicate. In many ways, our imaginations are still bound by the limitations of the creation myth of ancient Babylon.
We have been asked this week to accept that the death of Osama bin Laden is an act of justice. Perhaps it is. Let me be clear. I am not sorry that the man is dead. He was evil, and he brought what happened on himself many times over. We may well be safer because he is no longer alive.
Nevertheless, I have come to believe that a truly evil person can do no greater evil than to cause others to rejoice over his or her death. I refuse to grant bin Laden that final victory over my soul. I will not be happy that he is dead. He does not deserve it.
Friday, April 29, 2011
On ill health
It's time to share some personal information here, since I've said more than enough about politics and religion recently. I haven't spoken much about my family, although those who have noted my planned joint recital with my son Jeremy must have concluded that I have one. They are correct, and we've had some health challenges that have made this past couple of years particularly difficult for us.
The hero of our family is unquestionably my wife Barbara, who has endured a catalogue of illnesses that would challenge even the most robust among us. A thirty-two-year cancer survivor, she has been deaf for the last eight years because of the damage done by the massive dose of radiation she was given after her surgery. She hears only with cochlear implants, which are an improvement over deafness but far from perfect. She also struggles with balance, which is undermined by the loss of both inner ears and part of her cerebellum. Over the past two years, she has had surgery for an excruciatingly painful rotator cuff tear in her left arm that was pinching a nerve, and for trigeminal neuralgia, called the "suicide disease" because it is believed to be the most painful condition known to man.
That's an awful lot to lay on one person, so it's a good thing that I've usually been able to take my own good health for granted. This year, though, my body has thrown me for a loop. Last April I suddenly experienced a sharp and growing pain in my lower left abdomen. When it didn't subside for over a day, I was taken to the hospital for a CT scan, which revealed extensive diverticulitis and a near-ruptured abscess in my large intestine. (I wasn't told about the latter at the time.) Diverticulitis is a bacterial infection that develops in pouches in the sygmoid colon. Almost every American has these pouches by middle age, but it's unclear why they sometimes become infected. Mine did, though, with a vengeance.
I missed nearly a week of classes, but massive treatment with two different antibiotics got me back in shape. I was told to expect another infection - eventually. In the meantime, I should eat lots of fiber and probiotics. With luck, it would be a few years before I had to worry about this again.
It turned out to be two months. In June, at the height of my summer term teaching, I was struck once more. Once again the antibiotics, and once again a few days when I couldn't work - though with no student assistant to back me up this time. A few more days teaching against medical advice, sitting when I prefer to stand. Two weeks of antibiotics this time instead of ten days.
In July, another relapse. Three full weeks of antibiotics this time. Then, except for a false alarm in September that sent me to the hospital for another CT scan, it held fire for over half a year.
It returned out of nowhere in February as I was teaching my afternoon seminar. By the time I got back to my office, the pain was so severe I couldn't drive, so I had to call Barbara to pick me up. The same pills, the same five-day recuperation period, and I was more than ready for the Spring Break respite that came shortly afterward.
Episode number five began on Thursday of last week, during a committee meeting. I was able to drive myself home this time, but the painkillers I had to take kept me doped out for most of Good Friday. (Perhaps that explains my blog post that day, with the nostalgia for Earth Day 1970. I didn't say that.) According to the well established pattern, by the time Easter Break was over, I would be on my feet and ready to teach again - just way behind on my paper grading. I even took some time to practice intensively for the joint recital. Then Wednesday came, I taught three classes, and I returned at 5:00 deeply weary and in pain. It was clear that I just wasn't getting over this episode as quickly as in the past, and I had to make the painful decision to postpone the recital (until June 5) so I could focus on getting my final grades done.
This time, my doctor gave me what I hope is the full story. The flareup I had in April of last year was so bad that it damaged my sygmoid colon irreparably. The only way to stop these increasingly debilitating attacks will be to have surgery to restructure my intestine. Believe it or not, they can do that with lasers and a few small incisions. However, they can't do it before July 18, when I'm finally done with my summer teaching and will have three weeks to recuperate. In the meantime, I just need to keep those pills on hand and try not to get too stressed out, since it's glaringly obvious that stress makes this worse.
So: I WILL NOT BE UPTIGHT. I WILL NOT BE UPTIGHT. I WILL NOT...
Do you think that's going to work? Neither do I. At least, though, I've had the opportunity to experience first-hand what it's like when your body just doesn't do everything you think it should. Barbara has been living with that for over thirty years, so I can surely put up with it for a few more months. It's sobering, frustrating, and a little scary. It's part of life.
The hero of our family is unquestionably my wife Barbara, who has endured a catalogue of illnesses that would challenge even the most robust among us. A thirty-two-year cancer survivor, she has been deaf for the last eight years because of the damage done by the massive dose of radiation she was given after her surgery. She hears only with cochlear implants, which are an improvement over deafness but far from perfect. She also struggles with balance, which is undermined by the loss of both inner ears and part of her cerebellum. Over the past two years, she has had surgery for an excruciatingly painful rotator cuff tear in her left arm that was pinching a nerve, and for trigeminal neuralgia, called the "suicide disease" because it is believed to be the most painful condition known to man.
That's an awful lot to lay on one person, so it's a good thing that I've usually been able to take my own good health for granted. This year, though, my body has thrown me for a loop. Last April I suddenly experienced a sharp and growing pain in my lower left abdomen. When it didn't subside for over a day, I was taken to the hospital for a CT scan, which revealed extensive diverticulitis and a near-ruptured abscess in my large intestine. (I wasn't told about the latter at the time.) Diverticulitis is a bacterial infection that develops in pouches in the sygmoid colon. Almost every American has these pouches by middle age, but it's unclear why they sometimes become infected. Mine did, though, with a vengeance.
I missed nearly a week of classes, but massive treatment with two different antibiotics got me back in shape. I was told to expect another infection - eventually. In the meantime, I should eat lots of fiber and probiotics. With luck, it would be a few years before I had to worry about this again.
It turned out to be two months. In June, at the height of my summer term teaching, I was struck once more. Once again the antibiotics, and once again a few days when I couldn't work - though with no student assistant to back me up this time. A few more days teaching against medical advice, sitting when I prefer to stand. Two weeks of antibiotics this time instead of ten days.
In July, another relapse. Three full weeks of antibiotics this time. Then, except for a false alarm in September that sent me to the hospital for another CT scan, it held fire for over half a year.
It returned out of nowhere in February as I was teaching my afternoon seminar. By the time I got back to my office, the pain was so severe I couldn't drive, so I had to call Barbara to pick me up. The same pills, the same five-day recuperation period, and I was more than ready for the Spring Break respite that came shortly afterward.
Episode number five began on Thursday of last week, during a committee meeting. I was able to drive myself home this time, but the painkillers I had to take kept me doped out for most of Good Friday. (Perhaps that explains my blog post that day, with the nostalgia for Earth Day 1970. I didn't say that.) According to the well established pattern, by the time Easter Break was over, I would be on my feet and ready to teach again - just way behind on my paper grading. I even took some time to practice intensively for the joint recital. Then Wednesday came, I taught three classes, and I returned at 5:00 deeply weary and in pain. It was clear that I just wasn't getting over this episode as quickly as in the past, and I had to make the painful decision to postpone the recital (until June 5) so I could focus on getting my final grades done.
This time, my doctor gave me what I hope is the full story. The flareup I had in April of last year was so bad that it damaged my sygmoid colon irreparably. The only way to stop these increasingly debilitating attacks will be to have surgery to restructure my intestine. Believe it or not, they can do that with lasers and a few small incisions. However, they can't do it before July 18, when I'm finally done with my summer teaching and will have three weeks to recuperate. In the meantime, I just need to keep those pills on hand and try not to get too stressed out, since it's glaringly obvious that stress makes this worse.
So: I WILL NOT BE UPTIGHT. I WILL NOT BE UPTIGHT. I WILL NOT...
Do you think that's going to work? Neither do I. At least, though, I've had the opportunity to experience first-hand what it's like when your body just doesn't do everything you think it should. Barbara has been living with that for over thirty years, so I can surely put up with it for a few more months. It's sobering, frustrating, and a little scary. It's part of life.
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