This will be my last post on Raid for a while; at least a year, most likely. I'll be focusing all my writing energy on my web novel and the (temporary) new version of Chronicles of the Ephemeral. But I didn't want to end here on such a negative note, so I just wanted to quickly enumerate the reasons why I was not, after all, sad or disappointed or troubled that Obama won, and why I'll be rooting for him wholeheartedly in the months and years to come.
1) He inspires people. When I hear the way some people talk about him, like he's going to save the country and fix everything that's wrong, my first reaction is a roll of the eyes (usually strictly internal.) But my second reaction is, hey, almost none of the heroes of the human race are as golden and shiny as their devotees believe them to be. If I had to guess, I'd say most of them achieved whatever they achieved by a combination of charisma, some particular talents, luck or the blessing of God, and dedication to their own vision. I figure it takes at least three out of those four things to make a hero the public will revere; conversely, with at least three out of those four things, a person stands a good chance of being honored by history. So, cool. Barack Obama certainly has charisma and talent, he's been favored up to this point, whether you believe it's luck or divine blessing, and I'd give at least fifty-fifty odds that he's genuinely dedicated to the vision he communicates so well. At the very least, he's appealing in a way that will bring many bright, energetic, idealistic people to work on his side, and that's a good thing.
2) He's multiracial. It really does feel good to break the "white male" monopoly on our highest political office. And when I saw the reactions of thousands of African-Americans on election night, and as I've heard in the following days the comments of African-Americans I know personally, I have to rejoice on their behalf. A group of our fellow countrymen who have felt bitterly disenfranchised for a long, long time finally get to see one of their own at 1600 Penn. Ave. That's a beautiful thing.
3) He's the first president we've had whose name is in iambs.
What?
Iambs. As in, "iambic pentameter." You know, one of the most common metrical feet in English?
Umm, right. What?
No, seriously. I think it's cool. For totally frivolous reasons, sure, but also for some slightly serious ones. Most of our presidents have had trochaic names: Millard Fillmore, Grover Cleveland, Jimmy Carter. That's because most English names are trochaic, or dactylic if three syllables (Abraham). Barack Obama, on the other hand, is iambic.
Aaand, why is that important again?
Okay, mostly I just think it sounds nice. But if you want me to get serious, I'll say this: it's another way that our new president-elect reflects the diversity of the American people. There are a lot of Americans named Robert and William, to be sure, but there are also a lot of Americans named Fernando and Deshawn and Manisha. I was startled this year to see, among signs for Frank Wolf and Judy Feder, "Neeraj Nigam for Congress." After blinking in surprise for a few minutes, I snapped my brain out of its Anglo-Saxon heritage filter and said, Oy! Why not? Nigam didn't win, but Obama did, and that's a step in the right direction.
4) He looks good, he talks good. Yep, this one really is frivolous. But hey, George W. Bush has been our public face on the international scene for eight years, and even if you don't hate his policies, you've got to admit he didn't win us any coolness points. Barack Obama wins us serious coolness points.
5) This is the most important reason I'm rooting for Obama, the one that would prevail even if all the other reasons don't exist. He's going to be our president. We gave him the job, and it's not an easy one. For his sake, for his family's sake, and for all our sakes, I'm hoping to see him do it well.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
Why I will not vote for Obama
Long before this year’s campaign began, I was favorably disposed toward Obama. A friend of mine (not liberal by a long stretch) had heard him speak and was enthusiastic about both his demeanor and his message. I have friends in Chicago who spoke highly of him. Without having seen or heard anything of him myself, I had him on my “people to watch” list.
Fast forward a few months, to just before he announced his presidential candidacy. Everybody was talking about it: will he or won’t he? I said then that I thought it would be a mistake for him to run this year. He was too new to the scene, had too little experience and too short a record. I thought it would be much wiser to wait four or eight years; let Clinton have her shot now, bide your time, become a little more seasoned. He would have made a great successor to a strong Clinton presidency (I’m not a fan of Hillary Clinton, mostly for policy reasons, but there is no doubt that she is a strong politician, and I think she would have made an effective and popular president.) He decided to run this year; oh well, thought I, there’s another high-profile figure who unaccountably fails to hear or heed my advice.
So then, for me, there were three ways of looking at Barack Obama: either he was vain and impatiently ambitious, or he was naïve and lacking in judgement, or he was a genuine idealist who believed that the political machine in Washington needed to be shaken up, right now. I’m an idealist myself, painful as that can be sometimes, and so I kept my fingers crossed for the third option. I was moved by his soundbite, very early in the campaign: “People say I haven’t been here long enough to know the ways of Washington; but I have been here long enough to know the ways of Washington must change.” Right on. Hear hear. As a young, smart, liberally educated person, how could I fail to like another young, smart, liberally educated person who was running for office?
I was rooting for him all through the Democrat primary. Sure, his ideas and goals were a ways to the left of my own, but I had been sure, along with everybody else, that our next president would be a Democrat, and what better Democrat to have? A fresh face, a compelling voice, and an oft-spoken commitment to bipartisanship. Moreover, the enthusiasm he generated among voters, particularly in my generation, was thrilling. So many of us have been frustrated and disgusted with the political scene. Chesterton put it so well: “The Republic of the young men’s battles / Grew stale and stank of old men’s bribes.” A figure whose voiced idealism was igniting an answering spark in so many of us, saying that there is a different way to do politics, a cleaner, more noble way, with less gamesmanship and underhanded tactics, and more cooperation and coming together from different ideological positions to accomplish what’s best for us all… how could we not like this person?
As the brutal campaign dragged on, his image as a figure of change became considerably tarnished, but I still had my fingers crossed. A battle as nasty as that one leaves everybody a little dirty. The closing out of the primary election was an opportunity for Obama to get back on track with his message; to put on a clean shirt and show that he was really committed to a new way of doing things. Oh how I would have loved a candidate who was willing to lose the election, in order to maintain the moral high ground!
Well, it’s just over a month now to voting day, and that dream has died. Obama has failed in his promise to show us a cleaner, more noble way of doing politics. Whatever change he’s bringing, it’s not that. He talks as if he’s still got it: continually berating the other side for its underhanded tactics. But he’s engaging in them too; if you haven’t seen it, look more closely.
Here’s a particularly egregious example. He had an interview with George Stephanopoulos, which made a mercifully tiny splash because of an unfortunate slip of the tongue (I’ve tried saying the sentence he was trying to say, and there isn’t a natural way to phrase it, so it would be—and was—fatally easy to get your tongue tangled and utter the exact wrong phrase… fortunately the press did the right thing and mostly ignored it.) What bothered me about that interview was not the slip, but what he was saying before it. Here is my own transcript of the essential part of that interview. :
Stephanopoulos: “Yesterday you took off after the Republicans for suggesting you have Muslim connections. Just a few minutes ago Rick Davis, John McCain’s campaign manager, said, they’ve never done that, this is a false and cynical attempt to play victim.”
Obama: “You know what? These guys love to throw a rock and hide their hand…”
Stephanopoulos: “The McCain campaign has never suggested you have Muslim connections.”
Obama: “No, but I don’t think that when you look at what is being promulgated on, Fox News, let’s say, and Republican commentators, who are closely allied to these folks—”
Stephanopoulos: “But John McCain said that’s wrong.”
Obama: “Listen. You and I both know that the minute that Governor Palin was forced to talk about her daughter, I immediately said, ‘That’s off-limits’—”
Stephanopoulos: “But John McCain said the same thing about questioning your faith.”
Obama: “—and what was the first thing the McCain campaign went out and did? They said, ‘Look, these liberal blogs that support Obama are out there attacking Governor Palin.’ Let’s not play games.”
Did you catch that? Obama is attacking the McCain campaign for what some McCain supporters are saying, even though the McCain campaign has disavowed that message. He then turns right around and attacks the McCain campaign for attacking the Obama campaign for what some Obama supporters had been saying, even though Obama had disavowed that message. And then he says, “Let’s not play games.”
I kind of hate him for that. It’s just so blatant and audacious. Does he think nobody will notice? If anyone else in Washington had said that, I’d have rolled my eyes and said, “Okay, politics as usual, idiot tactics, how gross.” But from Obama, it hurts me and makes me angry, because he was not supposed to be like that. He said—and affirms to this day—that he is not like that. I really hate being lied to.
(Just to be clear, that’s not the only example. I’ve seen this kind of new and shiny doublespeak, where you accuse the other guy of gamesmanship while engaging in it yourself in the same breath, repeatedly from Obama. It’s disgusting and insulting.)
So now I’m talking like a wronged woman. Let’s take it back to a more analytical plane. Remember near the beginning of this article, when I listed three reasons he might have decided to run for president prematurely (in my view)? Vanity and ambition, naïvete, or genuine idealism. The idealism bubble is burst. I don’t think it’s naïvete either; he has shown himself to be too savvy for that. I have, however, seen plenty of evidence for vanity and ambition. Two autobiographies is just the beginning.
Let me just start here by saying that I am a vain person, and sometimes an ambitious one. I know the hallmarks of vanity very well. You are always, always conscious of how you appear. When you speak, you hear everything in your head before you say it, to make sure it sounds okay. You are stung when you’re attacked, but you don’t show it. Instead you retreat a pace, looking gracious, but slightly bewildered (just the right amount to make sure you look like the victim, but not helpless). All the while you’re searching wildly for a vulnerable spot in your attacker, and when you find it you strike, not viciously or angrily, but with an air of quiet poise. To the outsider, it looks as though you knew you were right all along.
This is the kind of thing I see when I watch Barack Obama, especially in debates. It’s subtle, it’s subjective, but combined with clearer markers (okay, really? Two autobiographies?), and the fact that one of the few major public decisions we’ve seen him make was the decision to run for president this year, it’s convincing to me. I believe Barack Obama is a highly intelligent man who is driven by a deep vanity; a need to look awesome in as many eyes as possible.
And here’s the kicker: in that respect (if it’s true), he’s very like George W. Bush. More intelligent, more attractive, and a much better communicator; but a need to appear well is not so different, on the ground, from a need for approval. I see both men as profoundly egocentric, and this, to me, is not a desirable quality in a leader.
Still, Obama certainly doesn’t have a monopoly on vanity in our great capital. If we were going to root all the vain, ambitious, and egocentric men and women from high office, Washington D.C. would be a ghost town. If you’re generally a liberal, if you like the idea of socialized health care and a Robin Hood tax policy, then there’s no reason not to vote for him. But the people like me, the independents and conservatives who were seduced by his message and his manner, need to take a good hard look.
Fast forward a few months, to just before he announced his presidential candidacy. Everybody was talking about it: will he or won’t he? I said then that I thought it would be a mistake for him to run this year. He was too new to the scene, had too little experience and too short a record. I thought it would be much wiser to wait four or eight years; let Clinton have her shot now, bide your time, become a little more seasoned. He would have made a great successor to a strong Clinton presidency (I’m not a fan of Hillary Clinton, mostly for policy reasons, but there is no doubt that she is a strong politician, and I think she would have made an effective and popular president.) He decided to run this year; oh well, thought I, there’s another high-profile figure who unaccountably fails to hear or heed my advice.
So then, for me, there were three ways of looking at Barack Obama: either he was vain and impatiently ambitious, or he was naïve and lacking in judgement, or he was a genuine idealist who believed that the political machine in Washington needed to be shaken up, right now. I’m an idealist myself, painful as that can be sometimes, and so I kept my fingers crossed for the third option. I was moved by his soundbite, very early in the campaign: “People say I haven’t been here long enough to know the ways of Washington; but I have been here long enough to know the ways of Washington must change.” Right on. Hear hear. As a young, smart, liberally educated person, how could I fail to like another young, smart, liberally educated person who was running for office?
I was rooting for him all through the Democrat primary. Sure, his ideas and goals were a ways to the left of my own, but I had been sure, along with everybody else, that our next president would be a Democrat, and what better Democrat to have? A fresh face, a compelling voice, and an oft-spoken commitment to bipartisanship. Moreover, the enthusiasm he generated among voters, particularly in my generation, was thrilling. So many of us have been frustrated and disgusted with the political scene. Chesterton put it so well: “The Republic of the young men’s battles / Grew stale and stank of old men’s bribes.” A figure whose voiced idealism was igniting an answering spark in so many of us, saying that there is a different way to do politics, a cleaner, more noble way, with less gamesmanship and underhanded tactics, and more cooperation and coming together from different ideological positions to accomplish what’s best for us all… how could we not like this person?
As the brutal campaign dragged on, his image as a figure of change became considerably tarnished, but I still had my fingers crossed. A battle as nasty as that one leaves everybody a little dirty. The closing out of the primary election was an opportunity for Obama to get back on track with his message; to put on a clean shirt and show that he was really committed to a new way of doing things. Oh how I would have loved a candidate who was willing to lose the election, in order to maintain the moral high ground!
Well, it’s just over a month now to voting day, and that dream has died. Obama has failed in his promise to show us a cleaner, more noble way of doing politics. Whatever change he’s bringing, it’s not that. He talks as if he’s still got it: continually berating the other side for its underhanded tactics. But he’s engaging in them too; if you haven’t seen it, look more closely.
Here’s a particularly egregious example. He had an interview with George Stephanopoulos, which made a mercifully tiny splash because of an unfortunate slip of the tongue (I’ve tried saying the sentence he was trying to say, and there isn’t a natural way to phrase it, so it would be—and was—fatally easy to get your tongue tangled and utter the exact wrong phrase… fortunately the press did the right thing and mostly ignored it.) What bothered me about that interview was not the slip, but what he was saying before it. Here is my own transcript of the essential part of that interview. :
Stephanopoulos: “Yesterday you took off after the Republicans for suggesting you have Muslim connections. Just a few minutes ago Rick Davis, John McCain’s campaign manager, said, they’ve never done that, this is a false and cynical attempt to play victim.”
Obama: “You know what? These guys love to throw a rock and hide their hand…”
Stephanopoulos: “The McCain campaign has never suggested you have Muslim connections.”
Obama: “No, but I don’t think that when you look at what is being promulgated on, Fox News, let’s say, and Republican commentators, who are closely allied to these folks—”
Stephanopoulos: “But John McCain said that’s wrong.”
Obama: “Listen. You and I both know that the minute that Governor Palin was forced to talk about her daughter, I immediately said, ‘That’s off-limits’—”
Stephanopoulos: “But John McCain said the same thing about questioning your faith.”
Obama: “—and what was the first thing the McCain campaign went out and did? They said, ‘Look, these liberal blogs that support Obama are out there attacking Governor Palin.’ Let’s not play games.”
Did you catch that? Obama is attacking the McCain campaign for what some McCain supporters are saying, even though the McCain campaign has disavowed that message. He then turns right around and attacks the McCain campaign for attacking the Obama campaign for what some Obama supporters had been saying, even though Obama had disavowed that message. And then he says, “Let’s not play games.”
I kind of hate him for that. It’s just so blatant and audacious. Does he think nobody will notice? If anyone else in Washington had said that, I’d have rolled my eyes and said, “Okay, politics as usual, idiot tactics, how gross.” But from Obama, it hurts me and makes me angry, because he was not supposed to be like that. He said—and affirms to this day—that he is not like that. I really hate being lied to.
(Just to be clear, that’s not the only example. I’ve seen this kind of new and shiny doublespeak, where you accuse the other guy of gamesmanship while engaging in it yourself in the same breath, repeatedly from Obama. It’s disgusting and insulting.)
So now I’m talking like a wronged woman. Let’s take it back to a more analytical plane. Remember near the beginning of this article, when I listed three reasons he might have decided to run for president prematurely (in my view)? Vanity and ambition, naïvete, or genuine idealism. The idealism bubble is burst. I don’t think it’s naïvete either; he has shown himself to be too savvy for that. I have, however, seen plenty of evidence for vanity and ambition. Two autobiographies is just the beginning.
Let me just start here by saying that I am a vain person, and sometimes an ambitious one. I know the hallmarks of vanity very well. You are always, always conscious of how you appear. When you speak, you hear everything in your head before you say it, to make sure it sounds okay. You are stung when you’re attacked, but you don’t show it. Instead you retreat a pace, looking gracious, but slightly bewildered (just the right amount to make sure you look like the victim, but not helpless). All the while you’re searching wildly for a vulnerable spot in your attacker, and when you find it you strike, not viciously or angrily, but with an air of quiet poise. To the outsider, it looks as though you knew you were right all along.
This is the kind of thing I see when I watch Barack Obama, especially in debates. It’s subtle, it’s subjective, but combined with clearer markers (okay, really? Two autobiographies?), and the fact that one of the few major public decisions we’ve seen him make was the decision to run for president this year, it’s convincing to me. I believe Barack Obama is a highly intelligent man who is driven by a deep vanity; a need to look awesome in as many eyes as possible.
And here’s the kicker: in that respect (if it’s true), he’s very like George W. Bush. More intelligent, more attractive, and a much better communicator; but a need to appear well is not so different, on the ground, from a need for approval. I see both men as profoundly egocentric, and this, to me, is not a desirable quality in a leader.
Still, Obama certainly doesn’t have a monopoly on vanity in our great capital. If we were going to root all the vain, ambitious, and egocentric men and women from high office, Washington D.C. would be a ghost town. If you’re generally a liberal, if you like the idea of socialized health care and a Robin Hood tax policy, then there’s no reason not to vote for him. But the people like me, the independents and conservatives who were seduced by his message and his manner, need to take a good hard look.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
on materialism
In the last three years, I have not lived in the same place for more than ten months on end. Blame it on high housing costs, blame it on the transitional nature of this area, blame it on the general instability of the single twentysomething who recently earned a liberal arts degree. I've moved from room to room in other people's houses, gathering up my little collection of stuff and setting it down again. I haven't loved this-- when my current living situation was threatened, a few months ago, I had a few nights of bitter tears. But it has certainly been effective in shaping my adult character, in a few particular ways that I'm glad of.
When we buy things, we generally consider two costs: the cost of purchasing, and the cost of maintaining. For most items, the cost of maintaining is zero (T-shirts, end tables, DVDs); for some it must be reckoned (cars, pets, musical instruments.) But all these items contain a third cost, not usually considered: the cost of having. Every item you possess costs you, at minimum, the area it takes up in your home. The cost doesn't usually translate into any extra expenditure of time or money, until moving day. Then every single thing you possess adds up, in tiny increments, to a very large cost in time, money, and (my personal nemesis) hassle.
When you move once or twice in a decade, this is not significant. When you move five times in three years, it becomes profound. The first couple of moves are opportunities to examine your priorities, pare down your life a little, throw away things that are no longer important. By the fourth and fifth, it has become a frenzy of self-denial, a wild game of seeing exactly how much material loss you can stand. And eventually you find that your whole attitude toward material possessions has changed. There's a place in your brain that is conscious of every single thing you own; they pile up like beans on a scale, increasingly oppressive. You start to evaluate everything you possess, not with the vague "Is this important to me?" but with the ruthlessly concrete "What value does this add to my life today?"
And this is the question I would have people learn to ask. Obviously there are things like clothes, books, movies, and music, that you use every day but not all at once. Likewise there are special-occasion things (a set of fine china, materials for a project you will undergo over your summer vacation) that can justify their place in your life, even if you use them rarely. But there are so many other things, things you thought it would be nice to have, for which a serious audit would reveal that they're not worth the space they occupy.
A case in point was my guitar. When I was twelve years old, I thought I'd like to learn to play guitar, so my mom and dad got me one for my birthday. For a few months I worked at it, learning chords and picking out songs I liked; then I got distracted and it lay unused under my bed. Every three or four years I'd remember I had it, take it out, tune it up, and re-learn those chords, but it never lasted more than a month. About the time of my third post-graduate move, I looked at it and suddenly felt sick. It's a beautiful guitar, an excellent instrument, and what role does it fill in the world? To collect dust under my bed, and to give me the ability to say, "Yeah, I have a guitar, someday I'll learn to play it."
People who say our society worships possessions have it wrong. We worship possession: the state of having stuff. Toward our possessions, we are cavalier, almost sacrilegious. We take a thing that ought to be good, ought to bring value to someone's life, and we let it become waste, clutter. A guitar was not made to be a funny-shaped object under someone's bed: it was made to be music. What right had I to debase such a beautiful thing for so long?
I am no anti-materialist. Nobody who would delightedly lay out two hundred dollars on a single pen has any claim to be called an anti-materialist. I value material possessions; I value them so highly that I hate to see them suffering the kind of debasement and neglect that they live under in so many American households. Things ought to bring joy, they ought to enrich the lives of their owners, they ought to enable us to live healthier, happier, or more effective lives. If they do none of these things, then why for pity's sake do we have them? Because they made us feel good at the moment we bought them? Because they allow us to kid ourselves about who we are? ("I am a person who will someday be able to play a guitar.") To have a thing for that reason is an impoverishment.
I don't want to be a wealthy woman and I don't want to be a poor woman. When you walk into my house, I don't want you to see opulence or asceticism. I want you to see things that please me, that enrich my life on a daily basis, that assist me in the pursuits and entertainments that I truly value. Everything else is merely a burden and a disguise. Throw it out.
When we buy things, we generally consider two costs: the cost of purchasing, and the cost of maintaining. For most items, the cost of maintaining is zero (T-shirts, end tables, DVDs); for some it must be reckoned (cars, pets, musical instruments.) But all these items contain a third cost, not usually considered: the cost of having. Every item you possess costs you, at minimum, the area it takes up in your home. The cost doesn't usually translate into any extra expenditure of time or money, until moving day. Then every single thing you possess adds up, in tiny increments, to a very large cost in time, money, and (my personal nemesis) hassle.
When you move once or twice in a decade, this is not significant. When you move five times in three years, it becomes profound. The first couple of moves are opportunities to examine your priorities, pare down your life a little, throw away things that are no longer important. By the fourth and fifth, it has become a frenzy of self-denial, a wild game of seeing exactly how much material loss you can stand. And eventually you find that your whole attitude toward material possessions has changed. There's a place in your brain that is conscious of every single thing you own; they pile up like beans on a scale, increasingly oppressive. You start to evaluate everything you possess, not with the vague "Is this important to me?" but with the ruthlessly concrete "What value does this add to my life today?"
And this is the question I would have people learn to ask. Obviously there are things like clothes, books, movies, and music, that you use every day but not all at once. Likewise there are special-occasion things (a set of fine china, materials for a project you will undergo over your summer vacation) that can justify their place in your life, even if you use them rarely. But there are so many other things, things you thought it would be nice to have, for which a serious audit would reveal that they're not worth the space they occupy.
A case in point was my guitar. When I was twelve years old, I thought I'd like to learn to play guitar, so my mom and dad got me one for my birthday. For a few months I worked at it, learning chords and picking out songs I liked; then I got distracted and it lay unused under my bed. Every three or four years I'd remember I had it, take it out, tune it up, and re-learn those chords, but it never lasted more than a month. About the time of my third post-graduate move, I looked at it and suddenly felt sick. It's a beautiful guitar, an excellent instrument, and what role does it fill in the world? To collect dust under my bed, and to give me the ability to say, "Yeah, I have a guitar, someday I'll learn to play it."
People who say our society worships possessions have it wrong. We worship possession: the state of having stuff. Toward our possessions, we are cavalier, almost sacrilegious. We take a thing that ought to be good, ought to bring value to someone's life, and we let it become waste, clutter. A guitar was not made to be a funny-shaped object under someone's bed: it was made to be music. What right had I to debase such a beautiful thing for so long?
I am no anti-materialist. Nobody who would delightedly lay out two hundred dollars on a single pen has any claim to be called an anti-materialist. I value material possessions; I value them so highly that I hate to see them suffering the kind of debasement and neglect that they live under in so many American households. Things ought to bring joy, they ought to enrich the lives of their owners, they ought to enable us to live healthier, happier, or more effective lives. If they do none of these things, then why for pity's sake do we have them? Because they made us feel good at the moment we bought them? Because they allow us to kid ourselves about who we are? ("I am a person who will someday be able to play a guitar.") To have a thing for that reason is an impoverishment.
I don't want to be a wealthy woman and I don't want to be a poor woman. When you walk into my house, I don't want you to see opulence or asceticism. I want you to see things that please me, that enrich my life on a daily basis, that assist me in the pursuits and entertainments that I truly value. Everything else is merely a burden and a disguise. Throw it out.
Friday, March 21, 2008
the Rubin vase
You all know the Rubin vase: it's that black-and-white image that the mind interprets as either two faces looking at each other, or a vase. If you don't know both are there, you will probably immediately see one or the other exclusively. If you stare at it long enough though, or if someone tells you there's an alternate interpretation, you will see the image flip, and suddenly you're looking at a completely different picture. There are a lot of different images that work this way, and it's a fun perception game to play: staring at them, trying to flip your perception between one and the other as quickly as you can. The thing is, you never see both at once. While you're looking at a picture of a vase, it is a picture of a vase. When you're looking at a picture of two faces, the vase disappears. Each interpretation of the image is consistent, and persistent: it usually takes some mental wrenching to switch views.
I feel like I've been staring at a Rubin vase for the last year: particularly, the last three or four months. The image is life, the universe, and everything, and the two interpretations are of course the scientific, specifically materialistic view, and the religious, specifically Christian. One view says that material reality is the only reality, and all those insights and impulses which we call "spiritual" arise out of material events and causes. The universe first, then life, then intelligence, then meaning. The other view says that there is a spiritual reality behind the material, that meaning came before matter, and in some unfathomable way gave birth to matter. ("Before" is of course an inappropriate term: time and space are properties of the universe, and if the spiritual view is true, "before," "after," and "outside" are meaningless with regard to the spiritual reality. But we do what we can with the brains we have.)
Now, to a lot of people it appears self-evident that one of these views is true and one is false. I am tempted to call these people lucky. For me, they are like the two interpretations of the Rubin vase: when I'm looking at one, it seems as if it must be true: it is plausible, internally consistent, and sufficient to explain pretty much everything that I feel and observe. But when for some reason the image flips, as when I read a book or talk to a person holding the opposite view, then the opposite view is equally persuasive. Each view has its weaknesses, and I don't lose awareness of these when I switch between views, but when I'm looking at one the objections to it seem trivial, faulty, or ignoble. Worse yet, each view can give a full account of why the alternative is persuasive, even though it's wrong.
As an example, I've just been reading Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion. (Which, by the way, I recommend that all my scholarly Christian friends read. If you ever intend to get into a debate with a thoughtful, well-educated atheist, you had better be exposed to the best arguments they have to offer, and this book contains many of them. He especially says some things on the "religion and science are mutually exclusive" line of thought that are important to consider.) The process of reading it, for me, was a torment of multistable perception. I came to it, let me confess, hoping that it would be so unconvincing that I would be able to embark on the road back to Christianity without further qualms or doubts. My hope was half-fulfilled. When I was reading it with a belief in God at the back of my mind, it was unconvincing (though still very much worth the read.) When I was reading it without that belief, it was convincing. Faces. Vase. Faces. Vase. Back and forth until my poor brain is dizzy and sick.
The essential difference between the Rubin dilemma, and the material/spiritual dilemma, is that they can't both be true. Dawkins is very clear about that, for which I'm glad. Either there is a spiritual reality which is independent of the material, or there isn't. You can have something that looks very like religion and belief in God, even something resembling Christianity, while still claiming that the material universe is the first and ultimate reality, but there are a few things you can't have. You can't have resurrection. You can't have eternal life. You can't have true miracles. It is a fundamentally different kind of thing from the faith my friends have, and that I used to claim. But it only serves to exacerbate my problem. My perception shifts, shifts, shifts between these two views, and one of them must be false. But how can I tell which one? How can I decide between two plausible, eternally consistent, and equally complete ways of looking at the world?
No, really, I'm asking you.
In such a quandary, Pascal's Wager looks better than it ever has before. "If you don't know which one to believe, you'd better believe in God, because if it's true you get eternal life and if it's false it won't matter anyway." I still think this is a despicable and impossible solution, however. Does anyone really think that God would accept worship springing from such a motivation? I can't imagine so; ergo, no one who really believed in God could profess belief on these terms. Another, similar, way of solving it would be: "If you don't know which one to believe, why not choose the one that makes you happiest?" (Or most content, or that you think will cause you to lead the best life.) I've already confessed that I'm longing to go back to Christianity. I said before, and I still hold, that if Christianity is true, the story of the world is a comedy (in the Shakespearean sense.) If not, it's a tragedy. And I'm partial to happy endings. Moreover, as long as I cannot call myself a Christian, I will feel divided from the people I love best. It is so, so tempting to simply walk back into church, to smile, to say "I believe, because I can no longer bear not to believe." But again, do I really think that God wants my belief or worship on those terms? No, not for a minute. So I am caught in something very like the liar's paradox: if I don't really believe in God, then I can profess belief, for any of the above reasons. If I do believe in God, then I can't, because I don't have grounds for belief that are worthy of the God I believe in. But does that mean my refusal to profess belief demonstrates my belief?
That's where I am right now. Further bulletins as events warrant, and please for the love of God, or of material grandeur and beauty, if you have any light to shed on my dilemma, cast it my way.
I feel like I've been staring at a Rubin vase for the last year: particularly, the last three or four months. The image is life, the universe, and everything, and the two interpretations are of course the scientific, specifically materialistic view, and the religious, specifically Christian. One view says that material reality is the only reality, and all those insights and impulses which we call "spiritual" arise out of material events and causes. The universe first, then life, then intelligence, then meaning. The other view says that there is a spiritual reality behind the material, that meaning came before matter, and in some unfathomable way gave birth to matter. ("Before" is of course an inappropriate term: time and space are properties of the universe, and if the spiritual view is true, "before," "after," and "outside" are meaningless with regard to the spiritual reality. But we do what we can with the brains we have.)
Now, to a lot of people it appears self-evident that one of these views is true and one is false. I am tempted to call these people lucky. For me, they are like the two interpretations of the Rubin vase: when I'm looking at one, it seems as if it must be true: it is plausible, internally consistent, and sufficient to explain pretty much everything that I feel and observe. But when for some reason the image flips, as when I read a book or talk to a person holding the opposite view, then the opposite view is equally persuasive. Each view has its weaknesses, and I don't lose awareness of these when I switch between views, but when I'm looking at one the objections to it seem trivial, faulty, or ignoble. Worse yet, each view can give a full account of why the alternative is persuasive, even though it's wrong.
As an example, I've just been reading Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion. (Which, by the way, I recommend that all my scholarly Christian friends read. If you ever intend to get into a debate with a thoughtful, well-educated atheist, you had better be exposed to the best arguments they have to offer, and this book contains many of them. He especially says some things on the "religion and science are mutually exclusive" line of thought that are important to consider.) The process of reading it, for me, was a torment of multistable perception. I came to it, let me confess, hoping that it would be so unconvincing that I would be able to embark on the road back to Christianity without further qualms or doubts. My hope was half-fulfilled. When I was reading it with a belief in God at the back of my mind, it was unconvincing (though still very much worth the read.) When I was reading it without that belief, it was convincing. Faces. Vase. Faces. Vase. Back and forth until my poor brain is dizzy and sick.
The essential difference between the Rubin dilemma, and the material/spiritual dilemma, is that they can't both be true. Dawkins is very clear about that, for which I'm glad. Either there is a spiritual reality which is independent of the material, or there isn't. You can have something that looks very like religion and belief in God, even something resembling Christianity, while still claiming that the material universe is the first and ultimate reality, but there are a few things you can't have. You can't have resurrection. You can't have eternal life. You can't have true miracles. It is a fundamentally different kind of thing from the faith my friends have, and that I used to claim. But it only serves to exacerbate my problem. My perception shifts, shifts, shifts between these two views, and one of them must be false. But how can I tell which one? How can I decide between two plausible, eternally consistent, and equally complete ways of looking at the world?
No, really, I'm asking you.
In such a quandary, Pascal's Wager looks better than it ever has before. "If you don't know which one to believe, you'd better believe in God, because if it's true you get eternal life and if it's false it won't matter anyway." I still think this is a despicable and impossible solution, however. Does anyone really think that God would accept worship springing from such a motivation? I can't imagine so; ergo, no one who really believed in God could profess belief on these terms. Another, similar, way of solving it would be: "If you don't know which one to believe, why not choose the one that makes you happiest?" (Or most content, or that you think will cause you to lead the best life.) I've already confessed that I'm longing to go back to Christianity. I said before, and I still hold, that if Christianity is true, the story of the world is a comedy (in the Shakespearean sense.) If not, it's a tragedy. And I'm partial to happy endings. Moreover, as long as I cannot call myself a Christian, I will feel divided from the people I love best. It is so, so tempting to simply walk back into church, to smile, to say "I believe, because I can no longer bear not to believe." But again, do I really think that God wants my belief or worship on those terms? No, not for a minute. So I am caught in something very like the liar's paradox: if I don't really believe in God, then I can profess belief, for any of the above reasons. If I do believe in God, then I can't, because I don't have grounds for belief that are worthy of the God I believe in. But does that mean my refusal to profess belief demonstrates my belief?
That's where I am right now. Further bulletins as events warrant, and please for the love of God, or of material grandeur and beauty, if you have any light to shed on my dilemma, cast it my way.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
some words, by one of those "men whom one cannot hope to emulate"
O, yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;
That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroy'd,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;
That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivell'd in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another's gain.
Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last--far off--at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.
So runs my dream; but what am I?
An infant crying in the night;
An infant crying for the light,
And with no language but a cry.
***
The wish, that of the living whole
No life may fail beyond the grave,
Derives it not from what we have
The likest God within the soul?
Are God and Nature then at strife,
That Nature lends such evil dreams?
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life,
That I, considering everywhere
Her secret meaning in her deeds,
And finding that of fifty seeds
She often brings but one to bear,
I falter where I firmly trod,
And falling with my weight of cares
Upon the great world's altar-stairs
That slope thro' darkness up to God,
I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope.
***
"So careful of the type?" but no.
From scarped cliff and quarried stone
She cries, "A thousand types are gone;
I care for nothing, all shall go.
"Thou makest thine appeal to me.
I bring to life, I bring to death;
The spirit does but mean the breath:
I know no more." And he, shall he,
Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair,
Such splendid purpose in his eyes,
Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies,
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,
Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation's final law--
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek'd against his creed--
Who loved, who suffer'd countless ills,
Who battled for the True, the Just,
Be blown about the desert dust,
Or seal'd within the iron hills?
No more? A monster then, a dream,
A discord. Dragons of the prime,
That tare each other in their slime,
Were mellow music match'd with him.
O life as futile, then, as frail!
O for thy voice to soothe and bless!
What hope of answer, or redress?
Behind the veil, behind the veil.
-In Memoriam, vv 54-56
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;
That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroy'd,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;
That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivell'd in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another's gain.
Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last--far off--at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.
So runs my dream; but what am I?
An infant crying in the night;
An infant crying for the light,
And with no language but a cry.
***
The wish, that of the living whole
No life may fail beyond the grave,
Derives it not from what we have
The likest God within the soul?
Are God and Nature then at strife,
That Nature lends such evil dreams?
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life,
That I, considering everywhere
Her secret meaning in her deeds,
And finding that of fifty seeds
She often brings but one to bear,
I falter where I firmly trod,
And falling with my weight of cares
Upon the great world's altar-stairs
That slope thro' darkness up to God,
I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope.
***
"So careful of the type?" but no.
From scarped cliff and quarried stone
She cries, "A thousand types are gone;
I care for nothing, all shall go.
"Thou makest thine appeal to me.
I bring to life, I bring to death;
The spirit does but mean the breath:
I know no more." And he, shall he,
Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair,
Such splendid purpose in his eyes,
Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies,
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,
Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation's final law--
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek'd against his creed--
Who loved, who suffer'd countless ills,
Who battled for the True, the Just,
Be blown about the desert dust,
Or seal'd within the iron hills?
No more? A monster then, a dream,
A discord. Dragons of the prime,
That tare each other in their slime,
Were mellow music match'd with him.
O life as futile, then, as frail!
O for thy voice to soothe and bless!
What hope of answer, or redress?
Behind the veil, behind the veil.
-In Memoriam, vv 54-56
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Saturday, February 16, 2008
on character and characterization (with a dash of feminism)
A thing writers must grasp, if they're going to tell anything like a good story, is the distinction between character and characterization. Characterization is what you put on your "character fact sheet": background, station in life, appearance, personality traits. A characterization of Virginia Ruth might be: female, mid-20s, about averagely attractive, loves books above all else, generally introverted but very open and talkative when she's comfortable with friends, nonconformist but not in an ostentatious way, works at a hospital to support her novel-writing habit. Et cetera. If you've ever done one of those "character sheets" for fiction writers, with pages and pages of details about your character's history, personality, likes and dislikes, etc... that's characterization.
Character is something very different. Character is nothing more nor less than what your character does throughout the action of the story. Character confirms, or gives the lie to, the facts of your characterization. Sometimes you can make the two things play against each other affectively: if Tom Silvertongue is a lawyer (and therefore, one would assume, fairly assertive and well-spoken), but stutters and backs away from any conflict, that's kind of interesting. If he's a very successful lawyer in spite of that, it's very interesting... provided the writer shows both how he defies the lawyer stereotype, and how he succeeds in spite of it.
A writer has got to maintain the integrity of his or her characters. If you say Sally Sharpeyes is observant and perceptive, but she routinely picks up on things only several chapters after the audience has spotted them, then she's a bad character. Reading the forums run by two of my favorite storytellers, Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio, I came across a discussion on that big three-way swordfight in the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie. One of the readers was asking why, to make the plot smoother, Captain Jack (or possibly Norrington) didn't just knock Will out of the fight at one point. Ted and Terry's response: "That would violate Will's character." Will is supposed to be the best swordsman in the story, and they had to maintain his character in each fight.
Characterization doesn't count unless it's backed up by character. It just doesn't. The audience doesn't care what's on your fact sheet. They care what the character does in the course of the story. I challenge you to name any character you hate, and I bet it'll be for one of three reasons: 1) they do mean, mean things to your favorite character; 2) they're obnoxious, and meant to be, 3) the writer didn't back up the characterization.
Which brings me to feminism. I've been trying for a while now to express why I'm so dissatisfied with female characters in most mainstream movies these days. It seems to me that Golden-Age Hollywood, the age of Katharine Hepburn and Ingrid Bergman, produced many more strong female characters. Why, in an era where women can be doctors and lawyers and soldiers and scientists, are women in the movies so insipid? It's not because the movie characters aren't doctors, etc... A lot of them are. You couldn't make a movie where are the women are housewives, nurses, and teachers, unless you were being deliberately ironic about it. No, the problem is that while characterizations for women have gotten stronger, characters have gotten much weaker. You don't see female characters making tough decisions, you don't see them doing things that are integral to the plot. I should say, you don't see young, attractive female characters doing these things. There are a few exceptions, but not nearly enough.
I don't know why this is. I could speculate, but I think that's best left for another post. Or the comments section... then you could speculate along with me!
Character is something very different. Character is nothing more nor less than what your character does throughout the action of the story. Character confirms, or gives the lie to, the facts of your characterization. Sometimes you can make the two things play against each other affectively: if Tom Silvertongue is a lawyer (and therefore, one would assume, fairly assertive and well-spoken), but stutters and backs away from any conflict, that's kind of interesting. If he's a very successful lawyer in spite of that, it's very interesting... provided the writer shows both how he defies the lawyer stereotype, and how he succeeds in spite of it.
A writer has got to maintain the integrity of his or her characters. If you say Sally Sharpeyes is observant and perceptive, but she routinely picks up on things only several chapters after the audience has spotted them, then she's a bad character. Reading the forums run by two of my favorite storytellers, Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio, I came across a discussion on that big three-way swordfight in the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie. One of the readers was asking why, to make the plot smoother, Captain Jack (or possibly Norrington) didn't just knock Will out of the fight at one point. Ted and Terry's response: "That would violate Will's character." Will is supposed to be the best swordsman in the story, and they had to maintain his character in each fight.
Characterization doesn't count unless it's backed up by character. It just doesn't. The audience doesn't care what's on your fact sheet. They care what the character does in the course of the story. I challenge you to name any character you hate, and I bet it'll be for one of three reasons: 1) they do mean, mean things to your favorite character; 2) they're obnoxious, and meant to be, 3) the writer didn't back up the characterization.
Which brings me to feminism. I've been trying for a while now to express why I'm so dissatisfied with female characters in most mainstream movies these days. It seems to me that Golden-Age Hollywood, the age of Katharine Hepburn and Ingrid Bergman, produced many more strong female characters. Why, in an era where women can be doctors and lawyers and soldiers and scientists, are women in the movies so insipid? It's not because the movie characters aren't doctors, etc... A lot of them are. You couldn't make a movie where are the women are housewives, nurses, and teachers, unless you were being deliberately ironic about it. No, the problem is that while characterizations for women have gotten stronger, characters have gotten much weaker. You don't see female characters making tough decisions, you don't see them doing things that are integral to the plot. I should say, you don't see young, attractive female characters doing these things. There are a few exceptions, but not nearly enough.
I don't know why this is. I could speculate, but I think that's best left for another post. Or the comments section... then you could speculate along with me!
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
a story
Once upon a time there was a little girl who wondered what it was like to be a frog. No reason in particular; she was usually wondering something or other, and on this day she was gluing green pom-poms to a green hat, and probably the green made her think of it. For whatever reason, it came into her head to wonder what it was like to be a frog. And she was instantly seized with despair, because she realized she would never know. Those words (never, never know, never) were horrible to her, the most horrible words she could imagine. Crushing, crippling words, words that pinned her into a tiny box of space and time, isolated from the rest of the world -- forever. Never, forever. Horrible.
There were other points of despair, too. She hated kaleidoscopes, hated that the beautiful pattern she was looking at would shift with one turn, and never be seen again. The day after Christmas, or after any long-anticipated joy, her heart would sink and sink. She was very young to feel so oppressed by time; adults do not generally believe that children can feel things like time, and the limits of existence, so painfully. But she did. The future was her joy and her hope; every night when her mother tucked her in, she would ask, "What are we going to do tomorrow?" She loved to hold the future, as a possession, to look over it when the lights were off and enjoy its beauties. So disappointment was the most cruel feeling she knew -- a beautiful future turned into a lie -- and "never" the most horrible word.
She warded off the cruelty of disappointment by throwing herself into a new future as quickly as she could. The horror of "never," though, the black wall between her and a future that could not be... her only defense against that was a hope of heaven, an extra-earthly future where the impossible became possible. Eternal duration, unlimited joy. In heaven, she would either know what it was like to be a frog, or she would no longer feel the need to know. Either way would be okay.
She grew older and she read more. Her relationship to life and time became more complicated, but always with the hallmarks of her childhood. She had little hope or fear attached to the material world. Her imagination was where her real life took place, and the outside world was only important because it provided the materials for her imagination to play with. If something precious was taken from her, she would suffer a little, and then transfer her love to something else. If something precious was threatened, she could transfer her love pre-emptively, prepare for loss. Life was like a game, an adventure, a story. All the important things were happening inside her head, under her control. The adventure could take her where it would: the cornerstones of her life were safe from outside hands.
All her life, she called herself a Christian, and this faith was important in helping her maintain that inner stability. The hope of heaven, which got her over that early day of despair, gave the philosophical anchor she needed. No matter what happened, she had a future, a good and beautiful future, which no fear could breach. She did not need to know what it would be like: she was promised good, and she had only to cling to that promise. Promises others clung to ("God will provide, God will protect us") seemed silly to her. Quite evidently God did not provide and protect in all cases: plenty of people, as deserving as she, suffered loss and died young. But she had that promise: in the end, after the end, everything would be all right. An unshakable hope.
Clinging... that's the word. We usually do cling to something, don't we? A lot of people cling to something in the material world: a lover, a possession, a job. Something that tells us who we are and assures us that our lives are not empty. Something that lets us feel like we have a handle on the world. I thought I was lucky. I could lose everything, but I would always have my imagination, and my imagination would always have heaven. Torture me, maim me, imprison me -- it might hurt, but it could never strike at the heart of who I was. And if you killed me, you'd only be escorting me to hope's final consummation. Fool-proof. Invulnerable. I even boasted of my invulnerability, not long ago (December 14th, 2006). My hope, my future, my prized possession, was one that even God couldn't take away from me.
And then God did. Not a month after writing those proud and confident words, my faith was gone. I still don't know what happened, but the experience was like this: I was driving home from playing pool with friends, friends who had been challenging me on my beliefs for several months. I had said to one of them, several weeks ago, "I don't know why I believe in God, I just do." And I was speaking the truth; there was a place in my thoughts where the belief was lodged, firmly, not apologizing for or explaining its presence, just there. I couldn't not believe in God; if I tried it, I knew I was kidding myself.
So on this night, driving home, I went back to that place, to make sure it was there, to see if I still couldn't not believe in God. And I found that I could. And darkness fell.
And what that meant, and what happens next, is a story I've been trying to tell for a year, and I haven't fully managed it yet because I don't understand it myself. But at the same time, it's quite clear: this is where the story had to go. If you cling and you cling, and you protect yourself from all calamities, and you use nothing except your faith to shield yourself from reality (which is to say, to shield yourself from God), then that faith must be dismantled. Because a life buried in imagination, anchored in the hope of heaven, is a fictional life. It is the destruction of the things we cling to that drives us into reality, into truth, into the heart of God. Sometimes that destruction takes a very strange shape.
There were other points of despair, too. She hated kaleidoscopes, hated that the beautiful pattern she was looking at would shift with one turn, and never be seen again. The day after Christmas, or after any long-anticipated joy, her heart would sink and sink. She was very young to feel so oppressed by time; adults do not generally believe that children can feel things like time, and the limits of existence, so painfully. But she did. The future was her joy and her hope; every night when her mother tucked her in, she would ask, "What are we going to do tomorrow?" She loved to hold the future, as a possession, to look over it when the lights were off and enjoy its beauties. So disappointment was the most cruel feeling she knew -- a beautiful future turned into a lie -- and "never" the most horrible word.
She warded off the cruelty of disappointment by throwing herself into a new future as quickly as she could. The horror of "never," though, the black wall between her and a future that could not be... her only defense against that was a hope of heaven, an extra-earthly future where the impossible became possible. Eternal duration, unlimited joy. In heaven, she would either know what it was like to be a frog, or she would no longer feel the need to know. Either way would be okay.
She grew older and she read more. Her relationship to life and time became more complicated, but always with the hallmarks of her childhood. She had little hope or fear attached to the material world. Her imagination was where her real life took place, and the outside world was only important because it provided the materials for her imagination to play with. If something precious was taken from her, she would suffer a little, and then transfer her love to something else. If something precious was threatened, she could transfer her love pre-emptively, prepare for loss. Life was like a game, an adventure, a story. All the important things were happening inside her head, under her control. The adventure could take her where it would: the cornerstones of her life were safe from outside hands.
All her life, she called herself a Christian, and this faith was important in helping her maintain that inner stability. The hope of heaven, which got her over that early day of despair, gave the philosophical anchor she needed. No matter what happened, she had a future, a good and beautiful future, which no fear could breach. She did not need to know what it would be like: she was promised good, and she had only to cling to that promise. Promises others clung to ("God will provide, God will protect us") seemed silly to her. Quite evidently God did not provide and protect in all cases: plenty of people, as deserving as she, suffered loss and died young. But she had that promise: in the end, after the end, everything would be all right. An unshakable hope.
Clinging... that's the word. We usually do cling to something, don't we? A lot of people cling to something in the material world: a lover, a possession, a job. Something that tells us who we are and assures us that our lives are not empty. Something that lets us feel like we have a handle on the world. I thought I was lucky. I could lose everything, but I would always have my imagination, and my imagination would always have heaven. Torture me, maim me, imprison me -- it might hurt, but it could never strike at the heart of who I was. And if you killed me, you'd only be escorting me to hope's final consummation. Fool-proof. Invulnerable. I even boasted of my invulnerability, not long ago (December 14th, 2006). My hope, my future, my prized possession, was one that even God couldn't take away from me.
And then God did. Not a month after writing those proud and confident words, my faith was gone. I still don't know what happened, but the experience was like this: I was driving home from playing pool with friends, friends who had been challenging me on my beliefs for several months. I had said to one of them, several weeks ago, "I don't know why I believe in God, I just do." And I was speaking the truth; there was a place in my thoughts where the belief was lodged, firmly, not apologizing for or explaining its presence, just there. I couldn't not believe in God; if I tried it, I knew I was kidding myself.
So on this night, driving home, I went back to that place, to make sure it was there, to see if I still couldn't not believe in God. And I found that I could. And darkness fell.
And what that meant, and what happens next, is a story I've been trying to tell for a year, and I haven't fully managed it yet because I don't understand it myself. But at the same time, it's quite clear: this is where the story had to go. If you cling and you cling, and you protect yourself from all calamities, and you use nothing except your faith to shield yourself from reality (which is to say, to shield yourself from God), then that faith must be dismantled. Because a life buried in imagination, anchored in the hope of heaven, is a fictional life. It is the destruction of the things we cling to that drives us into reality, into truth, into the heart of God. Sometimes that destruction takes a very strange shape.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
