The Right overreacts to SNL's 'Djesus Uncrossed'

So were you offended by “DjesusUncrossed,” Saturday Night Live's riff on Quentin Tarantino's latest film?

I wasn't, but judging by the reaction of the nation's culture warriors, I should have been. Once the sketch aired last weekend, the Internet erupted with the predictable cries of foul. Fox News ran an opinion piece by Todd Starnes melodramatically claiming “NBC Declares War on Christians.” Michael Farris, chancellor of of Patrick Henry College, called it the “worst possible attack on the person and character of Jesus Christ.” Seriously?

For its part, the American Family Association, in its official statement, essentially consigned those involved with the sketch to the flames of hell.

Something is missing amid all this outrage: a sense of perspective.

SNL crew will discover one day they were closer to the truth than they knew with "DJesus Uncrossed." http://t.co/sqfeQijF

— Bryan Fischer (@BryanJFischer) February 18, 2013

“Saturday Night Live” hasn't stayed on the air the past 40 years for its biblical scholarship. It is a variety show built around short comedy sketches. Comedy works on its ability to surprise us, and the strength of its surprise often lies in the unexpected juxtaposition of unrelated ideas, especially if the link breaks a taboo.

That is why we laugh at a faux commercial for edible Pampers. This is why it was funny to listen to a Eddie Murphy and a reggae band sing about killing white people, at an American Legion fund-raiser. The images are too bizarre, too contradictory, too exaggerated. They make no sense. So we laugh.

In the case of “Djesus Uncrossed,” the writers at Saturday Night Live link the excessive and gratuitous violence of Quentin Tarantino's movies – “Django Unchained” and “Inglourious Basterds” specifically – to the figure of Jesus. The joke requires viewers the recognize the jarring disconnect between the violence of “Djesus Uncrossed” and the essential pacifism of Jesus in the gospels.

Quentin Tarantino's movies routinely make a spectacle of violence. Compare that to Jesus, who went peacefully when he was arrested, rebuked his disciples when they raised arms, and told his followers “Do not resist an evil person.” Pairing Jesus with Tarantino's love of violence isn't blasphemous; it's humorous. It works because we know that Jesus isn't the kind to cut someone's head in half.

The joke would fail if the writers didn't count on us to respect Jesus as a peaceful man. Where's the blasphemy in that?

Is the issue that Saturday Night Live used the likeness of Jesus in a manner that doesn't match the preapproved evangelical manner? That's a narrow attitude to take. Christianity has provided the framework for Western thought for nearly 1,700 years. In America its influence predates the founding of the Republic.

With that sort of legacy, it's only natural to use the language and the symbols of Christianity to communicate and to critique Western thought, civilization and art.

Is the issue that Saturday Night Live portrayed Jesus specifically in a violent manner? Perhaps it is. Either way, I think we have deeper problems than “Djesus Uncrossed.”

Years ago, some people complained that Jesus too often was being portrayed in popular culture as a hippie sort of flower child, powerless and weak, the sort of guy who gets sand kicked in his face at the beach.

The Jesus pushed by the Right has the opposite problem. The Right too often has used Jesus to stoke up people's anger, to justify invading Iraq and other Muslim countries, to marginalize gays and lesbians, and even to deny women access to contraceptives. This Jesus is no milquetoast; he's the guy who's going to kick sand in your face at the beach.

The difference is that Saturday Night Live portrayed the vengeful Jesus as a joke, while the Right is completely serious about theirs. Who's committing blasphemy now?

Starnes asks rhetorically why Saturday Night Live never pokes fun at Judaism – I guess he never saw“Harry Hanukkah Saves Christmas” – and never tells jokes about Islam. I'd wager it's not because they're afraid of offending Muslim viewers, nor because they hold a special regard for Islam, as much as that it's rude to pick on the little guy.

Because the truth is, in America at least, Islam remains a minority religion, with only about 2.6 million adherents in a nation of 300 million people. For all the complaints of the Religious Right that Christianity in America is under siege, Christianity remains the dominant narrative of our culture. Christmas is a federal holiday, not Eid al-Fitr. Everyone in America knows what Easter celebrates; I doubt you'll find one Christian in 10 who knows what Shavuot is, or what its relationship is to the Day of Pentecost.

The Religious Right loves to play the persecution card. The message it has been hammering for years is pretty simple: Be afraid. There's a war on Christianity, and we're losing. Liberals are attacking God. Our culture, our heritage, our legacy, are all under attack.

Faith should lead us to reach out to other people and to forge connections with them. If the most it inspires someone to do, is to tell you to be afraid, do yourself a favor.

Tune them out. Their attitude is the most offensive thing of all.


Copyright © 2013 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Fox continues its war on reason

Does Fox News think Christians should be thin-skinned and sensitive to everything that isn't exactly how Fox thinks it should be?

That's what I find myself asking after reading an opinion piece by Todd Starnes, titled "NBC Declares War on Christians." In his opinion piece, Starnes takes umbrage at the Saturday Night Live sketch "Djesus Uncrossed."

Aside from the Saturday Night Live sketch, NBC's offenses include sports blogger Rick Chandler's recent post about Tim Tebow's plans to speak at First Baptist Dallas. Starnes calls this post a "scathing smear." I just read it, and it seems like a fairly accurate description of the controversies centered on the church and the teachings of its head pastor. Don't take my word for it, though; decide for yourself.

Beyond that, the litany of NBC's supposed offenses includes editing the phrase "under God" out from the Pledge of Allegiance during the U.S. Open a year-and-a-half ago, NBC chief medical editor Nancy Snyderman expressing her personal mislike of religion on the "Today" show during a back-and-forth discussion, and of course shows like "Good Christian Bitches" and "The Book of Daniel." Plus there was a piece by Bart Ehrman, published in Newsweek, called "The Myths of Jesus," that lightly details the historical difficulties with the gospel accounts of Jesus' infancy.

By this point in his column, Starnes has got himself worked up pretty well over NBC's supposed war on Christians, and it's obvious he believes that the rest of us feel this way too. I'm sorry to disappoint him, but I just can't muster the outrage. I just don't see it.

For starters, Starnes has done a good job of stacking the deck. He neglects to mention other things that could put NBC in a more favorable light: the annual Christmas-tree lighting, for instance; Christmas specials like "It's a Wonderful Life," which NBC aired this past November. NBC also has aired shows like "VeggieTales" and "3-2-1 Penguins," which couldn't be more overtly Christian if they tried.

On "The Book of Daniel," Starnes notes that Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association hated it and called it anti-Christian bigotry. I should point out that Wildmon also was offended by "All in the Family" and "Charlie's Angels," and worried that Mighty Mouse would encourage kids to snort cocaine. More sensibly, the Rev. Gordon Atkinson said the main offense of "The Book of Daniel" was chiefly that it was a bad show.

Christ means everything to me. I've been a Christian for 25 years, even served God on the missions field in Haiti for a while. Perhaps I should be offended by "Djesus Unchained," but I just can't see it. It's Quentin Tarantino's over-the-top violence they're mocking, not Christ. If anything, the piece shows respect for Jesus. Its goal is to make us laugh by teaming jarringly graphic violence with the man best known in the United States for nonviolence. If anyone should be offended, it's Quentin Tarantino.

Fox loves to play the persecution card. The message they've been hammering for years is pretty simple: Be afraid. There's a war on Christmas. Liberals are attacking God. Our culture, our heritage, our legacy, are all under attack.

Simple truth is, we're not. If it sometimes feels like Christianity is being singled out for ridicule, there are two things to remember. One is that it's easy to overlook the negative portrayals of minority faiths like Islam, because they're not ours and we often don't understand them as well as we think we do. And the second is that because Christianity has provided the dominant underpinning framework for Western thought for as long as it has, it's only natural to use the language and the symbols of Christianity to communicate and to critique Western thought, civilization and art.

I'll also add this: Faith should lead us to reach out to other people and to forge connections with them. If the most it inspires someone to do, is to tell you to be afraid, do yourself a favor.

Change the channel.


Copyright © 2013 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Open Letter to Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council

Dear Mr. Perkins:

I was always under the impressions that the bullies were the ones who excluded other people. As my parents taught me when I was younger, those who stand up for the rights of those being excluded are the ones we should respect.

If the Boy Scouts want to continue a national policy of excluding gays from membership and leadership positions, by all means, let them do so. It tarnishes their reputation, it cheapens their claims to be a place for boys to grow into mature role models, and it puts them on the same side of history as men like George Wallace and Laurie Pritchett, men who also argued that discrimination was morally superior to inclusion and upholding human worth. It's not a choice I would make, but it's their choice.

I'm encouraged that the Boy Scouts are reconsidering their national ban on gay members and might be willing to leave it to individual troops to decide to permit openly gay men to serve in Scouts, based on the views of their sponsoring organizations.

The Scouts can and do accomplish a lot of good things for the children and teens who belong to their troops, but it's despite that ban, not because of it. It's time to do right on this issue as well.


David Learn


Copyright © 2013 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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'The Korvac Saga'

If I'm a fan of alternate histories and realities, and I am, the reason lies in a comic book Marvel Comics published up until 1984.

Narrated by Uatu the Watcher, "What If?" revisited some of Marvel's most iconic or successful stories, and showed how thy could have unfolded based on a single decision made differently. The initial run of "What If?" gave us stories, often by the talent behind the original story, of things like Peter Parker stopping the burglar and becoming a TV star rather than a superhero. Another story had Reed Richards wait for better shielding against cosmic radiation, with the result that he and his flight team never became the Fantastifc Four.

In one of of my personal favorites, Michael Korvac defeated the Avengers and pursued his dream of remaking the universe, taking out one being after another and adding their power to his own. As his power increased, the threat that Korvac posed alarmed more and more of the big hitters in the Marvel Universe until it reached the point that both he and the forces arrayed against him were unstoppable.

Backed into a corner, and unwilling to let go of his ambition, Korvac destroyed the entre universe with a single click of the Ultimate Nullifier. I want to stress that this wasn't cheap melodrama as later issues of "What If?" became. This was a logically structured story that progressed the only way it could. Even now years later, I still get a chill thinking about the way the it went.

In the regular Marvel Universe, where he did not destroy everything, Michael Korvac was the creation of Jim Shooter. He was one of many of the nemeses Shooter created for Marvel whose godlike powers were so tremendous that he was virtually undefeatable -- except of course, the heroes always manage to find a way, alternate realities excepted.

The Korvac Saga, as it is now known, first ran in 1978. Goaded on by that "What If?" story, I searched through comics conventions in my teens for individual issues in the series, and even managed to buy some. I never read the entire story until I finally got a collected edition this past week from PaperBackSwap.com.

It's disappointing.

In all fairness, comic books in 1978 had a younger readership than they do in 2013, and so you have to expect that they're going to focus on the adventure and cosmic spectacle more than on the humanity of their characters. That is particularly true for comics about superhero teams with rosters with legends like Captain America, powerhouses like Iron Man and Wonder Man, and the occasional Norse or Greek god.

But, to a 42-year-old who still finds something to enjoy in superhero comics, this comic did disappoint. There are too many clumsy asides to bring the reader up to pace on what happened last issue; too many people casually walking around in public or in the privacy of their own home in silly costumes; and too much melodrama to make sure we know just how powerful and menacing a figure Michael Korvac cuts.

And then there are other things that just feel odd. Never in my life did I expect to see Captain America and Iron Man squabbling like children, but that's a spectacle that awaits inside this volume. "It's my turn to be in charge and give the orders!" Iron Man whines. "But you're doing it wrong!" Captain America shouts, before punching him in the face. (I am not making that up.)

That's not to say the comic was awful, though, because it wasn't. If the story seems too juvenile at times, there are moments when the writer's wit shines through. There's the fashion show hosted by the Wasp, crashed by a supervillain wannabee wearing a suit made of brown projectile quills and calling himself the Porcupine. Or there's the moment when the Avengers realize, their special flight privileges revoked, that they will have to take a bus to Queens to save the world.

The story's got some of the great Marvel cliches, like a threat to the entire universe, but it also uses some of the storytelling techniques that have made Marvel Comics worth reading for so long, such as the use of a subplot involving the Collector that finally reveals its relationship to the larger story just as the subplot concludes. And of course, this is the story that gave us Henry Gyrich, the government bureaucrat every superhero is afraid of.

All told, I enjoyed the story for what it is, though I'd be lying if I said I didn't skim it at times. On the other hand, my daughters, who still love a good superhero romp as much I once did, have been enjoying it quite a bit.

Once they finish it, I need to turn them on to the story where Korvac wins.

broken hearts and lost love

My daughter's heart got broken yesterday.

I've been watching the past several weeks as she has fallen in love, and it really has been a sight to see. It started out as a mild curiosity that I unwittingly encouraged. I've known the object of her affection longer than she has, and when I've spoken of it, I have spoken only with the utmost regard and respect. That was enough. Her curiosity got the better of her before long, and she decided to check things out.

It was love at first sight.

Rachel is only 10, maybe a little young for a book the size and depth of "Les Misérables," but I've learned to trust my children's judgment on what they're capable of. Every morning for the past month, I have watched as she walks into school, the book tucked under one arm.

The sight of Rachel lugging an unabridged hardback copy of "Les Misérables" around the school quickly became iconic. Staff who never had her for a class asked me what book she was reading that was bigger than she was. They were amazed to hear not only that she would tackle a book so epic but also that she understood it.

And understand it she did. As she read, Rachel got caught up in the story. She groaned with good humor when she read Victor Hugo's 52-page essay on the Battle of Waterloo that is as fascinating as it is irrelevant to the story. (Just wait until you get to the chapter on the sewers, I told her.) She grieved for Fantine, hated the impassioned coldness of Javert, loathed the Thenardiers, and loved that brisk autumn evening when Valjean came to rescue Cosette.

Her experience with "Les Misérables" came to a cruel and premature end on Friday. When I arrived at the school to pick her up, I found Rachel distraught and almost in tears. "Les Misérables" was gone. She had left the book in its accustomed place during the school day, and now it was gone. She and the teacher had checked around the classroom and around the school, but they couldn't find it anywhere.

At first I thought she was upset because she had lost a book of mine, and I tried to console her. "It's all right," I told her, and I meant it. "I bought it 20 years ago at a used bookstore for seven bucks. It's not like it's your great-grandfather's second-edition copy of 'Moby Dick.' If it doesn't show up, we can find a new one."

Later, I realized how badly I had misread the situation. To me, "Les Misérables" was a book, a phenomenal book even; but to Rachel, reading it was a nearly religious experience. We could find another copy of the book, even the same edition, but it wouldn't be the same.

This wasn't just a book that Rachel had fallen in love with; it was a book that she had fallen into. The dust jacket was battered and worn, its edges frayed from being carted around every day for a month. For weeks she had taken every moment she could spare, and she had spent them all on reading that book. She had discovered the humanity of every character she had encountered, and established a connection with each one. Like the Velveteen rabbit, this book had become real.

And then it had disappeared. It was brutal. I had bought the book, but on Friday afternoon I realized that it wasn't mine anymore. Rachel had established a claim on the book and loved it right from under me. It's her book, through and through.

There is another possibility, though I prefer not to think about it. It's possible that one of the other students took it, out of spite. Every school has bullies, and Rachel has had problems with a few classmates over the past year.

But everyone in that school knows how much Ruth has been enjoying that book, and the thought that someone could be so deliberately cruel to another child is one I hate.



Copyright © 2013 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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the daniel fast

Among the more interesting things I've tried in the past year: a meal plan that lets you eat as much as you want, whenever you're hungry, and still lose weight.

Of course there's a little more to it than that, because it does restrict you from meats, bread  and a few other things. Known as the Daniel fast, it's essentially a vegan diet with a spiritual gloss, although it's just as effective without the religious aspects.

It's based primarily on what the book of Daniel records that he, Azariah, Mahalel and Hananiah ate, with additional restrictions taken from the fast Daniel kept while praying for the return of the Jews to Jerusalem. I lost about 20 pounds on it over a two-week period this past June.

It's pretty straightforward. Under this regimen, you can eat any fruit, vegetable, nut, legume, root or whole grain that you want, cooked or raw. Use any natural herbs or seasonings that you want. You drink water. Quantities are unlimited, so there's no worries about getting enough calories.

The benefits of a vegetarian diet are pretty well documented, so it's not too surprising that the book of Daniel reports that he and his friends outperformed both physically and mentally those who ate choice meats and drank fine wines.

From a proscriptive angle, the Daniel fast allows no meat, no dairy, no eggs, no sweeteners of any sort (including honey) and no flour. This pretty much eliminates all processed foods, so you can see why it's a big saver on the waistline. In the first few days alone, a person usually drops about 10 pounds of retained water.

The downside is that this is a big change from the diet we're accustomed to eating as Americans, and we can get strong cravings those first few days for junk food, or just find ourselves hungry for more food.

At the same time, though, that is part of the appeal of the Daniel fast both for losing weight and for being able to stick to the commitment -- if you're hungry, just get something to eat. You're not relying on willpower alone to tough it out for the duration of the fast; you're training yourself to eat more healthily, and you're breaking an addiction to unhealthful habits the way you're supposed to -- by replacing them with good habits.

One thing I discovered after trying the Daniel fast in June was that, after a few weeks without meat and sugar, I really didn't have an appetite for them. They not only lost their taste to me, they annoyed my stomach. If I hadn't insisted on getting back into some unhealthy eating habits for the sake of convenience, I probably would have stuck with it just fine.

Make that a goal for 2013.

'Black Like Me'

There are times I feel that my public education denied me important parts of my education. This is one of them.

"Black Like Me" is the true account of journalist John Howard Griffin and his journey through the South as a black man during the days of jim crow justice and segregation. Through a combination of melatonin pills, ultraviolet light treatments and a dye, Griffin made himself appear to be black, in order to better understand racism and how it affected society. The idea alone is incredible. That someone actually did this and then wrote about it, is nothing short of mind-boggling.

Griffin's book is written as a series of journal entries detailing his experiences as a black man in the South. Much of this details things that are textbook segregation: not being able to eat at white restaurants, not being allowed to drink from white water fountains, and not even being allowed to use white restrooms. What raises this above mere textbook knowledge is the immediacy of the narrative. Reading the book, you get a real sense of the indignity of having to walk for more than a mile just to go the bathroom, of not being given a drink of water on a scorching hot day, and of being subjected to what Griffin calls "the hate stare."

Beyond the obvious racism and racist attitudes, there were a few things revealed in the book that I found disturbing. One is that, in the afterword, Griffin notes that once the Civil Rights Act was passed, a number of white Civil Rights advocates felt that the work was finished. Blacks were guaranteed the right to vote, segregation was over, and things were looking up, What else was needed? Further demands by blacks for advancement and opportunity were met with incredulity and anger.

Right now there is a lawsuit headed to the U.S. Supreme Court, calling for a repeal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which ensured that states that had practiced segregation and jim crow justice would need to receive approval from the U.S. Department of Justice before they made any change to their voting laws. The argument is that, with a black president now elected to a second term, surely we have put this sordid chapter of our past behind us.

At the same time, a number of state legislatures have tried to pass voter ID laws in a sometimes brazen attempt to give Mitt Romney the upperhand in the election; and other states have gerrymandered their voting districts so that a Democratic-leaning state consistently elects Republican representatives. (Stop and think about the racial implications of this.)

Have we really come as far as we think we have? The white majority thought we were fine in the 1950s, thought we were fine in the 1960s and thinks we're fine now. I'd suggest that the white majority doesn't really know what it's like for the black minority, and should find out from the people who do know.

Secondly, Griffin had some illuminating thoughts on black achievement and the attitudes Southern whites had on that subject. As he traveled the South, Griffin noted the substandard living conditions many black families had, and noted that many whites attributed this to the overall shiftlesness of black culture, and the lack of desire on the part of blacks to get ahead and achieve for themselves.

At the same time, blacks routinely were being denied economic opportunities, funding for their schools was low, and their overall access to culture in the form of theater, concerts, and even libraries was minimal. And why should the wealth be taken from hard-working whites, and given to people who haven't worked for it?

It's not much of a stretch to see some disturbing parallels between those attitudes from the late 1950s and views recently expressed in the contemporary political dialogue about the 46 percent, and about people who benefit from safety net programs like Medicare, Social Security, and unemployment.

In the past 25 years, we've seen the wealth of our nation aggregate into the hands of an increasingly small group of people. Right now public schools and teachers are under tremendous fire, and the Republican Party has made a lot of noise about freeloaders trying to live off the hard work of others.

Have we really come as far as we think we have?

Right now we're at a crossroads in American education, where our standards are being adjusted to stress nonfiction reading, to "improve work-readiness" and to make us "more competitive in the global job market" and a lot of other things like that. There are a lot of books that are being cut from the national standards that shouldn't be, like "To Kill a Mockingbird." This is another book that should be part of our national curriculum, because it should be a part of our national conversation.

We have made some progress since the 1950s in terms of race, but we still have more to go. As we make that progress, "Black Like Me" should be a part of our discussion.



Copyright © 2013 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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ultimate spider-man

I can't help it. I love the new Spider-man, and I can't stop defending him out in public.

Last year, Marvel Comics announced it was introducing a new character to fill the shoes Spider-man. This new web-swinger is named Miles Morales, and unlike Peter Parker, he's not white. He's half-black and half-Hispanic, and represents part of Marvel's overall shift at Ultimate Comics to increase the racial and ethnic diversity of their superheroes.

Predictably, people were upset about the change when it was announced. People complained that Marvel was getting rid of the traditional Spider-man, and accused the company of kotowing to political correctness.

A few things surprised me about this. First is that Miles is not replacing the Spider-man who Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created in 1962. He's replacing the Spider-man whom Brian Michael Bendis created in 2000 for Marvel's Ultimate Comics line.

Second is that even if he were, so what? It's not like there is a dearth of white superheroes, and death in comic books is about as permanent as a haircut. If Marvel can create a superhero who speaks to the experience of its readers of color, I'm all for it.

Spider-man as a character has grown stale because of his pop culture success. He's not allowed to age, to marry and have children or otherwise significantly change, because the editorial powers at Marvel would rather milk their cash cow until it goes dry than risk killing it. Reinterpreting the character as an inner-city person of color rather than as a white teen from Queens is bold and opens up new avenues of storytelling.

What amazes me is that people still are upset about it, more than a year later. Two people at the comics shop the other day criticized Miles when they saw I was buying my daughter a collection of Ultimate Spider-man that included Peter. A friend of mine complained about him last night. Hel-lo, people! Miles rocks.

Miles has a lot of the traits that have always made Spider-man a hero, aside from the obvious spider powers like strength, spider-sense and sticking to walls. In many ways he's every bit as reluctant and outcast a hero as Peter is.

Peter first tried to make money with his powers, and only realized how he was wasting his gifts when a burglar he had failed to stop earlier, later killed his Uncle Ben. Miles used his powers to save some children from a fire, but was so unsettled by the experience that he didn't use them again until after Peter had died.

But the defining characteristic, the one thing that makes Miles stand out from Peter and makes him worth reading is this: He's not Peter. The Ultimate Peter Parker is dead, killed in a battle with the Green Goblin, and remembered by the entire city as a hero.

Miles is trying to honor Spider-Man's memory, but it's going to be ages before he's able to step out from under the shadow of his predecessor and gains legitimacy in the eyes of the New York. (And from some comic book fans, obviously.)

And just as importantly, Miles knows that he can die. One Spider-man already has, and unlike in the mainstream Marvel Universe, the Ultimate Universe doesn't seem to have a revolving door on heaven.

If Miles were simply a case of brown-washing -- if he were from Queens and had the exact same origin story and personality as Peter -- I'd probably agree with my friend who dissed Miles before I explained his story to her. But he's not a black Hispanic superhero for the sake of having one, and when Marvel debuted him, they didn't just create a black Peter Parker. They created a new character, one worth reading for his own sake, and one worth starring in his own movie some time.

He's also a racial minority, a bright kid from a neighborhood a lot worse than the one Peter Parker grew up in. As far as I'm concerned, that's just icing on the cake.

Miles isn't just a black Spider-man. As far as I'm concerned, he is Spider-man, hands-down: fresher and more fun to read about than Peter Parker has been in years.



Copyright © 2012 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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'Angelwalk'

I'm trying to pare down the amount of stuff in my house lately. A few days ago, I found a copy of "Angelwalk" that I bought twenty-four years ago.

Written by Roger Elwood, "Angelwalk" is probably one of the angriest books I've ever read. It tells the story of Darien, an angel who considered Lucifer a friend before the war in heaven, and who now is exploring the world of men to see what Lucifer has been doing since his departure. When he finishes his journey, if Darien concludes that God was wrong, then the war will be over and God will allow Satan and all the fallen angels to return.

It's certainly an unusual setup, and I've got to give Elwood points for creativity in the concept. Still, if you thought the next 189 pages would deal with symptoms of humanity's brokenness, like our petty-mindedness, our indifference to the suffering of others, our sometimes open lust for power, or even some big sins like the exploitation of illegal immigrants, or human trafficking, you'd be mistaken.

"Angelwalk" was written for an evangelical or fundamentalist readership, and as such it is preoccupied with issues that offend those readers. Thus we're treated to a narration of an abortion from the perspective of one being aborted; we attend a funeral for a gay man and get to overhear attendees discussing having an orgy and possibly involving the corpse, and so on. (Elwood is vague on whether this scene occurs in Sodom or in San Francisco.)

There's no sense of moderation here, not even an aside that this particularly abhorrent sort of behavior is extremely deviant. There are two groups of people Darien encounters in his travels: the utterly depraved, and evangelical Christians.

This sort of strident, circle-the-wagons sort of thinking, which views those outside the evangelical church as abhorrent and a threat to decent church-going sorts, is outrageous. I'd like to think Elwood didn't mean for the book to be taken seriously -- but given the content of later books in this series, and the warm reception I recall this book getting in the late 1980s, it's safe to say that he did.

Because it deals with angels and demons, and the effects of sin on our world, "Angelwalk" when it was published regularly was compared to C.S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters" as a book about spiritual warfare. If only that comparison were warranted.

Lewis' book, which purports to be a series of letters from a devil to a junior tempter on how to lead a man away from faith in Christ, is at times witty and thought-provoking, and always thoroughly original. The difficulties faced by the unnamed human in the book are common enough to the human race, and easily related to.

"Angelwalk" pretends to raise questions about God's justice and mercy, but the examples of sin the book presents are so extreme that its answers are meaningless; and the book is so full of anger that there's nothing to think about, nothing to remember, nothing to savor or comment on.

Ultimately, the book is rather like a hellhouse, that horrifying evangelical alternative to Halloween. If you're inclined to agree with the message of "Angelwalk," then you'll like it. If you don't, you're probably going to be revolted, feel a little sick after reading it, and never want to talk again to whoever convinced you it was a good idea to try it in the first place.



Copyright © 2012 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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quitting time

I've quit Facebook.

I've laughed at witty things my friends have said or shared, but it's time to stop. I've enjoyed sharing things of my own that people have liked, and I've enjoyed seeing the odd thing or two that I write go viral. But at the end of the day, I've had to add up the time I've spent on Facebook and other web sites, and ask myself if there aren't better ways to spend my time.

And so I quit. At the moment, my account is only deactivated, but if I don't change my mind by Jan. 5, I'm probably going to take the nuclear option and close my account entirely.

The day after I deactivated my Facebook account was Christmas. That morning I got up, I ate breakfast with my family and we unwrapped presents. My children and I played with their new toys together, we talked about what they had been reading lately, and at the end of the day I shredded some old financial documents before going to bed.

It was a refreshing day, filled with family and with real-world experiences. In the days since, I've watched “Doctor Who” with my children, played with the youngest, and read a book. I've even written a blog entry, in what I hope is the first break in a long and painful logjam.

It's not a change I expect everyone will want to make. My friend Jeff, for instance, is always quick to stress the value he perceives in social networking for building and maintaining relationships.

I confess, I've never seen this value, no matter how much Jeff has stressed it.

Relationships just don't happen over an Internet medium, except in the most bare-bones, utilitarian sense. Which of us, in talking about the great times we've had with friends, ever stops to recount a meaningful status update? We may share, away from Facebook, things that we saw or read there, but those are always sidebars to the main events of our lives.

I've always enjoyed the pictures my friend Ruth shares of her children, but the memories I treasure are from the visits I've had with her and her family. I recall with great clarity the Saturday afternoon we went to lunch in Port-au-Prince then caught up with one another in their living room.

Facebook lets me know when my brother has gone for a ride on his horse. Seeing him in person or hearing him on the phone, I get a fuller measure of his experience. His shoulders will slump with that so-good fatigue, and his voice will carry his excitement as he shares where he's ridden and what he's seen. You don't get that on social media. Conversation isn't just a two-way exchange of words; it's a dynamic system, where one person's enthusiasm and interest feeds the other's.

Break it up and remove that direct interaction, and you're left to interact with the cold text another person has left, often hours earlier.

In the end Facebook, like most of the rest of the Internet, involves sitting alone by the computer or with your phone, interacting with what you imagine the other person to be. It is the shell of a conversation, an echo of a relationship trying to emulate the real thing.

God knows we want the real thing. Relationships these days are so impermanent. Children move hundreds of miles from their parents when they move out on their own, and then move regularly with the demands of work. Even marriage isn't what it once was. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average marriage will last seven years.

Facebook gives us the illusion of permanency and connection. Thinking about your college roommate? Look him up. Want your parents to know what their grandchildren are up to? No problem! It's a piece of cake to share the contents of your digital camera in an album they can look through at their leisure. Feeling nostalgic for that guy in high school who used to look down his nose at you? Hey, no problem – he'll be sending you a friends request any day now.

Facebook has kept us networked with one another, but it hasn't brought us any closer together, and that's the difficulty I have with it. Too often, in fact, it tears us apart where we expect it to pull us together.

If you're my friend on Facebook, after the events of Sandy Hook, you probably saw me voice some thoughts on the subject of gun control. If you agree with me, you might even have clicked Like. But if you didn't, it's just as possible you got annoyed at what you saw as an attack on your Second Amendment rights.

Being the polite sort, you didn't say anything then, but it stuck under your craw. You've heard the gun control rhetoric before, and it's never impressed you. But when you came back to the site, my comment was still there, still obtrusive, and still annoying to you.

If we'd been in the same room, we might have had a conversation on the subject. We would have known when each other wanted to speak, and we would have paused and allowed for the back-and-forth of a proper discussion. In the process, we would have moved beyond the surface arguments to some of the deeper issues.

But since this exchange would have happened on Facebook, each of us would have said all that we wanted to, with no modulation for interruption or discussion, after the initial comment was made without having you specifically in mind. And so, though neither of us intended to, we've driven a little wedge between us.

It gets even worse when our friends get involved, because often they have no relationship to provide context at all. Disagree with someone's post, and you may be called delusional, or worse. Like the rest of the Internet, the Facebook platform just doesn't support actual dialogue and understanding as much as it does strong language and hard feelings.

As my friend Indigo once observe, “Social networking just brings people together. It doesn't guarantee what happens next.”

Facebook goes on, but it will go on without me. As much as I have loved George Takei's page, as much as I have loved the ecards I have seen, as much as I have enjoyed the clever fan pages and all the witty graphics that get passed around, and as much as I love hearing about Jeff's trip to the supermarket to buy some mustard, it isn't worth it.

If I take everything Facebook delivers, and I weight it on a balance against the other things that could be done with the time, particularly the value of the relationships that we sacrifice to use the service, Facebook cannot measure up. Most things in life are better in moderation, but Facebook? I have found that for me, at least, it is like the proverbial obese man at an all-you-can-eat buffet. There's nothing wrong with the buffet, but perhaps it would be better to go home and have a salad.

I'm setting down my tray and I'm walking away from the building, with no plan for the foreseeable future of going back.

This entry is a blog response to "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish."



Copyright © 2012 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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It's never a good time to go

One of my traveling companions called today and asked if I was ready to go to Haiti on Monday. "I'm never ready," I answered truthfully. "I just go."

I've traveled to Haiti three times in the past two years, and each trip was preceded by language study, sleepless nights, lots of prayer, reams of introspective blog and journal entries, and a general sense of inadequacy. The need is so overwhelming, and I am so inadequate.

On my first trip to Haiti in January 1991, I held a 2-year-old boy named Samuel who was starving to death. His hair was orange, an advanced stage of malnutrition. He hadn't eaten in three weeks. What did our team leaders instruct us to do in the face of this great need? We handed out bouillon cubes as we went house to house in an attempt to convert people.

The trip changed my life. I returned to Haiti after graduation, and worked first with STEM Ministries and then at Quisqueya Christian School. While I worked with STEM, we took teams to Jacques Fourcand's Mission of the Trinity and helped serve lunch to the children of  Cite Soleil, one of the poorest and most wretched slums in the nation. My clearest memory: We sat about 500 children, then discovered we only had enough food for 300.

We turned the rest away.

Haiti is one of the most special places in the world to me. I feel the closeness of God in that country in a way I rarely feel it here in the United States, and each time I have returned there the past two years, I have known with ironclad certainty that I was where I needed to be, and doing what I needed to do.

But Haiti has never let me be in peace. Every time I look in the mirror, I feel the morality that ties my weight problem to Samuel's. Every time I hear Americans whine about the Republicans and the Democrats, I think of a land that is still suffering from a culture of corruption and oppression nurtured under the Duvaliers.

I remember rows of people who lost arms and legs when the earth shook and their houses fell.

I remember the prostitutes who tried to get me to have sex with them, and then finally just begged for a couple bucks so they could buy food.

I remember the hunger that peered out from the eyes of every man, woman and child I passed in the streets; that followed me to restaurants I visited with friends; that looked in from the street outside the school where Georges al Reyes was throwing out a plate of food because he'd rather eat junk from the snack bar; that haunted my dreams and still haunts me today.

I think about Haiti every day. Sometimes I dream about it, and the smell of diesel fumes is so strong that I can step out my dream and be there, at the top of Route de Delmas by the sign that promises better musculation. Sometimes the dreams are nightmares, and I wake, wondering whether anything has happened to Sarah, to Nakosa or to Christina.

The need is overwhelming, and I want to be like the one who cried out

Come, all you who are thirsty,
    come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
    come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
    without money and without cost.

I want to be like the one who feeds the nation with himself, the one who promises that one day every valley will be filled and every mountain will be humbled. I tremble when I think of him, because I am a wealthy man headed into one of the poorest nations in the world, and I know that God is just.

The need is so great. I am so small. How can I possibly meet it? I cannot.

I am going back to Haiti on Monday. I am not ready, and never will be. But I am going.



Copyright © 2012 by David Learn. Used with permission.

Going for a walk

During summer and winter breaks my first two years of college, I had the misfortune of working at a fast food restaurant.

Now I know that career counselors remind us that there is no such thing as a bad job, and that we should view every job as a learning opportunity. They say this because they never had to work in a fast food restaurant, where the chief lessons are that people will buy terrible, tasteless and unhealthy food if it's priced cheaply enough; that your hard work will never be recognized because the manager is either talking on the phone the whole day or just doesn't care how hard you work because he's bitter about working there too, and at his age; that sexual harrassment of female co-workers is acceptable; and that major corporations pay their executives massive salaries by underpaying the hourly workers who make their profits possible. (Today I would add the further lesson that there is nothing like a bad economy for humiliating intelligent adults by forcing them to compete with teenagers for unskilled labor positions.)

All that said, for someone in college who wasn't able yet to land an internship or a work-study arrangement, this wasn't the worst way to make a little pocket money. (Please note the emphasis on "a little.") A typical work day would see me working from 5 or 6 in the morning until 2 in the afternoon.  This in itself was not a Bad Thing. Work usually was busiest during the breakfast and lunch shifts, and there was consequently little time to think about how much I hated my job.

One day on Christmas break my freshman year, I drove home and shambled upstairs to my room.  ("Shambled" is a fairly accurate description of how I walked around after getting up at five in the morning and rushing to work.) After I finally crawled into a change of clothes, I walked downstairs to vegetate in front of something mindless, like "The Squire of Gothos," one of those Star Trek episodes that can be appreciated properly only from a state of mental vegetation.

Star Trek, alas, was not available, but I was not to be denied. Due to the wonders of TV programming, there is always something being broadcast that is suitable for inducing brain death. Admittedly, because it was early afternoon, my choices were limited to soap operas like "General Hospital" and "Days of Our Lives"; watching the muscle  men of the Power Team rip phone books in half for God's glory; or something educational on PBS, like Sesame Street.

Something educational it was, but it wasn't "Sesame Street," which admittedly has some really jamming tunes like "Put Down the Duckie." Instead, it was an episode of the spectacular, original run of "The Electric Company," the show that is remembered for gems like Arthur Crank, Easy Reader and "Fargo North, Decoder," as well as for launching the career of Morgan Freeman with his portrayal of a giant glowworm.

The episode on that afternoon was a gripper. Silent E was committing a host of outrages. As viewers watched in horror, Silent E vandalized the kitchen sink by turning the water tap into a roll of tape. From there it leapt to a hapless boy's head and changed his baseball cap into a cape.

It seemed unbeatable, until it finally met its match in Uncle Sam, who stayed the same and showed that even then, the Children's Television Workshop had a big-government liberal agenda to push.

That was Silent E, but for an episode of "The Electric Company," which had been created to help struggling readers, Silent E was just the beginning.

In one of the most compelling segments of the show, the Evil Spellbinder had just turned Letterman into a pound cake, and all hope seemed lost for our hero.

I heard the Evil Spellbinder cackle in triumph when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw my grandmother scouring the living room. The Evil Spellbinder and Letterman would have to wait.

"Grandma, what are you looking for?" I asked her.

"I can't find my hat.  Do you know where my hat is?"

My grandmother had been living with us for the better part of a year. Now in the early stages of senility, she sometimes developed the urge to leave, even though she had nowhere to go. I was at her side in an instant.

 "Uh no, Grandma, I haven't seen your hat for some time.  Why do you want it?" I was stalling for time, trying to find some way to distract her. I have never been very good at this, as my distractions usually help people focus on what they're trying to do, with the result that they finish it much more quickly.

"I'm going for a walk," she said, and with that she turned and headed directly toward her hat.  Just then, my brother Steve came downstairs.

"Step Hen, have you seen my hat?"  Grandma asked him.

Now, my brother's name is spelled "Stephen," with a ph, but it is pronounced the same as "Steven." Because of this, people either spell his name incorrectly, with the result that the post office sends his mail to a Steven Learn serving a life sentence in Cuba, or they pronounce his name "step hen," as in "step on a hen."

This tragically happened to him when he was a child and our parents had taken him to a popular children's pizzeria for his birthday. One of the manager's responsibilities at this particular restaurant was to read over a speaker the names of children celebrating their birthdays.

After flawlessly wishing happy birthdays to awkwardly named children like Yehudah ben O'Shaugnessy, Rado Prbic and Alksandr Raskolnikovichamazov, the manager choked.

"We'd also like to wish a happy birthday to Step Hen Learn, who is eight today," he said.

Steve, who would burst into tears every time he heard the theme song for "The Incredible Hulk," began screaming at once.

"Waaahhh!" he cried. "He called me Step Hen."

He cried so loudly and for so long that the manager finally gave us our meal for free. And now Grandma had called him "Step Hen" and reopened that ancient wound. Already tears were pooling in his eyes, and I had to act quickly to save both him and our grandmother.

"Grandma, isn't that your hat over on the dining room table?"  As she turned to look, I grabbed her hat, and whisked it behind her head to Steve, who snatched it from the air and  tossed it on top of a bag sitting on the top shelf of the coat closet.

"No, I don't see it," she said, and she began walking toward  the closet.  "I guess I'll go for my walk without the hat."

"Grandma, you can't go for a walk without a hat, it's too cold!"  I lied -- it was 65 degrees outside.

"And it's snowing, too," Steve said sadly, still dwelling on being called Step Hen.  Iit hadn't snowed more than half an inch in the past year, but Steve was understandably disoriented.

"Well, then I'll go in the car," my Grandma said.  I deftly positioned myself between her and the door.

There was no need to point out that driving the car without a license is not quite the same as taking a walk.  In fact, since the whole point of going out was for a walk, driving defeated the purpose.

"The cars are both out, Grandma," I lied again.  The car I had driven home from work sat docilely in plain sight in the driveway.

"Well, I'll walk, then."

"Gee, Grandma, why not just wait until my mother comes home?" Steve asked. "She can take you for a walk in the car."

This succeeded where all subterfuge had failed. She could get both her walk and her car ride at the same time. It must have seemed quite a deal, because she took off her coat and went back to her room, just as the hat fell off the bag.

We had managed to keep our grandmother safely inside.  Steve went upstairs and cried until someone finally gave him a free pizza, and I watched the remaining five minutes of the Electric Company.

I never did learn how Letterman was saved from being sold for a dollar seventy-five at the bakery.  I may never know; it continues to be one of life's little mysteries.



Copyright © 1988, 1992, 2012 by David Learn. Used with permission.



Read the Original

Prayer of Saint Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

Introducing One Thousand Blank White Cards to the Homeschoolers

You have an hour to go with a group of homeschoolers, and the kids have already played Nomic twice. What do you do? You play One Thousand Blank White Cards, of course!

Like Nomic, One Thousand Blank White Cards is a game that seems tailor-made for homeschoolers. Originating in Madison, Wisc., One Thousand Blank White Cards is a game that provides a basic game structure but otherwise allows the players to create the rules as they go. In this case, they do so by filling in blank cards with whatever sort of action, illustration, penalty or other play that they want.

Aside from the creative aspects, the game is fairly basic. Play begins to the dealer's left and continues clockwise, with each person playing a card on either herself or another player, although players are allowed to respond to others' play with further cards. You're allowed to create, alter and even destroy cards however you want, and you can even create cards that evoke the spirit of other card games.

Another group I played One Thousand Blank White Cards with, for instance, saw cards arise with things like "Lose 50 Points If You Don't Have a Water Card." This immediately led to someone creating a "Water" card worth 20 points, and that in turn to a third, "Anti-Water" card. The potential for silliness abounds.

I introduced the game today to Oldest Daughter's logic club after we had completed the day's exercises in critical thinking. I handed each of the students five completely blank cards, explained the basic rules, and let them indulge themselves. Once they had completed their cards, I shuffled the deck, mixed in a few more blank cards, and dealt the first hand.

We played this last weekend at a friend's house, and since everyone playing was in her mid-30s or later, the cards were silly but tilted toward the witty. We had a few cards that said things like "Swap cards with the person on your left" and "Trade places with someone else," but the majority said things like "Sing a Happy Song About Leprosy" and "Tell a Story About Your Teddy Bear." (I interrupted that one with a card that said, simply, "Shut up.")

Play today reflected the age of the players accordingly. They created a lot of cards that involved mildly humiliating or annoying tasks like "Crawl Like a Worm for a Minute" and "Hop Up and Down Until the Game Ends." (I saved that player after a few seconds with a card that read, simply, "Game Over.")

There were a number of cards that referred to specific players, like "Give Card to Joe," which led to some creative arguments among players as to which card should be given to Joe, that card or another one.

The phenomenon I found most interesting was the way players began creating cards to adapt their playing strategies to one another. Fifteen minutes into the game, there were cards being played that read in part "Play Right Away," thus allowing them to interrupt on someone else's turn; or "Card May Not Be Edited," so the player could be guaranteed her way. (Unfortunately for her, someone else played an Override card that allowed the card to be edited anyway.)

The game was a hit, mostly because the kids kept making one another do silly or embarrassing things. I am curious how things would have gone had someone played my card "Elves Attack Your Village. Lose 50 Points," especially since I always add nifty illustrations to my cards, but no one played that, so we never got to see whether a game would develop with points as a goal, or around a fantasy theme.

The game broke up when everybody had to go home, but I sent the kids packing with starter decks that consisted of the cards that they had created and the cards that were specific to them. (I have no use for a card that says "Mourn Billy's Lost Dignity," for instance, since there are no Billys in my family, though Billy's family may use it at some point.)

As they left, one of the moms told me that Nomic has been spreading. Not only has her family played it, she's seen her children teaching their other friends how to play it as well.

And now they have something else to share.



Copyright © 2012 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Se vi leĝas kaj komprenas tion-ĉi, helpu la revojn de mia filino. Ŝi ekblogas, kaj esperas ke aliuloj leĝos siajn vortojn.
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Introducing needless complexity into Nomic

For those who are keeping track of these things, we continued to play Nomic today at our homeschooling logic club.

Nomic is a game of self-governance, created in 1982 by philosopher Peter Suber. Like any other folk game, there are a number of variants, but the version I am most familiar with and taught to the children begins with exactly one rule: that it takes a two-thirds majority to change the rules. We played the game last week, and even though I was introducing it to a group of preteens, the game was very well received.

We continued our previous session, and though we passed fewer rules this time than previously, we still had a good time. The new rules passed are as follows.

21. Firstly, if Billy is not present, then the writer must go first. For purposes of Rule 11, the computer counts as paper and the person operating the computer counts as the writer. Secondly, if a rule is proposed, it must be voted on unless the person proposing the rule decides to withdraw it. Thirdly, the turn changes to the next person once the vote has been cast. (This rule represents an interesting development in how the kids were viewing the game. They realized that, according to Rule 5, Billy should go first -- but Billy was absent that day. Additionally, since I had transcribed the rules to the computer and they weren't using pen and ink, they had to confront an unexpected shortcoming of their rules by redefining their terms. But most significantly, this is a rule that addresses multiple, unrelated problems at the same time. That's a huge leap in complexity.)

22. Rules pass by a simple majority. (They were doing the math and realized three-fifths might not always be easy if we didn't have five players.)

23. Turn passes by the roll of a die, rather than to the next person in the circle. (My idea. I keep trying to give the game more unexpected twists and changes, to keep people on their toes.)

24. You cannot have a turn three times in a row, no matter how the die rolls. (Oldest Daughter's suggestion. She had proposed the turn limit last week, but her effort failed when everyone favored the idea of turns rotating clockwise instead.)

25. Rules 2 5, and 7 do not go into effect until quarter past three. (I inject more chaos. Note that only two rules have been passed since my last turn. This is due in part to the X factor introduced by the roll of the die, but also because it was becoming harder to reach consensus on what rules to make, now that the basic fairness issues had been resolved.)

26. E____'s father does not have to vote on any of her rules. (There were a couple failed efforts to pass rules between Rule 25 and this one. Ironically, I was able to get my daughter's blank-check support for this rule by telling her I would support the next rule she proposed.)

27. David Diez and Mary (Joe's mother) may join the game; also, Rule 25 is no longer in effect. (The kids all thought Rule 26 was funny, but they also agreed with my daughter that it was a sneaky sort of thing to do.)

28. (I called for a vote on this rule before Joe could propose anything. The vote passed 5-1.)

The game was a hit the second week in a row, but at this point, I have no plans to continue it. Next time we meet, we will play a similar game a friend of mine in California has introduced me to, called 1,000 Blank White Cards. It looks interesting.



Copyright © 2012 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Introducing a group of homeschoolers to Nomic

When you have four children at your house for two hours, and only one hour of planned activities, what do you do? You play Nomic, of course!

Created in 1982 by philosopher Peter Suber, Nomic is an exercise in self-governance, quite literally. It begins with only one rule, that it takes a two-thirds majority to change the rules. Given that I was introducing it to a group of preteens who for months had been ending their weekly logic class with games like Munchkin and Pandemic, I wasn't sure if this game would fly, but it was very well received.

The game is still in its early stages of development, but it has the potential to become a major lesson in consensus-building, compromise, and parliamentary procedure -- in short, it's an interesting hands-on lesson in how government works A quick overview of the rules will reveal that the kids for the most part so far have been concerned with being fair and giving everyone a chance to be heard.

Nomic is one of those games you hear about, and tuck away for the appropriate time to play. I had heard about it in 1997 from one of my wife's classmates in college. A friend of mine ran a game on Delphi Forums several years ago, but the nature of the forum made it hard for the game to advance much. When I started homeschooling Oldest Daughter two years ago, I knew I'd have to introduce it to some other kids someday.

Someday was Friday. We played for about an hour, amid a lot of laughter and merriment, without rolling a single die, moving a single token around a board, or playing a single card.

The kids had so much fun that they want to continue the game the next time we meet. I'm wondering how long it will take them to realize that they can introduce more complex rules, and even start making deals with other players to gain support for personally favored rules; or how long it will take them to start arguing over what exactly a rule means, and trying to initiate massive reforms to simplify the rule structure.

I'm also wondering if the game will at some point progress beyond merely passing rules. One adult, after hearing about the game, immediately grasped its potential for a drinking game. (That one, at least, I hope does not occur to the kids for some time to come.)


The rules:

0. A two-thirds majority is required to change the rules.

1. A three-fifths majority is needed to change the rules. (They added this because they wanted me to participate, and thought that a simple majority would be easier than a two-thirds supermajority. Interestingly, they made the rule specify a "three-fifths majority," instead of a "simple majority," which could have implications down the road, should the group increase in size a few people.)

2. Isaac has to write the new rules. (That was my suggestion. The rule immediately passed, 4-1, with Isaac casting the lone dissenting vote.)

3. We have to discuss all rules before they are made.

4. We cannot eat Joe. (The club is about developing logic and critical thinking skills. An hour earlier, I had illustrated false connections with the statements "Pigs exist. Joe exists. Therefore, Joe is a pig." Now as I was asking the kids if they wanted anything for a snack, I mentioned that we had bacon, and let my eyes linger meaningfully over Joe.)

5. We will vote on Billy's rule first. (I had proposed a rule that we take turns suggesting rules. While this was on the table, Oldest Daughter suggested limiting the number of rules anyone could introduce to three in a row. Billy in turn suggested that we vote on my rule before Oldest Daughter's, since mine had been suggested first. Since the rules failed to specify an order for how to entertain multiple motions, it was decided we should vote first on Billy's proposal to vote on my proposed rule. Ironically, this meant that we voted on Billy's rule second, but I didn't want to muddy the waters even further, so I kept that observation to myself.)

6. We vote on the first rule that was proposed (This is where they started introducing a sense of order to how the game would work; up until this point, it had been a free-for-all.)

7. We take turns proposing new rules, going in a circle.

8. The first person to propose a rule is Billy, and we go clockwise.

9. You can change your rule that you are proposing before it is voted on.

10. Every five minutes we switch seats. (This was my idea. I wanted to show the kids that we could make the game about more than just changing rules.)

11. The writer is the person in the chair in front of the paper. (This was Isaac's idea. Poor boy had been writing down rules for about 20 minutes. He was a good sport about it, though.)

12. Whenever a rule is passed, we must clap three times. (One of the kids had started to see the potential the game has for more than just passing rules.)

13. When a rule is suggested, the person on the left calls the end of the discussion -- unless the person on the left is the writer, in which case it is the person on the right. (Here is their first effort to ensure that every proposal gets fair consideration. I plan to demonstrate the flaw in this rule next week, by calling for a vote as soon as the rule is suggested, before anyone has a chance to discuss it.)

14. All rules must be numbered.

15. If your parent has come, you can go. (One of the other parents had come to collect her son and two other boys. I pointed out that there was no provision for people to leave yet.)

16. Amend Rule 15 to say "ride." (This came after I pointed out that under our rules, only Billy could leave, since Joe and Isaac's moms hadn't come for them -- just their ride.)

17. Anyone who breaks the rules must squawk like a chicken. (We realized that no one had been clapping when rules were passed, in clear violation of Rule 12. So here we have our first attempt at enforcement with consequences.)

18. The writer will set the timer.

19. We stop the game when the first person leaves.

20. When you forget to clap, you must take the writer's seat. If multiple people forget to clap, the last one to touch their nose is the one to take the writer's seat. If you forget to clap and you are in the writer's seat, then you cannot switch when the timer goes off.



Copyright © 2012 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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open letter to n.j. gov. chris christie

Dear Gov. Christie:

The New Jersey Assembly today is expected to pass legislation that would legalize same-sex marriage in New Jersey. As a person of faith, I am writing to urge you to sign this bill into law once it reaches your desk. Please do not veto it.

I've enjoyed the emotional intimacy and support of my wife for the past 13 years, through good times and bad, and I see no reason that my gay neighbors, relatives and friends should not receive these same benefits under New Jersey law -- including the benefit of calling one another "husband" and "wife," and not just merely "domestic partner."

I realize that you believe this is something that should be put to the general public in a referendum. With all due respect, though, Mr. Christie, this is wrong. Civil rights are neither granted nor denied according to mass consent. They are, as our nation's founders wrote, "endowed by our Creator" and they are inalienable.

Thomas Jefferson even listed among our most basic rights the pursuit of happiness, which for our gay neighbors, friends and relatives is obstructed by our state's refusal to recognize the dignity and value of their relationships with the designation of marriage. The duty of your office is to lead the way in seeing that these rights are upheld, not to defer those rights to the vox populi.

While our religious communities should be free to define and recognize marriage according to the context of their respective religious frameworks, one of the great strengths of our society is that it is nonsectarian, and is not governed by any ideology save a pluralist celebration of our differences. In that vein, and as a person of deep faith myself, I call upon you to sign the bill when it comes to your desk, and not to veto it.

David Learn

The Great School Trip Musket Fight

I know I shouldn't, but sometimes it's just too much fun not to play with my kids' heads.

Middle Daughter today came home from a field trip to the state capital where she visited some Revolutionary War barracks and saw a demonstration of front-loading muskets, including how to load and discharge them, by an actor in period costume.

"Did you get to fire the musket?" I asked her.

"No," she said as if that were a silly question.

"Oh," I said, sounding disappointed on her behalf. "When I went there with Evangeline three years ago, we all got to take turns loading and firing the muskets."

Her eyes went wide. "Everybody?"

"Everyone," I assured her. "Even the adults."

Rachel turned this over for a moment, and decided that there just hadn't been enough muskets to go around this year. After all, her class had taken the tour with students from another school, while the tour I'd been on three years ago was just for the charter school. A moment later we joined Evangeline, and I told her that her sister hadn't been able to fire the musket this year.

"Did we get to?" Evangeline asked.

"Oh sure," I said casually. "Don't you remember? They split us up into two sides, one for the British and one for the Revolutionaries, and we shot muskets at one another."

"With real bullets?" There was no skepticism in Evangeline's voice, just idle curiosity.

"No, muskets didn't use bullets, they use those round musket balls, remember?" I said. "They said there was no danger of anyone getting hurt, since muskets have such a limited range and don't aim that well either."

There was silence while the girls pondered this. Their younger sister Alex ran around on the wood chips of the school playground, while the last lingering students either finally were picked up or were herded inside by their teachers.

"I guess someone must have got hurt by accident, and they had to stop letting kids do that,," Evangeline finally said. You could hear the disappointment in her voice, not only for her sister, but for all the other students whom the state would no longer allow the unfettered joys of firing front-loading muskets at their classmates during field trips to state parks. Government bureaucrats can be so joyless and petty.

We got into the car and drove away, and soon the afternoon was filled with other activities like homework, karate class, and play practice, but as I tucked Rachel into bed, I discovered how the day's disappointment still lingered below the surface.

"Dad," she said, after I had given her a goodnight kiss. "I bet they just bought better muskets than they used to have."

I gave one of those who-knows shrugs that fathers are famous for, to concede that she might be right. The state's always ruining perfectly good activities by upgrading their equipment. Why not get new muskets too?

"Could be," I said, and I turned off the lights.

I just wish I could be there tomorrow when her classmates hear about all the great activities they missed.



Copyright © 2011 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Be as good as your dog

Talk about an ego booster.

Seventeen years ago, I was a frequent visitor to House of Blessings at #4 Rue Sambour, Port-au-Prince. In large part, I availed myself of the hospitality of Phil and Lonnie Murphy, whom I had adopted as family while I was in Haiti. ("Abused" might be a better word, but I like to think that I made up for it after my return to the E.U., when I steered some support their way from the Christian school where I was teaching.)

But aside from my time with the Murphys, I put in some time with the children there as well. In particular, I paid attention to Steve and Isaac Adrien, a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old pair of brothers who had just arrived. I played with them, talked with them, and would gladly have taken them home had it been possible and realistic. (It was neither.)

I spoke for a while with Steve, during our recent September visit to Haiti. Now 19, Steve hopes in early 2012 to begin attending a unversity in Missouri, where he plans to major in business administration, so he can return to Haiti and make a difference to his people. I felt a sort of distant pride in him, aware of how much I had loved the little kid he once had been, but also aware how little I'd had to do with the man he was becoming.

Steve also told me that he had recognized me last March when he had been at the Cradle of Life Crisis Relief Center. Like me, he had volunteered with the relief efforts; and while we were there, he had been plagued by the thought that he knew me, but for the life of him, he couldn't recall why.

And then last August I led a team to Callebasse to build houses while we stayed at House of Blessings, and it clicked.

So, reader, be assured of this: If you pour your life and your love into someone, they will remember you.

* * *

Several others who had been associated with House of Blessings in 1994 still are connected with it, and I spoke with them while were in Haiti in September -- Wislande, Tania and Woody all believe me when I say I was there, even though they don't remember me.

After I left in 1994, Phil took in my dog for a month or so, until they were unable to keep him any longer. Ajax was a mountain of a dog, an indomitable Labdrador retriever, rising up over everyone, a mighty river coursing the length of his large pink tongue. He one of the best dogs I've ever known.

They all remember my dog.

And all this goes to prove that if you love someone deeply, you can mean as much to them and make as big a difference in their lives, as your dog.




Copyright © 2011 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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