So a friend of mine has a blog on LiveJournal called Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.
I just now realized why. I only now figured out what that means. I suppose if it had mattered more, I would have figured it out sooner.
Duh.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Sunday, December 23, 2007
in memoriam
There’s a certain je n’est sais quoi to how I feel about the death of Tim Canavan last Monday ― not pleasure or relief, but not exactly grief either.
Tim Caravan was the editor in chief at WCN Newspapers, where I had the misfortune to work for nearly two-and-a-half years, from May 2002 until October 2004. It was in many respects the worst job I have ever had, a distinction due in some part to Tim and the way he treated his staff and ran the editorial department.
At the time I started, Tim was undergoing treatment for cancer. He already had lost his hair and much of his weight because of the chemotherapy, and was in the middle of a rather grueling battle against his own body that had just included brain surgery to remove a tumor that had metastasized there. In the months that would follow, Tim would get a clean bill of health at one bioscan, only for something new to show up six months later. Surgeons removed an adrenal gland and even part of his lung, but ultimately were unable to remove the cancer. He died last Monday, surrounded by his siblings and their families.
Reading the article that WCN Newspapers ran on its web site about his passing, you can read the sort of comments you hear whenever somebody dies: what a nice fellow he was, how dedicated to his profession he was, and how he worked tirelessly to make the world a better place. There were even a few anecdotes I imagine were supposed to be heartwarming, to show how decent he was.
Usually when I read this sort of story, if it’s about someone I know, my mind flashes with one burst of insight after another. So that’s why he was like that, I think. Aha! That’s the aunt he always talked about. That sort of thing. With Tim’s obituary, I might as well have been reading an account about a complete stranger.
The Tim I knew was none of those things. He was neither inspiring in his commitment to community journalism, nor a tireless crusader for justice. He was not, ultimately, either honest to a fault nor trustworthy, nor was he professional in the extreme, nor was he a genius about his job as some would have him.
The Tim I knew was far less inspiring an individual. He was, in many regards, a man who preferred sticking to something he was competent at but long ago had ceased to enjoy, over taking a risk, moving on to something new, and learning something new. What was worse, he discouraged others from moving on, had a low threshold for disagreement and at times engaged in overtly unethical or even illegal conduct.
Some of my dislike for Tim surely is personal. At one point, after I had expressed an interest in leaving my post as managing editor for something a bit more challenging and interesting, he promised me a post in another office, where I would be in charge of training the editorial staff there and shaking things up to improve the product ― and then broke his promise and gave the post to someone else who had less experience and lower salary expectations.
He ran the newspapers with a heavy hand, keeping editors understaffed, underpaid and overworked on antiquated equipment. Another editor and I once tracked our hours at averaging between 50 and 60 hours a week, including marathon duties on Monday and Tuesday, in a job where at $35,000 a year, I was one of the best-paid employees. Those lengthy hours were necessary because we lacked reporters; as an editor with two newspapers, I was required to write four to five stories, in addition to my editorial duties, which typically involved editing eight to ten stories by my reporter, writing four editorials, assigning news photographs, and copy editing the entire contents of the newspaper. Those who complained found that not only were their complaints ignored, they either were criticized themselves, or in some cases were strongly encouraged to leave. One reporter actually was fired while he was on disability.
The worst breach of ethics came after I had left to become a stay-at-home father. A member of the school board in one of our communities had been videotaped in a tryst in a public park, and a copy of that video had found its way into the hands of an editor, who was set to write a story about it. Tim axed the story ― a debatable decision, but in some ways respectable ― and then called the board member in question, explained about the videotape, and then promised not to run it if the board member were to resign.
Where I come from, that’s called blackmail. It’s not an admirable trait in anyone, least of all in a journalist.
I never found myself inspired by Tim, and I never felt particularly close to him. But when I heard that he had died, I considered going to his funeral just to pay him the last respects he was due as a human being.
It’s been a busy year for death in my circle. This year I’ve watched as friends buried an infant son, as my cousins buried their mother, and as my aunt buried her husband. One theme has run constant through all the funerals: We are all made of corruptible mortal flesh, and that makes us more alike than our differences separate us.
Tim Caravan was many things I wish I were not, and would hope that I could never be: scared to try something new, and resentful of those who aren’t; blind to what others endure to bring his vision of efficiency into existence, and in the end so sure of the rightness of his actions that he is blind to how obviously corrupt they are.
Tim Caravan was the editor in chief at WCN Newspapers, where I had the misfortune to work for nearly two-and-a-half years, from May 2002 until October 2004. It was in many respects the worst job I have ever had, a distinction due in some part to Tim and the way he treated his staff and ran the editorial department.
At the time I started, Tim was undergoing treatment for cancer. He already had lost his hair and much of his weight because of the chemotherapy, and was in the middle of a rather grueling battle against his own body that had just included brain surgery to remove a tumor that had metastasized there. In the months that would follow, Tim would get a clean bill of health at one bioscan, only for something new to show up six months later. Surgeons removed an adrenal gland and even part of his lung, but ultimately were unable to remove the cancer. He died last Monday, surrounded by his siblings and their families.
Reading the article that WCN Newspapers ran on its web site about his passing, you can read the sort of comments you hear whenever somebody dies: what a nice fellow he was, how dedicated to his profession he was, and how he worked tirelessly to make the world a better place. There were even a few anecdotes I imagine were supposed to be heartwarming, to show how decent he was.
Usually when I read this sort of story, if it’s about someone I know, my mind flashes with one burst of insight after another. So that’s why he was like that, I think. Aha! That’s the aunt he always talked about. That sort of thing. With Tim’s obituary, I might as well have been reading an account about a complete stranger.
The Tim I knew was none of those things. He was neither inspiring in his commitment to community journalism, nor a tireless crusader for justice. He was not, ultimately, either honest to a fault nor trustworthy, nor was he professional in the extreme, nor was he a genius about his job as some would have him.
The Tim I knew was far less inspiring an individual. He was, in many regards, a man who preferred sticking to something he was competent at but long ago had ceased to enjoy, over taking a risk, moving on to something new, and learning something new. What was worse, he discouraged others from moving on, had a low threshold for disagreement and at times engaged in overtly unethical or even illegal conduct.
Some of my dislike for Tim surely is personal. At one point, after I had expressed an interest in leaving my post as managing editor for something a bit more challenging and interesting, he promised me a post in another office, where I would be in charge of training the editorial staff there and shaking things up to improve the product ― and then broke his promise and gave the post to someone else who had less experience and lower salary expectations.
He ran the newspapers with a heavy hand, keeping editors understaffed, underpaid and overworked on antiquated equipment. Another editor and I once tracked our hours at averaging between 50 and 60 hours a week, including marathon duties on Monday and Tuesday, in a job where at $35,000 a year, I was one of the best-paid employees. Those lengthy hours were necessary because we lacked reporters; as an editor with two newspapers, I was required to write four to five stories, in addition to my editorial duties, which typically involved editing eight to ten stories by my reporter, writing four editorials, assigning news photographs, and copy editing the entire contents of the newspaper. Those who complained found that not only were their complaints ignored, they either were criticized themselves, or in some cases were strongly encouraged to leave. One reporter actually was fired while he was on disability.
The worst breach of ethics came after I had left to become a stay-at-home father. A member of the school board in one of our communities had been videotaped in a tryst in a public park, and a copy of that video had found its way into the hands of an editor, who was set to write a story about it. Tim axed the story ― a debatable decision, but in some ways respectable ― and then called the board member in question, explained about the videotape, and then promised not to run it if the board member were to resign.
Where I come from, that’s called blackmail. It’s not an admirable trait in anyone, least of all in a journalist.
I never found myself inspired by Tim, and I never felt particularly close to him. But when I heard that he had died, I considered going to his funeral just to pay him the last respects he was due as a human being.
It’s been a busy year for death in my circle. This year I’ve watched as friends buried an infant son, as my cousins buried their mother, and as my aunt buried her husband. One theme has run constant through all the funerals: We are all made of corruptible mortal flesh, and that makes us more alike than our differences separate us.
Tim Caravan was many things I wish I were not, and would hope that I could never be: scared to try something new, and resentful of those who aren’t; blind to what others endure to bring his vision of efficiency into existence, and in the end so sure of the rightness of his actions that he is blind to how obviously corrupt they are.
Monday, December 17, 2007
understanding who jesus was
What sort of person was Jesus?
You could make the case that he was black:
- He called everyone "brother."
- He liked gospel.
- He couldn't get a fair trial.
The traditional answer is that he was Jewish. And you can make a case for that too. After all,
- He went into his father's business.
- He lived at home until he was 30.
- He was sure his mother was a virgin and his mother was sure he was God.
But he also might have been Italian.
- He talked with his hands.
- He had wine with every meal.
- He used olive oil.
And as every hippy will attest, Jesus would have been right at home on the West Coast. Could he be from California?
- He never cut his hair.
- He walked around barefoot all the time.
- He started a new religion.
Or was Jesus Irish?
- He never got married.
- He was always telling stories.
- He loved green pastures.
Or maybe Jesus was an alcoholic.
- He was always going to parties at people's houses.
- He was always filled with the Spirit.
- His first miracle was to turn water into wine.
Probably the most compelling evidence suggests that Jesus was, in fact, a woman.
- He had to feed a crowd at a moment's notice, when there was no food.
- He kept trying to get a message across to a bunch of men who just didn't get it.
- Even when he was dead, he had to get up because there was more work for him to do.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
call me 'mister'
When I was a first-year teacher, I generally called the principal Mrs. Martineau in front of the students and Joann in private, but in time I found myself calling her Mrs. Martineau more often than not.
It resurrected in me the old habit of calling adults Mr. and Mrs. My wife thinks I'm old-fashioned for it, but I really don't want our daughter calling adults by their first names. It creates a false familiarity and inappropriately levels the field between people of widely disparate social status. Calling a teacher the more formal "Miss Smith" instead of "Miss Rachel" reminds the child that the teacher is not a buddy or a peer, but someone to be treated with deference and respect.
Maybe we don't need to be as formal as other cultures, where all social interactions are last-name-only, save for the closest familial relations, but I think we've gone too far in the other direction.
I always insisted on being called by my last name when I was a teacher. I didn't discipline anyone who called me "Dave," but I reminded them they were supposed to call me "Mr. Learn." The worst reaction that ever got was from one of the more immature children, who insisted that if it was respectful for him to call me Mr. Learn, then I should call him "Mr. Cofre."
Don't remember how I resolved that one -- I might have told him that the honorific was because of my position, but I also might have started calling him Mr. Cofre until he begged me to stop.
I never called any teacher in high school by first name, except for Tom Montleone -- and I should add that he probably was the least respected teacher in the school too. In trying to be our friend, he lost claim to the respect he was owed as our teacher and instructor.
In college it seemed weird to have faculty insist on being addressed by first name. A few years a professor of mine whom I still keep in touch with periodically asked me to call him "Howard." I can't do it; he's still "Professor Marblestone" to me.
It resurrected in me the old habit of calling adults Mr. and Mrs. My wife thinks I'm old-fashioned for it, but I really don't want our daughter calling adults by their first names. It creates a false familiarity and inappropriately levels the field between people of widely disparate social status. Calling a teacher the more formal "Miss Smith" instead of "Miss Rachel" reminds the child that the teacher is not a buddy or a peer, but someone to be treated with deference and respect.
Maybe we don't need to be as formal as other cultures, where all social interactions are last-name-only, save for the closest familial relations, but I think we've gone too far in the other direction.
I always insisted on being called by my last name when I was a teacher. I didn't discipline anyone who called me "Dave," but I reminded them they were supposed to call me "Mr. Learn." The worst reaction that ever got was from one of the more immature children, who insisted that if it was respectful for him to call me Mr. Learn, then I should call him "Mr. Cofre."
Don't remember how I resolved that one -- I might have told him that the honorific was because of my position, but I also might have started calling him Mr. Cofre until he begged me to stop.
I never called any teacher in high school by first name, except for Tom Montleone -- and I should add that he probably was the least respected teacher in the school too. In trying to be our friend, he lost claim to the respect he was owed as our teacher and instructor.
In college it seemed weird to have faculty insist on being addressed by first name. A few years a professor of mine whom I still keep in touch with periodically asked me to call him "Howard." I can't do it; he's still "Professor Marblestone" to me.
Friday, December 14, 2007
life as a brick
Think of all the sin we could avoid, how much easier life would be, if only we were not made human. There's gotta be something wrong with that reasoning.
It sounds like hell: an existence utterly devoid of pleasure, work, accomplishment, progress and change. Bleah. Count me out.
I believe the Preacher dealt with a lot of this stuff in his writings; he called it "meaningless, utterly meaningless" and concluded in the end that it was right to serve God regardless.
Thirst makes us appreciate water; the joy we get from scratching an itch is proportional to the aggravation of the reach; the simple pleasure of eating is enhanced by the gravy of hunger ... all these things in their dual opposites are gifts of God.
The difference between this and the crack addiction is that crack destroys you; hunger and thirst, kept in balance, do not destroy us but instead increase our little joys when those needs are satisfied. No one wealthy appreciates his wealth like the one who knew poverty first.
In the case of food, drink, sexual pleasure, rest, and so on, you can see a reminder that we are not self-sufficient and all-contained, but need others and their gifts in order to keep going. And that steady humbling should keep us mindful of the source of all good things.
It sounds like hell: an existence utterly devoid of pleasure, work, accomplishment, progress and change. Bleah. Count me out.
I believe the Preacher dealt with a lot of this stuff in his writings; he called it "meaningless, utterly meaningless" and concluded in the end that it was right to serve God regardless.
Thirst makes us appreciate water; the joy we get from scratching an itch is proportional to the aggravation of the reach; the simple pleasure of eating is enhanced by the gravy of hunger ... all these things in their dual opposites are gifts of God.
The difference between this and the crack addiction is that crack destroys you; hunger and thirst, kept in balance, do not destroy us but instead increase our little joys when those needs are satisfied. No one wealthy appreciates his wealth like the one who knew poverty first.
In the case of food, drink, sexual pleasure, rest, and so on, you can see a reminder that we are not self-sufficient and all-contained, but need others and their gifts in order to keep going. And that steady humbling should keep us mindful of the source of all good things.
Monday, December 10, 2007
on my bookshelf
I just finished "God Laughs and Plays," a series of essays written by a deeply spiritual outdoorsman that I bought for my wife for her birthday back in April, because of the fellow's strong pro-environment views, which are based in his understanding of the gospels and a christocentric approach to creation. (You know, "The Earth is the Lord's, and everything in it" and "God saw what he had made, and it was good.") The writer gets a little too polemical when he talks about the Bush administration, but it remained a fascinating and thought-provoking collection nonetheless.
Before that, it was "Anansi Boys," by Neil Gaiman, a brilliantly hilarious story of what happens when your father happens to be the trickster god Anansi, and he dies suddenly, leaving you even more embarassed of him than ever, just in time for the brother you never met to come crashing into your life and make it even worse.
"Anansi Boys" is related to his earlier novel "American Gods," which I have to admit I didn't care much for. I mean, it was nice realizing that Shadow was Balder and all, but his character wasn't all that engaging. Shadow was someone things happened around and to, rather than someone who made things happen, and we never really got a sense of any depth to him until after he had completed the vigil for Wednesday. (I loved the characterization of Odin, and most of the other minor characters as well, from the mortals like Sam Black Crow and Wood, through the gamut of gods -- both new and old -- and other fantastical creatures. But Shadow, as Gaiman himself has noted, was just a plain difficult character to get into, because for most of his life he's done little more than exist and let other people move him about. So thank goodness for Odin's little escapades and trickeries ... and if you thought Odin was a treat, Anansi is light years funnier.)
In "Anansi Boys," the characters are so engaging and real that I was cracking up at the misfortune and bad luck Fat Charlie had to be the son of Anansi. Of course, that may be the difference in the characterizations the Norse gave their deities, compared to what the African peoples gave their folk characters.
I think I'm probably going to break out my copy of "The Humiliation of the Word," by Jacques Ellul, and read that. I started it years ago but never finished it.
As for watching, well, the girls and I have been going nuts over our Looney Tunes collection, and I saw "Premonition" last month. Beyond that, we're working on our list of Christmas season must-sees like "A Christmas Carol" and I'm STILL waiting for BSG season 3 to come out on DVD. It's been almost a year now...
Before that, it was "Anansi Boys," by Neil Gaiman, a brilliantly hilarious story of what happens when your father happens to be the trickster god Anansi, and he dies suddenly, leaving you even more embarassed of him than ever, just in time for the brother you never met to come crashing into your life and make it even worse.
"Anansi Boys" is related to his earlier novel "American Gods," which I have to admit I didn't care much for. I mean, it was nice realizing that Shadow was Balder and all, but his character wasn't all that engaging. Shadow was someone things happened around and to, rather than someone who made things happen, and we never really got a sense of any depth to him until after he had completed the vigil for Wednesday. (I loved the characterization of Odin, and most of the other minor characters as well, from the mortals like Sam Black Crow and Wood, through the gamut of gods -- both new and old -- and other fantastical creatures. But Shadow, as Gaiman himself has noted, was just a plain difficult character to get into, because for most of his life he's done little more than exist and let other people move him about. So thank goodness for Odin's little escapades and trickeries ... and if you thought Odin was a treat, Anansi is light years funnier.)
In "Anansi Boys," the characters are so engaging and real that I was cracking up at the misfortune and bad luck Fat Charlie had to be the son of Anansi. Of course, that may be the difference in the characterizations the Norse gave their deities, compared to what the African peoples gave their folk characters.
I think I'm probably going to break out my copy of "The Humiliation of the Word," by Jacques Ellul, and read that. I started it years ago but never finished it.
As for watching, well, the girls and I have been going nuts over our Looney Tunes collection, and I saw "Premonition" last month. Beyond that, we're working on our list of Christmas season must-sees like "A Christmas Carol" and I'm STILL waiting for BSG season 3 to come out on DVD. It's been almost a year now...
Sunday, December 09, 2007
the golden compass
Sometime tomorrow I plan to walk downtown to our public library and see if I can borrow a copy of Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy.
I've been largely indifferent to the trilogy ever since I first heard of it, years ago. A friend of mine read it and wasn't impressed, and since I was past the age where I was shelling out money for children's books out of general curiosity, I was content to let it lie there.
The revelation that J.K. Rowling based the character of Gilderoy Lockhart on Pullman also didn't inspire me to seek the books out, either.
But, thanks to the success of the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings franchises, New Line Cinema has brought "The Golden Compass," the first book in Pullman's trilogy,to the big screen. And the Religious Right is upset.
Now I'm intrigued, and I want to read the book.
People invariably assume that my sudden interest is due to a deep-seated contrarian streak, sparked by the recent call from Focus on the Family founder James Dobson for Christians to boycott the movie.
It's not quite that simple, though. While I can be contrary, and while I do have a chip on my shoulder, the plain fact of the matter is that I love Story. It draws me, in all the terrible ways it undermines my ease and self-confidence, and questions my half-baked assumptions, it draws me inexorably closer into a confrontation with Truth.
Truth makes us uncomfortable, and when we feel really uncomfortable, we get angry. Sometimes we learn from anger, and become truer ourselves. Sometimes, like Ebenezer Scrooge, it's easier to extinguish the light of truth than it is to learn from it.
Like I said, I don't know much about the books, except that they've angered or offended a lot of the right people in the ecclesiastial heirarchies of both the evangelical and Catholic churches. I know that the main character, Lyra, is transported to an alternate world, where she is caught up in a battle with a group called the Magisterium that resembles the Catholic Church, where she is aided by daemons, and where she ultimately discovers a pretender God who turns to dust when she confronts him.
That doesn't bother me in the least. As my friend Rob the aging hippy said today, all Pullman has done is show how pathetic the God is whom he doesn't believe in. By extension, I suppose he's shown how pathetic are the people who believe in such a weak and impotent God. That's not a problem for me; I don't believe in that God either.
But I do believe in Story, a grand and epic tale of which Pullman and I are privileged to be part. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," is how one writer began the "Once upon a time" of that grand Story.
All stories echo and proceed from that first one. Why be afraid of this one?
joseph and potiphar's wife
Genesis 39:7-15
7. And after a time his master's wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, "Lie with me."
8. But he refused and said to his master's wife, "Look, with me here, my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my hand.
9. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except yourself, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?"
10. And although she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not consent to lie beside her or to be with her.
11. One day, however, when he went into the house to do his work, and while no one else was in the house,
12. she caught hold of his garment, saying, "Lie with me!" But he left his garment in her hand, and fled and ran outside.
13. When she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had fled outside,
14. she called out to the members of her household and said to them, "See, my husband has brought among us a Hebrew to insult us! He came in to me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice;
15. and when he heard me raise my voice and cry out, he left his garment beside me, and fled outside."
So, what happened between Joseph and Potiphar's wife? Did she accuse him of rape when she couldn't seduce him? Or did he accuse her of seduction when he couldn't rape her?
Scripture is pretty forward on the subject; still, you have to admit that it's hardly uncommon for men who rape or try to rape women, to blame it on the woman as though she seduced or pressured him into having sex, and then accused him of rape later.
I recall an incident like this about 20 years ago at the University of Pittsburgh, I've heard a reporter (!) express it in the news room about a case that was making headlines, and I've encountered instances where lawyers use this tactic in the courtroom, particularly when the offender is a police officer or has some other respected position in the community.
Not saying that happened here. Merely asking what people think.
7. And after a time his master's wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, "Lie with me."
8. But he refused and said to his master's wife, "Look, with me here, my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my hand.
9. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except yourself, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?"
10. And although she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not consent to lie beside her or to be with her.
11. One day, however, when he went into the house to do his work, and while no one else was in the house,
12. she caught hold of his garment, saying, "Lie with me!" But he left his garment in her hand, and fled and ran outside.
13. When she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had fled outside,
14. she called out to the members of her household and said to them, "See, my husband has brought among us a Hebrew to insult us! He came in to me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice;
15. and when he heard me raise my voice and cry out, he left his garment beside me, and fled outside."
So, what happened between Joseph and Potiphar's wife? Did she accuse him of rape when she couldn't seduce him? Or did he accuse her of seduction when he couldn't rape her?
Scripture is pretty forward on the subject; still, you have to admit that it's hardly uncommon for men who rape or try to rape women, to blame it on the woman as though she seduced or pressured him into having sex, and then accused him of rape later.
I recall an incident like this about 20 years ago at the University of Pittsburgh, I've heard a reporter (!) express it in the news room about a case that was making headlines, and I've encountered instances where lawyers use this tactic in the courtroom, particularly when the offender is a police officer or has some other respected position in the community.
Not saying that happened here. Merely asking what people think.
Friday, November 30, 2007
searching out proper ethic principles
"As you know I am an extreme pacifist but if God asked me to do something that ran across that, I would obey God (now, if only I can differentiate God's voice from the other ones in my head) because God is God and I am not."
I'm sure you also have strong feelings on children's welfare. If God told you to horribly abuse a group of preschoolers sexually and physically, would you do it?
Of course you wouldn't -- because you recognize that such an instruction wouldn't be from God. We all feel that we know the voice of God well enough to differentiate what comes from him, and what does not.
Yet without a doubt much of this knowledge and understanding of God's voice has its roots in what our culture or particular subculture says is correct or moral. Few (healthy) people in any Western culture could kill another person without feeling some guilt, even if the act was completely justified; yet there are Christians from other cultures who would find killing in some contexts to be not only morally permissble but morally laudable.
It's precisely those cultural differences that should to some extent us cautious about developing a "biblical mindset"; the ancient Israelites had a decidedly premodern mindset, while Western society is twixt modern and premodern mindsets. We have radically different ideas on slavery, women's rights, the nature of God, and so on from what the authors of the Bible believed. While it doubtless is correct to say that those differences don't necessarily speak well of us, I think it's fair to say that a number of them do, and many of the others merely indicate differences in our social glue, rather than fault or merit in one society or the other.
So God is bigger than us. No question. His ways are higher than ours. Also agreed. But to what extent are those ways reflected in the lives of the ancient Israelites and their culture as recorded in Scripture? The ancients equated obedience to God with wealth and worldly success, but by the time Job was added to the canon, their understanding of God had reached the point where they concluded that such an equation was too facile an understanding of God.
I'm sure I make some people uncomfortable with the questions I'm asking these days, and even with the conclusions I'm starting to find, but I don't think I've strayed into any heresy. Just into uncertain gray areas, but I'm used to living there.
Of course you wouldn't -- because you recognize that such an instruction wouldn't be from God. We all feel that we know the voice of God well enough to differentiate what comes from him, and what does not.
Yet without a doubt much of this knowledge and understanding of God's voice has its roots in what our culture or particular subculture says is correct or moral. Few (healthy) people in any Western culture could kill another person without feeling some guilt, even if the act was completely justified; yet there are Christians from other cultures who would find killing in some contexts to be not only morally permissble but morally laudable.
It's precisely those cultural differences that should to some extent us cautious about developing a "biblical mindset"; the ancient Israelites had a decidedly premodern mindset, while Western society is twixt modern and premodern mindsets. We have radically different ideas on slavery, women's rights, the nature of God, and so on from what the authors of the Bible believed. While it doubtless is correct to say that those differences don't necessarily speak well of us, I think it's fair to say that a number of them do, and many of the others merely indicate differences in our social glue, rather than fault or merit in one society or the other.
So God is bigger than us. No question. His ways are higher than ours. Also agreed. But to what extent are those ways reflected in the lives of the ancient Israelites and their culture as recorded in Scripture? The ancients equated obedience to God with wealth and worldly success, but by the time Job was added to the canon, their understanding of God had reached the point where they concluded that such an equation was too facile an understanding of God.
I'm sure I make some people uncomfortable with the questions I'm asking these days, and even with the conclusions I'm starting to find, but I don't think I've strayed into any heresy. Just into uncertain gray areas, but I'm used to living there.
racial purity in ezra
I'm looking at Ezra 9 right now, and I get the strong impression that racial purity is a significant part of this issue, as Ezra saw it. He notes, quoting the Israelite leaders, "They have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons, and have mingled the holy race with the peoples around them" (emphasis mine).
There is a bit later on about the "detestable practices" but honestly, the theme they keep referring to is interracial marriage.
There is a bit later on about the "detestable practices" but honestly, the theme they keep referring to is interracial marriage.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
the fate of the women in ezra
While it may show that God did not abandon the divorced women to destitution, prostitution, or a synonym for slavery that ends in "-itution," there's no indication within the context of this particular book that Ezra or the others (except maybe those few clans who refused to go along with his program of ethnic cleansing) gave any consideration for the fate of the women.
I'm sure some of them did, naturally, and maybe even wept over the harsh necessity of the act, from a sense of proper charity, but the whole point of the passage is: We have intermarried with foreign women, this has angered God, and we need to drive them out.
And I note again the irony that God is strangely silent this entire book. No prophets appear and advise this course of action; the Word of the Lord never trumpets forth any guidance or advice. It's just Ezra, fasting and in mourning over the sin of his people.
I don't think God views women as more evil then men, but look at the relatively low importance they get in the Bible. They have names like Potiphar's wife, Noah's wife, and Pilate's wife; they're viewed as possessions to be given away or claimed, or in this case, sent away; and they're often held us as examples of evil, as with Jezebel, the voice of destruction in Proverbs, and for that matter many proverbs paint them poorly: "Better to live a desert by yourself than to share a roof with an ill-manner and contentious woman"; "Among a thousand men, I found one upright, but among a thousand women, I found none" and so on.
There are some great examples of strong women in the Bible -- Deborah, Ruth and Esther -- but with the exception of those last two, the details on their lives are sparse and their roles are secondary and limited to being someone's wife or mother
You know how some feminists, when there's a domestic dispute, always blame the husband? Or how some women view every man as a potential rapist, and automatically assume that we're scoping them out for sex? That's what life is like, on a daily basis, for women who live in a patriarchy. It's not just a matter of a little bit of chauvanism. It's an automatic assumption of guilt, and disproportionate punishment ... much like what Ezra did.
The account of Hagar in the book of Genesis may suggest something in the larger biblical context, that God did not abandon these women, but the book of Ezra gives the impression that the foreign women were a source of evil, and needed to be driven out before they led the men astray. Read on its own, for what it says, the book of Ezra suggests that God did not give a crap about these women, because they were foreign.
And the flip side is that the book gives the added impresson that God probably didn't give a crap about the Jewish women who had married foreign men in Babylon or elsewhere. No one is urged to put away her foreign husband or half-breed children. I say it again: Patriarchy sucks.
I'm sure some of them did, naturally, and maybe even wept over the harsh necessity of the act, from a sense of proper charity, but the whole point of the passage is: We have intermarried with foreign women, this has angered God, and we need to drive them out.
And I note again the irony that God is strangely silent this entire book. No prophets appear and advise this course of action; the Word of the Lord never trumpets forth any guidance or advice. It's just Ezra, fasting and in mourning over the sin of his people.
I don't think God views women as more evil then men, but look at the relatively low importance they get in the Bible. They have names like Potiphar's wife, Noah's wife, and Pilate's wife; they're viewed as possessions to be given away or claimed, or in this case, sent away; and they're often held us as examples of evil, as with Jezebel, the voice of destruction in Proverbs, and for that matter many proverbs paint them poorly: "Better to live a desert by yourself than to share a roof with an ill-manner and contentious woman"; "Among a thousand men, I found one upright, but among a thousand women, I found none" and so on.
There are some great examples of strong women in the Bible -- Deborah, Ruth and Esther -- but with the exception of those last two, the details on their lives are sparse and their roles are secondary and limited to being someone's wife or mother
You know how some feminists, when there's a domestic dispute, always blame the husband? Or how some women view every man as a potential rapist, and automatically assume that we're scoping them out for sex? That's what life is like, on a daily basis, for women who live in a patriarchy. It's not just a matter of a little bit of chauvanism. It's an automatic assumption of guilt, and disproportionate punishment ... much like what Ezra did.
The account of Hagar in the book of Genesis may suggest something in the larger biblical context, that God did not abandon these women, but the book of Ezra gives the impression that the foreign women were a source of evil, and needed to be driven out before they led the men astray. Read on its own, for what it says, the book of Ezra suggests that God did not give a crap about these women, because they were foreign.
And the flip side is that the book gives the added impresson that God probably didn't give a crap about the Jewish women who had married foreign men in Babylon or elsewhere. No one is urged to put away her foreign husband or half-breed children. I say it again: Patriarchy sucks.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
understanding ezra
Here is the essential conflict in discussion of how to understand Ezra correctly: It's one how to interpret scripture wisely and responsibly. Some would posit that the Quran is the Muslim "Bible"; that may be, but I would argue that we err in viewing the Bible as a Christian Quran, dictated in all its wordsby God himself.
The view of Scripture I'm coming to is one where I understand the Bible as a collection of writings of people who were feeling their way in the dark toward God. Thus we see echoed in Scripture the same struggles that we deal with ourselves as a society and a church, viz. how much to assimilate and how much to retreat from "foreign" ways. That Ezra acted in the way he did, even though the book affirms his actions, does not mean that his position is solidly rooted in God as much as it is solidily rooted in his understanding of God within his socio-cultural context.
I think the man was a misogynist and a racist, whatever virtues may rightly be attributed to him, and so I object to his action. Questioning the rightness of his action, even as I understand the reasons for doing so, leads me to a deeper inquiry into my understanding of God and the ways my experiences and culture act as a filter; it also leads me into a deeper exploration of Scripture itself.
Others have views different from mine. But it leads them on a parallel odyssey of the spirit, as they see the contrasting voices in Scripture and meditate on the same issues and conflicts, and move toward a deeper understanding of God. On the way, we run into each other, disagree (sometimes sharply) and hopefully learn from one another. I see this as a good thing, though stubborn know-it-all that I am, I probably don't come across that way.
The view of Scripture I'm coming to is one where I understand the Bible as a collection of writings of people who were feeling their way in the dark toward God. Thus we see echoed in Scripture the same struggles that we deal with ourselves as a society and a church, viz. how much to assimilate and how much to retreat from "foreign" ways. That Ezra acted in the way he did, even though the book affirms his actions, does not mean that his position is solidly rooted in God as much as it is solidily rooted in his understanding of God within his socio-cultural context.
I think the man was a misogynist and a racist, whatever virtues may rightly be attributed to him, and so I object to his action. Questioning the rightness of his action, even as I understand the reasons for doing so, leads me to a deeper inquiry into my understanding of God and the ways my experiences and culture act as a filter; it also leads me into a deeper exploration of Scripture itself.
Others have views different from mine. But it leads them on a parallel odyssey of the spirit, as they see the contrasting voices in Scripture and meditate on the same issues and conflicts, and move toward a deeper understanding of God. On the way, we run into each other, disagree (sometimes sharply) and hopefully learn from one another. I see this as a good thing, though stubborn know-it-all that I am, I probably don't come across that way.
ezra again
Still pondering the ethnic cleansing in the book of Ezra. The traditional justification for this act, among evangelicals, is that it what needed to maintain the identity of the Jewish people, and to protect the Jewish faith from pagan influences. I follow this reasoning completely, understand it, have heard it before, and used it myself as well.
A few problems with it:
Lastly lastly, I really hate the idea that women are the source of evil and destruction in Israel and Judah. Patriarchy sucks.
What I'm hitting on here is one of the thematic struggles of the Tanakh, whose authors sometimes had sharply differing views of how to treat Gentiles. I believe it's the Priestly writer who warns sharply about the dangers of associating with Gentiles, tells the people that they can enslave foreigners in their midst, and so on; while the Deuteronomist tells the reader to show kindness to the foreigner in their midst, for the Israelites themselves were once aliens and strangers in a foreign land, and reminds them to leave grain on the ground for the needy and the alien. Ezra says "Get rid of these foreign women"; the book of Ruth says "Let them in, so they can experience the wonders of our God and our people."
On the one hand you have the order to keep separate from the pagan nations surrounding them -- something particularly hammered home in the books written post-Exile -- yet with the other hand, you have writers like 2 Isaiah saying that all the nations will come to Israel and worship the Lord on his holy mountain.
I've heard the "keep them pure, keep them separate" argument before, but it doesn't match up with vast other parts of the Tanakh, where Israel is meant to be a blessing to the nations, where the Queen of Sheba comes to Solomon and leaves amazed at the great wisdom the Lord has given to him, where the nation is uniquely positioned to spread news of the One God throughout the ancient world.
Did the command to evangelize the world come with Christ, or was it in place thousands of years earlier?
A few problems with it:
- It's inhumane. It involved mass divorce, ripping husbands and wives apart, and tearing children away from their fathers because the kids weren't "pure enough." Whether the wives and children made the journey from Babylon or were local non-Jewish women, the result was the same: dishonor, shame, and a life of misery. The "extreme circumstances call for extreme measures" line is used to justify all manner of atrocities, and I'm unconvinced that more humane measures weren't possible.
- Jesus flat-out says that to divorce a spouse who has not been unfaithful is to commit adultery. Paul adds an allowance for divorce when one partner has converted and the other can't stand it, but in that case it's a mutually agreed-upon release from an unpleasant situation, not a racially driven purge.
- It's inconsistent with obvious cases like Ruth and Rahab, where pagan women were accorded places of honor in Israel and Judah's histories.
- It's also inconsistent with the scriptural principle of honoring your vow for the vow's sake, even if you realize it was a vow you were unwise to have made in the first place.
Lastly lastly, I really hate the idea that women are the source of evil and destruction in Israel and Judah. Patriarchy sucks.
What I'm hitting on here is one of the thematic struggles of the Tanakh, whose authors sometimes had sharply differing views of how to treat Gentiles. I believe it's the Priestly writer who warns sharply about the dangers of associating with Gentiles, tells the people that they can enslave foreigners in their midst, and so on; while the Deuteronomist tells the reader to show kindness to the foreigner in their midst, for the Israelites themselves were once aliens and strangers in a foreign land, and reminds them to leave grain on the ground for the needy and the alien. Ezra says "Get rid of these foreign women"; the book of Ruth says "Let them in, so they can experience the wonders of our God and our people."
On the one hand you have the order to keep separate from the pagan nations surrounding them -- something particularly hammered home in the books written post-Exile -- yet with the other hand, you have writers like 2 Isaiah saying that all the nations will come to Israel and worship the Lord on his holy mountain.
I've heard the "keep them pure, keep them separate" argument before, but it doesn't match up with vast other parts of the Tanakh, where Israel is meant to be a blessing to the nations, where the Queen of Sheba comes to Solomon and leaves amazed at the great wisdom the Lord has given to him, where the nation is uniquely positioned to spread news of the One God throughout the ancient world.
Did the command to evangelize the world come with Christ, or was it in place thousands of years earlier?
Monday, November 26, 2007
bedtime bible stories
Let me caution parents against reading Bibles with their children if they think it's going to be all peaches and ice cream. There's sweets in there, but there's a few rocks to be found too.
Like many children's Bibles, the one we’re reading with Rachel right now streamlines the accounts of Scripture so you don’t encounter situations like reading the story of Jesus four times in a row, or reading about the history of the kingdom from David to the Exile, and then starting it all over again. And like other children's Bibles, it also makes sure kids get the officially proper understanding of the story, not quite to the point of Mary saying, "Oh, Joseph, I feel so happy that our baby will take all our sins on himself and save us from the fires of hell by dying in our place!" but it’s still got a few unnecessary whetstones to sharpen its point. (Strange we think that so necessary when the Scriptures themselves don't have that degree of polemic.)
But at least it’s (mostly) tolerable. It’s no Prayer of Jabez or Rhema Bible College children's Bible, and though it adds a few details to make the story more interesting, they at least appear to be historically accurate and provide the bonus information preachers usually provide in their sermons. I have one children's Bible that used to be my mother's, with a very definite colonialist bent. It actually says that Nimrod pleased God because he went out and conquered the superstitious peoples of the world. Um, yeah.
For Evangeline, we read the actual Bible. So far we've read Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, Esther, Daniel, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Acts, more or less in their entirety. (We skipped the genealogies in 2 Chronicles, the law part of Exodus, and some of the more graphic stuff in Judges.)
As a result, bedtime Bible reading with Evangeline has been an education and a half by itself. We've read stuff I think many people don't read with their children, or at all. We've wrestled together with the story of Jephthah and his decision to offer his daughter as a human sacrifice to God, and concluded together that while God may indeed have appointed Jephthah to lead the Israelites in war against the Moabites, only an idiot would think that he was qualified to be a spiritual leader as well. And that led us in turn to a discussion of leadership and authority, and how God sometimes will give people authority in one area but not in another, and how we should stop and evaluate whether their leadership in a second area really is valid. (I was thinking of our president in some nebulous way, and of preachers who tell their parishioners how to vote, more specifically.)
We just started Nehemiah last Tuesday night, after finishing the book of Ezra on Monday, and I found myself wondering at the sharp differences in the writing style between Ezra/Nehemiah and the other historyish books in the Tanakh. The books from Genesis through 2 Chronicles have a very clear sense of God as a participant in history. The authors ascribe words and motivations to God for what happens, and there's a sense of wonder and awe about God that permeates, and develops through, the books. In Ezra and Nehemiah, the books read more like the sort of thing you would find in a Christian bookstore or hear during testimonials night. "The hand of God was upon us," the writer says as an explanation for why things worked out well. God is more removed in these books than elsewhere in the entire Tanakh, with the exception of the Esther, where he's not even mentioned. (Though at least that book is so well structured that you get a sense of God's involvement as the plot progresses.)
In all honesty, Ezra and Nehemiah aren't books about God’s dealings with Israel as much as they're books about having a proper nationalist spirit, and why other peoples shouldn't mess with the Jews. The one begins with the reconstruction of the Temple and ends with the exiles purging themselves of all the unclean Gentile women and half-breed children they've polluted themselves with; and the other is about the city of Jerusalem itself and the efforts to repair the damage inflicted a century previous, by Nebuchadnezzar. It's been a while since I read Nehemiah, but if memory serves, it also ends with some sort of purging. The chapter we read Friday night has Nehemiah flipping out over 1 percent interest being charged against fellow Jews on loans.
Anyway, Evangeline is asking all the questions you'd expect her to, the questions that simultaneously make you want to cheer her on because it shows she's thinking, and tell her to stop being so difficult because they show you that you haven't been thinking enough.
For instance: Ezra is beside himself with grief that the exiles have married non-Jewish women and actually had children with them, and he convinces the people that in order to be right with God, they have to divorce all these foreign wives and send away both them and their children. That's horrible, and I found myself cheered immensely when I read that there were two clans that refused to comply.
Evangeline, naturally enough, wanted to know why they did this. So I gave the traditional explanation that the Jewish people were meant to be a unique people, possessed not only of the knowledge of the One God but of a special relationship with him that required keeping themselves separate from the pagan peoples around them. Why? Well, because if they married people with other religious beliefs, they might be led to worship other gods, their children might, or the worship of the Lord could be mixed up with the worship of other gods.
"Solomon did that," Evangeline said.
"True, but look at how it worked out for him," I said, thinking of Solomon’s idolatry.
"Yeah, but he did it to keep peace."
And from there she made the leap to interfaith marriage today, wondering what was wrong with it if both people believed in God.
What she didn't ask, and to be honest, I was grateful for it, was why if Ezra did the wrong thing, the book doesn't make it sound like he did. I mean, let’s be honest: 21st-century Christian sensibilities aside, the point of the book is that Ezra did do the right thing by demanding that everyone get rid of their non-Jewish family members. There's no voice from heaven saying "Straight up!," and Christians like to use that as silence as evidence of God’s disapproval (and by extension, of his support for our strong pro-marriage stands), but the implication of the book is that this was the appropriate response.
Tuesday night she asked why it was such a big deal to repair the Temple, since we can worship God anywhere. Again, I gave her the traditional explanations about God's Name inhabiting the Temple, and Jesus' death changing everything, but at the same time, I was aware of the deficiencies of the explanation. The Israelites worshiped God at any number of shrines before Solomon built the Temple, and he was fine with that then; and he’s fine with it now, and I was starkly aware of how many inconsistent doctrines of God and dispensationalist thinking I've picked up over the years.
To be honest, I deserve this. I keep telling my children that wisdom lies in the questions you ask, and not in the answers you give, and I encourage them to ask tough questions in church. So it's only fair that they hold my feet to the fire too.
Like many children's Bibles, the one we’re reading with Rachel right now streamlines the accounts of Scripture so you don’t encounter situations like reading the story of Jesus four times in a row, or reading about the history of the kingdom from David to the Exile, and then starting it all over again. And like other children's Bibles, it also makes sure kids get the officially proper understanding of the story, not quite to the point of Mary saying, "Oh, Joseph, I feel so happy that our baby will take all our sins on himself and save us from the fires of hell by dying in our place!" but it’s still got a few unnecessary whetstones to sharpen its point. (Strange we think that so necessary when the Scriptures themselves don't have that degree of polemic.)
But at least it’s (mostly) tolerable. It’s no Prayer of Jabez or Rhema Bible College children's Bible, and though it adds a few details to make the story more interesting, they at least appear to be historically accurate and provide the bonus information preachers usually provide in their sermons. I have one children's Bible that used to be my mother's, with a very definite colonialist bent. It actually says that Nimrod pleased God because he went out and conquered the superstitious peoples of the world. Um, yeah.
For Evangeline, we read the actual Bible. So far we've read Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, Esther, Daniel, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Acts, more or less in their entirety. (We skipped the genealogies in 2 Chronicles, the law part of Exodus, and some of the more graphic stuff in Judges.)
As a result, bedtime Bible reading with Evangeline has been an education and a half by itself. We've read stuff I think many people don't read with their children, or at all. We've wrestled together with the story of Jephthah and his decision to offer his daughter as a human sacrifice to God, and concluded together that while God may indeed have appointed Jephthah to lead the Israelites in war against the Moabites, only an idiot would think that he was qualified to be a spiritual leader as well. And that led us in turn to a discussion of leadership and authority, and how God sometimes will give people authority in one area but not in another, and how we should stop and evaluate whether their leadership in a second area really is valid. (I was thinking of our president in some nebulous way, and of preachers who tell their parishioners how to vote, more specifically.)
We just started Nehemiah last Tuesday night, after finishing the book of Ezra on Monday, and I found myself wondering at the sharp differences in the writing style between Ezra/Nehemiah and the other historyish books in the Tanakh. The books from Genesis through 2 Chronicles have a very clear sense of God as a participant in history. The authors ascribe words and motivations to God for what happens, and there's a sense of wonder and awe about God that permeates, and develops through, the books. In Ezra and Nehemiah, the books read more like the sort of thing you would find in a Christian bookstore or hear during testimonials night. "The hand of God was upon us," the writer says as an explanation for why things worked out well. God is more removed in these books than elsewhere in the entire Tanakh, with the exception of the Esther, where he's not even mentioned. (Though at least that book is so well structured that you get a sense of God's involvement as the plot progresses.)
In all honesty, Ezra and Nehemiah aren't books about God’s dealings with Israel as much as they're books about having a proper nationalist spirit, and why other peoples shouldn't mess with the Jews. The one begins with the reconstruction of the Temple and ends with the exiles purging themselves of all the unclean Gentile women and half-breed children they've polluted themselves with; and the other is about the city of Jerusalem itself and the efforts to repair the damage inflicted a century previous, by Nebuchadnezzar. It's been a while since I read Nehemiah, but if memory serves, it also ends with some sort of purging. The chapter we read Friday night has Nehemiah flipping out over 1 percent interest being charged against fellow Jews on loans.
Anyway, Evangeline is asking all the questions you'd expect her to, the questions that simultaneously make you want to cheer her on because it shows she's thinking, and tell her to stop being so difficult because they show you that you haven't been thinking enough.
For instance: Ezra is beside himself with grief that the exiles have married non-Jewish women and actually had children with them, and he convinces the people that in order to be right with God, they have to divorce all these foreign wives and send away both them and their children. That's horrible, and I found myself cheered immensely when I read that there were two clans that refused to comply.
Evangeline, naturally enough, wanted to know why they did this. So I gave the traditional explanation that the Jewish people were meant to be a unique people, possessed not only of the knowledge of the One God but of a special relationship with him that required keeping themselves separate from the pagan peoples around them. Why? Well, because if they married people with other religious beliefs, they might be led to worship other gods, their children might, or the worship of the Lord could be mixed up with the worship of other gods.
"Solomon did that," Evangeline said.
"True, but look at how it worked out for him," I said, thinking of Solomon’s idolatry.
"Yeah, but he did it to keep peace."
And from there she made the leap to interfaith marriage today, wondering what was wrong with it if both people believed in God.
What she didn't ask, and to be honest, I was grateful for it, was why if Ezra did the wrong thing, the book doesn't make it sound like he did. I mean, let’s be honest: 21st-century Christian sensibilities aside, the point of the book is that Ezra did do the right thing by demanding that everyone get rid of their non-Jewish family members. There's no voice from heaven saying "Straight up!," and Christians like to use that as silence as evidence of God’s disapproval (and by extension, of his support for our strong pro-marriage stands), but the implication of the book is that this was the appropriate response.
Tuesday night she asked why it was such a big deal to repair the Temple, since we can worship God anywhere. Again, I gave her the traditional explanations about God's Name inhabiting the Temple, and Jesus' death changing everything, but at the same time, I was aware of the deficiencies of the explanation. The Israelites worshiped God at any number of shrines before Solomon built the Temple, and he was fine with that then; and he’s fine with it now, and I was starkly aware of how many inconsistent doctrines of God and dispensationalist thinking I've picked up over the years.
To be honest, I deserve this. I keep telling my children that wisdom lies in the questions you ask, and not in the answers you give, and I encourage them to ask tough questions in church. So it's only fair that they hold my feet to the fire too.
homeschooling my second child
Rachel's been doing well with the homeschooling. I've finally started to win an uphill battle where her handwriting is concerned. Because she's the younger of two children, Rachel started writing before she attended preschool, although perhaps it would be more accurate to say she was "drawing letters" than to say she actually was writing.
The result, though, is that while she did eventually learn to make the letters look right, she’s been making them in a way other than the correct way; i.e., she would make a T by starting at the bottom of the letter instead of at the top. Not a huge deal, I suppose, but it’s supposed to have dividends in other areas later on.
Well, after much work, I’ve finally got her doing her letters the correct way at least half the time. She still keeps slipping back into sola uppercasa as one of the three pillars of her faith when she’s writing on her own, but I'm confident that this too will come in time.
Her reading has been great, too. After resisting me on other occasions when I've prompted her to challenge herself, on Tuesday she picked up a Level 2 Step into Reading book and did a passable job with it. She still got stuck on a few words, including some she already knows, but now that she’s read it all the way through, she'll keep going. Her biggest problem isn't sight words, it's remembering what sounds dipthongs make, and how to handle that dang silent E. (It's elementary for silent E, but she's still in pre-elementary.)
Well, after much work, I’ve finally got her doing her letters the correct way at least half the time. She still keeps slipping back into sola uppercasa as one of the three pillars of her faith when she’s writing on her own, but I'm confident that this too will come in time.
Her reading has been great, too. After resisting me on other occasions when I've prompted her to challenge herself, on Tuesday she picked up a Level 2 Step into Reading book and did a passable job with it. She still got stuck on a few words, including some she already knows, but now that she’s read it all the way through, she'll keep going. Her biggest problem isn't sight words, it's remembering what sounds dipthongs make, and how to handle that dang silent E. (It's elementary for silent E, but she's still in pre-elementary.)
Aside from reading and writing, the main thing we've been working on is literacy. We’re working our way through our beloved copy of The Brothers Grimm, as well as reading D'Aulaire's "Book of Greek Myths" and a children’s story Bible. We also just read a couple books about Pocahontas, one of which noted about the famous scene with John Smith, "Most historians think Smith made this up. We really don’t know. Oh, and we don't know if she actually thought of herself as a Christian and loved John Rolfe, or if she just thought converting and then marrying him would help her people." That book cracked me up with its honesty. Once Thanksgiving's over, I guess I'll have to see about finding some other books about Roanoke and Virginia Dare, or about the Puritans' arrival at Plymouth Rock.
In addition to all this at home, Rachel also takes gymnastics lessons, wants to attend the art academy where Evangeline goes, and knows more folk and Broadway tunes than many people far older than her. So I think we're getting the humanities covered.
Math is a little difficult for her, when it comes to adding numbers together that add up to more than 10. This, too, I think will come after I've explained it another time or two and worked her through a few exercises. She's doing well.
'into the woods'
One of the big things at our house the past few weeks has been the Stephen Sondheim musical "Into the Woods."
I bought Natasha the soundtrack to the 2000-ish Broadway revival with Vanessa Williams, and for her birthday we bought Evangeline a DVD of the original production, with Bernadette Peters, and the girls have been going around singing one tune or another from the show for more than a month. Rachel's humming "You are Not Alone," one of the songs from the show, right now.
The first act of the musical weaves together the fairy tales of Cinderella, Rapunzel, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, and original Sondheim bridging material that can be called "The Baker and His Wife," into one more or less cohesive story.
The stories go pretty much the way you expect to, with some pretty good music along the way, and some rather hilarious comments on the tales themselves, such as when one of the princes comments, "Rapunzel, Rapunzel. What kind of a name is that?"
The first act ends like you would expect a fairy tale to end. Jack is wealthy, the Baker and his Wife are expecting their child, Rapunzel and Cinderella each have married their princes, and so on. Everything has ended "happily ever after," just as you’d expect it to.
And then the curtain rises on Act 2. Everyone is still happily-ever-aftering when the giant's wife comes down another beanstalk, looking for the boy who repaid her hospitality and generosity by stealing from her husband and then killing him. On top of that, Rapunzel has gone mad from years of living in a tower all by herself and then suddenly being thrust into palace life after giving birth to twins, all by herself, in the middle of the desert.
Oh, and the princes, having had everything they ever wanted and having believed themselves to have fallen in love with women they couldn't have ― Cinderella kept running away at midnight every night of the festival, and Rapunzel lived in a tower with no door ― have grown bored with their lives now that they once again have everything they ever wanted, and are in love with two new women, one of whom is in enchanted sleep within a forest of briars, and the other who lies in an enchanted sleep within a casket made entirely of glass.
It’s an incredible story, although it does get a little intense when everyone's arguing over how to stop the giantess and whether they shouldn’t just hand Jack over to her. (They tried having her kill the Narrator, but that didn’t work out.) When we watched it last week, Rachel -- who took a haunted house in good stride ― was so wigged out that she started shaking during that scene.
Like any good story, the show functions well at several levels. The first act is memorable because of the way it retells the fairy tales with all the charm and excitement found in the originals, albeit with a little more characterization. But by the time the second act is drawing to a close, the protagonists have been forced to grow up and assess their fairytale lives to find out what went wrong.
There's the message about letting someone else tell our stories for us, and letting them decide what should happen to us. Cinderella of course has lived the life her dead mother told her to, even going regularly to her grave for further guidance; and the Baker is horrified when the others kill the Narrator (God), because "Now we'll never know how our story ends."
In the end, the four who remain -- Cinderella, Jack, Red Riding Hood and the Baker -- are forced to determine how their story will go. Rather than running from its unpleasantness, they realize that the bulk of the misery everyone's experiencing comes from focusing only on what they wanted, and not considering how a blind pursuit of their own goals would affect everyone else.
So in the end, Sondheim uses the vehicle of fairy tales to critique the message of fairy tales and to pass on a lesson to adults about the life lessons we teach our children through the decisions we make.
One thing I find amusing is that while the decision to kill the Narrator is essentially an effort to throw off the yoke of subservience to God and experience freedom and self-determination, the characters don't really do that. The story remains scripted, orchestrated, and choreographed down to the final drop of the curtain.
No one got killed at all. At best, all they did was shake off the familiar representation of him that was at the moment engaged in pointless moralizing about their situation. His hand and his guidance remained on them no matter what they did.
Copyright © 2017 by David Learn. Used with permission.
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The first act of the musical weaves together the fairy tales of Cinderella, Rapunzel, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, and original Sondheim bridging material that can be called "The Baker and His Wife," into one more or less cohesive story.
The stories go pretty much the way you expect to, with some pretty good music along the way, and some rather hilarious comments on the tales themselves, such as when one of the princes comments, "Rapunzel, Rapunzel. What kind of a name is that?"
The first act ends like you would expect a fairy tale to end. Jack is wealthy, the Baker and his Wife are expecting their child, Rapunzel and Cinderella each have married their princes, and so on. Everything has ended "happily ever after," just as you’d expect it to.
And then the curtain rises on Act 2. Everyone is still happily-ever-aftering when the giant's wife comes down another beanstalk, looking for the boy who repaid her hospitality and generosity by stealing from her husband and then killing him. On top of that, Rapunzel has gone mad from years of living in a tower all by herself and then suddenly being thrust into palace life after giving birth to twins, all by herself, in the middle of the desert.
Oh, and the princes, having had everything they ever wanted and having believed themselves to have fallen in love with women they couldn't have ― Cinderella kept running away at midnight every night of the festival, and Rapunzel lived in a tower with no door ― have grown bored with their lives now that they once again have everything they ever wanted, and are in love with two new women, one of whom is in enchanted sleep within a forest of briars, and the other who lies in an enchanted sleep within a casket made entirely of glass.
It’s an incredible story, although it does get a little intense when everyone's arguing over how to stop the giantess and whether they shouldn’t just hand Jack over to her. (They tried having her kill the Narrator, but that didn’t work out.) When we watched it last week, Rachel -- who took a haunted house in good stride ― was so wigged out that she started shaking during that scene.
Like any good story, the show functions well at several levels. The first act is memorable because of the way it retells the fairy tales with all the charm and excitement found in the originals, albeit with a little more characterization. But by the time the second act is drawing to a close, the protagonists have been forced to grow up and assess their fairytale lives to find out what went wrong.
There's the message about letting someone else tell our stories for us, and letting them decide what should happen to us. Cinderella of course has lived the life her dead mother told her to, even going regularly to her grave for further guidance; and the Baker is horrified when the others kill the Narrator (God), because "Now we'll never know how our story ends."
In the end, the four who remain -- Cinderella, Jack, Red Riding Hood and the Baker -- are forced to determine how their story will go. Rather than running from its unpleasantness, they realize that the bulk of the misery everyone's experiencing comes from focusing only on what they wanted, and not considering how a blind pursuit of their own goals would affect everyone else.
So in the end, Sondheim uses the vehicle of fairy tales to critique the message of fairy tales and to pass on a lesson to adults about the life lessons we teach our children through the decisions we make.
One thing I find amusing is that while the decision to kill the Narrator is essentially an effort to throw off the yoke of subservience to God and experience freedom and self-determination, the characters don't really do that. The story remains scripted, orchestrated, and choreographed down to the final drop of the curtain.
No one got killed at all. At best, all they did was shake off the familiar representation of him that was at the moment engaged in pointless moralizing about their situation. His hand and his guidance remained on them no matter what they did.
Copyright © 2017 by David Learn. Used with permission.
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engaging my gifted child
I had about the 10 billionth meeting last Monday with Evangeline’s teacher regarding her schoolwork and socialization in the classroom, with the major change this time that I involved the school principal.
Evangeline has become extremely disengaged from school. Her work is mostly stuff she mastered in kindergarten or first grade, which is frustrating. Her teacher last year had her learning negative numbers in math and had put her in the most advanced reading group the school offers for her age group, which was still far below her reading level.
Her teacher’s main focus when we've talked has been on Evangeline's perceived inability to socialize with her peers. We've met or conferred at least a half-dozen times where that was the main focus of the meeting, but some time about two weeks ago, I finally snapped and got angry in a constructive way on Evangeline's behalf.
Instead of trying to redirect the focus to a discussion of her academic skills, I pushed back hard on the social skills and said point-blank "She’s not an extrovert. There's nothing wrong with that. She has friends, she makes new ones, and she has no problem interacting with them. But she doesn’t like crowds, and when she started third grade, not a single one of her friends was in her class. What did you expect her to do? Open up to a bunch of kids whom she barely knows or who have picked on her?"
The main thing Evangeline needs socially is a chance to interact with her peers, not just kids her own age, but kids who really are her peers, both academically and interestwise. But when you’ve got a kid who started teaching herself to read when she was 4, who took it upon herself in first grade to learn cursive writing, who reads at a ninth grade level when she's only in third grade herself, who had her own freaking art show in first grade, and you give her assignments like "Write your name and address three times" or two pages of "Underline the subject and circle the predicate," you’re going to get a kid who’s as lonely as Mr. Morton, no matter what the predicate says she’s supposed to do.
So the long and short of it is that, after Natasha and I met with the principal and the teacher last Monday morning for about 45 minutes, Evangeline is getting some math work from a higher grade level, will be reading some books that are considered middle school level, and will be partnered with some of the other bright kids in the third grade.
It'll be an improvement, though heaven knows if it'll be enough. The school is great for kids who are in the center of the bell curve and who fall to the left of it, but I’m seeing with my own eyes that it’s not as well equipped for kids who land on the right of the curve and who need a little more effort to engage them.
With a little guidance, Evangeline does a good job of keeping herself engaged. Six weeks ago I let her read my trusted copy of "Coraline," and she was hooked from start to finish. For about two weeks, everything was "Coraline this" and "Coraline that" and "AAaah! Look out, it’s the Other Mother!"
Rachel, who hasn’t even read the book yet, got in on the action too, and was drawing pictures of women she said were the Other Mother, and loved to watch a "trailer" for the book that someone posted on YouTube. (Incidentally, did you know they’re making a movie of the book now? It’s stop-motion animation, and features Dakota Fanning as the voice of Coraline.)
Evangeline immensely enjoys books like "Coraline" that play with expectation and perception, and that give you unexpected twists in direction or on reality. I've told the girls a few of Nathaniel Hawthorne's short stories as best as I can remember them, and she was hooked. After her bath the other night, she even started wearing her towel over head so that it covered her entire face except for her mouth, like in "The Minister's Black Veil."
Evangeline has become extremely disengaged from school. Her work is mostly stuff she mastered in kindergarten or first grade, which is frustrating. Her teacher last year had her learning negative numbers in math and had put her in the most advanced reading group the school offers for her age group, which was still far below her reading level.
Her teacher’s main focus when we've talked has been on Evangeline's perceived inability to socialize with her peers. We've met or conferred at least a half-dozen times where that was the main focus of the meeting, but some time about two weeks ago, I finally snapped and got angry in a constructive way on Evangeline's behalf.
Instead of trying to redirect the focus to a discussion of her academic skills, I pushed back hard on the social skills and said point-blank "She’s not an extrovert. There's nothing wrong with that. She has friends, she makes new ones, and she has no problem interacting with them. But she doesn’t like crowds, and when she started third grade, not a single one of her friends was in her class. What did you expect her to do? Open up to a bunch of kids whom she barely knows or who have picked on her?"
The main thing Evangeline needs socially is a chance to interact with her peers, not just kids her own age, but kids who really are her peers, both academically and interestwise. But when you’ve got a kid who started teaching herself to read when she was 4, who took it upon herself in first grade to learn cursive writing, who reads at a ninth grade level when she's only in third grade herself, who had her own freaking art show in first grade, and you give her assignments like "Write your name and address three times" or two pages of "Underline the subject and circle the predicate," you’re going to get a kid who’s as lonely as Mr. Morton, no matter what the predicate says she’s supposed to do.
So the long and short of it is that, after Natasha and I met with the principal and the teacher last Monday morning for about 45 minutes, Evangeline is getting some math work from a higher grade level, will be reading some books that are considered middle school level, and will be partnered with some of the other bright kids in the third grade.
It'll be an improvement, though heaven knows if it'll be enough. The school is great for kids who are in the center of the bell curve and who fall to the left of it, but I’m seeing with my own eyes that it’s not as well equipped for kids who land on the right of the curve and who need a little more effort to engage them.
With a little guidance, Evangeline does a good job of keeping herself engaged. Six weeks ago I let her read my trusted copy of "Coraline," and she was hooked from start to finish. For about two weeks, everything was "Coraline this" and "Coraline that" and "AAaah! Look out, it’s the Other Mother!"
Rachel, who hasn’t even read the book yet, got in on the action too, and was drawing pictures of women she said were the Other Mother, and loved to watch a "trailer" for the book that someone posted on YouTube. (Incidentally, did you know they’re making a movie of the book now? It’s stop-motion animation, and features Dakota Fanning as the voice of Coraline.)
Evangeline immensely enjoys books like "Coraline" that play with expectation and perception, and that give you unexpected twists in direction or on reality. I've told the girls a few of Nathaniel Hawthorne's short stories as best as I can remember them, and she was hooked. After her bath the other night, she even started wearing her towel over head so that it covered her entire face except for her mouth, like in "The Minister's Black Veil."
'beowulf'
Anyone seen the new "Beowulf" flick? Neil Gaiman co-wrote the script, and Robert "What Lies Beneath" Zemeckis directed it, so I'm intrigued, even though I hear it's one of the nouveau movies where everyone acted in front of a blue screen, with all the visuals overlaid later on via CGI, including Hrothgar’s beard.
Stephen Whitty, the film critic for the Star-Ledger, gave it a mixed review. I think he enjoyed the story itself, possibly because it was "Beowulf" and if you have a degree in English of any sort (or are a guardian of culture, which a film critic certainly is as opposed to a movie reviewer), you are required to like "Beowulf" even if you thought it was tedious when you read it in high school and college.
For those not familiar with the story, "Beowulf" is the oldest known piece of literature in Old English, also called Anglo-Saxon, and it reflects a lot of those sensibilities even though it ostensibly is a Christian, rather than pagan, tale. In the story, the hall Heorot is under nightly siege by a monster called Grendel, who comes in and kills people at his leisure. The mighty Beowulf comes and fights Grendel to the death, thus making himself the target of vengeance by Grendel's mother. He defeats her and lives to a ripe old age, when he dies after slaying a dragon.
Personally, I still have mixed feelings about "Beowulf" as something to read. It's a great piece of literature and all, because it's the oldest extant poem composed in English, and it's a great literary window into our Anglo-Saxon heritage, and it shows the culture at a state of transition from pagan to early Christian, where the people still loved their old stories and were retelling them with a bad gloss of their new faith, yada yada yada, but at least the translations I've read have been pretty dull, and full of endless boasting about how tough Beowulf is, how great a king Hrothgar has been, how mightily Bob the Builder swung his hammer Mjolinir-Craftsmann in the construction of Heorot, and so on. I remember reading it in college and getting to the part where Beowulf was fighting the dragon, and thinking, "Waitasecond. What happened to Grendel's mother?" My eyes had glazed over for a third of the poem, and I had missed it completely.
I borrowed a copy of a "Beowulf" graphic novel from the library about a month ago and read it to Evangeline. Because it was a visual medium, it cut all the description and much of the plot exposition, and told the story in a fairly straightforward manner. I was actually able to show her how Beowulf taps into the same archetype as Heracles, Superman and the other larger-than-life, kick-your-ass figures she's enjoyed reading about. She seemed to enjoy it at the time, though she's never asked me to read it to her again.
She did make some joke about weregild the next day, though. Personally, I think that's a concept we need to recover in English-speaking society. If you harm me or my kin, or damage our reputation, I should be able to demand your life in restitution, either as a blood-payment or as a lifetime of servanthood. I'm not particular.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
that thanksgiving thing
Thanksgiving is always an active time here in our family. Last year we invited some friends over and had the seven of us around the table; this year in addition to my parents, I invited a friend if mine who is going through a divorce to come over with her two daughters but she decided to decline. I re-extended the invitation again Wednesday, but she decided to stay at home. The big activity at school this week ― it was Wednesday morning, not quite five-thirty when I wrote this ― was the school's Harvest Festival, which probably should just be called Thanksgiving, but isn't.
It's traditional for the children to make some sort of communal meal they invite their parents to come share with them for lunch. In first and second grades, it was stone soup. And yes, they really did put stones in it. This year they made some kind of vegetable noodle soup, but because of my reputation as someone who bakes bread, Evangeline's teacher asked if I could help them make some bread too. She seemed surprised that I don’t have a bread machine, but agreed the students would probably find it more fun to mix and knead it all by hand.
So Tuesday morning I got up bright and early, boiled and mashed some potatoes, adapted some recipes on the fly from my cookbook so we could try them with sourdough, and took all the ingredients to the school so the kids in Evangeline's class could have fun making potato rolls and sourdough muffins. Wednesday morning I got up bright and early to bake them, and I have to say that they turned out all right.
The kids had a good time making them, too. I think the biggest excitement wasn't skipping their regular work plans, and it wasn't even the idea of making bread. It was getting their hands mucky in the dough, and getting to punch it as part of the kneading process. At least one kid had a nice rhythm going, as though he were using a punching bag. (I had to tell him that wasn't the idea.) When I picked Evangeline up yesterday, at least three kids ran over to tell me, "Mr. Learn! The bread’s getting bigger!"
I doubt any of them will remember the history and science I cunningly tried to sneak in there, but you never know. I’m sure they’ll all remember the taste. My bread is good enough that Evangeline's teachers last year all lamented at year’s end that they wouldn’t be getting it any more for holidays or when it was Evangeline's turn to bring in snack.
It's traditional for the children to make some sort of communal meal they invite their parents to come share with them for lunch. In first and second grades, it was stone soup. And yes, they really did put stones in it. This year they made some kind of vegetable noodle soup, but because of my reputation as someone who bakes bread, Evangeline's teacher asked if I could help them make some bread too. She seemed surprised that I don’t have a bread machine, but agreed the students would probably find it more fun to mix and knead it all by hand.
So Tuesday morning I got up bright and early, boiled and mashed some potatoes, adapted some recipes on the fly from my cookbook so we could try them with sourdough, and took all the ingredients to the school so the kids in Evangeline's class could have fun making potato rolls and sourdough muffins. Wednesday morning I got up bright and early to bake them, and I have to say that they turned out all right.
The kids had a good time making them, too. I think the biggest excitement wasn't skipping their regular work plans, and it wasn't even the idea of making bread. It was getting their hands mucky in the dough, and getting to punch it as part of the kneading process. At least one kid had a nice rhythm going, as though he were using a punching bag. (I had to tell him that wasn't the idea.) When I picked Evangeline up yesterday, at least three kids ran over to tell me, "Mr. Learn! The bread’s getting bigger!"
I doubt any of them will remember the history and science I cunningly tried to sneak in there, but you never know. I’m sure they’ll all remember the taste. My bread is good enough that Evangeline's teachers last year all lamented at year’s end that they wouldn’t be getting it any more for holidays or when it was Evangeline's turn to bring in snack.
Monday, November 19, 2007
the anthropomorphized dog
If you've ever had a dog -- I've had four in my life, God bless 'em all -- I'm sure you'll recognize the inherent truth in this story of what happens when a dog finds a sweet potato.
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