conversations with kathy
(part two)
"words are merely utterances: noises that stand for feelings, thoughts and experience. they are symbols. signs. insignias. they are not Truth. they are not the real thing." ...
..."in fact, you place so little value on experience that when your experience of God differs from what you've heard of God, you automatically discount the experience and own the words, when it should be just the other way around."
thematically, one of the things that kathy and i agree on with the book, the dialogue between walsch and God has a terrific flow to it. the questions and answers build nicely from one to the other just as any good and honest back and forth should. my guess is that my and kathy's conversation will probably end up being a lot like that. one topic will inspire the next and then the next and so forth and so on. going into this endeavor, i know i, personally, had a list of things that i wanted to talk about, and we may end up covering them all. however, i think it will be more enjoyable for us and those of you that are riding along for our "conversations" to feel connected, if you will, in thought and line.
which brings us to our second part. words (what we've been told or have read) versus experience.
thank you to all of those that joined our last "conversation" on free will in the comments. i hope we can continue to incite reaction as we go forth. the more voices, the better!!! as i've reflected on my and kathy's discussion and those shared in the comments, i have wondered to myself how much or how many of our convictions are built upon the foundation of words and how much is built on true experience. when push comes to shove, which, in turn, provides to be the stronger foundation.
i will start with a very basic example. an exchange from the movie, contact, that has always and will always stay with me.
{ellie (jodie foster's character) challenges palmer joss (dude from dazed and confused, likes the look of himself shirtless) to prove the existence of god.}
palmer: did you love your father?
ellie: what?
palmer: your dad. did you love him?
ellie: yes, very much.
palmer: prove it.
what do scientists, by definition, do? they theorize and then set out to prove or disprove their theories, right? the exchange between ellie and palmer very simply, but very profoundly, illustrates the impossible equation that any of us (life scientists, if you will) that consider to be in relationship with a God that we can't see find ourselves in.
how can we prove our love for god when we can't prove there even is a god? how can we be so sure about our definition of free will when we won't know that free will or fate was the right "answer" until we are too far under the ground to be able to share our revelation with anyone.
is it because the bible tells us so? maybe. maybe, it depends on who told you so. and who told them. gasp. what if they were wrong? how much of everything that we've learned about anything have we learned through true experience? how much of everything that we've learned about anything have we learned because someone told us or we read it in someone else's book?
how much of your relationship with god is based on what you've heard or read? how much of it is based on what you've experienced for yourself?
now, we are getting somewhere.
kathy?
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My search for God has taken me to many strange places, both figuratively and literally. Figuratively, I’ve opened my mind to exploring different religions and practices, I’ve learned to read tarot cards (which are just ancient Rorschach ink blot cards, in my opinion), I’ve dallied in energy healing, I own a crystal pendulum and Runes (thanks Tanya!), and I’m fascinated by astrology.
Literally, I once communed with a small wildflower on Mount Shasta.
What???
A couple of years ago, my sister-in-law and I journeyed to the New Age hippie capital of the USA- Mount Shasta. We hiked up the mountain and found a “sacred” wildflower prairie. Since we’re both seekers of the God experience, we went to separate areas of the prairie for a short meditation. I sat on a flat stone on the ground and just listened to the sound of the wind. I noticed a small patch of wildflowers in front of me- small purple flowers no bigger than my pinkie. As I stared at one of the flowers, I felt recognition, like I knew the flower. Then I realized that what I recognized in the flower was myself- the essence that gave life to the flower was the same essence that gave life to me. It’s hard to explain, but it was like the flower had my personality.
It’s easy, in theory, to extrapolate from there- if the same essence that gives me life gives the flower life…gives the trees life…gives the squirrel life…gives you life…
I wouldn’t have been capable of crushing that small blossom under my shoe- it would have been like crushing myself…
“What you do unto the least of these, you do unto me…”
I think Jesus understood the connectedness of life, and that the thing that connects us is God.
Religion would have us believe that God is a man in the sky who rewards or punishes us based on whether or not he approves of our behavior. Religion would have us substitute Santa Claus for God.
But my experience of God is much more subtle, more metaphysical. I can hardly reconcile my experience with the picture that my religion has painted for me. The only reason I hang on to Christianity is because I think Jesus GOT IT.
The problem with experience is that no one has the same experience as another. If I told you that God is a flower, that wouldn’t be exactly right, and you might think I’m crazy and call me a heretic. Religion requires structure- and that is why it discounts personal experience and embraces uniform “beliefs.” But by embracing uniform beliefs, we’ve squelched the acceptance of personal experience- unless it confirms what we’ve already been told by our religion. Yikes.
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i agree with that...to a point.
i don't think religion or the practice thereof inherently squelches the ability of one to truly experience god. if we limit ourselves and our experience, though, to what we've been told we are supposed to get out of it, then sure, you are right.
a small and relatively trivial example is being told to sing louder and sing prouder during our worship service at humc in the past. why? does volume contribute to one or many of the congregation feeling a deeper or meaningful connection to the god we are all searching for? i would argue "no". i don't think that god needs our worship or our voices to validate his importance in our lives or his connection to us. the experience of worship, just like the experience of eating a really good peanut butter and banana sandwich should be the most personal of experiences at it's root. if we are able to convey our connection to god through song or through good food, great. if not, though, that doesn't make the experience any less meaningful. it just makes it ours.
we all need and want structure in our life. that's not just a religion thing, right? you are married. so am i. we opt for a certain structure in those relationships and work individually with the interest of the entire unit (ideally) in mind. if we are successful, the sum will operate more effectively than it's separated parts. the same could and should, in my opinion, be said for the way the human collective has been built in god's image. if we, as a population, were ever willing to understand, as you suggest with your flower, that we are connected using the concept of one, big, happy family, we would treat each other accordingly. obviously, somewhere along the grand scheme of things, something happened and we started to turn on each other. people started drawing lines. making rules. dividing. doing the "if you're not with me, you're against me" thing. same with religion. evidenced by the hundreds of different "truths" and denominations that you can find driving down anywhere street, usa, division is now the rule. collective interest, the exception.
this past sunday, limbo talked a lot about platitudes and boiled them down to "a comment perceived to be shallow or unoriginal that terminates all cognitive thought."
isn't this what religion, in and of itself, has become? a broken system of antiquated rules and irrelevant thoughts that end up terminating all cognitive thought?
but i say that to say this. i don't think that's what our creator intended. i do think the world, the universe even, is governed by rules and a structure. we can talk about those later on. but the number one rule has been and always will be, in so many words, "love your fellow man as i (god) love you."
how does god love us? well, he experiences us, of course.
how does he do that?
how doesn't he?
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I definitely agree that we all need structure in our lives- even our religious lives. That's why many religions have "practices" such as prayer and meditation. I guess the structure that rubs me the wrong way is the litany of creeds. Our creeds, or lists of agreed upon beliefs, were created to EXCLUDE people, not help bring us all closer to our awareness of God.
Maybe that's what I feel that Christianity is missing. We focus on getting everyone to believe what we believe, when what we're all really after is an experience of God. The thing is, what makes me more aware of God won't necessarily work for you - and vice versa.
Also, one thing I've found in my "search" for the God experience is that the experience that I'm searching for has been defined by others. In other words- I don't know exactly what I'm after because I haven't experienced it yet.
Or have I?
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i hear what you are saying about the creeds, but the way that i look at them is similar to their suggested value in marcus borg's book, the heart of christianity. through being familiar with those creeds or familiar hymns and saying them or singing them surrounded by a congregation that, in theory, is searching for the same thing i am, i hope to find myself in a "thin place". i don't see them as binding or exclusive contracts, rather an open expression of where i find my current faith. even on the days that i feel farthest away from god, saying the apostle's creed or singing "be thou my vision" reels me back in, removes some of my cynicism and allows me a breath of fresh god, if only for the few moments that i am participating in those elements of worship.
the closest i feel i have ever been to truly and honestly experiencing god, not surprisingly, was in the presence of my two girls being born. there i was. beaten down, skeptical, selfish and narcissistic kevin o'kelley, partially responsible for freaking creating a life!!! i mean..., jesus! i've said this before, but both times, i thought that i literally felt my heart grow to make room for my children. i had never felt anything like that before. i haven't been able to replicate it since.
that's what i am looking for now. every day. in most of the intentional things that i do. looking to find that experience again. i know the common denominator in each experience was unconditional love. it didn't have anything to do with a creed, or the denomination i subscribe to. it had everything to do with letting go of the ties that bind me to this world just for a few minutes, and focus on those two little girls. it was magical, but in my heart of hearts, i felt like it was what we are intended to feel. to experience.
all the time.
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At the risk of going off on a tangent...
As we've had this discussion (hot on the heels of me seeing Avatar), I keep thinking about "I see you."
For me, knowing that God is present in all things and all people, I find myself strangely uneasy when I really look into someone else's eyes. It feels extremely intimate in a way that we, as a culture or a species or whatever, are not "into." We separate ourselves from each other, we draw boundaries, we throw up aversive personalities or humor or whatever keeps the other at arm's length.
As you point out, that barrier doesn't exist with our children. I don't know about you, but I could stare into my children's eyes and experience a total lovefest. "I see you..." and love you.
Frankly, I'm not sure I'm ready for the full God experience. I'm not sure I can fall into intimacy with everyone I lock eyes with. I think I'd be a total crybaby all the time.
Maybe creeds are easier.
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easy is overrated.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
world cup 2010
(part one)
so, the 23 guys that are headed to south africa to wear the red, white and blue were announced today. i'll have plenty more to say about this collective over the next couple weeks. tonight, i'll leave you with this, though, my favorite sportscenter commercial since the dwight howard as superman one with hannah storm in the role of lois lane.
(part one)
so, the 23 guys that are headed to south africa to wear the red, white and blue were announced today. i'll have plenty more to say about this collective over the next couple weeks. tonight, i'll leave you with this, though, my favorite sportscenter commercial since the dwight howard as superman one with hannah storm in the role of lois lane.
Friday, May 21, 2010
hannah and caroline and me
(part thirty-five)
((don't cry, caroline))
so far in her very young life, caroline's temperament seems (on the surface) to be a lot like her daddy's. in contrast to hannah's first couple of years, caroline is a pretty easy going kid. very sweet. mostly calm. easy to please. she has to share everything with hannah, so she is already being hardwired to push her own wants and needs to the backburner, because, truth be told, hannah's usually going to get her way.
it would be fair, as a parent, to argue the relative health of our, as parents, allowing this particular method to perpetuate itself. before you argue, though, remember that sarah is a child psychologist. she has been trained and over-educated to appreciate and react appropriately to the needs of all children, let alone her own. my guess is that if she saw us conditioning a behavior that would, in any way, lead to a dysfunctional and/or unfair disadvantage for our baby, baby girl, she would "recommend" that we discontinue the cycle.
i have been doing the single-dad thing again since wednesday and yesterday morning foreshadowed this, friday morning's events. i just didn't know it. i got the girls up from bed today. we had a tame, if not pleasant, start to the day. all went according to plan...'til we headed to the church.
...
wednesday morning, caroline moved up and out of ms. susan's class at the children's place. in theory, she seemed fairly excited with the idea of being "a big girl" and moving into ms. kim's class. ms. kim's class doesn't have a changing table. if the kids are not potty-trained (caroline isn't even close) coming into the room, it is likely through peer pressure and a distaste for wearing soiled underwear that they will be sooner rather than later. as with each class in the daycare, a move up means a little more structure, a little more learning and a little less babysitting. to those points, we felt like caroline was more than ready. ahead of wednesday, when we talked to caroline about moving to ms. kim's class, she was really into it.
i picked the girls up from their classes wednesday afternoon and caroline didn't seem any worse for the wear of her first day in the new class. she was playing on the playground with her new group. she ran up to greet me like she always does. it was happy.
thursday morning, though, was not so smooth. we dropped hannah off and the ride to the church was uneventful. pulling into the parking lot, caroline was singing some "baby" by bieber the magnificent and rapped a little with ludacris. it was pretty damn cute. we got to her class, set out her breakfast and i tried to give her some love. she started to withdraw. i tried to talk her through her routine as ms. ellen encouraged me. no response. i walked caroline over to the door for a final hug and kiss. she started to sniffle. i asked her if she would shut the door behind me. she started to cry. ms. ellen came and picked her up. she started to scream. as i walked away from her, ms. ellen shoo-ing me off and telling me it would be okay, i heard the volume of her wail increase the farther away i got. what a terrible way to start the day.
...
future-back to the same time this morning. the house part of the morning went beautifully. we had some snuggle time, the three of us, on the couch before we left. we dropped hannah off, no problem.
then all went wrong. her dread for another day in ms. kim's class began almost immediately after we pulled away from chalkville. "i don't want to go to ms. kim's class.", she exclaimed, the paci in her mouth muffling the request. "i want to go to ms. susan's class." wasn't so much a demand as it was a plea. back and forth she went like this the whole way to the church. "i don't want to go to ms. kim's class!" "caroline, you are a big girl. big girls go to ms. kim's class." "i want to go to ms. SUSAN's class!" in between the outbursts, she worked her way up from pouting to hysterics. it was terrible.
we reached the church and she refused to get out of the car. i called sarah for reinforcements, but it didn't help. i pryed her out of the car and was able to calm her somewhat as we made it into the church. as we moved up the ramp in the hallway, she began to point past ms. kim's room down the hall. one last try. "i want to go to ms. susan's class!!!"
i turned into ms. kim's class still carrying her and i could almost feel her heart break into pieces. she erupted in emotional anguish. i sat her down so that i could begin to get her breakfast out of her bag. then, the worst part.
our little two and half year old baby, baby girl reached up and opened the door to her room. she raced out, turned left and headed back towards the entrance of the daycare. i made my way into the hallway in time to see her hauling baby tail down the ramp only to be stopped by the security doors. she pounded at the glass as if she had been imprisoned and held against her will after being wrongly accused of some crime she wasn't old enough to understand. her crime? having parents that work. she's a smart girl and knows how to unlock the security door. so, she hopped to her right, hit the green exit button and then hopped back to the door. she pressed against the door again just as i made my way to her. she pulled away from me and backed herself up against the director's locked door, her soul, measured in tears, flat pouring out of her.
i finally found a grip to pick her up and pulled her up to me and against me. as i held her to my chest, she wrapped around me with her arms and held tight. i "shush, shsh, shsh"-ed into her ear and calmed her down. she did the "i am crying so hard i am hyperventilating" thing as i swayed her back and forth. she finally stopped crying. two mothers passed us and looked on knowingly. they knew they couldn't help. i am sure they had done this before. i had not.
i asked caroline if she would feel better if i sat down with her in ms. kim's room while she ate her breakfast. she didn't say a word, but she did her caroline nod and we walked back in. i set her breakfast out and sat down in one of the mini-chairs. she wouldn't sit in hers, instead choosing my lap. at that point, i wasn't sure i was going to be able to leave her.
thankfully for the both of us, ms. susan came in. she saw me holding caroline and came and took her from me. with her eyes, she told me to go and said out loud that caroline would be fine.
i left to come to the store, haunted by the experience.
the image of my sweet caroline running away in tears from her room and banging on the glass asking no one in particular to help her escape will not soon leave me. honestly, i don't want it to. it will serve as a metaphor for the emotions that i and her mom and her family and our friends will serve and protect to the best of our ability as she grows up.
i became a little bit more of a dad this morning.
mommy comes back tomorrow.
(part thirty-five)
((don't cry, caroline))
so far in her very young life, caroline's temperament seems (on the surface) to be a lot like her daddy's. in contrast to hannah's first couple of years, caroline is a pretty easy going kid. very sweet. mostly calm. easy to please. she has to share everything with hannah, so she is already being hardwired to push her own wants and needs to the backburner, because, truth be told, hannah's usually going to get her way.
it would be fair, as a parent, to argue the relative health of our, as parents, allowing this particular method to perpetuate itself. before you argue, though, remember that sarah is a child psychologist. she has been trained and over-educated to appreciate and react appropriately to the needs of all children, let alone her own. my guess is that if she saw us conditioning a behavior that would, in any way, lead to a dysfunctional and/or unfair disadvantage for our baby, baby girl, she would "recommend" that we discontinue the cycle.
i have been doing the single-dad thing again since wednesday and yesterday morning foreshadowed this, friday morning's events. i just didn't know it. i got the girls up from bed today. we had a tame, if not pleasant, start to the day. all went according to plan...'til we headed to the church.
...
wednesday morning, caroline moved up and out of ms. susan's class at the children's place. in theory, she seemed fairly excited with the idea of being "a big girl" and moving into ms. kim's class. ms. kim's class doesn't have a changing table. if the kids are not potty-trained (caroline isn't even close) coming into the room, it is likely through peer pressure and a distaste for wearing soiled underwear that they will be sooner rather than later. as with each class in the daycare, a move up means a little more structure, a little more learning and a little less babysitting. to those points, we felt like caroline was more than ready. ahead of wednesday, when we talked to caroline about moving to ms. kim's class, she was really into it.
i picked the girls up from their classes wednesday afternoon and caroline didn't seem any worse for the wear of her first day in the new class. she was playing on the playground with her new group. she ran up to greet me like she always does. it was happy.
thursday morning, though, was not so smooth. we dropped hannah off and the ride to the church was uneventful. pulling into the parking lot, caroline was singing some "baby" by bieber the magnificent and rapped a little with ludacris. it was pretty damn cute. we got to her class, set out her breakfast and i tried to give her some love. she started to withdraw. i tried to talk her through her routine as ms. ellen encouraged me. no response. i walked caroline over to the door for a final hug and kiss. she started to sniffle. i asked her if she would shut the door behind me. she started to cry. ms. ellen came and picked her up. she started to scream. as i walked away from her, ms. ellen shoo-ing me off and telling me it would be okay, i heard the volume of her wail increase the farther away i got. what a terrible way to start the day.
...
future-back to the same time this morning. the house part of the morning went beautifully. we had some snuggle time, the three of us, on the couch before we left. we dropped hannah off, no problem.
then all went wrong. her dread for another day in ms. kim's class began almost immediately after we pulled away from chalkville. "i don't want to go to ms. kim's class.", she exclaimed, the paci in her mouth muffling the request. "i want to go to ms. susan's class." wasn't so much a demand as it was a plea. back and forth she went like this the whole way to the church. "i don't want to go to ms. kim's class!" "caroline, you are a big girl. big girls go to ms. kim's class." "i want to go to ms. SUSAN's class!" in between the outbursts, she worked her way up from pouting to hysterics. it was terrible.
we reached the church and she refused to get out of the car. i called sarah for reinforcements, but it didn't help. i pryed her out of the car and was able to calm her somewhat as we made it into the church. as we moved up the ramp in the hallway, she began to point past ms. kim's room down the hall. one last try. "i want to go to ms. susan's class!!!"
i turned into ms. kim's class still carrying her and i could almost feel her heart break into pieces. she erupted in emotional anguish. i sat her down so that i could begin to get her breakfast out of her bag. then, the worst part.
our little two and half year old baby, baby girl reached up and opened the door to her room. she raced out, turned left and headed back towards the entrance of the daycare. i made my way into the hallway in time to see her hauling baby tail down the ramp only to be stopped by the security doors. she pounded at the glass as if she had been imprisoned and held against her will after being wrongly accused of some crime she wasn't old enough to understand. her crime? having parents that work. she's a smart girl and knows how to unlock the security door. so, she hopped to her right, hit the green exit button and then hopped back to the door. she pressed against the door again just as i made my way to her. she pulled away from me and backed herself up against the director's locked door, her soul, measured in tears, flat pouring out of her.
i finally found a grip to pick her up and pulled her up to me and against me. as i held her to my chest, she wrapped around me with her arms and held tight. i "shush, shsh, shsh"-ed into her ear and calmed her down. she did the "i am crying so hard i am hyperventilating" thing as i swayed her back and forth. she finally stopped crying. two mothers passed us and looked on knowingly. they knew they couldn't help. i am sure they had done this before. i had not.
i asked caroline if she would feel better if i sat down with her in ms. kim's room while she ate her breakfast. she didn't say a word, but she did her caroline nod and we walked back in. i set her breakfast out and sat down in one of the mini-chairs. she wouldn't sit in hers, instead choosing my lap. at that point, i wasn't sure i was going to be able to leave her.
thankfully for the both of us, ms. susan came in. she saw me holding caroline and came and took her from me. with her eyes, she told me to go and said out loud that caroline would be fine.
i left to come to the store, haunted by the experience.
the image of my sweet caroline running away in tears from her room and banging on the glass asking no one in particular to help her escape will not soon leave me. honestly, i don't want it to. it will serve as a metaphor for the emotions that i and her mom and her family and our friends will serve and protect to the best of our ability as she grows up.
i became a little bit more of a dad this morning.
mommy comes back tomorrow.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
conversations with kathy
(part one)
CWG, book 1, p. 39:
"There are those who say that I have given you free will, yet these same people claim that if you do not obey Me, I will send you to hell. What kind of free will is that?"
It seems to me that the religious concept of God as unknowable is accurate. The "Ultimate Reality" or whatever we choose to call it, cannot be comprehended by the human mind. ALL religions say this somewhere in their scriptures. It follows then, that in our attempt to comprehend the incomprehensible, we project onto God characteristics that we as humans can understand.
We touched on this in Sunday school yesterday (sorry you weren't there Kev!). The idea of hell and eternal damnation, in my opinion, is and was created by humans. WE need to believe that "bad" people will be punished. It's hard to see people behaving in ways that we think are wrong or even evil, and yet they seem to continue on with their lives relatively unharmed. Where is the punishment, the retribution, the consequences? Life seems unfair. Thankfully, God will give them what they deserve in the afterlife! Whew! I feel better, don't you?
If this is your belief, that's fine- I'm pragmatic when it comes to religious beliefs and practices. After all, if it's working for you, what more can you ask? However, if you're really in the business of KNOWING God as much as He/She/It can be known, then we have to be a little more objective. That's where I have a problem with the conventional idea of free will- you know the one that says that we can do whatever we want, but if we don't do what God wants, then we're going to hell? Hmmm. Maybe we just need to forget what we want and try to figure out what God wants...
Here's my take: If there is a cost associated with a certain choice, then choice is no longer free.
I'm frustrated by the mental gymnastics that Christianity asks us to perform in order to accept this idea of free will. We must suspend all logic in order to accept the concept of free will that isn't actually free. I know, I know- you can't know God through logic, but must know God through faith. But putting faith in convoluted thinking which was created for the purpose of making us feel better about the obvious "unfairness" of life is stupid.
If there is no eternal retribution, of course, then how in the world can we control people's behavior? It IS a dilemma.
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on the whole, kathy, i agree with most of what you are saying. having grown up in the church, i always associated free will as being somewhat conditional. it wasn't 'til i got out and away from the church for a little bit that i was able to understand just how conditional it really was for those that chose to immerse themselves in the thinking that God would have us running through a maze for this portion of our existence.
obviously, there is a comfort to the conditions if you adhere to them, and i am sure we'll touch on some of the more specific conditions as we continue this conversation. as it relates to the subject of free will, though, let me look at it for a second through the lens of humc's current senior pastor. i love brother harris, and i don't know that i could convince myself that he had one disingenuous bone in his body. let me say that first and foremost. i believe with every ounce of my heart that he has my and the congregation of our church's best and eternal interests at heart when he delivers a message to us on sunday morning. having said that, i'll say this. many of his sermons center around a recurring theme. as our pastor, he warns us in so many words that free will is something to be tamed, not embraced. he has said many, many times that all he wants for his congregation to know is the information that is vital for us to pass through with him into the kingdom of heaven. and i love him for that. even though he is constantly reminding me of my mortality and the fears that have enveloped me since last july, i love that my senior pastor cares for me and my church family so much that he is doing everything he feels called to do to make sure we spend our eternal life enjoying the same heavenly reward.
as it pertains to this post's topic, though, it's the taming of our free will or the bending it towards one specific answer, one truth, that i have a hard time swallowing. if God, in fact, formed us truly in his image, it seems preposterous to me that he would allow our eternal separation to be so mechanical and unrelenting and un-grace-full to be risked on my perpetual questioning. did He not build me to question? does He not question, himself? wouldn't it make more sense that the free will that we all struggle with, when it comes to our desires and our vices and our loves and our interests be looked upon as a gift and not a curse? to me, it does.
to most, they would agree...to a point. to the point where they've drawn their conditional line in the sand. i've been raised to believe this. and i can't so far as to believe that. so, i'll end up settling here, because it's much too scary over there. i am guilty of drawing lines in the sand too. i am happy, though, that it seems, as i am getting older and obtaining a broader sense of who i think God really is, that my line continues to pull back to allow many others behind it rather than pushing forth and becoming more exclusive.
after all, free will is not just my gift. it's yours too.
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If we want to get to the crux of the matter, which is what Walsch tries to do, then we have to ask the big question. Can you do anything, no matter how "bad," and still be reconciled with God in the end? I'm not talking about being sorry and asking for forgiveness, saying a gazillion Hail Mary's, and generally jumping through all the religious hoops, etc., that are required by most religions in order to get back on the good list. I'm talking about there being a predetermined outcome of reconciliation- a sense that, no matter what, you can't lose because Life isn't a test to be passed, but an experience to be savored. I'm talking about eternal reward/outcome here, not the natural consequences we face for our choices in this life (which we should definitely talk about), but ULTIMATE outcome. As I touched on earlier, this is a dangerous idea because it takes away God's big stick, which religions clumsily try to wield in order to control human behavior. Still- what would the world look like without the threat of eternal damnation? What do you think?
-------------------------------------------------------
well, if we are talking about "the world" as we experience it now, it sounds really scary to not have a check (whether that check is represented by religion, government, etc. doesn't really matter i guess) that might balance out the manifestation of "evil" in the world. that being said, the rhetorical you pose is one that we already have a metaphorical picture of in the story of adam and eve before "the fall". this picture is very attractive. it is one that, in my heart of hearts, is close to what i used to dream of when i thought of what waited for me beyond this life on earth. no worries. no thought of "evil". eternally, immediately and always tangibly in the presence of God, never worried with even the possibility of being separated from that Presence.
i love the idea of taking away "God's big stick". doing so would , in my opinion, impactfully and relevantly revolutionize the way we did "church". i might choose this as our next topic. we'll see.
i'll conclude my thoughts, though, on free will with this. i tend to agree that "free will", as it is marketed and practiced today, is severely perverted from how God might define it for us.
i'll let you close us out.
-------------------------------------------
Of course it would be nice to close with a definite answer. You and I could figuratively dust our hands and then high-five each other for figuring out one of life's mysteries :) Good job!
Who knows whether or not there will be eternal retribution. I think not, but that's just me. What I do find tantalizing is the idea that if we let go of the idea that there is ANYTHING of which God would disapprove of and thus disown us- well, if God's not judging us, then how could we judge each other? Instead of judging and condemning one another, maybe we'd simply observe and learn from one another- and when we see that someone has made a choice that leads to pain and suffering, then we could offer our help.
Maybe I'm just a Pollyanna :)
(part one)
CWG, book 1, p. 39:
"There are those who say that I have given you free will, yet these same people claim that if you do not obey Me, I will send you to hell. What kind of free will is that?"
It seems to me that the religious concept of God as unknowable is accurate. The "Ultimate Reality" or whatever we choose to call it, cannot be comprehended by the human mind. ALL religions say this somewhere in their scriptures. It follows then, that in our attempt to comprehend the incomprehensible, we project onto God characteristics that we as humans can understand.
We touched on this in Sunday school yesterday (sorry you weren't there Kev!). The idea of hell and eternal damnation, in my opinion, is and was created by humans. WE need to believe that "bad" people will be punished. It's hard to see people behaving in ways that we think are wrong or even evil, and yet they seem to continue on with their lives relatively unharmed. Where is the punishment, the retribution, the consequences? Life seems unfair. Thankfully, God will give them what they deserve in the afterlife! Whew! I feel better, don't you?
If this is your belief, that's fine- I'm pragmatic when it comes to religious beliefs and practices. After all, if it's working for you, what more can you ask? However, if you're really in the business of KNOWING God as much as He/She/It can be known, then we have to be a little more objective. That's where I have a problem with the conventional idea of free will- you know the one that says that we can do whatever we want, but if we don't do what God wants, then we're going to hell? Hmmm. Maybe we just need to forget what we want and try to figure out what God wants...
Here's my take: If there is a cost associated with a certain choice, then choice is no longer free.
I'm frustrated by the mental gymnastics that Christianity asks us to perform in order to accept this idea of free will. We must suspend all logic in order to accept the concept of free will that isn't actually free. I know, I know- you can't know God through logic, but must know God through faith. But putting faith in convoluted thinking which was created for the purpose of making us feel better about the obvious "unfairness" of life is stupid.
If there is no eternal retribution, of course, then how in the world can we control people's behavior? It IS a dilemma.
-----------------------------------------
on the whole, kathy, i agree with most of what you are saying. having grown up in the church, i always associated free will as being somewhat conditional. it wasn't 'til i got out and away from the church for a little bit that i was able to understand just how conditional it really was for those that chose to immerse themselves in the thinking that God would have us running through a maze for this portion of our existence.
obviously, there is a comfort to the conditions if you adhere to them, and i am sure we'll touch on some of the more specific conditions as we continue this conversation. as it relates to the subject of free will, though, let me look at it for a second through the lens of humc's current senior pastor. i love brother harris, and i don't know that i could convince myself that he had one disingenuous bone in his body. let me say that first and foremost. i believe with every ounce of my heart that he has my and the congregation of our church's best and eternal interests at heart when he delivers a message to us on sunday morning. having said that, i'll say this. many of his sermons center around a recurring theme. as our pastor, he warns us in so many words that free will is something to be tamed, not embraced. he has said many, many times that all he wants for his congregation to know is the information that is vital for us to pass through with him into the kingdom of heaven. and i love him for that. even though he is constantly reminding me of my mortality and the fears that have enveloped me since last july, i love that my senior pastor cares for me and my church family so much that he is doing everything he feels called to do to make sure we spend our eternal life enjoying the same heavenly reward.
as it pertains to this post's topic, though, it's the taming of our free will or the bending it towards one specific answer, one truth, that i have a hard time swallowing. if God, in fact, formed us truly in his image, it seems preposterous to me that he would allow our eternal separation to be so mechanical and unrelenting and un-grace-full to be risked on my perpetual questioning. did He not build me to question? does He not question, himself? wouldn't it make more sense that the free will that we all struggle with, when it comes to our desires and our vices and our loves and our interests be looked upon as a gift and not a curse? to me, it does.
to most, they would agree...to a point. to the point where they've drawn their conditional line in the sand. i've been raised to believe this. and i can't so far as to believe that. so, i'll end up settling here, because it's much too scary over there. i am guilty of drawing lines in the sand too. i am happy, though, that it seems, as i am getting older and obtaining a broader sense of who i think God really is, that my line continues to pull back to allow many others behind it rather than pushing forth and becoming more exclusive.
after all, free will is not just my gift. it's yours too.
------------------------------------------------------------------
If we want to get to the crux of the matter, which is what Walsch tries to do, then we have to ask the big question. Can you do anything, no matter how "bad," and still be reconciled with God in the end? I'm not talking about being sorry and asking for forgiveness, saying a gazillion Hail Mary's, and generally jumping through all the religious hoops, etc., that are required by most religions in order to get back on the good list. I'm talking about there being a predetermined outcome of reconciliation- a sense that, no matter what, you can't lose because Life isn't a test to be passed, but an experience to be savored. I'm talking about eternal reward/outcome here, not the natural consequences we face for our choices in this life (which we should definitely talk about), but ULTIMATE outcome. As I touched on earlier, this is a dangerous idea because it takes away God's big stick, which religions clumsily try to wield in order to control human behavior. Still- what would the world look like without the threat of eternal damnation? What do you think?
-------------------------------------------------------
well, if we are talking about "the world" as we experience it now, it sounds really scary to not have a check (whether that check is represented by religion, government, etc. doesn't really matter i guess) that might balance out the manifestation of "evil" in the world. that being said, the rhetorical you pose is one that we already have a metaphorical picture of in the story of adam and eve before "the fall". this picture is very attractive. it is one that, in my heart of hearts, is close to what i used to dream of when i thought of what waited for me beyond this life on earth. no worries. no thought of "evil". eternally, immediately and always tangibly in the presence of God, never worried with even the possibility of being separated from that Presence.
i love the idea of taking away "God's big stick". doing so would , in my opinion, impactfully and relevantly revolutionize the way we did "church". i might choose this as our next topic. we'll see.
i'll conclude my thoughts, though, on free will with this. i tend to agree that "free will", as it is marketed and practiced today, is severely perverted from how God might define it for us.
i'll let you close us out.
-------------------------------------------
Of course it would be nice to close with a definite answer. You and I could figuratively dust our hands and then high-five each other for figuring out one of life's mysteries :) Good job!
Who knows whether or not there will be eternal retribution. I think not, but that's just me. What I do find tantalizing is the idea that if we let go of the idea that there is ANYTHING of which God would disapprove of and thus disown us- well, if God's not judging us, then how could we judge each other? Instead of judging and condemning one another, maybe we'd simply observe and learn from one another- and when we see that someone has made a choice that leads to pain and suffering, then we could offer our help.
Maybe I'm just a Pollyanna :)
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
hannah and caroline and me
(part thirty four)
((she's almost a first grader))
it would be cliche for me to say something like "it's hard to believe this year has gone by so fast." or "hannah, can you believe that you are almost out of kindergarten?" like people are wont to say. or hear things like "soak it in. she'll be grown up and gone before you know it." and think "yeah, you're right" and nod my head in approval. this year has not gone by fast, though, even in hindsight. not a day of it.
i vividly remember walking hannah to her class on the first day of school. i remember what she looked like with that big backpack on walking away from my car the first time i dropped her off. i remember grilling her about her day every time i pick her up from the church after work. i remember her doing homework. i remember checking her out because she didn't "feel good". i remember her reading a bedtime story to us. her first real school year has gone by exactly as it should in exactly the right amount of time, and i am happy for that.
there aren't many silver linings to losing a kidney to a cancer that you didn't ask for, but slowing down the ever increasing pace of life has been one of them. even though i have no reason to believe otherwise, if someone says to me, "she'll be grown and gone before you know it", i cringe and hope that i am alive to see her leave. if someone tells me that she looks "so big", i nod my head and approve not because i am being considerate but because i am absolutely terrified that i will not be able to guide her or caroline through the trials of being a teenager.
god, cancer fucking sucks!!! it took a part of me. it takes bigger parts of others. the unluckiest may lose it all. it destroys or, at the very least, affects lives in the same peripherally damaging way as divorce. who knows how many grey hairs i've added to sarah's head or how many years i've shaved off her and my closest friends' lives with my inability to celebrate that i was one of "the lucky ones", instead replacing my doctor's orders to eat, drink and be merry with elephant-sized worry.
i used to dream. a lot. i never remember my dreams any more. not since last summer. why is that? i digress further.
time has slowed down significantly for me. that's for sure. i hope that it remains this way for a while. each day with the girls is one more opportunity to love them and kiss them and tickle them and then whisk them away to bed so i can watch the next to last episode of LOST.
hannah's a smart, no-longer-little girl. she was proud of herself this morning that she has received a green, smiley face every day of her kindergarten year. she should be proud.
she's ready for first grade.
yep.
(part thirty four)
((she's almost a first grader))
it would be cliche for me to say something like "it's hard to believe this year has gone by so fast." or "hannah, can you believe that you are almost out of kindergarten?" like people are wont to say. or hear things like "soak it in. she'll be grown up and gone before you know it." and think "yeah, you're right" and nod my head in approval. this year has not gone by fast, though, even in hindsight. not a day of it.
i vividly remember walking hannah to her class on the first day of school. i remember what she looked like with that big backpack on walking away from my car the first time i dropped her off. i remember grilling her about her day every time i pick her up from the church after work. i remember her doing homework. i remember checking her out because she didn't "feel good". i remember her reading a bedtime story to us. her first real school year has gone by exactly as it should in exactly the right amount of time, and i am happy for that.
there aren't many silver linings to losing a kidney to a cancer that you didn't ask for, but slowing down the ever increasing pace of life has been one of them. even though i have no reason to believe otherwise, if someone says to me, "she'll be grown and gone before you know it", i cringe and hope that i am alive to see her leave. if someone tells me that she looks "so big", i nod my head and approve not because i am being considerate but because i am absolutely terrified that i will not be able to guide her or caroline through the trials of being a teenager.
god, cancer fucking sucks!!! it took a part of me. it takes bigger parts of others. the unluckiest may lose it all. it destroys or, at the very least, affects lives in the same peripherally damaging way as divorce. who knows how many grey hairs i've added to sarah's head or how many years i've shaved off her and my closest friends' lives with my inability to celebrate that i was one of "the lucky ones", instead replacing my doctor's orders to eat, drink and be merry with elephant-sized worry.
i used to dream. a lot. i never remember my dreams any more. not since last summer. why is that? i digress further.
time has slowed down significantly for me. that's for sure. i hope that it remains this way for a while. each day with the girls is one more opportunity to love them and kiss them and tickle them and then whisk them away to bed so i can watch the next to last episode of LOST.
hannah's a smart, no-longer-little girl. she was proud of herself this morning that she has received a green, smiley face every day of her kindergarten year. she should be proud.
she's ready for first grade.
yep.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
what's a con-tri-bu-tor?
(conversations with kathy)
((a preview))
have you looked on the right side of this page in the last few days? have you noticed anything different? do you now?
remember early last year when i tried not-so-hard to get "hannah and caroline and us" off the ground. i'll give you some insight into the process. in january of 2009, i sent an email out to several individuals, friends and family, that i thought were close enough to me, the girls and this blog to be worthy and interesting new additions to these parts. i didn't necessarily want HACAM to become too diverse too often. i am much too selfish for that. but i was interested in finding folks that cared about the girls that had shown some sporadic interest in writing themselves to help freshen up the place, if you will. well, some responded to the emails. some didn't. some excused themselves from the idea. some didn't want to go first. i didn't do a great job of following up and "hannah and caroline and us" ended up as a two part series. you can see the two parts here and here. thanks to kiker and rebecca for being willing to come outside and play. if either of you ever feel an itch that needs to be scratched, you are always welcome on this blog.
many things on the blog fell by the wayside last year for many reasons, but i've never stopped wishing for more than my opinions to be the only ones shared on HACAM as this world continued to evolve. thankfully, i've found my next willing participant, kathy h.
who is kathy h., you might ask? you might not really care. but the girls will. the girls do. and that's all that matters.
physically, kathy h. is the personification of bearvsshark's final album (r.i.p, best band ever), terrorhawk. mentally, she's a lot like that feeling i had when i yelled "it's a future-back!!!" at the television screen towards the end of the third season finale of LOST. figuratively, she's the first car you drove when you were sixteen. ultimately, she'll define herself for you (here) over the course of however long "conversations with kathy" maintains both of our interest.
so, what will you guys be talking about?
i am glad you asked. we are going to have our own little book club mixed with the 'formidable opponent' segments from the colbert report. it'll probably end up as part debate, part celebrating how smart and/or enlightened we both think we are, part me thinking she has no idea what she's talking about and vice versa.
our subject? our initial inspiration? conversations with god, book 1 by neale donald walsch.
what's that about?
well, the conceit is this: (from wikipedia)
we won't be commenting directly (sometimes maybe not at all) on the book itself as much as we'll talk about ideas that the book spawned in our respective heads. i asked kathy to pick the first idea.
and?
she chose free will. is it really free will if we have to behave a certain way to find a certain reward?
this is going to be fun. hopefully, for all of us.
kathy...the floor is yours!
(conversations with kathy)
((a preview))
have you looked on the right side of this page in the last few days? have you noticed anything different? do you now?
remember early last year when i tried not-so-hard to get "hannah and caroline and us" off the ground. i'll give you some insight into the process. in january of 2009, i sent an email out to several individuals, friends and family, that i thought were close enough to me, the girls and this blog to be worthy and interesting new additions to these parts. i didn't necessarily want HACAM to become too diverse too often. i am much too selfish for that. but i was interested in finding folks that cared about the girls that had shown some sporadic interest in writing themselves to help freshen up the place, if you will. well, some responded to the emails. some didn't. some excused themselves from the idea. some didn't want to go first. i didn't do a great job of following up and "hannah and caroline and us" ended up as a two part series. you can see the two parts here and here. thanks to kiker and rebecca for being willing to come outside and play. if either of you ever feel an itch that needs to be scratched, you are always welcome on this blog.
many things on the blog fell by the wayside last year for many reasons, but i've never stopped wishing for more than my opinions to be the only ones shared on HACAM as this world continued to evolve. thankfully, i've found my next willing participant, kathy h.
who is kathy h., you might ask? you might not really care. but the girls will. the girls do. and that's all that matters.
physically, kathy h. is the personification of bearvsshark's final album (r.i.p, best band ever), terrorhawk. mentally, she's a lot like that feeling i had when i yelled "it's a future-back!!!" at the television screen towards the end of the third season finale of LOST. figuratively, she's the first car you drove when you were sixteen. ultimately, she'll define herself for you (here) over the course of however long "conversations with kathy" maintains both of our interest.
so, what will you guys be talking about?
i am glad you asked. we are going to have our own little book club mixed with the 'formidable opponent' segments from the colbert report. it'll probably end up as part debate, part celebrating how smart and/or enlightened we both think we are, part me thinking she has no idea what she's talking about and vice versa.
our subject? our initial inspiration? conversations with god, book 1 by neale donald walsch.
what's that about?
well, the conceit is this: (from wikipedia)
"...at a low period in his life, Walsch wrote an angry letter to God asking questions about why his life wasn't working. After writing down all of his questions, he heard a voice over his right shoulder say: "Do you really want an answer to all these questions or are you just venting?" Though when he turned around he saw no one there, Walsch felt answers to his questions filling his mind and decided to write them down. The ensuing dialogue became the Conversations with God books."sound interesting? well, yeah. the book is interesting. and if you can suspend your disbelief that this kind of dialogue could happen between one of us and the G-O-D, then it's really interesting.
we won't be commenting directly (sometimes maybe not at all) on the book itself as much as we'll talk about ideas that the book spawned in our respective heads. i asked kathy to pick the first idea.
and?
she chose free will. is it really free will if we have to behave a certain way to find a certain reward?
this is going to be fun. hopefully, for all of us.
kathy...the floor is yours!
Friday, May 14, 2010
being julio heyward
(part eight)
((because this is almost too good to be true))
listen. i am guilty of putting the athletes that i love up on very high and very unrealistic pedestals. i know this. we all have our heroes. most of mine just so happen to bounce, catch or hit a ball. it's not because i want to be them (even though i would, just for a day). it's not because of how great they are or how great they have been in the past. "what happened, happened." in my world, it's all about how great you can be. how great do you want to be. the process. the journey.
every so often, there are those that trip into my world to whom much has been given. very much. very early. julio. jordan. and now "julio". how they handle their pressure provides for me a vicarious experience that i will never be able to duplicate. their own professional and personal stories i will intertwine into my own because i choose to. they are bound to disappoint me because of my own aforementioned (and mismanaged) expectations. i will celebrate their victories like they are my own, because i choose to share it with them. i invest my time into them. they don't owe me anything. they don't know me and never will. and that is how it should be.
they are ghosts. they are myths. they are the stories that i will tell to myself in my dreams. they and their very "trivial" athletic exercises will be a part of my finding a deeper meaning in something, somewhere, because i choose to look for it in them, in their reactions, in their successes and most especially in their failures. because we are all failures. not in the "we are fallen" kind of failures. we are just defined by how we fail. it's that simple.
make no mistake. jason heyward will fail, in baseball and in life. in my story, though, he's becoming a recurring character. one HACAM will travel with for some time.
you have 5 minutes and 45 seconds i bet. you don't have a favorite player? don't care about baseball? watch this. you will.
(thanks to mark mc. for the tip. i don't know how i missed it.)
(part eight)
((because this is almost too good to be true))
listen. i am guilty of putting the athletes that i love up on very high and very unrealistic pedestals. i know this. we all have our heroes. most of mine just so happen to bounce, catch or hit a ball. it's not because i want to be them (even though i would, just for a day). it's not because of how great they are or how great they have been in the past. "what happened, happened." in my world, it's all about how great you can be. how great do you want to be. the process. the journey.
every so often, there are those that trip into my world to whom much has been given. very much. very early. julio. jordan. and now "julio". how they handle their pressure provides for me a vicarious experience that i will never be able to duplicate. their own professional and personal stories i will intertwine into my own because i choose to. they are bound to disappoint me because of my own aforementioned (and mismanaged) expectations. i will celebrate their victories like they are my own, because i choose to share it with them. i invest my time into them. they don't owe me anything. they don't know me and never will. and that is how it should be.
they are ghosts. they are myths. they are the stories that i will tell to myself in my dreams. they and their very "trivial" athletic exercises will be a part of my finding a deeper meaning in something, somewhere, because i choose to look for it in them, in their reactions, in their successes and most especially in their failures. because we are all failures. not in the "we are fallen" kind of failures. we are just defined by how we fail. it's that simple.
make no mistake. jason heyward will fail, in baseball and in life. in my story, though, he's becoming a recurring character. one HACAM will travel with for some time.
you have 5 minutes and 45 seconds i bet. you don't have a favorite player? don't care about baseball? watch this. you will.
(thanks to mark mc. for the tip. i don't know how i missed it.)
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
being julio heyward
(part seven)
((chapter two))
(((because this is important)))
check out atlanta's box score from last night. and then check out where "julio" is sitting. it's not permanent. yet. i am sure chipper will be hitting third when he comes back from whatever injury he's currently suffering from. but, it took him 32 games, people. 32 games of being the most productive hitter on his team filled with all-stars and veterans. it took him 32 games, and bobby cox made the first smart baseball decision he's made in three seasons and batted heyward where we, as braves fans, will most likely find him for the next ten or so years.
oh, yeah. of course he had two hits, scored three runs and stole a base.
Atlanta AB R H RBI BB SO LOB AVG
McLouth, CF 4 1 1 1 1 0 0 .172
Prado, 2B 6 1 2 0 0 2 3 .316
Heyward, RF 4 3 2 1 2 0 1 .300
McCann, C 4 3 2 1 0 0 3 .241
b-Ross, D, PH-C 1 0 0 0 0 0 3 .222
Glaus, 1B 5 1 2 3 0 0 4 .268
Hinske, LF 2 0 2 3 2 0 0 .314
O'Flaherty, P 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000
Moylan, P 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000
a-Diaz, M, PH 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 .169
Saito, P 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000
Venters, P 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000
Infante, SS 5 0 1 1 0 0 3 .270
Conrad, 3B 4 2 2 1 1 1 3 .211
Hudson, T, P 3 0 1 0 0 0 1 .200
Cabrera, Me, LF 2 0 1 0 0 1 0 .200
Totals 41 11 16 11 6 4 22 .237
(part seven)
((chapter two))
(((because this is important)))
check out atlanta's box score from last night. and then check out where "julio" is sitting. it's not permanent. yet. i am sure chipper will be hitting third when he comes back from whatever injury he's currently suffering from. but, it took him 32 games, people. 32 games of being the most productive hitter on his team filled with all-stars and veterans. it took him 32 games, and bobby cox made the first smart baseball decision he's made in three seasons and batted heyward where we, as braves fans, will most likely find him for the next ten or so years.
oh, yeah. of course he had two hits, scored three runs and stole a base.
Atlanta AB R H RBI BB SO LOB AVG
McLouth, CF 4 1 1 1 1 0 0 .172
Prado, 2B 6 1 2 0 0 2 3 .316
Heyward, RF 4 3 2 1 2 0 1 .300
McCann, C 4 3 2 1 0 0 3 .241
b-Ross, D, PH-C 1 0 0 0 0 0 3 .222
Glaus, 1B 5 1 2 3 0 0 4 .268
Hinske, LF 2 0 2 3 2 0 0 .314
O'Flaherty, P 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000
Moylan, P 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000
a-Diaz, M, PH 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 .169
Saito, P 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000
Venters, P 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000
Infante, SS 5 0 1 1 0 0 3 .270
Conrad, 3B 4 2 2 1 1 1 3 .211
Hudson, T, P 3 0 1 0 0 0 1 .200
Cabrera, Me, LF 2 0 1 0 0 1 0 .200
Totals 41 11 16 11 6 4 22 .237
Sunday, May 09, 2010
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
(huey freeman)
since season three is ON and i am back on the boondocks train, it seems appropriate to revisit an old series left for dead when i decided "to be" julio jones. it felt like jordan with his hand up in the air against the jazz. i was proud enough of the post, itself, and the series felt complete. time to move on. the conceit, though, never stopped sounding fun to me, but rarely enough do i find a subject worth taking a closer look at that doesn't lose my interest by the time i find my way to a computer with time to kill. so, we find ourselves this afternoon with a little bit of that. about an hour to kill before i take the girls to bradford park, so let's meditate, won't we, on a ten year-old revolutionary for a few minutes.
my buddy, vaughn, and i were going back and forth about the boondocks first episode of it's third season yesterday morning. we both agreed that little huey freeman is one of the more fascinating characters that the both of us have run across. named after the founding father of the black panther party, compared to most ten year-olds i've ever been around, huey is a cut above. intelligent, well-read, copious amounts of skill in the way of martial arts, enlightened that the world around him is a far cry from what it should be and a big brother to boot. he, as most of us would always like to do, speaks his mind articulately when faced with the hardest of questions. he loves his family, but he hates that they seem slaves to his idea of a fabricated reality. he seems to have only one confidant in also-little jazmine dubois, but the television series shows their relationship more as an instrument for huey to voice his concerns and opinions somewhere other than in his head. you see that he cares for her, but he also pities her, not the greatest trait in the realm of friendship.
huey, as he is drawn and visioned, is perfectly realized in that, as a kid, he is able to speak out to the adult characters around him and be a mouthpiece for his creator's message, but the peripheral characters most often cast the message aside as nothing more than a child's overactive imagination. the stereotypes that huey finds most disappointing in "his people" continue to be recycled, ever proving our perpetually scowling protagonist right in his opinion that "hope is irrational".
at times, i feel lost in a world that feels a lot like huey's world and the world of the boondocks. the people around me, most especially many of those that patronize my store, feel more like characters than individuals. conversations feel scripted, because it's the same conversation they have with every person they run across. "how's the weather?" "how's your dog?" "boy, i hear obama is going to make us mate with giraffes." "man, i can't wait to vote for tim james." i nod and am just as guilty to the fiction as anyone else. rather than pressing the issue and asking someone why they look so worried or asking them why they believe some crazy idea about god, i just smile. i comfort them if it feels like they need it. talk about alabama football if they need to. pretend to understand and empathize with a dog that "can't seem to find a food they can eat" while the owner won't let them stay with a food for more than a week or two at a time.
"eh".
i took my deposit to the bank monday morning and was asked a very telling question by the teller that most often helps me. let me quickly repaint the scene. i was fourth in line when i came into the bank. three windows were open. as i moved to the front of the line, i was well within earshot of the three customers ahead of me. the first was in front of an older teller. he is an older man, a retired marine (i know this because i hear him tell a variation of the same story every time i see him in the bank.). with no regard for the feelings of the teller in front of him, he comments on the lady's cleavage. she doesn't hear him at first because of the bulletproof glass in between them, so he makes his comment louder. "I THANK YOU FOR WEARING THAT BLOUSE THIS MORNING. YOU TAKE YOUR TIME WITH THAT CHECK. I LOVE MY VIEW." red from embarrassment, the lady tries to avoid any more conversation than what is required. the old, gross marine continues to be an ass and talks about how his wife doesn't satisfy him anymore. great. the second customer works at taco bell and is also bringing deposits. her deposit, she is told, is off by $47 dollars. "no, it's not. i counted it." "i am sorry, ma'am, but i've counted it twice and it's short." "you BEST BE countin' it a third time. YOU OFF." jesus. the teller counts it a third time. it's still off. i never hear an apology. i get out of the bank before the taco bell lady does. the third customer is cashing a check. he doesn't have an account, so "my" teller informs him that he's going to have to pay seven dollars to cash the check and that he'll have to put his thumbprint on the check as well. "the FUCK i am!!!" seriously, i am not making any of this up. i promise you. in the lobby of the bank, we've got one guy saying out loud to a teller, "the fuck i am.", we've got a disgruntled taco bell employee making an ass out of herself to compensate for her mistake and we have an old man telling another bank employee that her boobs look great today. cripes.
"fuck i am" guy storms off with his check uncashed. i walk up to amy. she says to me in a resigned voice, "good morning, kevin". "hey, amy." "what's wrong? you look sad."
she was right. i am sure i did look sad. i was sad. all three of the folks in front of me made me sad. not so much with their actions, but because, the longer i gave it thought, the more i wondered where or from whom they learned the actions. who told the old guy is was cool to embarrass women? who didn't embed thoughts of humility into the taco bell employee? who did the "fuck i am" guy think he was?
today, i've given monday morning's action thought through the eyes of huey freeman. huey would have been blown away too. he probably would have gone to his room and done some voice over narration that would have sounded a lot cooler and a lot smarter than the thoughts that were bouncing around in my head. more than anything, though, he'd have been dissatisfied.
dissatisfied that many agents of negative change in our society had led to all three of the customers in front of me monday feeling entitled to act the way they did. he would have sulked. he would have stayed to himself. and in the end of that episode, we'd be left to wonder if his disappointment would motivate him towards change or apathy. good or evil or indifference. huey's character is still being drawn. after one season three episode, he is now a "retired" revolutionary. the world has chewed him up and spit him out confused.
i love huey's ideals. i am in favor of his political leanings. i am a fan of many of his heroes. i like star wars a lot too. apathy, though, is for the birds.
all of that being said, "to be or not to be" huey freeman?
until he finds his legs again, i choose "not to be."
Sunday, May 02, 2010
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