While on vacation the last week of July we traveled to southern Wisconsin. We toured part of Frank Lloyd Wright’s estate, Taliesen. We visited the House on the Rock, a monument to one man’s interests and obsessions. In the area we stayed in the town of Sauk City.
Sauk City is a pretty, small town which flows right into another such town, Sac du Praire, both communities nestled on the banks of the Wisconsin River. As we walked through the town, we could not help encountering the name of a favorite son, an author named August Derleth (1909-1971). The breakfast room of the hotel where we stayed had Derleth memorabilia in a glass case, and a few of his books for sale. The local restaurant where we ate dinner one night also had Derleth clippings gracing the walls of a space called “Auggie’s reading room.” I confess that I had never before heard of August Derleth, but he was a prolific author with over 150 books to his credit – children’s books, poetry, biographies, fiction and criticism. He had edited Madison’s Captial Times. In his home town he established Arkham House, a publishing company which has been credited with saving the works of H. P. Lovecraft.
Discovering a new author is a bit like making a new friend, a friend whose conversation enlivens and enriches. Before we checked out of our motel, I bought one of Derleth’s books from behind the glass case in the breakfast room. The book , Walden West, is a fictionalized chronicle of growing up in Sauk City, interspersed with poetic reflections.
Part of the wonder, beauty and mystery of words is the way they both help us articulate our experiences in ways that deepen our awareness and sharpen our perception of them, and also open us up to new experiences. My new friend August Derleth offers words that have some of that power. Here is a sample:
There was always in childhood that hour when the streetlights came on – on the edge of evening, at the beginning of night, when darkness had not yet taken all the village and the afterglow still burned saffron or cerise, copper or old rose, magenta or emerald or mother-of-pearl along the western rim…. I never saw them come on at this hour without a lifting pleasure, and I never looked down that street at the afterglow and the prairie beyond without a sense of adventurous expectancy, as if that moment and that hour must signal the approach of an adventure profound and stirring, not of the flesh, but of the spirit…. This was a mysterious and beckoning borderland; none could say what might emerge in it, what voice might rise, what adventure might come…. I suppose that it is possible to adduce any number of reasons for this attraction, beauty being in the eye of the beholder alone and predicated upon countless determining factors unknown even to the beholder; and I have no doubt there was and is a relationship between this sense of adventurous expectancy and the spiritual isolation which is the common heritage of every individual; but reason and explanation cannot alter the exhilaration and wonder so integral a part of that hour between day and night, that hour when the creatures of darkness briefly know their brethren of daylight, that hour when the soul and the body become fleetingly aware, one of the other. (Walden West, 12-13)
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Friday, August 5, 2011
Wedding Bell Blues
As a clergy person, most of the weddings I am at these days are ones at which I am officiating. July 30, however, I attended a wedding as a guest, a friend of both those getting married. The couple was older, not young people in their 20s. Their maturity showed in many ways. They had put a great deal of thought into their wedding, and it was very much a worshipful experience. Their deep faith was evident. In their vows, they pledged to help each other in their spiritual journey and support each other in their spiritual practices.
I was glad to be there for my friends Gary and Gary. Yes, both men.
Here are two ironies. This deeply faith-filled and spiritual wedding is one I could not, under the rules of my denomination, officiate at. This uniting of these two people is also one that is not recognized by the laws of the State of Minnesota, and in fact, in November 2012, the citizens of Minnesota will be asked to make this prohibition a part of our state constitution.
Ironies catch our attention. They cause us to think more deeply. They may inspire us to action. In this case I understand more deeply why I would like to see the policy of the United Methodist Church change when it comes to clergy officiating at such ceremonies. I am also energized in new ways to work against the 2012 Minnesota marriage amendment.
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
I was glad to be there for my friends Gary and Gary. Yes, both men.
Here are two ironies. This deeply faith-filled and spiritual wedding is one I could not, under the rules of my denomination, officiate at. This uniting of these two people is also one that is not recognized by the laws of the State of Minnesota, and in fact, in November 2012, the citizens of Minnesota will be asked to make this prohibition a part of our state constitution.
Ironies catch our attention. They cause us to think more deeply. They may inspire us to action. In this case I understand more deeply why I would like to see the policy of the United Methodist Church change when it comes to clergy officiating at such ceremonies. I am also energized in new ways to work against the 2012 Minnesota marriage amendment.
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Sports and Life
In the 50s every red-blooded American boy either wanted to play baseball or be Elvis Presley.
Bob Dylan, “Theme Time Radio Hour: Baseball”
I was not a red-blooded American boy in the 50s, living only six months of my life in that decade. Yet Dylan’s words ring pretty true, with some modification for red-blooded American boys in the 1960s, too. When I was a boy, I dreamed of playing baseball for a living. I was a little older before the rock star dream hit. I have deep and fond memories of heading to the drug store with a dollar in hand to buy baseball cards – ten cents a pack. I can almost smell the gum and vividly recall how hard it was in those packages. It sweetness lasted such a short time.
I still enjoy sports, though my own accomplishments have always been pretty limited. I was a Little League sub. I have been a decent slow-pitch softball player. I enjoyed neighborhood pick-up games as a boy. I swam in high school and contributed something to the team. My golf game has a few moments of brilliance surrounded by a lot of hacking around.
When I was a boy, I developed a love for reading and much of that reading was sports books. These were frequently brief, sanitized biographies of star professional athletes. I still enjoy reading about sports, especially baseball. It is a nice change of pace, and I recently finished Phil Pepe’s 1961, the story of Mantle and Maris’ pursuit of Babe Ruth’s single season home run record. Reading it I recalled another of Phil Pepe’s books I read, this one as a boy (and I still have somewhere in a box in the garage,) Winners Never Quit. While the title came from an aphorism: “Quitters never win, winners never quit,” the book was more nuanced and deeper than the usual fair of boyhood sports books. The stories were about athletes who kept going, despite hardships – Jackie Robinson, Ken Venturi, Johnny Unitas. Most succeeded in their sport. However, one story from the book that I recall was about Herb Score, a talented pitcher whose career was cut short when a batted ball struck his face while he pitched a game. He never recovered his best stuff. He had to be a “winner” in some other way.
There are life lessons that sports can teach, lessons about determination, courage and a love for something bigger (“the game”). This summer, however, I have grown increasingly concerned about the “sportification” of our national life, especially our politics. As we are mired in partisan gridlock, so much of the analysis I hear uses sports metaphors to ask about who is ahead, who has the advantage – as if every policy discussion were simply an election strategy, and elections are just about winners and losers. Quitters never win gets bastardized into “no compromise.”
Sports can teach us things about life, but sometimes the metaphors are too narrow, or perhaps we have only borrowed too narrowly from sports. Another way to think about what is happening is to postulate that what we have forgotten is that sense of something bigger (“the game”). Maybe in our politics we call that the common good. If we “win,” but our winning damages the game, no one wins. The story of Roger Maris is still interesting because all those who have since broken Maris’ record have had their careers tainted by baseball’s steroid scandal. Their victories are more hollow for it.
I usually read sports books as a nice diversion from other things, yet sometimes the lessons spill over. Without “sportsmanship” sports lose their meaning. Without a broader context of cooperation, competition ends up in a Hobbesian war of all against all.
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
Bob Dylan, “Theme Time Radio Hour: Baseball”
I was not a red-blooded American boy in the 50s, living only six months of my life in that decade. Yet Dylan’s words ring pretty true, with some modification for red-blooded American boys in the 1960s, too. When I was a boy, I dreamed of playing baseball for a living. I was a little older before the rock star dream hit. I have deep and fond memories of heading to the drug store with a dollar in hand to buy baseball cards – ten cents a pack. I can almost smell the gum and vividly recall how hard it was in those packages. It sweetness lasted such a short time.
I still enjoy sports, though my own accomplishments have always been pretty limited. I was a Little League sub. I have been a decent slow-pitch softball player. I enjoyed neighborhood pick-up games as a boy. I swam in high school and contributed something to the team. My golf game has a few moments of brilliance surrounded by a lot of hacking around.
When I was a boy, I developed a love for reading and much of that reading was sports books. These were frequently brief, sanitized biographies of star professional athletes. I still enjoy reading about sports, especially baseball. It is a nice change of pace, and I recently finished Phil Pepe’s 1961, the story of Mantle and Maris’ pursuit of Babe Ruth’s single season home run record. Reading it I recalled another of Phil Pepe’s books I read, this one as a boy (and I still have somewhere in a box in the garage,) Winners Never Quit. While the title came from an aphorism: “Quitters never win, winners never quit,” the book was more nuanced and deeper than the usual fair of boyhood sports books. The stories were about athletes who kept going, despite hardships – Jackie Robinson, Ken Venturi, Johnny Unitas. Most succeeded in their sport. However, one story from the book that I recall was about Herb Score, a talented pitcher whose career was cut short when a batted ball struck his face while he pitched a game. He never recovered his best stuff. He had to be a “winner” in some other way.
There are life lessons that sports can teach, lessons about determination, courage and a love for something bigger (“the game”). This summer, however, I have grown increasingly concerned about the “sportification” of our national life, especially our politics. As we are mired in partisan gridlock, so much of the analysis I hear uses sports metaphors to ask about who is ahead, who has the advantage – as if every policy discussion were simply an election strategy, and elections are just about winners and losers. Quitters never win gets bastardized into “no compromise.”
Sports can teach us things about life, but sometimes the metaphors are too narrow, or perhaps we have only borrowed too narrowly from sports. Another way to think about what is happening is to postulate that what we have forgotten is that sense of something bigger (“the game”). Maybe in our politics we call that the common good. If we “win,” but our winning damages the game, no one wins. The story of Roger Maris is still interesting because all those who have since broken Maris’ record have had their careers tainted by baseball’s steroid scandal. Their victories are more hollow for it.
I usually read sports books as a nice diversion from other things, yet sometimes the lessons spill over. Without “sportsmanship” sports lose their meaning. Without a broader context of cooperation, competition ends up in a Hobbesian war of all against all.
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Deep Self Help
Ever since reading Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death in 2008 I have found myself exploring some of the literature of contemporary psychoanalysis. Majoring in psychology, I was acquainted with Freud. I read some Jung in college as well. At that time my psychological “mentor,” so to speak, was Abraham Maslow whose ideas I found fascinating and whose intellectual generosity I found admirable. In seminary, I appreciated how some theologians and ethicists took psychology seriously – Paul Tillich, Donald Evans, and others. Over the years I would find time to do some reading in psychology and pick up the occasional “self-help” book. Some of that literature is helpful at some level, though it often lacks a certain depth.
Becker’s book is not self-help literature. It is a probing, intellectually rich, psychologically deep exploration of the human condition, of the human confronting the fact that she or he dies and knows it. Becker drew deeply from the literature of psychoanalysis, and I began coming across other references to psychoanalysis since Freud and Jung. So I have read some D. W. Winnicott, Adam Phillips, Michael Eigen, Stephen Mitchell, Roy Schaefer, Harry Guntrip, Robert Stolorow. Much of the writing is stimulating, sometimes a little dense, often insightful. Most of it would not fit into the category of self-help literature, as we usually define it.
Yet one psychoanalyst I have discovered published a “self-help” book, or at least a book that would probably be shelved with self-help literature. Charles Spezzano has published work on the place of affect in psychoanalysis. He has edited a volume on spirituality, religion and psychoanalysis. He also published a “self-help” book – What To Do Between Birth and Death: the art of growing up. While it may be something on the order of a self-help book, its insights penetrate more deeply. Here are a few:
All significant life choices mean you get something and you give something up.
The one thing we all must do to find peace with a place, or a man or a woman, is be willing to surrender opportunities and pleasures we once rated highly and accept some constraints and limitations we once thought intolerable.
Much self-help literature never acknowledges such choices and limits. Here are a few more insights offered:
Talk is not useful just because it is deep…. The evidence that deep talk has been useful is not that you feel relieved but that your subsequent interactions with the other person are better, smoother, more productive, better coordinated.
Habits form and stick even when they are maladaptive and life-robbing.
Adulthood is… essentially the business… of the unavoidable.
As a theologian and person of faith I am sometimes confronted by those who argue that the language of psychology is not a good fit with the language of faith. I disagree. There may be times when the language conflicts, but at its best, psychology, spirituality, theology and ethics offer mutually illuminating insights into human life. I agree with Spezzano, when he writes in another book that “discourses about the soul and the discourses of the couch, could inform, and not simply argue with or ignore one another” (Soul on the Couch).
I am grateful for this on-going conversation in my life between theology, ethics and psychoanalysis. It continues to enrich my mind and shape my soul. I am grateful for this inner dialogue, even when it comes from a “self-help” book.
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
P.S. Economy 3:Today’s (July 3) Duluth News Tribune published an Associated Press article about the economic recovery. Here are some of the facts cited. Worker’s wages and benefits make up 57.5% of the economy, an all-time low (the stable figure into the mid-2000s was 64%). “A big chunk of the economy’s gains has gone to investors in the form of higher corporate profits.” Corporate profits are up; CEO salaries are up significantly; while the average worker’s wages after accounting for inflation were 1.6% lower in May this year than last year. Gains in the stock market “go disproportionately to the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans who own more than 80 percent of outstanding stock.” From a moral point of view, a strong economy is one which creates wealth and creates opportunity for ordinary persons who work hard to earn a decent living – enough to afford basic necessities, an education for children, health care. I have no problem with wealth being concentrated as long as the economy is working for ordinary persons. I simply wonder how well is it doing this?
Becker’s book is not self-help literature. It is a probing, intellectually rich, psychologically deep exploration of the human condition, of the human confronting the fact that she or he dies and knows it. Becker drew deeply from the literature of psychoanalysis, and I began coming across other references to psychoanalysis since Freud and Jung. So I have read some D. W. Winnicott, Adam Phillips, Michael Eigen, Stephen Mitchell, Roy Schaefer, Harry Guntrip, Robert Stolorow. Much of the writing is stimulating, sometimes a little dense, often insightful. Most of it would not fit into the category of self-help literature, as we usually define it.
Yet one psychoanalyst I have discovered published a “self-help” book, or at least a book that would probably be shelved with self-help literature. Charles Spezzano has published work on the place of affect in psychoanalysis. He has edited a volume on spirituality, religion and psychoanalysis. He also published a “self-help” book – What To Do Between Birth and Death: the art of growing up. While it may be something on the order of a self-help book, its insights penetrate more deeply. Here are a few:
All significant life choices mean you get something and you give something up.
The one thing we all must do to find peace with a place, or a man or a woman, is be willing to surrender opportunities and pleasures we once rated highly and accept some constraints and limitations we once thought intolerable.
Much self-help literature never acknowledges such choices and limits. Here are a few more insights offered:
Talk is not useful just because it is deep…. The evidence that deep talk has been useful is not that you feel relieved but that your subsequent interactions with the other person are better, smoother, more productive, better coordinated.
Habits form and stick even when they are maladaptive and life-robbing.
Adulthood is… essentially the business… of the unavoidable.
As a theologian and person of faith I am sometimes confronted by those who argue that the language of psychology is not a good fit with the language of faith. I disagree. There may be times when the language conflicts, but at its best, psychology, spirituality, theology and ethics offer mutually illuminating insights into human life. I agree with Spezzano, when he writes in another book that “discourses about the soul and the discourses of the couch, could inform, and not simply argue with or ignore one another” (Soul on the Couch).
I am grateful for this on-going conversation in my life between theology, ethics and psychoanalysis. It continues to enrich my mind and shape my soul. I am grateful for this inner dialogue, even when it comes from a “self-help” book.
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
P.S. Economy 3:Today’s (July 3) Duluth News Tribune published an Associated Press article about the economic recovery. Here are some of the facts cited. Worker’s wages and benefits make up 57.5% of the economy, an all-time low (the stable figure into the mid-2000s was 64%). “A big chunk of the economy’s gains has gone to investors in the form of higher corporate profits.” Corporate profits are up; CEO salaries are up significantly; while the average worker’s wages after accounting for inflation were 1.6% lower in May this year than last year. Gains in the stock market “go disproportionately to the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans who own more than 80 percent of outstanding stock.” From a moral point of view, a strong economy is one which creates wealth and creates opportunity for ordinary persons who work hard to earn a decent living – enough to afford basic necessities, an education for children, health care. I have no problem with wealth being concentrated as long as the economy is working for ordinary persons. I simply wonder how well is it doing this?
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Economics Again
Humanity is not on earth to serve economics; rather the function of economics is to serve humanity, in accordance with God’s loving purposes.
J. Philip Wogaman, Economics and Ethics, 38
Maybe it is that my son is looking for a job right now, or maybe it is the brief moment I stopped on Fox News today to listen as some folks argued that unions are nothing but job killers, but news about the economy keeps capturing my attention. Actually, this is a long-standing interest. When I was working on my Ph.D. in Christian Ethics I had, for a time, considered writing a dissertation on economic ethics. Instead I decided on another side of Christian social ethics, Christian ethics and political democracy.
Anyway, there were a couple of interesting items about the economy in the most recent issue of The Atlantic (July/August 2011). Between 2002 and 2007, 65 percent of all income growth in the U.S. went to the richest 1 percent of the population…. Today, half the national income goes to the richest 10 percent…. In 2007, the top 1 percent controlled 34.6 percent of the wealth – significantly more that the bottom 90 percent who controlled just 26.9 percent. These figures represent a significant shift from the recent past. During the Second World War, and in the four decades that followed, the top 10 percent too home just a third of the national income…. The last time the gap between the people on the top and everyone else was as large as it is today was during the Roaring ‘20s.
As the gap between the rich and others widens, what about the middle class? Since 2002, median household income has declined in real terms, as many middle class jobs have been either destroyed by technological innovation or lost to competition from overseas.
These economic realities raise moral questions. Granted that in a vibrant economy, there will be some persons who benefit more than others, is there some point beyond which inequitable distribution becomes counter-productive for the economy and damaging to persons? What are the larger effects of job insecurity and stagnant wages for middle class persons? If people feel the current economic policies and systems provide little security and insufficient opportunity, what may be the result?
These are tough times. They require tough thinking matched with compassionate hearts.
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
J. Philip Wogaman, Economics and Ethics, 38
Maybe it is that my son is looking for a job right now, or maybe it is the brief moment I stopped on Fox News today to listen as some folks argued that unions are nothing but job killers, but news about the economy keeps capturing my attention. Actually, this is a long-standing interest. When I was working on my Ph.D. in Christian Ethics I had, for a time, considered writing a dissertation on economic ethics. Instead I decided on another side of Christian social ethics, Christian ethics and political democracy.
Anyway, there were a couple of interesting items about the economy in the most recent issue of The Atlantic (July/August 2011). Between 2002 and 2007, 65 percent of all income growth in the U.S. went to the richest 1 percent of the population…. Today, half the national income goes to the richest 10 percent…. In 2007, the top 1 percent controlled 34.6 percent of the wealth – significantly more that the bottom 90 percent who controlled just 26.9 percent. These figures represent a significant shift from the recent past. During the Second World War, and in the four decades that followed, the top 10 percent too home just a third of the national income…. The last time the gap between the people on the top and everyone else was as large as it is today was during the Roaring ‘20s.
As the gap between the rich and others widens, what about the middle class? Since 2002, median household income has declined in real terms, as many middle class jobs have been either destroyed by technological innovation or lost to competition from overseas.
These economic realities raise moral questions. Granted that in a vibrant economy, there will be some persons who benefit more than others, is there some point beyond which inequitable distribution becomes counter-productive for the economy and damaging to persons? What are the larger effects of job insecurity and stagnant wages for middle class persons? If people feel the current economic policies and systems provide little security and insufficient opportunity, what may be the result?
These are tough times. They require tough thinking matched with compassionate hearts.
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Life Saved By Rock and Roll
What it comes down to for me – as a Velvets fan, a lover of rock and roll, a New Yorker, an aesthete, a punk, a sinner, a sometime seeker of enlightenment (and love) (and sex) – is this: I believe that we are all, openly or secretly, struggling against one or another kind of nihilism. I believe that body and spirit are not really separate, though it often seems that way. I believe that redemption is never impossible and always equivocal.
Ellen Willis in Stranded: Rock and Roll for a Desert Island
The very first issue of Rolling Stone I ever bought had Peter Frampton on the cover. It was February 1977 and the year before his album “Frampton Comes Alive” was a huge success. Songs from the record played frequently on the radio – “Show Me the Way” and “Baby I Love Your Way.” Every two weeks for awhile thereafter, until I started to subscribe, I bought a copy of the magazine to see what was happening in the music world.
The pattern developed early for me, I think. My enjoyment of most anything is enhanced by reading about it. When I fell in love with baseball, I started to read about some of its history and best players. With my eighth grade experience of God’s love in Jesus, I began another journey of reading – mostly evangelical and charismatic writings. When some of that reading brought me to more questions, other journeys began – philosophy, psychology, and rock and roll.
In April of 1977, Rolling Stone, in an issue with Hall and Oates on the cover (remember them?), published a long article by Ellen Willis about her spiritual journey – which was also a journey with rock and roll. I don’t recall how much of it I actually remember, but I found it on-line and was moved in re-reading by its deep honesty. What I remember vividly, the first time I read the article was this quote from a song called “Rock n Roll” by a group I had never heard of, The Velvet Underground. The quoted line in the article read: “her life was saved by rock and roll.”
Life saved by rock and roll. What could that mean? Jesus saved, but I was doubting what that meant. In my first encounter with Jesus it meant that those who believed in him, believed that his death was a necessary requirement for God’s forgiveness of our sins, were saved from the eternal punishment of hell. If you did not so believe, well…. I had come to a difficult place with all that, though. How could I write off people of other religious traditions when I knew virtually nothing about them? Cartoonish condemnations of existentialism and pragmatism left me wondering what these philosophies might teach. I wondered if the full impact of Christian faith in Jesus was really meant to be focused on another life? I did not want to give up on Jesus, but I wanted a Christian faith that could help me think more deeply and that could take into account so much that I was learning and encountering.
Part of what I was encountering was rock and roll and writing about music that matched the music’s artistry. A writer like Ellen Willis could pen words that discussed music and spirituality. Her words were truthful. I too, think we struggle against nihilism of one kind or another. I too believe that body and spirit are not really separable. I believe that redemption is never impossible, and always equivocal – by that I mean our embodiment of God’s love and grace is real but momentary, and in the next moment we can lose our way a bit. I learned this from Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr and Ellen Willis.
In the end, I believe that Jesus saves – that is, through Jesus I experience the grace and love of God which lead to a greater degree of wholeness in my life, and lead me to work for the healing of the world. I also believe that the grace I know in Jesus comes to me in different, and sometimes surprising, ways – including rock and roll and the words written about it. This life was saved by rock and roll, at least, in part.
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
Ellen Willis in Stranded: Rock and Roll for a Desert Island
The very first issue of Rolling Stone I ever bought had Peter Frampton on the cover. It was February 1977 and the year before his album “Frampton Comes Alive” was a huge success. Songs from the record played frequently on the radio – “Show Me the Way” and “Baby I Love Your Way.” Every two weeks for awhile thereafter, until I started to subscribe, I bought a copy of the magazine to see what was happening in the music world.
The pattern developed early for me, I think. My enjoyment of most anything is enhanced by reading about it. When I fell in love with baseball, I started to read about some of its history and best players. With my eighth grade experience of God’s love in Jesus, I began another journey of reading – mostly evangelical and charismatic writings. When some of that reading brought me to more questions, other journeys began – philosophy, psychology, and rock and roll.
In April of 1977, Rolling Stone, in an issue with Hall and Oates on the cover (remember them?), published a long article by Ellen Willis about her spiritual journey – which was also a journey with rock and roll. I don’t recall how much of it I actually remember, but I found it on-line and was moved in re-reading by its deep honesty. What I remember vividly, the first time I read the article was this quote from a song called “Rock n Roll” by a group I had never heard of, The Velvet Underground. The quoted line in the article read: “her life was saved by rock and roll.”
Life saved by rock and roll. What could that mean? Jesus saved, but I was doubting what that meant. In my first encounter with Jesus it meant that those who believed in him, believed that his death was a necessary requirement for God’s forgiveness of our sins, were saved from the eternal punishment of hell. If you did not so believe, well…. I had come to a difficult place with all that, though. How could I write off people of other religious traditions when I knew virtually nothing about them? Cartoonish condemnations of existentialism and pragmatism left me wondering what these philosophies might teach. I wondered if the full impact of Christian faith in Jesus was really meant to be focused on another life? I did not want to give up on Jesus, but I wanted a Christian faith that could help me think more deeply and that could take into account so much that I was learning and encountering.
Part of what I was encountering was rock and roll and writing about music that matched the music’s artistry. A writer like Ellen Willis could pen words that discussed music and spirituality. Her words were truthful. I too, think we struggle against nihilism of one kind or another. I too believe that body and spirit are not really separable. I believe that redemption is never impossible, and always equivocal – by that I mean our embodiment of God’s love and grace is real but momentary, and in the next moment we can lose our way a bit. I learned this from Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr and Ellen Willis.
In the end, I believe that Jesus saves – that is, through Jesus I experience the grace and love of God which lead to a greater degree of wholeness in my life, and lead me to work for the healing of the world. I also believe that the grace I know in Jesus comes to me in different, and sometimes surprising, ways – including rock and roll and the words written about it. This life was saved by rock and roll, at least, in part.
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Economy and Justice
We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the blessing of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity
Preamble, United States Constitution
But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream.
The prophet Amos (5:24)
There must be some way out of here
said the joker to the thief.
There’s too much confusion
I can’t get no relief.
Businessmen, they drink my wine.
Plowmen dig my earth.
None of them along the line,
know what any of it is worth.
Bob Dylan, “All Along the Watchtower”
This spring I read two books that indicate we may be in a time of economic confusion, a time to ask about what things are worth, about the meaning of justice and welfare.
Tyler Cowan, The Great Stagnation is an e-book that David Brooks has said may be “the most debated nonfiction book so far this year. “America is in disarray and our economy is failing us,” Cowan begins his book. He argues that we are in the midst of a multi-decade economic stagnation that began in the 1970s. Median wages have risen only slightly since then. Recent economic recoveries have been relatively jobless. Our economic success earlier this century, he contends, was based on picking “low-hanging fruit”: abundant land, rapid technological development, and a pool of bright, but uneducated children and youth. His words about technology are particularly interesting given many of the new developments we have experienced. Today… apart from the seemingly magical internet, life in broad material terms isn’t so different from what it was in 1953. We still drive cars, use refrigerators, and turn on the light switch (9). To make his argument, Cowan notes the rate of growth of median family income. It slows significantly in 1973. From 1947-1973, median family income doubled; from 1973-2007, it grew less than 22%. Cowan believes that until we find the next new low-hanging fruit, we might expect much the same – the great stagnation.
The other book, which I also read on an e-reader this spring, published in 2006 prior to the recent economic meltdown, is Jacob Hacker’s The Great Risk Shift. It comes at our recent economic history from another angle. For decades, Americans and their government were committed to a powerful set of ideals – never wholly achieved, never without internal tension – that combined a commitment to economic security with a faith in economic opportunity. Animating this vision was a conviction that a strong economy and society hinged on basic financial security, on the guarantee that those who worked hard and did right by their families had a true safety net when disaster struck…. Today, however, the social fabric that bound us together in good times and bad is unraveling. Over the last generation, we have witnessed a massive transfer of economic risk from broad structures of insurance, including those sponsored by the corporate sector as well as by government, onto the fragile balance sheets of American families. (8-9, 15) Hacker acknowledges growing economic inequality in our economy. From 1979-2003 the average income of the richest Americans doubled, factoring for inflation, while the middle class saw their average income rise 15%. The incomes of middle-class families aren’t much higher today than they were in the 1970s – and they are much more at risk. (24) Hacker is less concerned about inequality than the great risk shift.
Weaving the arguments from these two works together we can say that at a time when economic opportunity seems more limited and difficult, average families are being asked to assume more economic risk. What might the meaning of justice be in such circumstances? How do we care for the general welfare? How do we balance sufficient government revenue for an adequate safety net with the encouragement of economic opportunity? These questions do not lend themselves to easy answers. My greatest frustration is that too few are even asking them.
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
Preamble, United States Constitution
But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream.
The prophet Amos (5:24)
There must be some way out of here
said the joker to the thief.
There’s too much confusion
I can’t get no relief.
Businessmen, they drink my wine.
Plowmen dig my earth.
None of them along the line,
know what any of it is worth.
Bob Dylan, “All Along the Watchtower”
This spring I read two books that indicate we may be in a time of economic confusion, a time to ask about what things are worth, about the meaning of justice and welfare.
Tyler Cowan, The Great Stagnation is an e-book that David Brooks has said may be “the most debated nonfiction book so far this year. “America is in disarray and our economy is failing us,” Cowan begins his book. He argues that we are in the midst of a multi-decade economic stagnation that began in the 1970s. Median wages have risen only slightly since then. Recent economic recoveries have been relatively jobless. Our economic success earlier this century, he contends, was based on picking “low-hanging fruit”: abundant land, rapid technological development, and a pool of bright, but uneducated children and youth. His words about technology are particularly interesting given many of the new developments we have experienced. Today… apart from the seemingly magical internet, life in broad material terms isn’t so different from what it was in 1953. We still drive cars, use refrigerators, and turn on the light switch (9). To make his argument, Cowan notes the rate of growth of median family income. It slows significantly in 1973. From 1947-1973, median family income doubled; from 1973-2007, it grew less than 22%. Cowan believes that until we find the next new low-hanging fruit, we might expect much the same – the great stagnation.
The other book, which I also read on an e-reader this spring, published in 2006 prior to the recent economic meltdown, is Jacob Hacker’s The Great Risk Shift. It comes at our recent economic history from another angle. For decades, Americans and their government were committed to a powerful set of ideals – never wholly achieved, never without internal tension – that combined a commitment to economic security with a faith in economic opportunity. Animating this vision was a conviction that a strong economy and society hinged on basic financial security, on the guarantee that those who worked hard and did right by their families had a true safety net when disaster struck…. Today, however, the social fabric that bound us together in good times and bad is unraveling. Over the last generation, we have witnessed a massive transfer of economic risk from broad structures of insurance, including those sponsored by the corporate sector as well as by government, onto the fragile balance sheets of American families. (8-9, 15) Hacker acknowledges growing economic inequality in our economy. From 1979-2003 the average income of the richest Americans doubled, factoring for inflation, while the middle class saw their average income rise 15%. The incomes of middle-class families aren’t much higher today than they were in the 1970s – and they are much more at risk. (24) Hacker is less concerned about inequality than the great risk shift.
Weaving the arguments from these two works together we can say that at a time when economic opportunity seems more limited and difficult, average families are being asked to assume more economic risk. What might the meaning of justice be in such circumstances? How do we care for the general welfare? How do we balance sufficient government revenue for an adequate safety net with the encouragement of economic opportunity? These questions do not lend themselves to easy answers. My greatest frustration is that too few are even asking them.
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
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