A Young, Hot Mess (Book Review)

The works of Gordon Wood are not light reading. Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 (Oxford, 2009) measures 2 1/2" thick and if thrown could put a clean hole in your drywall. Wood's research, which has won a Pulitzer Prize for a different book, looks into every nook and cranny of the early American experiment: military, cultural, religious, political, and economic. His writing moves easily across sweeping landscapes of history without forgetting to zoom in on illustrative individual stories. For the reader with endurance, I recommend Wood's work.

There is no way to wrap up the contents of this book in a little package, so I will share a few insights that struck me enough in the moment to dog-ear a page for later.

--The early decades of the American republic were persistently and oddly rural and agricultural. Much of the political leadership "assumed that American society would eventually become more like that of Europe and that what Franklin had once called the 'general happy Mediocrity' of America would generally disappear" (p318). Instead, America became a country in which most of us are part of a "happy mediocrity." And as a republic, Wood argues, this continues to be one of America's defining features. "Happy mediocrity." I'm sitting with that phrase for a while.

--American constitutional law was unique in the world. (It may still be, but I'm not qualified to make that assertion.) In other countries, constitutions were documents of theory, but after 1787 "American judges could now construe the all-too-brief words of the Constitution in relation to subject matter, intention, context, and reasonableness, as if they were the words of an ordinary statute" (p448). I have had front-row seats to this phenomenon through one of my favorite podcasts, Advisory Opinions (which I recommend to you), and Wood puts it in historical perspective.

(Aside: another favorite podcast of mine, The Rest Is History, has asserted that having a constitution that we try to take literally is bonkers. Tom and Dominic are incorrigible Anglophiles, making their opinion even more interesting with respect to early American history.)

(Another Aside: I find it fascinating that just as what we might call "statutory constitutionalism" was making its start in early American law, American evangelicalism also starting putting down roots. I see a parallel, perhaps related, between constitutional textualism and biblical literalism in Christianity.)

--The shift across the Atlantic from a monarchical to a republican world-view changed how social betters viewed social inferiors. In European culture, Wood writes, one has a station, a class, which is granted and from which one cannot hope to move. Thus royalty and nobility are called to take care of the lower classes regardless of how those lower classes are conducting themselves. They would never change. Early America, however, developed the view that since social standing was fluid, to help ones inferiors meant expecting them to better themselves and rise with the assistance. "The new reformers waned to imbue people not with deference or dependency but with 'correct moral principles'; they aimed to change the actual behavior of people. These middling reformers had transformed themselves, often by strenuous efforts at self-improvement and hard work. Why couldn't others do the same?" (p489). To embrace republicanism meant rejecting both the stuckness of social classes and charity for charity's sake.

-- The War of 1812 was conducted in strange, sloppy, and disastrous fashion, in large part because President Madison stuck to his republican guns. "Better to allow the country to be invaded and the capital burned than to build up state power in a European monarchical manner. It was a Republican war that Madison sought to wage in a republican fashion" (p698). He would not take action in lieu of Congress, usurping its prerogatives. He would not siphon money toward the war effort without Congress' approval. So concerned was Madison about concentrating executive power (the Republican party's great concern at the time) that the war was inefficient, unnecessarily lethal to American soldiers, and perhaps unnecessary in the first place. And it went on longer than it had to. It is worth comparing and contrasting this history with how the United States has conducted its wars in the past 70 years.

-- The feelings of opposition between Federalists (who saw top-down government authority as useful) and Republicans (who saw only bottom-up governance as virtuous) were so strong in this period that violence resulted--including one of the very few instances of assault inside the chambers of Congress. In our present time when folks assert that "we've never been as politically polarized as we are now" Wood's writing is a useful corrective. We may say that American culture goes through cycles of political amiability and violence, and perhaps we're at the bottom of the cycle in 2026. But we've got a solid history of believing that our fellow Americans hold viewpoints that need to be silenced with physical force. We may be good at unity, but we're also good at making each other into enemies.

-- In spite of the radical and inspiring emergence of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, the early republic was a hot mess. On every axis there existed great hopes, profound uncertainty, bitter disagreement, and stunning failures. No one knew what he was doing, really. One of Wood's closing reflections is on Thomas Jefferson's disbelief that the next generation of Americans could consider the question of slavery to be a moral question (p737). Yet it would become the defining moral question of the next violent convulsion of American history.

I recently went with a passel of middle-schoolers on a camping trip. It was amazing to me how much time (and sometimes material) was spent on discovering just how flammable spray sunscreen is, how fast a punctured soda can will spray out its contents, and what qualifies as a "pocket" in spike ball. As an adult, I could have told them the rules, of course (and there had to be some of that, for safety's sake), but they were determined to discover the rules by experimentation rather than fiat.

Is the American republic still an experiment? It certainly was in the first 40 years, with all the slop, damage, and discovery of experimentation. Thanks to Gordon Wood for opening up new vistas of understanding. About a week ago, as I was getting into the last fifth of this book, I heard on the radio that Gordon Wood died at 92 years of age. I hope he has gone to glory.

love,

emrys

Against the Rules (or: Do Dads Always Suck?)

I just finished the book Both Can Be True by Jules Machias (Quill Tree Books, 2021). Machias presents two central characters whose first-person perspectives alternate every other chapter. Ash and Daniel are middle-school students navigating the painful and flustering intricacies of childhood, puberty, friendship, honesty, and sexuality. Both do not conform to society's expectations--especially middle school society's expectations. Ash does not conform to gender typing. (She also has synesthesia, which adds a beautiful hue to the narrative.) Daniel does not conform to expectations about how males express emotions. These facets are brought into sharp relief by Daniel's comical and heart-warming attempt to rescue a geriatric Pomeranian (named Chewbarka) from euthanasia.

The story is intriguing, heart-wrenching, funny, on-point, and ultimately redemptive. Mathias keeps the plot moving both by the two-step of a double-first-person narrative and by the sequence of Ash's and Daniel's fraught middle-school choices. Even as a reader who would prefer to avoid meditating on my own middle school experience, I found myself quickly invested in the characters and wanting good for them even as they made (to my adult self) decisions worthy of eye-rolling. Thus Mathias adeptly drew me into a place of sympathy and compassion.

Though many of the difficulties of puberty and middle school play throughout the book, clearly nonconforming gender and sexuality are the main foci. The book's main strength is its ability to draw the reader in, bit by bit, to the confusing complexities of experiencing feelings that do not obey standard historical categories of sexuality and gender. Mathias paints a world in which that confusion affects everyone--not just Ash and Daniel--to some degree. When heart, mind, and hormones work against "the rules," then everyone has a rough time.

The power of the narrative is interrupted only a few times, when post-pubescent experience peeks through the curtain. The character of Sam--the Yoda-figure in this book--seems a little too clear for a middle-schooler. And the occasional phrasing of wisdom surfaces on the lips of Ash or Daniel that seems too tried-and-tested, as if an oracle had spoken through them for the sake of the reader.

The sharpest pang for this reader was the status of men and Dads. The fathers of both Ash and Daniel, the silent-if-present teacher who leads Rainbow Alliance, and the shadowy nemesis veterinarian constitute the entire male adult cast, and all are failures or foils. This feature jumped out at me probably because--full disclosure--I am a Dad, and the father of a middle-schooler to boot. All of the characters around Ash and Daniel--both mothers, Daniel's twin brother, two dog-rescuers (one ill-fated and the other wise and seasoned, both women), a female photography teacher, and even an angry Insta-hater--show signs of development and redemption. While they all struggle with Ash and Daniel, they are drawn into the growing experience of love. Not so the Dads. The closest we come is a psychoanalyzing session between Ash and their mom near the end of the book, in which Ash's dad (who is not present) is explained away in terms of his upbringing.

All other characters have the opportunity to explain themselves, own their mistakes, confess the effects of complexity and confusion on themselves, and make a commitment to greater compassion and love. But the Dads don't. I wonder if this categorizing and sidelining of the Dads (as clueless, absent, and possibly irredeemable) is an unavoidable result of connecting gender categories with patriarchy: To reform the system, the historically dominant gender has to get a time-out. I'll admit that possibility. But I also sense some irony--given the book's successful drive to allow Daniel his full spectrum of emotions--that the Moms are depicted as emotionally sensitive and adept and the Dads are stoic and rigid. As this beautifully wrought novel attempts to shape reality into a place of greater compassion, does it also set Dads, and maybe all adult men, outside the bounds of that compassion?

I find this question especially poignant since my teenage daughter invited me to read it so that we could talk about it. And even before I finished it, the book has served as a great conversation-starter. Mathias' raw descriptions of pubescent experience allows for deep conversational dives into my and my daughter's analysis of the world. The book as inspired talks about gender, social media, and the power of honesty and deception.

As with all good fiction, Both Can Be True causes me to look at reality through a new lens. Machias' portrait feels so real and deep that I am moved to greater compassion for those struggling with issues of gender, sexuality, and belonging--especially for those in the season of life in which those struggles attack without notice and in the midst of so many other questions. But if by being a Dad (and a committed male) I am an intrinsic part of the problem, then what am I to do? Do Dads always suck?

~ emrys

Being in Place

 Continuing my cultivated admiration for the work of Wendell Berry, I just completed Nathan Coulter, one of his earlier novels (1960, reprinted 1985). The book opens a window into the world of Port William, the agrarian community in northern Kentucky that mirrors Berry's home and culture. Its narrative style, elegant without being sparse, keeps my attention because it paints so well the mundane details of life. I suspect that many novels keep us rapt with a cavalcade of the improbable and the fantastic. To me, so used to my culture's parade of the shocking, the story of a life stripped down to essentials carries its own fascination.

Berry's plot gives very little quarter to the thoughts of his characters, and his characters give very little quarter to chatter or diatribe. Our attraction to them and their way of life emerges from participation in the basic chores of life--eating, planting, fishing, harvesting, listening to the rain--and witnessing unassuming expressions of love--cooking, working, laughing, teaching. In a brief 180 pages we come to own Nathan Coulter as a friend not because of his exceptionalism but because he unselfconsciously reflects to us the essence of what it means to be human, to be tied to family and land, and to recognize the power of belonging.

Nathan's simple humanity allows Berry, at last, to let the seeds of observation grow into a flower of wisdom. Nathan observes, after family conflict drives his brother away to begin his own life:

"Brother was gone, and he wouldn't be back. And things that had been so before never would be so again. We were the way we were; nothing could make us any different, and we suffered because of it. Things happened to us the way they did because we were ourselves." (pg 158)

In spite of my culture's ambition always to be changing for the better, believing that our natures can change through self-help and therapy and meditation, Nathan's assessment of the human condition does not occasion despair. From the story we glean that there is wisdom in accepting the world, the land, and one's condition as it is. Nathan's experience stands in humble criticism of the neurotic addictions of our age.

Clear vision sees so far as to observe the worldly end of all humanity. Nathan's voice again:

"I thought of the spring running there all that time . . . . still running while Grandpa's grandfather and his father got old and died. And running while Grandpa drank its water and waited his turn. When I thought of it that way I knew I was waiting my turn too. . . . In a way the spring was like him, a part of his land; I couldn't divide the spring from the notch it had cut in the hill. Grandpa had owned his land and worked on it and taken his pride from it for so long that we knew him, and he knew himself, in the same way that we knew the spring . . . We wouldn't recognize the country when he was dead." (pg 179-180)

Nathan Coulter at last reckons with the fullness of human life: the destiny of our bodies to sink again into the soil. Even if the world and its cycles do not change, we belong to it, like the spring and the rock through which it cuts simply by following the pull of gravity.

Nathan Coulter leaves off while Nathan still lives with his parents. Berry's most recent book (The Art of Loading Brush) tells an end of sorts to the story of Nathan Coulter. I know from that story that Nathan is different from the generations past. His acceptance of death and the way things are births in him a compassion that is equally a critique of and a gift from his family. What never changes is that growth and wisdom must follow the pace and patterns of the land. Rushing toward an imagined goal yields a spindly and hollow harvest. To discover what could be we must attend to what is.

Thanks to Warren Muller, who found Nathan Coulter in his book-sifting and sent it to me as a gift.

Christian Art

About a year ago my family read a graphic novel version of A Wrinkle in Time. Somehow this book had escaped all of my high school reading lists (or perhaps I had skipped it in favor of Tom Jones?), so I have not read the original. All the themes and plots as expressed in Madeleine L'Engle's classic book were new discoveries to me.

In addition to my failure to read L'Engle's classic work, I had failed to take notice that Madeleine L'Engle was a confessing and practicing Christian. A book by L'Engle, passed along to me by a friend, entitled Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith & Art (1980) piqued my interest as I pulled it out of the box. What faith was this that I had never heard attributed to this world-famous author?

Walking on Water comprises a collection of mini-essays delivered as talks at an international conference on the topic of faith and art. Through the book I found L'Engle describing her own mature, orthodox faith and a thoughtful, piercing critique of how the Christian faith has neglected the proper place of art--or the proper function of art--in the life of the Church and the believer. As a Christian artist myself (you'll have to read the book to get L'Engle's helpful definition of "Christian art") I found her experience and theology of Christian art deeply inspiring and refreshing.

True to the calling of an artist following Jesus, L'Engle does much of her teaching in discrete stories. So a small sample of those moments is in order when I felt compelled to dog-ear the pages:

~

She cites the story of a village full of clocks but with no horologist (the former one had died). When a renowned clockmaker and repairer later visits the village, he declares he can fix the clocks that--though inaccurate--have been kept wound. The ones left unwound are forever lost.

"So we must daily keep things wound: that is, we must pray when prayer seems dry as dust; we must write when we are physically tired, when our hearts are heavy, when our bodies are in pain. We may not always be able to make our 'clock' run correctly, but at least we must keep it wound, so that it will not forget." (p96)

~

"I have often been asked if my Christianity affects my stories, and surely it is the other way around; my stories affect my Christianity, restore me, shake me by the scruff of the neck, and pull this straying sinner into an awed faith." (106)

~

Upon encountering rigid and sealed theology next to open and wondering science: "I had yet to learn the faithfulness of doubt. This is often assumed by the judgmental to be faithlessness, but it is not; it is a prerequisite for a living faith." (118)

~

"So a children's book must be, first and foremost, a good book, a book with a young protagonist with whom the reader can identify, and a book which says yes to life. Granted, a number of young adult books have been published with a negative view of life, just as with anti-heroes. Again, from all I hear from librarians and teachers, they may be read once, but they are not returned to." (121)

~

Wisdom perhaps for all Christians as well as the practicing artists: "If my stories are incomprehensible to Jews or Muslims or Taoists, then I have failed as a Christian writer. We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it." (p122)

~

"So I start the Ballad of Barbara Allen. I have sung only a couple of verses when Charlotte says, her voice quavering slightly, 'Gran, you know that's a bad one.' 

'What, Charlotte?' 

'You know that's a bad one.' 

Both Barbara Allen and her young man are dead and buried at the end of the ballad; I ask, 'Why, Charlotte? Because it's sad?' 

'No! because she doesn't love anybody.' 

Charlotte knows what it is all about. The refusal to love is the only unbearable thing."

~

Quoting the words of Hawaiian Christian Alice Kaholusuna: "Before the missionaries came, my people used to [pray at the temple] and afterward would again sit a long time outside, this time to 'breathe life' into their prayers. The Christians, when they came, just got up, uttered a few sentences, said Amen, and were done. For that reason my people called them haoles, 'without breath,' or those who failed to breathe life into their prayers."

~

I am especially struck by one thread that runs through L'Engle's mini-essays, mini-memoirs: how Christians are co-storytellers with God. I have always been troubled by the thoughtless repetition of "Word of God" to refer to scripture, especially since the equivalent given by scripture itself for "Word of God" is Jesus Christ. Book = person, person = book, living being = fixed cipher, text = life are troublesome equivalencies for me.

So I have tried in teaching my own children to impress on them that the bible is God's story, and it is Jesus' story, and it is the story of the people of God, and it is our story. I think that to simplify--or mask the complexity of--the nature of the scriptures as story is to take the breath out of them. I think I understand the impulse to make the 66 canonical books into a Third Law, but I am also keenly aware of the chasm between Law and Person that Saul met on the Damascus Road (Acts 9).

L'Engle, in Walking on Water (a work that she herself was hesitant to undertake, as she reflects in the book), brilliantly traces the sinews of the divine story and leads the reader to appreciate its power. One will emerge from L'Engle's work with a greater appreciation for God's story, a greater confidence that our stories are important to that divine story, and a greater determination to tell stories that will help unfold the tesseract of God's love in the world.

~ emrys

Science

There was a time when to be a naturalist was the same thing as being a scientist. To observe the natural world in all of its complexity was to test it, to make hypotheses about it, and to search out patterns. Now "science" has become a discipline requiring knowledge of sterile techniques and statistical analyses. Naturalism has stepped down to the silver or bronze pedestal of fame.

But this shift betrays the meaning of "science," from "scientia" or "experience." Taking human experience--that which can be grasped by the five senses--and drawing conclusions from it. In this sense anyone who wonders and explores, anyone who will touch, taste, turn in the hand, or listen carefully is a scientist.

I just finished a wonderful gift from my brother: Oliver Sacks' Everything in its Place: First Loves and Last Tales. This collection of Sacks' essays, published after his 2015 death, deals with just about everything. Sacks was a physician--a neurologist who spent much time at the bedside of patients with disorders of memory or dementia--and naturalist extraordinaire. Nothing in the three-dimensional world rose above his scrutiny; nothing descended below his sense of wonder.

A work of essays like this does not submit to summing up. Sacks writes about so many different nooks and crannies of life that there is no use in doing anything but reading the whole thing. However it is worth saying in reflection that I deeply enjoyed Sacks' sense of fascination with every phenomenon. His professional passion was the human brain, of which he confessed that there was nothing more interesting or compelling in the world. But he writes with equal zeal and zest about hunting ferns in the crack of New York City concrete, about the power of gefilte fish, and about the joy of swimming. I get the impression that Sacks wandered around the world, all the time, with eyes wide open and mouth agape in enchanted wonder.

What's more, as he observes the complexities and depth of life he refrains from pronouncing meaning or judgment, avoiding all the pitfalls that come with such pronouncements. He revels in the world as it is, desiring less to know the whys and wherefores and more to know what is to be found just a little bit deeper. So, like the hand of a botanist turning over the frond of a fern thought to be extinct, Sacks' mind turns over the leaves of life gently, lovingly, so as to let life present itself.

I want to have this sense of gentle wonder, especially about people. I want to know not what "makes them tick" but what makes their hearts beat and their souls hope. I want to stroll through this grand creation and view every creature as a gift to be admired, explored, and then released to discover if it will fly.

~ emrys

Truth in the Body

Toni Morrison called Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates, "required reading." She is correct.

This little (5"x7" with 152 pages) letter from a father to his teenage son admits no distillation or summary. Like The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, one must read the whole body of prose-poetry in order to capture its essence. And you, dear reader, will receive a reward for that dedication.

So as I sit with Coates' words, swimming still in their height and breadth and depth, their piercing brilliance and brutal honesty, I can only share one facet of what I read there. This insight, though it is just one of many, hints at the effect on a reader of the fullness of the book.

Coates, as he reveals himself through Between the World and Me, is a materialist. No, not the kind that wants to amass more stuff. His writing embraces philosophical materialism. When he digs down, down, down into the "whys" and "wherefores" of his existence and the existence of the world, he finds only what is physical. Thus the "original sin" of America is its treatment of the body, specifically the black body. The American system, the American culture, the American Dream has been so constructed that the black body is subjected to the unpredictable, crushing forces of those who call themselves white. Every human is dehumanized and rendered an automaton: blacks as expendable bodies, whites as simple machinations of destruction:

"And no one would be brought to account for this destruction, because my death would not be the fault of any human but the fault of some unfortunate but immutable fact of 'race,' imposed upon an innocent country by the inscrutable judgment of invisible gods. The earthquake cannot be subpoenaed. The typhoon will not bend under indictment. They sent the [police officer who killed] Prince Jones back to his work, because he was not a killer at all. He was a force of nature, the helpless agent of our world's physical laws." (p83)

In this rich and honest letter, Coates tries to tell his son what he sees, how the world is. He consciously and purposefully avoids hope. Not in favor of despair, but because hope betrays the facts of the world. There is not betterment, improvement, or hope; only struggle:

"Perhaps struggle is all we have because the god of history is an atheist, and nothing about his world is meant to be. So you must wake up every morning knowing that no promise is unbreakable, least of all the promise of waking up at all. This is not despair. These are the preferences of the universe itself: verbs over nouns, actions over states, struggle over hope." (p71)

Coates keeps his feet firmly planted in the present, in three dimensions, in the body that can act. One might intuit that he was driven to this tight focus: autonomy, ownership and safety of the physical body are precisely the things that America has plundered from those with dark skin. Thus what was or what will be are irrelevant. There is only alive or dead. The overriding concern and fear to which Coates returns is the loss of the body: that America allows the black body to be arrested, incarcerated, and killed at the whim of those who call themselves white.

"I have no praise anthems, nor old Negro spirituals. The spirit and soul are the body and brain, which are destructible--that is precisely why they are so precious. And the soul did not escape. The spirit did not steal away on gospel wings. The soul was the body that fed the tobacco, and the spirit was the blood that watered the cotton, and these created the first-fruits of the American garden. And the fruits were secured through the bashing of children with stovewood, through hot iron peeling skin away like husk from corn." (pp103-4)

Here is Coates' materialism writ large. Here might be the philosophical grounds on which I could accuse him of incompleteness. (I am not a materialist.) But wait! I wonder now whether this--even this!--resistance to materialism arises from the fact that my so-called whiteness has delivered to me privileges that are not afforded to Coates.

The color of my skin and the society in which I was raised (which came first?) give me a bone-deep confidence that I do not need to worry about the safety of my body. (For another time: how my gender also affects that confidence.) Police are a comforting symbol and source of law and order. I expect that they exist to serve and protect us, and will respect my safety even when I should run afoul of the law. And I look at the world and see it as a prelude, a pointer to something greater, something beyond. This body is a gift partnered with the gift of spirit, which will carry on in a different way when my body is laid in the soil. Which is to say: I am something more than my body.

But what if the several generations leading up to me had all been told--directly and indirectly--that their bodies were not their own? That they were not safe, because the typhoon of America could tear them apart without respect for personhood or humanity? Perhaps those raised to wonder if their bodies will survive cannot see so far as to wonder whether their spirits will survive. If the body is esteemed worthless, perhaps we are prevented from finding value in a soul. Perhaps my body must be valued as human before my spirit can be considered divine. That is: perhaps Coates comes by his materialism honestly.

I think about the over-spiritualized understanding of the Christian faith (some of which contributed to the plunder of black bodies throughout American history). But many--if not most--of those I know who verbalize the exceeding value of the spirit over that of the body live with great bodily security. And I think about Jesus' teachings and his resonances with the Hebrew prophets who offered scathing condemnation for those who took away others' physical security. And if we wish to call heaven as a witness, then we must remember that Jesus' resurrected body (!) still had scars from his crucifixion; Paul asserts that we will be given bodies (!!) in the new creation.

So perhaps an understanding of spirit, virtue, and justice begins with materialism. Before we can answer questions of what we will become or what we must do, we must first be able to declare that our bodies are safe. The innovation of Jesus and the prophets with respect to Coates' book is that before we can get to spirit, virtue, and justice we must first confirm that our brothers' and sisters' bodies are safe.

And in America, the answer is still No. So we cannot go any further.

Coates, at least in Between the World and Me, does not have a framework or an anchor for hope. But as for me, perhaps by a gift from God I may have the ability to ask, Is your body safe? and hear the answer. And maybe in hearing that answer we will find the beginning of something different.

~ emrys

Passing Thoughts

I just finished reading a translation of Aulus Gellius' Attic Nights, a sort of journal compiled by a member of the upper-class Greco-Roman literati. His reflections span a wide field of philosophical inquiries, grammatical inquisitions, legal observations, and social and cultural critiques. Reading it gives a disjointed, snapshot view of life in the Mediterranean in the second century AD--sometimes affording tantalizing one-offs regarding the values undergirding that society.

Since my level of historical knowledge about that provenance is limited, the thin slices of detail about Gellius' world serve mostly to inspire reflection on our own time. In one brief passage, Gellius records the name of the "first Roman ever to secure a divorce" from his wife, on the grounds that she could not have children. In order to secure said divorce, apparently he had to cite the fact that upon his marriage to her he had sworn an oath that the purpose of the marriage was to have children. What a strange thing--to me, of course--to bind and delimit a marriage by oath to having children.

At that time, as in too many others, women were legal property of their husbands, so I suppose it would be the equivalent of winning a civil suit for the price paid for a "lemon" vehicle. I bought the car not because I wanted the vehicle itself per se, but because I needed it for transportation. Therefore if it does not run (or breaks down to often) it is not fulfilling its function and therefore the transaction can be nullified.

I wonder if this is why a commonplace set of vows has husband and wife declare "for richer and poorer, in sickness and in health"? Perhaps husbands had taken to divorcing wives because they were not successful entrepreneurs for the household or because they took ill and did not fully recover? Thus the vow at the altar had to ensure (for the wife and her family) that the husband would not see those "failures" as breach of contract.

Gellius also records that a Roman of high political office ("censor") was disciplined by the senate for owning an excessive amount of silver tableware. This excess signified too much luxury for said political position. The event seems even stranger to me given that Roman culture was not renowned for its austerity or elective poverty and simplicity.

How would politics change if "excessive luxury" were considered a punishable offence for public servants and elected officials? The cynical part of me thinks that the luxury would simply go underground. And it begs the question: Who determines what is too luxurious? I suppose that determination would have the usual legal channels, like any other law. An interesting idea nonetheless, that at some level a republic would officially declare a limit on the wealth owned or displayed by its ruling members.

Don't pick up Attic Nights unless you're ready to skim over large bits about Latin and Greek grammar. Gellius was very concerned with esoteric questions of language, translation, and poetic usage. (This is why I enjoyed the book so much, I think!) Even passing over some of those, I appreciated the little oddities of ancient life. In the midst of the oddities, however, one will be rewarded with edifying meditations such as whether virtuous life necessarily brings happiness. Does it?

A dear friend once remarked that the famous ancient and Medieval authors "never had to wash their own socks." An overarching theme that surfaced for me was how much time Gellius had to walk around Rome and Athens, going to dinner parties, chatting with people in high office and station. He tries to put a great deal of weight on these matters of speech, writing, and society; but his are--to use a contemporary turn of phrase--first-world problems (wealthy problems). Gellius makes no reference to work or managing patron-client relationships in order to stay afloat. He is upper-class, it seems, and the life that allows literacy and time for ruminating on philosophical squabbles belongs perhaps entirely to the rich. It might be the same in every generation, though I hope that in the present-day United States we have come somewhat closer to allowing anyone in any stratum of society access to learning and discourse like Gellius'.

Maybe I can be an agent to extend the reach of that learning to another generation, whether of humble or luxurious means. I hope that perhaps the good work I do and the conversations I have are not limited to the ivory halls and wealthy dinner parties, but include anyone who wants to consider the deeper questions of life.

~ emrys

Part of a Greater Community

 A thick strand of Christian theology begins with an assertion from Psalm 8: "O Lord . . . .what are human beings that you are mindful of them . . .? Yet you have made them a little lower than the heavenly ones, and crowned them with glory and honor . . ." When set next to the Genesis creation stories, this passage paints a picture of humanity as the pinnacle of the created world. Humanity is to have "dominion" (Psalm 8:6, Genesis 1:28) over creation, but also to "tend" it (Genesis 2:15). On this knife's edge between dominion and caretaking much Christian thought on creation care has bled. Sadly I think that the conviction that God will replace the present creation with a new one at the end of history has bent Christian ethics largely toward a view of "dominion" and "tending" that embraces maximum exploitation of natural resources.

As a Christian who does not believe in maximum exploitation, I think often of how Christians might rally to a less consumptive view of creation. In the United States at present there is much ado about Native American land ethics. I have encountered mostly oversimplified versions of First Nations ecological ethics, usually romanticized and told from a third-person perspective. Robin Wall Kimmerer's book Braiding Sweetgrass brings something deep, thoughtful, and challenging into view from the Native American perspective.

This part-memoir, part-science lesson, part-spiritual primer weaves together elements that produce a robust proposal for how to live responsibly in the world. Kimmerer reflects on her own experiences as a woman, a mother, and teacher in powerful and poignant vignettes. She also presents in a poetic and accessible way a scientific understanding of ecology and especially botany. And with the same poetry and gentle grace she lines out her Potowatomi spiritual inheritance and how it shapes her view of the Beings that surround humanity.

It is this last--the assertion that maple trees are Maples and bloodroot is Bloodroot--which has caught my attention most. How would my life be different, and how would our life together be different, if I viewed the rest of creation as Beings rather than objects? I mean (and Kimmerer means) something more than viewing cute pets as surrogate children. I mean, as Kimmerer displays, believing that a stand of Aspens has something to say about which or how many of its members may be cut down for fire mitigation or harvested for other human use. I mean believing that one needs to honor wild Leeks, to ask their permission before harvesting, and to be grateful to them for their presence in our meal.

As a consumer at the "top" of the food chain I have been taught to think of plants and many animals as, at best, producers of something that I consume. At worst, they are simply objects. I am the subject, with sole meaningful ethical input and agency, and the created world contains objects on which I act. To borrow Martin Buber's categories: I have an I-It relationship with the world. Kimmerer's challenge is to envision myself in an I-Thou relationship with the world. This challenge does not supplant the I-Thou relationship we have with God, the Creator. Rather, because God chooses and I-Thou relationship with me I choose an I-Thou relationship with all the beloved handiwork of God, down to Sparrow and Leek. Sustaining that relationship becomes more important than my desire to consume.

In Christian sacred writings, there are suggestions about the spiritual personhood of creation. Psalm 148 sings that mountains and hills, fruit trees and Cedars, creeping things and wild birds all give praise to God. How can one give praise to God unless one is a being capable of some sort of declaration? Jesus states that if people don't laud him, the stones will cry out (Luke 19:40). We could understand these as more than literary "devices" and as a way to view the world around us. We Homo sapiens are not a species that stands on top of a laboring pyramid of inferior species. We are members of a greater community for whose welfare we have a greater responsibility because we can think, adapt, and use wisdom.

Braiding Sweetgrass does a beautiful job of opening up to the reader both the complexity of the biological world and the interdependence between all species, including humanity. It also gives us a language for honoring that interdependence and making choices that will contribute to the flourishing of the whole. For this new language I am deeply grateful for Kimmerer's work.

I recommend this book to you in the hope that reading it will draw us all closer to a simpler and healthier life together. I think that our ability to love not only our fellow humans but all the Beings with whom God has surrounded us is part of our training for heaven. Love is an essential ingredient in Kimmerer's book, and it is the essential ingredient in the Christian life. Perhaps love ought to go further than our consumerist ethic tends to allow. After all, if we cannot do well in this creation, why would God want us in the new creation?

~ emrys

Going with the Flow

Upon seeing that the Forward began with a poem authored by none other than William Paul Young (writer of The Shack), I knew that this book would be exceptional. That expectation was not disappointed. Richard Rohr's newest book, The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation ("with" Mike Morrell, Whitaker House, 2016) makes a new case for embracing Trinitarian theology and its implications for the Christian life.

Following the tradition of seventeen hundred years of Trinitarian theology, The Divine Dance contemplates the grand mystery of one God, three persons, "blessed Trinity." Though not explicitly revealed until page 101, Rohr's book sets aside the promise of rational certitude. And with that mainstay of so much traditional theology, it also leaves reason herself on the sidelines. The book presents an unabashed meditation in mystery, often dancing from one opposite in one chapter (such as immanence) to the other in a later chapter (transcendence). Divine Dance leads the reader through a poetic exploration of Trinity's contours and potential for transforming one's experience of God.

The idea of "experiencing God" forms one of the rhythm-section baselines of the book. Mentioned lightly at points along the way--but ever present as an axiom--personal experience anchors Rohr's theology. He rails (as strongly as a Franciscan contemplative can) against theologies emerging from solely cerebral understandings of God. A Trinity performing a continuous dance of love, he asserts, necessitates a God who is present in and with our whole lives, even bodily, that interact with creation and each other. It is at this point that I found the book most appealing and most refreshing: It offers a hope that God can be not just a Something, but a Someone.

Rohr's view of God's presence in and presence with creation, however, flirts with panentheism. And consummate with the idea that God is present in and with all things is Rohr's articulation of the problem of sin. "Articulation" is a strong word in this case, as the only definition Rohr offers for the problem of sin is an image of "going against the flow." Since God's "Trinitarian flow" is in Rohr's view irresistible, however, "sin" (he often puts it in quotation marks) may not be a true problem, but instead an attempt only to delay the inevitable. The repeated use of the word "flow"--a thing as certain as water moving downhill--conjures for me the image of an old hippie telling the type-A personalities in a self-medicated drawl to "just go with the flow, man."

And the problems with the Church described by Rohr, the raisons d'etre for this book, reflect a generation of Christians who grew up with something quite different than I. Rohr's criticism of the Church resonates with what I have deduced from many anecdotes was the situation of the "mainline" churches in America through the 1960s, '70s, and '80s: rigidity, judgmentalism, legalism. But whether I'm right or wrong in that assessment, most of Rohr's (albeit mild, Franciscan, and contemplative) chastisement addresses problems different from what I see. If anything, Rohr's singular focus on an individual's "going with the Trinitarian flow" ignores the crucial matters of community ethics and the pursuit of justice in an evil--yes, sin-filled--world, and is therefore deficient.

It is difficult to say whether I would recommend this book to friends, except as a foil for discussion about the Trinity and discipleship to Jesus. Perhaps I am not mystic enough. Yet.

Thanks, Chris, for sending this gift which has given me occasion for much fruitful reflection.

~ emrys

On Character

A dear friend recommended to me David Brooks' book The Road to Character (Random House, 2015), and she commended it with such strength that I put it on my short list.


Brooks takes up the centuries-old question of how to cultivate strong character. In the introduction he quickly gives up on the idea of teaching character, relying instead on the exemplar, the hero, as the font of maturity and goodness at which the rest of us may drink. In making this decision, Brooks destines The Road to be both intriguing and unsatisfying.


The book intrigues with its explorations of historical figures of deep character. Brooks offers brief but intense biographies of eight famous persons. The way he highlights the peaks and valleys of their lives reveals the vast amount of research and thinking he has done about these figures. His scope spans from the fifth century (Augustin of Hippo) to Bayard Rustin of the mid-1900s. (One could hope that Brooks had increased his geographic scope. He stays in the Western European stream, though examples of character like Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi present themselves readily from other parts of the globe.) Brooks reflects in great depth on experiences that shaped these heroes, whitewashing nothing but asserting that all parts of a person's life contribute to their character. Even without the goal of finding a path to character, The Road is worth a read for the fascinating discussion of these eight personalities.


His good-bad-ugly approach arises from Brooks' "crooked-timber" model of human nature. Throughout the book, he laments the loss of past generations' understanding of the self as deeply flawed, sinful, and in need of control. Though Brooks dodges a simplistic definition of "character," every chapter directly or indirectly shows that struggle with one's darkness gives birth to character. And without the struggle--as his critique of author Michel de Montaigne suggests--real character never comes to life. Beneath his writing is Brook's anchor-hold on "moral realism": Humans are complex creatures because there is, in fact, a right and wrong and we live between those sides. The struggle--within and without--to find the right in the midst of the wrong creates character.


The tone of The Road teeters dangerously close to nostalgia at many points. In the final chapter Brooks attempts to soften the charge against our present generation by saying that the cultural swing of 1950s America went too far. Self-esteem and affirmation are all right, he asserts, but too much has been forgotten. Whether The Road is a condemnation of or corrective to our current culture must be left to the reader to decide. Perhaps the struggle of that judgment will be character-building in itself.


The Road leaves the reader unsatisfied. One might expect from any book entitled "The Road to . . ." to provide some sort of map. And in the final chapter Brooks offers "the Humility Code": 15 things that attempt to summarize what the book has been getting at. The list is however bulky and awkward, perhaps because of its attempt to be inclusive, and offers none of the helpful "shall/shall not"s that we expect from a "code." This weakness in the text serves, on the other hand, to illustrate Brook's point.


There exists no code for the development of character. The stories of those who show good character--as famous as Frances Perkins and Nelson Mandela, or as unknown as my grandmother--are the instruction books for wisdom and maturity. And we ought not to neglect the great silent player, unmentioned in much of Brooks' book: the cause of suffering. Suffering itself comes up many times as the agent of character-building struggle, but the cause of suffering seems so often beyond summoning or control. Catastrophe, abuse, illnesses mental and physical, economic hardship--these all serve as crucibles in which character takes shape.


Perhaps great hope for Brooks' beleaguered generation comes from some impending suffering, some revelation of its own darkness, that will call forth the kind of struggle that brought character in the past. All is not lost: If we are indeed made from "crooked timber," then this hull of cultural positivism will soon breach and we will be cast into the tide of hardship to sink or swim. And in the swimming many more exemplars of good character will be born.


Thanks, Phyllis, for recommending this book!


~ emrys

Expanding Legacy

Dois Rosser stands as an example of someone who uses immense giftedness for good. A seasoned Christian, capable businessman, and dedicated philanthropist, Rosser's life work has become helping small Christian communities in developing nations build worship buildings and spawn new congregations.


The 2011 memoir, The God Who Hung on the Cross: How God Uses Ordinary People to Build His Church, published by International Cooperating Ministries, presents the highlights of ICM's twenty-five years of Spirit-driven work. The fascinating and powerful stories of generosity, determination, and faithfulness reveal what an exciting calling it is to follow the God of Resurrection into unlikely places.


The book presents a series of vignettes from ICM's work which are poignant, funny, startling, and inspirational--at times simultaneously so. The weaving together of these stories creates the picture of a man--Dois Rosser--and his fellow Christians who will go anywhere, eat anything, and talk to anyone in service to Jesus Christ. With just a little money (by American standards) and a great deal of persistence and prayer, ICM gives Christian communities a hand up to creating their own houses of worship. Part of the "payback" is that these communities covenant to plant several new churches in future years. Thus, in the process of helping to construct hundreds of buildings around the world, ICM has helped to create thousands of new congregations.


Add to this the Mini Bible College translation program, which has worked hand-in-hand with ICM, and the dividends of blessing multiply to an even greater degree.


Even if we call can't be a part of International Cooperating Ministries, would that we all could use our talents to multiply God's blessings in such an intentional manner. This book leaves me wondering how I can be part of such a wonderful legacy.


Thanks to Nancy Croker, member of ICM's Board, for giving me a copy of the book!


~ emrys

After Reading Billy Collins' book: Aimless Love (2013)

Poetry Is

like a conversation with my physicist friend

whose eloquent descriptions of molecular interactions

leave me wondering

whether we speak the same language

until I realize

with a big silent bang

as I run to catch up with her words

that the results of her labor

have changed the way I tell time

and have put a global web of information at my fingertips

and in one Oppenheimerian flash

could change the course of civilization,

and I am struck by awe

not at how different we are

but at the eerie perfection with which

she understands the smallest parts

of me.

~ emrys

Frozen and Empty

Jessica Valenti's Sex Object: A Memoir (2016, HarperCollins): heartbreaking. Valenti recounts a harrowing, life-spanning series of encounters in which she is abused, depersonalized, and objectified. Even if her case is extreme, anyone in twenty-first-century American culture must encounter it with horror. A grotesque cavalcade of perverts, miscreants, aggressive boyfriends, and silent watchers--many of whom qualify as "normal people"--leaves the author of Sex Object empty except for fear, and frozen before the possibility of genuine love.


The world around Valenti is inexorably evil. That evil devours the souls of girls and women by making their bodies the expendable tools of self-satisfaction. The ubiquity of the darkness makes every relationship part of the spirit-killing trap: "If we have no place to go where we can escape that reaction to our bodies, where it is that we're not forced? The idea that these crimes are escapable is the blind optimism of men who don't understand what it means to live in a body that attracts a particular kind of attention with magnetic force" (kindle location 898).


I lived some of my life on the other side of this shadow, these crimes. I helped, over many years of my life, to perpetuate the objectification of girls and women with my own beliefs and actions. It has taken me a long time to realize the dark truth of Valenti's experience--which I'm sure is the experience of many more women than we can guess.


I am also struck with horror at the possibilities opened up by Sex Object for my children--a young girl and a young boy. I am terrified by the prospect that either of my children--and, increasingly, any of the children around me--might have to endure even a slight fraction of what Valenti has endured. My daughter could be a victim like Valenti; my son could be a perpetrator like so many she describes. I am now sitting with the question of how to illumine the darkness around us.


The end of Sex Object surprised me with its abruptness. I did not expect Valenti to end with a sure-fire prescription for change. I was not sure even to hope for a list of suggestions. I did expect encouragement, perhaps a plea, perhaps even a direct chastisement (consonant with the tone of the book) to fight for change: a "dear reader" challenge. Perhaps its subtitle, A Memoir, was supposed to exempt it from those expectations. Or, perhaps the book was intended to leave us in a dark and doubtful place.


Or perhaps I tend to look too much for hope. I heard almost none in Sex Object. The "endnotes," a profane litany of evil responses sent to Valenti's past work, provided the frost on a frozen and empty vessel. In my aching search for hope, I observed two things about the narrative of Sex Object.


First, I did not read about any positive community around Valenti. Family, friends, teachers, colleagues--and of course boyfriends--were sources of fear. If positive, supportive, consistent voices might have done something--no matter how small--to counter the vicious violence of her sexualized world, Valenti was deprived of that possibility.


Second, the seeming antidote to love's destruction--genuine, tender care and love--does not work quickly or readily. Valenti writes about encountering kindness after years of perversion: "Being treated nicely felt wrong somehow, as if we were acting out what a relationship should be rather than being in it" (location 1334). As I read along and got invested in Valenti's story, this stuck in me as an excruciating conundrum: to be so twisted by evil as to be unable to recognize good. (It reminds me of Jesus' blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.) Recovery from objectification must then be a long road--perhaps too long a road for this book to trace.


~ emrys

Things That Matter

The few times that I have been exposed to network news yielded the even fewer times that I have heard the commentary of Charles Krauthammer. But those few times have made me think more deeply about the topics at hand. So I borrowed my mom's copy of Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes, and Politics by Krauthammer (Crown Forum (Penguin Random House), 2013).


Krauthammer's duo of complimentary gifts is witty concision and brilliant incision. He cuts to the quick, as a physician of ideas and therapist of words, to find the core and source of the issue at hand. And though his book touches on various and sundry topics--science, ethics, and baseball for instance--the "driver of history" is, for Krauthammer, politics.


He is a dedicated, wise, and articulate conservative. "Conservative" here refers not to a sweeping desire to keep things the same, but holding fast the twin anchors of individual liberty and limited government. Krauthammer's conservatism draws from his pen--ever more starkly evident in this book as the pages turn--stinging criticism of the Democratic party and American Liberalism, especially the kind he sees in the Obama administration. (Given Krauthammer's clear capacity in the book to praise strong individuals, I am surprised at the lack of support for the Bush presidencies. Perhaps he did that more in other venues.)


Krauthammer's articulate demarcation of the boundaries and ideals of conservatism and liberalism have forced me to examine my own values. I don't know whether to call myself a liberal or a conservative (socially, politically, or academically). But now I must wrestle with Krauthammer's compelling arguments. They are arguments which, like all the best arguments, call attention as much to their premises as to their conclusions. And just as the assertion that "politics is the driver of history" is an article of faith, liberty as greatest good and American exceptionalism (historical and existential) are articles of faith. What do I believe about human liberty, and a nation's role with respect to liberty? Is the United States of America exceptional in a meaningful sense? What is the character of its exception? And how does that shape my actions as a citizen?


Most importantly for my current position in the global scene: For whom do I vote in November?


I am weighing a thought that occurred to me as I finished the last essay in Things That Matter: perhaps a good (or the best?) criterion I can use as a voter is not whether I agree with all the policy and personality traits of a candidate. Perhaps a better, or more fundamental, criterion is whether a candidate believes the way I do about what America is supposed to be.


These are beginning thoughts. More to come, I'm sure.


~ emrys

Getting Played

My brother George, a gift-giving uncle extraordinaire, gave my daughter a book for her birthday. The book is about middle-school reading level, which is still a wee bit above my seven-year-old's abilities. But she'll get there soon.

So as to keep the book from languishing unattended on the shelf, I picked up Ellen Raskin's The Westing Game (1978, reprinted 2003). And I had trouble putting it down.

Thrilling, confusing, hilarious, strange, silly, and utterly compelling.

I actually pulled out pen and paper at one point, in an attempt to solve the puzzle at the center of this Clue-like mystery. I got one part, only to discover--like all of Raskin's characters along the way--that I had missed the point.

And when the point finally appeared, I was so intrigued that I went back and read the whole book again. And still:

Thrilling, confusing, hilarious, strange, and utterly compelling.

And through her strange style Raskin masterfully achieves the great goal of all novelists: I was so attached to the characters that I wept at our parting.

The Westing Game.

~ emrys

Renewing Biblical Interpretation

Renewing Biblical Interpretation (Scripture and Hermeneutics Series, Volume 1, 2000) was a challenging read. This collection of essays by academic theologians presents a great variety of material that was at times enlightening, obscure, and wandering, but consistently thoughtful. The unifying force of these authors' work was a sense of crisis in the world of biblical interpretation.

An academic text published in 2000 is old. Nonetheless, reading it in 2016 gave me a renewed appreciation for the bind of contemporary Western Christianity. 18th- and 19th- century historical-critical scholarship, and its sibling changes in philosophy, have together left the Western Church wondering how to interpret our 66 ancient texts. I knew about this difficulty, but Renewing Biblical Interpretation deepened my thought about how the Church handles her scriptures.

A few highlights of the book for me:

Al Wolters offered not only a theoretical 10,000-foot view of the crisis but also a process of interpretation (complete with example case) that included lexigraphical analysis, historical analysis, and "confessional discernment." From the stratospheric soaring of Cambridge academia Wolters' essay provided a refreshing visit to the earth and sea in which most faithful Christians live.

Karl Moller offers a helpful reminder that historical-critical scholarship can carry with it its own theological views and preferences. Rather than throw away historical-critical scholarship, Moller suggests (in harmony with several other contributors to this volume) that we "cultivate an awareness of our own subjectivity and cultural rootedness." He says that Christians need to allow "the text to criticize these and, by so doing, to contribute to . . . the reshaping of our own selves" (p157). My own understanding is that the Spirit through the text shapes and reshapes us, but Moller's point about the biases we bring to scripture is well taken.

Colin Greene's chapter (with the daunting title "'In the Arms of Angels': Biblical Interpretation, Christology and the Philosophy of History") provides an excellent overview of the rise and influence of historical-critical scholarship, and hence the rise of the crisis at hand. For any reader trying to grasp the sweeping historical moves in biblical scholarship, Greene's article is just the thing.

Stephen Wright draws a helpful distinction between the logos of the bible (what the words say), and the poiema of the bible (what the text does). He asserts that historical-critical work can benefit our listening to what the text does in the lives of believers and the Church.

I am intrigued by the references to (and short response by) Nicholas Wolterstorff. Wolterstorff seems to be a Christian philosopher focused on the import and effect of words, divine and human. Sometime I hope to get his kindle edition of Divine Discourse . . . .

Walter Brueggemann offers a reflection on the entire consultation (the gathering which gave rise to this book). A key insight from his piece is that though biblical interpretation has certainly been changing over time, the "crisis" has really come from the bible's place in society. For about 1500 years in Western society everyone was Christian and assumed that the bible was somehow the basis for our society. The ubiquity of assent to the bible is no longer true. Christians are no longer "preaching to the choir," but instead find they need to do "street preaching" (Brueggemann's term) with its concomitant heckling, disbelief, and challenges. I'm on board with his assessment.

The tap root to which this book delivered me was expressed in Brian Ingraffia's article, as he reflected on the work of Baruch Spinoza. From the latter's work Tractatus (15), Ingraffia quotes: "Revelation has obedience for its sole object, and therefore, in purpose no less than in foundation and method, stands entirely aloof from ordinary knowledge; each has its separate province, neither an be called the handmaid of the other" (p290). In my experience, this is still--and might always be--the cutting edge of biblical interpretation. As long as Christians believe that the most basic act of faith is to obey the bible, then they will be in conflict with all the other gods clamoring for obedience: reason, logic, and experience. We cannot serve two masters. If the bible, reason, logic, and experience (all refined by critical study) stand equally ready to serve God, the only master, then we have a hope of using all four in service to God.

I was disappointed to see only one female name in the grand list of authors for this volume. I was also disappointed in the silence of reflection from Latin American, African, and Asian theological perspectives. Perhaps the "crises" of those regions of Christianity would be very different from the reflections in this text; on the other hand, perhaps their crises and insights would be instructive to us Western European-derived traditions.

~ emrys

The Undivided Heart

A critical comment on the cover of Anita Diamant's The Red Tent (Picador, 1997) hails, "It is tempting to say that The Red Tent is what the Bible would be like if it had been written by women . . ." This assertion raises all sorts of wonderful literary, philosophical, and historiographical questions. But those questions are so important neither to the book nor to this reader.

The Red Tent moves with the tidal pull of a regal aunt who finally tells your father's story from her perspective. True to how pre-literate agrarian culture must have felt, the narrative sticks to the reader's feet with all the grit, scents, and daily gore of human society protected only by sheets of canvas and its slow mobility. The appearance of biblical characters grown too familiar in the churched imagination of European minds sets the narrator's hook. There is no escape after the prologue: We are pulled, inexorably, soul-seduced, on the shore of the river where Dinah has her way with us.

The radical division of the sexes hinted at by the Old Testament takes on robust flesh in the life of Dinah. Diamant gives us cause to wonder: If the matriarchs were not silent chattel in the real Ancient Near East, is it possible that the patriarchs were not noble, courageous, and strong? Just as the Old Testament narrative gives women over to uncleanness, is it possible the men were brutish, mean, and deceptive? Exploring the poles of human sexuality and relationship opens up a whole spectrum of human experience, including the possibility that the journey of God's people was not direct, but more complex and mysterious. The cleft of doubt yawns wide: As Dinah herself puts it, life means learning to live with a divided heart.

Diamant ushers us with magnificent skill through innocence, loss, pain, and joy. Aside from one laborious passage leading in to Joseph's story (near the end of the book, after we fully trust Dinah), the complex scents and flavors of Dinah's world carry us naturally from one scene to another, hungry for the next encounter even in the mundane activities of cooking and spinning. We learn from Dinah that every relationship exists in perpetual danger of feast or famine, flood or drought; every next conversation could explode with joy or shatter with anger. And each moment, light or dark, affects the balance of the whole.

Perhaps the greatest feat of The Red Tent is its marriage of the Old Testament ethos with the zeitgeist of the turn-of-the-century West: There is no happy ending, only endurance. There is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but there will be another storm against which the sun will shine. This division between rain and light, storm and silence, is the rending of every human heart. It is why the reader can both weep and laugh in the space of three pages, then hunger for the time it will happen again.

This division is why The Red Tent probably speaks the true other half of the bible.

~ emrys

Imperial Dreams

Few international news arenas garner as much attention in American media as conflict in the Middle East, and especially conflict in the Middle East connected with Israel. So from page one I felt that Ephraim Karsh's 2007 book, Islamic Imperialism: A History, would bring some helpful context to much of the media chatter around me.

The subtitle "A History" has a fascinating multivalence about it. "A history" says that this book is not a policy manifesto. With thorough notation revealing great depth of research, Karsh's text gives the reader an expansive look at the topic from the days of Muhammad up to the first decade of this century. The knowledge brought to bear about Middle Eastern history, literature, and politics reflects what I would expect from the founding director of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King's College London (among many other distinguished titles). Nonetheless Karsh remains focused on one slice of history; this is not a history of Islam, or Islamic cultures, but rather a history of Islamic imperialism. The focus is on the historical pattern of Islamic leaders seeking to unite Muslims, or Arabs, or the known world, under a single political entity.

"A history," emphasis on the indefinite article, suggests that it would be possible to write another history of the same topic. And many other authors undoubtedly would.

This history was, I took note early on, written by an author born of parents who moved to Israel under the British Mandate of the early 20th century, attended Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and attained the rank of major in the Israeli Defense Forces. This personal context might explain why this book, undergirded on every page by such clear and extensive research, evinces a tone of disdain for all things Islamic or Arab. Even the positive cultural attributes of past Middle Eastern societies are treated with an upturned nose. The space between the lines of this text declare that there is nothing good--perhaps nothing redeemable at all--about Islam or Arabs.

Karsh's hammer drops in the Epilogue, ringing in the conclusion built up throughout the book that imperialism is an unworthy fantasy: "if the political elites of the Middle East and elsewhere were ever to reconcile themselves to the reality that there is no Arab or Islamic nation, but only modern Muslim states with destinies and domestic responsibilities of their own, the imperialist dream would die" (p240). The idea that Islam or "pan-Arabism" could unify a people worldwide, says Karsh, is a complete illusion. The only real geopolitical entity is the modern nation-state.

The book raises enough examples of Muslim and Arab leaders behaving poorly so as to secure the prejudices of anyone with a shred of bias against those descriptors. This attitude may be the factor which will keep the book in circulation, especially now that ISIS/ISIL fits Karsh's mold so nicely. But Karsh's assertion that worldwide Islamic unity must surrender to the lines on a map (which same lines are the sole proof of Israel's legitimacy, let us not forget), comes part-and-parcel with another assertion about Islam as a faith. Muslims must "reconcile themselves to the reality of state nationalism . . . and make Islam a matter of private faith rather than a tool of political ambition" (p241).

Many of us would, I think, agree that an imperialism (of any faith) which seeks to destroy others--like Karsh's historical examples and ISIS/ISIL today--should be dismissed. However, I wonder if privatization of faith and the limitation of social ambition to national boundaries provide a desirable--or workable--solution. I can sympathize with this book's desire to offset the atrocities of past empires, but I don't know that "imperialism," as a desire to influence those currently outside our sphere of influence, is the proper dragon to slay.

To brass tacks: As a Christian I believe that Jesus Christ is the Lord of all creation and history, the head of an empire both spiritual and temporal. I believe that this is good news, on many levels, to those who hear it. I also believe that in Jesus Christ humanity has been given an ethic of self-sacrificing love which, no matter the present faith of a person or group, is the best ethic to follow.

If I, as a voter and potential leader in my own nation, privatize my faith and allow the nation-state to which I belong to establish its own ethic and priorities, then are we better off? Is it not precisely because I believe my nation-state is capable of reflecting the commands and ethics of my Emperor--who calls us to move outward to others--that I can function and serve in this nation-state?

Though I apply to myself the challenge Karsh makes to "Middle Eastern political elites," one of the fascinating minor chords in this book is its absolution of Western, European nation-states in the dilemmas of the Middle East. He insists, against the common interpretation of Middle East conflict as resulting from Western (imperial?) meddling, that all the conflict and tension have arisen from the choices and desires of Middle Eastern leaders themselves. Karsh even goes to so far as to say that the Western powers, even as they take actions against which Middle Eastern leadership protests, are acting as pawns of the Islamic imperialist machinations of the region. It is as if to say that upon entering the seventeenth-century political enlightenment of nationalism, all societies west of Istanbul (not Constantinople!) washed themselves of any responsibility for problems in the Middle East.

As much as I appreciate having my nation (and not insignificantly the State of Israel in the process) absolved, I am suspicious of such a clear line. I have the impression from my own study of history that international affairs are a tangled web of darkness and light. And perhaps, as Karsh's labors imply (but do not say), the value of a political philosophy is best tested not by asking "Nation-state or Empire?" but by asking, "Does it produce good for those within and without?"

Thanks to Frank Amalfitano for allowing me the blessing of this book from his library. It has been an enriching read!

~ emrys

Be a Leader: Stop It!

"Stop it!" That was Dr. Switzer's instruction to his client to help her get over her irrational fear. Every time the anxious thought crossed her mind, she was to remember: "Stop it!" The first step of returning to normal life was shutting up the lie.

Jeffrey Pfeffer, Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Stanford School of Business, says "Stop it!" to the leadership industry. His new book, Leadership BS (Harper Business, 2015), cries foul at the whole juggernaut of leadership training. Reflecting on the ubiquitous panoply of badly behaved leaders (think Steve Jobs, Martha Stewart, Anthony Wiener), miserable workplaces, and oppressed employees, Pfeffer stabs an accusatory finger at the roaring leadership industry.

"Stop it!" he says. Stop buying the ineffective horse-hockey peddled by the industry.

Don't let your leadership derive from inspiration. (It won't work.)

Don't be modest. (Successful leaders can't afford to be.)

Don't be authentic. (Whatever that means).

Don't worry about telling the truth. (The matter is more complex than that.)

Don't make trust your cornerstone. (No one is trustworthy.)

Look out for #1, because that's what everyone else is doing.

In his closing chapter, Pfeffer cites the legacy of Niccolo Machiavelli, an apt move given the thrust of the book. One edge of his thesis--the righteous edge--slices through the pablum of the inspirational leadership industry. He wants the leadership world to stop contributing to the deception that holding up cardinal virtues is anything more than wishful thinking that ruins careers. The other edge--the Machiavellian edge--cuts through the impression that the business world is anything but a shark tank. People are out for themselves, that's how it is: "Get over it" (p192). The sooner we realize that's how the world works, the sooner we can change things.

The subtitle of the book is Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time. This suggestive phrase is what really enticed me to buy the book (though I must confess my attraction to a title with "BS" in it). Let's change the system so that leaders behave better, workplaces are more enjoyable, and employees have a greater sense of satisfaction. How do we do that?

The last paragraph of Pfeffer's book begins, "I'm not sure what will make a difference in the leadership crisis that cost leaders their careers and provide too many employees with enervating work environments" (p220). He just knows that what the current leadership industry provides is not doing the trick. But how to enact positive change is a mystery.

Leadership BS makes an excellent case for reframing our understanding of business leadership around verifiable research and common sense rather than naive inspirational fluff. The numerous stories of good leaders getting the shaft endeared me to Pfeffer's truth-telling cause. But his description of self-interest as the necessary platform for business culture, though perhaps true, does not leave this reader with much hope for better. Perhaps Pfeffer can't see a solution to the leadership crisis because, given his foundation, there isn't one.

Perhaps changing the culture with which Pfeffer has become exasperated will not happen because of a magic technique, business plan, or organizational structure. Perhaps it will come from changing the definition of success It struck me that Pfeffer runs in, and writes about, circles of leaders who make salaries with six or seven figures and have a capital "C" and "O" in their titles. When success is defined by a title that starts with "Chief" and an exorbitant income, then perhaps the business philosophy of an Italian Prince is inevitable. (And one is left to wonder whether medieval Florence had a higher or lower employee satisfaction than current U.S. businesses.)

Does "getting real" about leadership woes mean giving up hope for good leaders and good business?

(By the way, one can view the fabulous performance of Bob Newhart as Dr. Switzer on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow0lr63y4Mw)

~ emrys

Real Fairy Tales: Hans Christian Andersen

If you sit through all the credits after the film Frozen, you will read the statement that Disney's latest princess blockbuster is based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale "The Snow-Queen." I know that Disney has mastered the art of seducing twenty-first century viewers; but Andersen wrote in the late nineteenth century. I wondered: Just how much of Andersen's story was preserved in the adventures of Elsa and Anna?

Barnes & Noble sells a hardcover tome entitled Classic Fairy Tales (2012) which, though not stated to be "complete," is a thorough 697-page collection of Anderesen's fanciful stories. Reading through them all is a journey often strange (as mice questing to make "Soup From a Sausage Peg"), sometimes witty (as the lesson about pride in "The Emperor's New Clothes"), and occasionally laborious (as the drawn-out plot of "The Marsh King's Daughter"). The style, translated from nineteenth-century Denmark, quite reasonably takes some getting used to. But once the reader falls in with Andersen's cadence, his writing is easily followed.

Disney fairy-tales these are not. The vast majority of Andersen's tales do not end in a "happily ever after." Take, for instance, "The Little Mermaid." Instead of Disney's nuptial sail into a regal sunset, Andersen paints a painful scene of noble suicide, with a strange metaphysical twist. Like so many other Andersen tales, the denouement is death (as in the famous "The Little Match Girl" and less famous "Story from the Sand Hills"), inviting the reader to consider her own mortality and eternal destiny. Rather than lifting up redemption in the form of human love and romantic free-will, Andersen's stories reflect on death as the universal human experience, then point to the Christian message of eternal life.

What makes these "fairy tales" is not their optimism about mortal life but rather their insistence that beyond the thin veil of human experience is another world. Animals can reason and talk like humans (as in "The Story of the Year"); metal and stone objects have personalities (as in "The Money Pig," reminiscent of Disney's Toy Story); the commonest items may be magical (as in "The Galoshes of Fortune"). A glimpse through the gossamer curtain is a journey into the depths of reality, whose fathoms give insight into human dealings on the mundane surface.

That journey into a different, wondrous world may be the thread that stitches all of Andersen's tales together. To read his stories one must be ready to go the distance in imagination, or sometimes in plain geography. Many of the tales read like the fireside embellishments of a well-traveled uncle, mystifying young listeners with his adventures abroad. From a few of the yarns one might even be able to knit cogent maps (as in "The Ice Maiden," a zigzag narrative through the crags of Switzerland). Another world--through the veil or just down the road--waits to be discovered, if only one will risk danger, misfortune, and death to experience it.

Success and happy endings are God's reserve to grant or keep, according to Andersen. Only adventure for adventure's sake, travel for learning's sake, and suffering for wisdom's sake await the one who crosses familiar bounds. But even acknowledging the shadow behind the curtain, reading these classic tales might still inspire the twenty-first century reader to pierce the veils of life and discover the wonders beyond.

Andersen's Snow Queen is a chilling metaphysical kidnapper, nothing like the misunderstood Princess Elsa of Frozen fame. Kay and Gerda, the heroes of Andersen's original, do live happily ever after, but only because of the invocation of Jesus in pious verse. The ice-witch remains an unexplained phantom, beyond understanding or control. And perhaps this alteration of the tale is most telling for us. The enemies of the Disney tale are misguided parents, mistaken siblings, and a misogynist prince--human elements overcome by human love. Gone are Andersen's fairy depths, in which dwell forces beyond our ken and control.

Disney has mastered the art of seducing us with the pleasant diversion we have come to expect. But by giving up the dark depths of Andersen's fairy world, perhaps we lose what is most important in his tales: the haunting mystery and transcendent wonder waiting just behind the curtain.

~ emrys