Sanctioned Gossip

 "We took her out skiing for the first time, and she yard-saled on a green run!"

It's the most natural thing in the world for a parent. We talk about our kids' lives. Especially with other parents, it's a prerequisite to any other significant conversation. And we have a certain proclivity to talk about the bad things.

"I really don't approve of this new girlfriend. The family she comes from . . . well, let's just say . . ."

And then we say it: the attention-getting thing, the thing that sets our judgment nerves a-twitching, the thing that the other parents should receive with an "Oh, yeah!" before sharing their own stories of children running afoul.

"She just spends so much time on her screen! She says she's doing her schoolwork, but when I come in the room I hear something from TikTok!"

The parental tendency to talk about their kids brings credibility in the parent community. It is almost socially necessary to be able to complain about the strange, difficult, or negative events which children inevitably bring upon themselves and about which parents rightfully stress and worry. Airing our kids' misdeeds might even serve as a pressure-release valve. There is, after all, comfort in knowing that we're not the only ones suffering mishaps and malfeasance from our offspring.

Looking at the bare facts of this behavior, though, reveals that what parents do is simply sanctioned gossiping. The long, distinguished pedigree of this behavior does not remove its essential character: We air the dirty laundry of someone else in front of third parties in order to cause our bond with those third parties to strengthen in the mutual embrace of humor, disappointment, shock, and scorn. All from credit drawn on someone else's reputation.

In the face of such a long and permeating history you might feel driven (like me) to shrug and move past this 1,600-pound cultural gorilla. But this beast has given birth to another which does not sit in the corner so quietly.

I was recently reminded of the debate about whether to post pictures of one's baby(ies) online. It's not just babies of course. As our children grow up there grows an endless litany of events to report to the wider world. But as our children get older they become responsive to their own digital presence--a shout-out to Gwyneth Paltrow's daughter for calling this to mind so beautifully. While her example was not one involving negative behavior, I'm quite sure most of us can think of times we've seen embarrassing or strange footage in social media about someone's children.

Technology, or media, does not invent content. It simply conveys, and amplifies, content that already exists. Parents have been relaying the foolish choices of their children to other people (via in-person speech, telephone, and letter) for aeons. Our current digital media allow that same communication to go farther, faster, and in more directions than ever before. And the reports have the capacity to stay in cyberspace--available to be searched--for a long time. The gossip is the same as it has been--and always will be? But the speed and reach of that bad news gets faster and farther with every new technological advance.

As a parent who has the ability to affect my children in so many ways, far into the future, I want to recognize the root of the tendency to gossip about my kids. I want to recognize that parents seem to have been given the right to gossip about their children, and the habit becomes ingrained very early, from the time I told that story about how my infant son chose an electric cord as a teething toy. And I want to recognize that, especially with ever-advancing technologies, the impact of that gossip will become greater and greater. What may have begun as the formation of a small-town social reputation that could easily be escaped will become a 5,000-pound beast that follows my child around--around the globe--for the rest of her life.

The amplifying power of social media brings to light a convicting thought that applies even to the human beings that I helped bring into the world, for whom I have sacrificed so much, and in whom I have invested so much: There is no good gossip.

Even if it seems that it must cost me social capital as a parent, I want to publish to the world only encouragement and blessing for my kids, no matter the technology, no matter the medium.

~ emrys

Two Strange Discoveries (Two Days Before Election Day)

One.

This morning I listened to a radio broadcast of one of my favorite political commentators, Mara Liasson. The content of the show revolved around all the political drama of this election week. But one assertion Ms. Liasson made struck me especially: She summarized a Trump and Republican party position that greater voter turnout hurts the Republican party. She indicated that there exists some wide agreement in the GOP that taking actions to limit voter turnout serves as an important party strategy.

Perhaps I have heard this before, but just this morning--maybe because of this election sharpening my political senses--it really sunk in. What a strange thing! In order to assert that limiting voter turnout is better for one's party, it seems that one must necessarily believe something else about the citizenry. For instance, that a majority of citizens cannot--are truly unable to--see what's best for the country (which, if one is Republican, one must believe about Republicanism). Or, as another possibility--closely aligned with the first--that a minority of citizens have the de facto right or privilege to determine governance (because they're Republican). And thus, in either case, the proper thing to do is to limit the right (to vote) of a significant portion of the population.

What an odd thing, to believe that in order to best safeguard the country founded upon basic freedoms like voting is to limit voting.

* * *

Two.

In another interview during the same show, Shelley Moore Capito (Republican Senator from West Virginia) declared that it would be important for a Democratic president and Democratic House to have a Republican Senate as a "firewall"--because government needs "checks and balances."

Color me naive, but I learned (in middle school) that in American governance the phrase "checks and balances" refers to the checking and balancing functions of the three branches of government: executive, legislative, and judiciary. Regardless of the party composition of each, their task is to test each other's work against the Constitution. Internally, their tasks are done as a whole: the legislature makes laws, the president executes administrative tasks, and the judiciary judges. Together. But Capito's statement reveals something radically different.

Rather than working together to devise laws that will serve the majority or totality of the American people, the legislature's task, according to Capito's "checks and balances," is to serve as an arena in which Democrats check Republicans, and vice versa. By logical extension, the task of an individual Supreme Court justice is not to collaborate with her fellows to produce a unified decision for a case, but to "check and balance" the opinions of the other justices who have different political leanings.

Take it one step further, and we might say that these neologized "checks and balances" indicate that we don't elect representatives, senators, and presidents to represent our communities at the federal level; instead we send them up to oppose the other party. So instead of governance by reason, cooperation, and compromise we get governance by opposition, conflict, and martyrdom (or filibuster).

Should we change our middle school curricula to redefine "checks and balances"? Shall we teach our children that the opposing party is our enemy? Or do we have another way?

~ 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

The Democratic Mess

For the past two months I have driven past many yard signs that tout political candidates whom I favor. I have driven by lots of signs trumpeting candidates for whom I will not vote. And I have investigated the platforms of candidates on the ballot whose names I do not see at all on local signs.

When I drive past the adverts for candidates who will not receive my vote, I am tempted to think that somehow those "opposing" voters have missed something. I am easily drawn into the fantasy that if only they would see the world more completely--in other words, the way I see it--then they would agree with me. Then so much of our political rancor would recede into reasonable agreement.

I suppose that many of those who would never vote for my favored candidates think the same way about me.

I cannot depend on "reason" or "enlightenment" or "patriotism" or "sanity" leading us all to the same candidates. The reason we have two opposed main parties and a plethora of candidates in every election is, I think, precisely because we cannot agree on what characteristics or principles make a candidate or a governmental system good and effective. The only common feature among us as voters is the fact that "we" are all voters.

"We" are a collection of "I"s living our lives, having our thoughts and experiences, and forming our political opinions. And since we are independent "I"s, we are living, having, and forming those things independently. But each of us will vote from our foundation of "I."

So the process of voting, of politics, is an assertion of my thoughts, desires, and ambitions. Voting is the most selfish of political endeavors. What I want, what I think, what I believe is important will guide my vote. Some of us will vote one particular way because we hope to get more money (from the government, from our business, from tax breaks) as a result. Some of us will vote one particular way because we hope to fight climate change, or help immigrants; some because we hope that the government will just do less and therefore give us more freedom.

But all of these motivations to vote as we do come from a sense of selfishness: my gain, my principles, my goals.

This is the seed of democracy: that the one thing we can all agree on, politically, is that we're all pursuing our own interests. The only thing we can depend on, as free Americans, is that we're in it for ourselves. This might sound like a downer--elevating selfishness, and all--but in fact it is part and parcel of the American project. The moment I am not allowed to pursue my self-interest to the fullest is the moment I am no longer free.

"Life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness": These words describe the character of freedom and mandate that politics become a scrum of self-interested individuals. Those individuals may clot up for a while--out of self-interest, to get their needs met--but when a party's direction no longer aligns with their interests, they're off and away. Freely.

In fact, as Americans the distance we go as "we" is very short before we become a feline herd of "I"s. That distance is the Constitution, and at the end of that parchment our political unity ends. To prove the point, even the matter of how to interpret the Constitution divides us. But at least we agree that the Constitution is the thing we need to interpret in order to establish our laws. Of course, if enough us believe that the Constitution does not serve our interests then . . . and the American project continues.

So it seems right and proper that the diversity of voices in the United States leads to the political mess of this year's election, and every election in fact. The system is working. Freedom of speech is working. The right to vote--and the parallel sense of entitlement to vote however I want--is working.

I will take comfort in the yard signs whose perspective I cannot fathom. I will worry when we're all in lock-step with a party or candidate and I am pleased by every yard sign. Because then we won't be in a democracy anymore.

Faith and Law

 Reading some of the early commentary on Supreme Court nominee Amy Barrett, I was struck by constitutional attorney Andrew Seidel's reference to Ms. Barrett's "past comments about the conflict between faith and law." (Mr. Seidel works with the Freedom From Religion Foundation.) I have not looked up whence came those "comments about the conflict between faith and law," but the phrase itself gave me pause.

It pinged for me the remembrance of many conversations in which folks asserted that the United States is a "Christian nation," or that somehow being American intrinsically allies one with Christian faith and ethics. And with that ping in my grey matter came a thought that I've been mulling over for some time: the references (or lack thereof) to Christ in the founding documents of the United States.

The Constitution has no reference to Jesus Christ, or even to God. It is a non-theistic document. If the authors wished to somehow ground the Constitution in some sort of theological foundation, we would expect that grounding to appear in the Preamble at least. But no reference to the divine appears there. The only god of the Constitution is "the People."

Our next search for a Christian basis for the United States would be in the Declaration of Independence--not, strictly speaking, a document founding this nation but justifying its separation from Britain. Here, at first glance, we might think we had found our proof.

"The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" figures in the first paragraph as the authority determining which peoples may become their own nation. The term "God," however, is without explicit content. In contrast, Christians stake their lives on the assertion that the God of the cosmos is the God who is filially connected to Jesus Christ (see 2Cor1:3, et al). The name Jesus Christ circumscribes the nature of God. Not only did the authors of the Declaration omit the name of Jesus Christ, they may also have indicated that they were only interested in invoking the God belonging to Nature, that is, the God who is known through Nature. That God is not known through revelation, whereas the God of Jesus Christ is known only through revelation. The authors of the Declaration may have intentionally set their document apart from the Christian God.

The second paragraph references a "Creator," and the final paragraph mentions both a "Supreme Judge of the world" and "divine Providence." These three serve as ambiguous pointers to something above humanity but indistinct and certainly not connected to Jesus Christ. In fact, the "authority" on which the Declaration rests is expressly "the good People of these Colonies." Given that the founding authors were intellectually astute, literate, and raised in a Christian culture, the omission of a connection between Jesus Christ and the God in the Declaration could not be happenstance. They did not intend for the document to be "Christian" in any meaningful way. They intended it to be literally "democratic": ruled by the People.

The sole authority for the governance of the United States, as per the Constitution, is the People. We may well argue whether or not the founders assumed that all People would cast their vote, legislate, execute, and judge based on Christian values. The final texts with which they left us, however, produce no such mandate.

If the god of the United States is the People, then we the People of the United States are doomed to encounter conflict between the Christian faith and American law. The God of Jesus Christ does not accommodate any other gods. We Christians are living the Mosaic dilemma: We discover God's commandments on the summit only to learn that the masses (to which we belong) are doing their own thing at the bottom of the mountain. The dilemma gets rehashed in Jesus' lifetime: The crowds that listen rapt to Jesus' teaching call for his crucifixion.

The only alternative to this conflict would be the establishment of a Christian theocracy (or bibliocracy) in the United States. I suspect that the founders sensed that such an establishment would have resulted in a far more contentious and bloody national life than the vicissitudes of rule by the populace. Here is the genius of making the People the supreme ruler of a nation: The successes of the nation will be ours and the failures of the nation will be ours, no matter our creed.

Mr. Seidel is right to insist that those examining Amy Barrett for the Supreme judicial bench ask her about her religious beliefs. Doing so will reveal conflicts between her Christian ethics and the ethics of the People. All Christians will experience conflicts between their ethics and the ethics of the People, as will Muslims, Baha'i, Hindus, Jews, and every other faith besides the faith in the People.

Supreme Court justices take an oath of office swearing allegiance to the Constitution. It would seem unfair to ask justices to set aside their core convictions about the world as they do their job. So perhaps our quest for good justices should not seek out those who believe the way we do. Rather we ought to call for justices whose only god is the People; otherwise will not their oath of office be hypocrisy?

Of course, the answer to this leads us into the question of whether Christians, beholden to trust only in the God of Jesus Christ, may swear allegiance to another entity. That's a topic for another time.

~ emrys

The Doom of Education

 "Sesame Street ruined education." So said a friend of one of my family members, a seasoned educator of elementary children. His assertion was that in joining entertainment and learning at the hip, Sesame Street (and now Dora, Diego, Prodigy, Reflex, and so many others) had established an expectation that education must be entertaining. The idea that learning can be complemented by entertainment, especially on the screen, morphed into the expectation that learning without entertainment will not work.

I presently oversee a good deal of my children's learning because we chose to enroll them in online education this term. The saintly teachers at our local school district mediate the curricula and online learning platforms, but the bulk of monitoring and question-answering falls to my wife and me. As a result I have been given a window into the media that convey lessons to my kids.

There are a lot of cartoons.

There are a lot of expanding and shrinking stars that dance across the screen at the completion of a lesson.

And in the case of, say, Prodigy (a math game designed to "encourage a growth mindset and foster success"), there is a whole lot of clicking an avatar character around a cartoon map with a few math problems thrown in.

As you brace yourself to tolerate another "back in my day" diatribe, let me say that I have fond memories of when my teachers discovered that PowerPoint allowed them to make a Jeopardy game out of course material. (Take a moment to figure out my age. Then keep reading.) I experienced lots of Fridays at school in which we played games with our vocabulary and problem-solving skills. And we sometimes even got candy for prizes.

Let me also put to rest your suspicion that I'm going to say learning ought to be a drag. I find education, by offering new vistas of understanding and by building new skills, a positive experience. I think discovery itself is fun and success in learning brings its own joy.

But I want to draw a distinction between the joy of learning and entertainment. I want also to draw a distinction between receiving some form of entertainment as a reward for learning and receiving entertainment as the medium through which learning is expected to occur. I use the word "medium" here pointedly, as in Marshall McLuhan's "the medium is the message." I think it is dangerous to embed learning in entertainment precisely because we will gain the implicit understanding that if something is not entertaining it's not worthwhile to learn, or we will excuse ourselves from the learning with something about "learning styles" or a lack of ability. Learning will become a subset of entertainment.

I believe, as I wrote, that learning brings a reward. We receive the satisfaction of correctly completing a geometry proof. We finally figure out the key to a wiring diagram on a Zetor tractor so we can fix the heating fan. We work over an obscure bit of Schleiermacher until we grasp its meaning and it opens up our world. We practice suburi with our bokkens until we memorize the flow of the sword blade.

But the process of learning may not be--I dare say probably will not be--entirely fun. It will not do what entertainment does: allow us to passively receive pleasure produced by someone else. There will be moments of frustration and moments of choice in which we could forfeit the whole enterprise if we do not persevere. Especially in learning the hardest, most important parts of life--like how to be reconciled to someone whom we have injured--I think that entertainment is antithetical to learning and the habits being learned. One who expects learning to be forever fun will never be able to learn those kinds of skills.

I have not reached a place in my meditations from which I can propose a method by which to stem this tide that I see. But perhaps you have and, I hope, are already pursuing it. Or perhaps you can observe with me and discern whether what I'm describing is accurate and, if so, look with me for an adequate response. It would seem to me better to encourage now a culture of joy in rigorous learning than have to cure a culture that rejects any task not entertaining enough.

~emrys

The Shoe on the Other Foot: Noughts + Crosses

I spend as little time as possible in front of a screen. And I have become adept at ignoring adverts that appear as I scroll through the few things I do look at. So it seems providential that I should have paid attention to an advert on my phone for an original tv series on Peacock entitled Noughts + Crosses.

This first-season series imagines a London which, for the last 700 years, has been colonized by an African empire. Sephy, a young woman from the privileged African class ("Crosses"), and Callum, a young man from the oppressed British Isles class ("Noughts"), begin a romantic relationship that is against the law because of their skin colors. Meanwhile city-wide racial tensions continue to rise around them.

At first the narrative trick seems too simple: Invite European and American viewers, so accustomed to seeing (or not seeing) racism in a certain way, to imagine a world in which that power relation is inverted. But the trick works. Simple inversion brings the facts of our world into haunting relief. All the trends of systemic racism, from interactions with police to sexual stereotypes to economic disparities, leap out at the viewer--especially this privileged white viewer--and take hold of the gut in a way that all the books on antiracism do not.

The inversion works because the script and direction present complex characters who could be any of us. Their stories, full of struggles normal and poignant, pull us along so that the offenses of racism stand out with stabbing cruelty. In the spacious homes of the privileged Crosses smiles are easy and comfortable, if often false. In the dilapidated flats of the Noughts faces are tense and conversations fraught, even if familial bonds are tighter. It all leaves this viewer feeling oppressed by a persistent segregation of prosperity, of attitude, of possibility. Of course, I will admit that this effect may be much more intense for me, who have been able to stand aloof from the tension of racism for most of my life. But I suspect that this effect is precisely the intended one.

Noughts + Crosses works so beautifully also because it does more than simply invert the skin colors of 21st-century Londoners. Centuries of domination by African cultures mean that the architecture, fashions, and political structures of the world have a distinctly African theme. London's skyline bows beneath an African woman holding aloft a globe--this world's answer to the pale Statue of Liberty in ours. Speech is sometimes punctuated by phrases from African dialects (think of the Mandarin phrases that popped up in the series Firefly.) The Nought culture includes Celtic symbolism, and as they struggle for political power one hears the echoes of the Irish under British rule. The result of these details is a rich, subtle, and utterly captivating setting for Sephy and Callum to find each other.

Because for all of its power at presenting the realities of racism and racial tensions, Noughts + Crosses is a love story. Here are Romeo and Juliet for the present day. Whether they will make it together moves the plot with irresistible gravity, and makes the dark shadows of their world all the more personal and threatening. When Sephy asks Callum, "What can we do? We're only two people," the threat of despair vibrates through the screen into our world. What can any of us do? We are just individuals.

Noughts + Crosses shows clearly that what Sephy and Callum see in each other must be greater than the hatred and violence of their world. They ache for an ending of happiness and freedom. They echo the hope that we, faced in 2020 with this new surge of resistance to racism, want to have for our own world. So I will keep watching, and maybe from it gain more courage and inspiration for solving the hatred and violence of our world. I want an ending here, too, in which we can all be happy and free.

~ emrys

A Hypothesis

 A drive around our neighborhood treats the driver to the sight of many "Trump 2020" signs. Our neck of the woods even enjoys the ironic proclamation of Trump-supporting flags subtitled "Stop the Bull**it." (I am thankful that I've not yet had to explain that phrase to my inquisitive young children--but I'm sure it's just a matter of time before they read it and ask.)

The plethora of local support for the incumbent president makes me reflect on the desires of voters who have a radically different political perspective than I. In light of the number of false statements made by the incumbent president, it occurs to me that his supporters do not view honesty and integrity as a necessary virtue in a presidential candidate. In light of the president's misogyny, it seems to me that decency, kindness, and respect (not to mention desiring justice for women generally) are not important for his supporters. And for dyed-in-the-wool Republicans, the incumbent president shouldn't have high appeal.

So why vote for Trump? We all vote for reasons that seem good to us. There must be good reasons for seeking his reelection in November.

The simple "not a Democrat" rationale seems initially appealing, but for the drawbacks listed above. A Republican (or anyone else) who respects the value of our constitutional democracy would, I think, be appalled at these toxic characteristics of the incumbent president. The effect of his presidency has not, I think, proven anything about the value of the Republican party or platform over the Democratic one. All it has done, I think, is spread a maelstrom of political damage and destruction--

And at this point in my reflections my present hypothesis surfaced. I hypothesize that the main positive motivation for support of our incumbent president is a desire for political destruction. The call to "drain the swamp" has come to mean "cripple the federal system by whatever means possible, even if those means are themselves awful." The Republican goal, in Trump, has transformed from "limited government" to "hobbled government so dysfunctional that it can't even organize itself to interfere in state and local affairs." Similar to the "any port in a storm" adage, perhaps Trump supporters feel that there exists no reasonable hope to reform the federal government. The solution? Cause it to collapse from the inside by electing someone who will, through malice and incompetence, cause the system to seize up.

We all have complex motivations for our political leanings. But I submit this "executive demolition" motivation as a driving force for those supporting the incumbent president in his upcoming reelection bid. My next wondering is whether the president senses this desire from his base. If so, then his reelection could mean an even more intense and distasteful second term. Could he permanently cripple the executive branch?

~ 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

Who's In Charge Here?

President-Elect Donald Trump has all but declared that he will not appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton, as he promised during the campaign. The number of popular and energizing promises that Mr. Trump made before the election which are now being scuttled continues to rise. Some cynical political commentators might say that during the campaign Mr. Trump lied to get votes.

I don’t think Mr. Trump lied on the campaign trail. I think he was acting. Donald Trump was acting aggressive, mean-spirited, and vindictive because he knew (or intuited) that this façade would gain him votes. Like a poker player acting calm with his straight flush in hand, or a negotiator acting like he has the power position, Mr. Trump broadcasts whatever is necessary to make the deal that he wants to make.

Take one step further into this semi-metaphor of acting. Actors do not make films. Writers compose the script, producers arrange the logistics. And directors, as the name implies, really guide the show. Even the best of actors, with poor direction, can turn a good script into a disaster. Actors are lost without a good director.

We have seen what a good actor Mr. Trump is. We know that he can follow the direction of a discontented citizenry who believes that they have been put last on the agenda. We know that he can follow the direction of the real estate market and international business interests. We know that he works well under the direction of reality television rubrics.

In less than two months, Mr. Trump will be the President of the United States. The question is not whether he will be able to act well in that role. The star actor has stolen the show already. The crucial questions are different. Who will his director be? Who in fact will be running the show?

~ emry