Literacy and its discontents

I turned the radio on yesterday and caught a snippet of someone speaking on Democracy Now. I'm not a fan of this program since it generally seems utterly paranoid, but this caught my attention and I was able to find out from their site today that the speaker was Buckminster Fuller. He said, "When humanity is primarily illiterate, it needs leaders to understand and get the information and deal with it. When we are at the point where the majority of humans themselves are literate, able to get the information, we’re in an entirely new relationship to universe. We’re at the point where the integrity of the individual counts and not what the political leadership or the religious leadership says to do. It’s a matter now of humanity getting to the point where it’s now qualifying to make some of its own decisions in relation to its own information. That’s why we’ve come to a new moment of integrity." This awareness of the importance of literacy clicks with the issues I've been struggling regarding Episcopalians' approach to Scripture and authority, as well as the current presidential campaigns. What do we really want in a leader? I have probably noted before that St. Jonah's is conflicted to the marrow about this. We desperately want it both ways. We really want a leader who supports and affirms what we already think and feel, and maybe pushes us just a teensy bit further in that direction (and pushes those who aren't there a whole lot further in that direction). Which is why I think more and more that the very idea of a congregation choosing its own pastor is ill-founded and we should return to the idea of the hierarchy appointing people (I hear even the Methodists do this). But why, I ask myself, am I so ready to believe a hierarchy, a magisterium, is going to be more capable than we are? Aren't I just longing for pre-literacy days when us folks just had to listen to authority with humility and obedience? Isn't it natural that those two virtues would fade away now that we are all empowered to read and learn? And yet, and yet, this is no longer really the era of literacy that Fuller heralded. It is the post-literate era. No, that doesn't mean that fewer people can process letters and words in a textual form, and it doesn't just mean that fewer people choose to do so, particularly outside of the internet. It means that we now realize that each and every one of us derives a different meaning from those letters and words, and even one person derives a different meaning at different times. Yes, big revelation: that's the message of Derrida et al. and has been subsumed into the general postmodernist view, and all I'm really doing here is calling it the postliterate reality, because I think that is a more accurate term (and calling anything an accurate term in this context is, I suppose, an exercise in futility). Yet, it sheds a ray of light that reveals things are not really so different after all from the pre-literate era. Maybe now, more than ever, we need a magisterium.

The beach, life, death, etc.

The local news has been all about Ted Kennedy since his seizures and diagnosis of a brain tumor. I take great interest in hearing the medical details and seeing how well he is doing, happy he gets to go home and be with his dogs, his boats. I realize that even though I don't always agree with his positions, he is such a familiar figure and face here in Massachusetts. He's a fixture. It is getting on a year since my father's diagnosis of his cancer having metastasized to his brain, so I feel that connection too. Also strange, because when I think back to my earliest childhood memory of this Senator's brother being assassinated, I understand that this first intimation of the mortality of fathers has marked me in a deep way, so that I feel connected to Ted, the lesser brother, the one who screwed up bad at Chappy. On Memorial Day weekend, Mr. Crackles suggested we go to the Cape for the day and just check it out, so we wake up early, see the Teddy news and hear about the Fugawi boat race that he will not be racing in. First we go to Harwich, because that is where Mr. Crackles's family always went. It is nice: the parking is free till June, we walk on the beach, then head into town and find a restaurant and have a nice lunch. Then we decide to drive on to Hyannis, where there's more of a town, walk around have coffee and a snack at the twelve tribes coffee shop. Traffic is starting to get a bit more crowded, and the beautiful day is getting on. When we drive to another beach, where they are charging to park, the girls say "why don't you come back in 15 minutes when it won't cost you 15 dollars?" so we drive on and find a place where we seem to be able to park on the road and there's just a little spot of beach we bring our chairs to and sit down. Mr. Crackles is looking at the boat that has pulled up to the pier and saying it looks like Teddy's boat. How can you tell, I ask. Sailboats kind of look alike to me. It's got two wooden masts, like his, he says. And then we notice, there are about a dozen people gathered on the beach besides the pier and sure enough, that's him and his family, walking off the boat down the pier. And the two dogs! (One runs back towards the boat then follows along.) Apparently, he did go for a sail, though he was sitting out the race. He seemed jovial, walking in that strange way of his along the dock. Mr. Crackles is amazed. I actually feel like this is normal in some way. Like I said, I've felt this connection and this awareness of Ted as a familiar and local figure so it seems just kind of right that we should end up there, seeing him disembark.

Today he had brain surgery.

Princess & Goblin

I have just finishing listening to a recording of George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin, a book which was apparently very influential on folks like Chesterton and C.S. Lewis. I was struck by a comment the great grandmother makes in chapter 22 (the text is available on Gutenberg).

'You are right. Curdie is much farther on than Lootie, and you will see what will come of it. But in the meantime you must be content, I say, to be misunderstood for a while. We are all very anxious to be understood, and it is very hard not to be. But there is one thing much more necessary.' 'What is that, grandmother?' 'To understand other people.'

My, this sounds a lot like the prayer attributed to St. Francis. Macdonald's book was written in 1872, so no, he couldn't have simply known the prayer, because it isn't really by St. Francis and doesn't appear until the second world war. It is actually possible that this is one of the sources for that mysterious prayer of unknown authorship!

bird update

The nest over the back door now emits a peeping sound. The mother bird still flies off when the door opens. The father bird gathers food. Cool!

spring notes

Sycamores are the last to admit to spring
trunken nakedness makes them hesitate
still just dressing
while maples send off spinning emissaries

Reading Addict

I would rather be reading. I just finished the last of Susan Howatch's Christian novels and when I read them even though I can see their literary flaws I am in totally addictive mode. Unlike the sugar coated Mitford books, these depict some pretty dark struggles that people go through. And unlike literary fiction their problems get solved. They have deliverances and come to terms with the demons from their past. Unlike real life?

Those clergy designated as wise come out with lengthy explanations, such as the following:

"But let me merely say that St. Paul didn't think resurrection involved the flesh. It all depends how you define 'body' and in this case the word 'body' is probably a codeword for the whole person, a pattern produced by a certain mind, spirit and body all working together. This pattern--a pattern of information you could call it--would be capable of being lifted from its original context and replayed in another environment. Like written music which gets to be played in the concert hall" (Heartbreaker 424).

It's an interesting way to come to a workable understanding of resurrection, though I'm not sure its quite orthodox.

Then there's also the insight from Gavin, the former prostitute's, point of view:

"I'm seeing us all as victims who got mown down in one of God's messier creative splurges and mangled by the splurge's dark vile bits, the bits which haven't yet come right. But I know now that God's not just out there lolling idly in front of his canvas. He's in a muck sweat, painting away to save the picture, and although my family was blasted apart by the thwack of the creative process, the creator himself can't rest until he's brought us into the right pattern" (447) .

This image does reflect the character, who is just coming to terms with the idea that there is a caring God, but I do feel somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of God's creativity being out of control… though the world does seem to testify to that…

Splanations requested

I'm sure most of you have seen them, the mossy phoebe's nests that are built in the eaves of houses. I have googled and googled and cannot find an explanation for why they always build them right over the door. At my house, for instance, there is an extended expanse of eave with all the same features as the spot above the door, with the advantage of there not being a door there. And yet, they always seem to choose the spot through which humans and cats come and go. Why?

Derby Day

Why do I always try to watch the Kentucky Derby, donning a silly hat and drinking something that resembles a mint julep? I don't have much to do with horses the rest of the year. I'm carrying on a tradition that for me dates back to the 80s. Back in my NYC days, a guy I was enamored of made a big to do about the Derby, having people over for real juleps and walking them over to the nearby OTB to place bets. It was fun, and perhaps its just my way of holding on to some good times from my twenties that I watch the race. My husband and I turn on the tv and place pretend bets: he went for the favorite (boring!, says I) and I went for the filly (break that glass ceiling baby!). We're good! If I'd bet her to win place or show I would have won something, and so would he. But then there came the equine ambulance and they said that Eight Belles broke both her ankles and was euthanized in less time than it took to run the race. Unlike other sporting events involving injured humans, they had the decency not to show the fallen animal, but it was hard to watch the exultation of the winners, knowing that this beautiful creature was dead. Dead because she was overbred to the point of such fragility she couldn't manage to do the thing they had bred her to do, and yet they asked her to anyway. I felt dirty for watching. "If I had won real money," I said, "I'd give it all to the Humane Society." Sad.

"Understanding the Terrorist"

Sums it up.

Problems with intelligent theologians as church leaders

Well, first the Pope made a muck of things with a misunderstood comment that got the Muslim community upset. Now the Archbishop of Canterbury has the other team's knickers in a knot. The first I'd heard of it was while driving and listening to right wing talk show host Jay Severin saying that the AB had recommended applying sharia in Britain. And that is the dumbed down version that has been making the rounds despite the fact that about the first twenty paragraphs of the AB's speech explains that sharia and the legal system of the country could not be placed in equivalency and should not be placed in opposition. (And Severin claims he is speaking to the "best and brightest" convincing them of such by frequent use of the word "aforementioned" which their other neanderthal friends can't pronounce.)

I find it interesting that, to make his point, the AB frequently uses the analogy of the Orthodox Jewish community within the larger British community. It's ironic, because the only English Jews I know finally had enough of polite English anti-semitism and in the 80s chose to move to Israel where they simply had to dodge rocket fire every so often. I also wonder whether the Orthodox Jewish community ever was the cause of any unrest within the nation. I don't recall ever hearing of their trying to stone any adulteresses in the last couple thousand years, but I guess they've had more time to get used to living in nations where their laws are not the laws of the land. Though I think in many ways the Jews simply didn't fight for their "rights" such as, (as in his example) not to handle a Bible in the course of their sales job. They were a minority and didn't expect concessions. Things have changed. As a minority becomes a significant portion of society, obviously, the balance starts to shift, and if the society as we have known it is to be salvaged, there has to be some way to take the religious views into account.

The questions the AB poses also apply to how a Christian viewpoint is to be incorporated into a secular society such as that of the U.S.. For example does the Christian view of marriage define what marriage is for everyone? Many Americans seem to think so. But the justification for this, based in the historical idea that marriage only existed thanks to the religious tradition, does not seem sufficient when there are people with other beliefes who want to participate in other kinds of marriages. So why don't the conservatives like what the AB is saying, when he is trying to figure out how there can be a place for religious ideas in our mutual society. This example of marriage demonstrates that the demarcation between church and state has never been as absolute as some would imagine and wish it to be.

Please read the full text of the Archbishop's lecture and judge for yourself:
http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/1575

2 years and 3000 words short

But I have done it! The first draft of the novel I began for NANO (was it two, or even three?) years ago is finished.

In many ways it is more of a plot outline, needing embellishment.

But it is something!

On the impossibility of running a church

A nice older lady from the church asked me the other day, "I hope you felt appreciated as the parish administrator. You did such a good job." I thanked her and said I did. Many people did compliment me on the quality of the church's publications. Of course there were those who nagged and nudged, feeling the web site was never quite trendy enough, but I wouldn't say over all that it was lack of appreciation that caused me to leave. Rather, it was lack of authority.

Authority is a closely related sibling: because if people appreciated the fact that I alone had an overview of the church's operations on both the physical and spiritual levels, they would have LISTENED TO ME! And yes, they would have paid me more than a quarter of the Rector's salary (remuneration being yet another sibling --one kept in a closet--of appreciation). But this disparity in wages is indicative of the systemic view which ultimately will cause the organization to collapse.

It is currently imploding, as the Rector hired someone completely incompetent to replace me. It's gotten so bad, they have called in a consultant. I hope, if she is not getting paid a flat fee, but by the hour, that someone suggests she talk to me. It'll save her A LOT of time. But what can the hired help know?

My husband suggests that the Rector, and perhaps the community, actually prefer having someone incompetent in that position, because that justifies their sense of superiority and the way their values are shown through the budget. First, you get clergy who have been to prep school and elite colleges. Then you send them to seminary where they learn all kinds of interesting critical theories about religion and NOTHING about organizational management, thereby reinforcing the idea that such things are mere details and not worthy of the spiritual giants that all the ordained must be. Then you wonder why the structure is in chaos, the Rector is tearing out his hair and falling asleep in meetings. The solution is to respect (not just appreciate) those with the gifts of administration. Give them power and authority equivalent to that of the clergy (or merely a step below, not a grand canyon below). But classism seems to be so built in to the structure of the Episcopal Church that it is the comfy log they keep in their own eye that feels so much nicer when they worry about injustice somewhere across the seas.

Save some animals today

Clicking apparently donates money for animal rescue.

Today's ski report

Run, hide, go back to your cubbies... The fact that I am writing this ski report, from the lodge, is indication enough that conditions are abysmal! Not just wet, but wet and icy! One minute, your sinking into mush, the next you are skidding across the surface. One run was enough for me. Naturally, the husband is still out there, though even he admitted that Sunset should be closed and was death defying.

I'm dry now and putting some time into the novel. Someday it will get done. There's just so much exposition that awkardly needs to be inserted when your two main characters leap ahead in time five years.

Why does "utilize" exist?

Is there ever a situation in which the word "utilize" would express a nuance of meaning that could not be conveyed by "use?" If you know of such a case, please let me know. And if not, can you explain why the word "utilize" came to exist, if not merely for the purpose of giving people more useless syllables to say?

Speaking of Martyrs

For those of us who follow the Daily Office lectionary the days after Christmas can be very confusing. Where are the readings? See page 922 of the Book of Common Prayer for the three Holy Days that occur in this interval.

They are a great relief. After all the sugary sweetness we worked ourselves up into thinking of babies, babies, babies (hope, renewal, yes they are cute, hope, yes we love babies) we can stop stretching the hope muscles for a bit and return to the world as we know it. The first thing that happens after the birth, liturgically, is Stephen gets himself stoned. John, whom we commemorate today, we are told by James Kiefer is "a martyr in will but not in deed." And of course tomorrow there are more babies: dead babies.

We received the good news of a great joy. Now get marching. It begins.

Martyrs

What a heroic woman was Benazir Bhutto. What a loss to the forces of moderation and sanity in this world. For those of us for whom the assassination of JKF remains the early primal trauma memory, such attacks are always painful to hear about.

I taught a short memoir called "American History" by Judith Cofer in this last semester. It is a narrative of a young girl's private trauma on that fateful November day in 1963 when America lost its innocence. Of course, every generation must lose its own innocence anew, a fact that I realized when I read my students' responses to this piece. Without an exception, they all wrote about how this story reminded them of the day that will live forever in their minds: 9/11. They all described where they were and what happened. Some schools kept it in secret, sending them home at the end of the day to let their parents explain. Others gathered in assemblies. Perhaps they'd already had these discussions with their parents, and realized the connection before they read the piece, since the point of the piece is that while Cofer will always remember that the day on which she faced racism and classism head on is the day of the assassination, it is the former which is significant.

more crumbles

I picked up an old copy of Imprimis, the newsletter that my father had received, which now comes to me, from the conservative Hillsdale College. The article, written by a reputable environmental scientist, questions whether global warming is really this crisis brought on by our sins or just a natural ebb and flow of planetary change: http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/archive/issue.asp?year=2007&month=08 . It brought into focus many of the concerns that have troubled me. Let's face it. First of, I am troubled by fanaticism. And when I see people freezing their butts off trying to prove that it's getting warmer against all evidence to the contrary (see "Silly Priest tricks" below) I can only name it that. I can only see that those who have been raised in intellectualism and liberalism, when they find faith, cannot act it out by simply battling the sin in their own hearts, but must continue to see some evil empire bringing about destruction. They cannot call it Satan or end times, because that is what the right-wingers do, but they feel it all the same: the doom. What both teams forget is that the doom has always been looming, just as it does now. See Matthew 24, please. We hate change and we want to stop it. We are pathetic. Now that I no longer have to hold the positions of the church I will say it: the emperor has no clothes! I never saw the point in this whole "carbon exchange" idea and this article explains to me that my lack of understanding was not my fault but that it, in fact, makes no sense. Aah. I feel much better now. My dad was right about a lot of stuff, including the idea that the Nobel prize committee folks are by no means a neutral body and that their awards are simply the liberal awards, not some kind of world wide acclamation. Another idol falls. Clunk.

Jail

I had a lengthy dream last night about being in jail. It must have been minimum security, because everyone was wandering around these halls and rooms all the time. The bullies were allowed to do their thing and there were no guards or anyone in charge. Everyone was there. Young girls I knew as well as tough guys with their pants hanging down. There was a library. I went over to look at a big coffee table book on how to withstand torture (the cover was a photo of a guy sitting cooly with a gun pointed at his head) but when I got there it had disappeared. The treasurer from the church walked by. Was he in there too? Then a new load of inmates was coming in, and someone commented because they really should have bought more books in Spanish. None of these people spoke English.

I only mention this dream because when I woke up and came to my computer, the message of the day I get from http://shalomplace.com/seed was the following:

A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes - and is completely
dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened
from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent"
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Disgruntled update

It looks like I will only be furloughed for the winter session, which is all right with me. I will really really really finish the first Nano novel in that time.