God of the Gaps

I was watching a video yesterday in our spiritual formation class, regarding the intersection of faith and science, when an unfamiliar phrase was used. The speaker talked of "God of the gaps," a saying evidently used to indicate that, whenever science cannot explain a particular natural phenomenon, the explanation must be God or a higher power. As scientific theories continue to abound in 2008, the effect is simply to reduce the presence of God more and more in our lives. As a Christian I could not disagree more with this theory and prefer instead to see God, or Christ, as "standing in the gap."

The latter phrase has been used in the Christian community within the past few years to indicate that God is our intercessor for us as we undergo the various trials of our lives. In this context, He becomes our refuge, our strength, our hope. He is not being reduced to nothingness; on the contrary, He is being magnified.

Our Scripture reading in church yesterday, for example, centered on the stoning of Stephen, an early Christian disciple, in the New Testament. As he looks up, he see Christ standing at the right hand of the Father. This verse to me has always been confirmation of Christ as intercessor in our lives. Yes, He was not going miraculously to save Stephen from this horrible death, but He was there to comfort Stephen and to remind him that his own resurrection was very near.

Many believe, and even hope, that God will disappear as a force in modern society since religion is often viewed as a superstition or set of beliefs that only the uninformed and uneducated could believe. As long as there are still mysteries to explain, however, God will remain a powerful force and belief of the faithful.

In the Days of Guns and God

It has been almost a week now that the media became obsessed with Obama's words at a San Francisco fundraiser. Obama indicated that economic problems have made blue collar workers bitter and that, as a result, they tend to cling to their guns and religion. Both McCain and Clinton have responded by calling Obama's words "elitist" and "out of touch." I tend to think, after living with two blue collar parents for years, that Obama has simply spoken the truth, albeit not very tactfully.

Like Obama, I was raised by a single mother after my father left the family early on to roam the country. He worked spasmodically up and down the Mississippi River as a deck hand, and she worked two shifts as a waitress, sometimes seven days a week, to make ends meet for my sister and me. Though our mother never took food stamps through the years, as Obama's mother did, we had to be very careful with the tip money she brought home each night for groceries and other bills. Like Obama, both my sister and I were able to study hard and to get college degrees with the help of student loans and grants. While we have moved up in our socio-economic class, we both still share somewhat of an understanding of the culture that we are no longer a part of.

My observation teaches me that typically people still in the under class do feel comfortable with their guns and their religion. It almost seems to be a choice that is made. Here in Little Rock guns have always been a way of life, especially for the protection of one's house and belongings. As in any city, crime is high here in the state's capitol. The alternative is to turn to religion as a way of understanding that suffering is a part of life, but that justice and riches will come in the afterlife for the faithful. Social talk often centers on the illegal immigrants coming into the area daily and the loss of jobs to Mexico and other developing countries.

In today's political climate, one cannot simply say aloud what is true without a microphone or camera being present to record it. Yes, Obama should have been aware of this inevitability, but it is a shame that he cannot speak truth without fear of censure.

Dirt Cakes and Recession

When I was a child living in Greenville, Mississippi, I did not have many toys with which to play. A little girlfriend who lived in the small apartment next to us and I used to play for hours in the mud from spring rains. We pretended we were cooking mud pies. Of course, we would not have thought about ever eating them. I was appalled, therefore, last week on NBC Nightly News to see a report from Haiti featuring the dirt cakes that the people were eating due to the high cost of food. According to the reporter, the cakes are made from water, salt, butter, and dirt. One young man said he ate twenty-five per day in order to live. That night on Bill Moyers' Journal, the subject again was food shortages. This time the location was here in America with the statistics that some twenty-seven million people are now on food stamps assistance. Many others go regularly to food banks to enable them to at least eat carbohydrates.

As my sister and I often compare notes on our childhood, we have both come to the conclusion that there was a food shortage in our home in our early years. Today both of us tend to eat all that we have on our plates as if it might be our last meal and often to take food away with us in our purses as if to protect ourselves against future hunger. We do not know exactly where this behavior came from.

One of the African-American men from Alabama interviewed on the Journal said something like, "Aw heck, everybody talks about a recession; we are always in a recession." He said that he feels bad when he cannot provide enough food for his family to eat. I think about dirt cakes in Haiti and recession in America and so much long for a solution to hunger. After all, adequate food is one of the basic needs of our lives in addition to shelter and clothes.

I certainly am not advocating any type of socialism as a panacea to the world's hunger problems, but I have been thinking a bit this morning about Alice Trillin's (wife of author Calvin Trillin) view of life. "She believed in the principle of enoughness," according to an article in The New Yorker. Simply stated, she belived that, after a certain income level reached, the government should take the rest. The problem though is, "When will we get to the belief that we have enough to share with the world's hungry?"

The Audacity of Forgiveness

I noticed the phenomenon again last Friday as I was watching CNN's "The Situation Room." John McCain was speaking on a rainy day (the day commemorating the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. some forty years ago) to a primarily African-American audience in front of the motel where the killing took place. McCain was apologizing for not voting in the Senate some years ago to establish the Martin Luther King day. The audience members were calling out loudly, "We forgive you" and "Everybody makes mistakes." I have seen that audacity of forgiveness before many times, most recently after the Clinton-Lewinsky sexual encounters. What is it, I ask myself, that allows the majority, it seems to me, of African-Americans to be so forgiving when they have been so wronged?

I asked an African-American pastor from Ft. Smith, Arkansas, about that recently. I do not remember receiving any type of satisfactory answer at that time, but I would like to explore the question myself. Perhaps one reason is that, after years of disrespect from the Anglo community, the listeners simply appreciate apologies that seem straight from the heart. Another possibility is they are able to forgive the sins that they themselves have made: sexual indiscretions or mistakes in judgment. Contrast that to the Anglo community who overwhelmingly refuse to admit sin until the evidence of their guilt is clear. Perhaps they are closer followers of Jesus' words about forgiveness than we Anglos are. Even the purest man on earth asked forgiveness on the cross for those who had hurt him the most in life.

Though I cannot explain this phenomenon, I admire this audacity of forgiveness trait very much and long for it more in my life.

A Form of Spiritual Hospitality

This past Thursday my husband and I went downtown to hear NPR's commentator Diane Rehm who was in Arkansas for a brief presentation. Her subject was one that reflects her example each day on her nationally syndicated radio show: listening carefully to the arguments and narratives of others even though there might be some disagreement. She reminded the audience that, just as the slogan "Reading is Fundamental" was popular for a number of years, another good slogan might be "Listening is Fundamental." She said, "Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality." Unfortunately, I have always been someone who, to paraphrase Shakespeare's words about Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, will say more in a minute than I will listen to in a month. Diane reminded me though of the importance of listening.

I think part of the problem is that Southern women have generally been raised to be young Scarlets who are continually flirting with their Ashleys and telling stories to entertain others. When not telling their own stories, they are interrupting another story teller with rather superfluous questions and comments such as, "Did you say she had on hot pink shoes? I wonder where she bought them around here." We have always believed talking is the virtue, not listening.

Diane, of course, interviews a number of authors each week on her show as well as a number of politicians and representatives of the media. These guests typically have opposing viewpoints. The only way that progress toward compromise can be made is to listen to the other's positions with respect. What typically happens, however, in our day-to-day discourse is that we surround ourselves with people just like us, and we reinforce our views, not change them. If we can remind ourselves that listening can be a form of spiritual hospitality, perhaps--just then--we can truly begin to have a conversation.

A Moratorium on the Death Penalty

Last night I attended for the first time a discussion on the death penalty at one of the favorite Little Rock restaurants, Lily's Dim Sum Then Some. I have always loved the idea of somehow using food therapy to compensate for the serious nature of the topics under discussion. After hearing the invited speaker give a pitch for fundraising in order to lobby for a moratorium on the death penalty, one of my friends (who is an attorney defending people on trial for heinous crimes) made a point about Northwest Arkansas. He said that area of our state needs to be commended because it currently has no death penalty cases on the docket. I wonder if the answer is truly that simple--that the attorneys there are more sympathetic to the issue or more capable in their defense--or if another more sinister fact is at work, namely that, until about ten years ago, Northwest Arkansas was almost entirely Anglo.

I know that many studies have been conducted throughout the years to show the preponderance of men of color on death row. Does that fact relate only to issues of economic poverty, or does it relate more to our continuing racial prejudices? Having lived in Northwest Arkansas for some thirty-four years, I know that the overall culture tends to be quite conservative. Yes, the city of Fayetteville is the exception since it houses a major state university. However, even it though is surrounded by a host of very conservative churches that tend to preach the virtues of capital punishment and support their argument with a variety of Old Testament verses for proof that God has ordained it.

I think about this subject as I remember that my father was killed in 1976 by some unknown person coming into the bar in which he sat to shoot him three times in the abdomen. Had that perpetrator been apprehended, I would not have supported the death penalty. I simply believe life imprisonment without parole is more than sufficient for punishment. I also worry about the number of cases that have been reviewed by law students or attorneys in recent years that have shown the innocence of many death row criminals either before execution or after. Most importantly, I still worry that our deeply-grained prejudices from the past condemn others simply because of their race.