The World's Misery

In spite of the fact that I have read Flannery O'Connor's famous story "The Displaced Person" a number of times in the past, and even taught the piece, I am always devastated by its theme--our inhumanity to each other. I reread it again yesterday. Basically, the story is rather typical of O'Connor's work in that it features the usual Southern notions of class, i. e., landowner, white trash workers, and African-Americans in that order. Into this mix, however, comes an immigrant from Poland who arrives with his family to live on the farm and work. The time is shortly after World War II.

After much wrangling and spying on the immigrant, "the displaced person," the white trash family soon becomes consumed with jealousy because of the excellent work ethic of Mr. Guizac. Eventually, Mrs. McIntyre, the land owner, decides to fire the immigrant family because of her extreme fear of miscegenation. It seems that Mr. Guizac is seeking a husband for his sixteen-year-old cousin and plans to marry her to one of the African-American workers on the farm.

When the Catholic priest in the story tells Mrs. McIntyre, "He has nowhere to go," she is unmoved. After all, she had earlier announced, "I am not responsible for the world's misery."

Unfortunately, the parallels of this O'Connor piece to the present day are still quite strong. After much discussion of the immigrant issue, America seeks to find a solution that will be satisfactory to the majority of us. It seems that our heads and hearts are as much in conflict with each other as ever. We, like Mrs. McIntyre, seem to have a fear still of what sociologists are calling "an upcoming browning of America." Our heads tell us we will lose our jobs since employers will value them more than they value us.

Our hearts, on the other hand, tell us as Christians that Jesus lived and died for all of us, not just Americans. We live in a global community where free trade and exchange of workers between countries is very popular. I scratch my head often and again want to ask, along with Rodney King after the Los Angeles riots of 1992, "Why can't we all just get along?" If we cannot, I believe our society will ultimately have the same type of tragic ending as "The Displaced Person," that leads to our own misery and displacement.

Five Fingers and the Moon

In preparation to teach our Spiritual Formation class tomorrow, in the absence of our regular teacher, I found an interesting statement about Buddhism. According to Buddhist belief, the five major religions of the world (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism) are metaphorically five fingers which point to the moon. They can show us the way to get to the moon, but they are not the moon itself.

My friend Meera wrote me this week that she and her son Ethan are going to attend a Hindu workshop soon. The purpose of the workshop is to review the primary principles of the faith and to especially answer questions like, "Why do we have so many gods?"; "Why do we not eat beef?"; and "Why do we have so many rituals?" The idea is that the younger generation might not know the tenets of their religion well enough to be able to pass it on to their children. Like Meera, I worry a bit about the tenets of my faith, Christianity, being passed on to my grandchildren.

Our daughter has told my husband and me that she will basically let her child decide for himself what he believes as he ages. Our son and his wife send both of their children to an Episcopal school and pre-school. The younger generation of parents often state that they personally do not need to go to church any longer in order to be spiritual. For people of my generation, however, we still believe in the importance of community and fellowship, one of the four purposes of the church, as a "finger to the moon," that points us to a closer relationship to God.

Perhaps it is true that we are living, as theologian Marcus Borg and others believe, in a "post-faith" world. As long as our lives are going well, we tend to believe that God has become irrelevant. I hope not, however, and long still to know more not only about my faith, Christianity, but also about the other major religions of the world.

Is Obama a Bound Man?

Bill Moyers' guest a few week ago on his Journal program on PBS was African-America author Shelby Steele whose new book is entitled A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win. My daughter and I had a fairly long discussion this week about Obama's presidential run, and I am trying to understand why there are so many differences in families, especially between mothers and daughters, regarding Obama. I have no doubt in my mind that of the four viable remaining candidates Hillary would be the best leader of our country for the next few years.

I know that part of my belief that Hillary is the best leader comes from my belief in feminism. As a young mother of two in the early 1970's, my husband and I attended a very conversative Baptist church where I was told from the pulpit every Sunday that working women were responsible for the economic woes of the world. If they just stayed home and fulfilled their God-given talents as mothers, the world would be much stronger. I did not believe that theology then, nor do I believe it today. I did struggle, however, with a compelling need to be--as Shelby Steele classifies people in his new book--both a bargainer and a challenger. Bargainers, according to Steele, are not those "in-your-face" folks who make sure you know about the injustices of the past but those who can live in peace with those who differ from you. He considers Obama a bargainer, and I consider Hillary a challenger.

Yes, the majority of us in America are very tired of the wranging in politics between the two major parties. We would like to see hope and change, yet at the same time people of my generation, war babies, have lived too long to believe it can take place easily. We are not called "war babies" for a reason; we believe it is necessary to have someone fight for our positions. Hillary is that person, in my opinion. While Obama's position is attractive to the younger generation who tend to hold on to their idealism as long as possible, I believe, like Steele, that it is doomed to fail. But . . . I would love at the same time to be proven wrong.

Who Created Hell?

Every once in a while Stephen Colbert will have a guest on his show, and they will discuss religious issues. Last week was one such occasion. The guest was Philip Zimbard, and the title of his book is The Lucifer Effect. The basic premise appears to be a discussion of how good people can sometimes become evil if the circumstances are right. The case in point for Zimbard was the biblical story of Satan's fall from heaven. According to Zimbard, Satan was likely jealous of the new authority that God had given man in the Garden of Eden. It appeared to Satan that he was losing ground obviously to a creature much more inferior than he. The result, therefore, was the booting out of Satan from heaven into hell. Zimbard said that God created hell in order to have an eternal place of punishment for Satan's disobedience. Stephen Colbert, however, disagreed strongly.

According to Colbert, who knows a lot about Catholic theology, Zimbard's argument was not valid. Instead, Colbert reminded the audience that God gave free will to man (and woman also we presume). The definition of hell within the church often focuses on the idea of separation from the love of God, not necessarily a place of fire and brimstone. Colbert's position was that Satan, not God, created hell because of his voluntary separation from God. Unfortunately, in my opinion, Colbert ruined a perfectly formed argument by ending the conversation and calling his guest an obscenity.

I tend to agree with Colbert's point of view regarding the creation of hell and the person responsible. I disagree, however, with the methods we Christians use to confront any type of secular or religious argument we do not agree with. I always remember a line from the Broadway play The Miracle Worker by the mother of Helen Keller, "We catch more flies with honey than vinegar." When we show our intellectual superiority in an argument, we are simply giving God what He hates most--pride--which was the essential problem in both of the falls. It appears that Zimbard won his argument after all as expressed in his book's subtitle: How Good People Turn Evil.

For All the Gomers of the World

One of my male acquaintances recently made a shocking statement in a group setting. The subject of discussion at the time was the biblical book of Hosea. Hosea was the minor prophet, you remember, who married a prostitute. Her name was Gomer. Evidently, he was following God's command to do so since their marriage would be used as an analogy of Israel's unfaithfulness to God to parallel Gomer's unfaithfulness to her husband. My friend, who is a doctor, said, "In the hospital we used to have a name for people like this. We called them "Gomers," and we meant, "Get out of my emergency room." I have to admit I was shocked since we usually have an idealistic view of doctors, believing them to be full agents of healing, and also non-discriminatory. "Who are the Gomers of the world?" I wondered.

My conclusion is that they are the poor and uninsured who have no other choice but to visit an emergency room at the time of a health crisis. Likely, these "Gomers" have had a long history of sexual partners and a number of children. Because of their poverty, they have neglected to get the gyn examinations and breast mammograms the American Medical Association recommends each year. They come to the emergency room as a last resort, not first, because they can no longer bear the pain they are experiencing.

I long for a future in which truly there would be no discrimination against those who have had few choices in life for good health care. As I was growing up, my waitress mother insisted on carrying a small Blue Cross Blue Shield policy for her, my sister, and me to ensure there would be some payment at least to the hospital in the event of a health crisis. I had occasion to use the policy as a sixteen-year-old when I went in for an emergency appendectomy. Since I was white, though poor, with no previous sexual history I am not exactly sure how the doctors referred to me. I can only hope it was not through the pejorative term "Gomer."

For all the Gomers of the world still out there, we must continue to seek universal health care that will cover all people and not discriminate against those who need it the most. Let us consider the proposed health care plans of our presidential candidates carefully.

Death, Doom, and Destruction: The Week That Was

Some weeks are just plain difficult to get through. On Tuesday, Super Tuesday, of last week in our state there was plenty of death, doom, and destruction. Everyone knew early on in the day that the weather front coming through the state was likely to be a rough one. After all, it was unseasonably warm (in the 70's in early February) and deathly still. Around five o'clock in the afternoon, the tornado began its deadly path some forty-five miles west of Little Rock. According to the weather forecasters, we now know it was a single tornado--on the ground for 123 miles as it worked its way northeast through Atkins, Clinton, and Mountain View. In its path there was much destruction and twelve deaths just in our state. There were many other deaths as Tennessee experienced similar destruction.

The destruction through tornadoes had been preceded a couple of hours earlier in the day by the stock market closing almost 400 points down. The U. S. economy is still experiencing major upheavals in its financial markets due to the housing crisis, the upheaval in the bond insurance market, the high price of oil worldwide, and the subsequent losses in the financial sectors on Wall Street. "Where are we heading financially?" the world seems to be asking us.

In addition to the macroeconomic woes of the world, our life was personally impacted on Super Tuesday by the death of one of my husband's favorite uncles. Yes, he had lived a strong, good life, but the loss is still strongly felt by those closest to him.

Through all the death, doom, and destruction of the past week that was, there emerged on Monday morning a beautiful blue sky, the colorful hint of early spring flowers, and hope of renewal within the earth and within our hearts. I have lived long enough to see weeks like this come and go, and I have learned that restoration always follows periods of difficulty--thankfully for us all.

We Are One

As I look around the city, I see a number of churches on every street corner practically. The denominations vary, but the mission actually is one--with several components. William Barnwell, a canon missioner in the Episcopal Church, has written that every church has four areas of mission: developing a relationship with God that is personal, working to ensure adequate fellowship and community within the church, evangelizing outside the church, and supporting social ministries relating to the poor and needy. Each church must decide upon its particular focus. Some of the so-called "low" churches tend to stress evangelism, and some of the "high" churches focus on social ministries.

I think we tend to emphasize the differences often among our churches rather than what unites us. I like the idea that Barnwell has delineated; it reminds me of the Scriptures that speak of the individual spiritual gifts among the body of people. Some are blessed with "hand" gifts and actively seek to work in the social ministries, some receive "heart" gifts and are especially concerned with evangelizing, and some have "head" gifts to put together church programs that promote community.

The one aspect, of course, that we all agree upon is that we believe in one God. For Christians, we further believe in one Messiah, Jesus Christ. Isn't it time for us to solidify our likenesses instead of our differences?

The Secret of Life Is . . .

When I was in my early thirties, I chose a life verse from the Bible to guide my life by: Psalm 37:4. It says, "Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall grant you the desires of your heart." At that time of my life, I was beginning a doctoral program at the University of Arkansas, and all I could think of was completing the program successfully and becoming a professor of English at the college level. I think though that as the years have gone by that the desire of my heart has shifted from a focus on career to a focus on life itself.

I believe that the desire of our hearts as we age, assuming that we are relatively healthy, is to live forever. This world is all we know since we obviously do not have memory of our lives before birth or until we are toddlers. We cling to this world with all our strength and find it hard to imagine death for ourselves. We become less and less likely to embrace change of any sort.

I suppose the major religions of the world have picked up on this fact--that the secret of life is to desire more life. Therefore, all religions, with the exception perhaps of the Jewish faith, offer eternal life as a promise to us to achieve our immortality. We variously call this place Heaven, Paradise, Nirvana, Happy Hunting Ground, and so on. The appeal is strong: to think we will live forever in absolute peace and happiness and never die. It is no wonder that our thoughts turn to the comfort religion promises as we age.

Whatever Happened to Selflessness?

I had been waiting for quite a long time to see the Academy Award-nominated film There Will be Blood and was quite happy to see that it had come to our art theater in Little Rock. As many of the critics had indicated, the film has wonderful (thought quite broad) acting and an interesting storyline. I would say basically that it is a character study of two men: Daniel, the oilman who will compete with anyone and everyone to achieve his goal of riches; and Eli, the church charlatan who competes for the honor of getting Daniel "saved." At the conclusion of the film, the two men move from a competition of wits to a physical fight. The last words are simply, stated, "I am finished." These words cannot fail to remind us of Christ's final words on the cross, "It is finished." Gramatically, both sentences have three words and they both use present tense verbs, yet the difference between them in meaning is profound. Christ's words are the ultimate example of selflessness while Daniel's words represents the culmination of his selfishness.

As Christians we look to the Bible not only as a source of comfort during difficult times but as an instruction book on how to live our lives today. Many verses relate to the joy of giving one's self for the sake of others vs. living our lives only for ourselves. An example is in II Corinthians 5: 15, "and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again." Living for Him means to emulate Him--to minister to those who are needy, putting their needs over ours.

When Christ's words were uttered, the sins of the world were upon His shoulders. When Daniel's words were spoken, he had won over his competitor but at what personal cost to himself? Too bad that his supposed conversion in the church baptismal scene was insincere. It just might have redeemed his life.