Culture

T. Boone Pickens’s 85th Birthday

1 Comment / Culture / By

I just saw this wonderful little view of T. Boone Pickens on his recent 85th birthday.

It is just beautiful to see a man at 85 still charged by challenges and goals. Good grief, “retirement” is a fairly recent invention. Mr. Pickens understands that life is to be lived fully from cradle to grave.

Personal note: Twenty-five years ago, I made a fundraising presentation to Phil Anschutz. When I finished, he said, “Ed, I’m embarrassed that I’ve given so little money to [organization]. I’m going to give you another $25,000.” Then he told his secretary to get Boone Pickens on the line.

Seconds later, she buzzed him, “Mr. Pickens on the line”

Phil: “Boone. Hey listen, I want you to give $25,000 to a wonderful organization. You will? Great. Ed, what is the address?” I couldn’t remember the organization’s address, so I gave him my home address.

A few days later, I received an envelop from T. Boone Pickens with a check made out to the organization I represented.

That taught me a lot about how billionaires get to be billionaires.

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Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes

4 Comments / Book Review, Culture, God / By

All of us are captives of culture. And most of us think that he, she, or they certainly are, but that I am not.

Each of us tend to see our own roots going way past the loam where culture grows, way on down into the bedrock of God or “the truth.” But, in fact, we all draw most of our sustenance from the topsoil of our own codes, traditions, rituals, language, etc. Naturally and inevitably we pull the ancient and living Bible into service to our own culture and selfishness.

That is basically the idea behind Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes by E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien (IVP, 2012).

Western culture has specific notions about ethnicity, individuals, groups, law, honor, privacy, rules, time, and virtue and vice. And we continually impose those notions on the Bible and faith. For example, the authors write, “The technical term for behaviors like smoking, drinking and cussing is mores…Webster’s Dictionary defines mores as ‘folkways of central importance accepted without question and embodying the fundamental moral views of a group.'” Yet “Christians are tempted to believe our mores originate from the Bible.”

I found Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes to be very helpful in identifying the specifics behind those “Western Eyes.” For example:

  • Language. “English is a subject-verb language; it is actor- and action-oriented. We prefer sentences with a clear subject and a clear predicate, and we like it best when the verb is in the active voice. It is difficult to construct a meaningful sentence in English without a subject. Even when we describe weather (‘It is raining’), we supply a subject (‘it’). Other languages can manage without a subject…in Indonesia, one can say, ‘Exists rain.'”
  • Sex. Western societies tend to let sex drive relationships. We allow, even encourage, boys and girls to get together…alone…in the dark…with alcohol! We call it “dating.” But more communal cultures see that as irresponsible parenting. As one Indonesian father said, “Wow, you Americans are amazing. If Indonesian kids did that, someone would get pregnant.” He goes on, “For Indonesians, it seems unfair to leave an individual in a situation in which his or her only real protection is willpower.” Is it possible that we in the West are confused about sex?
  • Time. Westerners are schedule-driven. But most people of the Bible (and other times and places) were/are relationship-based. We set times for a meeting to begin. But for non-Westerners, a meeting begins “when everyone who needs to be there has arrived.” We impose our time and schedule as virtues on our reading of the Bible.

One of the great and deep joys of this book is how they blow the dust and smoke away from some biblical passages. For example, they show how Western Christians read the story of David and Bathsheba through issues like personal guilt and populism. We completely miss that David was a king. In fact, Uriah failed to treat David with the honor due him. So David had him killed and probably never thought another thing about it. The authors sure persuaded me that “David was not tortured by a guilty conscience.”

However, this is really a story of a king and The King. Only when God confronted David, did the lesser king break! Oh, I loved that view.

They also show how the Apostle Paul had to navigate a patronage system when he raised money.

But the real payload and joy of the book, for me, is in the conflicting views of rules vs. relationships. “In the West, rules must apply to everyone, and they must apply all the time.” But, in the Bible, “rules applied except when they didn’t.” What a lovely line!

One of the authors tells of a time when he was a speaker at a Baptist “pastor’s conference” in Indonesia. He knew that the bylaws of the denomination permitted only men to serve as pastors. But he saw women in the audience. When he mentioned it to his host, he man just nodded. So, the author said, “But your laws say pastors must be male.” And his host calmly replied, “Yes, and most of them are.”

He then wondered about the Apostle Paul… “Paul states, ‘I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet’ (1 Tim 2:12). ‘But what about Priscilla and Junia?’ we might ask Paul. ‘They taught in church. You said women must keep silent.'”

“Perhaps Paul would answer, ‘Yes. And most of them do.'”

If you want a book to challenge your traditions and attitudes (perhaps even jerk you out of them), I highly recommend Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes.  

NOTE: The authors bring very diverse and many international perspectives into play. For some reason, the Indonesian examples spoke more to me. That’s why I used several in this review.

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A Quiet Life

4 Comments / Addiction, Contemplation, Culture, Technology / By

Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands… 1 Thessalonians 4:11

A former prison inmate once told me that the worst part of prison, for him, was the inability to control his environment; he lived in continuous clamor and light.

Mother Teresa reportedly said, “God is the Friend of silence . . . He cannot be found in noise and restlessness. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass – grow in silence. See the stars, the moon and sun move in silence.”

Part of the majesty of God is revealed in how His great works take place in hushed tranquility. He moves large balls of enormous weight through the universe or drops tons of snow on the earth, all in muted splendor. Prairie sod, crops, and forests grow, and eagles soar and great rivers flow . . . without a sound.

Maybe prisons are prophetic; today we all seem to live in harsh lighting and jarring noise that is pervasive and perpetual.

How did we get here? Like any prisoner, we embraced a “promising” idea or temptation. Then, as we slipped deeper into the relationship, the object of our affection suddenly slammed its steel jaws around us.

We wanted wealth and we wanted security, fame and privacy, intimacy and anonymity, leadership and selfishness. Together. We wanted to sow and not reap. And various tools — technology, politics, media, and religion — promised that we could have things that had always been mutually exclusive. They said we could suspend the Golden Rule; we could do unto others what we would never want for ourselves.

For example, Facebook (not the only, and perhaps not the worst, offender) flirted with us, using the idea that we could find meaningful (even intimate) and no-risk connection with other humans. It would build a safe road through our raging insecurities and the badlands of relationships. We could really express and market ourselves, preach and proselytize, and possibly recover our youth. Hands went up, “Yes, I’ll buy that.”

Slam!

We did not get the safety and recovered youth, but we did get streaming noise, drama, the invasion of our privacy, and (some say) new addictions. A government agent told a recent law enforcement academy, “I’m telling everyone I know to get off Facebook. NOW.” Why? Sophisticated software has given criminals the same tools used by law enforcement. They find vulnerabilities and move into them.

A recent article about the capacity of “smart” TVs to spy on their owners warned that we “might be careful about what they say or do in the device’s presence.” Why would anyone tolerate (much less, buy) a box that violates your privacy and then sells what it learned about you to others so they can transgress you further?

I like and use high-tech tools; I don’t have seizures about technology. But the gadget is not the problem; humans are. And I’m not convulsed about that. I’m just trying to build a buffer between me and those who use the Internet, GPS systems, cell phones, phishing, computer malware and spyware, photo sharing, and other tools to take stuff from me.

Bottom line: Our trust has been violated. After all, we paid for those things; they weren’t a gift and we didn’t negotiate a better price. They slapped a price on the screen and we said, “Sold!”

Clearly, a promise has become a prison.

A couple thousand years ago, the Apostle Paul told Thessalonian Christians (and us) to “Make it your goal to live a quiet life, mind your own business, and work with your hands.”

Joanne and I live in a peaceful habitation. But, in 2013, we’re going to step further into the quiet (which means further away from sources of noise, anxiety, and restlessness). We don’t know the details, but if you look around familiar places and realize you can’t find us, just remember that we still want to meet with our friends whenever possible.

But instead of virtual meeting places, let’s sit on the porch, in a bar or on bales of hay.

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The First Motel

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According to Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac,  the first motel opened 82 years ago today.

He writes that the first one was,

…located in San Luis Obispo, California, about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. As cars — and road trips — became more and more popular, architect and developer Arthur Heineman saw a business opportunity: a compromise between the rough “auto camps” — where people pitched tents or slept in their cars — and the more traditional hotels. He had the idea to place lodging near major highways, with easy outdoor access to the rooms, and a space to park a car. So he built a little collection of bungalows, each with a small garage, and rented them for $1.25 a night. He created a new name for his hybrid lodging, a portmanteau of “motor” and “hotel.

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The Righteous Mind

9 Comments / Book Review, Culture, God, Politics / By

Why and how do people arrive at certain political and religious perspectives?

That question drives The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (Pantheon Books, 2012). Author Jonathan Haidt is a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. Moral psychology is his field.

Haidt cracks the door on his thesis with this simple statement: “We humans all have the same five taste receptors, but we don’t all like the same foods.” Yes, of course, from the very same sensory equipment, we live in a dazzling diversity of foods, flavors, cooking methods, serving pieces, etc.

The same kind of matrix frames our “moral judgments.” Through exhaustive research, Haidt identified six “foundations of morality.” These six “taste receptors” form the basis of our moral behavior. We all have the same ones; from them we develop our own political and religious “taste” preferences (the two words of each foundation represents a scale from the principle to its antithesis).

  • Care/harm
  • Liberty/oppression
  • Fairness/cheating
  • Loyalty/betrayal
  • Authority/subversion
  • Sanctity/degradation

 

What This Means for Politics and Religion

Author Haidt, a self-described “liberal Democrat,” was invited to address a Democratic Party gathering following the 2004 election. His topic: “Republicans Understand Moral Psychology; Democrat’s Don’t.” In fact, he says that liberals largely reject half of the six foundations of morality: loyalty, authority, and sanctity. Strangely, according to Haidt, “very conservative” people value all six equally.

From that, he writes about his excitement about Barack Obama, as “a liberal who understood conservative arguments about the need for order and… tradition.” But after a few months, Haidt became worried. He saw Obama working from only two of the foundations, care and fairness.

Of conservatives, Haidt writes, “…their broader moral matrix allows them to detect threats to moral capital that liberals cannot perceive…they fight back ferociously when they believe that change will damage the institutions and traditions that provide our moral exoskeletons (such as the family). Preserving those institutions and traditions is their most sacred value.

Haidt, an atheist, devotes much space to “the hive” – that mysterious dimension where humans lose themselves in something larger and transcendent. He challenges liberals on their disregard of the sanctity foundation. For example, he writes that liberals have difficulty understanding the conservative revulsion about a crucifix submerged in a jar of the artist’s urine or elephant dung wiped across an image of the Virgin Mary.

So, helpfully, he asks if liberals would understand the sanctity better if Jesus and Mary were exchanged for Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela?

Can We Disagree More Constructively?

As stated earlier, we all have wildly differing tastes in food. Wouldn’t we think it strange to have talk radio and cable news programming built around demonizing those who prefer Thai food or Riesling wines? Can you imagine a book built around a thesis that to love cheeseburgers is to be a traitor?

We all live in a matrix of six moral judgments. Just as our common taste receptors allow people to run to a multitude of food choices, so our placement within the moral foundations allows us to try and adapt various political and religious tastes. Anybody have a problem with that?

Yes, they do. But why?

So much of the conflict is rooted in genetics. Haidt: “After analyzing the DNA of 13,000 Australians, scientists recently found several genes that differed between liberals and conservatives. Most of them related to neurotransmitter functioning, particularly glutamate and serotonin, both of which are involved in the brain’s response to threat and fear…conservatives react more strongly than liberals to signs of danger…liberals have less need for order, structure, and closure.”

It seems to me that Haidt has taken an enormous first step in trying to help everyone see the whole spectrum more clearly and objectively. As a liberal and an atheist, he vigorously challenges his fellow liberals and atheists in their languid and predictable thinking about political conservatism and religion.

For example, he writes about moral capital (the resources that “enable a community to suppress selfishness and make cooperation possible”) and social capital, “the social ties among individuals and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from those ties.” He sees both as blind spots for the left.

Haidt furthermore writes that this “is the reason I believe that liberalism – which has done so much to bring about freedom and equal opportunity – is not sufficient as a governing philosophy. It tends to overreach, change too many things too quickly, and reduce the stock of moral capital…”

To my surprise, Haidt never does engage much of a critique of conservatism (or conservatives). He wants to see more respect, civility, and objectivity in our public discourse, and he models it!

The Righteous Mind is, like it’s author, generous and noble.

He concludes: “Morality binds and blinds. It binds us into ideological teams that fight each other as though the fate of the world depended on our side winning each battle. It blinds us to the fact that each team is comprised of good people who have something important to say.”

Precisely.

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The Other Side

2 Comments / Contemplation, Culture, Politics, Thinking / By

I recently came across a frankly brilliant essay about why the other side cannot, must not, win the election in November. It begins:

“The past several weeks have made one thing crystal-clear: Our country faces unmitigated disaster if the Other Side wins.

“No reasonably intelligent person can deny this. All you have to do is look at the way the Other Side has been running its campaign. Instead of focusing on the big issues that are important to the American People, it has fired a relentlessly negative barrage of distortions, misrepresentations, and flat-out lies.

“Just look at the Other Side’s latest commercial, which take a perfectly reasonable statement by the candidate for My Side completely out of context to make it seem as if he is saying something nefarious. This just shows you how desperate the Other Side is and how willing it is to mislead the American People.”

Even though you will quickly catch on to the idea, read the whole thing. You will see that our side has reason, righteousness, noble ideas, and a sure-fire plan for saving the economy and increasing employment. The other side has nefarious billionaires, undisclosed documents, offensive and lying commercials, biased media voices, same old tired and discredited policies, conspiracies, deranged anger, crazy uncles, etc.

This essay is a mirror for you and for me.

What the essay really reveals is that politics has become large gaseous bubbles, blown free of the wand, and wobbling uncertain through the air. It is all a game, an amusement, a sport.

One very real problem is that when we speak in Pavlovian terms, you know, that code — George Soros, Limbaugh, Biden, Huffington, FOX, red state, blue state, MSNBC — we fall into a binary polarization of language. It is all 1s and 0s. No other numbers allowed. We cannot really converse about real stuff. In fact, I think we obsess about politics (and religion) in order to avoid intimacy. It’s easier to hide behind the code than to expose my own uncertainties, longings, and fears.

William Raspberry once said, “In virtually every public controversy, most thoughtful people secretly believe both sides.” That is true. For example, I believe both (or all) sides about so many issues…from technology, to the Christian views of “hell” and evolution, to writing for pay, to President Obama’s apologies to other nations. Yet, put me in a cocktail party or prayer meeting and I’ll take the short cut every time…finding harmony with almost any position ventured.

I am not weak or deceitful, but Madonna will release a gospel album before I’ll open my heart to strangers.

This is why I often long for “sitting with a friend on bales of hay in a barn on a rainy afternoon…”

I love the imagery of rain-induced isolation and slowness and the intimacy of candor and freedom.

Now, in the words of R. E. M.’s Losing My Religion, “Oh, no, I’ve said too much!” 🙂

Anyway, I hope you find the time to read this essay. Oh, and please vote for our guy in November!

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The Artist: a Meditation

1 Comment / Appreciation, Culture, Movie review / By

Besides being wonderfully crafted and thoroughly engrossing, The Artist is a thoughtful meditation on the value of people.

The movie tells the story of a 1920s silent film star, George Valentin, who knows he has value. The applause, big checks, and adoring fans tell him so; doesn’t go any deeper than that. He frolics in the designer pool of his ego, pushing costars away from the waterfall of adoration that cascades over him. Even Valentin’s faithful dog (best movie dog you will see in your lifetime) and his chauffeur have no relational value to him. They are fully functional and expendable.

The same is true of the beautiful girl, Peppy, who literally bumps into Valentin. Ah, another moon whose purpose is to simply reflect his dazzling value.

But a monster of a storm is brewing – a technological one: sound is coming to the movies. One development is going to change everything for an industry; it will swirl new people into the picture and suck others away.

In that tech shift, Valentin suddenly finds himself among the losers. His value drops like a body from a bridge. Broke, unemployed, drunk, and discarded (by his wife and his studio), he is forced to sell his furniture and other possessions (which, by the way, some call “valuables”) and move out to Humbleville.

Have you noticed that life’s crucibles have a way of revealing authentic value? When entire way of living explodes in flames, the first human reaction is to try to save ourselves and preserve the old way. But, eventually, the people, possessions, motivations, and false measurements all get reduced to mere kindling for the blaze. Old (and false) identities, hopes, and values perish in the fire. And then, after time in the grave (could be days or years), on a shimmering new resurrection morning, a new life steps out of the tomb.

In that note, The Artist tells a story we have not seen very often: the redemptive (“buying back”) power of pure love. And Peppy is a character we’ve not often seen. She is beautiful, but her real loveliness is, in words from the Bible, her “hidden person of the heart…the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit.”

The Artist is also a discerning look at celebrity. I once asked a young woman who had just become engaged, “Tell me what you most respect about your fiancée.” She twirled her hair, giggled, closed her eyes, giggled some more and said, “Well…” She didn’t seem to know anything about his integrity, faith, family heritage or traditions, sense of purpose, protective instincts, personal dreams or anything else foundational to life. They married and divorced quickly.

Like her, we can’t seem to locate respect for those we adore.

So our celebrity-driven culture splashes exotic intangibles – like cool or awesomeness – on the big screen in our collective head. We don’t define, require, or examine; we applaud, gush, and swoon. Don’t underestimate that power; America elected a President on that. The Artist thoughtfully considers the emptiness of image and the futility of building a life on applause.

Finally, The Artist is a great artistic achievement. In a medium marked by decibels and explosive visuals, The Artist is a splendidly silent and gorgeously black and white movie. It is like walking away from the flash and roar of typical movie entertainment and into a silent and majestic high country meadow.

The Artist dares to present and permit a quiet contemplation of who and what and why we value.

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Risky Sex

Leave a Comment / Culture, Respect, Sex / By

Several years ago, Vanderbilt University and the Nashville Police Department designed a Rate-Your-Risk test. “Rate your risk” for…being robbed, raped, stabbed, shot, or murdered. The project director was a former FBI agent.

One of the questions was “How many acts of adultery have you committed within the past two years?”

Now THAT question blows all the smoke out of the room. Reality Time at the Ranch: If you’ve developed improper sexual attachments, your risk of being assaulted or murdered has just red-lined.

Hmmm, “Sir, are you saying that sex could have ramifications beyond the moment?”

At a tip from Jesus Creed, I just read a very wise essay on sex. Risky Sex by Michael Hildalgo examines our culture’s shallow and vacant approach to sex. Yes, I do know that others have excavated that ground. But this one is good enough to warrant your time.

Sample quotes:

…“Safe Sex” is a myth. What protection is there to prevent to intertwining of minds, hearts, and souls that happens when two people are joined together sexually?

“Sex, by its very nature is not safe. It is the ultimate act in giving your whole self away to another person. It requires vulnerability that no other relationship asks for. It is to be fully exposed to another human being. It’s putting your full naked self out there as a gift – that’s risky.

“…This is why so many people have sex with so many people, and feel more and more alone. Somewhere, deep inside their heart, something is being ripped apart and taken from them, and nothing can protect that. What they mistake as a physical act, can cause emotional and spiritual heartache.

“Make no mistake, sex is risky – and what is at risk is our hearts and souls.”

I think this essay can be very helpful to parents as they shape a morality worth integrating into lives and legacies. The piece provides nuanced, textured, and trustworthy ways of thinking about sex. It lifts the topic out of the immature, mechanical, and soulless approach that is so pervasive in our society.

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How to Survive the Political Season

19 Comments / Culture, Politics / By

Joanne and I play Skip-Bo almost every evening. A few nights ago, I found myself getting too intensely focused on winning (instead of the joy of the game with this lady I love). Then, strangest thing, it seemed that I floated away and looked down on the game. And I realized, we are sitting at a table, shuffling pieces of colored paper. And we think this is important!

That moment reminded me that the late Eugene McCarthy, US Senator (D – Maine) and Presidential candidate, once said, “Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it’s important.”

McCarthy was right; politics is a game, just as football and Skip-Bo are games.

Part of being “smart enough to understand the game” means knowing that crises — economic, legal, environmental, cultural, governmental, social, global — are essential to winning. Crises keep people off-balance, polarized, and dependent on the experts who presumably possess the wisdom needed to get through the crises.

Of course, the crises must continue; they can never be resolved. As much as they may be “deplored,” the political game will never abolish or resolve poverty, racism, abortion, bullying, greed, global warming or any other useful problem.

Now, I hasten to add that politics can be an honorable profession and worthy field of activism. But, like anything, it can and should be approached with good will, good humor, wit, style, and panache. Do what you can, enjoy the journey, quit at five o’clock, let God do the heavy lifting.

The assumption that politics is a path to righteousness causes the political game — especially in presidential election years — to rise to inhuman levels of deception, demonization, and decibels. And the absence (even abhorrence) of objectivity, humanity, and elegance! How can a self-respecting human listen to that, let alone participate? Why should anything jerk me into a pretzel of anger and angst?

I think the most burning political issue is: how do we survive the political season? The following is not a “how to” list, but rather a gentle light on a possible path:

Live locally

The pace of modern life (especially in political seasons) spins all of us away from our own life, family, community, and local culture. We are pulled into fixations on issues which, in fact, are too theoretical and remote to have much influence on our own lives.

In fact, the quality and joy of life have nothing at all to do with who is elected to any office. The sounds, colors, passions, and delights of my life will remain the same regardless of who is elected.

Live simply

The political impulse will always make things complicated. A dense web of complexity, crises, and intrigue forms a compelling need for experts. As a result, we are losing confidence in our own ability to solve problems.

But, most issues are, in fact, simpler than the experts will admit. So, rather than accept the invention of complexity, live simply. Slow down. Step out of consumerism’s tyranny. Pray. Do it yourself. Learn to live in relationship with neighbors, friends, and family rather than dependence on experts.

Live generously

Politics thrives on scarcity. It must validate threatening limits of air, water, energy, health, security, and many other essentials. It does so in order to control the distribution of the “scarce” resources. The long-term effect of that is to make people fearful and miserly toward life. We do not have to live by that construct or within the centrifuge it has built.

The antidote is to live generously. For example, love those who are different. Embrace those who are politically, religiously, economically, philosophically, and racially unlike you. Choose care over conflict. Deliberately bless your times, places, and relationships. Refuse to live in anger or in a bunker. Be vulnerable to few, loving to many, and kind toward all.

Live lightly

Have you ever noticed that only people who take life seriously seem capable of a light touch? A healthy sense of humor is more the result of being properly aligned with life than it is of knowing what is funny. I agree with Saul Alinsky “A sense of humor is incompatible with the complete acceptance of any dogma, any religious, political, or economic prescriptions for salvation.”

Come to think of it, these four trail markers are good in every season! Maybe now is the time for an old fashioned altar call. Oh, friend, just step away from the noise. Go on home to your life. It’s not too late. Yes, I see those hands.

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