faithasawayoflife

On Tsutomu Yamaguchi and the necessity of abolishing nuclear weapons

My friend, Mako Fujimura, a Japanese-American artist who lives and works in New York City, tweeted yesterday about the death of Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the last known living survivor of both atomic bombs dropped on Japan at the end of World War II.  Here is a moving article from the UK newspaper The Guardian from last year about Mr. Yamaguchi.  The Melissa Block hosted NPR story that played yesterday interviews Charles Pellegrino, author of a forthcoming book on survivor's memories titled The Last Train from Hiroshima.  His descriptions of the actual blast are horrific, as if we didn't know that.  But time has a way of smoothing out such traumatic memories, at least for those of us at some remove from the events.  I have been inspired by President Obama's steadfast commitment to work towards the elimination of nuclear weapons, and I take this opportunity to recommit myself to that cause. It needs our support because the hawks are raising opposition to this effort.

 During my last year at Yale (2008) I had the chance to work with Tyler Wigg-Stevenson on the Sarah Smith Conference on Moral Leadership with the topic: Are We Safe Yet?  Tyler helped us orient the conference to the question of international conversations about ending nuclear weapons as a legitimate policy option for nations, a possibility he believes has unique promise at this juncture of history (cf. this Wall Street Journal op-ed to that effect by some decidedly un-dove like characters including Henry Kissinger).  Tyler's new work is the Two Futures Project focused on eliminating nuclear weapons. I encourage you to join up with his work and to find ways in this new year to raise the profile on this issue.  It has, I realize, been a central concern for my favorite band U2 for decades.  Their album War (1983) has as its second song "Seconds" which is a direct critique of nuclear weapons.  Here's the video from their famous concert at Red Rocks.  Unsettling, to say the least.  Pray for peace, and work even harder for its accomplishment. I could offer some sophisticated argument that these weapons should never again be used, but why?  There can be no moral justification for using these horrific weapons.  None. 

Anon, and peace,

Chris

Kanye West: serving the homeless and promising to 'tell the truth' in his work

I love Kanye West, despite all the reasons I shouldn't.  He got me from Jesus Walks, and the three brilliant and creative video treatments he did of the song.  Despite lots of boos, I gave his latest autotune album, 808s and Heartbreak,  a positive review here.  I was just reading an article about John Legend in the online Delta Magazine and he commented that Kanye is a totally brilliant guy, creative, and as geniuses are, a bit wacked.  The bio I'm reading just now, Ray Monk's fantastic Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius, I can see how true that is.  But after the 'Taylor Swift incident" many people including my dear Sonja wrote West off.  He's finished, they said, that was inexcusable.  Yes it was.  He went on Jay Leno's show, tail between his legs, to apologize.  So I wonder if there was more than holiday compassion behind his recent visit to an LA homeless shelter.  Perhaps, but still cool that he did it, and good for him, as he says on his blog.  More interesting, however, is his statement a couple days ago about what he's up to.  His blog is usually a provocative combination of art, fashion, and music, without any commentary (or very little).  He's very faithful, posting nearly every day.  But here is his post from 1-4-2010.  It may be a stretch to say he always seeks to tell the truth, but seeking the truth is powerful and important. I for one hope he rises to this vision.

Anon and peace,

Chris

FIRST OF ALL, I WANT TO THANK EVERYBODY FOR THEIR CONSTANT LOVE AND SUPPORT OVER THESE PAST 6 YEARS!  I'M SO HAPPY TO BE BACK IN THE STUDIO MAKING NEW MUSIC.  I WILL BRING YOU THE BEST I HAVE TO OFFER WITH THE SAME DEDICATION THAT KOBE HAS ON THE COURT.  IT'S FUNNY HOW SO MANY RAPPERS GET WORSE AS THEIR CAREERS STRETCH OUT BUT TRUE POETS GET BETTER.  WE WILL  FOLLOW IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF MAYA ANGELOU, GILL SCOTT HERRON AND NINA SIMONE. THEIR WORK IMPROVED WITH TIME.  THEY DOCUMENTED WHAT WAS HAPPENING IN CULTURE.  THAT IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY AS THE MODERN DAY ARTISTS AND POETS, TO ACCURATELY REPRESENT WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW, SO WHEN THE POWERS THAT BE TRY TO REWRITE  HISTORY  YOU CAN ALWAYS LOOK AT OUR WORKS AND FIND TRUTH AND SINCERITY IN A WORLD OF PROCESSED INFORMATION. LET US SOAK IN POSITIVE FORCES AND LOOK DOWN ON UPON THOSE WHO MASQUERADE AS TRUTH TELLERS AND OBJECTIVE FACT GIVERS WHEN IN REALITY EVERYTHING THAT IS PROJECTED HAS AN AGENDA OF BRAINWASHING US, THE  "CONSUMER", THE PUBLIC, TO BELIEVE WHAT THEY WANT US TO.  LET US LOOK PAST HEADLINES AND DEAL WITH JUST A BIT OF REALITY IN THIS NEW DECADE.  WE HAVE OUR OWN OUTLETS NOW. WE DON'T HAVE TO BELIEVE EVERYTHING ANYMORE. NOW I'LL FIGURE OUT A WAY TO MAKE THAT RYHME    LOL!!!

Mary Daly, RIP

I pause today to express gratitude for Mary Daly, feminist theologian, professor and scholar who died this week.  She was among the key women who helped move me to embrace feminism and to see the terrible trouble in the subjection of women historical and today.  She powerfully challenged, especially in her book Beyond God the Father, my relatively naive view of God's 'maleness' and what that heavenly symbolism legitimated here on earth.  Or perhaps that 'legitimation' is to simple.  Still, her challenge raised my critical faculties and caused me to look at myself as male and my assumptions about what was natural regarding God's identity in new ways. 

While she might not immediately be seen as directly connected to Lutheran church identity and live, her autobiography has a certain familiar ring: Amazing Grace: Re-Calling the Courage to Sin Big.  Hmm.  That'd be interesting!  And check this out: Carolyn D. Riswold's Two Reformers: Martin Luther and Mary Daly as Political Theologians.  I've ordered that one!

Anon, and peace,

Chris

Avatar provokes theological and political controversy

I haven't seen it yet, I admit, but I've been reading avidly about the blockbuster movie Avatar (now the fourth best grossing movie of all time!).  One interesting theological analysis (Ross Douthat in the New York Times) portrays the movie as representative of a Hollywood theology (pantheism) which I tend to find compelling generally even if I haven't see the movie. The other (Patrick Goldenstein in the Los Angeles Times)  portrays it as representative of liberal Hollywood values, out of step with 'main street' Americans (whatever they are).  Thoughts?  I'll check back in after I've seen the flick.

Anon, and peace,

Chris

Above all, it's about not losing our hope: a powerful New Year's message from Rowan Williams

Here's Rowan Williams, channeling Obama a bit with his inspirational 'Yes, we can' rhetoric about half way in.  In some profound way, it is simply a reminder that to be faithful our own ears need to be attuned as God's are to the cries of those most in need, and our own lives bent in loving response to those cries.

anon, and peace,

Chris

Learning over time: why older does not mean mental decline but complexity

This fascinating article on the aging and the brain in the NYT is related to my work on the Learning Pastoral Imagination Project.  One area of key importance for the project is how we know, and a related question of how we learn.  I want to ask this as a practical question related to everyday life, and over time rather than a simple view of this or that isolated moment.  Like: I'm typing just now and I remember learning typing from the basketball coach in high school typing class, searching out the keys one by one etc.  Now I don't look at the keys or even think about the keys at all--I think the idea, the words, and they appear on the screen. Or: when I'm in an interview (formal) or conversation (informal) in which I'd like to know more about someone, I used to ask a question and wait for an answer followed by another question on another topic.  I've learned over time how to prod, to come back to what someone has said and dig a bit deeper if they are comfortable.  That way, I've learned, I get more detail, more of a story, and the riches of the persons experience come pouring out.  Or: when I used to be asked to pray before a meal I would freeze and turn mentally to forms I knew, for example Psalm 145 'the eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season' or something similar.  Now having prayed enough through life and experienced various moments of impromptu prayer, I have some more flexible patterns I draw upon and can calmly construct a prayer bit by bit incorporating those at the table, the situation at hand, the creation, etc. feeling at once grounded in the prayer and yet open to the way it is shaped in the praying.  I've talked to friends who can after 20+ years even do this when they pray the Eucharistic prayer. These may not be the most telling examples but here--the quote from the article in the NYT that struck me as getting at what I'm trying to make sense of was this:

"The brain, as it traverses middle age, gets better at recognizing the central idea, the big picture. If kept in good shape, the brain can continue to build pathways that help its owner recognize patterns and, as a consequence, see significance and even solutions much faster than a young person can."

All this connects to many things I'm thinking about, reading about, and writing about in the Learning Pastoral Imagination Project which I haven't blogged much about but will begin to say a bit more about as I seek to think through aspects of the research over the next couple years.  Thoughts and responses welcome!

Anon, and peace,

Chris

Most appreciated album of 2009: David Bazan's Curse Your Branches

Well, people, I said it before: how did I not know about Bazan?  I love this guy.  I love his 'break up with God' album that was my most delightful surprise of 2009.  The album is called Curse Your Branches.  Full of amazing lines, and some of the most thoughtful questioning of God I've heard in a long time.  I love this couplet from the song 'Curse Your Branches':

and why are some hell bent upon there being an answer / while some are quite content to answer i don’t know

Or this one from 'Bearing Witness' that gets so deeply the idea of how complaint before God sometimes means denying God (the Psalms at their darkest do this):

when the gap between
what i hoped would be
and what is makes me weep for my kids
i take a cleansing breath and make a positive confession
but is that what bearing witness is
though it may alienate your family
and blur the lines of your identity
let go of what you know and honor what exists
son, that’s what bearing witness is
daughter, that’s what bearing witness is

anon, and +peace,

Chris

Most anticipated album of 2010: The Arcade Fire

I know, I know.  Bono has promised a new U2 album by June; the Edge has said to expect something new from them as soon as they can, but hasn't put dates on it.  Lots of other notable acts are putting out albums in the new year.  But the single most exciting release I'm anticipating is The Arcade Fire, the indie band from Montreal, whose 2004 debut album Funeral made most top albums of the decade lists (one of the crossover acts from Rolling Stone to Paste).  I first heard of the band at the first U2 show in Boston in 2005 when the Vertigo Tour played The Arcade Fire song "Wake Up" as just before taking the stage.  I've been digging deeper since, and keep finding more to like.  If you've not heard of them, try this NPR introduction covering their release concert for their last album, Neon Bible, played at Judson Memorial Church in New York (you can download the whole hour+ concert for free).  Reasons why I like the band?  Some quick reasons with the promise that I'm writing about them in my new book, Broken Hallelujahs. 

1. Passion. 

2. Creative Musicianship (they of course draw on typical band instruments--drums, guitar, bass, piano, but also pipe organ, violin, mandolin, french horn, and they even use a baritone horn--my other instrument--on Neon Bible)

3. Intellectual depth

4. Theological sophistication

5. Some pretty damn catchy songs

anon, and peace,

Chris

Curating worship in a secular age: clues from London's V&A

I was fascinated to read how London's Victoria and Albert Museum went to in finding out how to helpfully display their Medieval and Renaissance galleries.  It turns out that since much of this art is Christian, people in today's secular British don't know how to make sense of the material to be displayed and a whole new approach to the exhibit had to be found.  I'm reading Wittgenstein just now, and it is interesting to connect the idea of how language makes sense--in its use, culturally embedded, so to speak--and the museum had to find ways to do this as well.  The article is here.  They couldn't just take away the off-putting or difficult to understand materials, as some churches have done in response to secularism.  They actually wanted to draw people into an experience of these complex treasures so that people might understand and be changed.  The exhibit has, if you will, a rhetorical purpose for the exhibit, to move, delight, and change its viewers.  So that means much more creative parallel work both showing the thing and displaying contextualizing elements to help in a self-discovery as the visitor explores. The sorts of provocations this inspires connect in my mind with the reflections I read some time ago about curating worship (that, apparently, will be coming out as a book this spring). 

Anon, and peace,

Chris

Of the things that are, that have been . . .

In my morning prayers, this ancient hymn by Roman Christian lawyer and poet Marcus Aurelius Prudentius was listed as the hymn.  It struck me how appropriate the first verse is for New Year's Day.  It was, of course, placed there because of the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God (see the second verse) but the first first really is about expansiveness of God which gave to us Jesus, love incarnate.  The hymn is most often translated 'Of the Father's Love Begotten' but note the Latin has it 'parentis', parent, not the typical Latin for father, 'patris' as in 'Nomine Patris, Filii, et Spiritus Sancti'. Anyway, as one common translation has it, 'of the things that are, that have been, and that future years shall see, evermore and ever more.  We are, mysteriously, kept in that expansiveness, loved 'ere the worlds began to be', sure of our source and ending, and therefore enter this new year with that gift.  Here's the Latin (first verse only).

Corde natus ex parentis
Ante mundi exordium
A et O cognominatus,
ipse fons et clausula
Omnium quae sunt, fuerunt,
quaeque post futura sunt.
Saeculorum saeculis.

Anon, and peace,

Chris