Living in the Present

I’ve been known to ruminate over the past (going over and over past mistakes) and to obsess over the future (plotting out every possible future scenario).  As I’ve written about before, though 2012 is a year of waiting on God, a year of giving up my need to prove my worth by what I can accomplish.  2011 saw the ending of two great endeavors meant to make this world a better place; one had a slow and painful death and one crashed-and-burned, but they both ended.  It’s so tempting to want to jump right back into another world-changing endeavor.  And while I am serving in a couple different ways, church and inner city while also thinking and praying over some future possibilities, most of my energy is focused upon enjoying the moment and finding my identity as God’s child rather than God’s servant.  This is not easy for me to do, but unless I want to drive myself crazy, I have no option but to learn that lesson during this time of waiting.  

With that backdrop, check out the quote I just read from Greg Boyd’s book, “Present Perfect: Finding God in the Now.”  

“How much of your thought life is spent in the past or future, and what is the purpose for this nonpresent thinking? You may be so accustomed to living in the past and future that you find it difficult to notice how much of your thought life is spent there, let alone why you spend so much of your thought life there. But if you are completely honest with yourself, you’ll probably find that most of your past and future orientated thoughts revolve around you and are centered on your attempts to feel worthwhile and significant.

When we live perpetually hungry in the flesh, we spend a great deal of our thought life savoring past experiences or possible future experiences that make us feel worthwhile and significant. We also spend a great deal of time ruminating over past experiences that make us feel less worthwhile and significant. All the while we are strategizing over how to position ourselves to have more of the worth-giving experiences and how to better avoid the worth-detracting experiences.



Most of us are so accustomed to being hungry for Life and living in the past and future that we don’t realize this is what we’re doing. It’s hard for a fish to notice the water it swims in. But the fact of the matter is that we are rarely in the present moment when we’re hungry and chasing after false gods. This is yet another aspect of the grand illusion that entraps us. The very process of trying to acquire Life on our own forces us to miss most of life, for real life is always in the present moment. When we live as though we can acquire Life from things other than God, we inevitably live as though reality wasn’t always in the present moment.

Only a person who is no longer driven by insatiable hunger can consistently live in the present moment, and only a person who has learned how to find Life in the present moment is no longer driven by this insatiable hunger.”

Mark Twain was a "War" Protestor

I've recently watched Ken Burns' documentary on Mark Twain. It's fascinating to read about the first author of American Literature; many scholars argue that earlier authers like Hawthorne were really authors of British literature living in America.  We all know about Twain's famous works but moost of us aren't aware of his work to protest the darker sides of American culture.  Huckleberry Finn was one of the first books in the US to value black people, but Twain went beyond slavery to tackle the Myth of Redemptive Violence as it exists in the US. 

Check out his writing on the Moro Massacre of of 1906.  Twain's biting satire cut through the usual rhetoric of "defending freedom" to point out the real issues and evils of most war. 




Mark Twain (March 12, 1906)




This incident burst upon the world last Friday in an official cablegram from the commander of our forces in the Philippines to our Government at Washington. The substance of it was as follows: A tribe of Moros, dark-skinned savages, had fortified themselves in the bowl of an extinct crater not many miles from Jolo; and as they were hostiles, and bitter against us because we have been trying for eight years to take their liberties away from them, their presence in that position was a menace. Our commander, Gen. Leonard Wood, ordered a reconnaissance. It was found that the Moros numbered six hundred, counting women and children; that their crater bowl was in the summit of a peak or mountain twenty-two hundred feet above sea level, and very difficult of access for Christian troops and artillery. Then General Wood ordered a surprise, and went along himself to see the order carried out. Our troops climbed the heights by devious and difficult trails, and even took some artillery with them. The kind of artillery is not specified, but in one place it was hoisted up a sharp acclivity by tackle a distance of some three hundred feet. Arrived at the rim of the crater, the battle began. Our soldiers numbered five hundred and forty. They were assisted by auxiliaries consisting of a detachment of native constabulary in our pay -- their numbers not given -- and by a naval detachment, whose numbers are not stated. But apparently the contending parties were about equal as to number -- six hundred men on our side, on the edge of the bowl; six hundred men, women and children in the bottom of the bowl. Depth of the bowl, 50 feet.



Gen. Wood's order was, "Kill or capture the six hundred."



The battle began-it is officially called by that name-our forces firing down into the crater with their artillery and their deadly small arms of precision; the savages furiously returning the fire, probably with brickbats-though this is merely a surmise of mine, as the weapons used by the savages are not nominated in the cablegram. Heretofore the Moros have used knives and clubs mainly; also ineffectual trade-muskets when they had any.





The official report stated that the battle was fought with prodigious energy on both sides during a day and a half, and that it ended with a complete victory for the American arms. The completeness of the victory for the American arms. The completeness of the victory is established by this fact: that of the six hundred Moros not one was left alive. The brilliancy of the victory is established by this other fact, to wit: that of our six hundred heroes only fifteen lost their lives.



General Wood was present and looking on. His order had been. "Kill or capture those savages." Apparently our little army considered that the "or" left them authorized to kill or capture according to taste, and that their taste had remained what it has been for eight years, in our army out there - the taste of Christian butchers.



The official report quite properly extolled and magnified the "heroism" and "gallantry" of our troops; lamented the loss of the fifteen who perished, and elaborated the wounds of thirty-two of our men who suffered injury, and even minutely and faithfully described the nature of the wounds, in the interest of future historians of the United States. It mentioned that a private had one of his elbows scraped by a missile, and the private's name was mentioned. Another private had the end of his nose scraped by a missile. His name was also mentioned - by cable, at one dollar and fifty cents a word.



Next day's news confirmed the previous day's report and named our fifteen killed and thirty-two wounded again, and once more described the wounds and gilded them with the right adjectives.



Let us now consider two or three details of our military history. In one of the great battles of the Civil War ten per cent. Of the forces engaged on the two sides were killed and wounded. At Waterloo, where four hundred thousand men were present on the two sides, fifty thousand fell, killed and wounded, in five hours, leaving three hundred and fifty thousand sound and all right for further adventures. Eight years ago, when the pathetic comedy called the Cuban War was played, we summoned two hundred and fifty thousand men. We fought a number of showy battles, and when the war was over we had lost two hundred and sixty-eight men out of our two hundred and fifty thousand, in killed and wounded in the field, and just fourteen times as many by the gallantry of the army doctors in the hospitals and camps. We did not exterminate the Spaniards -- far from it. In each engagement we left an average of two per cent. of the enemy killed or crippled on the field.



Contrast these things with the great statistics which have arrived from

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that Moro crater! There, with six hundred engaged on each side, we lost fifteen men killed outright, and we had thirty-two wounded-counting that nose and that elbow. The enemy numbered six hundred -- including women and children -- and we abolished them utterly, leaving not even a baby alive to cry for its dead mother. This is incomparably the greatest victory that was ever achieved by the Christian soldiers of the United States.



Now then, how has it been received? The splendid news appeared with splendid display-heads in every newspaper in this city of four million and thirteen thousand inhabitants, on Friday morning. But there was not a single reference to it in the editorial columns of any one of those newspapers. The news appeared again in all the evening papers of Friday, and again those papers were editorially silent upon our vast achievement. Next day's additional statistics and particulars appeared in all the morning papers, and still without a line of editorial rejoicing or a mention of the matter in any way. These additions appeared in the evening papers of that same day (Saturday) and again without a word of comment. In the columns devoted to correspondence, in the morning and evening papers of Friday and Saturday, nobody said a word about the "battle." Ordinarily those columns are teeming with the passions of the citizen; he lets no incident go by, whether it be large or small, without pouring out his praise or blame, his joy or his indignation about the matter in the correspondence column. But, as I have said, during those two days he was as silent as the editors themselves. So far as I can find out, there was only one person among our eighty millions who allowed himself the privilege of a public remark on this great occasion -- that was the President of the United States. All day Friday he was as studiously silent as the rest. But on Saturday he recognized that his duty required him to say something, and he took his pen and performed that duty. If I know President Roosevelt -- and I am sure I do -- this utterance cost him more pain and shame than any other that ever issued from his pen or his mouth. I am far from blaming him. If I had been in his place my official duty would have compelled me to say what he said. It was a convention, an old tradition, and he had to be loyal to it. There was no help for it. This is what he said:



Washington, March 10. Wood, Manila:- I congratulate you and the officers and men of your command upon the

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brilliant feat of arms wherein you and they so well upheld the honor of the American flag. (Signed) Theodore Roosevelt.



His whole utterance is merely a convention. Not a word of what he said came out of his heart. He knew perfectly well that to pen six hundred helpless and weaponless savages in a hole like rats in a trap and massacre them in detail during a stretch of a day and a half, from a safe position on the heights above, was no brilliant feat of arms - and would not have been a brilliant feat of arms even if Christian America, represented by its salaried soldiers, had shot them down with Bibles and the Golden Rule instead of bullets. He knew perfectly well that our uniformed assassins had not upheld the honor of the American flag, but had done as they have been doing continuously for eight years in the Philippines - that is to say, they had dishonored it.



The next day, Sunday, -- which was yesterday -- the cable brought us additional news - still more splendid news -- still more honor for the flag. The first display-head shouts this information at us in the stentorian capitals: "WOMEN SLAIN MORO SLAUGHTER."



"Slaughter" is a good word. Certainly there is not a better one in the Unabridged Dictionary for this occasion



The next display line says:



"With Children They Mixed in Mob in Crater, and All Died Together."



They were mere naked savages, and yet there is a sort of pathos about it when that word children falls under your eye, for it always brings before us our perfectest symbol of innocence and helplessness; and by help of its deathless eloquence color, creed and nationality vanish away and we see only that they are children -- merely children. And if they are frightened and crying and in trouble, our pity goes out to them by natural impulse. We see a picture. We see the small forms. We see the terrified faces. We see the tears. We see the small hands clinging in supplication to the mother; but we do not see those children that we are speaking about. We see in their places the little creatures whom we know and love.



The next heading blazes with American and Christian glory like to the sun in the zenith:



"Death List is Now 900."



I was never so enthusiastically proud of the flag till now!

A Pastor's response to his Government declaring war (?)

How should a pastor of the Gospel respond when his government declares war? Even if that decleration seems to be justified?
Well, here's one possible response from a civil war era pastor.
It's a great read, enjoy.

link

The Great Satan

I am currently working through NT Wright's fascinating book, Simply Jesus. In the midst of all kinds of powerful and challenging things I'm learning from this book, came across this gem that relates to the current theme of my blog; nonviolence. It makes sense, though, one cannot study the life and teachings of Jesus without being continually confronted by Jesus' love for his (and our) enimies and his expectation that his followers extend that same love (as opposed to violence). So enjoy and then read the book for yourself.
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As C.S. Lewis points out in the introduction to his famous, “Screwtape Letters,” the modern world divides into those who are obsessed with demonic power and those who mock them as outdated rubbish. Neither approach, Lewis insists, does justice to the reality. I’m with Lewis on this. Despite the caricatures, the obsessions, and the sheer muddle that people often get themselves into on this subject, there is such a thing as a dark force that seems to take over people, movements, and sometimes whole countries, a force or (as it sometimes seems) a set of forces that can make people do things they would never normally do.

You might have thought the history of the twentieth century would provide plenty of examples of this, but many still choose to resist the conclusion – despite the increasing use in public life of the language of “force” (economic “forces”, political “forces,” peer “pressure,” and so on). In recent scholarship, Walter Wink in particular has offered a sharp and compelling analysis of “the powers” and the way they function in today’s world as much as in yesterday’s. The psychotherapist Scott Peck wrote a book, “People of the Lie,” about a small but significant number of his clients who had, it seemed, bought so deeply into unreality that they appeared to have been taken over by dark forces beyond themselves. The post-Enlightenment idea that such language reeks of medieval superstition is too simplistic by half. Granted the split-level world of Enlightenment thought, we should perhaps expect that we wouldn’t have very good language for talking about a reality that is neither divine nor reducible to terms of the ordinary material world. But this should not stop us from trying to come to grips with the reality in question.

Without the perspective that sees evil as a dark force that stands behind human reality, the issue of “good” and “bad” in our world is easy to decipher. It is fatally easily, and I mean fatally easy, to typecast “people like us” as basically good and “people like them” as basically evil. This is a danger we in our day should be aware of, after the disastrous attempts by some Western leaders to speak about an “axis of evil” and then go to war to obliterate it. We turn ourselves into angels and “the other lot” into demons; we “demonize” our opponents. This is a convenient tool for avoiding having to think, but it is disastrous for both our thinking and our behavior.

But when you take seriously the existence and malevolence of non-human forces that are capable of using “us” as well as “them” in the service of evil, the focus shifts. As the hazy and shadowy realities come into view, what we thought was clear and straightforward becomes blurred. Life becomes more complex, but arguably more realistic. The traditional lines of friend and foe are not so easy to draw. You can no longer assume that “that lot” are simply agents of the devil and “this lot” – us and our friends – are automatically on God’s side. If there is an enemy at work, it is a subtle, cunning enemy, much too clever to allow itself to be identified simply with one person, one group, or one nation. Only twice in the gospel story does Jesus address, “the satan” directly by that title: once when rebuking him in the temptation narrative (Matt 4:10), and again when he is rebuking his closest associate (Mark 8:33) for resisting God’s strange plan. The line between good and evil is clear at the level of God, on the one hand, and the satan, on the other. It is much, much less clear as it passes through human beings, individually and collectively.

This is precisely the kind of redefinition that was going on in Jesus’ Nazareth Manifesto (Luke 4:14-20). Traditional enemies were suddenly brought, at least in principle, within reach of the blessing of God’s great jubilee. And traditional friends – those who might have thought that they were automatically on the right side – had to be looked at again. Perhaps one can no longer simply identify “our people” as on the side of the angels and “those people” as agents of the satan. That’s why Jesus was run out of town and nearly killed. He had suggested that foes could become friends and by implication was warning that the “good people” – Israel as the people of God – might become enemies. Ironically, his own townsfolk proceeded to prove the point by their reaction.

Ruthless Trust

After my teaching stint ended, I received a Facebook message from a high school friend who is also a teacher and who shares my passion for nonviolence and kingdom-equality. She said something about how now that I'm experiencing the disillusionment of failing in an attempt to change the world, I needed to read Brennan Manning's book, Ruthless Trust. Now that I've finished the book, I am deeply grateful that the friend recommended the book. Here is a quote very appropriate to my situation.

"We formulate plans to fulfill what we perceive to be the purpose of our lives
(inevitably limited), and when the locomotive of our longings gets derailed, we
deem ourselves failures... Our disappointments arise from presuming to know
the outcome of a particular endeavor."

Yes. Nothing is wasted by God but things rarely happen the way we think they should. The same was true of Trinity Family; things didn't all happen the way I thought they should but God brought about beautiful things I never even thought to expect.

Some Good Friday Thoughts

Here are two great quotes from "The Cross Shattered Christ" by Stanley Hauerwas.

"The silence of Jesus before Pilate can now be understood for what it is -
namely, that Jesus refuses to accept the termsof how the world understands
power and authority... We seek to 'explain' these words [My God, my God, why have
you forsaken me] of dereliction, to save and protect God from
making a foodl out of being God, but our attempts to protect God reveal how
frightening we find a God who refuses to save us by violence."


"'Jesus will be in agony until the end of the world'- Pascal; This is a remark
that makes unaviodable the recognition that we live in the time between the
times - the Kingdom is begun in Christ but will not be consumated or perfected
until the end of the world... [Pascal's comment] is an exhortation not to become
nostaligic for a supposedly less compromised past or take refuge in some imagined
purified future, but to dwell in the tension-filled time between times, to remain
awake to our inability 'to stay in the almost unbearable present moment where
Jesus is."

What Every Person Should Know about War

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer prize winning foreign correspondent who has covered many wars as well as global terrorism. Hedges has also won an award with Amnesty International. For this book, “What Every Person Should Know about War” Hedges teamed up with various military experts and worked to answer (and footnote) almost any question any soon to be soldier could ever ask about war. The following are a few interesting statements I thought were worth passing along.

Will I be more likely to abuse my spouse?
Yes. One Army survey of 55,000 soldiers at 47 bases showed that one of every three families has suffered some kind of domestic violence, from slapping to murder. This is twice the rate found in similar groups of civilians. The Pentagon has disclosed that an average of one child or spouse dies each week at the hands of a relative in the military.

What happens to my mind if I am afraid?
It becomes hardere to kill. When people are afraid or angry they do not think with their forebrains. They think with the midbrain. The midbrain harbors a deep instinct against killing one’s own kind. The military combats this with repeated traning. You will be rewarded for being able to overcome this instinct. It is the same principle used to train dogs.

What are the negative aspects of my training?
The conflict between forebrain and midbrain may be the source of several long-term psychological consequences of combat and killing. Those who survive combat have a greater chance of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Must I always avoid killing civilians?
No. You may cause civilian casualties if you are attacking a legitimate target. You may be forced to shoot an enemy if he or she is using civilians as human shields. Civilians are not combatants and are not lawful targets unless they take part in the hostilities against you and are a threat to you.

What will happen to my body after I die?
A doctor will pronounce you dead while you are still in the field. Your body will be put on a stretcher and taken to a collection site. You will be laid out on a tarp with others who died in battle. The collection site, if possible, will be out of sight of the wounded and fresh replacements. Your personal effects will be removed from your pockets. These effects will be placed in a plastic bag and marked with your name, date of birth, and Social Security number. Your weapon, ammunition, and any other government property will be set aside for reuse.

Making Room for Thy Kingdom Come

A great quote on making room for the Kingdom from “Missional Small Groups.”

“It is okay to talk about spiritual things in church. We can talk about prayer, living morally upright, ‘getting saved,’ God’s love for us, and other topics that fit nicely into sixty to niney-minute spiritual escape on Sunday morning. But it is not okay to tlak about the spiritual implications related to how we spend our money or our time. Those are private matters that should be left to individual choices.

But the Bible actually speaks quite a lot about these very practical, mundane matters of life. Things like greed, anxiety, self-promotion, and priorities in life fill the pages of God’s Word. To limit God to a box labeled ‘spiritual’ is to miss the point of biblical spirituality. The way we do life in mundane things – like how we handle our money and manage our time – directly impacts our life with God. We often fail to realize how the little decisions we make every day about seemingly insignificant things can actually undermine the rhythms that God has called us to play in the world.

Simplicity is something that results from having what Richard Foster calls a ‘divine Center.’ When we ‘seek first God’s Kingdom and his righteousness’ (Matthew 6:33), God beings to reorient our lives so that we have space in our lives to love him and others more. Jesus becomes our vision and focus and then the Spirit of God begins to order our life, our commitments, our priorities, and our spending. If we start by establishing a specific list of acceptable ways to spend our time and money, we only have anxiety about whether we are doing it right. And we don’t need any more anxiety in this age. But if we understand that simplicity is a way to allow the love of God to move through us more freely, then it becomes a choice of love, not an act of legalism.

To seek first the Kingdom means that we must make room for the Kingdom of God in our lives. If we expect to develop a divine Center without making some hard choices about how we do life, then we are sorely mistaken. Making room in our lives so we can love more freely will require us to make hard choices – choices that go against the flow of culture.”