"A child is one who accepts even the most extravagant gifts, even the gift of love, not on the basis of believing that he deserves it and not in spite of the fact that he knows he does not, but simply because it is given.. . ..and surely this is a hard saying. After we have given so much of our lives to the task of trying to understand, after we have been so continually anxious lest our faith wither and bear no fruit, then it is a real shock to be told that it is only by not trying that we become, that it is only by not resisting evil that we defeat it, that it is only by losing our lives that we save them. Yet if on the one hand we are shocked by this, on the other to know ourselves at all is to know the truth of it.. . .It is just when we realize that it is impossible by any effort of our own to make ourselves children and thus to enter the kingdom of Heaven that we become children. We are children, perhaps, at the very moment we know that it is as children that God loves us--not because we have deserved his love and not in spite of our undeserving; not because we try and not because we recognize the futility of our trying; but simply because he has chosen to love us. We are children because he is our father; and all our efforts, fruitful and fruitless, to do good, to speak truth, to understand, are the efforts of children who, for all their precocity, are children still in that before we loved him, he loved us, as children, through Jesus Christ our Lord."

-----Frederick Buechner, "Become Like Children," from "The Magnificent Defeat"

On To Bethlehem

so i'm at this wheel it's three am
waiting for the caffeine to come around
and life rears it's ugly head again
they say your radio's cool and retail's way down

and i'd like to say i'm faithful
to the task at hand
speaking gospel to a handful
and others with their list of demands

it's cold this year and i'm late on my dues
it's cold in here ah but that's nothing new
my heart's electric with your love again
so it's on to bethlehem

you might surmise that i ran there
but i really only crept
lead me to the place where love runs wild
and then it dogs your every step

you know how fickle my heart is
prone to wonder my Lord
yeah we talk but it's at arms length
always got one eye on the door

God wraps Himself up in human skin
for those who want to touch
and God let them drive the nails in
for those of us who know way too much

You come bearing all our burdens
and take Your lovers for a ride
but we stay holed up in our cages
fashioned by our own design

so tell me what is your secret
what's on your blister soul
what is that one little secret
you know the one that has taken its toll

'cause daddy's banging on your gate again
yeah he won't leave you alone
got a whole lot of dry warm rooms
and the finest of homes

it's cold this year and i'm late on my dues
it's cold in here ah but that's nothing new
my heart's electric with your love again
so it's on to bethlehem

-----Bill Mallonee

I'm not normally a big fan of Henri, and I would change his phrase, "trust that good things will happen" to "trust that God's perfect plan will be carried out in my life, and that His will, though inscrutable, is ultimately good". But on the whole, I like what he's saying here.

"Just imagine what Mary was actually saying in the words, 'I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let what you have said be done to me' (Luke 1:38). She was saying, 'I don't know what this all means, but I trust that good things will happen.' She trusted so deeply that her waiting was open to all possibilities. And she did not want to control them. She believed that when she listened carefully, she could trust what was going to happen. To wait open-endedly is an enormously radical attitude toward life. So is to trust that something will happen to us that is far beyond our own imaginings. So, too, is giving up control over our future and letting God define our life, trusting that God molds us according to God's love and not according to our fear. The spiritual life is a life in which we wait, actively present to the moment, trusting that new things will happen to us, new things that are far beyond our own imagination, fantasy, or prediction. That, indeed, is a very radical stance toward life in a world preoccupied with control."

-----Henri Nouwen, "A Spirituality of Waiting: Being Alert to God's Presence in Our Lives," Weavings, January 1987

"I am old and full of tears, and I see that you also begin to feel the sorrow that is born with us. Abandon hope: do not abandon desire. Feel no wonder that these glimpses of your Island so easily confuse themselves with viler things, and are so easily blasphemed. Above all, never try to keep them, never try to revisit the same place or time wherein the vision was accorded to you. You will pay the penalty of all who would bind down to one place or time within our country that which our country cannot contain. Have you not heard from the Stewards of the sin of idolatry, and how in their old chronicles, the manna turned to worms if any tried to hoard it? Be not greedy, be not passionate; you will but crush dead on your own breast with hot, rough hands the thing you loved. But if ever you incline to doubt that the thing you long for is something real, remember what your own experience has taught you. Think that it is a feeling, and at once the feeling has no value. Stand sentinel at your own mind, watching for that feeling, and you will find--what shall I say--a flutter in the heart, an image in the head, a sob in the throat: and was that your desire? You know that it was not, and that no feeling whatever will appease you, that feeling, refine it as you will, is but one more spurious claimant--spurious as the gross lusts of which the giant speaks. Let us conclude then that what you desire is no state of yourself at all, but something, for that very reason, Other and Outer. And knowing this you will find tolerable the truth that you cannot attain it. That the thing should be, is so great a good that when you remember "it is" you will forget to be sorry that you can never have it. Nay, anything that you could have would be so much less than this that its fruition would be immeasurably below the mere hunger for this. Wanting is better than having. The glory of any world wherein you can live is in the end appearance: but then, as one of my sons has said, that leaves the world more glorious yet."

-----C.S. Lewis, Father Wisdom's discourse from "Pilgrim's Regress"

SCIENTISTS

The beauty of nature is supect.
Oh yes, the splendor of flowers.
Science is concerned to deprive us of illusions.
Though why it is eager to do so is unclear.
The battles among genes, traits that secure success, gains and losses.
My God, what language these people speak
In their white coats. Charles Darwin
At least had pangs of conscience
Making public a theory that was, as he said, devilish.
And they? It was, after all, their idea:
To segregate rats in separate cages.
To segregate humans, write off as genetic loss
Some of their own species and poison them.
"The pride of the peacock is the glory of God,"
Wrote William Blake. There was a time
When disinterested beauty by its sheer superabundance
Gratified our eyes. What have they left us?
Only the accountancy of a capitalist enterprise.

-----Czeslaw Milosz, from "Second Space"

This is the best poem I've read in some time:

A BRIEF FOR THE DEFENSE
Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafes and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.

-----Jack Gilbert

"The wish to be independent in everything is false pride. Even what we owe to others belongs to ourselves and is a part of our own lives, and any attempt to calculate what we have 'earned' for ourselves and what we owe to other people is certainly not Christian, and is , moreover, a futile undertaking. It's through what he himself is, plus what he receives, that a man becomes a complete entity."

"My thoughts and feelings seem to be getting more and more like those of the Old Testament, and in recent months I have been reading the Old Testament much more than the New. It is only when one knows the unutterability of the name of God that one can utter the name of Jesus Christ; it is only when one loves life and the earth so much that without them everything seems to be over that one may believe in the resurrection and the new world; it is only when God's wrath and vengeance are hanging as grim realities over the heads of one's enemies that something of what it means to love and forgive them can touch our hearts."

"I've been thinking again over what I wrote to you recently about our own fear. I think that here, under the guise of honesty, something is being passed off as 'natural' that is at bottom a symptom of sin; it is really quite analogous to talking openly about sexual matters. After all, 'truthfulness' does not mean uncovering everything that exists. God himself made clothes for men; and that means that in statu corruptionis many things in human life ought to remain covered, and that evil, even though it cannot be eradicated, ought at least to be concealed. Exposure is cynical, and although the cynic prides himself on his exceptional honesty, or claims to want truth at all costs, he misses the crucial fact that since the fall there must be reticence and secrecy."

"I often wonder who I really am--the man who goes on squirming under these ghastly experiences in wretchedness that cries to heaven, or the man who scourges himself and pretends to others (and even to himself) that he is placid, cheerful, composed, and in control of himself, and allows people to admire him for it (i.e. for playing the part--or is it not playing a part?) What does one's attitude mean, anyway? In short, I know less than ever about myself, and I'm no longer attaching any importance to it. I've had more than enough psychology, and I'm less and less inclined to analyze the state of my soul.. ..There is something more at stake than self-knowledge."

"'Falsehood' is the destruction of, and hostility to, reality as it is in God; anyone who tells the truth cynically is lying."

"It's remarkable how little I miss going to church. I wonder why."

-----Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "Letters and Papers from Prison"

In honor of today's elections, here's a little something I wrote when I was 9 years old. (All punctuation and spelling reprinted as it was originally written. This little gem garnered a grade of C.)

MY SPEECH FOR PRESIDENT
Fellow citezens of "United States" I Chris Stratton Promis that Kids do not have to go to school. And then they will be able to learn every thing with a speacile divice called a school programmer. Then I will give you a Motor-Cycle for each family and then I'm going to put any ome to "DEATH" who comits a sireous crime. I will sentence anyone who Kills Animals to Five years in prision without a reason. That is what this Country needs a Man like me.

I'm running the 1st Annual OC Marathon on December 5th, 2004. I'm fundraising for Olive Crest, an Abused Children charity. Please Contribute if you can.

“We would rather be ruined than changed. We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die.”

-----W.H. Auden

"Men are ruled, at this minute by the clock, by liars who refuse them news, and by fools who cannot govern." - The New Name, Utopia of Usurers and Other Essays, 1917

"I have formed a very clear conception of patriotism. I have generally found it thrust into the foreground by some fellow who has something to hide in the background. I have seen a great deal of patriotism; and I have generally found it the last refuge of the scoundrel." - The Judgement of Dr. Johnson, Act III

-----G.K. Chesterton

In my 13 years as a registered voter, I've never been more troubled by a Presidential election. I've spent the last year and a half pouring over just about everything I can get my hands on to try and get to the bottom of why the present administration has done what it's done. . . and more importantly to make a determination as to whether those actions were in the best interest of the country or not. As an independent voter, a follower of Christ and someone that believes less government is ultimately better government, I did not come to the following conclusion lightly: the conclusion is this, come November 2, 2004, I'm casting my vote for John Kerry.

What follows is my shotgun logic for voting against Bush. In the coming weeks preceding the election, I invite your comments. I don't think we've had an election quite as important to the future direction of our country in at least half a century. The differences between the visions of these two candidates couldn't be more stark or have more far reaching implications for the next 50-100 years in our nation's life. We have some tough questions to ask ourselves about who we are and what we want to be in the new global century.

So here goes:

1) President Bush is an overly ambitious politician that appears incapable of expressing or feeling wholesome doubt about the policies he sets. Worse than that, I've read story after story that he's consulting advisors less and less on big decisions. When asked if he talked to his Father about the presidency or the war he said, "I ask my heavenly father," which seems to have become a dangerous way of saying, "I don't need to talk to anyone, God endorses what I do." He has increasingly isolated himself, refused the counsel of others, acted in a cavalier manner and then attempted to endorse that as good leadership. Worse yet, he uses God as his excuse for not engaging in any of those activities that we expect from our leaders. Even now that the cat is totally out of the bag about the run up to war in Iraq and the failures that have followed trying to win the peace, Bush still refuses to admit his failures or to change course. His reasoning, "I don't want to show weakness to our enemies." Instead he just keeps plugging along shouting that more certainty and resolve is what we need for his bad decisions. Anyone that's followed what's gone on can't help but resonate with Kerry's charge in the first debate: "You can be certain, but you can also be certainly wrong."

2) I have fundamental differences of opinion with Bush about how the US should act within a global economy. Bush seems to be stuck in the cold war mode of thinking: He wants nationalism first, war, threat of force and armament against nations, the viral expansion of freedom through conquest; in other words, "empire" in the traditional sense (whether overt or not). But I think a global economy demands a great deal more cooperation, diplomacy and sacrifice on our part. (Not to mention that, but it's clear that future terrorists resent having their families blown up). Don't let Bush scare you into thinking that this means we'll somehow have to seek approval from other nations to defend ourselves. It's simply not true. Who would do that? Bush continues to spurn international treaties, international governing bodies, international courts, international environmental laws and on and on. What does he think causes terrorism in the first place, and how does he think going to war and not planning for peace will solve the problem rather than exacerbate it?

3) John Kerry has the right plan for executing a war on terror and he has the diplomatic skill and toughness to carry it out in a way that doesn't exchange our goodwill for more terrorists. Anyone that doubts his fortitude needs to watch the speech he gave to congress at 27 years old after coming back from Vietnam. It was so persuasive and forceful that Nixon and Colson started a smear campaign against him and called him "another Kennedy." For those of you willing to take time to hear what he has to say, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised to find out that his plans are just as forceful as President Bush's with the added bonus that they are much more far reaching and progressive. Kerry understands that the war on terror is more than states clashing. He knows that poverty and fair trade and diplomacy are all intimately tied to America's perception around the globe. I believe he will try to do much more to eradicate the root causes of terrorism than George Bush.

Here are a litany of quotations from respectable people that you should read which I think bolster my larger points:

This first one comes from one of Bush's aides. Couple this with the neo-conservative plan for America that was developed in the 90's by Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and others and you've got a damn spooky ideology. Did you know you're country was being run by guys that talk like this?:
"The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore, ' he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality--judiciously, as you will--we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left just to study what we do."

This comes from Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners, a non-Partisan Christian publication:
"When I was first with Bush in Austin, what I saw was a self-help Methodist, very open, seeking," Wallis says now. "What I started to see at this point was the man that would emerge over the next year---a messianic American Calvinist. He doesn't want to hear from anyone who doubts him.. . . .Faith can cut in so many ways. If you're penitent and not triumphal, it can move us to repentance and accountability and help us reach for something higher than ourselves. That can be a powerful thing, a thing that moves us beyond politics as usual, like Martin Luther King Jr. did. But when it's designed to certify our righteousness--that can be a dangerous thing. Then it pushes self-criticism aside. There's no reflection. Where people often get lost is on this point. Real faith, you see, leads us to deeper reflections and not--not ever--to the thing we as humans so very much want." And what is that? "Easy certainty."

What Kerry has to say about doing things differently:
"No President, through all of American history, has ever ceded, and nor would I, the right to preempt in any way necessary to protect the United States of America. But if and when you do it you have to do it in a way that passes the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons."

Bush claims he's making us safer by warring in Iraq:
"In the meantime, Iran and North Korea, Iraq's original partners in Bush's 'axis of evil,' have heard the President's message differently, and have advanced their nuclear programs significantly since the American takeover of Baghdad; the North Korean state news agency has cited Iraq as an example of what can happen to countries that can't defend themselves with nukes."

John Kerry again:
"I want to restore America's reputation as a country that listens, is sensitive, brings people to our side, is the seeker of peace, not war, and that uses our high moral ground and high-level values to augment us in the war on terror, not diminish us."

"The war on terror is not a clash of civilizations, it is a clash of civilization against chaos, of the best hopes of humanity against dogmatic fears of progress and the future."

Senator Bob Kerry, 9/11 panel member:
"We've got to do something to acknowledge the gulf that exists between the dispossessed Arab world and us, because it's huge. We don't have enough money, we don't have enough parents who are willing to give up their sons and daughters, to win this with our armed forces. We don't have the bodies to do it. So if you don't have a real agenda of hope that's as hard-headed and tough as your military and law-enforcement agenda, we're not going to win this thing."

Colin Powell:
"The war on terror is intimately tied up in the war on poverty."


Closing Thought by Ron Suskind:
"Can the unfinished American experiment in self-governance--sputtering on the watery fuel of illusion and assertion---deal with something as nuanced as the subtleties of one man's faith? What, after all, is the nature of the particular conversation the President feels he has with God---a colloquy upon which the world now precariously trusts?"


What if Bush is more King Saul than King David?

"In the end, there are basically two attitudes that we can adopt to life. We can see it as meaningless, something which has no real purpose. In this case, the most that we can hope for is to make the best of it while we can, trying to help others less fortunate than ourselves and distract ourselves from the fact that it is all pointless. Or we can see life as a glorious gift, something that is good in itself--yet points to something even more wonderful that is yet to come. Even in this life, hints of the promised future break in, allowing us to anticipate what lies ahead."

--Alistar McGrath

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

Friends, all kidding about alien working girls aside, please take 30 seconds of your day today to use World Vision's petition generator to send a note asking the Pres and members of Congress to fully fund Bush's AIDS bill. This is the easiest letter you'll ever send. . .just go to the link and fill in your info and then let it autopopulate who you want to send it to. It literally takes 30 seconds. There are 25 million orphans in the balance. Let the love of Christ compell you.

AIDS Letter

How to tell if your Prostitute is an Alien

Wisdom from Ken Schmidt, Harley Davidson's marketing chief that engineered the turn-around of the company in the mid-80's and speaker at this year's Ingram Micro National Sales meeting:

--"Make a different noise."
--"Don't be rational."
--"When everybody's saying the same thing, no one is listening."
--"Make people feel good about themselves, give them something to belong to."
--"When what we see matches what we've been lead to believe, we believe even stronger."
--"World class product is not enough to compete with."
--"I'd rather have my sister in a whorehouse than my brother on a Honda."


This guy, best chapel speaker EVER!

"If this fails, you must fall back on a subtler misdirection of his intention. Whenever they are attending to the Enemy (God) Himself we (Demons) are defeated, but there are ways of preventing them from doing so. The simplest is to turn their gaze away from Him towards themselves. Keep them watching their own minds and trying to produce feelings there by the action of their own wills. When they meant to ask Him for charity, let them, instead, start trying to manufacture charitable feelings for themselves and not notice that this is what they are doing. When they meant to pray for courage, let them really be trying to feel brave. When they say they are praying for forgiveness, let them be trying to feel forgiven. Teach them to estimate the value of each prayer by their success in producing the desired feeling; and never let them suspect how much success or failure of that kind depends on whether they are well or ill, fresh or tired, at the moment."

-----C.S. Lewis, "The Screwtape Letters", letter IV

"We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us."

-----C.S. Lewis, from "Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer"

In honor of U2's release of the relatively unimpressive new single, "Vertigo", here are a couple lines from the song:

"And though your soul it can't be bought, your mind can wander."

"Your love is teaching me how to kneel."

"Are our churches and broadcasts and books and organizations merely creating religious consumers of religious products and programs? Are we creating a self-isolating, self-serving, self-perpetuating, self-centered subculture instead of a world-penetrating (like salt and light), world-serving (focused on 'the least and the lost,' those Jesus came to seek and save), world-transforming (like yeast in bread), God-centered (sharing God's love with the whole world) counterculture? If so, even if we proudly carry the name evangelical (which means 'having to do with the gospel'), we're not behaving as friends of the gospel, but rather as its betrayers. However unintentionally, we can neuter the very gospel we seek to live and proclaim..."

-----Tony Campolo & Brian McLaren, from "Adventures in Missing the Point: How the Culture-Controlled Church Neutered the Gospel"

It's interesting to live in this country, living in the shadow and spectre of Vietnam. Every conflict inevitably gets measured by it. Some of the measurements are helpful, others are not so helpful. I think we're terrified as a nation to shed our own blood without everything going precisely to a plan, quickly, effectively, no mess. This is an absurd idea, based on the absurd notion that because we got it wrong once before we're likely to get it wrong every time after. I think it was this sort of thinking that led to the debacle in Somalia. I think it was this sort of thinking that made us turn a blind eye to Rwanda. I think it was this sort of thinking that gave OBL the guts to fly planes into our buildings. Since Veitnam many in this country have no stomach for war, and all that it entails. I probably would have included myself in that mix up until a couple months ago. Now I'm changing my mind.

To say that Iraq is equivalent or even similar to Vietnam is a huge mistake. There is no civil war in Iraq (at least not yet). There is no funding coming from other large countries bent on seeing us lose. There is no carpet bombing of innocent civilians. It's not us acting alone, we have allies, and at the least everyone wants us to succeed. Politicians now are much more accountable to the public. etc, etc.

What Vietnam teaches us becomes precisely what won't allow Iraq to go into a tailspin. The fact that people are cynical about leadership, that the media questions the policies of the government, that there is robust public debate. All of these things are the good that Vietnam gives us. We learned our lessons. We criticize our mistakes. We censure leaders and take them to task on every little detail. We have congressional inquiries ongoing in the midst of war. Documents are out in the open.

War is ugly and messy. Vietnam taught us how war can be grossly abused, and it also scared us. The question is, will we always be too scared to see any conflict through to the end? Nothing worth doing is easy, and I'm concerned that the spectre of Vietnam has made us think just the opposite.

Pastor Jim preached this morning at church. He talked about "the routinization of charisma." He said he stole the idea from one of his daughter's friends, a guy named Matt, and then he singled me out of the congregation and said, "you know him." I can only assume he meant Matt Eames, because Eames is the only Matt I know who would come up with such a pellucid turn of phrase on a camping trip. The guy wrote his dissertation on Chesterton, so you gotta cut him some slack.

Anyway, the phrase stuck with Jim, or rather was drilled into him through the course of a camping trip, and he used it this morning to point out that our culture gravitates toward losing awe for God because of this "routinization of charisma."

He then went on to outline something I was lamenting to Sarah the other day. He said, "I was trying to remember the name of this beautiful piece of classical music and all I could think about was an advertisement for beef because the piece was used as the jingle for a beef company."

Sometimes I try to think of God, and the best I can come up with in this culture is the theological equivalent of an advertisement for beef.

"We have seen only one [perfect] man. And he was not at all like the psychologist's picture of the integrated, balanced, adjusted, happily married, employed popular citizen. You can't really be very well 'adjusted' to your world if it says you have a devil and ends by nailing you up naked to a stake of wood."

-----C.S. Lewis, "The Four Loves"

The Alarm

The hundreds of windows filling with faces
Because of something no one is able to explain,
Because there was no fire engine, no scream, no gunshot,
And yet here they are all assembled,
Some with hands over their children's eyes,
Others leaning out and shouting
To people walking the streets far below
With the same composure and serene appearance
Of those going for a Sunday stroll
In some other century, less violent than ours.

-----Charles Simic

This was a painful interview to watch. Let me know what you think of it. Weigh in.

Bono on O'Reilly Factor

Madness

In this age of nearly perfect
madness, that has politicized
everything except politics, favored
minorities and women will be
driven mad by the suspicion,
whenever they are rewarded,
that they have been rewarded
beyond their merits by political
sentiment replacing judgment.
And Anglo-Saxon Protestant
heterosexual men will be maddened
by the suspicion that, if only
uncorrupted judgement prevailed,
they would be found more deserving
than they have yet been found to be,
and perhaps more than in fact
they are. This madness comes
when the lineages of faith
and craft are severed, and the truth
of anything cannot be known
because anything supposable
can be endlessly supposed.

-----Wendell Berry, from "Entries"

"Is life just a process that got started by some sort of chemical accident and that will keep on going until some damned fool comes along with a weapon that can destroy it forever? Or is it something more than that?
To be honest, one has to admit that much of the immediate evidence points to the probability of the former. And by and large, of course, that is where much of the immediate evidence always points. Even in periods of comparative security and peace, the hard facts of death on the one hand and of tragic mischance on the other quite powerfully suggest that at the end of life, as at its beginning, there is nothing but darkness--no creator, no creating word or spirit moving over the face of the waters.
And yet: 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth'...And God said, 'Let there be light'. . .There is always the poet, the lunatic, the lover; there is always the religious man who is a queer mixture of the three, all of them making their counterclaims in a language and with a passion that not even the most skeptical among us are quite invulnerable to. And their strange, unsettling voices speaking to us from the inside and saying, 'yes, yes, but maybe after all, in the beginning and at the end there is...God, whoever he is, whereever he is.'
Perhaps the only thing that anyone can be absolutely sure of is that he will never be able to prove it either way---with objective, verifiable proof. We can know that in the beginning there was God and not just some cosmic upheaval that brought light out of darkness only when we have experienced Him doing the same thing in our lives, our world---bringing light out of our darkness.
To put it another way, unless there is some very real sense in which the Spirit of God moves over the dark and chaotic waters of this age, these deeps of yours and mine; unless God speaks His light and life-giving word to me, then I do not really care much one way or the other whether He set the whole show spinning x billions of years ago. Unless I have some real experience of it myself, then even if someone could somehow prove to me objectively and verifiably that it all happened just as Genesis declares, I would be tempted to answer him with the two most devastating words in the English language: so what?"

-----Frederick Buechner, excerpt from the essay, "In the Beginning" taken from the book "The Magnificent Defeat"

Let the debates begin. Copy this link to a new window and watch. I want feedback people.

http://www.sharkeater.com/pentagon.swf

Two new movies to anticipate:

Huckabee

and

Life Aquatic

MEANING

--When I die, I will see the lining of the world.
The other side, beyond bird, mountain, sunset.
The true meaning, ready to be decoded.
What never added up will add up,
What was incomprehensible will be comprehended.

--And if there is no lining to the world?
If a thrush on a branch is not a sign,
But just a thrush on the branch? If night and day
Make no sense following each other?
And on this earth there is nothing except this earth?

--Even if that is so, there will remain
A word wakened by lips that perish,
A tireless messenger who runs and runs
Through interstellar fields, through the revolving galaxies,
And calls out, protests, screams.

-----Czeslaw Milosz

One of my favorite poets, Czeslaw Milosz, died yesterday at 93. He was a Polish Nobel Laureate, and professor at UC Berkeley. My friend Brent and I used to send his poems back and forth to one another in college. Sometimes ending a letter with a poem in longhand, other times merely sending a poem via email. He was for us an honest voice in a sea of misdirection. He had an abiding faith in God, but often questioned God's goodness and control, which seemed to Brent and I to smack of the reality that we were experiencing at the time. He also had a great sense of the irony of things but still maintained a healthy amount of wonder. He was Thoreau, except he'd seen dead bodies floating in the river that flowed near his boyhood home.

I guess I could say a lot of things about what he meant to me, but mostly I love him for his language. Even translated into English (thank you Robert Hass) his prose has a fine tuned athleticism and honesty that's so good it makes you want to cry. He was your favorite Grandpa parroting T.S. Eliot. He was a master, and I will miss his work.

This article parallels my life pretty closely.. . .frighteningly close. . ..in a good way.

Relevant

"For I am aware what ability is requisite to persuade the proud how great is the virtue of humility, which raises us, not by a quite human arrogance, but by a divine grace, above all earthly dignities that totter on this shifting scene. For the king and founder of this city of which we speak, has in Scripture uttered to His people a dictum of the divine law in these words: 'God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.' But this, which is God's perogative, the inflated ambition of a proud spirit also affects, and dearly loves that this be numbered among its attributes, to 'show pity to the humbled soul, and crush the sons of pride.' And therefore, as the plan of this work we have undertaken requires, and as occasion offers, we must speak also of the earthly city, which though it be mistress to the nations, is itself ruled by its lust of rule."

-----Augustine, "City of God"

"When I first became a Christian, about fourteen years ago, I thought that I could do it on my own, by retiring to my rooms and reading theology, and I wouldn't go to the churches and Gospel Halls...I disliked very much their hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music. But as I went on I saw the great merit of it. I came up against different people of quite different outlooks and different education, and then gradually my conceit just began peeling off. I realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were, nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize that you aren't fit to clean those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit."

-----C.S. Lewis, "God in the Dock"

"Is there a single person on whom I can press belief?
No Sir.
All I can do is say, 'Here's how it went. Here's what I saw.'
I've been there and I'm going back.
Make of it what you will."

"Fair is whatever God wants to do."

"One thing I was wasn't waiting for was a miracle. I don't like to admit it. Shouldn't that be the last thing you release: the hope that the Lord God, touched in His heart by your particular impasse among all others, will reach down and do that work that none can accomplish--straighten the twist, clear the oozing sore, open the lungs? Who knew better than I that such holy stuff occurs? Who had more reason to hope? And yet regarding my own wasted passages it seemed a prospect I could no longer admit."

"You can embark on new and steeper versions of your old sins, you know, and cry tears while doing it that are genuine."

"I suppose that moment had been gaining on us, secretly, like a new piece of music played while you sleep. One day you hear it---a strange song, yet one you know by heart."

"For heartening sights nothing beats a well-packed picnic basket with a clasped lid. One so full it creaks. One carried by a lady you would walk on tacks for."

"It is one thing to be sick of your own infirmities and another to understand that the people you love most are sick of them as well."

"It sure is one thing to say you're at war with this whole world and stick your chest out believing it, but when the world shows up with its crushing numbers and its predatory knowledge, it is another thing completely."

"Good advice is a wise man's friend, of course; but sometimes it just flies on past, and all you can do is wave."

"Once traveling, it's remarkable how quickly faith erodes. It starts to look like something else--ignorance, for example. Same thing happened to the Israelites. Sure it's weak, but sometimes you'd rather just have a map."

-----Leif Enger, excerpts from "Peace Like a River"

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention . ..Sarah took us to the coolest pub in America!!! McSorely's opened in 1854, and it still has its original bar intact. I think some of the wait staff is original too, but don't let them know I said that! When you walk in they ask you in a thick brogue, "would you like light or dark?" When they come back they bring each person at the table two half-pints of beer that's so good it will make you an alcoholic. Then they serve you great Irish meals like Corned Beef Hash (which is what I got) and shepherd's pie. The atmosphere is really old world. We had a great time talking and drinking way too many beers. The icing on the cake was the men's bathroom that had clear glass in its door so everyone could see what you were doing as you went about your business. For example, while relieving myself I was able to look over my shoulder and wave to Sarah and Dirk while they were at table. Too much. Good times, good times.

Saw the movie Garden State tonight with my friends Sarah and Dirk here in NYC. Great movie. Really well done, concise and moving. Go see it. I was expecting it to be good, and it didn't disappoint.

This is potential good news for impoverished nations. Probably not so good for the American farmer in the short run, but good news for everyone in the long run, and way overdue in terms of social equality and fair trade.

WTO Trade Talks

"I wish they'd remember that the charge to Peter was feed my sheep; not try experiments on my rats, or even, teach my performing dogs new tricks."

-----C.S. Lewis, "Letters to Malcolm: Cheifly On Prayer"

I was riding around with John this afternoon helping him compile food for David and Carianne's wedding on Sunday. He was telling me about this new restaurant supply shop he found. He and the owner apparently hit it off while talking about various different types of truffle oil. When John explained that he knew the difference between white and black truffles, the owner's face lit up. He immediately reached under the counter and pulled out a special vile saying, "I'm not supposed to sell this to you, but this is the extract that we use to make the best truffle oil. Take some for your wedding and mix it with some other innocuous form of oil like grape seed oil."

John paused at this point in the conversation, looked out the window and then he said, with all the emphasis of a priest handing you a communion wafer, "Some day, I'm gonna buy duck from that guy."

It was hilarious.

Bill Mallonee from Vigilantes of Love is probably one of the top three Christian lyricists I've ever come across. . .


Parting Shot, VOL

words of wisdom quotable quotes
reader's digest sayings for those losing hope
why do i feel so mocked by the hands of the clock
well anchor me down to the solid rock
i want to leave you with something but i almost forgot
was it a closing statement or a parting shot

well you lie on the flowers here in the wind
i've twisted it all with original sin
there's a knowledge i traded a long time ago
well i bartered it off for these rags i call clothes
i learned how to fake it and remake it on cue
but i swear i never stopped needing you

there's a question forming out here in the dark
in the heavy air all around my heart
now laden with consequence chain link fence
and shot through with all manner of lies
i've been trapped in and caught

and the world like a tempest in your ears doth roar
and the flesh wants to dress up and play your whore
and the devil wants to cast all manner of doubt
on the real lover with the key dying to let you out
from the bars that you fashioned with your stolen clout
well i may be confused but i'll play my hunch
did it feel like a kiss or a counter-punch

evening is closing and the kid drones on and on and on
well get out your car keys i hope this is his last song
wait it's bigger than life it is gracious and grand
something a child readily understands

hey you know i sure could use a new suit of clothes
see i'm gone all threadbare and my shoes are worn
now the flowers are growing right out of these bones
and i hear the trumpet sounding like louis armstrong
when the great divorce happens hide me in your song
though i don't deserve it and i don't belong
i want to leave you with something will you take it to heart
are you a closing statement or a parting shot

"The difference between an admirer [of Christ] and a follower [of Christ] still remains, no matter where you are. The admirer never makes any true sacrifices. He always plays it safe. Though in words, phrases, songs, he is inexhaustible about how highly he prizes Christ, he renounces nothing, gives up nothing, will not reconstruct his life, will not be what he admires, and will not let his life express what it is he supposedly admires. Not so with the follower. No, no. The follower aspires with all his strength, with all his will to be what he admires."

-----Soren Kierkegaard

"Let him do anything but act. No amount of piety in his imagination and affections will harm us if we can keep it out of his will. As one of the humans has said, active habits are strengthened by repetition but passive ones are weakened. The more often he feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel."

-----C.S. Lewis, "The Screwtape Letters"

I think this movie and its soundtrack are going to be great.

I like the teaser trailer best. That's what I linked to above. If you just want the movie site go here

The film is written, directed and acted in by Zach Braff, the star of Scrubs.

Oh yeah, did I forget to mention Natalie Portman is in it?

Back by popular demand. . .here is the impromptu salad dressing recipe. Thanks Karen!

In a sauce pan on high heat combine. . .

1/8 stick of butter
tsp lime juice
1/8 red onion chopped/carmelized
"splash" of red wine
tbsp brown sugar
salt
pepper

Pour over chilled salad. Let me know if you have success with it or if it's just a fluke.

THREE KINDS OF [PEOPLE]

There are three kinds of people in the world. The first class is of those who live simply for their own sake and pleasure, regarding Man and nature as so much raw material to be cut up into whatever shape may serve them. In the second class are those who acknowledge some other claim upon them--the will of God, the categorical imperative, or the good of society--and honestly try to pursue their own interests no further than this claim will allow. They try to surrender to the higher claim as much as it demands, like men paying a tax, but hope, like other taxpayers, that what is left over will be enough for them to live on. Their life is divided, like a soldier's or a schollboy's life, into time "on parade" and "off parade", "in school" and "out of school". But the third class is of those who can say like St. Paul that for them "to live is Christ". These people have got rid of the tiresome business of adjusting the rival claims of Self altogether. The old egoistic will has been turned round, reconditioned, and made into a new thing. The will of Christ no longer limits theirs; it is theirs. All their time, in belonging to him, belongs also to them, for they are His.

And because there are three classes, any merely twofold division of the world into good and bad is disastrous. It overlooks the fact that the members of the second class (to which most of us belong) are always and necessarily unhappy. The tax which moral conscience levies on our desires does not in fact leave us enough to live on. As long as we are in this class we must either feel guilt because we have not paid the tax or penury because we have. The Christian doctrine that there is no "salvation" by works done according to the moral law is a fact of daily experience. Back or on we must go. But there is no going on simply by our own efforts. If the new Self, the new Will, does not come at His own good pleasure to be born in us, we cannot produce Him synthetically.

The price of Christ is something, in a way, much easier than moral effort--it is to want Him. It is true that the wanting itself would be beyond our power but for one fact. The world is so built that, to help us desert our own satisfactions, they desert us. War and trouble and finally old age take from us one by one all those things that the natural Self hoped for at its setting out. Begging is our only wisdom, and want in the end makes it easier for us to be beggars. Even on those terms the Mercy will receive us.

-----C.S. Lewis, essay from "The Sunday Times" March 21, 1943

"Any time not spent in love is wasted."

-----Goethe, "Torquato Tasso" (1790)

"To think carbs make you fat is wrong. You're fat because you're not exercising. There are some nine million people in this country swimming, running, biking, regurlarly going to the gym, or doing whaever, and no one's been talking to them about their diet. Low-carb diets are exactly what you should NOT do if you're active. Carbs are the fuel that drives your life; suddenly everyone's forgotten this. If you're working out five days a week, you need a minimum 60 percent (daily caloric intake) of carbs a day. You can't just cut carbs--or cut protein or fat, for that matter---like every trendy diet has for the last 20 years. That's dysfunctional. You need them all. To simply blame a food type for us being fat is bullshit."

Amen.

-----Chris Carmichael, coach to Lance Armstrong, from his new book "Food for Fitness"

"It is because we cleave to our opinions rather than to the living God, because self and pride interest themselves for their own vile sakes with that which belongs only to the truth, that we become such fools of logic and temper that we lie in the prison-houses of our own fancies, ideas, and experiences, shut the doors and windows against the entrance of the free spirit, and will not inherit the love of the Father."

"The truth can never be even beheld but by the man who accepts it: the thing, therefore, which you reject, is not that which it seems to you, but a thing good, and altogether beautiful, altogether fit for your gladsome embrace---a thing from which you would not turn away, did you see it as it is, but rush to it, as Dante says, like the wild beast to his den---so eager for the refuge of home."

". . .we are bound by loftiest duty to spread the truth; for that is the saving of men. Do you ask, How spread it, if we are not to talk about it? Friends, I never said, Do not talk about that truth, although I insist upon a better and the only indispensable way: let your light shine. What I said before, and say again, is, Do not talk about the lantern that holds the lamp, but make haste, uncover the light, and let it shine.. . .It is not, Let your good works shine, but, Let your light shine. Let it be the genuine love of your hearts, taking form in true deeds; not the doing of good deeds to prove that your opinions are right. If ye are thus true, your very talk about the truth will be a good work, a shining of the light that is in you. A true smile is a good work, and may do much to reveal the Father who is in heaven; but the smile that is put on for the sake of looking right, or even for the sake of being right, will hardly reveal Him. . .

....understand Him, obey Him, then your light will shine, and your warmth will warm. There is an infection, as in evil, so in good. The better we are, the more men will glorify God."

-----George MacDonald, excerpts from a Sermon preached in the Unitarian Chapel, Essex Street, London, 1879

This, I think, more than anything else, is what gives Lewis a powerful Christian voice:

"It took me as long to acquire inhibitions as others (they say) have taken to get rid of them. That is why I often find myself at such cross-purposes with the modern world: I have been a converted Pagan living among apostate Puritans."

-----C.S. Lewis, "Surprised By Joy: The Shape of My Early Life"

"...it's like you take for granted the guys you're hanging out with, your buddies. And then all of a sudden one of them comes up with something that just makes you re-evaluate everything you ever thought about them."

-----Brian Henneman on Jeff Tweedy's songwriting. Taken from "Learning How To Die" by Greg Kot

I just went to the store to get some bacon. When I pulled into the lot, there was a guy a couple spaces down, sitting in his mangled Datsun, putting on gardening gloves. I thought to myself, here we go, the guy's gonna knock off Ralph's while no one's looking with a pair of gardening gloves. No, no. . . .he was getting ready to drive his Z. Too funny.

Secondly, I love my dog. How do I know this? Because I was reading a book the other day where a little girl was narrating, talking about how her Dad always let the water run out of the tap for at least 10 seconds before he would fill the glass for her. This way she would get the best tasting cleanest water possible. She said this was one of the little ways she knew that her Dad loved her. I do this for my dog every day. He may look like a fish, but I love the little crack monkey.

God can no more than an earthly parent be content to have only children: he must have sons and daughters — children of his soul, of his spirit, of his love — not merely in the sense that he loves them, or even that they love him, but in the sense that they love like he loves. For this he does not adopt them; he dies to give them himself, thereby to his own to his heart; he gives them a birth from above; they are born again out of himself and into himself — for he is the one and the all. His children are not his real, true sons and daughters until they think like him, feel with him, judge as he judges, are at home with him, and without fear before him because he and they mean the same thing, love the same things, seek the same ends. For this we are created; it is the one end of our being, and includes all other ends whatever.

-----George MacDonald, Commenting upon Galatians 4:1-7

A little food for thought during this war on terror, as we debate Presidential power and its potential infringement on our civil liberties.

"The Constitution is not, in its application, in all respects the same, in case of rebellion or invasion involving the public safety, as it is in time of profound peace and public security. The constitution itself makes the distinction; and I can no more be persuaded that the Government can take no strong measure in time of rebellion, because it can be shown that the same could not be lawfully taken in time of peace, than I can be persuaded that a particular drug is not good medicine for a sick man, because it can be shown not to be good food for a well one. Nor am I able to appreciate the danger apprehended by the meeting that the American people will, by means of military arrests during the Rebellion, lose the right of Public Discussion, the Liberty of Speech and the Press, the Law of Evidence, Trial by jury and Habeas Corpus, throughout the indefinite peaceful future, which I trust lies before them, any more than I am able to believe that a man could contract so strange an appetite for emetics during temporary illness as to persist in feeding upon them during the remainder of his healthful life."

-----Abraham Lincoln, on his claimed right to suspend Habeas Corpus during the Civil War


"No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of the Constitution's provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism, but the theory of necessity on which it is based is false, for the government, within the constitution, has all the powers granted to it which are necessary to preserve its existence."

-----The Supreme Court in response to Lincoln


"Are all the laws, but one, to go unexecuted, and the government itself to go to pieces, lest that one be violated?"

-----Lincoln's response to the Supreme Court

"In the last scene, between death and ourselves, there is no more pretending; we must talk plain French. . . "
-----Montaigne

I don't think I ever really understood, at a gut level, what Christianity was about. In fact, for most of my life I've had it horribly wrong. What I've learned over the last couple years, via the help of counseling and with the love of good family and friends, is that it's a much more freeing state of affairs than I was brought up to believe.

You see, the bottom line is, we're broken. And I don't mean broken in that candy-ass Sunday school way of speaking, as if brokenness were some humiliated inclination of the affections that you kept trying to foster in your mind. I mean broken like an engine that's blown a rod. I mean broken as part of the definition of who we are, in all the Augustinian sense of the word. Irreparable.

When I was growing up, I internalized the Christian faith as something that made me better, or said differently, as a key to making myself better. I thought you accepted Jesus and all the tumblers just fell into place. I thought that by accepting Jesus one was magically given the ability to have actual victory over one's brokenness. That "you" could in essence make yourself perfect. I honestly thought this is what it meant to be a Christian. This is no doubt due in part to my own narcissistic tendencies, my own desires to master myself and others and to be in control. But I think it's also fair to say that the church instilled a great deal of this bogus thinking in me (because I still hear it preached). I'm not here to point fingers though. You take what you've been given and you learn as you go. What I want to say is this: Pascal was right. The beauty of Christianity is that it at once shows man's greatness and his depravity. In doing so it answers the riddle of the world. We are broken, and our prime worthiness comes in that we are looked upon favorably by God.

The thing that I didn't understand when I was younger was that sin is a part of us. I can no more remove it or make myself better than a frog can fashion wings for flight. I sin like I breathe air. The mystery of faith in Christ is not that you accept Christ and then work harder to be holy. The mystery is that Christ's love is given for you in spite of your constant failure. It is this acceptance, and only this accecptance, that motivates and moves us to love one another, to do as He said (however lamely), and to be at peace. It is our humility in accepting this that makes us perfect. Anything else is just background noise of our own making.

"[People] are told they ought to love God. They cannot find any such feeling in themselves. What are they to do? The answer is the same as before. Act as if you did. Do not sit trying to manufacture feelings. Ask yourself, 'If I were sure that I loved God, what would I do?' When you have found the answer, go and do it."

Mere Christianity

Brando Is Dead

"I am myself," he once declared, "and if I have to hit my head against a brick wall to remain true to myself, I will do it."

I think he did that quite a lot.

Jon Krakauer's book, "Under the Banner of Heaven," appears straightforward enough. On the surface it's the story of two men who commit a gruesome murder of a mother and child in the name of Fundamentalist Mormonism. Why? Because "God told them to." (Fundamentalist Mormonism {henceforth FM}; that wacky religious aberration that condones polygamy and relies on the seemingly contradictory staples of "personal revelation" and cult-like ecclesiastical hierarchy).

But this is not nearly the whole story. As you start to delve deeper into the book you begin to realize that this is about much more than FM's; it's about you and I. It's about the religious mindset and how we often have the tendency to confuse "our" voices for the voice of God. The fact that this book is about Mormons is, in the end, inconsequential because it could very well apply to some Christians, Muslims and Jews.

Make no mistake; this book is troubling. Troubling because I know people who believe in God like the FM's do, and troubling because I was once one of those people. This is what makes it a good book. Reading it is like clapping dried-mud boots together. It clears away the debris of human religious hubris and forces you to look again at some things long since left behind, and some things you may still desperately cling to.

The book traces the Mormon religion from its early days to the present. From the discovery of the tablets by Joseph Smith, to the defining moments of the religion where it almost sank into oblivion but didn't. It looks at the charisma of Smith and his successors, the fights with the US government, the eventual settling of the church in Utah, and the fundamentalist schisms of the 19th/20th centuries.

I don’t want to go into why I think Mormonism is a seriously flawed religion. You can find that out for yourself. What I want to talk about is how this book made me think about Fundamentalist Christianity and the religious mindset in general. This book didn’t give me answers. All it gave me were questions. Questions like. . ..if Mormons feel the same way about their religious experience as I do, could I possibly be wrong? I think we all take some creative license in religion don't we? To a greater or lesser degree all of us make ourselves into little gods in one way or another. We confuse ourselves with God. Let me give you some examples. Someone might say the following: “If I'm depressed, it's the devil who's tempting me.” When who knows if the devil has anything to do with it or not? Or “If I don't feel happy while singing praise songs it's because I don't love God enough, or I'm not good enough.” Or “If I keep sinning, God must not exist.” Or “If I can't be perfect, God can't accept me.” Or “If I hear voices in my head telling me to kill my wife, God must be telling me to kill my wife.” How do we distinguish our voice from the voice of God, especially when that voice is mediated through other people? How do we ever get one inch outside our proper skin? How do we adjudicate between various religious revelations?

As I sat back and thought about the problems this book raised, I came to only one conclusion. We are on our own in our search for truth and God, and many of us are deceiving ourselves. This is not a comforting thought.

Aloha everyone. John and I are back from Hawaii. We had a great time! Here's a shot of John with some Jelly Fish at the Maui Ocean Center.


John

Also, if you want to view a few more pics, you can go HERE

I finished "Under the Banner of Heaven" and most of "The Diary of a Country Priest" while on the trip. Stay tuned for some interesting reviews on those two books. .. at least I hope they'll be interesting to you. ;)

It's 4:06am. . .wicked case of insomnia. Am I excited about leaving for Hawaii on Friday? Maybe. Am I stressed from a really tough week of work and pre-trip prep? Maybe. Am I nervous because my new boss seems hell bent on catching me doing something wrong by constantly accusing me of things I didn't do correctly? Maybe. Do I think too much? You betcha. Anyway, I've decided to teach myself how this whole photoblog thing works with my freetime. So here is a pic for your viewing pleasure.


You gotta love Yesteryears. It's a nice place to kick up your spurs and get a cold one during a Glass House show.

Thanks to Blake for the photo.

Before you go see Michael Moore's new film about W and 9/11, Farenheit 9/11, read what Christopher Hitchens has to say about it.

Go to Slate Magazine Review

Anyone caught speaking Esperanto
Is thought crazy or headed for jail
There's peace in the wilds of west Texas
Where the sun and the sky prevail

Take no notice of the rising waters
Take no notice where rivers run dry
They'll be digging through the landfills
To find evidence of our great demise

There's a changing pattern before us
And the past tells a story quite well
By the time we make it to Barstow
We'll be more than halfway to hell

Waves of adverts that promise revival
And trinketware that batters the brain
The devil bought the key to Branson
Drives a backho and wears a gold chain

Now we're living in the inane time frame
Bets in Reno are on the human race
Woke up in another test market
With a new headache filter in place

There's a changing pattern before us
And the past tells a story quite well
By the time we make it to Barstow
We'll be more than halfway to hell

-----Jay Farrar, "Barstow"

"We could describe our situation like this: we must trust and obey in order to rise to the full stature of sons and daughters, to mature into the image of God, to grow into adult roles in the drama of redeeming the world. God has in mind not just what we should be but also what, one day, we could be. God wants not slaves but intelligent children. God wants from us not numb obedience but devoted freedom, creativity, and energy. That's what the grace of God is for---not simply to balance a ledger but to stimulate the spurts of growth in zeal, in enthusiasm for shalom, in good hard work, in sheer delicious gratitude for the gift of life in all its pain and all its wonder. In short, we are to become responsible beings: people to whom God can entrust deep and worthy assignments, expecting us to make something significant of them---expecting us to make something significant of our lives . None of us simply finds herself here in the world. None of our lives is an accident. We have been called into existence, expected, awaited, equipped and assigned."

-----Cornelius Plantinga Jr., "Not the Way It's Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin"

"These walls are kind of funny. First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. Enough time passes, gets so you depend on them. That's institutionalized. They send you here for life, that's exactly what they take. The part that counts, anyways."

-----Red, "Shawshank Redemption"

Little Gidding V

We shall not cease from exploration 
And the end of all our exploring 
Will be to arrive where we started 
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for 
But heard, half heard, in the stillness
Between the two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always--
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of things shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

-----T.S. Eliot

I've been reading through the Psalms for the last few months. A couple things have struck me that never really struck me before. 1) People in old testament times lived externally. They lived among the particulars of life and when they asked God for something it usually had nothing to do with their internal landscape or their psychology. Their prayers are more about concrete things like real enemies, war, natural disasters, money, love from other people, etc. 2) They have an incredible sense of wonder about the physical world and God's role in it. They are freightened by billowing storm clouds, perplexed by the wind, scared of the limitless sea, etc.

I've been thinking quite a bit about what this should mean for me living as a Christian in the 21st century, and I've come up with a few things I'd like to share. The first and foremost is that I think we're guilty of internalizing our faith too much (see the Son Volt lyrics below). As moderns we live in our heads and tinker with our psychology until we're almost unable to act. Admittedly this is because we're quite fractured in this day and age, and I don't mean to discount therapy or anything like that (Lord knows it helps me). But I don't get the impression from the Psalmists that they struggled with these sort of things in their daily lives, and certainly not in their spiritual lives (you won't find Niehbur's serenity prayer in the Psalms). People in ancient times lived amidst their necessities, not their wants or their egos.

The second thing is that we've largely lost our sense of wonder at the world. We think that because we can describe or explain how something works that we've divested it of mystery and meaning. We look at the moon and it's small because we've been there. We watch the weather man describe a hurricane and we're not afraid any more. We look at religious people and we psychoanalyze their belief away reducing their thoughts of God to mere wish fulfillment. The Psalmists don't do this. They see the hand of God everywhere in nature. They don't spend too much time trying to divine why things happen, they just believe that God is in control, and that he's powerful and majestic beyond our wildest dreams. That he's something to be worshipped, something not to be trifled with.

Most importantly what I take away from the Psalms is something I heard Johnny Cash say a few years back, "There are many aspects of God, as He revealed Himself to many, but to bring it back down to earth and to keep it simple for all of us, God is a God to sing to or to sing about. Songs of praise, songs of wonder, songs of worship."

I can think of no other more fitting description of the Psalms.

Windfall

Now and then it keeps you running
It never seems to die
The trail's spent with fear
Not enough living on the outside
Never seem to get far enough
Staying in between the lines
Hold on to what you can
Waiting for the end
Not knowing when
May the wind take your troubles away
May the wind take your troubles away
Both feet on the floor, two hands on the wheel,
May the wind take your troubles away
Trying to make it far enough, to the next time zone
Few and far between past the midnight hour
You never feel alone, you're really not alone...
Switching it over to AM
Searching for a truer sound
Can't recall the call letters
Steel guitar and settle down
Catching an all-night station somewhere in Louisiana
It sounds like 1963, but for now it sounds like heaven
May the wind take your troubles away
May the wind take your troubles away
Both feet on the floor, two hands on the wheel,
May the wind take your troubles away.


-----Jay Farrar

"It is yearning that makes the heart deep."

-----Augustine

"But why doesn't the heart want God, trust God, look childlike to God for life's joys and securities? Why doesn't the heart seek final good where it can actually be found? Why turn again and again, in small matters and large, to satisfactions that are mutable, damaging, and imperiled?....Because the heart wants what it wants. That's as far as we get. That's the conversation stopper. The imperial self overrules all. Inquiring into the causes of sin takes us back, again and again, to the intractable human will and to the heart's desire that stiffens the will against all competing considerations. Like a neurotic and therapeutically shelf-worn little god, the human heart keeps ending discussions by insisting that it wants what it wants....The trouble is that this is only a redescriptioin of human sin, not an explanation of it----let alone a defense of it. Our core problem, says St. Augustine, is that the human heart, ignoring God, turns in on itself, tries to lift itself, wants to please itself, and ends up debasing itself. The person who reaches toward God and wants to please God gets, so to speak, stretched by this move, and ennobled by the transcendence of its object. But the person who curves in on himself, who wants God's gifts without God, who wants to satisfy the deires of a divided heart, ends up sagging and contracting into a little wad. His desires are provincial. 'There is something in humilty which, strangely enough, exalts the heart, and something in pride which debases it.' (Augustine, City of God)"

-----Cornelius Plantiga Jr., "Not the Way It's Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin"

"Devotion to what is wrong is complex and admits of infinite variations."

-----Seneca

"It is also notorious how self-deceiving we are about our needs. By definition, a person must know that he desires something. It is quite possible, on the other hand, to be in need of something and not know that one is. Just as we often desire what we do not need, so we often need what we do not consciously desire."

-----Michael Ignatieff, "The Needs of Strangers"

I love this chapter of Acts. Check out Festus and Agrippa's response to Paul at the end.. . .

Acts 26

1Then Agrippa said to Paul, "You have permission to speak for yourself." So Paul motioned with his hand and began his defense: 2"King Agrippa, I consider myself fortunate to stand before you today as I make my defense against all the accusations of the Jews, 3and especially so because you are well acquainted with all the Jewish customs and controversies. Therefore, I beg you to listen to me patiently.
4"The Jews all know the way I have lived ever since I was a child, from the beginning of my life in my own country, and also in Jerusalem. 5They have known me for a long time and can testify, if they are willing, that according to the strictest sect of our religion, I lived as a Pharisee. 6And now it is because of my hope in what God has promised our fathers that I am on trial today. 7This is the promise our twelve tribes are hoping to see fulfilled as they earnestly serve God day and night. O king, it is because of this hope that the Jews are accusing me. 8Why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?
9"I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. 10And that is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the saints in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. 11Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme. In my obsession against them, I even went to foreign cities to persecute them.
12"On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. 13About noon, O king, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. 14We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic,[1] 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.'
15"Then I asked, 'Who are you, Lord?'
16" 'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,' the Lord replied. 'Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you. 17I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them 18to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.'
19"So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven. 20First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and to the Gentiles also, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds. 21That is why the Jews seized me in the temple courts and tried to kill me. 22But I have had God's help to this very day, and so I stand here and testify to small and great alike. I am saying nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses said would happen-- 23that the Christ[2] would suffer and, as the first to rise from the dead, would proclaim light to his own people and to the Gentiles."
24At this point Festus interrupted Paul's defense. "You are out of your mind, Paul!" he shouted. "Your great learning is driving you insane."
25"I am not insane, most excellent Festus," Paul replied. "What I am saying is true and reasonable. 26The king is familiar with these things, and I can speak freely to him. I am convinced that none of this has escaped his notice, because it was not done in a corner. 27King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you do."
28Then Agrippa said to Paul, "Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?"
29Paul replied, "Short time or long--I pray God that not only you but all who are listening to me today may become what I am, except for these chains."
30The king rose, and with him the governor and Bernice and those sitting with them. 31They left the room, and while talking with one another, they said, "This man is not doing anything that deserves death or imprisonment."
32Agrippa said to Festus, "This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar."

"I think all Christians would agree with me if I said that though Christianity seems at first to be all about morality, all about duties and rules and guilt and virtue, yet it leads you on, out of all that, into something beyond. One has a glimpse of a country where they do not talk of those things, except perhaps as a joke. Every one there is filled full with what we should call goodness as a mirror is filled with light. But they do not call it goodness. They do not call it anything. They are not thinking of it. They are too busy looking at the source from which it comes. But this is near the stage where the road passes over the rim of our world. No one's eyes can see very far beyond that: lots of people's eyes can see further than mine."

-----C.S. Lewis, "Mere Christianity"

"I heard a guy, Shane Claiborne, speak one time and he was talking about how so many Christians say their lives were a mess and then they met Jesus and everything is all better now. He said that his life was ruined when he met Jesus because all the hopes and dreams he had of making a bunch of money and being successful were dashed in an instant. I was struck by that then, and I’ve been chewing on it a lot since I’ve been back from my trip. How did this trip change my life? I don’t know, and honestly, I’m a little scared to find out . . ."

-----my friend Brad's closing thoughts on his recent trip to Africa with World Vision

"If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday."

-----Isaiah 58:9b-10

if you don't like Bono, like Johnny T, then go here: World Vision

Bono gave the commencement speech at Penn a short time ago. It's moderately long, but worth a read.

Read the article HERE

The Palace


Rudyard Kipling

When I was a King and a Mason-a master proven and skilled-
I cleared me ground for a Palace such as a King should build.
I decreed and cut down to my levels, and presently, under the silt,
I came on the wreck of a Palace such as a King had built.


There was no worth in the fashion-there was no wit in the plan-
Hither and thither, aimless, the ruined footings ran-
Masonry, brute, mishandled; but carven on every stone:
"After me cometh a Builder. Tell him I, too, have known."


Swift to my use in my trenches, where my well-planned ground-works grew,
I tumbled his quoins and ashlars, and cut and reset them anew.
Lime I milled of his marbles ; burned it, slacked it and spread;
Taking and leaving at pleasure the gifts of the humble dead.


Yet I despised not nor gloried; yet as we wrenched them apart,
I read in the razed foundations the heart of that builder's heart.
As though he had risen and pleaded, so did I understand
The form of the dream he had followed in the face of the thing he had planned.


When I was King and a Mason-in the open noon of my pride,
They sent me a Word from the Darkness-They whispered and called me aside.
They said-"The end is forbidden." They said-"Thy use is fulfilled,
"And thy Palace shall stand as that other's-the spoil of a King who shall build. "


I called my men from my trenches, my quarries, my wharves and my sheers.
All I had wrought I abandoned to the faith of the faithless years.
Only I cut on the timber-only I carved on the stone:
"After me cometh a Builder. Tell him I, too, have known."

The Hand that Signed the Paper Felled a City
by: Dylan Thomas

 

The hand that signed the paper felled a city;
Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath,
Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country;
These five kings did a king to death.

The mighty hand leads to a sloping shoulder,
The finger joints are cramped with chalk;
A goose's quill has put an end to murder
That put an end to talk.

The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever,
And famine grew, and locusts came;
Great is the hand the holds dominion over
Man by a scribbled name.

The five kings count the dead but do not soften
The crusted wound nor pat the brow;
A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven;
Hands have no tears to flow.

"It's a dog eat dog world and I'm wearing Milk-Bone underwear."

-----Norm, from Cheers

My friend Don, who is a 60 something professor of political philosophy at Cal State Fullerton, had this advice for me as we ran this morning:

1) Never play poker with a guy named "Doc."
2) Never eat at a place called "Mom's"
3) Never go to bed with a woman that has more problems than you do.

Good advice Don. I'll keep that in mind. Old guys rule.

Bernstein: "How can you keep going at something past the point when you believe it?"
Woodward: "You just have to start over again."

----- "All the President's Men"

"Now, friends, you who want to be good, to be just, to be faithful, where lies your hope of deliverance? I do not speak to you-as a motive-of a hell, for I do not think you need it. But, do you know, I think from the extreme of the old-fashioned teaching that God made men on purpose to damn them, some modern theologians are much exposed to the going over to a very dangerous opposite extreme, and teaching that God will not damn men at all! I do not seek to drive you towards goodness with this fear of God's damnation, but let the man who persists in hardness and impenitence, and who goes on and on and out of the world scorning and neglecting the mercy of our Heavenly Father, be sure that there will be for him a future condemnation terrible to bear. But you, who are tender-hearted, and who want to be true, and are trying to be, learn these two things from our text: never to be discouraged because good things get on so slowly here, and never to fail to do daily that good which lies next to your hand. Do not be in a hurry, but be diligent. Enter into the sublime patience of the Lord! Be charitable in view of it. Be earnest in the faith of it. God can afford to wait, why cannot we-since we have Him to fall back upon! Let patience have her perfect work, and bring forth her celestial fruits. Trust God to weave your little thread into the great web, though the pattern show it not yet. When God's people are able and willing thus to labour and to wait, remembering that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day, the grand harvest of the ages shall come to its reaping, and the day shall broaden itself to a thousand years, and the thousand years shall show themselves as a perfect and finished day!"

-----George MacDonald, "Sermons from the Pulpit"

"Blessed be God, who hath not turned away my prayer, nor His mercy from me."

-----Psalms 66:20

"You are what you love, not what loves you."

-----Charlie Kaufmann, "Adaptation"

"In speaking of the fear of religion, I don't mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something deeper---namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God, and, naturally, hope that I'm right about my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that."

Thomas Nagel, "The Last Word"

"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

-----C.S. Lewis, "God in the Dock"

After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now
History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors
And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,
Guides us by vanities. Think now
She gives when our attention is distracted
And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions
That the giving famishes the craving. Gives too late
What’s not believed in, or if still believed,
In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon
Into weak hands, what’s thought can be dispensed with
Till the refusal propagates a fear. Think
Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices
Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues
Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.
These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.


-----T.S. Eliot, "Gerontion" lines 33-47

"Philosophical questions can and should give way and be subsumed to human questions, for in the end we are a society of people and not of ideas, a fragile web of interdependent humans, not of stances."

-----Pumla Gobodo-Madikezela, "A Human Being Died That Night"

"I have read all of Chekhov now. He is so great, and his letters and his life and what people remember of him is greater. Yet it is consoling that if he did not know all about cruelty, gluttony, cowardice, coldness in himself, he could not have written about them. Great men feel and know everything that mean men feel, even more clearly, but they seem to have made some kind of an ascension, and these evil feelings, though they still understand them sympathetically, no longer exert any power over them."


-----Brenda Ueland, "If You Want to Write"

on loving one's neighbor. . .

"---to wish that he were not bad, to hope that he may, in this world or another, be cured: in fact, to wish his good. That is what is meant in the Bible by loving him: wishing his good, not feeling fond of him nor saying he is nice when he is not."

-----Mere Christianity

"I had a friend, who died. She thought she could control everything. See? The story creeps up whether we want it to or not."

-----Madeleine L'Engle, as quoted in an interview in the New Yorker, April 12, 2004

Remember the Blood Frenzy of Rwanda


Genocide prevention must become a foreign policy priority to avoid a repetition of those hideous crimes.
By Samantha Power
Samantha Power is the author of "A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide," which won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction

April 4, 2004

BOSTON — When Hutu began murdering Tutsi in Rwanda 10 years ago this week, many Rwandans had to decide whether to desert their loved ones. At a church in the town of Kibuye, two Hutu sisters, each married to a Tutsi man, faced such a choice. One of the women decided to die with her husband. The other, hoping to save her 11 children, chose to leave. Because her husband was Tutsi, her children had been categorized as Tutsi and thus were technically forbidden to live. But the machete-wielding Hutu attackers had assured the woman that the children would be permitted to depart safely if she joined them.

When the woman stepped outside the church, however, the assailants butchered eight of her 11 children as she watched in horror. The youngest, a 3-year-old boy who saw his brothers and sisters slain, pleaded for his life. "Please don't kill me," he said. "I'll never be Tutsi again." The killers, unmoved, struck him down.

In three short, cruel months, between April and July 1994, Rwanda experienced a genocide more efficient than that carried out by the Nazis in World War II. The killers were a varied bunch: drunk extremists chanting "Hutu power, Hutu power"; uniformed soldiers and militia men intent on wiping out the Tutsi inyenzi, or "cockroaches"; ordinary villagers who had never themselves contemplated killing before but who decided to join the frenzy.

The murderers, and their ebullient abettors, were turned into ghastly marionettes, consumed by a manic wrath. Men and women, young and old, religious and agnostic, became killers. They killed with machetes in one hand and radios broadcasting instructions in the other. They killed in churches, at traffic lights, in supermarkets and in homes. They killed after taunting, after savagely beating and, often, after raping.

The Clinton administration's response was best captured by a State Department press conference two days into the slaughter. Prudence Bushnell, the midlevel official who had been put in charge of managing the evacuation of Americans — and only Americans — from Rwanda, spoke with journalists about the Rwandan horrors. After she left the podium, State Department spokesman Michael McCurry took her place and seamlessly turned to the next item on the day's agenda: U.S. criticism of foreign governments that were preventing the screening of the Steven Spielberg film "Schindler's List."

"This film movingly portrays the 20th century's most horrible catastrophe," McCurry said. "And it shows that even in the midst of genocide, one individual can make a difference." McCurry urged that the film be shown worldwide.

"The most effective way to avoid the recurrence of genocidal tragedy," he declared, "is to ensure that past acts of genocide are never forgotten."

No one made any connection between Bushnell's remarks and McCurry's, between Rwanda and the Holocaust. Neither journalists nor officials in the United States were focused then — or in the ensuing three months — on the fate of Rwanda's Tutsis.

By July 1994, when Tutsi rebels took control of the country, the killers had accomplished much of what they set out to achieve. At least 800,000 people — half of the Tutsis who had lived in Rwanda three months earlier — had been eliminated.

The Rwandan genocide revealed, more than any other event in the 20th century, the shallowness of the pledge of "never again." Again, a dozen key plotters managed to organize a society around mass murder. Again, an inconvenient minority found itself targeted for extermination. And again, the world watched.

Indeed, the U.S. and its allies on the U.N. Security Council didn't simply watch. They voted to withdraw the U.N. peacekeepers who were in Rwanda, abandoning Rwandans who had relied upon the blue helmets for their protection.

While it was once possible to view the world's neglect of Europe's Jewry as a monstrous aberration, the Rwanda genocide shows how three patterns persist: The U.S. and other states ignore the warning signs that would enable them to act early. When the killing starts, "mere genocide" doesn't command high-level attention or resources. And domestically, U.S. leaders do not fear they will pay a political price for being bystanders to genocide.

Genocide comes with ample early warning, as would-be perpetrators are careful to test the waters before plunging in. In the months preceding their slaughter, the Rwandan killers staged a number of mini-massacres in order to gauge international reaction. By January 1994, Rwanda had become so militarized — and imported machetes had become so omnipresent — that the U.N. commander in Rwanda, Romeo Dallaire, urgently cabled Kofi Annan, the U.N. head of peacekeeping, in New York. Dallaire warned that militia members could exterminate "up to 1,000 [Tutsis] in 20 minutes."

Dallaire sent his cable three months after 18 U.S. soldiers had been killed in a Somalia firefight. Annan, believing that the United States and its allies were unwilling to confront the militants, opted not to cross what became known as "the Mogadishu line." He buried what has become known as the "genocide fax," and the militia members took their cue.

Annan was wrong not to sound an alarm, but he accurately predicted the U.S. attitude: Stopping Rwanda's massacres was not seen as in the U.S. national interest. The foreign policy of the United States is devoted to advancing a narrow national interest, which has long been defined in terms of economic and security gains for American citizens. Genocide rarely affects such interests, so no matter how many men, women and children are killed, the occurrence of genocide rarely rises within the bureaucracy to command the attention of influential U.S. policymakers. Focusing foreign policy attention on acts of genocide would require presidential leadership, which has rarely been forthcoming.

More shocking than the U.S. avoidance of military intervention in Rwanda was the fact that President Clinton never even convened his Cabinet to discuss what might be done about the murder of nearly a million human beings. The response was low-level, and neither Bushnell nor the other career bureaucrats nor Africa specialists had the clout needed to move the machinery of a risk-averse system in time to save lives. Thus, the U.S. not only failed to intervene, it also failed to even denounce the "genocide," or to use its technology to jam the "hate radio," or to rally additional U.N. troops from other countries, or to freeze the financial assets of the killers. The Rwandan killers went utterly unchallenged.

It's easy and right to hold Clinton accountable for American by- standing, but his administration's inaction was affirmed by societywide silence. While U.S. officials dithered, the rest of us failed to generate the "noise" that would have gotten their attention. Editorial writers at the major newspapers who pushed for intervention in Bosnia made no such appeals on behalf of the Rwandans.

The Congressional Black Caucus was consumed with the refugee crisis in Haiti. And we voters never picked up our telephones, so the congressional and White House switchboards didn't ring.

Then-Rep. Pat Schroeder (D-Colo.) described the relative silence in her district. "There are some groups terribly concerned about the gorillas," she said, noting that Colorado was home to a research group that studied Rwanda's imperiled gorilla population. "But — it sounds terrible — people just don't know what can be done about the people."

The Clinton administration didn't help inform Americans — indeed it distorted the facts, deliberately avoiding use of the word "genocide" — and then it invoked the public and congressional indifference as yet one more alibi for its inaction.

On this historic 10-year anniversary, we must try not to allow 800,000 to become a faceless statistic. Each Rwandan lived a precious life and died a horrible death. And if we are serious about learning the "lessons of Rwanda," we must do more than remember and regret; we must press our leaders to make genocide prevention and suppression the foreign policy priority it has never been. Otherwise, when we pledge "never again Rwanda," what we will really be saying is "never again will Rwandan Hutus kill 800,000 Tutsis between April and July, 1994."

___________ Samantha Power is the author of "A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide," which won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction, and a lecturer in human rights policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.