faith 7 | unobtrusive lucidity

Cheating the System

When I was in middle school, I was (and this will not exactly take you by surprise) a bit of a nerd, not exactly popular in social circles. My best friend was three grade levels older than me, and also not exactly the most socially mobile. We partook of the sorts of things that you might guess, perhaps stereotypically, would interest us…Dungeons and Dragons, chess, fantasy and science fiction novels, and all of the imaginative escapism that went along with them. The issue was that, being older and more experienced at things, my friend nearly always won every game that we played, and I was still immature enough that this really bothered me.

Our families were both heavily involved in the same faith community, and that was the beginning of the age in which the youth group was a heavily prioritized aspect of church culture. I remember one evening in which some church function was occurring, and we were the oldest youth group members present. While the adults had dinner and talked about…boring adult things…and the younger children played games appropriate to their ages, my friend and I were playing a board game. I couldn’t tell you which one (although we were particularly given to Axis and Allies at the time). I was losing, and so I took the opportunity to alter the odds in my favor when my friend wasn’t looking. I just wanted a chance, after all, and was quite tired of losing. He, of course, noticed immediately upon returning his attention to the game, and things erupted into a quarrel.

I only remember two other incidents in which I cheated on something, both involving quizzes and spread between my late middle school and early high school careers. The point is, the older I became, the less palatable cheating became to me. The same faith in which I was participating the night that I cheated on that board game necessitates that truth is more important, that cheating is (as much as this would frustrate my friends ascribing to a philosophical post-modernism) wrong.

Our daughter is old enough that she is beginning to grasp board games more effectively. On the evening that I write this, she and I were playing a simple game involving spinning an arrow and placing plastic acorns into cardboard tree stumps…you get the idea. Of course, one of the options that the arrow can land on with each spin is the “you lose all of your acorns” option. I was the first recipient of this unfortunate spin, and used the opportunity to show good sportsmanship by giving away all of my acorns. Then she landed on the same option a turn or two later, and was significantly more reluctant to give away her acorns.

So, I compromised. She gave up half.

This actually worked, because, the next time she landed on the harbinger of acorn loss, she hesitated, but gave them all away, working on copying my sportsmanship. This was great until she landed on it again. And then again. That was too much.

So, I compromised. I nudged the arrow to the next option over, much to her satisfaction. Then, a few turns later, I did it again.

So, I suppose I cheated.

I’m not entirely certain whether this will have a negative impact on how our daughter views games or competition or any of the other developmental processes associated with these sorts of activities. Or, perhaps the event will be inconsequential for her, lost in the mists of memory. For me, though, I’m quite taken with the amusing fact that I cheated.

What’s different is the motivation. When I was young, on those three occasions, I cheated to further myself, to compensate for self-esteem issues, to look better in the eyes of others. When I cheated tonight, there was no self-serving incentive behind the act. Rather, the impulse was to protect my daughter from a cold fact that she shouldn’t have to experience quite yet, the fact that life can, indeed, be that unfair.

I cheated because she doesn’t need to know that yet, because she doesn’t understand the concept of cheating yet, and because maybe at least her first exposure to it, if remembered at all, will be a positive one.

I cheated in a good way, if that’s even possible.

I’ll try to do better in the future.

Shared Waves

Last weekend was a family weekend, as we were able to slip out of town for a bit and see some family that we hadn’t been able to see in person for quite some time. The fact that we were on the coast for the trip, instead of depressingly inland…well, that was just a wonderful bonus.

The last time that I saw my nieces and nephew, they were young. Very young. It’s strange, isn’t it, how that last encounter with someone becomes the fixed image of that person in your mind, even though you know, logically, that they have changed significantly since you last met? This weekend, my nieces were as tall as me, and that is when the realization dawned that it had been nearly five years since I had seem them.

Five years, four major moves, one daughter and two deceased grandparents in between our encounters…and that’s just on our side of the divide.

I often feel trapped by time. That is, I feel as though time is moving so incredibly slowly for me, yet so briskly for everyone else. I always feel that I am being left behind, that I’m somehow chronologically arrested. When I see the evidence of this much change during what I have felt to have been such a brief period of time…and almost non-linear experience…I begin to truly appreciate how briskly life charges forward. Somehow, despite an almost deja vu sensation as this occurs over and over in my life, I’m always surprised by it.

Along with this, I always feel so isolated in my own experiences, to the point of being astounded when I discover how shared our lives are with each other, how much more we hold in common than we hold separately.

Friday evening after dinner, we were walking along the beach. This was a fun area, with lots of shops and restaurants, yet quiet, not overly commercial…a very nice area in coastal Virginia. About eight of us altogether, catching up on what we had missed over those years, and enwrapped in our conversation as will happen in these sorts of reunions. Someone was holding a wedding reception on the beach, and the revelry was contagious. As we walked and talked and laughed, I noticed a man with a camera to our left pointing his lens toward the rocky shoreline to our right, where a young couple was standing. That was when I noticed that he had taken a knee, and that she was in tears, nodding her head in an emphatic “yes.”

We had just walked past a proposal, inadvertently interfering with the photograph of the moment, but experiencing it nonetheless.

We applauded and cheered. In that moment, I remembered Karen’s expression years ago when I revealed a ring over dinner. I saw the man’s face, all smiles and exhausted, nervous relief, accepting our applause in a surreal moment, and I remembered how I felt that evening, when our waitress approached our table in the instant after I had proposed and realized what had happened.

I know nothing of that couple, other than the fact that they are beginning a new adventure together after that night on the beach. I’ve imagined text messages of a ring shared with friends, congratulations and libations shared all around, and I’ll always have the memory of her tearful face and his broad smile in my mind. For that split second, we shared our experiences. I had a privileged glimpse into that couple’s life, and I understood that moment at some level because I had been there. I didn’t talk to them, and likely never will, but I know something of them, and will cherish the fact that we unwittingly encountered that amazing moment.

I feel sort of bad that we messed up the photo, though…

Cracking the Eggs

Egg Emoticons by Kate Ter Haar - Used under Creative Commons

While we take our faith very seriously, there are very few things about which I’m choosy when it comes to holidays. I’m not that person who shouts about “keeping Christ in Christmas,” if you know what I mean. Still, Karen and I had discussions early on as to how we would celebrate Easter with our daughter. As it’s one of the two most central holidays to the Christian faith…arguably even the most important one…it’s one that we want to get right. By “get right,” I mean not focused on bunnies and eggs and that sort of thing.

That said, celebrating the coming of Spring is fun, and, I think, it’s healthy to observe the changing of the seasons around us. There’s a valuable perspective that comes with that, a thankfulness and observance that’s all too easy to permit to slip by as we stay indoors all day and streamline our workflows.

So, the end result of this was to have two celebrations. The first would be on the first day of Spring, at which time our daughter would receive her basket and eggs and bunnies and chocolate. On Easter Sunday, we would observe the Resurrection, the critical holiday to our faith, and consider it’s implications in how we perform our faith.

Of course, when grandparents get involved, there’s no end of chocolate and egg hunts, but they’ve sort of earned that privilege at this stage.

This year, Karen chose a medium of which I had never heard to present the story of Easter to our daughter: Resurrection Eggs. They’re a spiffy little device, I must say, and she used them to walk through the events of the holiday last weekend.

This morning, I was trying in vain to wake up and feeding my coffee addiction while watching our daughter play. She has several small toy farm animals that are currently favorites, and she had declared a shelf of the living room entertainment center to be the barn into which they would escape the rain. During the course of the play, she got the Resurrection Eggs out of Karen’s bag, opened all of them, and involved their contents with the rest of the collection. I was struck by the way in which she incorporated these small symbols of a most holy story into the rest of her play…they walked side by side with the other “characters.” This struck me because, each year when Easter arrives, I struggle to find it’s center, it’s essence. This has been true since grad school, largely because I just don’t have the contemplative time now that I had then…and I mourn that loss. For some reason, though, Easter is a time that I can’t ever seem to set aside, to slow down and appreciate. Perhaps it’s the time of year, as well, but, with few exceptions, Easter sails by each year and leaves me on the other side wondering why I can’t find it.

I think that I see the answer in this morning’s events, because that is exactly what this faith is to be. Holidays are important observances, but I don’t for a moment believe in some arbitrary separation between the sacred and the secular, between a religious observance and the rest of the world. If the Christian faith means anything, it’s that entering into what is around us is the desired result, rather than moving away from it. I love that what was in those eggs…those symbols of the sacred for the young mind…were brought out to walk beside, and interact with, the rest of the characters around them, because it is that which Believers are to do.

Perhaps I can never see Easter because I’m always trying to look inside the eggs, when I should, in fact, be walking more amongst them.

Image attribution: Kate Ter Haar under Creative Commons.

Jesus? Jesus, Anyone?

You already know I’m not a huge fan or religion. I’m particularly disdained, however, at the fact that religion can now be confused with pedophilia.

Friday, prosecutors in the Warren Jeffs polygamy case urged jury members to uphold the sanctity of the purity of a girl who, at age 14, was allegedly forced, against her better judgment, to marry her cousin and submit to his sexual advances.

I can’t even describe to you how disgusting that is. First of all, she was 14. Modern psychology tells us that, as a rule, individuals of that age are not prepared for the emotional ramifications resulting from an act of sexual intercourse…even assuming that they are physically ready, which I find myself doubting. Secondly, to compound the issue further, she was his cousin! West Virginia jokes aside, I was under the understanding that both incest and pedophilia were illegal. Those are some of those comforting laws that come with living in a civilized culture.

Last night, however, on Anderson Cooper 360, attorneys could be viewed arguing (you can catch it on the podcast) that Jeffs was protected from legal charges in encouraging this unholy union by stating that this fell under his freedom of religion, and that it is his faith (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) that is under attack here, not him.

I nearly screamed in pain.

If there’s anything I disagree with less than religion, its the legal system (I think Shakespeare may have a had a point). But when our perverted system can actually formulate a response to protect someone who’s religion and status as a “prophet” have resulted, even if indirectly, in the incestuous rape of a little girl, and God knows what other sexual atrocities? Like I said: disgusting.

This is what happens, however, when not only the system goes horribly awry, but so does religion. Religion has replaced true spirituality in our culture. Anyone can claim that they are a a descendant of Jesus, like Jeffs has, and proceed to build a church (I use the word loosely) that will adhere to their every opinionated and twisted demand.

All that is required by anyone interested in spiritual pursuits is a cursory examination of the Scriptural accounts of Jesus’ life to discover that He finds these things abhorrent. You’ll also find, if you read a bit further, that He wasn’t a huge fan of religion as typically practiced, and it is that religion that has led us to this. At some point, the postmodern relativism of our twisted view of the Christ (and those who claim to be His prophets while obviously speaking out of sync with Him) must fall under scrutiny, and be held up against a standard of truth.

So what is that truth?

If you questioned Elissa Wall, the girl in question in the Jeffs case, I bet that she might say something to the effect of how she shouldn’t have been subjected to sex by her cousin when she was 14 years old. The epistemology may be subject to debate, but I imagine she would hold that fact to be truth.

It only becomes distorted when we do what the legal system does, and analyze it too far.

Straight From Krypton

I read this interview this morning with Danny Fingeroth, an active force in the comic book industry and author of at least two books about the commentary that comic book superheroes provide on our culture. Take the time to read it…its fascinating.

This has become a topic of great conversation over the last few years, I’ve noticed. While comic book fans were once isolated to the daring few geeks who wore superhero t-shirts and hung out at the local comic shop, I’ve noticed more “closet” superhero fans emerging with the huge influence of movies such as the X-Men series (that paints a disturbing commentary on prejudice) and NBC’s hit drama, Heroes (which asks the question, what if we were meant to be something more?). There has been significant conversation among evangelical circles over the Christological metaphor of the Man of Steel in Superman Returns, the importance of redemptive faith imagery in X-Men 2, and the emphasis on forgiveness in Spider-Man 3. I even recognized redemptive faith imagery in Ghost Rider (although it took the form of a beautiful woman showing significant cleavage). M. Night Shyamalan painted an intriguing portrait of faith within the concept of a comic book superhero in Unbreakable.

As you’ve guessed by now, or read here before, I was one of those comic shop geeks in my childhood, and still collect today. I’m as conversant about the history of the X-Men and Transformers as I am theology and Scripture. I love the story, the visual aesthetic, the commentary that comics and superheroes paint of our culture. I love how they point to hope…a hope of redemption.

Isn’t that what good art is supposed to do, anyway?

Regardless of whether or not you’re much into the comic book or superhero “scene,” watch for the themes presented in these stories…don’t just go for the action when you see them in the theater. If nothing else, their portrayals of good and evil are convicting. And while I tremble at the thought of reading philosophical undertones into everything (as some recent commentaries on superheroes have been wont to do), I think that there is something there we can learn from them. As with anything worth finding, we just have to look deeply.