From Bonhoeffer to Weatherhead

My friend wrote to me about yet another potentially great institution doing something stupid. I found it helpful to respond in this way:

Subject: From Bonhoeffer to Weatherhead

I was talking yesterday afternoon to my process theologian friend about the evil that institutions do. I do think you must be talking about institutions and their mad, insane, irrational preoccupation with Bonhoeffer's subject, success.

Here are three theological seminaries with which I have personal experience. Three that have accrued such a surplus of stupid decisions that they cannot but do the harm they do. Add to the surplus of stupid the surplus of irrational idealism that we -- oops, I-language, Anne -- *I* invest in them. I want them to do the good that they can do. The good is why I wanted to join up with them. When I find that they are not communities after all, but collectives, with all of the magnification of human potential for bad, it hurts all the more. They continue to do this harm over and over. The salary and benefits eventually are not enough, and my capacity for detachment is not enough, to keep me there, entrapped by the system and my collusion in it.

What potential, then, is on the public face of these institutions, if not the evil one? Gospel potential, the rebel Jesus, the impulse of self-giving love, whatever it is that draws us into that light -- *that* potential. That's the false consciousness, I think, that sets up the miserable disillusionment and sense of the hidden parallel reality of meanness, bitter cruelty, and mindless plowing under of any nascent creativity and novelty.

Witness the damage these collectives have done. Not just the accretion of history (Inquisition, Constantine, the theologians and institutions under Hitler whom Bonhoeffer might have been addressing), but the immediately past memories of our own lives in churches, seminaries, and the institutions who employed us. We, the ones with whom I am now speaking in solidarity, threw our lives into them and were beaten down bluntly by the collective wickedness.

I asked M, is there not still a sum of good, potentially, that these broken institutions can do? We argued ourselves into a place that said, no, they have to eventually exhaust themselves (die?) of all of the negative energy they are accumulating more rapidly than they care to know. It takes a long, long time because the momentum they have accumulated is so strong. Creativity, novelty, options, the force of the better argument are not overwhelmed, however. These forces for good (may I say, forces of God -- in all of the beyonds, thanks, Laurel) emerge where they will, especially in the critical consciousness of those who survive the blunt force trauma and others who are able to escape the entrapment.

Will institutions always have this sine wave, of diminishing duration, this alternating current of good and evil? It seems such a waste because so much is possible when an accumulation of sufficient numbers of people form committed communities capable of clarity and unity of vision. Can't we go into these idealistic (real world) communal efforts with eyes wide open on the possibilities of distortion, to the net effect of a surplus of good? Isn't this happening somewhere? Or does it happen only for brief times and eventually succumb to the fatal flaw?

[I said to Grace (age 8) recently as we were approaching the bottoms of our ice cream cones after her softball practice on one of our just-the-two-of-us outings:
--Well, Grace, I guess all good things must come to an end.

Her reply, shaped by the disillusionments she has already suffered:
-You mean like you and Mommy?

Stunned, I responded:
--No, Honey, just ice cream cones. Your Mommy and I are just fine and we love you very much.

I think my point is, this relationship requires attention, careful presence, mindfully monitoring the potential for erosion of the energy that draws us together. The erotic idealistic energy that drew us together is not as sustaining as the energy of relationships anywhere eventually, in which the love and its potential must evolve constantly into novel forms and spaces. It's hard to explain all of that to an 8 year old. It requires lots of ice cream, and watching us grow, argue, test, bond, laugh, cry, etc.]

Culture of Narcissism

I have heard and read that blogs can be dumping grounds of self-absorption. I guess so. They are good ways to get news out. They are places to vent to friends who care.

Is this a dumping ground of my self-absorption? I don't care. I'm sick -- and tired -- and sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I am grateful for being able to vent right now. I have been feeling that it is my turn to have some anger and hurt feelings, to express that, to do exactly the opposite of the anonymous way, to tell whoever is listening what is on my mind.

I'm tired of being the good girl, the big sister, the one who has it together. It's about time, too. I figure my 51st year is the way to launch a decade, or the remaining nine years of it, or however long I have, to start saying, please leave me alone. I am allowed to suffer, too. I am allowed to be weak and sad and exhausted.

How does it feel, to have survived a partner, a mother, a brother, and to still be surviving a father who gave away his entire savings to a junkie and an alcoholic, and who has been saying to me for years, "I'm not sending you anything for [name the holiday, birthday, etc.] because you have enough. Your brothers and the grandchildren have nothing. They need my help more than you." What if it is not about help, but about simply enjoying someone you love, and wanting to give them -- not even money! -- a visit, a card, a call to say hello?

Reverse mortgage -- the latest trap for senior citizens. Just hope you live only as long as your equity! Right, Dad, go ahead and give it all away now to your other son. I'll just be here in Indy, living my life. How I wish you had not told me about the reverse mortgage. Oh, well. You wanted my brother to have your house when you die. Now, you can give it to him in little bits of money that you convert from the entire adulthood in which you invested your life and our growing up.

How does it feel to now face the fear of the remaining brother's alcoholism and addictions? Saying no to his plea for help, keeping boundaries in a firm way, resisting guilt, trying to maintain some kind of poise while chaos pulls at every nerve ...

In the absolutely worst periods of my life, you both have called to tell me, "I can't come and be with you because my [addiction, alcoholism, domestic unrest, Alzheimer's Disease, you name it] has made my life chaos. But, you are strong, you don't need me as much as the others. I'll come if you insist, but I would really rather not. Will you please let me not come and be with you?" Three back surgeries. Her death. Moving. Falling in love again. A big fun wedding at the beach. Oh, yeah, the shame mixes with the physical pain like rancid oil and strong vinegar on an always fresh wound.

All through the worst times of my life, I have been alone, a family unto myself. I have managed to make a good life -- actually, now, a wonderful life.

When your lives are in chaos and misery, you call and you try to pull me in. It's like you are trying to pull yourself into my canoe. I have to lean 'way out the opposite side to keep the canoe from capsizing. You are too heavy for my boat. You chopped holes in yours, they sank, and now you want to drag yourself into mine. Here is my suggestion: there goes a piece of driftwood -- quick, if you let go now, you can just about catch it. Kick hard!

I cannot describe the guilt I feel for this, but here is what I want from you: please leave me alone. Let me continue with my life I have built here. I cannot help you, I have nothing that you need.

Other than my disconnection from you, for my own sanity, do you see any dignity in this for you? Think of it this way: when you pass through this current crisis, you can say to yourself, I did it. Me and [higher power language], we reached down deep into the core of creativity that resides in me, and we pulled it together this time. And we did it without Anne. Yea, me! No pesky resentment, no manipulation, no struggle to formulate the next best lie.

When the crisis has passed, send me a postcard. It will be nice to get some good news from you for a change.

And, please be sure to make your legal durable power of attorney for health care and business arrangements while you are at it. I don't want to have to guess what you want, just in case you don't make it all the way to the end, leaving one last crisis to which you might wish for me to react.

If the karmic wheel brings you around again, pray that you have awakening in that split instant when your soul escapes the corpse and you learn everything you needed to know from all of this. If we ever wind up together again, may it be as creatures who live in the bliss of non-self-transcendent consciousness. May we be trout in a stream, whose only compulsion is to find the homeward path to ancestral beds in waters always freshened by melting snow. May we feed on larvae, and be fed upon by bears. Will the circle be unbroken?

Crackhead Brother

This is raw stuff. This could be a story that ends well. Or not. I have too many movies in my head: The Basketball Diaries, Requiem for a Dream, etc.

Email correspondence with my brother.

First Letter: Friday, April 11, 2008 12:09:03 PM EDT

Sister:
I'm writing this from Huntsville Public Library. I got in town day before yesterday.I regret that I have not been in touch with you or Daddy but as you might guess, I relapsed and lost everything I had built up for myself including my apartment and job.I've tried to call Daddy this AM but I figure he is out doing his morning rituals of drinking coffee etc. I just want to let you and him know that I am alive and luckily healthy enough to get around on foot. I tried calling you yesterday to report my whereabouts but was unsure if I even called the correct#. My cell phone is out of minutes so I will just have to leave this message and hope you get it. I'm considering moving into this halfway to get it together but it is no more than an unstructured flop house; I've stayed there before. I dread having to call Daddy with yet another report of failure but I'm hungry and exhausted. If there was any way I could avoid having to ask for help, I would. My addiction issues are basic
as1+2=3 when I put the chemicals in my body but I feel something else is wrong with me that preceedes the actual intake. I feel as if I'm crazy. I can't fight this much longer; especially knowing the badness that results from it. Of course my frame of mind is bad right now but thats the way it is. Sorry for the heavy e-mail but I felt at least you must know of my general whereaboutsI love you very much. --P

April 11, 2008 2:24:01 PM EDT
Hey, P,
I talked to T. I am grateful that he took care of you for a few days. He and [wife] told me that you have a place to stay and some work. I believe you can make it.

Reading your story recalled my friend R to mind. He goes to our church. He was homeless and hopeless, but is now sober and functioning very well.

R has offered to correspond with you by email. I hope you will contact him. Here is his address:

Every day, all day, I hold you up in the light in my prayers and meditation.

Thursday, April 24, 2008, at 07:08PM EDT
Hello,
I wanted to update you on my current situation. I came back here to Nashville with the hopes of a start over with some financial help from Daddy. That was my intent but I could not go back into my previouse 1/2 way house because of some back pay that I owe the owner to the tune of $300.00. Icannot nor will I ask Daddy for anything else. He has helped me more than enough + I cannot bear to dissappoint him anymore I would also rather have a root-canal than have to listen to the brow beatings that come from not understanding the way I am. I dont understand me either. Icannot blame him. I'm sorry that it dissappoints and hurts you as well I just figure you can deal with this more rationally than Daddy. The job that I'd hoped for fell thru as well; hence I've been on the street for over a week now. I've been eating and staying at the variouse missions around town some. When I don't feel safe @ the mission I sleep outside and eat only in the daytime when there are not as many people in there. Most people who live on the street have an uncanny ability to spot a new and frightend person. You have to not look weak so as not to get taken advantage of so I always try to get a feel of who is around and the general atmosphere at the time. Ironically I've been sober most of this time because I've not had money for liquor. I do however need some help other than a small amount of cash to wash what few clothes I have (2 changes). I could use some phone card minutes and a phone charger becuase I have neither. Maybe a non refundable Walmart gift card for food and clothes. I would know of no other way of obtaining these thru mail other than find a way to a Fed Ex office. By no meansdo I expect you to do this without you fully thinking this thru and have the means to do so. Many would say to help me would hurt me more."Let him hit his bottom"; many say. I'm so self indulgent that I do not know what a "bottom" is. This is why I will hold no resentment if you decide not to do this. This situation I created and am experiencing the consequences of some insane stupid decisions. On a lighter note, My manager at Walmart said I could come back to work in july after I serve this probationary layoff. Thatwas areal blessing. Untill then I'm submitting apps. and need my phone to work in case I get some interview hits. I've been using a guys contact # but he is not that reliable. I can get out of this jam, I just need some basic yet at this time very important support. Please think this over. I'll be back in touch by e-mail in a day or so. Please DONT TELL DADDY!!Love P.

Friday, April 25, 2008 1:53:40 PM EDT
I guess the non response indicates a NO on any assistance. Like I wrote before, I hold no resentment what so ever!! I hope to see you soon, when times are better. I do love you as always! Pat.
P.S. I'm sending this from the Nashville Public Library. Downtown, somewhere on Church Street. I'll use this location to check in to see if there is anything of importance to know. Hopefully I will have gotten a job and other good news to report by then. As I wrote before, this is the only means of communication I have available right now. I did not know this place was here, so I plan to use it often as I can to see if there is anything within Ours or Your Family to report. I have no phone and will not dare to call Daddy collect because it distresses him so to get the collect call prompts to continue with the call for billing acceptance. He does not know how to execute that without much distress and confusion.
My situation stays the same, untill I get better news, but I'll be O.K.
Love, P.


Friday, April 25, 2008 3:35:18 PM EDT
P,
I actually wrote to you one long response and one short one. Both of the long one and this one are the same: blah blah blah no blah blah blah. I will send this one.

I have 2 impulses. Your sister wants to come and get you to feed you and wash your clothes and get you a place to sleep.

You did not ask for that.

If I thought I would be writing to the you that you want me to believe I would be writing to, I would send you some kind of debit card to get what you need. But, what stops me is knowing that you are not that person. I think right now you are someone who wants me to become someone you will end up resenting because you succeed in suckering me.

I am going to tell your sister to sit this one out and her counselor alter ego to step up. I don't believe your
story, not all of it.

Because my resources are not my own and my risks are shared with my family, I have to say no.

Today, Monday, April 28, 2008: So far, no response from P. I wonder where he is? On the street in Nashville still? Is he alive? He has no ID; the judge took that from him in Alabama a couple of years ago. If someone rolled him, killed him, if he ODed, who would know how to contact me and Dad? The inside of my head is a messy place. I need to go to Al-Anon.

I finally sent the longer email I started when I first heard from my brother on April 11.

Today, Monday, April 28, 2008, 11:42 a.m., EDT
Subject: Inside My Head
P,
I sent a computer to your apartment in Nashville, and right after I made the purchase on eBay, I heard from T, that you would not be there to receive it, and at the time, you were empty-handed, asleep in his house in Huntsville. I was able to catch the shipment and have it sent to my house in Indy. I will probably put the computer back on eBay. I was really surprised to learn of your circumstances. What is probably the most distressing is that you were off the wagon for a long time and I didn't know until you were in crisis.

And, not T's fault for ratting you out, not his fault, but owing to my well-honed therapy skills, I learned that not only are you drinking, but you are using crack, you and your girlfriend, or wife, or whatever. That really blew me away. It's all the same, I know, but crack is such a faster route to the destination of the chronic, progressive, ultimately fatal disease. There are so many more ways to find the end with crack -- you can kill yourself quicker, or someone else more desperate than you can kill you. I mean the generic "you" not the you you, but you know what I mean, and it's all blah, blah, blah, anyway.

By the way, I found a crack pipe on the sidewalk of my first house in Dayton. I felt that I had found a portal into some strange other world. I picked it up and stared at it for a long time, thinking, wow, what a mind. It was a piece of broken off car antenna, an empty prescription bottle, and a wad of making tape. Probably some sucker on my street was missing a car antenna, and someone else was missing a bottle of Xanax or something.

It's so pesky the way crackheads make so much trouble for everybody else. Like the guy who broke into my house and stole my cordless drill. He went around the neighborhood until the cordless battery ran out of juice, drilling out deadbolts and stealing -- get this: food. Yes, the cops finally caught up with him walking down the street at some wee hour carrying a black trash bag full of the contents of someone's freezer. He also stole my friends' cell phones. They were house sitting. To this day, Henry freaks out when strangers come into the house because he was in his crate upstairs and knew someone was in the house, but he could not get to his ankles and make him sorry he invaded our little nest. So, that adventure cost me a DVD/CD player, my cordless drill, my friends' cell phones, which I replaced with my own money because homeowners' insurance will cut you off if you make too many "small" claims.

Maybe you think she died, leaving me sitting pretty. I get that a lot from you and Daddy. She left me with enough to get by, but I eke out my living like everybody else. I can't afford to lose my homeowners' insurance, especially after she died and left me enough money to buy my house half-way, and her family were kind enough to give me the other half. Oh, wait -- you missed the funeral. You had lost too much time away from work already from drinking and drugs, and could not come. Mom and Dad could not come because Mom had Alzheimer's and it would have practically killed Dad to get it together enough to make the trip with her. I'd call that a legitimate excuse. And, you missed my "wedding" in NC last summer. You lost your good job with vacation and benefits due to drinking and drugs and started your WalMart job and could not take the time off.

You know, you resent Dad so much, but you're so much alike. I've had to scrap with him over the years. It's not enough to live 700 miles away. I paid him every red cent for the Hollow, and then he tried to take it from me, anyway. And, wow, when I hired the forester and clear cut to plant pines, to be a landed gentry tree farmer on a piddling 80 acres of Trail of Tears guilt property -- let me catch my breath -- I thought I would finally be in the clear, that he would never speak to me again. But, no such luck. As soon as you fell off the wagon, there he was, asking me what to do. He never listens to me. He gave you money he is now getting from reverse mortgage because he has no retirement because he gave it all, plus the money I paid him for the Hollow, to Robert who held him hostage for the grandchildren's sake. Robert, the sociopath. You're not a sociopath. What's your excuse?

[Oh, come on, IndyAnne. Blah, blah, blah -- it's too late to reveal all this disappointment and disillusionment! P is no longer buying into the intervention/AA model, anyway. Save your breath.]

Here's another observation from inside my head. I have a scooter, a 125 cc Genuine Buddy, 90 mpg. I like riding it to work. I ride through town, around the circle on Meridian street (our little touch of European traffic circle), all the way from the Southside to my job on the north side. I like it a lot this time of year because I go through about ten different neighborhoods and all the flowers in bloom are not only beautiful, but the aroma! Wow. When you're in a car, you miss all of the little details like the way a bank of lilac bushes smells in profusion. And when I hop over to MLK, I go by the Barbecue Heaven -- real hickory wood smoke mixed with pork fat -- heaven, indeed. I think you know what I mean now. You are also close to these sensory experiences now, living on the street. You probably even know how many lines are in the sidewalk there on Church Street, where Elliston Place splits off there, near Vandy, my old stomping grounds. Oh, the irony.

I am sitting here looking at this computer, thinking, what a sucker. I have to acknowledge my own disease of codependency, that I was seeing the gift of the computer as a kind of a link between you and me, and some kind of consolation for you, to see that we can move forward in some normal way as a family. The very simple thing is, giving a gift like this would make ME feel better, because it would mean you would have the outlet to plug it into, and a modem that would carry your words to me. This gift was a gift to myself. What an illusion. Now I am free of it, so thank you.

I don't say this to browbeat you, just to let you know I had a totally different idea of how you were getting things together in Nashville, because of what you told me on our infrequent calls. My letter to you said what I want to say the most now: if you are using again, liquor, crack, whatever, and you are not doing what you and I both know would help you the most, then there really is nothing I can do to help you.

You are right, everything I know about addiction tells me that I can't do anything to help you if you don't want sobriety. All the guys in recovery at my church say that they were in your same situation at some time in their lives, but even looking at their clear eyes and knowing that they woke up in their own beds, I struggle with all my strength against the illusion that I might send the magic thing that will make you like them. The only thing that gave them their clear eyes and their own beds was themselves.

I hate hearing that you can't wash your clothes and buy food. Those are so basic. I don't know what living from mission to mission must be like. I imagine those are scary places and that anything -- worse than I could possibly imagine -- could happen to you on the street.

I don't talk to Daddy about your situation. I don't tell him that you are into much more dangerous chemicals than ever. I should have known when you described that guy with the money and the cars and the crack trade that you would be in trouble. You seemed to idolize that creep. But, I didn't know there was a woman involved. That explains a lot, but it's just more blah, blah, blah.

If I saw you/some stranger on the street, I would not give you money. It's hard to think about you in that kind of trouble. See, I gave Daddy all of my money for the same things he gave each of us, and he lost all of what I gave him and all of his own money. He probably won't get anything back from Robert's widow. Somehow, somebody has to stop the insanity. That person is me. I don't have anything more to risk that does not also place my own family at risk. Not even laundry money and food.

It is so basic, to give someone some water and something to eat. Some of my students are going to Arizona and Mexico in a few weeks to put water out in the desert for migrants coming across the border. People shoot holes in the barrels, and the students will go out and take more plastic barrels, and somebody will eventually come along and shoot holes in the barrels. It's kind of a loaves and fishes story, if you think about it. There is no end to the need for water in a desert. Even a dog deserves a drink of water in the desert, no matter what got them there, their own hopes and dreams or, as with the babies and kids with them, some scared parent.

The needs you describe are so basic, it would not hurt me in the short term to send you what you ask for, but it's the accumulation of things in the long run that I know will harm us both. This is unconditional. No bargaining with you or me. My door is always open for you, but you can't stay here. Yes, it's because we have a little girl in our house, but it's not even that. It's that you have to figure this out for yourself.

You used Daddy up, now you are turning to me. How long before you resent me because I let you make a sucker out of me? Robert took all the sucker out of me, Pat. All I have left now is belief in some inner core of who you are, to stop bouncing from one enabler to another. I don't want you to die, too, but I'm not going to participate in its inevitability by giving you something that would be absolutely the wrong thing to do.

I hope Walmart comes through for you.

Did you call Rick? Are you able to hitch up here and let some other alcoholic and junkie look you in the eye? The least you could do is give him a call. Go to a meeting. Surely someone there will let you make a call on a cell phone.

I do love you, you know. Yes, it breaks my heart, yes, I am disappointed, but that's all because I have hope and confidence that your higher power can give you strength, and our higher power can permit me to be sane in the midst of this, too. I hear in your words that this hope is not in you, that you are now on your own terms with your sobriety. If your higher power can't help you, what makes you think I can?

When Daddy goes, you and I will be the only family we have left. We have to figure out a way to be family to each other. I'm so clueless about you and I can't have a credible thought about you and what is possible for you.

From your lesbian social pariah sister, living it up in Indianapolis ...

Later today:
In church yesterday, a little boy read this passage from John that contains this phrase, "...I will not leave you orphaned...". He was so precious, people were crying all over the sanctuary. He is adopted from Guatemala. Thing is, he looks like you when you were about five. Black hair, black eyes, brown little "saucer-eyed kid" (remember that boy in the neighborhood who called you that?). Yes, I cried because he was just too wonderful up there reading with such confidence and poise, and he was an orphan, and now he has such a wonderful life with two dads and his sister (also adopted from Guatemala).

We pray for you by name at our church every Sunday. Yesterday, I thought someone else had sent in a prayer card for you because it asked for prayer for a brother who is jobless and homeless, alcoholic. But, no, another person in our church was crying and praying for his brother, too.

My New Airstream Web Site

You can click the heading above to get to the iWeb site I set up on my lunch hour today, to chronicle my Airstream projects. The first concerns the same subject as the previous post, with more photos and description.

To make it easy, I am IndyAnne on all of these Airstream-related places, like the Airforums. That's a wonderful web site, a great big help. Lots of DIY Airstream renovation enthusiasts post information and share advice here.

Let's face it -- most DIY adventures start with, "I was just trying to fix ... [insert your latest disaster here]."

That's my story on the bathroom rip-out. So, I get to rebuild the Airstream bathroom. And yet, I also made reservations to go camping in June with some good buddies from church, so getting it all back together is really going to be interesting.

Every tub has to sit...

So I'm workin' on the Airstream, the little love nest. I love the vintage postcard I got one time, dated circa 1950, atmosphere of post WWII optimism and individual freedom and all that, with a couple sitting in folding chairs on the roof of a travel trailer, watching the sunset. The caption read, "You know you're in love when you have to take your bedroom with you everywhere you go."

The grody 40-year-old bathroom in the Airstream is comin' out. I got a sabre saw and cut out the bathtub, the surround, and took up the white throne of judgment and put it in the garage. Then I hauled the love nest to CDS Trailers to get new tires and replace the angle iron holding the honey pot onto the frame underneath the throne.

Work has begun in earnest! Anybody need a fiberglass RV tub? I'm sure all the pieces can be glued back together, like a jigsaw puzzle.

They say the first thing to go into and Airstream was the rear bath, and you have to take everything out starting in the front in order to get the tub out. Oh yeah? Well, that's why the good Lord gave us sabre saws. That sucker is gondhi! Only this ghostly outline remains.

Now, on with the rehab. The floor gets ripped up, plumbing cut out -- more beer money from copper taken to reclamation! and everything updated with Nyloboard and PEX tubing. Woo-hoo!

Eggshells

Here I go again, walking on eggshells, knowing I probably should keep my mouth shut, but just can't do it.

The Jeremiah Wright speedbump in the Obama campaign is drawing all sorts of strange bedfellows together. The President of CTS has jumped into the fray.

President Wheeler and Dr. Jeremiah Wright are friends. I know they were both mentors in the D. Min. program at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, OH, where I used to teach. In fact, Dr. Wright's DMIN is from UTS. They are both leaders of leaders in significant segments of African American Christians. I realize the recent political scene has done harm to Dr. Wright’s reputation, used for political gains and losses. Dr. Wright’s inflammatory sermons may well have been taken out of context. Charges of racism behind the muckraking journalism calling attention to his sermons may very well be accurate.

Dr. Wheeler is a good friend, to speak up for Dr. Wright in the Indianapolis Star.

I recall another public statement from the President about another controversial matter at CTS this year, defending the seminary’s hosting a homophobic Christian denomination for ordination of its bishop in Indianapolis. This denomination is the Convocation for Anglicans in North American (CANA) and the local parish, The Anglican Church of the Resurrection. Our permitting this ordination in our facility was presented by the President in the guise of hospitality, of freedom of expression, of advancement of dialogue.

I have the impression that President Wheeler has a selective righteous indignation, or else he has a narrow view of friendship that might actually be very consistent. In his office, he is entitled to speak up for himself and to advance dialogue in the public sphere. My comparison of events spanning just a few months, however, finds that he will defend one friend who is being slandered by racists and opportunistic politicians, but he will live and let live while another group in the vicinity (from which he seems to distance himself while extending hospitality) engages in hate speech and uncharitable behavior toward gay, lesbian, sexual minorities, many of whom are also baptized Christians.

The public statement of December 15, 2007, strikes me as double-talk, far from calling out CANA and its congregations, priests, and bishops, some of whom are alumni or students of CTS. They should be challenged from this high office for their participation in homophobia, and, in fact to confront the reality that their very existence is fed by the energy of hate.

President Wheeler states that we have a relationship with the denomination, its priests, bishop, and local congregation. Friendship and reputation have tangled the President’s tongue over the troublesome matter of homophobia. The gift of President Wheeler’s friendship seems to entail a call for him to hasten to speak up against injustice. Hence, I must assume that he has no homosexual friends who have suffered because of Christians who hate them.

It is very difficult to call attention to injustice when the community at which hate is aimed has no legal status as a protected class. However, everyone who understands bigotry knows that we can still do the right thing when we are faced with the opportunity to advance justice and the beloved community. It is especially difficult to draw parallels between civil rights and social justice for gay people and the history of African American civil rights. A broad and deep critique exists that would ban such inferences. However, one oppressed community ought to be able to help the cause of justice for injustice anywhere. This is not easy, it is not politically expedient, but I think it is the right thing to do.

President Wheeler’s public statements could be considered by many to be statements of the position of CTS on matters of public consequence. In fact, responses to the opinion piece referenced above indicate that CTS is totally implicated in the defense of Jeremiah Wright, for positive or negative effect. This bears remembering and it will be remembered by at least one.

Beauty of Absurdity

On the other side of the absurdity matter -- previous post -- is the tendency to diminish one's own suffering. At one end of the continuum (assuming there is a continuum) is victimhood, an identity shaped by truly abhorrent treatment at the hand of someone or an entire culture. Victimhood can endure as a permanent feature of identity, inseparable from the self and the visible, symbolic participation in the meaning of the suffering, surviving in spite of the injuries and insults, but with little surplus of joy.

At the other end of the continuum is something like arrogance. This is a kind of impermeable way of being in the world, preoccupied with survival in a different way, avoiding harm and pain, perhaps describable as hedonic or hedonistic, or capable only of rising to occasions of fun at any expense.

I have described these extremes in the abstract. I don't think I have ever really felt either of those identities to be descriptive of me. I have too much advantage and shielded privilege, good enough parenting, safety in the adequacy of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, to have fallen into victimhood as a permanent state.

I have never given in to utter hedonism, either. My WASP work ethic is firmly in place, although I will admit that I would rather find a way to be paid well and with good health insurance as a dilettante fly fisher, a female Isaak Walton, if you will.

I have managed to steer -- no, wait, that implies control -- I have managed to move through life with enough buffetting of suffering, tasting despair, courting oblivion; cushioned by a general condition of comfort; and distracted by the entertainments of pure uncensored fun so that I would have to say that, like Rachel's favorite clothing says, life, indeed, is good.

And yet ... and yet ... life continues to serve up these absurdities. What can one person do? Act. Pray. Care. Pay attention.

Self-understanding is important to cultivation of a self worth sharing with someone else. So, it is important to confront the oppressors, offenders, and creeps that hinder the flourishing built into a heart. Say no, enough, stop, quit, move, change, leave -- whatever it takes. It does not help to deny what you know to be true. Have courage. Do what you have to do.

Curiosity is also a good thing. Why do you laugh at what you laugh at? What language do you speak? Who taught it to you? How were you put together that makes you you? What makes you different makes you interesting, as long as you are just as willing to ask me the same questions and remain open to my answers.

But, evil is real. That's why we have to watch out for the vulnerable (including ourselves). There really are some very bad people who want to harm you. There really are people who want to take away all of your stuff and your life with it. There are people who do not want you to flourish. That's when it helps to be selfish, if that's what you want to call it. Self-preservation is a worthy impulse. But, love comes first. So, even when love does not win at first, or seems never to win, or doomed to fail, you have to keep loving, as long as you know not to let anything come between you and the door. You don't have to be a hero. You can run, live, lick your wounds, and rest up for the next struggle against evil. Unless you're just plain exhausted, in which case, it's also ok to run and keep running until you find a safe place to stop.

They write books about these things. The futility of hope; the ridiculous tenacity of love; the necessity of surviving; and that this is not the whole story. The end we see is not really the end at all, but a kind of new beginning.

It is still true -- here and now, on this first day of Spring, and the eve of Easter -- that somehow, between the ditches of hedonism and despair, hope and love will win.

A World of Absurdity

A phenomenon -- psychological, spiritual, sociological, ... (?) -- accounts for a feeling I have sometimes. I don't know the name for this phenomenon. It's partly a kind of survivor's guilt; it's partly a smarmy privileged liberal self-loathing; it's partly an imposter's syndrome; maybe it's all of these things. It says:

No matter what I might have suffered in my life, nothing -- gods, singular and lesser, willing -- will ever compare to atrocities such as the Shoah, the Trail of Tears, 400 years of slavery, and Darfur; therefore, I should remain silent, count my blessings, and keep on the sunny side.

Such a vision of tragedy is as hard to keep in focus as staring at the sun.

Silence, as ACT+UP told us back in the early days of HIV/AIDS, equals death. Yet, I feel so overwhelmed by tragedy that I am struck dumb.

This happened to me at the Society for Pastoral Theology annual study conference in Atlanta a few years ago. Touring the MLK center, sitting in a circle of conversation and consciousness-raising among a mostly-white gathering of scholars and clinicians, so many images and so many words were overwhelming to me. All of my history, social location, my active and passive participation in systematic endemic racism, all crashed over me like a wave, filling my lungs with sand so that I could not breathe or expend the words that were piling up in my brain and spilling out of my heart, crashing on the beach with the waste and precious awareness, like these words now trying to fall upon these keys as I think and write today. My guilt, my implication, my shame render me silent.

How can I remain silent? This is not the answer. In my social location, history, awareness, I can help to construct a new world.

Thank you, Barak Obama, for your speech after the Jeremiah Wright debacle in your campaign. I feel hopeful that the world can change. You are a politician, a gifted and smart man, and you can lead with inspiration. The world can change.

The world can change. That's the next step for me after this languishing in shame and silence.

What can be more important to talk about this week than racism? Nothing.







Nothing - except for this murder, eclipsed, I fear, by campaign drama.

Lawrence King, image above, 15, shot in the head in his Oxnard, CA, school classroom. He told his classmates he was gay; he was proud of his sense of fashion. He was creative. He was a beautiful boy. Another beautiful boy, destroyed by the bigotry of our absurd world, pulled the trigger. Larry asked Brandon to be his Valentine. Then, Larry's family faced the miserable decision to withdraw life support because of brain death -- after harvesting strong young organs.

Thank goodness, Ellen is not struck dumb as I am. She spoke out when this happened back in February on her show.

Is Larry's death a Shoah, a Trail of Tears, a Darfur, an evil history of enslaving human beings, a genocide? On some absurd level: yes.

OK, now -- will Ohio put sexual orientation in its school bullying code and help raise awareness of the dangers of bigotry for vulnerable gay teens? Or will politicians and religious leaders continue to avoid this poll-killing "issue"?

Will churches and pastors continue to placate themselves with the cool liberal vision of equality for all people, while allowing the absurd tragedy of these isolated cases (Larry), these outliers of social dysfunction (Larry's killer), to keep them in denial? Our church chooses to not become a Reconciling Congregation. We can count on the strength of our love and relationships, our generous hospitality, our wide net of tolerance -- no, not just tolerance: celebration! -- to bridge the singular tragic gaps. How nice.

When will the Democratic Party stand up for rights of gay people and our families? Why cannot a school be empowered to protect Larry and millions of other vulnerable teenagers? It's a political killer, alright.

Why does this absurdity endure? Why continue to hope that the world will change?

According to Michael Berenbaum, in Elie Wiesel: God, the Holocaust, and the Children of Israel (p. 148, 1994), also published under the title The Vision of the Void: Theological Reflections on the Works of Elie Wiesel (1979)], Elie Wiesel said in a symposium:

In a world of absurdity, we must invent reason, we must create beauty out of nothingness. And because there is murder in the world -- and we are the first ones to know it -- and we know how hopeless our battle may appear, we have to fight murder and absurdity and give meaning to the battle, if not to our hope. (Berenbaum, p. 148, source cited above).

Wiesel also wrote in Souls on Fire (Berenbaum, p. 148, source cited above):

... whoever creates affirms that the creative act has meaning, a meaning which transcends the act itself.

When my friends in Seattle lost the case for declaring unconstitutional the Washington State gay marriage ban amendment to the constitution, I wrote an essay with the most hopeful -- hoping against hope -- message for continuing to hope. It's a ridiculous essay. It's the kind of exercise in self-soothing that borders on the insane. Insane: keep repeating the same behavior, expecting a different result. I actually said, "Love will win." So what?

Keep hoping. Keep creating hope. Just like that. Just like Heather and Leslie. Just like Elie Wiesel. Just like Larry.

Hope is absurd. It's ridiculous. It's insane. It's beautiful.

Share the Love

I think you will recognize the names in the conversation here. It's a beautiful and true story. All stories are true, this one actually happened.

This story relates to my previous two posts about Mark.

It's the February 26, 2008 post, just to be sure: "Thirteen Ways of Losing an Uncle"

Memorial Service

Mark E. Ferguson
July 12, 1964 - February 12, 2008

The memorial service was held at the Chapel of Broadway UMC in Indianapolis. I'll post the order of service and my comments for the witness. Margie's uncle Charles and I sang a duet of Townes Van Zandt's If I Needed You. Charles also sang a solo, The Lord's Prayer. Uncle Bobby Brewer, pastor of Dixie UMC (near Hattiesburg) preached the homily. Broadway's wonderful organist and choir master played gathering music and congregational hymns. The service was well attended, the chapel was full of friends and family.

Too Soon, Gone From Our Midst

Mark E. Ferguson, of Indianapolis, IN, died at home on February 12, 2008, following an extended illness. A memorial service in celebration of Mr. Ferguson’s life will be held at 10:00 a.m., Saturday, February 16, in the Chapel of Broadway United Methodist Church, 609 E. 29th Street, Indianapolis IN 46205. Family members and friends will preside. Mr. Chris Schroeder, organist and choir master of the church will provide music. Family members and friends are invited to attend.

Mr. Ferguson is survived by his wife, IUPUI associate professor of Political Science and Director of Graduate Studies, Dr. Margie Robertson Ferguson and son, Duncan, 7; mother, Evelyn Savell Ferguson of Perkinston, MS; father-and mother-in-law, Dr. James A. (Jr.) and Linda McSwain Robertson, of Hattiesburg, MS; brother- and sister-in-law Mr. James A. (III) and Shannon Robertson, of New Orleans, LA; and many beloved relatives and friends. He was preceded in death by his father, Dr. Travis Ferguson.

Mr. Ferguson was born July 12, 1964 in Pascagoula, MS. He was employed as an information technology consultant by Price Waterhouse Coopers in Indianapolis. He was a volunteer reader for Indiana Reading Information Services.

Those who wish to share their condolences to the family are invited to send contributions to the National Brain Tumor Foundation, 22 Battery Street, Suite 612, San Francisco, CA, 94111-5520, (800) 934-2873, http://www.braintumor.org, or to the charity of your choice.

Margie and Mark, thanks for coming to share in our celebration of holy union. May our devotion and love endure life's insults as well as yours.

















A good man, a good friend, quiet and deep, with lots of patience with little-boy energy for incessant video games. Right, G?

That's right, Margie -- we lift our glasses, a wee dram in his memory and feel his pleasure in good company.

On Eating Local

Yes, we're eating local! Not 100% yet, we're working our way into it.

Last week was supposed to be our start, we thought, and we got our first delivery from one community supported agriculture service (CSA). For $35.00, we got some beautiful organic produce, including root veggies, blood oranges, and apples from California. I think the eggs were local. We didn't realize the winter would mean the CSA service would supplement their income using organic produce from anywhere. I think they try to work with local farms, but it is deep winter now. We realized we could do the same for ourselves at Goose Market on College, where we have been picking up sweet potatoes, organic lettuce and veggies, beef, and chicken.

On Saturday, I journeyed out to Traders Point Creamery for the winter market (9:00 a.m. - noon) and picked up some beef, pork, and eggs, some dried tomatoes and bell peppers, and some home made soap. Today's New York Times had an article and some recipes about dried tomatoes. It's true, the flavor is intensified in the drying. We'll have to try that next summer. We lost so much in not being prepared to "put up" our abundance of tomatoes. Winter is a good time to find out what kinds of preserving we can learn by next harvest from our back yard gardens.

I cooked up the last of the potatoes and other root veggies, including carrot, parsnip, and a purple carrot. Here's what I had for dinner tonight: organic potatoes, carrots, and parsnips steamed in the good ol' Revere Ware, and the local pork loin. Hey, Mississippi folks -- recognize Emmett Collier's pottery?












Tonight, we got our first delivery from Basic Roots. Wow, that Brian is a nice guy. Here's what we got for $45.00.

We know this is not the best time of year to start this adventure. Brian told us that the usual supplier of winter greens, Yeager, was frozen out with that recent deep freeze. But, they went to Saraga and picked up some organic baby lettuce.

We're expecting this winter to eat more potatoes than usual, just because that's what people have stored away. These sweet potatoes from the Basic Roots bag look wonderful.

They included samples from a woman who works with beeswax that comes from bees in a church steeple on Rural Rd. on the east side. They also included a CD from the Dancin' Nancys, Everything Changes. Popcorn, apples, apple cider, tomatoes, salsa, eggs, and a yummy loaf of dessert bread completed the order, all from within 60 miles of Indianapolis. I'll check the next time I go to Kroger to see how we're comparing on costs. But, this is not the point. We're willing to renegotiate our finances to make this commitment to CSA.

I think this is a fine way to start something new with the beginning of Lent.

On Being Caustic

You know the kid who projectile-vomited on me in the playground (previous post)? Well, it happened again. Turns out she thinks I am caustic.

Caustic:

kôstk
ADJECTIVE:	1. Capable of burning, corroding, dissolving, or eating away by chemical action. 2. Corrosive and bitingly trenchant; cutting. See synonyms at sarcastic. 3. Causing a burning or stinging sensation, as from intense emotion: “Most of all, there is caustic shame for my own stupidity” (Scott Turow).
NOUN:	1. A caustic material or substance. 2. A hydroxide of a light metal. 3. The enveloping surface formed by light rays reflecting or refracting from a curved surface, especially one with spherical aberration.
ETYMOLOGY:	Middle English caustik, from Latin causticus, from Greek kaustikos, from kaustos, from kaiein, kau-, to burn.
OTHER FORMS:	causti·cal·ly —ADVERB caus·tici·ty (kô-sts-t) —NOUN

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

--Bartleby.net dictionary

I'll admit, I'm sarcastic sometimes. Most of the time, it's not aimed at anyone, but at circumstances. And, usually, I'm joking around with someone who appreciates the wit. I can tell when the wit doesn't work, most of the time.

I feel surprised, I think, that I missed the cue with Dr. P-V, as I am now thinking of her. The wit is lost on her. I am finding in my new position that I am confronting more cheerless people under one roof than a convention of pessimists. I guess I need to watch my "caustic" wit if I want to get along here. But, wait a minute: do I want to get along here? How long before I join the convention?

I'll admit, it surprises me to find that someone actually doesn't like me and doesn't really want to improve that situation. How does someone become my age and stage of life and care about something like that? How does Dr. P-V get to her age and stage without more humor? I know she was sick, and I know she's exhausted.

I have decided to steer clear. For one reason, I am not long in this job and I choose to direct my energy for essential tasks; if we had to work closely, I would work at it more. Secondly, I really don't care very much about this person or the job to invest too much energy. I managed to live and work all these years without knowing her and I can live longer the same. Thirdly, I'll take responsibility for what's mine, but this is not just about me. If I cared more, I would pursue the question of what's behind her hostility. But, I don't care very much, so that's enough about this. I could care more, but not now.

Blogger friends: do you think I'm caustic? This is how I get therapy now -- invite criticism here.

No, wait -- don't answer that. I'd rather not know! I'll be so sensitive about it now that it will probably self-regulate and I'll learn from it and go on. Like a self-bailing raft, this wave has left my boat a bit unstable, but it will empty by the time I reach the next rapid, and it will be ok.

I admit, I'm sarcastic often. It's a defense against pain and fear. I'm smart and I have a good vocabulary. I can spot people's weaknesses and exploit them. Trouble is, if, on the receiving end, someone is looking to be hurt, they won't be disappointed.

My dad is like that. He is very thin-skinned and does not like to have his weaknesses handed back to him in a joke. I don't, either, but I have a streak of some kind that is ready to laugh at myself. That doesn't make me better than Dad, it just makes it easier to take a joke.

Now, if I came back to Dr. P-V, suggesting that she get a thicker skin or learn to take herself less seriously, then I would be perceived as victim-blaming. I do think there is something going on here that owes to victimization of some kind. People who experience trauma can have unresolved anger. It's sometimes easier to blame institutions and their representatives when overwhelming events cannot be blamed on anything more concrete. I could be projecting.

I need to consider that in my new position, I will be susceptible to these kinds of victims in my work. I am in a position that is more institutional and bureaucratic than I ever thought I would be. People will be looking for excuses to accuse me of abusing my power or seeking to exploit their weaknesses.

I think it would be better for me to learn how to live more into this reluctant gravitas, and to spend more energy trying to build people up, especially the weak ones, especially Dr. P-V. I can change my humor use in the workplace, but it's hard for a victim to change. I'd better take the high road here. I'll save my caustic wit for banter with my true friends, who are strong, smart, and enjoy word play.

On Work and Play

Today -- Friday, which, by the way, by just being Friday is probably significant to these coming thoughts -- we had a meeting. I came away feeling like we just left the playground, and one of the kids projectile-vomited all over me. I'm going to be sure I sit far away from her in all future meetings. It's so messy.

Another thought after the meeting was an appeal to my training. I wanted to say, "You know that anti-depressant you're taking? I don't think you're getting a therapeutic dose."

Two things have happened this week to cause me to think I need to keep looking for my vocation here in Indianapolis. First, I went to the web site of my former employer. I was so depressed to see what they're doing now, even more than when I decided to leave. It's hard to see a place in which I invested so many years taking such a turn "to the dark side." I was so relieved to get out of there. I should not have gone to the web site, but if I ever need a reminder that I made the right decision, I'll know where to look. I don't need a reason -- here's why:


... my precious family. Sister of my Darlin', my Darlin', and moi at the last RCA Dome game for the Colts, January 13, 2008, the ill-fated playoff game. The enemy of my enemy is my friend: Go Giants!

Secondly, today's meeting. Here's a chapter title or maybe an epigraph for one of the chapters in a book I'm going to write about my adventures in academe: If the faculty did not create it, it does not exist. It's a variation on, "The Emperor Has No Clothes."

So, here's the meme challenge:

1. Someone plays the peacemaker, the one who wants everyone to get along and play nice.
2. Someone plays the bully, the one who knocks you down and takes your lunch money.
3. Someone plays the sneak, the passive aggressive one who sets you up for a fall.
4. Someone plays the saboteur; just when you thought the game was almost over, this one picks up the ball and goes home, or changes the rules, or kicks you in the shin.
5. Someone plays the cry-baby, the one who wants everyone to play her way and let her win.

How is your workplace like the sandbox in pre-school?

Hoppin' John or Juan

Belated Happy New Year to my reader! Did you get your Hoppin' John this New Year's Day?

I like to make Jalapeño Cornbread with the peas and greens and all that. The fun part this year was using peppers that we grew in our pepper patch along the back fence. I froze them right off the plant in a plastic container. They thawed out just as beautifully as they went in, bright green.

I followed the recipe on the Bob's Red Mill Organic Yellow Corn Meal the way I always have to follow cornbread recipes that do not originate from my childhood family kitchen -- no sugar, a pinch extra salt, and buttermilk instead of milk, Clabber Girl baking powder -- no self-rising meal. I added a small can of whole kernel yellow corn with chopped bell peppers, a cup of cheese, and chopped chilis (jalapeños). I cut out the veins and seeds before chopping the peppers -- that's where the most hot comes from and not everyone in my household likes the same degree of hot that I like. I would like to run into a firey seed now and then, but it would be too much for Chiclette, not that she would touch my cornbread, anyway.

I made the same mistake my brother, Robert, ran into the summer he harvested his habaneros. He picked okra and squash before the peppers. If you've ever picked okra, you know how prickly the leaves and stems are, but maybe the damage is not evident unless you pick habaneros afterward. Merely picking the peppers and walking with them in his hands into the kitchen set his hands afire. If you handle chopped peppers, even an imperceptible whiff of juice or accidental contact with the knife blade or cutting board after de-veining, the capsaisin will burn into any bit of chapped or microscopically lacerated skin and stay there until some combination of washing, soaking in milk or other lactic acid like yogurt, and dilution by the skin's fluids gradually draws it away. I felt the peppers in my hands all afternoon. At least my hands did not swell like balloons the way Robert's did that day.

Diane gave me two nice ham bones left over and frozen from Thanksgiving for the pork meat usually called for in Hoppin' John. There was a generous amount of meat to pick off after boiling the bone with the black-eyed peas. We had such a wonderful gathering with those hams at Thanksgiving, so maybe some of the warm and generous energy of that day will follow us into the New Year.

Welcome, 2008, Happy New Year, love, health, and wealth to all my loved ones!

Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent

Second Sunday of Advent

December 9, 2007

Ps. 72:1-7, 18-19; Isaiah 11:1-10; Romans 15:4-13; Matthew 3:1-12

Tuesday, December 4, 2007, 1:00 p.m.
Christian Theological Seminary
Chapel Service
Anne G. McWilliams, Ph.D.


Here in the seminary, it comes as no surprise when I say that the preacher’s task sometimes is hard. Every day that you rise from the congregation to preach, you want to bring God’s words to the people. You want to discern what we need to hear today.

Sometimes the lectionary seems like no help at all. Sometimes it is hard to tell why the lectionary provides all of the texts for a Sunday or a daily observance of the hours, in each of the scripture categories of Hebrew Bible, Psalms, Epistle, and Gospel. Sometimes they don’t hold together at all. Sometimes it seems like the only purpose in a given series of readings is to somewhat consistently lead those who want it through a faithful reading of their Bibles.

But, on these Sundays of Advent, the lectionary is very cooperative, solicitious, and helpful. Today’s texts for the Second Sunday of Advent all point to the future, to the eschatological vision of the reign of God, and to the qualities of peace and harmony among God’s people. Each of these passages sets us up for mending the splits, unifying the polarities, a return to Eden, Paradise, lions and lambs, red states and blue states together, under a ruler who resembles the perfection and the best of all that is good about God and persons in the best of all possible worlds.

Historically, these passages have been used by the Christian community to make several points at once. One idea is that the Old Testament is just theatrical foreshadowing in Christian history culminating in the coming of Jesus. It’s kind of like the Star Wars movies. You see the first film and live for twenty years in the simple awareness of the unlikely adolescent conquering hero, Luke Skywalker, until you see the prequel and learn that he was not the only unlikely hero, nor the most handsome one.

Isaiah’s text is one of those favored prequel passages of the Hebrew Bible. This passage foretells the perfect ruler, whose coming we anticipate, placing ourselves, by use of our imaginations and suspension of time and disbelief, eight centuries before the events of the Christmas story. We are supposed to see in Isaiah’s words the hope that is to come, while we, sitting in our pews 2800 years later, can be smugly satisfied, knowing that all of these absolutely perfect conditions and qualities have been fulfilled by our Jesus, our Christ. This is the snow-covered good, happy picture, so we can sing, “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus,” and know that this story is complete.

But, is this story complete? I don’t know about you, but I’m not sitting so comfortably with Isaiah: The Prequel today. Something is scratching at the back door of my consciousness as I hear this prophetic description. I think it’s because I have let the Psalm for today reach over and stick its elbow into the rib of this 8th century prophecy. The Psalm says, and I paraphrase: God, send us a leader, one who reminds us of you. Send us the one who leads with the kind of justice that you love, not the one we actually have now.

Isaiah’s word comes to us after a period of history that, if we try, we can understand pretty well from current events in which we are implicated. The people of Judah have been through horrific war and occupation by a cruel conqueror. They have been devastated, almost wiped out. If I use the word “decimated,” I would have to alter the definition from killing one out of every ten to only one out of ten left standing. I would almost describe it as an ethnic cleansing. It’s my interpretation of what leads up to this 11th chapter, this gloriously hopeful vision of the restoration of Judah.

Chapter 11’s vision of a future realm of the perfect Godly leader comes after the image of a wiped-out clear-cut vineyard. This destruction of Judah seemed to destroy God’s promise to make Abraham’s offspring more numerous than the stars of the sky or the sands of the oceans and deserts of the earth.

I know something about clear-cutting. It’s not a pretty picture. To tell you the truth, I was just responsible for clear-cutting 80 acres of land in my home county in Alabama. When the job was finished, the forester told me that the land looked like a bomb went off. Tree tops lay in a chaotic mess. There is nothing remaining of the pines, oaks, poplars, and cedars that grew up over fallow pasture land over the past fifty years or so.

If you are into conservation and ecology, I understand if you’re a little angry with me right now, especially if I told you that I intended to leave the land in that state of waste. You would not be the only one. The caretaker who hunts the land was furious because deer season was coming and his stands overlook the margins of the timberland.

But, here’s the rest of the story that I hope will save my reputation. Workers are coming in after the winter freezes. They will bring backhoes and bulldozers and pile the debris up, set fire to them, and reduce them to ashes. They will bring in seedlings and special tools and they will plant new trees, one by one. Over time, a new forest will grow. Every ten years or so, we will thin some of the trees to give the strongest trees the best chance to grow healthy. Maybe I will live long enough to see the fullness of the mature trees. Some day, in a few decades, it will be someone else’s turn to repeat the cycle, and take over this sustainable forestry plan – or, more likely, build some houses and condos.

The caretaker told me in an email over the weekend that the deer have returned and are using the same pathways they used when the timber was standing. Even the hunters are hopeful after the destruction of their playground. Good news, but not for the deer.

Isaiah’s prophecy of the recovery of Judah is restoration of the wasteland. In Isaiah’s story, the apparently dead vines are going to send out shoots on their own, and out of the wasteland, Judah will be restored. What an image!

Not only will the nation return to its glorious state of population, but out of the wasted people, God will bring forth a leader from the people, a descendant of David, not another foreign ruler.

Historically, we are told that this story was fulfilled already in history, 2800 years ago, in the reign of Josiah, a king from the lineage of David. And, to add even more drama and texture to the story, Josiah was just a child, maybe seven years old – a little child will lead them. Christian tradition uses this story of Isaiah’s account of Judah’s restoration and the reign of Josiah to foreshadow the coming of the Messiah, in the person of Jesus – the Christ.

Now, still, at least one more piece of this story is tugging on the edge of discomfort in my mind this Advent season. I just have to say, Come on! Isaiah’s vision is just too good to be true. It’s far too perfect to be believed. Can there be such a time of peace, harmony, and justice as Isaiah describes – now, 2007? I am pretty sure I pay taxes that enable a powerful nation to make wastelands of other nations.

From where I stand, looking at this story, and hearing about God’s heart being with the poor and helpless of the world, I have to tell you, it does not look good for those who abuse power and ignore the poor. I don’t see much hope in our current leaders using their gifts for sustainable practices of empowerment and restoration with the poor and the weak in the world instead of pursuing our unquenchable thirst for more oil, more control, more might.

But, just because the vision is too good to be true, we still should not leave this vision with Isaiah and Josiah back in the 8th century BCE. Nor does Isaiah’s eschatological vision end with the birth of Jesus Christ. Isaiah’s vision of God’s leader for God’s people comes forward to us and with us today.

This leader we seek is not coming from somewhere outside of our awareness, waiting to spring into our lives like an instant savior. I’m afraid the work is much more difficult than that, yet its reward is as rich and more joyful than Christmas. The call for justice and healing of this world begins inside of each one of us. Psychologically and theologically, we can let God’s leader be born in us beginning with this season. Here is my Advent challenge to you and me today: become the leader you seek.