A Dark And Quiet Room

I just read Doug Wilson’s latest political post. It resonated with me, because of this:

Positions aside, the hunger for this kind of charismatic leadership is virtually universal. It was fun for those on the right to mock the Obama-messianism of the Democrats, but a funny thing happened on the way to the Republican convention. Judging from the response to Sarah Palin, it seems that conservatives were every bit as starved for it as the progressives were.

I thought about it, and he’s right. At least, he’s right about me.

I do want a civil leader that I can be excited about following. I want someone inspiring, who will make me want to do hard work on behalf of my country.

Though, I’m also pretty sure that I know what this person would have to look like.

This person would need to be willing to stand up in front of everyone and tell it like it is. I appreciated Jesse Ventura as a candidate because I knew, without a doubt, where he stood. I want to hear hard truth from a political candidate.

This person would need to demonstrate his ability to parse difficult subjects. I want to hear nuanced comments from a political candidate.

This person would need to be able to make drastic choices when necessary. For example, I want a man to run for president who will veto every bill that he receives until Congress sends him the Sanctity of Life bill, or one with comparable language. I want someone who isn’t afraid to play hardball in defense of what is right.

This person would need to be willing to stand up and admit when he has been wrong. I don’t mean damage control, either. I mean actual retractions and apologies. I want someone who remembers that he is still a fallible, sinful human being.

So, this is a call-out to all those who are considering political office, whether in the present or in the future. I’m a voter. Impress me. Inspire me. It will be hard, but it can be done.

I want to believe. Be the kind of person I can believe.

Paul Tripp talks about bad language.

HT: The HHG

Some folks were having a silly conversation today about having a “multi-generational” for your family. Specifically, they were joking about using this idea to convince some people to move into our area. We all laughed, because it was a totally spurious argument and we all knew it.

But it made me think about something.

“Multi-generation faithfulness” is something of a catchphrase in the circles I move in. It’s referring to having a vision for your family that extends beyond your life: a vision that includes ongoing covenant faithfulness to God as your family grows and expands. To be clear, I’m not against this. I desire for my children’s grandchildren to be strong in the faith; yes, even stronger than me.

But I wonder if sometimes that vision of multi-generational faithfulness can sometimes turn into something else. We dream of having our extended family living near us, being able to help teach our grandchildren or even our great-grandchildren. We imagine the large family gatherings on special occasions.

All good things, to be sure. But none of those things are actually necessarily connected to “multi-generational faithfulness”. I wonder if sometimes our vision for our families can sometimes turn into something idolatrous.

A common Biblical image for the Christian is one of a wanderer. Peter addresses his audiences as “sojourners and exiles” in 1 Peter 2:11. The author of Hebrews says that “…we have no lasting city” (Hebrews 13:14)

God blesses some families for their faithfulness by allowing them to be gathered together. God blesses other families for their faithfulness by scattering them to the four winds, carrying the seeds of faith with them.

I love my children, and I deeply desire that they will be near me as I grow older. I want them to be around when my grandchildren are born. I want to be able to sit at the head of the table at one of those large family gatherings.

But I’ve already given up some of those dreams by moving to Peoria. Because God blessed my parents’ faithfulness by taking three of their children and sending them far from home.

I quoted a portion of Hebrews 13:14 earlier. Let me quote the whole thing now:

For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.

There is a coming reality, where we will no longer be scattered, where we will all be together for the huge family gathering. The goal of our families’ faithfulness is to raise up children that we will see at that family meal. Any other gatherings that happen before that are merely icing on the cake.

Or, to quote the Rich Mullins song that I was listening to this evening:

Let mercy lead
Let love be the strength in your legs
And in every footprint that you leave
There’ll be a drop of grace
If we can reach
Beyond the wisdom of this age
Into the foolishness of God
That foolishness will save
Those who believe
Although their foolish hearts may break
They will find peace
And I’ll meet you in that place
Where mercy leads

“Let Mercy Lead”, Rich Mullins

Okay, let’s start at the beginning. This is unacceptable, in precisely the same way that this was unacceptable. (Both links are probably NSFW for violence, BTW.) We look at lynchings as evidence of wickedness in our country, especially because the lynch mobs should have been forcibly stopped by the government. And, perhaps some were and perhaps some weren’t. But we all agree that the government should not condone such behavior. Such murder.

The same is true for abortion.

No, I’m not going to debate this in comments, so please don’t waste your time by trying.

Because, rather, I want to talk to the pro-life crowd for a moment.

What’s our goal? Are we content to settle for getting the government to acknowledge the citizenship of the unborn? Will that be enough to make us “go away”?

Or are we trying to save babies from being murdered? Because that’s a different goal.

Consider drug prohibition for a moment. Cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine have been illegal for years. Does that stop people from being able to buy them? I’ll bet that you could purchase any of these substances in any neighborhood in Peoria, be it the South Side, North Peoria, or anywhere in between. Certainly, there are folks who haven’t used these substances because they are illegal. But, somehow, this hasn’t stopped the drug trade from being a booming business.

Does anyone think that abortion will be different? Do anyone really think that babies weren’t being murdered before Roe v. Wade? Indeed, this is one of the arguments that pro-abortion people use against us. Making it illegal won’t make it go away.

Now, making abortion illegal is a noble goal. As I mentioned elsewhere, the fundamental duty of any government is to protect the lives of its citizens. As long as abortion is legal, our government is failing to do its duty before God. Getting our government to yield to God’s command in this area is a good thing.

But it is not the primary route to the goal of saving babies. We can do that right now by working to care for mothers who would otherwise kill their children. Knock down all the reasons, one by one, until the only one left is “I’m thinking more about myself than my baby.” In the end, that’s how we will save babies’ lives.

And there are those who are doing that right now, both individually and through organizations like crisis pregnancy centers. That is the front line of the battle against abortion. All this political stuff is merely a related battle. Important, yes, but not essential to saving babies’ lives.

I fear that the pro-life movement has bought the lie that the solution to all our problems is in the government. And so we are so focused on the political aspects of abortion that we forget that the true battle is fought one baby at a time, staring into the face of one woman at a time.

And it will cost us much more than political involvement.

It will cost us sleepless nights as we rush off to help a woman in trouble.

It will cost us the comfort of our home, as we welcome in the stranger, with her coarse words and uncouth manners.

It will cost us heartbreak, as one in whom we have invested so much still walks away to the slaughterhouse.

It is a battle, right? So, are we serious about fighting it where it really counts? Are we ready to pay the price?

So, I am work and listening to the Palin speech. She speek gud. And, with my disinterested observer hat on, she really slipped in some zingers, too, which I enjoyed. Even at the points where I disagree.

But all this makes me think about nominating conventions. Honestly, they remind me of football games, except that they’re packed with poli-sci majors. The attitude is the same. Drink your beer, cheer your team, and play armchair quarterback.

Is this really the best way to choose the leader of a nation? No wonder the rest of the world thinks we’re scary and unreliable.

In light of my recent reading on the drug war, especially in West Baltimore, I really think that I need to read The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood by Ta-Nehisi Coates. This is a trailer for the book and is worth a viewing.

Coates acknowledges that his father was not a good man, but still, actually having a father (flawed as he was) made all the difference in his life.

I was talking with Bryan, and this walked out of my mouth. He really liked it and insisted that I should write it down. So, here goes.

When we talk about the Christian life, we usually think of a single path that we are all walking. As Christians, we share this path, and we help each other stay on the path, as we walk towards our destination. This is a true metaphor, but I think that there’s another way to look at this.

The Christian life is an explosion of light, starting at the center and radiating out in all directions. Each of us are called to follow a different ray of light outwards into the darkness. Now, we all participate in the source of the explosion, but we’re also traveling in very different directions.

This is okay.

In fact, this is good. And, it is vitally important to understand.

So much of our understanding of Christian unity is based on the idea that we will slowly change to become like each other. I think that, rather, our Christian unity is based on the idea that we will slowly embrace each other as we pursue the same God differently.

At one point, I would have fretted about all the denominations in the Church. “This is an attack on Christian unity!” I would have said. Now, I shrug without concern. Are these denominations learning to embrace each other as we pursue the same God differently? Then I’m cool with it. Indeed, let’s have more denominations that work this way! Let’s push out into all the different ways that we can be followers of Christ and put all of them on display before God and man!

This also affects what it means to be a leader in the Church. The job of the elder is to equip Christians for the work of ministry. But what is that work? What ray of light is he following? Because each Christian has a different calling, an elder must work on equipping them differently, perhaps even in opposite ways.

Bonus James Jordan reference: This seems to fit with Jordan’s insistence that life is cruciform, radiating out to the four corners of the world.

Tonight I was stopped by state police at a checkpoint and asked to present my papers. I mean “license and registration”. And while I tried to figure out where the insurance card was, the officer strolled around my car, playing the flashlight over the vehicle. Apparently my papers were in order, because they let me go.

I hadn’t committed a crime, nor were the police investigating one. Rather, they were just doing a “safety check”. What does that mean? “Checking” to make sure that I have the proper documentation? “Checking” to make sure that I was sober? “Checking” to make sure that I wasn’t violating some law somehow?

What if I had turned around and gone the other way, instead of passing through their checkpoint? Would they have pursued to “check” that I wasn’t fleeing from some sort of crime?

I suppose it could be worse. I know someone who has been pulled over while walking by police and forced to show his identification papers.

Yesterday was July 4, when we celebrate men who had the chutzpah to think that this sort of thing shouldn’t happen to free men. On the other hand, we decorate the tombs of the Founders and yet tolerate this sort of behavior.

Nay, not tolerate. Request. Ask for. Plead for. We grovel at the feet of the almighty State and beg, “Please, great State, save us from the drunkard and the drug fiend and the Al-Qaeda boogie man and the non-conformist with his uncomfortable ideas. Just keep us safe, and we will do whatever you say. We will carry special cards and take off our shoes and submit to strip searches on demand and whatever else you say. Just make sure that I don’t have to bear any sort of responsibility for my safety or the safety of my family. Please, take care of that for me.” We demand this sort of treatment, and so we get it.

Is this what you want? Is this the sort of America that you want to hand down to your children? A place where you need photo ID to walk down the street? A place where you have to fear the police looking over your shoulder, even though you are a law-abiding citizen? Personally, I was hoping for something better, but maybe I’m alone in my little delusions about freedom and liberty and all that stuff that we run up the flagpole and salute.

Once upon a time, being an American meant that you were a free man, and that you embraced both the privilege and responsibility that came with that freedom. Are you prepared to do that? Do you really want to be free?

Just checking.

On the one hand…

I’m sitting here, staring at our freedoms being eroded, and I find myself wondering why I’m celebrating today. Increasingly, we are a nation that wishes harsh rule from above, so long as it preserves our “way of life”. Oh yeah, and then we point the fist of the State at our neighbors to make sure that they stay in line with our way of thinking.

On the other hand…

I can still type up a message like this without being arrested.

So, anyways, Happy [This statement was censored by Homeland Security due to content potentially supporting homegrown terrorism; further investigations are pending.]

Tuesday night I was awakened from a sound slumber by a thunderclap over my house. It sounded like an explosion in the sky. I jolted out of my sleep, dazed and confused.

Wednesday night I decided was going to be a catch-up night for sleep. My plan was to settle in relatively early and sleep through the night. I specifically said that I wouldn’t be awakened by thunder.

Wednesday night I was awakened from a sound slumber by a thunderclap over my house. And then the dog got me up, claiming that she needed to…er…relieve herself outside. And then she realized that it was raining and wanted to get back inside so she could pee on the dry floor instead.

Sigh.

Thursday morning I was a bit groggy. As I staggered around, getting ready for work, I considered what had happened. I thought of various “spiritual” reasons. You know, learning humility and all that. And that may be true. But I came up with another possible reason.

Sometimes I’ll hide around a corner and wait for one of my children to walk nearby. Then I jump out and scare him. Invariably the child jumps and screams and then we laugh together.

I wonder if God was pranking me on Wednesday night.

It was pretty funny….

“Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’” (Genesis 2:18)

I had an odd thought about this verse during worship yesterday.

So, Jesus is the second Adam, right?

And the Church is the Bride of Christ, right?

Then, maybe…just maybe…this verse is one way of interpreting all of history. It is not good for the Man to be alone, so the Father is making a helper fit for Him.

Last night, I made a decision. I was taking the night off. I wasn’t going to worry about the urban poor, or the war in Iraq, or people destroying their lives with drugs. I wasn’t going to think about political corruption or abuse of power or tyranny. It was Sunday, and I was going to take a Sabbath from it all.

So, we broke out Caylus, which we haven’t played in nearly a year. We also mixed up rum and cokes and played music without any social commentary. We eventually put on Crystal’s fun music playlist, which let us do the head-banging part from “Bohemian Rhapsody”, because that’s high culture right there. We also discussed the humor value implicit in this verse; indeed, I laughed so hard that I was crying.

Yeah, it was a good night, even though Gabrielle totally schooled us at Caylus. (Next time! Next time!) I’m finding that there’s a certain discipline in learning to set down issues and walk away from them for a bit. They’ll be there when you get back.

But if we have faith in a good God, we can also believe that He will take care of them, even when we’re not.

Recently, I read the book Our America by LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman. This book drew from the two recording projects that these two boys were involved with:

Ghetto Life 101

Remorse

You have to register on the site to listen to these pieces, but it’s free! (They are also available here and here.)

Ghetto Life 101 was just a trip around the projects, which was harsh enough, but Remorse was about the murder of Eric Morse, a five-year old boy who was dropped from a 14-story building in the projects by two older boys because he tattled on them. Now, when I say “older”, I mean “ages 10 and 11″.

And the book had pictures, too, taken by a friend of these two boys. So they roamed their neighborhood with camera and recorders, asking people about their lives and about how the murder affected them.

Troubling material.

It was all the more troubling because of the constant presence of the false gospel of success. “You’ll get out of here,” people said. “You’re smart and good-looking. You’ll go to college and be better than this.” Your knowledge will save you. Your intelligence will save you. I would think that, in a place as bleak as these tenements, this false gospel would have expired. I guess not.

But, as I read between the lines of this book, seeing what was said and what was assumed, I discovered something profound.

LeAlan Jones never met his father.

Lloyd Newman’s father is a drunkard.

The father of one of the murderers was locked up at the time, imprisoned for domestic abuse.

The theme that knit together these heartbreaking stories of pain was a deep father-hunger.

In his book Ten Things You Can’t Say In America, Larry Elder makes the case that what is destroying the black community in America is illegitimacy. I remember my mother citing some study that showed that things began to go wrong when the illegitimacy rate hit 25% in the black community. She would then go on to point out that the illegitimacy rate among whites had hit 25%. And that was 15 years ago.

As Isaiah said:

Woe to the wicked! It shall be ill with him, for what his hands have dealt out shall be done to him. My people–infants are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, your guides mislead you and they have swallowed up the course of your paths.

(Isaiah 3:11-12)

And yet…

The Spirit of God is at work in our nation. Over the last several years, I’ve seen a growing emphasis by Christians on masculinity and fatherhood. It’s a messy process, to be sure. There’s a lot of work to do and, let’s face it, men aren’t always civil and polite. And yet, that is exactly what we need: men who are willing to be men, acting with courage, forcefulness, and fortitude in order to take up their place as servant-leaders in the home.

It doesn’t look like much. Mostly changing diapers, insisting (once again!) that your son get to bed on time and not talk back to his mother, and trying to teach your children to listen to what God has to say about life while they mostly ignore you.

Yeah, it doesn’t look like much.

But it is changing the world. Because, if you look around, it is this very thing that so many lack.

Happy Father’s Day, eveyone.

From CNN.com:

A college student who branded a date’s body with a scalding piece of metal as payback for never calling her after they had sex was sentenced to five years in prison Friday.

Kristina Caban, 23, had no comment as state Supreme Court Justice Michael Obus sentenced her for what he called a crime that was “not remotely justifiable.”

Assistant District Attorney Nicole Blumberg told Obus that Caban was the “mastermind behind the plan” to sear the torso of Samir “Sammy” Sara, then 23, for having sex with her once in 2004 and never calling her again.

Caban enlisted new boyfriend Robert Testagrossa to help brand a four-inch-high “R” on Samir’s abdomen in October 2006, the prosecutor said. She said Caban lured the former lover to a hotel room, where Testagrossa and another man grabbed him.

Blumberg said the men used a Taser to immobilize Sara in a room at the Chelsea Inn while Caban laughed at his distress and kicked him while he was down.

Yeah, that’s really bizarre.

But you know what’s really bizarre? The headline. I quoth:

“Woman brands thoughtless date with hot iron”

Having sex with a woman that isn’t your wife and then not calling back is a bit beyond just “thoughtless”. Actually, it’s sinful.

I’m just sayin’….

So, there I am, working on my computer, when I get an instant message from Bryan. “Your blood pressure seems a bit low,” he says. “Maybe this will help.”

Great. Now I’ll have to blog about it. So here goes….

A Chicago suburb has just banned visible window-mounted air conditioners.

From the Chicago Tribune:

In an effort to improve Addison’s aesthetics, the Village Board in March passed an ordinance that prohibits window-mounted air conditioners on walls that face the street or on side windows within 12 feet of a street-facing wall.

My bedroom faces the street. Since we don’t have air conditioning upstairs, I’ve placed a window unit in my window to cool down my bedroom. If I lived in Addison, that would make me a criminal.

And for what reason did the village of Addison make this ordinance? Were they pulling a Berkeley and trying to save the environment from leaking coolant? Were they trying to impose some sort of energy efficiency on the citizenry? Not that I’d be pleased with these sorts of reasons.

Oh no. The answer is far worse.

Village officials said the ordinance is geared toward window-mounted units that tend to look shabby, especially when spaces around the units are jammed with cardboard or boards. Also unsightly, they said, are the slap-dash braces made of two-by-fours that support some units on outside walls.

(emphasis mine)

Yep. The government of Addison said that the window units were ugly. Therefore, “ugly” is now illegal. And, tell me, why is “ugly” now illegal in Addison?

[John Berly, assistant village manager said,] “The front yard is what the public sees. The condition of the front is a major factor in determining property values, and it reflects the community norms of acceptable maintenance.”

There it is. Property values. That constant bugaboo.

So, what’s the expected outcome?

[C]ontractors have advised the village that the cost of cutting a hole in a wall and installing a rectangular sleeve and an air conditioner would range from about $600 to about $1,000 depending on the type of wall construction and the complexity of the job.

[A local landlord Vito] Mossa said profit margins in apartment buildings have been trimmed to the bone in recent years because of stable rents but rising costs for heat, taxes, insurance, water and garbage removal. Retrofitting for legal air conditioners would cost too much, he said.

“I would probably just tell [tenants] they can’t put an air conditioner in the window. . . . I’m going to lose tenants,” Mossa said.

(emphasis mine)

Let’s parse this out, shall we?

Who is most likely to be using window-mounted air conditioners? People who can’t afford central air conditioning or aren’t in a position to have it installed. In other words, renters and home-owners who are poor. Also, who is most likely to have “unsightly” improvised home repairs? That’s right; poor people. So, who is this ordinance going to affect the most? (All together now.) Poor people.

But, it’s okay if they leave, right? I mean, do we really want those sorts of people in our neighborhoods? Look what they do to the property values. It’s better for everyone, or at least, it’s better for property owners. And then, our neighborhood will be a better, happier, more prosperous place, right?

But will it?

Vito Mossa doesn’t think so. He thinks that he is going to lose tenants because he can’t afford to install air conditioning the way that the Village Council has demanded. So then what happens? In order to attract tenants, he will have to lower his rent. Assuming he can afford to do this, what quality of tenant do you think he will get? Most folk will want the air conditioning, so he will only get tenants who are too poor to afford the nicer apartments. Of course, the lower rent will mean that Mossa will have even less money to put into maintenance of the apartment building. Plus, the lower quality of tenant will probably attract its own trouble.

But what if Mossa can’t afford to lower his rent? Well then, eventually he will have to go out of business as a landlord. So then, what happens to the apartment building? Mossa will have to sell it, but how will he accomplish that? Eventually he will either have to sell at a loss, or he will have to sell to someone with enough money to pay for all the additional air conditioning updates. Do you think that this buyer will be a nice local landlord? I rather think that it will be a real estate holding company of some kind, who will probably be just another “absentee landlord” that the Village Council is already complaining about.

And what if he can’t sell? Do you think that he will be able to rent apartments in a building that is on the market? Again, only the really desperate would rent in that sort of situation. Or perhaps the building merely stands vacant. But, as I know from personal experience, a vacant building is a drag on a neighborhood, attracting all sorts of trouble.

And what about Mossa? His business is destroyed, and probably his personal finances, too. Where does this leave him?

But, hey, in the end, the village of Addison drives away all those nasty poor people and preserves their property values for good, decent people! Hooray! Another win for the middle class!

Another win against those awful poor folk.

Of course, the really sad thing is that this won’t work. In the end, Addison will probably be left with a worse situation than they started with.

So, I don’t live in Addison, right? I live in Peoria. Why am I so exercised about this?

It’s because I see the same pattern playing out right here in my neighborhood.

Last week, Code Enforcement came through the neighborhood, doing a “clean sweep”. The agent was fairly lenient on us, since she admitted that the purpose was mostly to focus on tenants, not on home owners. That didn’t save my neighbor, who managed to pick up a substantive fine for having front stairs in need of repair. Do the stairs need repair? Yes they do, and my neighbor (who I will call D) knew this. In fact, she had been saving money all year so that she could get them repaired over the summer. They are concrete, so you need to wait until the summer heat for best effect. But now, she has to pay a fine. Where is she going to get that money? That’s right: from the money that she saved to repair her steps.

D is a home owner. In fact, she’s lived in the University East neighborhood for a number of years. On top of that, she is raising her five grandchildren by herself, while working a job in the public school system. She’s not exactly made out of money. And yet, she was being responsible, trying to take care of her property as best as she could. She has covered her stairs, trying to decorate them to make the best of a bad situation. But it did not save her.

And then I hear people in the neighborhood who are happy about this. Indeed, they call Code Enforcement to inform on their neighbors. Then they vigorously defend the right of Code Enforcement to trespass onto other people’s property in violation of the Fourth Amendment. They want the city to keep putting pressure on renters. They want to enforce a certain standard of living on this neighborhood, using the power of the government to accomplish it. And their goal? The preservation of their property values. They want to force this neighborhood to be a nice, upscale neighborhood, without any of those “unsightly” rental properties.

Yay! Another victory for the middle class! Another win against those awful poor folk.

But what have we won, really?

Is this how to accomplish our goal of living together peacefully as neighbors? That is our goal, isn’t it? A neighborhood? But how can we form a loving community if we found it on the suffering of the poor? How can we form a trusting community if we enforce it with anonymous calls to government agencies? How can we form an open community if we are constantly watching each other for infractions?

Are we looking to form a neighborhood? Or are we just looking for a nice place to live, regardless of who pays the price?