Burn the midnight oil
People of faith across America will leave a light or candle burning overnight Sunday-Monday as a part of "Lights for Human Dignity," a protest against atrocities in Iraq.Sponsored by The Interfaith Alliance, the Lights for Human Dignity website says:
On the Sunday night before Memorial Day (May 30th), as we prepare to remember the sacrifices made by those who have fought our nation's wars, please turn on the lights or light candles in your houses of worship and in your homes. Leave them on through the night, until the dawn comes on Memorial Day. By this simple action, we can demonstrate to the world that we share common values as people of faith and as patriots. We will also bear witness to our commitment to peace and good will in Iraq, in the United States, and around the world.According to a press release, representatives of 75 faiths have already committed to this bright idea.
Wasn't it the first President Bush who called for "a thousand points of light . . . spread like stars throughout the Nation, doing good"?
Maybe this weekend, we'll see 'em.
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Saturday, May 29, 2004
Knowing and knowing God
Knowledge may include something more than cognitive and emotional functions--it may be related to parts of our consciousness of which we're only dimly aware, one pastoral theologian suggests.And, she adds, the way the brain "knows" might suggest some things about God.
"If psychoanalysis, postmodern philosophy and brain science are all converging on a conception of the human being and, indeed, creation as more multiple, complex, and in-motion than we had previously thought, then might this not suggest a conception of a multiple, complex and dynamic God?" Pamela Cooper-White of Lutheran Theological Seminary asks in Science and Theology News.
Cooper-White was a respondent to neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran's presentation, "What Neurology Can Tell Us about Human Nature and the Meaning of Art," at a conference sponsored in March by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Ramachandran argues that neuroscience can help us understand how the brain develops metaphors and understands art--creativity activities that are, in some ways, at the root of theology of all strips and pastoral theology and pastoral care in particular.
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Thursday, May 27, 2004
Engineering happiness
The ground is being set for a new culture war, some believe, and it's likely to make the skirmish over "family values" seem like a playground dispute."At the core of the conflict," reports USNews.com, the online presence of US News and World Report, "lies a fundamental question: How far should homo sapiens be allowed to go?
Nascent technologies like genetic engineering, stem-cell therapy, and neuropharmacology promise not only to cure our diseases but to enhance our bodies, even to turn us all into the Six Million Dollar Man--better, stronger, and faster.Right now, the debate plays out primarily in the fields of medicine and ethics. But you can bet it's coming to our faith communities soon.
Denominations and the national bodies of non-Christian faiths can be expected to make pronouncements about the ethics of biotechnology, and religious ethicists and systematic theologians will no doubt tackle the question.
But it will be up to pastoral caregivers to help families make difficult and faithful decisions about choosing the sex of a child, enhancing the physical performance of an ailing body, or enhancing moods and intelligence through drug therapy with legal pharmeceuticals.
Are we ready to engage these questions from the pulpit and in the pew?
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Tuesday, May 25, 2004
Gay and Muslim--no longer an oxymoron?
Ten years ago,the words "gay" and "Muslim" seemed like polar opposites, and an out gay Muslim seemed as probable as a black member of the Ku Klux Klan. All of the seven countries that treat homosexuality as a crime punishable by death are Muslim. Of the 82 countries where being gay is a crime, 36 are predominantly Muslim.And you thought the fight to legalize gay/lesbian marriage was hard.
But gay Muslims are starting to claim their identity, Johann Hari reports. Can liberation be far behind?
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Monday, May 24, 2004
One way to jump-start an academic career:
On E-bay, a researcher auctions the chance to co-author a paper that will gain the winner instant academic credibility . . . ..: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Monday, May 24, 2004
Infoodelity
Somewhere between the Sea of Cortez scallops (complete with candied kumquats swimming in lemon aioli) and the grilled nigari (succulent on its bed of sauteed fiddleheads), Gwen looked up in [what appeared to be] alarm."Oh my god," she said. "My husband should be here: This is the sort of meal you have sex after."
And then we realized: There in the mellow candlelight of the Olema Inn, we had committed the sin of infoodelity.
It's a delicate issue, the conspicuous consumption of excellent food in the absence of one's spouse or partner. For a to-die-for meal must be described in detail to the one who could not partake. A verbal post-mortem, in fact, increases enjoyment.
This means, of course, that the infoodel must confess.
(Note to the uninitiated: When confessing this sin, it is essential to e-nun-ci-ate carefully lest one be accused of a far greater transgression.)
For the true foodie, the act of confession must be executed in excruciating detail. Yet to appear too enraptured by now-digested delicacies only increases the degree of one's culpability.
So Gwen and I were caught: We could not not gloat about our serindipitous find of Chef Vigil's delicate fava/pea puree, the perfect fish, and the excellent Russian River pinot noir that accompanied them. To omit the details would be to deny glory to God--surely a sin in and of itself?
Yet how could we present our satiated selves to our spouses and still defend our honor? We couldn't, of course.
So we took the only possible action: We ordered dessert.
(Bread pudding, cream sherry, and chocolate cake in chocolate sauce, to be exact. They were perfect too.)
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Thursday, May 20, 2004
Understanding prisoner abuse
The only thing more shocking than the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse, one psychologist says, is the fact that people are shocked it could happen.History demonstrates that given the right conditions, such brutality happens time and time again.
To help people understand the conditions that can lead to such dehumanizing treatment of prisoners, the American Psychological Association has compiled a helpful bibliography of recent Internet stories that explore the psychology involved in cases like Abu Ghraib, the Hanoi Hilton, and other instances of torture.
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Salvation and AIDS drug policies
The Bush administration on Sunday signaled its willingness to consider approving and distributing generic antiretrovirals, a positive step toward making effective HIV treatment more available and affordable in places such as Africa and the Caribbean.As someone who spent several years in HIV/AIDS ministry, it's gratifying to see an apparent shift in U.S. policy towards AIDS drugs for developing nations.
I'm not naive enough to think access to these drugs will resolve the multiple problems associated with the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
But I do think making these treatments more available can and will bring more abundant life to many people infected with HIV and, by extension, to their families.
The silence of faith communities about this issue--the fact that for decades U.S. AIDS policies have offered more protection and benefit to pharmeceutical companies than to infected people--has puzzled me.
As a Christian, I see a close connection between health and salvation; the root of the Greek word for "salvation" in the New Testament literally means "to make whole, complete, restored," and the English word "salvation" itself comes from the Latin salve, to heal.
Effective medication is one agent of God's grace in the world, a healing resource that faith communities have a vested interest in making available to all who can benefit, regardless of cost.
Surely public advocacy for effective, less expensive, and readily available treatments for all illnesses, both in our local communities and around the world, is a function of pastoral care?
From my perspective, such activity would fall under the "advocating," "healing," and "liberating" functions of pastoral care that are widely acknowledged and promoted by American and European pastoral theologians.
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Tuesday, May 18, 2004
O Fortuna!
Last night, I attended the Dallas Symphony Orchestra's performance (with the Dallas Symphony Chorus and the Children's Chorus of Greater Dallas) of Carl Orff's masterpiece Carmina Burana.(Click on the DSO link to hear the first song, O Fortuna or go here to access the program notes [click on "performances"].)
I've enjoyed Carmina Burana for years, but I'd never seen a translation of the medieval Latin, German, and French poetry that provide its lyrics--so I was amazed to learn that the whole cycle is built around the medieval concept of the Wheel of Fortune.
And trust me: Vanna White is soooo not a part of this worldview!
Just taste the lyric from Fortune plango vulnera (I bemoan the wounds of Fortune):
On Fortune's throne
I used to sit raised up,
crowned with
the many-coloured flowers of prosperity;
though I may have flourished
happy and blessed,
now I fall from the peak
deprived of glory.
The wheel of Fortune turns;
go down, demeaned;
another is raised up;
far too high up
sits the king at the summit -
let him fear ruin!
for under the axis is written
Queen Hecuba.
[A side note: My wife was amazed to learn that the chorus she'd always sung as, "Pork and beans! Pork and beans! Yes, I want some pork and beans!" is actually the grief of a spurned lover played out in medieval German.]
Anyway . . . the idea of life as a vast, ever-spinning wheel of fate was a philosophical concept championed by Boethius (480-524) and popularized by the character Ignatius Reilly in John Kennedy Toole's comic contemporary novel A Confederacy of Dunces.
Boethius believed that rational discourse and decision-making are vital to human success--even though they can't help us avoid the personal disasters of fate [not a surprising conclusion for a man who was imprisoned and executed, heh?].
What caught me in the Orff's lyrics--which are actually rather delightful, baudy poems and drinking songs discovered in a Benedictine monastery--was the view of the human (and of other creatures) as nearly void of agency.
The Wheel of Fate spins, and we only endure what comes our way--living fully in the moment the slings and arrows of fortune, including the height and depth of the emotions our fates evoke.
A Romantic concept to be sure . . . but not so far from today's popular culture, either.
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Friday, May 14, 2004
A brain with soul
A tantalizing entry at the Christianity Today "books and culture" weblog:Humans first located the soul in creation--sensing divine breath in the earth, water, wind and fire--and then moved it to the human heart (thanks to a fit of Renaissance self-centeredness and the influence of Eastern medicine), before finally exiling the soul to the brain.
The entry goes on to discuss (and link to) current discussions about the soul and neuroscience.
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Tuesday, May 11, 2004
For better and for worse: expectations and marriage
Strong relationship skills can't make a marriage successful--especially if expectations are low to start with. But low expectations aren't necessarily bad.Couples with low expectations of happiness and poor relationship skills are happier after four years of marriage than those with high expectations and poor relational skills, according to a study of marital satisfaction released this month.
These couples aren't in an ideal situation, Ohio State researcher James McNulty says; overall, their levels of satisfaction with their marriage are lower than average.
"But they don't experience a big drop in their satisfaction over time. Thus, their situation is preferable to those with poor skills and high expectations, who start off with lower levels of satisfaction and then drop even further," he said.
Oddly, couples with good relationship skills and lower expectations seem to experience steeper declines in satisfaction--probably, McNulty conjectures, because they don't think there's much hope in using their skills to strengthen their marriage.
And not surprisingly, couples with high expectations and good relationship skills tend to report more stable levels of happiness than the other groups.
All this suggests satisfaction is less likely to plummet after marriage if a couple has an accurate image of their relationship--even if that image isn't ideal.
"Over the long term, it is important for marriage partners to have accurate knowledge of their relationship's strengths and weaknesses," Ohio State researcher James McNulty says. "Satisfaction goes down when a spouse's expectations don't fit with reality."
These results suggest that good premarital counseling might stress two theological themes: stewardship and vocation.
Emphasizing proper stewardship of the gifts a couple brings to marriage--such as good relationship skills--might encourage the use of those gifts when times get tough. The gifts alone won't make things better, but proper use of those gifts can make a big difference.
Emphasizing marriage as a vocation, with all of the difficulties inherent in any call from God, might help couples establish realistic expectations for happiness in marriage.
[From the AScribe newswire, via the American Psychological Association]
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Disturbing images of God, v.1.0
On her T-shirt, above a cartoon of a woman straddling a Harley, a caption reads: "It ain't all about cowboys." She's caressing a long-neck beer, staring out across the lake.Between her thighs, a pudgy, nervous Dachshund scrabbles its front paws against the chair, desperate to climb into her lap.
Toenails clicking a rapid staccato against the metal chair seat, the dog is choking itself against its collar, and in my head I think: If only I were as anxious to get close to God.
As if she could hear the thought, the woman looks at the dog and then at me.
"She'd only be happy if she could get inside me," she says.
Then she sips her beer.
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Monday, May 10, 2004
Looking without seeing
The fast pace of postmodern life seems to be stretching our Stone Age brains to the limit.Our "visual scratch pad"--the part of our brain that attends to visual details, creating short-term memory of the world around us--holds so little information that we can actually look at an object without registering that it's there.
Recent studies, reports the UK Telegraph, suggest that short-term visual memory, controlled by a penny-sized region of the brain near the back of the head, cannot comprehend all of the stimuli our eyes and brain receive.
This is especially true if we've been told to attend to particular details.
In one experiment, people were asked to view a videotape of a basketball game and count the passes made by one of the teams.
"Around half failed to spot a woman dressed in a gorilla suit who walked slowly across the scene for nine seconds, even though this hairy interloper had passed between the players and stopped to face the camera and thump her chest," the Telegraph Connected reports.
"However, if people were simply asked to view the tape, they noticed the gorilla easily. The effect is so striking that some of them refused to accept they were looking at the same tape and thought that it was a different version of the video, one edited to include the ape."
This conclusion isn't earth-shattering--it certainly confirms something most of us intuitively know--but it may carry implications for worship, pastoral counseling, spiritual direction, and other forms of pastoral care.
And I immediately wonder: Can the sort of mindfulness training advocated by major religious traditions (see the writings of Brother Lawrence, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Kabir Helminski) expand our visual short-term memory?
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Monday, May 10, 2004
Lashing out, pullling away, remaining connected
Two interesting tidbits about relationships this week:Women in healthy marriages tend to express anger and frustration after a bad day at work, while men in the same situation pull away from their spouses [from the APA's Monitor on Psychology].
And female friendships seem hard-wired in the brain, contributing mightly to human survival [from Newsweek].
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Tuesday, May 04, 2004
Teenage angst: recognizing serious problems
The Justin Lin film Better Luck Tomorrow, an official selection at Sundance called "a funny, sexy, scary powerhouse" by Rolling Stone--presents a dark and humorous look at the life of overachieving teens in Southern California.It might be easy to dismiss the film as a caricature, "life on the Big Screen."
But just like the characters in the movie, today's teens are losing sleep, committing violent or illegal acts, and spending excessive time worrying--largely because of school and family concerns, a Canadian study suggested this week.
Ten percent of 6,600 adolescents studied face at least three mental-health concerns, researchers from Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Thirty percent admit to bullying others.
Other studies suggest that people strongly involved in a faith community--participating, not just showing up on the membership roll--are less likely to cope with stress in destructive ways.
But the study released this week points to the need for faith communities to help families learn the signs and symptoms of mental-health struggles and to find creative ways to intervene when a teen's coping style becomes dangerous to self and others.
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Tuesday, May 04, 2004
Tired and stale?
"The constellation of opinion called the blogosphere consists, like the stars themselves, partly of gases. This is what makes blogs addictive — that is, both pleasurable and destructive: They're so easy to consume, and so endlessly available."So says George Packer in the May/June issue of Mother Jones.
The title of his article analyzing the role weblogs might play in the 2004 election:
"The Revolution Will Not Be Blogged: To see beyond their own little world and get a sense of what's really going on, journalists and readers need to get out of their pajamas."
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Monday, May 03, 2004
Living with difference: hospitality and human nature
Hospitality is not just a religious practice--it's an aspect of human nature that brought philosophical liberalism to life.Or so argues one European economist.
Political theorists have long believed that capitalism, with its ideal of possessive individualism, and the Reformation are twin parents of philosophical liberalism, a school of thought imagined to be just 300 years old.
But Paul Seabright of the University of Toulouse argues--in a move that turns conventional wisdom on its head--that liberalism actually emerged 10,000 years ago, when the agrarian age forced humanity to develop codes of hospitality.
"Modern society is built on institutions that persuade us to treat strangers as though they were honorary friends," he writes in the British publication Prospect Magazine. "The capacity for abstract thought is required to see how strangers who do not share your language or religion may nevertheless behave in crucial respects just like you."
This capacity for reciprocity--and the value and practice of of hospitality--are what make it possible for human beings to live with strangers today.
Seabright's revision of the nature of being human--from the person as tabula rasa inscribed by the forces of capitalism/commercialism to the person as naturally inclined toward hospitality--is worth reflection as people of many different religious stripes struggle to live peaceful and tolerant lives in a world that brings strangers into ever-closer proximity.
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Monday, May 03, 2004
Mirror, mirror on the wall . . .
Four hundred years ago, Francis Bacon observed that the mind of human beings "is far from the nature of a clear and equal glass, wherein the beams of things should reflect according to their true incidence; nay, it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of superstition and imposture, if it be not delivered and reduced."Our tendency to view ourselves through a distorting lens has now been empirically documented, Scientific American reported last week.
We see ourselves in a more positive light than others see us, researchers from Princeton University report, and another study suggests that we support our own faith in God with reason and intellect while attributing the faith of others to emotionalism, comfort, and conditioning.
No wonder sermons on sin are so poorly received!
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Monday, May 03, 2004