Iceland Bound

Marla and I are on our first holiday is 15 years... to ICELAND! We are at the airport now, which by the way, has a BELGIAN BEER Cafe. So, I am on my second 'flight' of taster beers. After a big meal and nine tiny beers I should be good for a five hour nap on the plane ride.

I have hooked up with the SCA group in Iceland, Klakavirki. Should be having lunch with an An Tirian expatriot for brunch tomorrow morning (to get the skinny of local farmer's markets in Hafnarfjordur. We have each brought a set of authentic viking garb to walk the streets in... :)

I will try to send lots of pictures and a running account of our exploits, so stay tuned. What's the worst that can happen?

BTW, I am accepting dares... something you wish that you could do in Iceland? I might just be crazy enough to let you do it vicariously through me. So, feel free to send your creative suggestions.

Hello God, it's me Paul!

The Miracle Experiment

I discuss my inability to believe in a loving God often and openly with my students. Many suggestions have been made over the years to remedy the condition. Last year I was teaching a peculiar group of students who I am happy now to call my friends. I trusted them enough to try an experiment.

In our conversations, we got on to the topic of miracles. Would a miracle convince me to believe in God? I told them the story of the time my son was hit by a car in a traffic circle and left the accident unscathed. It seemed to me at the time, and still does, a quirk of physics, not a divine dispensation. I had on many occasions challenged God, “If you really care about me and the students I teach each day give me a sign right now in proof of your existence!” Needless to say, I was not given any such sign, nor have I been struck by lightning, turned into salt or smote with hellfire.

So we devised an experiment. I would genuinely pray for God to heal my son. I would then, in the prayer ask for a determinate sign. I would write down the anticipated  sign and give the paper to one of my students. We would then see if the sign occurred. If it did, I would convert to Christianity with a sincere effort to become a practicing Christian, and evangelize my conversion with the depth of rhetorical power at my behest. If no sign occurred this would add inductive proof to my belief that there was no God.

My son had been home with a bad flu. I had posted as much on my Facebook. I had a student who regularly checked my Facebook, and commented on the content. She was friendly enough with me to ask if my wife was feeling better about her arthritis, or if my depression had passed. So I devised a sign that was easily possible. “Syma will ask me if my son is feeling better.” I had class with her that day, a class with a good ten minutes of chat before it got started in the classroom and one that Syma regularly attended (the real miracle would be for her to attend class on time!).

Now that morning I went out to my car to pray. I was determined to make a sincere effort, and it was for a cause that was both moral (the health of my child) and had Biblical precedent for being answered by God. As I was walking to my car I devised all sorts of interesting and intricate signs….but then one just ‘popped’ into my head. There are all sorts of reasons NOT to use the sign I did (it could happen without miraculous intervention, for example, by chance), but in keeping with the effort to be like a Christian, I went with the epiphany. Perhaps God sent me that idea, so I should go with it. And pray I did. There were false starts. There was some mocking caricatures, some feigned reverence. But then I reflected upon my son, and the importance this issue had for my students, and buckled down. I opened my heart in the best way I knew how, and prayed. I talked, shared, mused and mumbled for about ten minutes. Then I respectfully explained my experiment and asked for the sign.

I admit to thinking it just might happen. I admit to being excited and happy at the thought. But, nothing happened. Not only did Syma not ask about my son, she didn’t really even strike up conversation with me, despite some light coaxing. At the end of class I gathered the students involved and got Romaniuk to open the written sign. Failure. No sign. No sign of a sign. We even asked Syma if it occurred to her to ask me about my son’s health and she said, “not really.”

Now, if there was a God, why wouldn’t he make this small effort? I am a good teacher with a very persuasive rhetoric and a robust understanding of the history of Christian thought. I would be a very positive influence for Christianity if I believed in God. Why wouldn’t God send this small insignificant sign?

I write this experiment so that you can tell me where my reasoning, experimental method or derivation of conclusion went wrong. Does this prove there is no God?  Or just that if there is one that He doesn’t care about us? Or that He just doesn’t care about me? What went wrong?

By the way, my son was really sick for the next three days.

Should we Turn the Other Cheek?

This semester in the Religion 373 class, I taught Christian perspectives on warfare and terrorism. One of the options for the topic assignment was to ‘live one week as a Pacifist.” It was more of a challenge than an assignment. I DARED them to try to live according to the dictates of thorough, deep-in-the-heart, Christ-like non-violence. The parameters were simple;

1)      You may never respond in anger, hate or violence.

2)      If you are abused or accosted or otherwise unjustly treated, you must respond with love and forgiveness. (Hug it out!)

Now I had seven students take up the challenge. All with the same attitude, “I am a loving forgiving person, this should be easy.”

It wasn’t.

They had to submit an account of their week and explore what they learned from the experience.

Some disturbing patterns arose from their experiences and I’d like to share them with you.

1)      All of them FAILED.

They didn’t fail the assignment (I am not that mean). They universally failed to behave in a pacifist manner. All of them were driven to violence and anger. Not just the occasional slip up, but every day and often. Most did not make it through the first hour without some form of verbal or physical violence. It seems the hardest form of violence to resist was the violent response of SARCASM. Most students were shocked by the sheer volume of hurtful sarcasm they employ each day.

2)      Even if they could live non-violently, they wouldn’t.

Most of them concluded not only that they COULDN’T do it, but that they WOULDN’T do it. They were not happier, they were not more at peace. They were more frustrated, more stressed, more abused, more helpless. They all felt that they were forced by the limitations of agape to let injustice go uninhibited. The Christian message of unconditional love and forgiveness is revealed in practice to lack discretion. Should we love everyone equally? Are they equally deserving of my forgiveness, or concern, or attention? While ‘love thy neighbour’ is a pleasant slogan, none of the students could or would abide it in practice. It is a call to leave reason, judgment and desert out of our decisions.

3)      People WANTED them to fail.

All of them had a similar and disturbing experience. Those who knew about the challenge actively sought to invoke a violent response. Friends, family and even mere classmates committed injustices just to get the pacifist to snap. One student was baby-sitting and had the child quickly discern that the lack of punishment gave them a carte blanche to misbehave. Chaos ensued. Why were people so hell-bent on helping them fail? I am not sure…anyone have a theory?

Here are some snippets from the student responses;
"The hitch I found in the whole pursuit was that I became so very aware of the ruined state of humanity."
"I may have been trying to be a better person, but that person just isn't me."
"Being a Pacifist stripped away my happiness. No Lie."
"Almost everyone that I came across that I informed of my experiment was excited - not because I was going to morally improve myself but because it was an open invitation to take advantage of me for a week."
"I felt like I was demeaning my values and my rationality by forgiving everyone regardless of merit."

Should we love our enemies? Should we forgive those who trespass against us? Should we turn the other cheek?

How do I tell you that you are Beautiful?

I think the world is a generally ugly place, but there are moments of beauty that take my breath away. The quiet smile of a student who recognizes that I noticed and appreciated the risk they took, the way Marla sighs in her sleep when experiencing a happy dream, the overwhelming sense of pride when you see your squire-brother is the last man standing on the battlefield; beautiful. When you hear your son practicing a song he wrote for his girlfriend, singing honest emotion as though there was no one else in the world. When you are sitting, spent and exhausted, in the 'resurrection circle' with other fallen heroes, laughing and recounting tales of valour in the chilly midnight air. This spider in this moonlight under this Dogstar... moments of beauty.

With so much ugliness, pettiness, selfishness, bigotry and injustice you would think we would want to share these moments, to revel in these moments, to enjoy them. But somehow trying to share the appreciation of beauty has become socially awkward.

If I find you beautiful, how do I tell you? Without coming across as creepy, or lecherous, or objectifying?
For example, I do not like dyed hair. I find an older woman with long dark hair flecked with grey beautiful. But social standards make it impossible to express that appreciation without unsavoury imprecations and unwarranted assumption of prurient interests.
The obvious, practical response is, "keep it to yourself." This is what most of us do, but I find that to smack of cowardice. If we want to world to be better, to share our joy with one another, shouldn't we have the courage to express our passions?
What if I find beauty in another man (Antonio Banderas or Rae Spoon)? What if I find beauty in a student, or a colleague or a boss? The well-meaning trolls who want to deliver us from lechery and objectification simply label these as 'inappropriate', to be suppressed or ignored. But I think we have a moral imperative to share beauty.
I love muffin-tops. I love the way people look without make-up or surgery or shaving. I find beauty in the strange and unique. I find beauty in long noses, broad shoulders, large hands and saddlebags. I find beauty in stuttering and pipe-smoking and yoga.
When I see beauty I am going to share it. If it offends you, I'll apologise. If it is awkward my hope is that it is just the feeling that comes with growing up. I am tired of commenting on what is ugly, I'll try to tell you, "I think you are beautiful."

to ASSUME makes an ASS out of U and ME....

So my last blog was met by an unanticipated rebuttal; I was talking about the peculiarity of being lonely in the constant company of others. I expected some would share my experience, some would give advice, some would tell stories of loneliness overcome and intimacy attained. What I didn't expect was,"How unfair of you to assume I am as miserable as you!"
Now, that is not a direct quote. I indulge poetic license in all things. But it was the incredulity, the sense that their happiness was called into question, the implied condemnation that took me aback.

Of course, being a philosopher, a cascade of responses flooded over me, each clamouring for my attention. I will share a few of them with you:

The Sophmoric Retort: Poor simple fool, you only claim not to be lonely because you fail to experience the fullness of human relationships. If only you could but taste the sweet nectar of human intimacy you would never again be satisfied with the puerile small-talk of daily life encounters.

The Sarcastic Challenge: Alright guru of inner peace and happiness. You are obviously successful while the rest of us remain lonely failures. Share your wisdom, deliver us from our weaker selves. Share with us the pathway to social integration.

The Psycho-babble Affirmation: I hear your outrage and acknowledge my mistaken overgeneralization. Can you validate my suffering in turn?

The Liberty Defense: I have a right to interpret reality anyway I choose. If I wish to assume that you are as lonely as me, then that is my business. If you choose to interpret my blog as groundless speculation and erroneous assumption then that too is your right.

The Passive-Aggressive Turtle: I was just sharing my feelings... you don't have to get huffy.

The Socratic Reversal: You understand that by interpreting the  motives and judgments underlying my comments in an unnecessarily pessimistic fashion you are committing the same assumption-crime you are condemning.

None of these is really what I think, though they are all fun to argue. Leah's comments made me question my assumptions, to dig deeper for what I really thought. And, honestly, I have to admit to a hermeneutic of suspicion. Simply put, I believe that anyone who claims they are happy is lieing or crazy or mistaken (or a combination of these three). I am not claiming infallibility on this point. I am not even claiming I have good reason for believing it. But Leah's response forced me to explore one of the core assumptions of my worldview; No one is satisfied. Everyone is lonelier than they should be, luckier than they could be and happier than they have good reason to be. Not happy, just happier.

The sad reality of my befindlichkeit: if you say you are not lonely, I don't believe you.

1 in 750 000

"The way I need you is a loneliness I cannot bear."
Why is it that in a city the size of Edmonton, with people stacked on people, we are all so lonely. I have never felt so alone and isolated as I did at the mall today, shopping for Christmas presents amidst a throng of desperate consumers. Pressed close with strangers in a check-out line with nothing to bridge the gap between our souls. I looked into faces and saw only faces looking into faces. My own busyness and emptiness and cruelty reflected back like a funhouse mirror.

How can we all be so alone? I reach to my bookshelf and take down Carson McCullers, "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter." I stare at the author's picture on the dust jacket and meet the eyes of the paralytic alcoholic. Her baleful melancholy simply the exemplar of the raincload that descends upon my spirit every holiday season. Lonely hunter and stubborn prey. We want and don't want to be in the company of love. We want to be with others, but on our own terms... and the terms are unacceptable, unaccepting, unexceptional.

I am going to stop being lonely today. I am going to bridge the gap between Self and Other with a story or a kindness or a song. I'll meet that blank stare with a genuine effort to discover the lonely soul beneath. Wish me luck.

Hoping for other Selves

Rabbi Zusya wisely spoke,"When I get to Heaven they will not ask me, 'Why were you not a Moses?', but rather, 'Why were you not Zusya?'"

I recalled this quotation yesterday after a talk with a student. They wrote a wonderfully mediocre paper. I commented, "You have cited all the appropriate sources, you have repeated the central arguments, you exhibit an adequate understanding of the texts..... but... WHERE ARE YOU?"

The student stared blankly, not comprehending my criticism. "Okay, so you know how to use a library, you know how to take notes in class, but CAN YOU THINK?" And by 'think' I wonder if they can hope and dream and imagine and reason and create.

When I think about the critical moments I have in evaluating the conduct of my close friends and loved ones I find that I do not want them to be more like someone else; I want to hear their unique voice again, buried as it is, so deep beneath expectation and P.C. phraseology. I do not want my wife to be more like Hilary Clinton, or the neighbour, or Mother Theresa or Martha Stuart...I want Marla to be MORE MARLA. I want my children to be more themselves, to manifest their species-being in the products or their labour, to express their unique perspective in their words and deeds.

I want the same for my students. My sincere hope is that I will hear a unique voice sing out in the pages of an assignment. I do not want to produce academic clones of my own jaded perspective, I do not want them to be more like me in their thinking and their writing. I want to help them develop the skills to articulate their own ideas, to express their own view of this shared reality.

Can we take this holiday season as a license to be creative in sharing our peculiar voice with others? It takes courage, but I promise, I will be listening....