Monday, May 20, 2013

In My Restless Dreams I See That Town...



Sometimes people find it strange that I have a real love for horror.  Poetry, prose, graphic novels, film  television, tabletop games, video games—it doesn't matter, I like them all.  I think folk get surprised because they assume that someone as holy as an ordained minister shouldn't be thinking about dark things.  "After all," they misquote Nietzsche, "Stare not into the abyss, lest the abyss stare into you!"  Actually, what he said was, "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.  And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you."  To be honest, that's exactly the kind of thing that everyone—but particularly ordained ministers—should think about every so often.

Besides, if I told you about a book where one of the main characters went about killing men and collecting their foreskins, wouldn't you assume that I'm talking about a particularly sick horror novel?  Unless, of course, you know more about the story of King David than most people can honestly claim.  Then you'd know I was talking about the Bible.  The truth is, there are some truly horrific things in the Christian tradition. And tales of horror are basically stories about good vs. evil.  So I don't see any harm in an ordained pastor being into that kind of thing.

One of my favorite horror settings is Silent Hill.

Silent Hill started off as a video game in a sub-genre of action/adventure known as survival horror. There's definitely enough story in these games to keep me playing. Of course, there were nights where playing in the dark with the surround sound on discouraged me from sleeping. Again. Ever. But it's all in good fun, right? It's really little environmental things that caught me with the Silent Hill games. Like searching through a decrepit and abandoned public restroom and listening to the main character knock on a stall door-- and being answered, once, with a return knock.

BANG


And knock as much as you like after that, you can't get it to repeat. You just never know when something like that is going to happen. The monsters you fight are almost secondary. Almost. The monsters are seriously disturbing too. Imagine meeting one of these nurses in an abandoned hospital... *shiver*

Silent Hill has done well enough critically to warrant a feature film, now available on DVD. If you aren't into gaming but want to find out what the feel of the story and the environment are, I suggest you rent it. Then watch it with the lights out and the surround sound on.

Go on. I dare you. Find out why anytime I find myself someplace truly creepy, I can't seem to keep from  saying, "Welcome to Silent Hill."  Even when I'm alone.

I once wrote that life is like Silent Hill sometimes.  Granted, that was a particularly difficult time in my own story, but I think that the lessons I learned from playing—and being scared by—the Silent Hill games might still be right on.  So when things get overwhelming, just remember the following things:

Sometimes you're in a dark place.


Sometimes you can't go the way you used to.


Sometimes there are barriers in your way.


Sometimes there's something scary between where you are and where you need to be.


And yet, even though sometimes it may be circuitous, counter-intuitive  hidden, or just plain hellish, there's always a way forward.


Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
052013

Monday, April 29, 2013

Take Your Stinkin' Paws Off Me!

In the post entitled “Murder Simulator?” I mentioned that there’s “some great theological stuff around the Monkeysphere and Jesus' answer to that whole thing…” and that I might do a post just around that somewhere down the road.  Well, I guess we’re somewhere down the road, because here it is!

Primatologists discovered that the size of a primate’s brain determines the size of the social groups that primate forms.  In other words, the bigger the brain, the bigger the society they form.  An anthropologist named Robin Dunbar says that the same is true for you and me.

Author David Wong explains it this way.  Imagine a cute little monkey.  He suggests that you imagine that he’s dressed up like a pirate and that you have all kinds of monkey pirate adventures.


I feel compelled to admit that the pirate outfit and accompanying adventures are fun, but probably not necessary for this explanation.

He also says that you should name him Slappy and that you should image how much you love and enjoy Slappy’s company.  And that I do want you to do.  Because I want you to realize how sad you would be if Slappy died.

Now imagine that you get four more monkeys.  I won’t use the names that Wong suggests, so let’s call them Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  Imagine that Matthew is affectionate, Mark is aggressive, Luke is quiet, and John loves sitting on the top of the grandfather clock and screaming.  But they’re all your pets, and you love them.

Now imagine that you get one hundred more monkeys.  Wong writes, “Not so easy now, is it? So how many monkeys would you have to own before you couldn't remember their names? At what point, in your mind, do your beloved pets become just a faceless sea of monkey?”  Well, if Dunbar is correct, the answer is about 150 monkeys.

That’s all our brains can handle.  About 150.

In his book, This Book Is Full of Spiders, Wong describes the problem this way:
“…everything we do requires cooperation in groups larger than a hundred and fifty.  Governments.  Corporations.  Society as a whole.  And we are physically incapable of handling it.  So every moment of the day we urgently try to separate everyone on earth into two groups—those inside the sphere of sympathy and those outside.  Black verses white, liberal verses conservative, Muslim verses Christian, Lakers fan versus Celtics fan.  With us, or against us.  Infected verses clean.  We simplify tens of millions of individuals down into simplistic stereotypes, so that they hold the space of only one individual in our limited available memory slots…”
Now, this problem is addressed all over the place in Judaism and Christianity and probably every other religion in the world.  But I’m a Christian, so I’m going to focus on two places that Jesus addresses it.  If you want to get into the text yourself, you can find these passages in Luke 4:16-30 and Matthew 25:31-46.  So, after Jesus was Baptized he was driven into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit.  He overcame temptation out there and then, still full of the Spirit, he began to preach and teach all around Galilee.

One day he came home to Nazareth and went to the synagogue there on the Sabbath.  He stood up and read a passage from the prophet Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

But he chose to end the quote before he got to the part where Isaiah talks about the day of the vengeance of the Lord, and he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down.

Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”  All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.  They said, “Is not this Joseph's son?”

I think that Jesus was trying to make a point when he read that passage from Isaiah.  Or rather, I believe that he was trying to make a point when he stopped in the middle of a verse.  The full verse is, “…to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God…”  I think that Jesus was trying to steer the people away from the path of vengeance.

But I also believe that as soon as Jesus said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” the people remembered the whole passage and assumed that Jesus was going to the same place—the place where the people get their vengeance over their enemies.  Payback time.

And Jesus saw how the people approved of him and were amazed by him and… he kept talking.  “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’  And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’’  And he said, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown.  But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon.  There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”

What Jesus is doing here is pointing out that within their own scriptures there are examples of God caring for people outside of the Jewish Monkeysphere.  Sidon and Syria were definitely "Them" with a capital "T" for the folk Jesus was speaking to.  Unfortunately, the crowd was not swayed.  In fact, they were predictably outraged, became violent and tried to toss Jesus off a cliff!  I believe that Jesus gives us the answer our limited brains need later in his ministry, when he told this parable:
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.  All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.

Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?  And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?  And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’

And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me…’”
I don’t know about you, but I struggle with my monkey brain every day.  I catch myself trying to simplify whole groups of people down into simplistic stereotypes to hold the space of only one individual in my limited available memory slots.

And sometimes those stereotypes aren’t very nice.  And when that happens, I try to remember where Jesus stopped speaking, rolled up the scroll and sat down.  I try to remember the widow at Zarephath in Sidon.  I try to remember Naaman the Syrian.  I try to remember that if I need to simplify things for my poor monkey brain, all I need to do is replace all of those tens of millions of individuals with one person:  the King from the parable:  Jesus.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Murder Simulator?

I recently wrote a poem that describes my emotional reaction to the Boston Marathon bombing, and I thought it might be appropriate for the geek blog.  There's some great theological stuff around the Monkeysphere and Jesus' answer to that whole thing—but I think that will be it's own post somewhere down the line.  For now, let's just go with the poem...
The Blood on Boylston Street 
(Written 4/23/13, edited 4/24) 
I have shot and killed my fair share of Raiders.  I have no idea how many Moblin I have put to the sword.  I have jumped on the heads of more Goomba than I can count.  And I have slain Stormtroopers in thousands and Grunts in hundreds of thousands.  They say that I have been taught “to kill efficiently and to love it.”  They say that I am “an extraordinarily effective killer without…  any of the constraints or responsibilities needed to inhibit such a killing capacity.” 
They say I’m desensitized. 
I playfully commented on Facebook, “I don’t know, what’s happening in Boston today?” and the response was “Explosions.”  I mined my news feed for word from friend after friend, “Just letting everyone know I’m alright…”  I clicked the link and watched the raw video of the runners interrupted by a heavy thud and a ball of fire rolling upward into a momentary column.  I clicked again and saw the photograph of the otherwise empty sidewalk strewn with flattened chairs and painted thick with the blood on Boylston Street. 
I wept for people I have never known.
Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
042513

Monday, April 15, 2013

Choose Wisely

So, first of all, I need to say I’m sorry.  It was my every intention to be blogging at least once weekly and I've clearly not managed to do that.  I could tell you that my life as a pastor got in the way.  I could, in fact, tell you that Lent just about kicked my butt and that by the time Holy Week was done I was sick—I mean full on down and out ill.  And I’d be telling you the truth.  But somehow that still just doesn't feel good enough.  Partly because I value you, my readers and partly because this blog has quickly become an important part of my own spiritual practice.  So I’m sorry, dear and faithful readers.  And I’m sorry, me, for depriving you of your spiritual needs.

Which brings me to my topic today.  I've been thinking a lot about actions and consequences today.  It actually started this morning when I was playing Epic Mickey on our new Wii (Thank you, Easter Bunny, we love you).  Epic Mickey is pretty awesome, but it has a feature that drives the completest in me up the wall—it’s called “autosave.”  In Epic Mickey it bugs me because I like to find and complete everything and I keep finding myself saying, “Oh, I must have missed something.  Can I go back?  No.  And it autosaved just now, didn't it…?”  I hate to think how many times I’m going to have to play Epic Mickey through before I've found everything!

But the funny thing is that it’s irritating because it makes the game just a little bit more like real life.  We can’t unsay things, un-drive places, un-forget to pay that bill…  One of the things I love about games that allow me to save whenever I want is that I have more control over the consequences of my in-game actions—don’t you wish that you could save life just before trying something risky, so you can go back and reload everything if it doesn't work out so well?

The second reason I've been thinking about actions and consequences today is because I was working on the liturgy for Sunday morning and some of the prevailing themes for the service are going to be eco-justice, conservation and sustainability.  The United Church of Christ is engaging in a pretty cool initiative over the season of Easter called Mission 4/1 Earth  (You can learn more about Mission 4/1 Earth HERE), so all of the weekly theological reflections etc. have that focus right now.  This week, Dr. Christina Hutchins and Dr. Riess Potterveld of the Pacific School of Religion used Hosea 4:1-3 in their reflection.  The passage rather scathingly describes the horrendous way people treat each other and then comes to the conclusion, “Therefore the land mourns, and all who live in it languish; together with the wild animals and the birds of the air, even the fish of the sea are perishing.”  In other words, when we start mistreating each other everything suffers.  Even if you don’t hold these scriptures as your sacred text, I think we all can understand that everything is interrelated and that our actions have much further-reaching consequences than we’d like to think they do!


The third reason I've been thinking about actions and consequences is because of a heated conversation that’s been running on my Facebook wall.  It all started with a pic my dad shared concerning two advertisements for JC Penney depicting families with same-gender parents.  What followed was a discussion around whether or not those ads resulted in a decline in JC Penney’s revenue—and the whole thing, of course, had a deep undercurrent of allies verses opponents of the queer community.

I found myself thoroughly distracted today when I found the following response on my wall this morning:
“Hmm, in all this talk of ‘equality’ and ‘tolerance’ there seems to be not only an undercurrent but an outright disgust for those ‘bigots’. Ah, I see -- no tolerance or equality for people who disagree with ‘your’ view. Would you say ‘hypocrite’? 
JC Penney is free to do as it wishes. Typically, alienating a large part of your customer base is not wise for a company. LGBT people are free to do as they wish. Are those who disagree free to do as THEY wish? Unfortunately, it seems that they aren't as they are forced to violate their fundamental beliefs, or be forced out of business or heavily fined. Such is the present mindset.”
When I disagree with someone, I try very hard to see things from their point of view before deciding to respond, so I have to admit that I was a little insulted with the above post.  It was really tempting for me to harp on certain phrases in the same way the author got on about “tolerance,” “equality,” and “bigot.”  In all honesty there were pieces of the post that literally made no sense to me.  Instead, after a great deal of thought and reflection, I cobbled together the following response:
"I know I probably shouldn't be speaking for everyone who weighed in here, but I'd like to speak to the concept of being intolerant towards people who disagree with our views. When we talk about bigots, we don't simply mean people who disagree with us. We're talking about people who are actively homophobic or standing in the way of the LGBT community gaining equal standing before the law. Is it hypocritical to be intolerant of intolerance? I think not. 
More importantly, it's really easy for folk who are historically privileged—like straight white males in the U.S., in this case—to mistake their privilege for fairness. When this happens, the privileged start thinking that raising others to privilege isn't fair to them and they end up claiming—sometimes without even realizing it—that equality isn't fair. 
JC Penney is free to do what it wishes. They chose to depict same-gender parents in two advertisements. That action had consequences, even if we disagree on how profound those consequences are. 
LGBT people, however, are not free to do as they wish. They are not afforded the same rights under Federal law, nor in most states. The consequences for simply being themselves is unreasonably high, so no. No they are not free to do what they wish. 
Are people who disagree with my beliefs free to do as they wish? Yes. But those actions have consequences, too. Those consequences seem to be changing, and that must be unsettling for the folk on the other side of the fence. They probably don’t think it’s fair. Sometimes people will call them bigots. If they break the law, they may be fined. They might not be able to open a branch of their franchise in Boston. 
What will not and cannot happen is that they will be forced to violate their fundamental beliefs. They can believe anything they want. But that belief does not afford them the right to act without consequence."
One of the things I love the most about the geek community is our ability to argue well.  Even when we don’t agree with each other, we are logical and—at the end of the day—we’re still able to sit across the gaming table from one another.

Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
041513

Monday, February 25, 2013

SHAZAM!

You know, I wasn't going to keep on with Silver Lake and The Written Word—at least not yet—but the hubbub regarding The Onion following this year’s Academy Awards forced me to reconsider.   You see, The Written Word was on a three year theological cycle.  The first year was about the idea that we were created in God’s image, that one of the ways we were created in God’s image is that we are ourselves creative, and that we can find echoes of God’s image in our creations.  The second year was about how words have power.   There are lots, and lots (and lots) of examples of words having power in the realm of geek.  From Ali Baba eagerly uttering the phrase “Open Sesame,” to little Billy Batson crying out “SHAZAM!” to turn into the superhero Captain Marvel, to Harry Potter raising his wand to Dolores Umbridge and pronouncing “Stupefy!” to stun the villainess, the theme of powerful words is very common indeed.

The idea that words have power is a very Biblical one, as well.  In Genesis, God speaks the world into being, “Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.” (Gen 1:3)  Jesus resurrects a young girl with the words, "Talitha cum," which means, "Little girl, get up!" (Mark 5:41)  The beginning of the Gospel of John describes Jesus the Christ as the Word, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.” (John 1:1-3)  Talk about power!

 I believe that we need to remind ourselves that words have power every once in a while.  Because when we forget that words have power, bad things happen.  And unfortunately, we’re living in a society where it is all too easy to forget the power of our words.  Which brings me back to The Onion and the tweet that shocked the nation.
   photo ef17d0d6-39bb-4063-91e3-f975428bd927.jpg
That’s right, The Onion called the first 9-year-old nominee for Best Actress in the history of the academy awards a c**t.  How does something like that happen?  Well, first of all, you have to understand that The Onion is a satirical comedic news site.  As film critic and commentator, Bob Chipman, put it in a recent article,
“They are a news parody outfit, but not of The Daily Show variety where the humor is mainly based on holding up actual examples of idiocy in the media for public mockery by Jon Stewart and his audience.   Instead, The Onion takes the form of a ‘real’ news site and runs fake headlines (and entire fake news stories) that mock the worst excesses of the ‘real’ media by exaggeration.”  
Basically the intent was to point out how badly the Academy Awards treats women by saying the most misogynistic thing they could think of.

 Side note: I suspect this may have been a response to Seth MacFarlane’s opening to the show, which included a song entitled, “We Saw Your Boobs.”  MacFarlane’s humor throughout (ok, at least until I fell asleep on the couch—somewhere around the in memoriam segment) was confrontational at best.  On the other hand, the aforementioned song taken in context seemed to be satirizing himself.  All in all it wasn't his best stuff and I’d love to hear his reaction to the world’s reaction…

 Ok, so, back to The Onion tweet.  Being a satirical site, The Onion’s material gets mistaken for being serious all the time—but not by everybody.  Even people who know that The Onion is satire and really gets how satire works cried foul.  The truth of the matter is that when satire fails it becomes what it is trying to chastise.  The truth is that what you communicated is what was received, not what you intended.  So instead of calling attention to the harsh treatment of women in Hollywood in general—or by Seth MacFarlane specifically—The Onion really did simply call a 9-year-old girl a c**t.

So why did it fail?  Chipman basically argues that the fact that the joke was a tweet probably led to it failing.  He describes the frenetic pace of Twitter humor this way,
“Quick, go turn on the news, watch whatever is happening, immediately discern something insightfully funny about it, phrase it in a short, amusing way and disperse it to the web - you have 15 seconds.  It's hard to do this well.  
And so people cheat.   
The ‘cheat’ in question is generally called ‘live-snarking’ in the parlance of the web.  In lieu of joke construction or punchlines, one simply watches what's happening and says the meanest thing they can think of alongside some funny words and passes it off as a joke.”  
Twitter, in other words, moves so fast that there isn't enough time to think about what you’re saying, let alone construct something as difficult to get right as a good joke.

It is all too easy to forget the power of our words when we’re wildly shooting them out into the world through the internet.  And once they’re out there, we can’t get them back.  The Onion deleted the tweet in question within an hour, and I was still able to post an image of it gleaned from the Wired article that brought the whole brouhaha to my attention to begin with.

 Speaking of the Wired article, entertainment editor Laura Hudson makes an excellent point,
“if this unfortunate incident offers us anything, it’s a teachable moment about the best way to respond when we screw up and say things that are sexist/racist/homophobic/insensitive without understanding their impact.  
 One common – and immensely dickish – response is that it’s ‘not a big deal,’ and that it’s the responsibility of person who has been mistreated or marginalized to remove themselves and stop complaining about it. Which is an attempt not only to silence them and sanction spaces as overtly hostile to them, but also essentially a reenactment of that scene from The Simpsons where Bart and Lisa start walking toward each other while punching and kicking the air wildly, saying ‘if you get hit, it’s your own fault!’  
 The Onion, wisely, decided to take another tack, by acknowledging, owning and apologizing for the tweet on their Facebook page and site… No one ever said that being a good person — or trying to understand the struggles and perspectives of people whose experiences are alien to us – would be easy. It’s a life-long process, and one where all of us are going to have moments where we accidentally step in it, either through ignorance or bad judgment. But when the inevitable happens and someone tells us that we've screwed up, we’d all do well to take a page from The Onion and respond not with self-righteous anger, or eye-rolling irritation that we have to deal with the inconvenience of other people’s experiences, but rather a willingness to learn…”
 So, if nothing else, take this home with you. Your words do have power. Try to use that power for good. And when you screw up, and you will, remember that the effect of your words has more meaning than your intentions—so apologize and learn from the experience.

Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
022513

Monday, February 18, 2013

There is a fifth dimension...

In the post “1407 Graymalkin Lane,” I wrote extensively about one of the reasons I love Silver Lake—namely that it was one of my primary sanctuaries growing up and continues to be a sanctuary for me even today.  And because it is and was a safe place for me, Silver Lake is one of the places I have had the best opportunities to dig into my own theology.  Besides which, it’s where I met my wife and where I was married, so naturally it’s just going to come up every once in a while!

My wife and I have spent several years leading a creative writing conference for high school age youth entitled “The Written Word.”  Unfortunately, The Written Word has run its course—at least as a summer conference—and to be honest I’m kind of mourning its passing.  Like all good Christians, though, I live in the hope of the Resurrection, so who knows?  Maybe The Written Word will ride again someday.  For now, though, I’d like to share at least one of the theological underpinnings of the conference, because I find it especially useful to my geek theology.

The idea, basically, is that we were all made in God’s image.  And one of the ways we were all made in God’s image is that we are ourselves creative.  And so if we pay attention to our creations, we can find echoes of God’s image in them—even if we didn't intend for them to be there!  I used to say “we can find God’s image in them,” but theology is a living, breathing, growing thing and now I think that it’s important to note that our creations, while important and good, are signs—symbols of a truth, not the truth itself.

So why is the idea that echoes of God’s image can be found in our creations important to my understanding of geek theology?  Well, it’s the interpretive lens that causes me to think of Mark 13:1-2 when I watch the trailer for Fallout 3.  It’s why I can immediately think of baptism when I hear Metallica’s “Until It Sleeps.”  Or the plight of post-modern mainline Christianity in an episode of Kitchen Nightmares!  One of the many things that defines us as geeks is our unabashed love of certain forms and genres of storytelling.  I’m a video game geek (or gamer), a sci-fi geek, a fantasy geek, an rpg geek (confusingly, also “gamer”), and so on.  You can see why it feels foundational to identify echoes of the divine in our stories, then, right?

By the way, sometimes I know exactly where I first came into contact with a concept that had a profound impact on my own theology, and this is one of them.  It all goes back to Little Peggy March.  I know, I know, she’s before my time but she fits pretty squarely into the kind of music my father listens to—
What’s that?  You don’t know Little Peggy March?  I think maybe you do.  She recorded a song entitled “I Will Follow Him.”  I’m pretty sure it’s meant to be a romantic peace, but it was most famously covered in the film Sister Act.  There was something about that moment where I realized that the “him” in a love song could refer to God that was a major epiphany for me.  How about you?



Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
021113


Monday, February 11, 2013

Sue Richards Meets Jane Goodall

When I first started tossing around the idea of this blog, I ran it by a couple of internet communities—my own personal Facebook friends (a bunch of whom self-identify as geeks—go figure) and an online support group for UCC clergy in the 20's and 30's.  One of the most frequent responses I got to the idea was, "What kind of geek?"  People wanted to know if I meant gamers, or computer hackers, or just people who think science is awfully cool.  (One fine wit pointed out that anyone excited about theology might be considered a geek.  Touché.)  And my answer was "yes."  By which I mean to say that I think there are probably enough things common to all of those kinds of experiences of geekdom that a geek theology ought to be able to draw from all of them.  So stand back, I'm going to try... SCIENCE!  Which of course means an experiment.  Please watch the video below and follow the instructions:



How did you do?  I knew what was going to happen the first time I watched the video, and I still almost missed it.  But don't worry about it too much if you found yourself blinded.  According to the research Daniel Simons and Christoper Chabris, fully half of us would not see what was right in front of our faces.  That's right, half.  And what's more, we all believe that we're perceptive enough to catch something that... blatant.  Only half of us would be right.

According to a recent NPR story, researcher Trafton Drew did a similar study with a group of people who are rigorously trained to see stuff—radiologists.  According to NPR:

He took a picture of a man in a gorilla suit shaking his fist, and he superimposed that image on a series of slides that radiologists typically look at when they're searching for cancer. He then asked a bunch of radiologists to review the slides of lungs for cancerous nodules. He wanted to see if they would notice a gorilla the size of a matchbook glaring angrily at them from inside the slide. 
But they didn't: 83 percent of the radiologists missed it, Drew says.
So what does any of this have to do with theology?  Well, I'd say to be wary of anyone that claims to know with absolute certainty the "right" interpretation of the Bible or, worse yet, the will of God for your life.  After all, invisible gorillas exist.  Which leads me into another theological point—Jesus said to not judge each other.  If we really take to heart the fact that we have invisible gorillas, maybe we can be a little more forgiving when other people reveal their own blindness.  And finally, there's the conclusion that Trafton Drew came to in his research, "...what we're thinking about — what we're focused on — filters the world around us so aggressively that it literally shapes what we see."  If we're looking for sinners and degenerates, that's what we'll find.  If we're looking for overbearing Christian hypocrites, that's what we'll see.  If we're looking for the image of God in each other, well...  you get the picture.

Maybe you aren't convinced.  Maybe you want another chance at it, just to prove to yourself (or your neighbor) that you aren't that oblivious.  Well okie dokie.  Here's your second chance:



See what I mean?  I knew something was up and I was completely taken by this one.

Beware of invisible gorillas,
Rev. Josh
021213

PS  If you're feeling kind of down about that last one, don't worry about it, we're in good company.  People who study how our minds work get caught by this, too...


Monday, February 4, 2013

1407 Graymalkin Lane


So, I’ve been thinking about what makes my perspective as a geek different enough from other people’s that it would affect my theology.  And there are a bunch of examples (and I’m sure that other geeks have others, that’s why I hope to have guest bloggers every once in a while) but the first one is probably my experience of sanctuary.  In fact, sanctuary has been such a foundational piece of my theology for such a long time that I maybe should have started my blog with this entry.  Oh well, as one of my favorite quotes from Jim Henson’s Labyrinth goes, “Can’t be right all the time.”  (Extra xp if you know what scene I'm talking about...)

So, maybe this is changing—actually, I pray to God and carefully watch The Big Bang Theory for signs that this is changing—but when I was growing up it was very difficult to be a geek and be popular.  For some inexplicable reason,  you could be a fanatic about the Patriots or the Red Sox, but if you showed the same kind of enthusiasm for science fiction, fantasy, or even—for the love of all that is good—reading…  well, the word “pariah” comes to mind.  I know that I’m oversimplifying a bit—there were those charismatic scholar-athlete types who could move seamlessly between cultures—but my experience was that those folk only made it more difficult for those of us who couldn't   It was kind of like having an overachieving sibling—why can’t you be more like them?  Your classmate gets good grades, and they aren't a complete dork, what’s your problem?

Again, I see the world moving in the right direction on this point, but at that time, bullying was a monolithic, intractable thing.  Adults said things like, “boys will be boys,” and “kids will be kids,” and avert their eyes to the systematic physical, mental, and emotional abuse that young people were dealing out to one another.  And if someone was brave enough to broach the subject, the prevailing theory was that if the victim wasn't willing to “stand up for themselves” (One adult even said, “I wanted you to hit him.”) then they deserved what they got.  It’s the victim’s fault for being a victim.  They should fit in better.  They shouldn't read in front of people, or admit that they enjoy fantasy and science fiction, and they especially shouldn't admit that they enjoy it enough to be considered a fan.  They should just know better.

As you can well imagine, I was an awkward and less-than-popular boy.  I cared entirely too much what my peers thought of me, and I only seemed to hear the negative things they thought.  Luckily I had my safe places, my sanctuaries, places where I could relax and be myself without worrying about what people thought of me.  Places I could just be myself, no strings attached.  I was lucky to have these places.  My home.  My church.  And the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ’s location for its outdoor ministries—Silver Lake Conference Center.  Silver Lake is a church camp, a retreat center, and it’s the place I think of when I think about sanctuary.  I’m certainly not the only one to have that experience of Silver Lake—it has been a sanctuary for young and old alike for over fifty years now.

Despite the fact that I had a pretty good home life and that I felt safe at church from the systematic abuse that ran rampant at school, Silver Lake was the first public space where I felt safe being completely myself.  It’s where I learned to say, “I like reading.  I like fantasy and science fiction.”  The first place I ever saw people playing Magic: The Gathering, was on the floor of one of the bunk rooms in the Cedars.  That was during the summer conference (think “camp”) that has come to be known as The God Show—we wrote and produced a musical within the confines of the week.  My very first day with that conference, I was so excited that I busted out my favorite piece of costuming—a hooded cloak that my mom made for me.  My counselor still remembers seeing me running around in the thing and thinking, “I like that kid.”  Can you imagine?  Being safe enough to run around in a cloak—and actually finding someone that liked you for it?  Maybe you can—the world seems to be changing about these things—but at the time it was a Big Deal.  In fact, when I said goodbye to my counselor that week, he said, “May the Force be with you.”

Then he paused, looked me in the eye, and said, “It already is.”

Can you imagine?

I will always remember standing in the common room of The Cedars with several other teenagers and talking about what a special place Silver Lake is.  We all agreed that it was a place where we could just be ourselves, no matter who we were or what we were into—no worries, no strings attached.

That’s when one of our counselors broke into the conversation and asked a question that changed my life.

She asked us how we could take “that Silver Lake feeling out into the real world” with us when we left.  Silver Lake was the mountain top—holy ground—a sanctuary in every sense of the world.  I loved it there and I love it there still.  And here she was, challenging us to bring this sanctuary with us wherever we go…  Well, I took that to heart.  I decided that the best way to carry that sense of sanctuary out into the world was to be the kind of person it was safe to be around.

When I later heard my call to ministry it became more clear to me that one of my primary jobs as a pastor is to not only be a sanctuary myself, but to help others create sanctuaries together—and to challenge them to bring those sanctuaries out into the world with them wherever they go.

So later in life, when my wife and I were Co-Deans for a summer conference centered around creative writing, we were working with high school youth on a behavioral covenant.  It’s an agreement between the youth, counselors and deans—with God as our witness—concerning how we want to behave when we’re with each other for the week.  And one of the youth was describing how he wanted to feel that week.  He said that he wanted to feel safe in every sense of the word—that he wanted to feel physically safe, mentally safe, emotionally safe, spiritually safe…  He was at a loss to sum his thoughts up in a way that fit well in the covenant.  So I told him that there’s actually a word for what he was talking about.

That word is “sanctuary.”

When it comes down to it, I have an easier time understanding why sanctuary is important because I've had the experience of totally, desperately, needing one—and finding it.  And that’s primarily true because I am a geek.

Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
020413

Monday, January 28, 2013

Guest Geek

I have been reflecting and praying over whether or not to begin blogging again—and what form it would take if I did—for a pretty long time.  One of the reasons I decided to go ahead with this blog and to explore theology from a geek perspective is the simple fact that I know I'm not the only one out there!  In fact, in the wake of the Aurora Colorado mass shooting at the midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises, I had the honor of reading a thoughtful and appropriate geek response on Facebook. I immediately asked the young man who wrote it if I could repost it sometime. Well, Brendan has gone one step further and revised it one more time—and so he is the first (and hopefully not the last) of my guest geek bloggers! So without further ado, here's Brendan's response to the Aurora Dark Knight shooting:

I have always been a Batman fan and, for a time, I held that childhood innocence making all the world appear bright, rosy, and uncomplicated. There was perhaps one event, more than any other, that changed that. When I was still very young, I asked my mom a question one night as she was tucking me into bed. I had just been playing at my best friend's house and a sudden doubt was gnawing away at the back of my mind.

"Are bad guys real?"

I wept when she told me the truth, although even then I thought she meant people like Mister Freeze and the Joker, people who could not be caught, people who always escaped.

I never asked if Batman was real.

In Aurora, Colorado, a supervillain became real. He walked off the screen and slaughtered people for believing in heroes, people who, if they were anything like me, had spent years waiting for this film and paid far more than the price of a ticket just to see the beginning.

Nowadays, I don't need to ask if heroes are real. Batman is not my favorite superhero because he's smart or strong or honorable: it's because he's human. There's a quote in the Dark Knight Rises: "the point of Batman is that he can be anyone." The world does not have anymore superheroes than it has supervillains, but one man with a gun can do more harm than any hero can repair, though so many try. It is up to the everyday heroes, the little heroes living their lives as courageously as they can to make a difference. Christian Bale going to the hospital where the victims were being treated is just one example of an apparently small (and very important) heroism, but Batman does not stand alone. Everyone needs to stand against acts of terror and violence like this and do their part to show that bad men do not control this world: the heroes do.
Thank you, Brendan.

Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
012813


Monday, January 21, 2013

1984

So, I recently ran across this article on Wired concerning a high school in Texas kicking out one of their students for refusing to wear her student ID.  So why was Wired covering the legal battle?  Because at first glance, the heart of the story was radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology.  You see, like many state-funded schools, their budget is tied to their attendance.  Requiring their students to wear RFID badges allows the school to count every student in the building as present—not just the ones who were in their seats when the teacher was looking, but also the ones in the guidance office, or making out in the stairwell, or smoking in the bathroom.

I have to admit, when I scanned the first paragraph of the piece, I expected to see words like "Big Brother," "invasion of privacy," or "treated like a beloved family pet."  The last thing I expected to see was the phrase, "Mark of the Beast."  As soon as I saw those words, I had to read on, even though I had several knee-jerk assumptions.  The first assumption was that somewhere in there would be the kind of Biblical interpretation that sets my teeth on edge.  The second was that I'd see at least one book of the Bible misspelled.

As it turns out, I might have only been half right.  I did indeed see a book of the Bible misspelled.  Again.  I freely admit that this irritates me to no end.  The Bible is widely considered to be one of the most, if not the most, widely circulated book, well, ever.  How hard is it to lay ahold of a copy, crack it open, and read the words "The Revelation of John" or, simply, "Revelation?"  Singular.  One revelation to one guy.  Not, in other words, "Revelations."

There, I said it, I feel better now.

Where was I?  Oh right, Biblical interpretation.  The phrase "Mark of the Beast" comes from Revelation, one of the most commonly abused books of the Bible.  It describes a vision—a dream, if you will—and it has all the illogic and fantastic imagery you would expect.  I don't know about you, but I don't tend to take dream imagery literally.

I once had a dream that a friend had been buried alive and that I had a shovel.  Was the dream true?  Yes.  My friend needed my help.  Was she literally buried alive somewhere?  Of course not.  The dream requires interpretation because it's a dream.  The same is true of Revelation.  This is one of the reasons why I say that I take the Bible too seriously to take it literally.

So when I see that someone is taking a moral stance on an issue based on their interpretation of the situation being "the Sign of the Beast," I'm concerned that they are of the "literal and inerrant Word of God" school of interpretation.  But as I said before, I felt the need to keep reading.  It turns out that the young lady was siting Revelation 13:16-18, which reads:
Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell who does not have the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let anyone with understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person. Its number is six hundred and sixty-six.
So, numerology aside, this seems to be a warning against allowing yourself to be cataloged, so...  I might actually be with the student on this one.  I mean, it's not a warning that I would apply to the census or a student ID, but I would stand against Senator Kelly's Mutant Registration Act. And as a proud American citizen I uphold her right to refuse based on her sincerely held religious beliefs.

Now, if only the media would stop portraying all Christians taking a stand based on their beliefs as the vocal lunatic fringe, maybe we could all get somewhere with this.

Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
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Monday, January 14, 2013

360 vs AR-15

I mentioned in my previous post that I went to seminary, got my MDiv, and that I am an ordained pastor serving in the Penn Central Conference of the United Church of Christ.  I didn't always live and serve in Pennsylvania, though.  My first two calls were to churches in the same Association of the Connecticut Conference as Newtown, Connecticut.

So please understand that what I am about to say isn't a knee-jerk reaction to yet another slanderous shot at one of my favorite pastimes.  Furthermore, please know that this isn't the first thing I thought about the whole tragic mess, let alone the last.

The truth is, the Bible flip-flops quite a bit on the subject of killing.  Especially in the Hebrew Scriptures.  The  Sixth Commandment seems pretty straightforward, "You shall not kill." (Exodus 20:13)  Then again, some translations say "You shall not murder."  So, there's that.  Then there's the whole debacle where Saul didn't kill enough people and livestock.  (I Samuel 15)  But then again, David is harshly punished for stealing his neighbor's wife and arranging to have him killed.  (2 Samuel 11-12:23)  And so on and so forth.  So what should I, as a good Christian, believe about killing?  Well, as far as the law goes, I use the interpretive lens that Jesus gave us:
When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ He said to him, ‘ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’(Matthew 22:34-40)
In other words, all of what the law instructs us and everything the prophets told us can be summed up in those two laws.  Or, as I learned it at Silver Lake, if we just do three things—love God, love your neighbor, and love yourself—then you'll have a great week!  (or life, even!)  Saul failed to love God.  David failed to love his neighbor.  I'm still not sure what that means for people like Arnaud Amalric who clearly believed that God wanted him to kill the Cathars.  Except that I should note that he's most famous for allegedly saying, "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius."  (Kill them all. For the Lord knoweth them that are His.)  Or as it is often misquoted, "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out."

Personally, I believe that what violence accomplishes best is creating more violence and that the best way to break the cycle is to simply stop.  Just stop.  On the other hand, I can't in good conscience say that the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 were wrong to rush the cockpit.

Which finally brings me to the National Rifle Association and their reaction to the Newtown mass shooting.




I'm honestly not sure how I feel about the idea of protecting schools with armed guards.  I'm certainly more in favor of trained people (like the police, Secret Service, and other law enforcement personnel that Wayne Lapierre references in his address) than I am private armed citizens taking it upon themselves to protect our schools.  I'm certainly not at all sure that armed guards would actually do anything to dissuade the people that he's referring to when he says, "...our society is populated by an unknown number of genuine monsters.  People that are so deranged, so evil, so possessed by voices and driven by demons, that no sane person can ever possibly comprehend them."  And I'm quite sure that armed guards are not, if you'll excuse the phrase, a magic bullet.  Just ask Jefferson County Sheriff's Deputy, Neil Gardner.  Just ask anyone stationed at Fort Hood on November 5th, 2009.

I believe that there is no magic bullet.  No one clear answer.  Maybe part of the answer is armed guards.  I don't know.  Maybe part of the answer is restricting access to guns that can fire 5 bullets a second.  And yes, I have read the Constitution.  So if you can prove that you're a member of a well regulated militia, we can talk more about your right to own an assault rifle.

So, I probably wouldn't even be writing this if it Lapierre hadn't gone off on video games—I won't even dignify the slam on popular music with a response, after all, that's so twenty years ago.  But blaming video games for violent behavior has become standard response, despite Lapierre's claim that the media is working to hide the idea.

I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt.  Maybe he really believes that video games are the root cause of human violence.  Unfortunately for him, the claim has no basis in fact.  According to the FBI's 2011 Uniform Crime Reports, violent crime has gone down over the past 10 years.  Video game use has gone up in the same amount of time.  If video games caused violent crime, wouldn't violent crime have gone up in that amount of time?

Ok, so, that's just the piddly research I could do over the course of an afternoon.  What does the Journal of Pediatrics say?  Oh.  It finds no support for a causal link between playing video games and violent behavior.  Well, what about Criminal Justice and Behavior?  Oh.  Playing violent video games isn't a significant risk for future violent criminal acts.  Well, what does the United States Supreme Court say?  Oh.   "Psychological studies purporting to show a connection between exposure to violent video games and harmful effects on children do not prove that such exposure causes minors to act aggressively."

Please hear me.  This a more important issue than just irritating nearly every 35 year old in the country.  The fact that it is simply untrue that video games are the root problem here means that bringing it up is worse than dishonest.  It's unhelpful rhetoric serving no other purpose than to rile people up. It's a cheap pop and it has no place in the discussion of something as sad and holy and important as the memory of those who have died and the mourning of those that were left behind.

Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
011413

Monday, January 7, 2013

Helm, Warp One Engage!

Hello World, my name is Josh and I am a geek.  I'm also an ordained minister serving in the Penn Central Conference of the United Church of Christ.  I have a BA in Philosophy and Religion and a Masters of Divinity degree.  And I mention this only to point out that I've spent an awful lot of time thinking systematically about God and faith and what I believe.

Did you know that there isn't just one theology that all Christians ascribe to?  I'm aware that consistent news coverage of the Westboro Baptist Church and other, ever so slightly less extreme Christians may lead you to believe otherwise, but it's true!  There's Feminist Theology and Womanist Theology (yes, there is a difference). There's Liberation Theology, which is a Latin American response to poverty. There's Process Theology, which has some similarities Quantum Physics—if I understand either of them correctly. There's even Queer Theology, which comes out of the culture and community of our queer brothers and sisters in Christ.

These various theologies have come about because we cannot think about our relationship between ourselves and God from a neutral position—we think about that relationship from our own perspective.  Our own personal experiences will always shade our understanding of God.  And this is a good thing!  You see, God is so much bigger than we are, that we couldn't possibly wrap our minds around God's entirety.  But if we add my experience to your experience to Martin Luther's experience, to Bono's experience, and so on and so forth, we come a little closer to understanding God more fully.

So...  that begs the question; what culture shades my understanding of God?  And if I'm honest with myself, when I read Mark 13:1-2, for example:
As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!’ Then Jesus asked him, ‘Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.’
 The first thing that pops into my head is this:



And that's just one example.  So somewhere along the line I came to the conclusion that "geek" is probably the best term for the culture that I most closely identify with.  And of course there are many, many shades of geek—but I believe that they have enough overlap that geek is still the best overarching term for what I'm getting at here.

So that's what this blog is going to be about—thinking about God from the perspective of Geek.  A Geek Theology, if you will.  My hope is that my geeky musings here will foster discussion and—ultimately—add just a little more to the pile of experiences of God so we can all understand the Deity more fully.

Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
010713