RHYTHM OF DESTRUCTION, RHYTHM OF CREATION

I’ve been watching the destruction of the Metrodome from the window of a writing studio at the Loft in downtown Minneapolis.  Although, given its status in our local theology, it should probably be capitalized as The Destruction Of The Mall of America at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, a la The Fall Of Troy or the Defenestration of Prague or any other historical mythical cataclysmic event.  For it was within these “Hallowed Halls” (the news media’s words, not mine), that Kirby Puckett hit his game-winning home run in Game 6 of the 1991 World Series, and Jack Morris pitched his 10-inning shutout to lead the Minnesota Twins to their Second World Championship in The Greatest World Series ever.

Alas, I may run out of capital letters.

Of course, the Metrodome was the scene of many failures and defeats as well.  Gary Anderson missing his only field goal of the season (the season!), and the 16-1 Vikings losing in the NFC Championship Game.  The various heartbreaking playoff losses for high school football teams, the blowout suffered by Michigan when Duke repeated as NCAA basketball champions (don’t worry; I had to look up who Duke played too).  Since there were also Monster Truck Jams here as well, I would guess that Bone Crusher defeated or was defeated by his foes. For in every sporting event, there must be a vanquished as well as a victor.

As I write this, the south side of the Metrodome is gone to my sight.  I can see the seats on the west side and a few on the south, and the steady beat of destruction goes on.  I did not witness the two explosions that have been part of the destruction, but did see the giant wrecking balls used to begin the process.  It was pretty interesting to watch at first.  The stadium is only two blocks from this window I am writing at, but the different speeds of sound and light meant for a gap between my seeing the ball hit the concrete, and hearing the thud.  I would first see debris fall from the “storied walls” and then hear its moan a bit later.

It wasn’t so much a moan as it was a thud, and as it proceeded, it became more rhythmic.  Thud-thud-thud.  I didn’t try to time the swings of the wrecking ball, but I would think that it helps for the operator to have a steady rhythm going.  A ton of ball swinging on a chain from a tall crane needs to be channeled, and a steady, swinging rhythm is one way to do that.  At times, it was like a bass beat, one that became monotonous after awhile.  I could have counted out its beat.  Thud. Thud. Thud. Destruction—whether by wrecking ball, war, poverty or hatred—is known by its flashes of terror.  But most of its work is a steady, slow grinding down of what was once alive.

The other thing I see from my window here—or rather, hear first and then look out to see—are the buses unloading school children on a field trip to the Open Book building where the Loft is located.  They “de-bus” (after careful, ignored instructions by their teachers) in the alley between Valspar Paint and the Loft. There is a rhythm in their leaving the bus and crossing the small parking lot to the building entrance, but anyone who tried to count it out would be foolish.  It is an exuberant, joyful, polyphemous symphony of sound.  The children, freed from the confines of the yellow school bus, and freed, even for a second, from order and obedience, shout, laugh and even sing.  It is the rhythm of creation, and it is a blessed messy bliss to hear it.

I have a little ritual when the buses empty.  I open the little window and stick out my head and watch. I say nothing. I do not greet the children, but just look at them.  Soon one, than many, then a whole bunch look up at me and wave or say hi. Or nudge their friends and say “there’s a man up there”. I wave to the children and smile, but don’t say anything.  The children keep up the rhythm. Some of the shy ones wave slightly and look away.  Some of the loud ones try to get me to talk (that was me at 10).

I haven’t done a thorough study, but it seems to my observation that I never have to wait very long for a child to look up.  Children look up rather naturally.  I’ve never seen one of the adults look up, until a child tells them to.  They look at the debarking of the bus, they watch to see that the children don’t wander off, but they never look up first. Children do.  That, I think, is the beginning of wisdom.

Be beauty. Be justice. Be the rhythm of creation.

Patrick

WHAT FALLS APART IS ALWAYS AND IS NEAR

I am sitting in my studio at the Loft Literary Center in downtown Minneapolis. For the last several minutes, I have heard a banging outside. Rhythmic, senseless.  There’s a lot of construction going on in this part of town, and I was writing an essay about nervous breakdowns, so I didn’t pay much attention to it. The essay centers on a parishioner in the Bronx named Anne who had a breakdown after her partner of a dozen years died and my visits to her in the locked psychiatric ward of Jacobi Hospital.  She and her partner had raised parakeets for years, and she was worried about how they would fare while she was locked up.  Would they be there when she came back?  Would they welcome her?   She was in her late 50’s at the time, and felt like her whole life was on shaky ground; her whole reality was not secure.

But then the rhythm varied, and I sought some sense of it.  I looked out the window to see that the first section of the Metrodome, directly across from my window has a big hole in it.  The pounding, banging noise was an old fashioned wrecking ball tearing down this half-billion dollar beast not yet 40 years old.  The Metrodome is obsolete; a new billion dollar stadium will rise from its ashes—or from the dust of its smashed concrete, to be precise.  The way the dome was constructed, it was not a candidate for implosion, our culture’s favorite 4^th of July method of bringing big things down.

I could call to mind several obvious connections between the destruction of the Metrodome’s world and the demolition of Anne’s moorings, the hinges of her life.  I could talk about how we always seem to find money to build playgrounds for the rich and their fans (I’m one of them) who pay to have them disappoint, while never finding enough money to provide adequate health care for those who are not rich.  I could talk about how the passes of the wrecking ball remind me of passes by various Viking quarterbacks, including a few that sure seemed to be ducks. Birds, wounded, like Anne’s parakeets.  I could talk about how everything is fragile and everything can be knocked down in our lives:  our monuments, our minds, the people we love.

But I think there may be some connections that are not so obvious, for why do I keep going to the window to look while I am writing this.  What are they? 

There is a bright winter sun today, and I cannot look long to the south to observe the demolition.  In my calling as a pastor, I am witness—and sometimes guide—to people suffering various demolitions.  Thankfully, I am also witness—and sometimes guide—to their resurrections.  The Metrodome will not be resurrected, it will be replaced.  Anne was resurrected.   That is why I trust that we humans will outlive our machines and our monuments.  I hope that that is the beginning of wisdom.

Be beauty.  Be justice.  Be hope for resurrection.

Patrick

 

 

Poverty

When I re-posted a graphic about how just a portion of the defense budget could end poverty, a friend asked a very important question:  “How, exactly?  She noted that we’ve been fighting poverty for a long time, without much success. This came right around the time of the 50^th anniversary of the War on Poverty promoted by President Johnson.  It’s been customary in conservative circles to point to the continuation of poverty and welfare dependency as proof that the War on Poverty was an abject failure.  The history of what it did and didn’t do is much more complicated, of course, but I don’t think that those of us who are progressive have done a very good job of promoting strategies that would be more effective.

Poverty, like every other social force, doesn’t have one single cause.  I don’t have the ability or desire to try to make a unified strategy about how to combat it.  But I want to raise some points for us to think about.

First of all, what has helped to reduce poverty in the US? Which means it ended it for some.  Well, Social Security greatly reduced poverty among our elders.  The gains of the labor movement brought higher wages and better working conditions.  Until the ‘80’s, when it became fashionable to demonize “welfare moms”, food stamps and school lunch and breakfast programs greatly reduced hunger in the US (it’s on the rise again).  Advances in health care, particularly when universal, made a big difference (think of the eradication of polio).

In my opinion, welfare and many government and charity programs, including food and shelter provision don’t really reduce poverty primarily because they may increase the amount of money or resources a poor person or poor family or poor community has, they don’t usually increase the amount of economic power that a poor person, family or community has.  They can give space for growth and development, they can keep people and communities alive, but they by themselves don’t build economic power.  And without economic power, or the ability to create it, it’s very hard to move out of poverty.

This is where conservatives and progressives both have something to offer. Economic power has a lot to do with one’s character and utilization of gifts (initiative, desire for education, determination, willingness to sacrifice, a commitment to save and invest).  Economic power also has a lot to do with social forces (access to capital, public investment in sectors of the economy that are developing, breaking barriers to hiring and advancement, access to information).

I’ve worked in building character and personal strength—particularly in young people—in poor communities for almost 30 years, and I see how family and cultural systems can sometimes frustrate that growth.  I’ve also seen how poor neighborhoods and poor families have been systematically red-lined by the private sector and by government.  Why hasn’t the banking industry in the US, for example, not developed a micro-credit and savings program that could design products that would make a difference in poor communities? They have the knowledge and the financial capital to do so.  But the profit margins would be low (you could still make a profit) and so can’t compete on a pure dollar basis with investments in wealthier sectors (let alone investments in derivatives of investments of other investments).

One more thing.  As much as we might think that everyone having the potential to gain economic power, there are forces at play that simply do not want economic power to grow among those who have less.  The powerful almost always feel threatened by others seeking power, and will do anything to resist that (including restricting voting rights).  Look at what has happened in many cities and states since the recovery from the Great Recession began.  Cuts in public workers salaries and pensions, cuts in education.  This at a time of great expansion of wealth in the country. And a continued expansion of our military budget, which is already bigger than the next 10 nations combined (which includes Russia, China, the UK, some pretty big spenders on bombs and warships).

I don’t think this is going to answer my friend’s question.  In fact, I hope not. I do hope that we as a country can get serious about ending poverty.  There is also a whole lot more that could be said about global poverty and what’s needed there—compatible technologies, debt forgiveness, health care, climate change, moving away from economic demands based on export and so on

What do you think?

I started this blog to talk about my passion for justice and beauty.  At the root of most injustice in the world is economic injustice.  And poverty and hunger are the opposite of beauty.

Be justice.  Be beauty.

Patrick

Sunsets on Face Book

I watched a sunset today.  Not the whole thing, but more than I have of any other in a long time.  The wind chills are dropping rapidly in Minneapolis, so I watched from the third floor of our house, which has three windows facing west.  With the angle of the sun still so far south at this time of year, the sun set between two large houses across the street, giving me a perfect angle to watch the sun descend, flare out, fade, give color to the last of the day even as the day calls to its beloved night.

Why do I not do this more often?

Oh, I’m too busy. Oh my chronic back problem prohibits me from sitting or standing in one place too long.  Oh, I usually think of watching the sun set outside, when it’s warm, but then I worry about mosquitoes, and so on and oh, yeah.

Part of the truth is that I am disconnected from the earth I walk on.  Gravely disconnected from the earth that will likely be my grave longer than it will be my sustenance.  The irony is that I can feel more connected to the world by the technology we own—Face Book friends in Estonia and Korea, talk to relatives in Chile, check the time of the sunrise and sunset from Manila to Antwerp to Valle de Bravo. And yet all these connections to the world virtually leave me less connected to the earth. Literally.

I’m not opposed to modern technology.  We own computers, cell phones, cars, plural.  They make things easier and faster in many ways.  What I do question is how much they distract us from what is real, how much time they take from us, and how they may make us uneasy with the world that is around us, especially when it’s quiet, and there is nothing we can do about it.

I checked my e-mail a couple times while writing this.  It wasn’t that I needed to. I’m not even sure I wanted to.  I just did it, because that’s what you do when you’re on the computer. 

It reminds me of the poem, The Unknown Citizen by W. H. Auden.  It was written in 1939  

The Unknown Citizen

(To JS/07 M 378
This Marble Monument
Is Erected by the State)

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be

One against whom there was no official complaint,

And all the reports on his conduct agree

That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,

For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.

Except for the War till the day he retired

He worked in a factory and never got fired,

But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.

Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,

For his Union reports that he paid his dues,

(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)

And our Social Psychology workers found

That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.

The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day

And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.

Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,

And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.

Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare

He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan

And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,

A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.

Our researchers into Public Opinion are content

That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;

When there was peace, he was for peace:  when there was war, he went.

He was married and added five children to the population,

Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.

And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.

Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:

Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15549#sthash.NSdZW6Rj.dpuf

Wikipedia interprets the poem in part by saying: “By describing the "average citizen" through the eyes of various government organizations, the poem criticizes standardization and the modern state's relationship with its citizens.”

I don’t doubt the controlling aspects of the modern state, although I can’t summon the fear of a representative government protecting the environment or seeing that there is universal health care, as some of my conservative friends can.  But I do wonder how often we stop and think about how the choices we think we make freely, especially about what we buy and use in terms of technology, really binds us to an order to keeps us from the natural order that is so beautiful and powerful.

The sun will rise tomorrow and it will set tomorrow, no matter how apocalyptic the news stations will make the weather seem to tonight.

Be justice. Be beauty. Just be

Patrick

Sunsets on Face Book

I watched a sunset today.  Not the whole thing, but more than I have of any other in a long time.  The wind chills are dropping rapidly in Minneapolis, so I watched from the third floor of our house, which has three windows facing west.  With the angle of the sun still so far south at this time of year, the sun set between two large houses across the street, giving me a perfect angle to watch the sun descend, flare out, fade, give color to the last of the day even as the day calls to its beloved night.

Why do I not do this more often?

Oh, I’m too busy. Oh my chronic back problem prohibits me from sitting or standing in one place too long.  Oh, I usually think of watching the sun set outside, when it’s warm, but then I worry about mosquitoes, and so on and oh, yeah.

Part of the truth is that I am disconnected from the earth I walk on.  Gravely disconnected from the earth that will likely be my grave longer than it will be my sustenance.  The irony is that I can feel more connected to the world by the technology we own—Face Book friends in Estonia and Korea, talk to relatives in Chile, check the time of the sunrise and sunset from Manila to Antwerp to Valle de Bravo. And yet all these connections to the world virtually leave me less connected to the earth. Literally.

I’m not opposed to modern technology.  We own computers, cell phones, cars, plural.  They make things easier and faster in many ways.  What I do question is how much they distract us from what is real, how much time they take from us, and how they may make us uneasy with the world that is around us, especially when it’s quiet, and there is nothing we can do about it.

I checked my e-mail a couple times while writing this.  It wasn’t that I needed to. I’m not even sure I wanted to.  I just did it, because that’s what you do when you’re on the computer. 

It reminds me of the poem, The Unknown Citizen by W. H. Auden.  It was written in 1939  

The Unknown Citizen

(To JS/07 M 378
This Marble Monument
Is Erected by the State)

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be

One against whom there was no official complaint,

And all the reports on his conduct agree

That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,

For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.

Except for the War till the day he retired

He worked in a factory and never got fired,

But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.

Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,

For his Union reports that he paid his dues,

(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)

And our Social Psychology workers found

That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.

The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day

And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.

Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,

And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.

Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare

He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan

And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,

A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.

Our researchers into Public Opinion are content

That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;

When there was peace, he was for peace:  when there was war, he went.

He was married and added five children to the population,

Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.

And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.

Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:

Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15549#sthash.NSdZW6Rj.dpuf

Wikipedia interprets the poem in part by saying: “By describing the "average citizen" through the eyes of various government organizations, the poem criticizes standardization and the modern state's relationship with its citizens.”

I don’t doubt the controlling aspects of the modern state, although I can’t summon the fear of a representative government protecting the environment or seeing that there is universal health care, as some of my conservative friends can.  But I do wonder how often we stop and think about how the choices we think we make freely, especially about what we buy and use in terms of technology, really binds us to an order to keeps us from the natural order that is so beautiful and powerful.

The sun will rise tomorrow and it will set tomorrow, no matter how apocalyptic the news stations will make the weather seem to tonight.

Be justice. Be beauty. Just be

Patrick

Sunsets on Face Book

I watched a sunset today.  Not the whole thing, but more than I have of any other in a long time.  The wind chills are dropping rapidly in Minneapolis, so I watched from the third floor of our house, which has three windows facing west.  With the angle of the sun still so far south at this time of year, the sun set between two large houses across the street, giving me a perfect angle to watch the sun descend, flare out, fade, give color to the last of the day even as the day calls to its beloved night.

Why do I not do this more often?

Oh, I’m too busy. Oh my chronic back problem prohibits me from sitting or standing in one place too long.  Oh, I usually think of watching the sun set outside, when it’s warm, but then I worry about mosquitoes, and so on and oh, yeah.

Part of the truth is that I am disconnected from the earth I walk on.  Gravely disconnected from the earth that will likely be my grave longer than it will be my sustenance.  The irony is that I can feel more connected to the world by the technology we own—Face Book friends in Estonia and Korea, talk to relatives in Chile, check the time of the sunrise and sunset from Manila to Antwerp to Valle de Bravo. And yet all these connections to the world virtually leave me less connected to the earth. Literally.

I’m not opposed to modern technology.  We own computers, cell phones, cars, plural.  They make things easier and faster in many ways.  What I do question is how much they distract us from what is real, how much time they take from us, and how they may make us uneasy with the world that is around us, especially when it’s quiet, and there is nothing we can do about it.

I checked my e-mail a couple times while writing this.  It wasn’t that I needed to. I’m not even sure I wanted to.  I just did it, because that’s what you do when you’re on the computer. 

It reminds me of the poem, The Unknown Citizen by W. H. Auden.  It was written in 1939  

The Unknown Citizen

(To JS/07 M 378
This Marble Monument
Is Erected by the State)

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be

One against whom there was no official complaint,

And all the reports on his conduct agree

That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,

For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.

Except for the War till the day he retired

He worked in a factory and never got fired,

But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.

Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,

For his Union reports that he paid his dues,

(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)

And our Social Psychology workers found

That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.

The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day

And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.

Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,

And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.

Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare

He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan

And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,

A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.

Our researchers into Public Opinion are content

That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;

When there was peace, he was for peace:  when there was war, he went.

He was married and added five children to the population,

Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.

And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.

Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:

Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15549#sthash.NSdZW6Rj.dpuf

Wikipedia interprets the poem in part by saying: “By describing the "average citizen" through the eyes of various government organizations, the poem criticizes standardization and the modern state's relationship with its citizens.”

I don’t doubt the controlling aspects of the modern state, although I can’t summon the fear of a representative government protecting the environment or seeing that there is universal health care, as some of my conservative friends can.  But I do wonder how often we stop and think about how the choices we think we make freely, especially about what we buy and use in terms of technology, really binds us to an order to keeps us from the natural order that is so beautiful and powerful.

The sun will rise tomorrow and it will set tomorrow, no matter how apocalyptic the news stations will make the weather seem to tonight.

Be justice. Be beauty. Just be

Patrick

CHRISTMAS MEMORIES IN A LAND THAT IS CONFUSED

I get frustrated by not getting my way as I want it, when I want it.  I can get bent out of shape when traffic slows me, or someone has a problem in front of me at the supermarket checkout.  Especially when I pay for something, I expect to have it when I want it, and even feel entitled to it.  As such, I guess I fit in with most people in our society.

The latest battle in the undeclared (but bloody, oh so bloody) War on Christmas was that some people didn’t get their Christmas presents when they wanted them.  TV news programs dutifully reported the outrage.  People whose “Christmas was ruined” or those whose “Christmas joy was stolen by a Grinch”.  I’m sure it was frustrating—and like everything else we feel we’re entitled to, there was someone to blame.  “FedEx didn’t keep their promise”, one unhappy Christmas-ite said. No recognition—at least not aired—that maybe they waited until the last minute to order, that the delivery systems were overtaxed, that weather happened, or that even—saints preserve us—stuff doesn’t work out sometimes.  In fact, in much of the world, including in Bethlehem, a lot of stuff doesn’t work out a lot of the time.  But that didn’t stop the baby being born.

One person said, “We lost a Christmas memory. One we will never get back.”  Now leaving aside the fact that you can’t have a memory of something that hasn’t happened, it makes me wonder if we’ve become a people with a skewed sense of what memory is.  Do we really cherish the memories of our experiences, or have we become so set on “capturing” memories that the thing captured becomes more important than the life event we lived?

My wife and I were in Paris for our 25^th anniversary this past fall, and went to the Louvre one day.  We got to the room with the Mona Lisa early enough so that we could almost get close enough to see it (when we passed by a couple hours later, it would have been almost impossible to get into the room, crowded as it was with hundreds of people).  Almost everyone was taking a photo of the painting, and we saw many people who never looked at the painting except through their camera or smart phone. 

That happened in almost every gallery we went to.  People walking in and taking a photo—snap, snap, snap—of every picture they could, without every looking at the photo itself.  I don’t know the quality of the photos they got, but it troubles me that they seemed so obsessed with having their machine preserve their memory, instead of relying on the wonderful eyes, brain, mind and spirit of the amazing human being they are.

I suppose the idea is that they can now show their friends and family: “See, I was there. Here’s the photo”.  As if that will either convince or awe the person who sees it. 

Granted, I’ve posted photos of our trip on Face Book, and believe in the power of images.  I also believe in the power of words, of telling a story.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, a story that creates a picture in the hearer’s mind can create a whole world.  I fear for the diminishment of language in our culture in so many ways. One of them is the elevation of the machine as the recorder of our memories, and a lack of trust in our ability to create narratives that embody who we are and what we’ve experienced.

There’s a photo (below) that was on AOL’s front page this Christmas that I’ve attached. (If I’ve broken any copyright laws, sue me). I wasn’t there at what looks to be an amazingly beautiful display of light. I’m not sure people in the foreground were really there either.  Note the little phones they have out “capturing” the event.

I don’t know how much of the experience they “got” on those little screens.  They were preserving a two-dimensional image of a multi-dimensional event.  I imagine some of them sent the image in “real time” to friends around the world, or in another part of the park.  I just wonder how much they—how much we—are truly present to the experience itself.

Just asking, as the kids say.  (Actually, they say “just sayin’” even when it’s often a question they are posing).

We took about 700 pictures on our anniversary trip, and quite a few of them help me remember. Help me.  When we sit and talk about them, the picture of St. Brigid’s Cathedral will lead us to a story of the man at the café and the man at the tourist office there in Kildare.  I don’t have a photo of either one of them.  But I have very clear memories of what we shared.

Be beauty. Be justice.  Be memory.

Patrick