The Politics of Pity

When Norman Vincent Peale wrote The Power of Positive Thinking in the 1950s, you'd think that no one, up to that point, had even had a positive thought in their life.

It was revolutionary, the way that suddenly you could actually have some control over your thoughts, and over what would happen in your life! Peale's book gave birth to a whole host of successors - one might say to the entire self-help section of your local bookstore.

But, positive thinking goes against something in human nature. There is something in us that clings to unhappiness, that wants, almost desperately, to make things out to be worse than they really are. To paint ourselves as helpless pawns in a rigged game of cosmic chess, or as flotsam in a torrent leading only to an eternal sewer.

Why? Simple. We want pity. We want to be relieved of responsibility through raising others to feel sorry for us. If we can do this - we've turned adversity into a perverse accomplishment.

It's the gift that keeps on giving, because 'accomplishing pity' traps us within its web. If we rise above the circumstances that put us there, pity will be withdrawn.

Not wanting to lose what we fought to gain, we absolve ourselves of the responsibility for our own actions. and we live there, professional victims in a room lit by flickering bathos.

Ugh.

Victimhood becomes politicized, and a cause in itself. If you feel you can claim victimization, you're news. If there are a lot of people who share your experiences, you're Big News.

If you had problems but overcame them, you're No News.

It can be a generational curse. Much like beggars in the Far East, professional victims maim their chilkdren; instead of cutting off a limb, or disfiguring a face, they imbue their kids with the certain knowledge that they're special for what they've been denied by evil design.

And, finally, victimhood becomes part of the national fabric. We're a decent country - the United States has gone to war several times to liberate others, and we've never kept an inch of conquered land. That's nearly unique; only Canada has done the same.

This decency makes us, all of us, cringe in guilt at those poor people. We want to help them, somehow.

We don't get a choice. We're forced to help, by a bludgeon of guilt, to open our pocketbooks, and to assume an uncritical view of professional victims.

But what would happen if we said, GET OVER IT ALREADY!

I wonder.

What Do We Owe the Past?

"The English Patient", Michael Ondaatje's elegiac novel (and the subsequent film) is purportedly based on the life of Hungarian Laszlo de Almasy, a nobleman who explored the Egyptian and Libyan deserts during the 1930s, and who, after an ill-starred romance in whose course he reluctantly aids the German Afrika Korps, dies of burns in an Italian hospital.

It's a well-written story, and a visually beautiful film. Unfortunately, it's as phony as a three-dollar bill.

Almasy was a real person. His claims to nobility are disputed, but his explorations of the Sahara are not - he discovered hitherto unknown 'swimming man' petroglyphs that indicated, for the first time, that the huge desert was once well-watered. He was by all accounts brave and resourceful.

He was also a supporter of Hitler, and willingly worked as a guide for the Afrika Korps. He died in 1951 in Austria.

So, what's wrong with a little bit of artistic license? Doesn't basing the main character on a real person make the story more attractive?

Indeed it does. Unfortunately, it;'s a bit too attractive, and the real Almasy disappears behind his fictional counterpart. His real story is interesting; he was a proficient desert navigator, and delivered two Nazi spies to Cairo in 1942. He could have been instrumental in forming an irregular raiding force for the Germans, much like the British Long Range Desert group, founded by Ralph Bagnold (who literally wrote the book on sand dunes - "Physics of Blown Desert Sand" was used by NASA to study sand dunes on Mars).

But the Germans didn't take the opportunity, and Almasy's role was limited to guiding small units around the flanks of Britain's Eighth Army.

So what?

Lots. The Second World War is the defining event of the 20th century, and has shaped the world we live in today. Understanding the mechanisms that were set in place by that conflict and refined through the subsequent decades is vital for charting a successful course through the dangers that face the free world.

To understand something, you have to know it. The real it, not a novelist's imagined world. And we are losing direct experience of that period in history every day. In a decade, there will be virtually no combat veterans left living. In two or three decades, the war will pass from living memory, and literature is all we'll have left.

We owe it to ourselves, our children, and not least of all the people who lived at that time to represent it accurately. There's nothing wrong with novels or films set against the backdrop of the war, but playing with facts to make a better tale goes beyond a boundary I think we ought to respect.

What do you think?

(By the way - Almasy's romance with the lovely Katherine would certainly not have occurred in real life. He was a homosexual.)

The Toughest Question in Evangelism

How do you talk about Christ to someone who already has a strong - and different - faith?

It's one of the hardest jobs in evangelism, and I'm not sure that there is a good answer, any more than there is one 'right' answer.

To begin with, you have to start from a position of respect. A devout Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist is probably already living a life, in its details, that many Christians would consider good, even holy. To dismiss, or worse denigrate that will result in the shades being drawn against you - and worse, against Jesus.

You're an ambassador for Christ, remember - and the most important thing you can do is to do what He would do. And he treated almost everyone with care, compassion, and respect. (The merchants in the temple are an exception, all the more powerful because of the contrast with his usual way of working.)

As Christ's representative, the most powerful tool you have to convince someone is the effect of Christ on your life. Quoting the Bible won';t help - every other religion has scriptures. Promises of Heaven won't help - every other religion believes that its adherents will achieve eternal life (and they usually believe that you, as a Christian will too...this is where they may feel that they are a step ahead of you, at least in 'tolerance').

What Christianity has, that no other major religion does (at least to nearly the same degree), is the willingness to service and sacrifice. Christ's example is one of dying so that others might live, and that is possibly the strongest ethos in the human soul.

But be careful - if you take that into the redemption of original sin, Adam's sin, you'll lose your argument. Most non-Christians simply don't believe it, and feel that there's an element of unfairness so glaring, blaming all of us for Adam's sin, that they see the Christian God as preposterous.

Far better is to use His death as the ultimate victory over the last enemy - death. To say that He died and rose to show us that this is what the world will be like, from that moment on, opens eyes and hearts.

The rest, original sin and all, will be learned in due time. But you need an open door, and this is one you can't break down.

You can only knock, and when the door's opened, extend your hand, leaving the rest to God.

Science and Truth

When a politician says something, we don't believe it - and we shouldn't.

When a scientist says something, we usually believe it.

Sometimes we should. And sometimes we shouldn't.

The common perception is that science is about truth. Many young people enter the profession, thinking that they'll be able to work in a rarefied purity of purpose. They imagine that the discoveries they make, small or large, will move mankind toward a better and more complete understanding of Creation.

It doesn't work out that way.

Science is about money, and it's about politics. Truth can be a convenient platform. And that's all.

1. Science is about models. We don't know how the world really works, and this side of Heaven, we never will. So we construct models of mathematical equations and chemical reactions that describe what we see. We start small, using a situation for which we know the limits, and for which we know the answers, and build a series of procedures by which we can use scientific tools - math and chemistry - to reproduce, on paper and in the laboratory, what we see. These models are proved - 'validated' - by applying them to a larger number of examples for which we don't know as much going in but we know 'where we're supposed to end up'.
2. Science is about money. It takes horrendous amounts of cash to pay professors, graduate student assistants, and technicians. Equipment also costs money, and the university or institute gets a cut ('overhead') of ten to fifty percent of the total cost of the project (overhead pays for buildings, clerical support, toilet paper...the non-glamorous stuff). A scientist applies for grants from agencies like the national Science Foundation, or from industry, to solve problems that are of current interest - and these interests are often driven by either making money, or saving money.
3. Science is about politics. It really depends on where you're from, and whom you know. If you work at a university that's 'in', and you got a PhD working for a professor who's popular, your chances of being 'funded' are good. If you're from a small Christian college in the Midwest, and got your degree from a journeyman technical college, you probably won't see a cent. The value of what you want to do is of really minor importance. You may have a cure for breast cancer but if your credentials aren't 'cool' your work won't be supported.

This may sound discouraging, and it is. The scientific world - the real one, driven by the factors that allow things to get done, money and power, simply doesn't care about truth. It cares about supporting its own.

Good things do get done, but it's not nearly what could be accomplished.

As a case in point, the cause - and cure - for stomach ulcers was discovered in the late 1980s. A researcher in Perth, Western Australia, found that ulcers were caused by bacteria, and could be cured by antibiotics. To prove it, he drank a cup of water containing the disease-causing organisms. He got ulcers, and cured himself with the appropriate antibiotics.

You'd think that he would have been hailed a hero. Quite the contrary - he was told that his research was of only limited value, because he didn't come from a big-name school, and he didn't work at a major university. The results were buried, published in a minor journal, and ignored, until an 'approved' researcher deigned to follow up his work, twenty years later.

So - the next time a scientist steps forward to tell you the 'truth' - smile, and nod.

And know where he's coming from.

Coat Of Arms

I just discovered something, totally out of the blue - we're entitled to use the coat of arms of the Polish House of Jastrzebiec.

It's a very old bit of heraldry, dating back before 999, and the reign of Boleslaw the Brave. The Jastrzebiec clan were said to be the inventors of the horseshoe - hence its inclusion in the coat of arms.

For some reason, I'm chuffed to discover this. I've never been much for family history, and genealogy bores me to tears, but having a bona fide coat of arms is something special.

Why? Is it part of some deep-seated fascination with royalty? I do admit to having stayed up all night to watch Prince Charles marry Diana, and to watch Prince Andrew marry Fergie. And yes, I was dismayed that both marriages ended in divorce. Something inside me wept at that.

I know all the words to "God Save The Queen".

But those who know me would know that I have scant respect for authority, much less a forelock-tugging kowtow to the House of Whatever.

However, now the shoe is quite on the other foot - I AM part of the House of Jastrzebiec.

And I like it.

It's making me walk a little taller this morning. I've always admired the Poles as a martial nation - their reputation during WW2 was one of reckless, ruthless courage. But I always thought 'Budek' was a Czech name. Nothing against the Czechs, mind you, but being Polish is, for me, something special.

Being Polish nobility is something very special.

It's cool.

Reality Television - What Would Jesus Watch?

On the face of it, reality shows sound like a good idea - following real people with a television camera to see what 'normal' is like for people 'just like us', rather than the sanitized and exaggerated lives of characters in dramas and comedies.

Maybe that was the intention, but the reality of reality programming is quite different. To put it bluntly - many are freak shows, either about the very rich, or the very weird.

Some put ordinary people into extraordinary situations, like 'Survivor', pitting them against one another to form temporary alliances that will later be used to allow one individual to ascend to victory over the backs of the defeated.

And some - the best - are performance shows, giving amateurs the opportunity to compete for recognition, and a possible new career. (At their best...Jesus might like these.)

We, the erstwhile viewers, are invited to compare our lives to these, and either laugh (or cringe) in thankfulness that we're not like that, and don't even know people like that, or to giver a touch of envy that we don't have the effortless self-assurance of the wealthy or the chosen few of American Idol.

Perhaps the benefit of all this is to make viewers grateful for the lives they do have, but somehow I don't think so. It seems to be mostly about judgment - we're better than they are, or why do they have money and power while we don't?

When the final credits roll, somehow it all leaves a sour taste.

What are we, as Christians, really supposed to make of this? What would Jesus do, if He walked into your living room during an episode of 'Jersey Shore'?

I suspect He'd tell you, a bit sadly, to get on with your own life, and not take the judgement seat offered by the producers. When he said not to mention the dirt in your neighbor's eye until you got rid of the veritable plank in yours, He was saying, "Mind your own business."

It would be hard to hear, and would take away some of the color in our lives - because the unspoken message of reality programming is that your days have to be larger than life to be colorful, and that the daily round of paying bills and cleaning house, with no scandal and no intrigue, is really duller than dirt. We take in the false color of what's on the screen, and the process of comparison makes our lives a little brighter.

But it's only a reflection - and a crass commercial one at that.

Rather than being a dusty mirror for Honey Boo Boo, why not be a polished lens for Christ? Why not use the time doing what He's placed before you - spending time with your family, working on hobbies that lift your heart, reading stories (fiction or non) that move your heart and change your perspective.

But how can the Diary of Anne Frank compare with the Kardashians?

It compares, and shines, with the discipline of use. When you put aside the false and tawdry, and pick up the real, your days will suddenly feel low-wattage. But as time passes, your tastes, coarsened to the undercooked rump roast of  'Survivor', will begin to sharpen again, and you'll see a world aglow with God's glory and purpose.

It's like coming out of a movie theater. Your eyes adapt to the flickering screen in the dark, close auditorium, so that when you go outside you're blinded, and everything's a bright blur.

What you left behind was fake. The brightness hides the even brighter reality of the world God made.

For you.

That's reality.

I Want A Miracle

I want a miracle. I want to be healed. I want to sleep through a night, and wake without pain. I don't want to puke blood. I don't want to face the terror of an illness that has been promised to kill me, unpleasantly.

I want to be able to walk into the backyard with the dogs, and not have to wonder if they'll have to drag me back to the door (which they have done, more than once).

I want to live.

And so far, God's answer has been, No.

It's easy to be angry, and to wonder why I hear about miracles on TV and the radio, to read about sudden instant healings that leave their recipients joyfully contemplating a vista of years. The only way I'm going to get years is to gut it out, and refuse to quit. That gets real old real quick.

Why did you say no, God?

I know the answer now. I'm supposed to talk about this, and write about it, and tohold up a light that shows that God is good, even hen times are bad.

Becasue He is good. And he did give me a miracle, even though it took awhile to realize what it was.

He gave me the miracle of being willing to carry on, and to maintain a standard of honor, decency, and fair play. He gave me examples, in books, of people who bucked up and kept going, even when the night was dark, in the faith that there would be a morning.

Even if that morning comes in the world to come.

He gave me a wife who cares enough to let me fall, and get up by myself.

He gave me a heart for faith, that I never suspected was there..

God picks all of us for a purpose, and a destiny. Fulfilling that purpose - that's up to us. But if we choose to pick up the tools He's laid before us, and walk the path He's signposted just for us, we'll never work, or walk alone.

And I am the luckiest, most blessed man I know.

There's your miracle.