Church Write-Up: Ministry Stories, Pastoral Unforgiveness, Christmas, Breed That Cow, Fellowship, Delivering Safely

For church last Sunday, I went to the “Word of Faith” church and the Missouri Synod Lutheran church.  Here are some items:

A.  Both pastors shared stories about their experiences in ministry.  The pastor at the “Word of Faith” church reflected on when he was a pastor in his 20s.  He made a lot of mistakes, and there were people in the congregation who wanted him to leave.  He met with those people, and he resolved to listen to what they had to say, without offering a defense of himself.  One person went there with him, and this person would evaluate whether the pastor had a future at that church.  This person judged that the pastor did have a future, and he calmed down those who were upset at the pastor.  That person’s son was in the congregation last Sunday morning.

The Missouri Synod pastor talked about the days when he was a seminarian, and an elderly gentleman told him that he would be eaten up alive at a conference, over some political reason or technical distinction.  But, if the pastor said he was with this elderly gentleman, things would go more smoothly for him at the conference.  The pastor likened that to us claiming that we are with Christ when the last judgment occurs.  But he also said that there is more: Christ is with us.

B.  The Missouri Synod pastor talked about the time when he was an associate pastor, and the senior pastor had a falling-out with a member of the congregation.  The senior pastor refused to visit the member in the hospital and to officiate at the person’s funeral.  That reminded me of a Touched by an Angel episode that I watched a while back, entitled “The Grudge.”  Robert Prosky plays a minister, and Bonnie Bartlett plays a medical doctor, and the two of them are at each others throats over an unresolved issue from their past.  Tess, an angel, asks the minister how he can preach about love and forgiveness every week at church, when he has so much hatred in his heart.

When I saw that Touched by an Angel episode, I identified with the minister.  He was imperfect, but he had a job to do, so he did his job, even if he fell short of the righteousness that he preached.  At church, though, I was baffled by how a minister could preach one thing and do something else.  Maybe I have become prouder and more judgmental as of late.  I myself struggle with relationships, and yet, nevertheless, it baffles me that a minister of all people could refuse to forgive, without even batting an eye.

C.  The pastor at the “Word of Faith” church talked about how he struggled over whether he should observe Christmas when his daughter was a child.  Christmas, after all, is deemed to have pagan roots.  The pastor concluded that he should observe it because that could challenge him to look at Jesus’ nativity afresh every year.  This stood out to me, of course, because I grew up in a Christian movement that did not observe Christmas.  And we were considered weird on account of that.

D. The pastor at the “Word of Faith” church was talking about how sanctification can be a slow process.  We like things to be quick, he said.  Making an analogy, he said that we like our McDonalds burgers prepared and warm within minutes, but God wants us to start by breeding the cow.  How does sanctification take place, according to the pastor?  We meditate on the word of God, and that is a seed within our heart, a seed that will grow over time.

I often wonder how one can tell if Christian growth is taking place.  I remember when I expressed my bitterness towards a fellow Christian, and he told me that he wonders how, or if, I grew at all spiritually, with all that bitterness in my heart.  That is a good question.  At the same time, bad experiences, and even bad emotions, can make me humbler and more dependent on God, and even more compassionate and less judgmental towards others.  Another observation: maybe I was happier and more carefree and loving before I felt the bruises of life.  Can I say that I was maturer then than now?  Well, Jesus did exhort us to become like children.  But I see myself as more naive then, not more spiritually advanced, necessarily.

Sometimes, my sanctification seems to be a step forward and a step back.  I think that I have learned compassion through my experiences, then I turn right around and judge somebody else.

E.  In Luke 1, Mary goes to her cousin Elizabeth after Mary learns that she, as a virgin, will give birth to the Son of God.  Elizabeth has had her own supernatural experience, as she has become pregnant with a son in her old age.  The “Word of Faith” pastor said that, when we experience something supernatural, God may send us to someone who can understand and confirm what we are experiencing.  The pastor also said that the virgin birth was as strange then as it would be today.  He said that the incarnation would be inconceivable within Judaism, and he disputed that the virgin birth can be likened to the Greek legends about gods having sex with women who then had god-men.

I recall a conference about Christian community that I attended years ago, and the speaker there appealed to the Mary and Elizabeth story to argue that Christians should be in community.  We were asked to consider what keeps us from seeking out our Elizabeth.  I had issues with that: the speaker was essentially making a story into a law.  But the way that the pastor at the “Word of Faith” church addressed the story made more sense to me: Mary went to Elizabeth because Elizabeth was one of the few people who could understand what Mary was experiencing.

F.  The “Word of Faith” pastor said that Yeshua, the Hebrew name of Jesus, means “to deliver safely.”  He said that we should recognize our fragility, and that Jesus wants to deliver us safely through our psychological problems and our debts.  A lady later talked about her own deliverance from financial debt.

Some argue that we cannot expect God to deliver us from financial debt.  Not only may we be setting ourselves up for disappointment, the argument goes, but for God to deliver us from our debt would be for God to enable us in making irresponsible decisions.  I do not know if we can expect this of God: there are plenty of people who experience bankruptcy.  Also, God has more things on God’s mind than our financial comfort.  But I will not say that God never, ever delivers people from debt.  There may be a place for hope.

Church Write-Up: Resolution, Mystery, or Both?

On Thanksgiving, I went to the Missouri Synod church’s Thanksgiving service.

The pastor talked about a movie from the 1980’s entitled The Big Chill.  The pastor was saying that it is about University of Michigan students, and, while he himself liked the movie, he could see Roger Ebert’s point that the movie had no resolution.  It was aimless.  The pastor cited this as a movie that asks the right questions, but does not quite get to the correct destination.

I read up on the movie when I got home.  It is about people who were college students, but they got older and reached middle age, dealing with the problems and the challenges of that.  One of them (played by Kevin Costner) had committed suicide, and that drew the former classmates together.  From the wikipedia description, it appeared that the movie had a lot of sex: looking to sex to find fulfillment.  This may be part of what the pastor meant when he said that the movie asked right questions but fell short in its answers.

The movie may not arrive at a resolution, but I doubt that it is like some comedies I have seen: going nowhere, such that I could not care less about where they go.  They’re just a bunch of silliness!  An existential piece about people coping with challenges, like Sisyphus rolling that stone endlessly uphill, sounds interesting to me.  I hope, though, that the movie is not just about sex.

Do movies or TV shows need resolution to be any good?  I think of the show Touched by an Angel.  There was a time when I absolutely loved that show.  Nowadays, while I still like it, I like it less than I did (and I mean at least a year ago).  You have people with these agonizing problems, and a minute-long speech by Monica, Tess, or Andrew changes their perspective and solves their problem.  Maybe I am selling that short: if I absolutely knew that God existed, and that an angel was offering encouraging, consoling, loving words from God that I could trust as true, then perhaps that would change my perspective.  Some may not be satisfied, though.  I think of some characters in the show who say, “You think I feel better now that I know that God exists?”  But Monica’s speech changes their mind, in the end.

I recently watched a movie that I really liked.  I saw Tess Harper in a Touched by an Angel episode, and, while I had seen her in a variety of things (i.e., Christy, Breaking Bad, No Country for Old Men), I wondered what it was that she was especially known for.  I found a movie from the 1980’s entitled Tender Mercies, which received Academy Award nominations and victories.  Robert Duvall plays a washed-up country-music writer named Mac.  Mac was an alcoholic, had been abusive to his first wife, and had not seen his daughter in over a decade.  He meets a woman (played by Tess Harper), and he attends church.  Still, even after his conversion to Christianity, his life is not rosy.  I liked this part of the wikipedia article about the movie:

“However, in the face of the loss of his daughter, Mac learns, in Briley’s words, that ‘his life as a Christian is no more sheltered from this world’s tragedies than it was before.’ Before finding redemption, Sledge questions why God has allowed his life to take the path it has and, in particular, why his daughter was killed instead of him. Commentators have described this as a prime example of theodicy, the question of why evil exists that is commonly faced by Christians.  Scholar Richard Leonard writes, ‘For all believers, the meaning of suffering is the universal question. … No answer is completely satisfying, least of all the idea that God sends bad events to teach us something.’ Following the death of his daughter, Mac moves forward with uncertainty as the film ends. Jewett writes of this conclusion, ‘The message of this film is that we have no final assurances, any more than Abraham did. But we can respond in faith to the tender mercies we have received.'”

This movie ends on some note of resolution, since Mac found some constructive way to approach life.  But it also ends on a note of mystery and bafflement.

Church Write-Up: Finding One's Calling

The pastor at one of the churches that I attended last Sunday was talking about finding one’s calling.  He said that we should be who God made us today rather than trying to be somebody else.  The pastor appealed to the “David and Goliath” story in the Bible and how David defeated Goliath in his own way, rather than by wearing Saul’s heavy armor, as King Saul recommended.  The pastor said that we should pursue our passions (good ones, of course) and hopefully channel them into a calling, even if our passions seem unusual; the pastor shared that his passion is tea, which is unusual in Oregon.

The pastor also highlighted the importance of receiving counsel, since our own vision can sometimes get blurry, and we make excuses for not pursuing our calling: past failure, apathy, etc.  Mordecai gave Esther counsel when he exhorted her to have a conversion with the King of Persia that could save the Jewish people from annihilation.  Yet, the pastor also made points that indicate that other people can be unhelpful, in that they discourage our dreams.  He told the story of Michael Jordan, who was but from his high school basketball team but still felt deep-down that he was meant to play basketball.

Moreover, the pastor encouraged us to try out service opportunities, which can perhaps help us to discover talents that are unknown to us.  He said that the church has service opportunities for introverts, extroverts, and even non-believers and people unsure about what they believe.

The pastor also remarked that, in some cases, work may be a drudgery to people because they have not found their true calling.  At the same time, he also said that our past work experiences can equip us for our calling by giving us skills.

Here are some personal reactions:

—-I was thinking of the point about unpopular (yet good, or not necessarily bad) passions earlier this past week.  I was reflecting about how I love the TV show Touched by an Angel, but many academic types—-including evangelical academic types—-would probably deem me unsophisticated or naïve for so doing.  There are some episodes that I used to like but did not like as much in my most recent viewing.  Still, I am enjoying some of the episodes, including ones that I used to dislike.

—-I question whether all good passions can be channeled into some profound calling.  I enjoy watching Touched by an Angel, but I do not feel called to the entertainment industry.  A lot of sweat, pain, and toil go into the production of shows and movies.  Perhaps one way that I can channel my interest into a calling is by blogging about episodes that are meaningful to me, as I have done with shows in the past.  For a variety of reasons, though, my passion for blogging has waned over the years.  Nowadays, I obligate myself to write a weekly Church Write-Up about the church services that I attend (and, to be honest, I am tempted to write these reflections in a personal journal rather than on my blogs), and to review the books that are sent to me to review, and other books that I have read.  I am required to write reviews on my blog about the books that are sent to me, and I write about the other books on my blogs to make a personal record of what I have read and learned from books.

—-Drudgery may not indicate that one has not found one’s calling.  I think that life often entails doing work that one does not want to do.  The pastor in a past sermon referred to doing chores that we would rather not do as “adulting.”  There are many mornings in which I have to drag myself out of bed because I do not feel like working on my dissertation.  But it is the task in front of me at this stage of my life, and I want to finish what I started.

—-Should I be the way that I am, or the way society says I should be?  I have Asperger’s, and I feel that I need at least to try to be like others to get anywhere in life.  And my impression is that many Christians look down on people who are abnormal or lack talent in certain areas, rather than truly believing that God can use them, too.

—-That said, I appreciated how the pastor recommended the service programs.  I may pick up the brochure that the pastor recommended.  I did not check the box asking to be assigned a service project, since I do not drive and what if it is at a place that I cannot access?

—-The pastor said that many Christians leave church or the faith due to broken relationships.  I can identify with that.  I have been disillusioned with many Christians (which is not to say that I think I am perfect, or even better than them), and with God’s command (as I understand it) that I have some affection for them.  The pastor recommended a seminar on conflict resolution.  I may attend that to learn some social skills.

—-I hand-wrote this before typing it.  I have not felt like typing on a computer that much lately.  Even with my dissertation, I am spending a lot of time handwriting, as of late.

Maya Angelou

When did I first hear of Maya Angelou?  It may have been when my Mom was a college student.  Her major was African-American studies.  She brought home some of Maya Angelou’s works, such as I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.  I was a conservative at the time, so I liked Maya’s poem that was criticizing white liberals.  Perhaps I had a sense that she thought that white liberals talked a good game but doubted whether they were fully committed to the African-American struggle for freedom.  I don’t know how much of the poem I understood then.  I just liked that she was criticizing white liberals!

I think that my Mom and my Grandma went to hear her speak.

In high school, we students had to watch Channel One, which was a daily news program.  It featured Maya Angelou reciting her poems a couple of times.  In 1993, we watched Bill Clinton’s inauguration, and she read one of her poems there.  I also saw a commercial in which Maya’s poem, “Still I Rise,” was recited, and I found it to be powerful.

I thought about Maya Angelou not long ago because I was going through the Touched by an Angel series, and she was on one of the episodes.  That was cool, that she was on that show!  I had vague recollections of her poem at Clinton’s inauguration, so I decided to watch it on YouTube.

Rest in peace, Maya Angelou.

Nixonland 2

On pages 208-209 of Nixonland, Rick Perlstein quotes the 1953 memoir of screenwriter Ben Hecht, who was describing Hollywood standards:

“Two generations of Americans have been informed nightly that a woman who betrayed her husband (or a husband his wife) could never find happiness; that sex was no fun without a mother-in-law and a rubber plant around; that women who fornicated just for pleasure ended up as harlots or washerwomen; that any man who was sexually active in his youth later lost the one girl he truly loved; that a man who indulged in sharp practices to get ahead in the world ended in poverty and with even his own children turning on him; that any man who broke the law, man’s or God’s, must always die, or go to jail, or become a monk, or restore the money he stole before wandering off into the desert; that anyone who didn’t believe in God (and said so out loud) was set right by seeing either an angel or witnessing some feat of levitation by one of the characters; that an honest heart must always recover from a train wreck or a score of bullets and win the girl it loved; that the most potent and brilliant of villains are powerless before little children, parish priests or young virgins with big boobies; that injustice could cause a heap of trouble but it must always slink out of town in Reel Nine; that there are no problems of labor, politics, domestic life or sexual abnormality but can be solved happily by a simple Christian phrase or a fine American motto.“

Perlstein goes on to contrast these standards with the 1967 movie Bonnie and Clyde, which glorified outlaws while portraying the establishment as corrupt and morally bankrupt.

As I read Hecht’s description of the older standards, however, I thought, “Man, I actually believe some of those things.”  Maybe it’s because of all the Little House on the Prairie and Touched by an Angel that I watch.  That makes me wonder if what I believe is actually true in real life, or is rather somebody’s value system that he or she is trying to propagate.

There is a significant part of me that likes to be inspired and uplifted, and so I tend to prefer the sorts of movies that Hecht talks about over movies like Bonnie and Clyde.  I don’t like movies that are too corny and cheesy, mind you, but movies that have values while still being believable, on some level.  Of course, what is believable to me may be corny and cheesy to someone else.

On Listening to Christian Radio

In our church bulletin this morning, there was a flyer for a Christian radio station.  I used to listen to Christian radio a lot.  In the days when I did not have a television, it was what I would do at night or on days when I was home from school, while I was doing my homework.  To be honest, I don't have pleasant memories of listening to Christian radio.  I wouldn't say that my memories are unpleasant, but they're not pleasant, either! 

One reason that I listened to Christian radio was to learn more about the Bible.  But I don't feel that I learned a great deal about the Bible when I was listening to Christian radio.  Rather, I was listening to predictable evangelical spiels that I had heard repeatedly, some of them pretty kooky.

Another reason that I listened to Christian radio was to get inspiration.  The problem here is that Christian radio can be a mix.  Granted, one can listen to an affirming "God loves you" sort of message, or a message that offers practical insights on how to live life.  But one can also hear fear-mongering, legalistic messages.  In many cases, the same preacher can deliver both kinds of messages.  It's like he's using a carrot and a stick, or playing both good cop and bad cop.

The thing is, as I think back to the television shows that I would watch once I got television and watched it while doing my homework, I have largely positive memories.  I would watch The West Wing, Star Trek Voyager, Touched by an Angel, Little House on the Prairie, The Waltons, and the list goes on.  I see those times as good times.

But, come to think of it, I have some good memories about Christian radio.  It's not so much on account of the preaching on it, though I do have a few good memories of that (i.e., the mornings when I would listen to Nancy DeMoss, before heading off to work).  Rather, I remember how I enjoyed listening to Christian pop music when I was driving to work.  I also remember with fondness Focus on the Family's Adventures in Odyssey, which featured stories.  Maybe I like music and stories rather than pompous, know-it-all evangelical preachers talking at me through my radio! 

In any case, I kept the flyer, but I probably won't go back to listening to Christian radio.  I learn about the Bible from blogs, articles, books, and, well, the Bible itself.  And I get inspiration from books and television shows.  I don't want to go back to eating styrofoam or (worse) raw sewage, which is what listening to Christian radio could be like for me.

Peck on Exorcism

In my latest reading of People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil, M. Scott Peck talked about exorcism.  I did not finish Peck's chapter on this subject, so I will be commenting on what I have read so far.

Peck distinguishes demonic possession from multiple-personality disorder.  One difference between the two is that, in multiple personality disorder, "the 'core personality' is virtually always unaware of the existence of the secondary personalities----at least until close to the very end of prolonged, successful treatment" (page 192).  When people are possessed by demons, by contrast, they are often aware that there is an alien presence within them.  Another difference is that, in multiple-personality disorder, the personalities usually are not evil.  In demonic possession, however, the alien presence is evil.

I had to think about Peck's distinction between multiple-personality disorder and demonic possession for a second, for I wondered if his characterization of multiple-personality disorder was correct (not that I have the knowledge or credentials to challenge him, but I have the right to ask questions).  I vaguely recalled that, in the movie Sybil, in which Sally Field played a woman named Sybil who had multiple-personality disorder, at least two of Sybil's personalities were carrying on a conversation with each other, and that made me wonder if personalities within multiple-personality disorder were indeed unaware of each other.  But then I took a closer look at what Peck was saying: Peck didn't say that none of the personalities was aware of the other, but rather that the "core personality" was unaware of the "secondary personalities".  And, indeed, in Sybil, the two personalities who were talking with each other were secondary personalities.  But Sybil herself, if I recall correctly, was unaware of the other personalities, and it was like a black-out for her when another personality was taking over.

But back to Peck's discussion of exorcism.  Why do people get possessed, according to Peck?  Peck listed at least three factors: loneliness, selling out on one's morals, and involvement with the occult.  This made me think about an episode of Touched by an Angel called "The Occupant", in which a man named Lonnie is possessed by Gregory, a demon.  How did Lonnie become possessed?  Lonnie grew up in a troubled home, so he was lonely.  A woman he met got him involved in the occult, and that's when he met Gregory, who promised never to leave him.  Reading Peck worried me somewhat, since I myself have difficulty establishing relationships and can easily find myself becoming lonely.  At the same time, lonely people can reach out to God, so perhaps loneliness can have positive spiritual outcomes.  And yet, oddly enough, Peck says that some whom he knew who were possessed by demons had an extraordinary potential for holiness.  So what can I do?  Probably seek God's protection, stay away from the occult, and nurture whatever healthy relationships with people that I have.

Peck also makes the point that those conducting the exorcism must be loving and compassionate people.  They're not necessarily perfect, for one participant Peck mentions said that he had a cold element of his personality until helping to perform an exorcism cleansed him of that.  (Peck was saying here that exorcism not only cleanses the possessed person, but it also has a positive spiritual impact on those performing the exorcism, even though the activity is draining enough to them that they usually don't want to conduct an exorcism ever again.)  Peck also says that God can use people's imperfections amidst the exorcism.  Moreover, Peck denies that one has to be a Christian to conduct an exorcism successfully, for he knows of participants in exorcisms who were atheists, plus he notes that exorcisms occur in non-Christian contexts.  What is important is that one be loving and compassionate.  Not only does that create a proper atmosphere for an exorcism, but it would also help the person who has just been cleansed of the demon, for he longs for community, so it's good when he has loving and compassionate people there to support him.

I doubt that I would be qualified to conduct an exorcism, for, although love, compassion, and empathy are within me, I can see myself getting puffed up when attempting an exorcism.  What's odd is that I hear stories from people who claim to have cast out demons, and they sound pompous, self-promoting, and spiritually proud, so I wonder how they succeeded in performing exorcisms, if Peck's criteria are true.  Maybe they're just shooting off their mouths! 

Job's Growth

I finished Kathryn Schifferdecker's Out of the Whirlwind: Creation Theology in the Book of Job.  In this post, I'll use as my starting-point something that Schifferdecker says on page 125:

"...according to the divine speeches, the order God establishes in creation is neither what the friends believed it was, nor what Job in his despair feared it was.  The world is not a safe place, but it is indeed an ordered one.  Forces of chaos and wildness are given a place in the world, but they are also given boundaries so that they cannot overwhelm it.  There is a tension inherent in such a vision of the cosmos, a tension familiar from the psalms of lament.  Job must acknowledge God's sovereignty; but he also must live with the knowledge that God's sovereignty does not exclude forces indifferent toward, and even dangerous to, humanity.  Job must submit to God and learn to live in the untamed, dangerous, but stunningly beautiful world that is God's creation."

Eliphaz envisioned a world in which human beings were at peace with the natural order, as those who are obedient towards God are blessed.  Job, by contrast, believed that God allowed evil-doers to roam freely while afflicting him for his few sins.  According to the divine speeches, neither one was right.  Contra Eliphaz, humans are not exactly at peace with the natural world, for the natural world is a scary, unsafe place, with wild animals.  Contra Job, God is not asleep when it comes to chaos or evildoers, for God limits chaos as well as the opportunities of evildoers to commit sin (i.e., according to the divine speeches, God sends the dawn to stop the evildoers, perhaps because people commit evil at night).  Moreover, according to the divine speeches, God is not preoccupied with human beings but loves all of God's creation, as untamed as it is.

Perhaps the most profound feature of Schifferdecker's book is her description of how Job grows through his encounter with the divine.  At the beginning of the book, Job offered sacrifices on behalf of his children in case they cursed God in their hearts.  Job was trying to control his circumstances----to make sure that God would not strike his kids dead.  At the end of the book, by contrast, the focus is on the beauty of Job's daughters and how Job provided them with an inheritance.  Job is no longer trying to control reality by preventing doom from falling on his children, but he's appreciating the beauty of his daughters and providing them with freedom (presumably through the inheritance).  According to Schifferdecker, Job has learned from the divine speeches the value of appreciating God's creation and of freedom, which God allows to those God has made.  Job is not seeking to control things but is letting God be God, as Job enjoys life.

Another point that Schifferdecker makes is that Job's friends talked about God, whereas Job talked to God.  There was a Touched by an Angel episode with a similar theme.  See here.  A released convict likes to talk about God and religion, but he's baffled when he experiences problems.  His parole officer Andrew asks him, "When was the last time you stopped talking about God, and started talking to God."  There's a difference between the two.  Talking about God can entail being a know-it-all trying to instruct other people.  Talking to God involves more of a relationship with God and also reflects humility, as one comes to God with his or her needs, or to hear what God has to say.

Sally Ride on Touched by an Angel

Astronaut Sally Ride has passed on.  She was on an episode of Touched by an Angel, and here's a summary of it, with pictures of Sally!

Celeste Holm

Actress Celeste Holm has passed on.  See here.  She was in a lot of things, and she won awards, but what I remember her for is the following:

----She was the Fairy Godmother in the 1965 Roger and Hammerstein's Cinderella.  She sang "Impossible? It's Possible."  See here.

----She was Aunt Polly in the 1973 Tom Sawyer movie that had Jodie Foster in it.  Aunt Polly slapped Tom for taking the Lord's name in vain when he said something wouldn't be the case if he were God!

----She was in the scene of Three Men and the Baby that had the ghost, or the cardboard cut-out of Ted Danson.  Take your pick!

----She was on a 1989 remake of Polyanna entitled Polly, which had Keshia Knight Pulliam and Phylicia Rashad.  Celeste Holm was the grouchy lady whom Polly won over with her charm, and that brought together the separated white and African-American communities.

----She was the sweet grandmother on Promised Land, a spinoff of Touched by an Angel.

R.I.P. Celeste Holm.

Four Lessons from Last Night's Desperate Housewives

I enjoyed last night's Desperate Housewives episode. Here are four items that stood out to me:

1. Tom Sciavo decided to take that high-powered job, and he expressed excitement to Lynette that people are actually eager to know what he thinks. That's what many of us want: to know that our opinion is valuable, to feel as if we are movers and shakers who are taken seriously. But many of us go through seasons (in many cases, long seasons) in which we feel invisible, or when we think that nobody is interested in what we have to say, or even when it seems as if people are jeering at our insights rather than taking them seriously. Are these wilderness experiences designed to make us humbler when we finally do get success? Perhaps things can work out that way. But I think of one episode of Touched by an Angel, "The Sixteenth Minute", which had Grant Shaud, the actor who played Miles on Murphy Brown (see here). Shaud played Ed Gold, an under-appreciated man who received a short-lived celebrity status after rescuing a woman in a collapsing mine. When he got fame, he became pompous, and he frantically sought to hold on to his celebrity status. His years of feeling invisible and under-appreciated actually did not make him humbler, for he enjoyed finally being noticed, and he wanted to stay in the spotlight. He also began to neglect his marriage, which many of us probably thought that Tom was about to do with his new-found prominence and influence. But Tom brought flowers for his wife, Lynette, at the end, and so, hopefully, that means that he will remember the important things in life even while he's a mover and shaker.

2. Susan Delfino had a lucky streak. She is a perfect match for a new kidney. She is winning at poker. Yet, she's sad. She wonders why she has good luck, whereas others have bad luck. For example, a friend she made in the hospital---who had also needed a kidney---recently passed away. And Susan is afraid that her good luck will not last.

But Susan has a talk with Roy, Miss McClusky's boyfriend, who is played by Orson Bean of Dr. Quinn fame. Roy tells Susan about when he was in the war, and a friend of his died, whereas he lived. Roy asked his commanding officer why, and the commanded officer replied, "Why ask why?" Roy told Susan that she shouldn't ask "Why?" when it came to her lucky streak, but she should enjoy it while it lasted.

I've thought about these sorts of issues before. Yesterday, for some reason, I was appreciating the fact that I was able to walk. But I was reluctant to thank God for that because that would make me ask why there were people in the world who are not able to walk. Also, I wondered how I could be secure that my current blessings would last. But why ask why? I can enjoy the good things that I have now, while they do last. And, whether I thank God or not, I can tell God about my joys, not only my insecurities and concerns.

3. Andrew has joined Alcoholics Anonymous, and so he feels a need to make amends to people whom he has harmed. Early in the series, Andrew accidentally ran over Carlos Solis' mother, and Andrew and his mother, Bree, have been hiding that from Carlos for years. Andrew finally tells Carlos what he did, as part of his AA program, and Carlos is livid. When Bree tries to intercede for Andrew---telling Carlos that Andrew got his alcoholism from her---Andrew says to his Mom that this is between him and Carlos, and that his Mom cannot bail him out forever. As Bree watches her son and Carlos reconcile from a distance, she tells Gabby that she is proud of her son. Andrew has come a long way from the conniving, self-centered jerk that he was in the earlier seasons. I think that Bree expressed a sentiment held by many parents: they want to help their children, and yet they are proud of their children when they take responsibility for their own actions and achieve some measure of independence.

I need to note that not everything is rosy, for, at the end, Carlos ended his friendship with Bree---telling her that neither he, nor his wife, will ever speak to her again. For Carlos, Andrew was a kid, but Bree was an adult, who was wrong to hide Andrew's deed from Carlos. It will probably be a hard road before Carlos forgives Bree, for Carlos loved his "ma-MA." But I think that he will eventually do so, for my impression is that he is essentially a good-natured person.

4. After Carlos learns that Andrew ran over his mother, he tells his wife, Gabby, that she never liked his Mom in the first place---that Gabby always resented his mother's continual interference. And one of the episodes in the earlier seasons had a good scene about that: Before Gabby and Carlos got married, they signed a pre-nuptial agreement, as Carlos' mother stood nearby and supervised the whole event!

But Gabby responded to Carlos that, while she indeed resented the constant interference by Carlos' mother, she came to understand it after she herself had children (which was not the case when Carlos' mother was still alive). Gabby wanted the best for her kids---she desired to protect them---and she realized that this was why Carlos' mother had interfered so often. I think that's part of growth: understanding where someone else is coming from, even when we may not like his or her actions.

In Honor of John Dye

John Dye has passed on, at the young age of 47. I always loved his character of Andrew, the Angel of Death, on Touched by an Angel. He was compassionate and wise---a soothing presence as a person passed from death into the afterlife.

In honor of him, here are links to his first TBAA episode, "The One That Got Away." I could tell when I first saw it that Andrew was a keeper! Enjoy!

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

A Comforting Presence

For my reading of Fishbane yesterday (in Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking), I came across three concepts that stood out to me. They're in rabbinic literature.

1. Exodus 12:41 states that, at the Exodus, "all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt." This probably refers to the Israelites themselves, but Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael Bo' 14 interprets the "hosts" as angels. That's most likely because there are biblical passages that present the hosts as such (e.g., I Kings 22:19).

I like the idea of a host of angels going out with the children of Israel when they left Egypt---going out to be with them, to protect them, to guide them. The children of Israel are not alone as they embark upon an unpredictable journey.

I think about the show Touched by an Angel. Tess once said that the people in the story were surrounded by angels. On an episode in which Satan blew up a building, masses of angels of death dressed in white went into the building to escort the casualties to the afterlife.

When I was in Massachussetts, I was faraway from home for the first time in my life, and I was embarking upon an unpredictable journey. I was lonely and depressed. But my Grandma sent me a book that nourished me, Chicken Soup for the Christian Soul. In one of the stories, a man is walking the streets at night, and some dangerous thugs look like they're going to jump him. But they end up running away instead. The author says that they must've seen protecting angels standing behind him. This story has been in my mind as I've walked streets at night, which I try to avoid nowadays.

In a cartoon after that story, a man is praying at his bedside, and a couple of angels in T-Shirts that say "Help Squad" (or something like that) rush into the room. The man asked for help, and God immediately sent his angels.

Why are angels popular? Maybe because they give us assurance that we're not alone.

2. There's a slight bit of tension within the Bible and rabbinic literature about who delivered the Israelites from Egypt: was it God alone, or one of his angels? When I was at Harvard, someone gave a lecture about Exodus 12: part of the passage says that God himself will go through Egypt and smite the firstborn, whereas another part states that an agent of God (a mashchit, or destroyer) will do so. Jon Levenson saw a theological development here, though I don't remember in which direction: Was it a movement towards monotheism, removing agents of God so God does the work himself? Or was it a move towards seeing God as so great and removed that he uses agents?

In Exodus 33, the Israelites had just upset God by worshipping the Golden Calf. God says that an angel will lead them to the Promised Land, but he himself will not, for they make him sick. But Moses pleads for God himself to accompany the Israelites. There's something comforting about angels being with us, but it's even more reassuring to know that God himself is personally with us, that he cares for us that much.

This reminds me of something I read about St. Augustine. I think it was in one of Philip Yancey's books. Augustine asked us to imagine if we were to go to heaven and hear that we'd experience eternal bliss, but we'd never be able to see God's face. According to Yancey, many of our responses would be "Never???", since we're relational creatures.

I watched a video about the Jehovah's Witnesses' belief about Jesus, and it said that they don't think people during the millennial reign will actually see Jesus. That sounded like a bummer to me, to tell you the truth! There's something reassuring about the Protestant belief that we'll be in heaven with Jesus. As Dauber from Coach said on the Stand, his mom is in heaven, "eating the bread of life with Jesus" (which doesn't make much sense, since Jesus isn't eating that bread, but the idea of being with Jesus is comforting).

3. The rabbis said that God was suffering with the Israelites in Egypt, almost as if he himself were enslaved and delivered. I remember a young seminary student praying to God, "When we hurt, you hurt." And something that often drew me to Christianity was its idea that God became a human being and experienced the same hurt that we do.

Does this solve the problem of theodicy? Not really. God can stop evil anytime he wants, but he doesn't usually, at least not right now. It's a mystery why he doesn't. But the old evangelical mantra of "God will be with you in your suffering" gets me through some rough days.

Unequally Yoked on Eli Stone

Many evangelicals believe that Christians shouldn't date or marry non-Christians. They call this being "unequally yoked." Touched by an Angel did an episode on this topic, which starred Wynonna Judd. Wynonna was a God-believer, and she was about to marry an agnostic. The angels helped put a stop to that!

Personally, I didn't really understand the concept until I watched last night's Eli Stone. Eli Stone is a lawyer who has visions from God, and that has led him to make radical moves on behalf of the oppressed and disenfranchised, plus he no longer kisses up to the rich and powerful. For a while, the head of the firm, Jordan Wethersby, wasn't too enthusiastic about Eli's activity, since his firm made money off of, well, the rich and the powerful. But, during this season, he has embraced Eli's righteous crusade, and he is open to the idea that Eli receives revelations from God.

It's been a hard walk for Wethersby, and that was topped off yesterday when his wife left him. His wife couldn't live with the new Jordan. They were going in entirely different directions. They were unequally yoked. Jordan didn't necessarily want his wife to leave, the same way that Christians usually shouldn't be the ones who initiate divorce with their non-Christian spouse (which is how I understand Paul in I Corinthians 7). But Jordan following the right path inevitably led to their split-up.

Where am I on this issue right now? Personally, I'm not too sure I'd want to be married to a fundamentalist evangelical who loves the Lord, since I have problems loving the Lord right now. I'm hesitant to marry an atheist, however, because I may get to the point where I do love the Lord, and I wouldn't want to find myself unequally yoked at that time.

Joan of Arcadia, Season 3

I'm posting this so I'll have access to it anytime I want. You know how bookmarks can get pretty crowded!

It's Joan of Arcadia Virtual Season 3. As many of you know, Joan of Arcadia was cancelled after its second season. I don't like the story being left hanging, so I'd like to read some effort to continue it. Granted, season 3 is not the work of those who actually wrote the series, but people in the general public can be creative and insightful, too.

At the end of season 2, we're introduced to a new character who also hears from God, yet he's not exactly good. The show's writers called him evil, but that's not really what I see. "God" did not label him "evil" but acknowledged that he did some pretty good things. For example, he rescued Joan's ex-boyfriend, Adam (whom I don't care for as a character, but that's another story).

This character has issues with God. I'm not sure if he's mad at him, or if he just likes to play games. He said God is a good debater, and he called Joan a worthy opponent. He's taken over a local newspaper, a group that monitors the police, and the school board, plus he's quite charismatic. And he may be the guy who's been vandalizing local houses of worship.

God tells Joan that he (God) has been preparing her for this serious conflict, and he hints that her goofy friends may be instrumental in helping her defeat evil, or amorality, or whatever the new villain represents. And so we see the biblical motif of God using the base elements of the world to do his righteous will.

Shows about spirituality often touch on evil, since they probably feel that they have too. And it can get pretty cheesy. I can think of some pretty bad Touched by an Angel episodes that did this (e.g., bad Monica, "ooh, the light show!"). So maybe this "season 3" of Joan of Arcadia will be good, and maybe it will not. It will be interesting to read!

UPDATE: MShaffer suggested another virtual season 3 link: mshaffer.livejournal.com/767.html

FOT 2008, Day 6

My posts yesterday, FOT 2008, Day 5 and An Addendum on God Working Things Out, had some Feast of Tabernacles themes: this life is a temporary dwelling, and we rely on God in the midst of it all.

The temporary dwelling part is more Armstrongite than Jewish, and it's based on biblical passages that treat the human body as a tabernacle for the soul, or (for Armstrongites) spirit (John 1:14; II Corinthians 5:1-4). Leviticus 23:42-43 views the Feast as a commemoration of Israel's sojourn in the wilderness, right after the Exodus: "You shall live in booths for seven days; all that are citizens in Israel shall live in booths, so that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God" (NRSV).

Israel was supposed to be in the wilderness for a temporary amount of time, before she entered the Promised Land. Through that duration, she was completely dependant on God, who fed and protected his chosen people. Jews today do not put a roof over their sukkot, but they leave themselves vulnerable to the rain, reminding themselves of their absolute dependence on God. For Christians, the land of Canaan symbolizes the rest that all believers will one day receive, presumably in the afterlife. This implies that this life is our wilderness experience. We are in a temporary dwelling, and it is rough, the same way that the wilderness was hard for the Israelites. But we trust in God and hope for something better.

I remember a Touched by an Angel episode in which Montel Williams plays a cult leader, Brother David. Cynthia Nixon of Sex and the City fame plays a lonely young woman named Melina, who gets sucked into the cult. Before she hooks up with Brother David, Melina's life seems to be going nowhere. She wants to have kids, but her ex-boyfriend doesn't. She looks for a job that involves working with children, but she gets stuck with telemarketing instead. As she pursues a better life, she gets sucked into Brother David's cult, and he takes a special interest in her.

At the end, Brother David asks everyone to drink poison grape juice so they can be together in heaven, where (in his delusional mind) he will sit at God's right hand, as Melina sits at his. Melina thinks that everything finally makes sense: no wonder she never fit in on earth! She wasn't meant to be here. She's supposed to be in her heavenly home, with Brother David. But Monica (the angel) persuades her that she's to stay on earth through the tough times, relying on God to see her through.

For some reason, we're on this planet. Of course we're supposed to be here! We're here, right? God wouldn't arrange things that way if they weren't part of his plan. And we're here to build character. Israel was in the wilderness so that she'd become humble, learn to obey God's commandments, and depend on God for her provision (Deuteronomy 8). In the Promised Land, she could easily forget God in her prosperity (vv 17-19), so God gave her the Feast of Tabernacles to remind her where she came from, as well as to celebrate her prosperity as a gift from him. And the festival can perform a similar function for Christians.

ACTS in Prayer

I'm reading Victor Kuligin's Ten Things I Wish Jesus Never Said. On some level, it's like Hard Sayings of Jesus and Hard Sayings of the New Testament: it tries to explain away Jesus' really difficult sayings (e.g., hate your parents, cut off your arm, pluck out your eyes, etc.). At the same time, after I read Kuligin's explanations, my reaction usually was: "So that's what Jesus wants us to do? That sounds so hard! I don't want to do that." Living a Christian life can be pretty challenging, even if we don't take all of Jesus' commands literally.

Kuligin really convicted me on prayer. So much of my prayer life consists of grumbling against God. Of course, I meditate on Scripture too, and there are times when God uses that to transform my attitude. For example, I was recently walking in the blistering heat, and I was complaining to God about my sad, sorry life. Then, my mind turned to Luke 9:49-50, in which the disciples tell Jesus about someone who was casting out demons in Jesus' name. That man was not a part of their group, so they were wondering whether or not to stop him. Jesus responded, "Do not stop him; for whoever is not against you is for you" (NRSV).

Jesus wanted people to be free from oppression. Being inhabited by a demon is not fun, I'm sure! I learned that from a Touched by an Angel episode, "The Occupant." It's even scarier on The Exorcist! And Jesus welcomed someone who joined him in releasing people from all that. The disciples were thinking about their group: who was on the inside, and who was on the outside. Jesus was thinking about other people. He wanted them to be free--clothed and in their right minds (Mark 5:15; Luke 8:35).

I'm glad God used that passage to communicate Jesus' character to me. But my prayers are still pretty selfish! I can glorify Jesus now that I see something glorious about him, but a huge part of me sees my quiet times as a form of self-medication, or as a way to become smarter, or as a means of entertainment.

And there's nothing wrong with that, since the Psalmist expressed pleasure in studying God's word. But I shouldn't see myself solely as a God-consumer. "God, I'm dissatisfied with you because my life is this way! Why'd you allow me to be born with Asperger's? I'm putting down 'dissatisfied' on my customer service survey!" "Okay, I'm here, Lord. Feed me, feed me, feed me! I want to be inspired! Some entertainment will help, too. And I'd also like some good ideas for my blog. Gimmee, gimmee, gimmee!"

In his prayer life, Kuligin uses an approach called ACTS: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. He states:

"ACTS...helps me to admit I am a sinner. I do not come to God with demands, calling him to task when he does not respond in the way I have predetermined. Instead, I come recognizing I am a beggar in need of mercy, grace, and guidance. When I make my confession before God, I admit my spiritual destitution and poverty. Without such an attitude, we can hardly expect God to answer our arrogant prayers. We must profess our dependance on him. Only then is his ear attentive to our petitions and requests" (217).

I heard of ACTS before. I once attended an evangelical Bible study, and we were praying within the ACTS paradigm. It seemed so artificial! I wanted to pray from the heart, not conform to a rigid pattern. Plus, the person in the group who proposed this model went on to become an atheist. "So much for empty formality," I thought.

And, for a while, ACTS will probably be a formality to me, without a whole lot of feeling accompanying it. For some time in my prayer life, I tried to use a pattern: I'd thank God for three things, pray for three people, and make three supplications. But I eventually stopped doing that. It seemed like a ritual.

But, now, I find that I complain too much in my prayers. I don't adore God that much. ACTS may be what I need to do in my prayers. Sure, there's a place for speaking from my heart, but I also should get my mind off myself, once in a while.

As far as "confession" goes, I probably won't do it the way most Christians think I should: confess a sin, and then stop doing it. Would be that I could erase pride, lust, hatred, greed, and unforgiveness from my mind! But I can confess to God that my condition is fallen and that I need his help to change. I am a beggar, after all! And that's much better than me acting as if I'm above God, as if I'm in a position to dictate to him what he should do.

TBAA: Til Death Do Us Part

Today, I saw an episode of Touched by an Angel that I hadn't seen before. It was about a rancher who committed suicide.

Why did he do that? I guess he was just plain tired of living. He had turned 40, and he felt he had nothing to show for his life.

Andrew (the angel of death) tried to reason with him. He told him that God created everyone and everything for a purpose, even if we don't know right now or tomorrow or the next day what that purpose is. The rancher did some farming, so he should know better than anyone that life takes time. And Andrew informed the rancher that his wife had breast cancer, meaning she needed his support now more than ever.

Well, the rancher told Andrew, "You've given me things to think about," then he shot himself while Andrew was walking away. When the rancher's wife was trying to make sense of the suicide, Andrew told her: "You know, I've been an angel for a long time, and one thing that continues to astound me about you humans is not that a few of you give up on life, but that most of you keep going on. Life is so hard, and yet so many of you get up every morning, believing that each day is a new day. There's some hope inside of you that keeps you going."

And, indeed, there is. There is some notion within us (or at least me) that things can get better. Or, at the very least, we keep on going because there are people who love and care about us, and maybe even need us.

7th Heaven

I watched the very last episode of 7th Heaven yesterday. I enjoyed the show, but I don't think I'm going to watch it all the way through a second time. I already know what happens to everyone. Maybe I'll just watch my favorite episodes when they come on. Right now, I'll be turning my attention to the Waltons.

When I first saw the show, it didn't make that big of an impression on me. I think it was because it focused a lot on popular kids in high school, and I didn't want to relive my high school years, since I was not popular. But, one morning, I got up and turned on the TV, and I saw that it was on ABC Family. It was an episode from the very first season--the one in which Eric was counseling a battered wife. It drew me in at that time, for whatever reason. Maybe it was because Reverend Camden had a special gravitas about him, for he displayed genuine compassion and warmth to people in trouble. And he looked good in a suit. Plus, Catherine Hicks was pretty nice to look at!

I saw the final episode when it first came on, but I didn't recognize any of the characters. After all, at the time, I hadn't seen any episodes between the first and the eleventh seasons. Ruthie had a deeper voice, and she was telling a man named Martin that she just wanted to be friends. Martin was incredulous, and he reminded her that she had wanted to go out with him for a long time. "Why the change?," he asked. "Typical woman," I thought. "She leads this poor guy on, then she drops him."

But, after I watched the nine seasons in between, my impression was a lot different. Martin was actually the one who didn't know what he wanted. He chased all sorts of women, then he finally came back to Ruthie and expected her to fall all over him. My feelings about Martin were rather mixed from the beginning. I didn't care much for him the first time he was on--when he just came into the Camdens' house uninvited, plopped down on their couch, and watched TV, when nobody there even knew him. How arrogant! I did admire the fact that he was protective of Ruthie, plus he was a strong Bush supporter, since his dad was in Iraq. But his maturity kind of dwindled as the seasons went on.

And that's the way it was with a lot of the characters. When Simon was a kid, he was somewhat of a prodigy, for he was interested in science and economics. His family called him "the bank of Simon" because he always had money. When he grew up, however, his only interests were sex, sex, sex, and he was so irresponsible! He almost contacted an STD!

Ruthie was also a good person who degenerated with her adolescence. In her younger years, she genuinely cared about other people. I think of that episode in which she confronted her father at the bowling alley about a secret she knew he was keeping (his bad heart condition), or the one where she told her brother, Matt, "Your secret is safe with me" (the secret being that he had hastily eloped with Sarah). Ruthie also had academic interests, and she asked questions about the world around her. That's why she was in a school for the gifted! But, eventually, her interests became limited to sex, sex, sex. And she become so shallow, too. In the last season, she was unwilling to leave Scotland to be with her dying father (or at least everyone thought he was dying, including himself). How selfish can you get?

Plus, after I had watched the series all the way through, Ruthie appeared less mature than she did when I had first watched the last episode. Her voice wasn't as deep the second time I saw it, for it still had that "little kid" quality.

One thing I liked about 7th Heaven was that it had a social conscience. You remember those "very special episodes" that you used to see on TV, which covered important topics like drugs or abuse or kidnapping? Well, 7th Heaven had a few of those! I think of this one episode in which a working man couldn't feed his family, and it profiled high school students who were speaking into the camera about their difficulties with hunger. At the end of the program, it provided information about the federal food stamps program. I wondered how I'd be able to cope if I were hungry. There was also a special episode on child sexual abuse, which likewise gave information on whom to call. 7th Heaven obviously tried to make a positive difference in the world.

Regarding where it was on the political spectrum, I'm not entirely sure. It was supportive of America's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, yet it had a couple of anti-gun episodes. It pretty much towed the conservative line on sex before marriage, for, even though not all of the Camden kids followed that rule, their parents upheld it as much as they could. Swimming upstream against the culture is not always easy, especially in child rearing!

I also enjoyed seeing familiar faces, for, like Touched by an Angel, 7th Heaven drew its share of actors from old shows. I saw Mr. Belding from Saved by the Bell, Jason Seaver from Growing Pains, Meredith Baxter from Family Ties, Al from Step by Step, Pete from Smallville, Laura from Little House on the Prairie, Worf from Star Trek: The Next Generation, Kenny from Picket Fences, Jack Arnold from the Wonder Years, Loren from Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (who is married in real life to the mom on the Wonder Years), and Ray Walston from, well, all sorts of shows. And some of them went on to be successful, such as Ashley Simpson and Alyssa Lohman.

And so I'll miss 7th Heaven. Of course, I watched the series in sixth months, whereas most of its fans did so for eleven years. They probably miss it more than I do! But it's a fun show to watch. And I thank those of you who were patient with my write-ups about it, as I relived the 90's and early 2000's.

What's Going On? 2

This is another episode of "What's Going On?" I'm just going to give you some odds and ends about what is going on in my life. It will read somewhat like the old Evans and Novak columns, in which one article can cover three or four topics.

How Much Should I Talk?

I have another Michael John Carley quote from his book, Asperger's from the Inside Out. This will probably be the last Carley quote that I post, since he most likely wants people to buy his book, not read it for free on James' Thoughts and Musings. Here it is:

"[T]alk for 50 percent of the time in a two-person conversation, 33 percent for a three-way, 10 percent if the other person needs to get something off his chest, and so on" (102).

I struggle over this issue. I don't necessarily look at the above as absolute, iron-clad rules, but perhaps they can be useful to me as guidelines. I guess where they are helpful is that they can give me guidance on when I may be talking too little or too much, primarily in group settings. For example, at one GRASP meeting that I attended, we had a session on social skills. Basically, we were put into small groups, and we had to talk informally with one another. Then, we talked as a larger group about what each person did right and wrong. I personally did not like this social skills exercise, and, as far as I know, GRASP doesn't do it anymore.

But, in any case, my problem was that I did not assertively jump into the conversation. I spoke softly, and I didn't interject all that often. I just did not know what to say. And, as a result, I kind of faded into the background. I was ignored. (Looking back, I also didn't introduce myself to people who joined my small group. Even without knowing what to say in the conversation itself, I probably would have been more of a presence in the group if I had simply introduced myself. And maybe that would've given me the confidence to say more).

Well, the lesson I took away from that exercise was that I needed to assert myself more in conversations. And, so, a few years later, when I had to spend a long period of time with another group, I just talked and talked and talked. I felt I had to keep on talking. I didn't want to fade into the background! And I was getting on other people's nerves.

And so Carley's quote may give me guidelines on how much to contribute in a group conversation. Of course, I don't know exactly when I have spoken 33 percent of the time, and I can't pull out a calculator right there and then to find out. But I can hopefully use my own judgment as to whether or not I'm talking too much (or not enough) and allowing others to contribute.

As far as one-on-one conversations go, I'm not going to be overly rigid on these rules, at least not right now. I've had good conversations in which the other person has talked more than I have, and I don't feel compelled to come up with gobs of things to say in every one-on-one encounter. I'll just ask the person questions to display interest in what he or she is saying, and, if I feel strongly enough to say something (as I did with that Muslim I met yesterday), then I will say it.

Obama Supporter Speaks Republicanese.

I went to an AA meeting this morning, and in walked a 60-ish African-American woman with an "Obama for President" T-shirt. When she gave her testimony, however, she sounded like a Republican. She told us that, in her early days in recovery, she thought that her fellow AA members were only putting on a show. When she saw their new cars, she assumed that they were dealing drugs. How else could they get that kind of money? But they weren't dealing. They were getting their lives on track, becoming responsible, and experiencing the blessings of their diligence.

And she talked about how that was true in her own life, for she was paying her bills and her high rent, things that she neglected before her sobriety. So why did this sound so Republican? Maybe because she was saying that individuals are in charge of their own economic destiny. She didn't act as if being black condemns a person to a lifetime of poverty and hopelessness, for he maintained that personal responsibility can bring about economic prosperity, regardless of who you are.

What she said reminded me of a story I read a long time ago in Insight Magazine, back when it was a legitimate news source. In impoverished Latin American countries, people who convert to Pentecostalism are becoming upwardly mobile, economically-speaking. Like the recovering alcoholics, they are practicing the principles of hard work, thrift, responsibility, patience, helping one another, and dependence on God, and they are experiencing economic blessings as a result.

So why's this woman for Obama? She might feel that the government should at least help people out as they try to become upwardly mobile. When I was on the bus last week, a few middle-aged women and a hippie-like college student were complaining about the Republicans. "They want the poor to stay poor," one of them said. "They don't even support raising the minimum wage, and they hate unions." And so people like that woman at the AA meeting may support hard work and responsibility, while at the same time feeling that poor people need something to be responsible with, such as good wages. Personally, I disagree with that, since hiking the minimum wage can lead to an increase in prices. But it's still something to think about.

A Touched by an Angel I Had Not Seen.

Yesterday, I saw an episode of Touched by an Angel that I had never seen before. That's pretty surprising, for I assumed that I had seen them all. It was about a rich landlord who was sentenced to house arrest in one of his dilapidated apartments, which was in an African-American neighborhood. And he was Jewish, which struck me as rather odd. Ordinarily, the show portrays minorities in a positive light.

It wasn't that the episode was anti-Jewish. The landlord's late father, after all, was a devout man who continually helped his African-American neighbors. In a touching scene near the end of the show, the landlord was weeping over his son, who had just been shot in a drive-by shooting. There was no time to get him to the hospital. Monica then asked the landlord, "If your father was in this situation, do you think that his neighbors would have hesitated to help him out? You are reaping what you have sown." But the end of the show was not that harsh, for God healed the landlord's son, after he (the landlord) had reconnected with his Jewish heritage.

What particularly struck me was the show's portrayal of the tension between Jews and African-Americans. When the landlord is being sentenced in the courtroom, he reminisces about the time when the neighborhood was actually good (in his opinion). His African-American tenants sarcastically reply, "Yeah, you mean Jewish!" In a flashback about when the landlord was a kid, the landlord comes home all bruised up. He had just gotten into a fight with African-American kids who called him a "kike."

The show was trying to reconcile the two communities through an appeal to the Exodus tradition. The landlord's father said that Jews and African-Americans were brothers, since both drew on the same Exodus tradition of liberation. (Professor Jon Levenson would probably disagree, for he emphasizes the nationalistic nature of the Exodus tradition. For him, the Exodus is more about God's covenant with Abraham than the liberation of the oppressed.) As the landlord reconciles with his Jewish past, he sings "Eliyahu Ha-Navi," a song of the seder, while Tess sings the old African-American spiritual, "Let my people go."

I wonder why there is prejudice within the African-American community against Jews. I can wag my finger at Jesse Jackson for his "Hymie-town" comment, and I can excoriate Louis Farrakhan's anti-Semitism. But their anger comes from somewhere. I remember hearing a story about a Jewish person who accidentally ran over an African-American child, and that provoked a riot! Are there Jews who take away African-American business, and that makes the black community mad? Or are the Jews simply a convenient scapegoat? In Japan, for example, there really aren't that many Jews, yet anti-Semitism still manages to exist there.