Miscellaneous – Unplowed ground

Burning questions, part 1

-Why do the people in my house always open a new bag of tortilla chips even though there is still a perfectly good bag that is half full? We have FOUR opened bags in the pantry right now.

-Regardless of your position on abortion, does it make any sense at all to refer to the procedure as an instance of “reproductive health”? Isn’t the whole point non-reproduction?

-People in California have been putting avocados on toast since, well, someone was smart enough to plant an avocado in California. How did this get so trendy? You can also smear smashed strawberries on toast and it tastes quite good, by the way.

-What psychologist came up with the phrase “high amplitude sucking” to describe an infant’s accelerated pace of drawing on a pacifier when exposed to interesting stimuli? High amplitude sucking? Seriously? It sounds obscene to me.

-Cricket? Wouldn’t you be much more nimble if you dropped the bat when you run?

-Socks with sandals? Come on people. The point of not enclosing the foot in leather or cloth is lost when you cover the foot in cloth or wool.

Clash of Civilizations Revisited

I arrived in Hyderabad at 2am in the morning. My usual MO when going abroad is to withdraw local currency from an ATM in the baggage claim area. I have found that, given the nominal bank fees from my US institutions, this gives me more bang for the buck than using currency exchange booths in airports that have high fees. Alas, the ATM was out of order. Having no Rupees, I resigned myself to using the currency booth exchange option. Oddly, it was closed. Given that nearly all international flights coming into Hyderabad arrive in wee hours of the morning, the office should have been open. Alarms should have gone off, but in my usual polyannish fashion, I chalked it up to karma/bad luck/strange circumstances and figured I could use an ATM in the arrival area.

Alas #2, all seven of the ATM’s in the arrival area were “out of order.” As a seasoned traveler, I admit with some embarrassment, that I still see anything significant about this . But I did begin to wonder how I was going to get from the airport to…well…anywhere without cash. Fortunately, the officially sanctioned taxi companies from the airport take credit cards. Otherwise, I would now be living there. Indefinitely.

India is one of the BRIC countries (or BRICK if you throw Korea into the mix–that is, South Korea, not the lunacy of the Northern iteration; or BRIIC/BRIICK if Indonesia is on your mind; or pluralize it with South Africa, as some do). These are the up-and-comers that everyone who is anyone in higher education and economics has been told to pay attention to as they re-imagine our current world order. These countries, more or less (and over the last 15 years it has mostly been less) will bid to compete for power on the global stage with their growing economies and commitments to modern technology. But, as it turns out, my situation was not just dumb luck. And it shed some light on the BRIC/BRICK/BRIICK/BRIIKS concept going forward.

My India experience was a result of “demonitisation,” which is intended to fight corruption (Venezuela has done something similar lately). The government eliminated the two largest currency denominations overnight in order to crush shady businessmen and crime syndicates who were surely keeping immense caches of these large currency bills under their business mattresses. Maybe this corruption-killing is happening (I have my doubts based on some revealing conversations with commodities “brokers” in the hotel where I stayed), but the more immediate effect on the street has been a rush by the non-shady elite and the middle-class to translate their large bills into smaller ones and to cash any recent pay-checks into smaller denominations asap. The result: a major shortage of the smaller bills. Translation: ATM’s have no cash. Banks have little usable currency–i.e. there are lines at the state bank that shame black Thursday sales at Best Buy… exponentially. If you are a tourist in the country right now, you are not going to get local currency, even at the best hotels.

Of course, there is a black market, but I would not suggest using it. Seriously, don’t do it. I thought about it and even tried it for two and a half minutes. You will not be treated well financially. You may not be treated well physically, depending on who you are dealing with. Just don’t do it if you are a tourist.

You may recall Samuel Huntington’s prediction that our world has been split into “civilizations” along cultural lines rather than moving towards a globally homogenous reality. At the end of 20th century, he received a lot of push back since many thought his pre-9/11 picture of Islam v. the West was overly confrontational (this is, of course, being re-thought in light of the last decade). Many thought he was helplessly naive about the merging of minds in a globalizing world.

But now, in fact and in retrospect, he seems to have been on to something in terms understanding America’s global role going forward, at least in terms of the future of Asia. India needs to be reckoned with as one of his “civilizations”, of course, in terms of absolute numbers of people in its borders, the movement of jobs (albeit low-tech jobs) into its economy and its regional influences. But this influence needs to be put into a larger context. The economic disparity between the “haves” and “haves-not” is of a scale that is unintelligible in the west. The understanding of “rights”is made on a different human calculus. The expectations for “good” government are defined in entirely different terms in D.C. than in Mumbai.

Are humans unique?

During the first meeting of a religion class I took in college, the professor asked, “What is the point of a liberal arts education?” None of us students in the room seemed to trust enough in our 18 years of hard earned wisdom to answer the question. We sat in several minutes of awkward silence. We fidgeted and wished we were not in a religion class. Finally, the professor flashed a smile and, to our deep relief, revealed the secret: “The point of a liberal arts education is to be interesting at a cocktail party.” Ha! He was toying with us.

Fast forward ten years to my early days as an assistant professor at Dartmouth College. One of my colleagues from the Philosophy Department was giving an informal lunch time talk on his work in metaphysics. He asked rhetorically, “What is the difference between humans and chimpanzees?” His answer: “Cocktail parties”. Laughs all around. Ha! He was being clever with us.

Both of them, of course, were making the same profound point about human uniqueness (and, fittingly, in a way that only a human could). We live in an era where the connections between the species have captured scholarly imagination. Yet, while the sequence of the human genome and the chimpanzee genome show a suggestive 96% similarity, there are certain behaviors that call into question whether 96% genomic overlap means as much as the numbers suggest it does.

To press the point, a cocktail party necessarily involves fermented grain/fruit drinks and alternatives for those who do not wish to imbibe because liquor is not part of the latest nutritional fad; lots of chit-chat about local goings-on, national politics, social networks, reflections on history and the future, and the latest trends in technology; manufactured clothing that sends all sorts of signals about status and identity; etc. etc. All this to say, the cocktail party is a unique event in the animal kingdom, and for a whole lot of reasons. It requires technologies, socially complex constructs, temporal displacements, moral judgements and triviality that don’t have obvious homologues among other species. Perhaps there are some analogues, but you have to be seriously creative to believe there is anything close to the cocktail party in the rest of the cosmos. Especially, if the cocktail party is in Hollywood.

Perhaps the time has come to once again, with all due species humility, spend time focusing on what is unique to our humanness. If we are one species among millions, one that is special only by the vagaries of biological complexity or neuronal connections, then, if we are honest, we have no actual obligation to life on the planet, though we may have a self-interested desire to sustain those things that sustain us.

But the “cocktail party” view of things demands more. As many have noted, it definitely would involve an acceptance that humans have a massively disproportionate responsibility to think about the health of the planet, whatever that might mean. This is due to our unique resilience (hence, our ability to disconnect from any particular ecological niche) and our technological prowess (hence, our ability to overcome any particular environmental challenge). But it is more than this. The “cocktail party” crowd cannot help but think in moral terms that go beyond physical survival. The thought goes to “right” and “wrong”, to “who are we?”, to “what are my obligations to the other?”

Trouble in the Soul

My sister recently asked me what affects me most at my emotional core–either positively or negatively. She tossed me a softball, and I totally whiffed. The OBVIOUS answer for anyone of my age who lives in New England was “the year 2004”. Instead, after a moment of self-reflection, I said “death.”

For those who don’t live in New England, “the year 2004” will be an opaque reference, so let me briefly explain. Before 2004, the Boston Red Sox had not won a World Series since 1918. They came close a couple times, only to be denied due to some flukes of baseball (most notably a little league error by He Who Cannot Be Named in 1986). But they won in 2004. And before 2004, the Patriots had never won a Super Bowl. They came close in 1986, but lost to a team that made music videos and whose most memorable player carried the nickname of a kitchen appliance. The Pats won in 2004. Exultation. Serious exultation.

Even so, when my sister asked the question, “2004” didn’t register in any of my neuronal paths. Only “death” did. Maybe that is not a very surprising answer for most people, but it was still a bit of a revelation to me since I thought I had a clear and healthy view of death: it is certain and unavoidable, but also not the final word for those of us who are people of faith. Sad, yes, but still.

As some context, I am not a sentimental or expressive person. “Even-keeled” is not uncommonly attributed to me. I find that ironic since I can’t sail to save my life. Now admittedly, I will mist up in a movie when the main character overcomes a tough situation (Brian’s Song gets me every time I watch it), but I don’t even need double digits to count the bona fide crying episodes in my life and they are nearly all linked to death.

One of these episodes was in the days just after 9/11. My church organized a time of prayer, and I, dutifully–and not much more than that–went to intercede for those who were suffering in our country. But here’s the kicker: I ended up weeping. I didn’t personally know anyone who had died in New York, Pennsylvania or Arlington, but I was undone at that meeting. If it were not for my wife’s touch (she held my hand, squeezing it during my sobbing), I think the sorrow might have turned into something more ugly. None of those deaths made any sense.

Other deaths have hit closer to home. My brother-in-law died young from a brain tumor less than a year after marrying my sister. I kept it together outwardly when my father offered a powerful prayer in the hospital chapel, but I fell apart when I called my (at that point, future) wife to let her know that he was gone. [She is starting to play an important role in this blog post]. How could my sister be widowed when she was so young? That is a cruel fate.

My aunt, who was a saint if there ever was one, died of cancer before she got to know her grandchildren. Their lives would have been so very enriched to have interacted with her. She was a special person. On a cold, blustery day in Massachusetts, the time at her graveside was…bad, good, I don’t know, hard to process. With my wife at my side, the tears came on strong. My aunt had lived well. She was still young and vital. How was this untimely departure from the world understandable?

There are others. My grandmother–I can can still barely get through “It is Well with My Soul” in church because of how those verses summoned something deep within me at her funeral. My cousin’s husband–his charisma and vibrancy were maddeningly incompatible with an early death. The suicide of a High School friend–why were his demons so persistent and unshakable?

In thinking about all of this, I have an even deeper appreciation that, at the center of our being, humans sense that death/suffering is not the way it is supposed to be. There is something wrong with it. We were created for life; we were created to thrive. Death is the slap-you-in-the-face reminder that there is a tear in the fabric of our reality that needs mending. Death casts aspersions on everything we believe to be good and meaningful. No wonder it draws us into places our hearts and minds only go on occasion.

And I’m struck by how deep-sorrow is not only permitted, but also wonderfully enabled by the presence of those who love us deeply and intimately. The squeeze of the hand says “I wish you weren’t hurting, but it is alright to hurt. Go ahead and feel this pain right now”. The longer-than-usual embrace in a moment of weeping signals so beautifully that love is stronger than even death, as unlikely as that sounds. The steady presence of a partner by one’s side builds into us an experienced–and therefore, trustworthy–knowledge that we aren’t meant to be alone, and we are not alone, no matter how isolating our grief can feel.

A Wedding Meditation

A month ago, I had the privilege of giving a short meditation during my son’s wedding ceremony. Several people have asked for a copy of what I said. I’ve been resistant to sharing these remarks because, to me, my words seem too one-dimensional. In that hard-to-access three dimensional part of me, I wanted–I really, really wanted–to get to that place beyond the words themselves, to connect with my son and his bride at a more immediate, intimate and unspoken level. I wanted to love them more deeply in their nuptials than they had ever been loved. I wanted to capture the vivid reality that matrimony is much harder, much better and much more significant than our culture will currently admit. I wanted to tell them, both honestly and hopefully, not to settle for the caricature of the divine ideal that most marriages are.

I make a living with words, so I know that I, in fact, fell short in all four of my goals. But through the encouragement of a friend (“get over yourself”–it is a unique friendship) and my father (a more tactful, but also more formative voice in my life), I post them here. In the delivery, I went off script a lot, but here are the remarks that I prepared. (With all due credit to Mike Mason, whose Mystery of Marriage has been very influential in how I think about matrimony).

George Bernard Shaw begins his play Getting Married with a memorable observation: “There is no subject on which more dangerous nonsense is talked about and thought about than marriage”. In my brief comments now, I hope I don’t contribute too much more evidence that Shaw was right.

I can’t begin to express what an honor it is to be asked to say a few words at your wedding today and, especially, to pray for you as you move into your next stage of life. I have to say, it’s also a bit nerve-wracking for me. There is so much that I want to say, and want to say well. And there is so much that could be said that it is hard for me to know what specifically to say.

So what I have decided to do this afternoon is to let you in on two secrets that every married person knows. Here is the first: Marriage is unconstitutional. It is an obvious violation of the 4th and 14th amendments, and possibly also the 2nd and 9th depending on how you interpret them. It is unconstitutional because marriage is a massive violation of your right to privacy. Once you are married, you are going to be under a constant state of surveillance of the sort the NSA only dreams about. Nothing you do will be in secret. Nothing about who you are will be secret. You will no longer have the luxury of not being watched. All the typical disguises that you put on in public will be found out by each other.

Of course, you have been longing for this moment of marriage to come. Of course, you have come to enjoy the comfort of each other’s company. But I can promise you that you will be surprised at how formidable the challenge of two becoming one flesh is. I’m not just talking about learning how to compromise and sacrifice, how to resist returning insult for injury or how to make each other feel appreciated. These are crucial skills for a happy marriage, but I am talking about something much deeper. You are giving up your right to privacy, to independence, to self-determination. In other words, your marriage is a process of redefining yourself in light of one another. Blake–you are no longer just Blake, but you are also Leigh Ann’s husband. Leigh Ann–you are no longer just Leigh Ann, but also Blake’s wife. Your individual story is being re-written in way that is not understandable without the other. It is false without the other.

No one escapes this redefinition process unscathed. You will learn that the hurt which occurs in the spaces where we love is the most painful hurt of all.

Now I will let you in on the second secret: As you persevere in this process, and only by God’s grace will you persevere, something incredibly profound and wonderful is going to happen. You are going to become a better version of yourself, a person much closer to what God intended you to be. This is what love does, and in particular what marriage love does—it teaches us a deep humility about our shortcomings and frailties (it turns out that this happens daily, or more than once daily, in my case); it makes us dependent; its light forces us out of the dark places where we hide; it compels us to recognize that our earthly life together carries an eternal significance. This is why Paul tells us that the profound mystery of marriage is that it points to Christ and his church—it enacts a meaning far greater than others will see from the outside, an intimacy far beyond what is reflected in our movies and novels. As you enjoy the warmth of each other’s physical embrace, embrace this eternal reality every day. It will serve you well.

Blake and Leigh Ann—today you begin this process of being watched. You are ready for it.

Yet another blog

I come kicking and screaming into the blog-o-sphere. Estimates put the number of blogs in the world at well over 100 million, so it is difficult to see the rationale for another one. In my view, blogs are just one more way for like-minded people to communicate with each other while ignoring those who have a different point of view. That’s not good for any of us, and it, honestly, feels a bit dirty to participate.

Recently, I was selected as a Riff Fellow by the Veritas Forum. At our first gathering, we were encouraged to blog, not so much because there was any real need for it, but because regular writing for the anonymous public was a useful discipline for each of us to develop. As academics who traffic in the obscure language and interests of our respective guilds, we should stretch ourselves to communicate with a broader audience that may have problems breathing the rarefied air of the academy. So in an admittedly self-serving spirit, I am going to venture out into this unfamiliar and suspect territory.

The name of the blog is “unplowed ground,” which is taken from the words of the Jewish prophet Hosea. He said: “Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground.” I wish I could say that I landed upon these words on my own and realized how profound they are, but I didn’t. I came to embrace them when one of my first friends in college, Dirk Van Til, told me that if he ever wrote a first book, “Unplowed Ground” would be its title. That has stuck with me these last 30 years.

Dirk–thanks for planting a seed that has only slowly taken root. For any readers, I hope the ideas in this blog are, on occasion at least, like a hoe churning up fertile dirt.