Shaming, Blaming And Love

   

     It is, no doubt, impossible to prevent his praying for his mother, but we have ways of rendering the prayers innocuous. Make sure that they are always very "spiritual," that he is always concerned with the state of her soul and never with her rheumatism.
                                        -- The demon Screwtape, counseling the apprentice demon Wormwood in                                                 C.S. Lewis' "The Screwtape letters."


    My friend Harry wonders why God does not stop wars and disease and natural disasters.  He is slower to wonder why God doesn't stop him from being envious or unkind. Like most of us, Harry is selectively interested in God's to-do list.  Also, he's been habituated by our convenience culture. When he does consider a divine agenda, he may rest with thinking that it should just be more like his own.
    Harry is aware of these ironies. In a mellow mood, he cites himself as evidence that the Almighty has a tolerant sense of humor.  Harry is a bit of an armchair philosopher. He savors irony, and he enjoys rubbing ideas together.
    In fact, truth to tell, he enjoys a bit of an argument now and then. Certain kinds of opportunities make his antennae go right up. High among them are social conversations where someone introduces the subject of religion for purposes of debunking it. Harry loves to expound on these episodes. He does it roughly this way:

    You can see them getting ready to bring it (Harry says) almost like a dare. They say just enough to get the subject on the table, and then they declare something along the lines of  Well I just don't believe it. It's like they think God is over in the corner with his hand up, waiting to be recognized.
     I take the bait every time (Harry says). Just can't help it. I mean, religion is someone's private business, but claptrap is claptrap. They will say they are non-believers, and I will say well, since it's obviously impossible to believe nothing at all, what you really are is a disbeliever.  So, I say, tell me what it is that you  don't believe.
     And they will dribble out a bunch of stuff that sounds like they scavenged leftovers from some of those hair-styled televangelists. And we will back and forth a bit until we get that nonsense sort of pushed out of the way, and we get down to where they have to do more than snipe at other people's views, and they have to take ownership of something on their own. Then,  they will say something like I believe there is no God. 
    And I say, well, that is certainly your personal business, but I think it's very interesting that, even so, you are willing to make a declaration of faith, which is  what you just did.
    It chaps their cheeks every time, and I love it (Harry says).  Just can't help it.

    Harry has a mischievous streak. But in what he has to say there is a worthwhile nugget. A certain amount of what's nowadays peddled as divine message is, in fact,  human contrivance. It is wildly out of tune with the manifest spirit of Judeo-Christian scripture.
     In it we can search in vain for the emphasis on social justice that begins with the Old Testament prophets. In it we can search in vain for the kind of thoughtful love reflected in a statement of welcome published by a parish church in my state. It says in part:
      "--We understand and believe that faith is a matter of mind as well as heart, and that taking the Bible seriously means it need not always be taken literally.
     "-- We believe God's love embraces all persons equally, no matter their gender, race, or sexual orientation ... We believe diversity, acceptance, and inclusivity are strengths to be taught.
     "-- We believe it is important to find ways to treat all people with integrity and respect."
     "-- We believe ... that the social expression of love is justice."
     Harry can be quite colorful on the subject, especially if he's had a couple of drinks:

     I've been a churchgoer for 50 years (Harry says). I've seen people shucking and jiving past the hard parts, and talking a lot better game than they played. Hell, I've seen a fair handful of preachers talking a better game than they played. But you know what it is, mostly? It's ordinary folks doing the best they can and working hard to figure out what that's supposed to be.
     The right parts of it are nothing near the kind of loudmouthed shaming and blaming that you hear so much of nowadays.  That stuff is just plain wrong. And you know what's the telltale thing? Politicians have latched onto it. Politicians who are all about taking sides. Us against them. And free lunch, too. Easy answers:
     You just sign onto these rules that I stand for, and never mind where they came from; you stand with me against those people over there, and everything will work out just fine.
     You want to strain your brain? (Harry says.)  Try to imagine a politician running on a platform of loving your neighbor. That loving your neighbor business is tough work. At least it is for me. You have to be willing to give a little of yourself away.  It's a lot easier to call on God to fix the state of things than to think about how you might belly up to helping with it yourself.  So, imagine a politician running on that kind of message:
     Elect me, and I will call upon you to love your neighbor, even the one who's a nasty son of a gun. I will call upon you to give a little of yourself away. You. Yes, you.
     Fat chance. (Harry says.)

     Harry would cringe if accused of theology.  He would insist that a lifetime of churchgoing has come up far short of making him any kind of saint.  He would declare himself grateful for that divine sense of humor.  He would say he's an ordinary guy doing the best he can and working hard to figure out what that's supposed to be.
     I would say that some of Harry's figuring is pretty good.

Ho, Ho ... Ho?

                                                       ... and on earth peace, goodwill ...
                                                                                Luke 2:14
 
    We've had a little dust-up in our town. One of our big shopping malls decided to update the setting where Santa makes his appearances. They replaced the Christmas tree with a high-tech, interactive replica of a glacier. Howls went up, and mall management soon promised to return the tree.
    'Tis the season when peace and goodwill can be episodically scant.  Absent a major new wrinkle in the fabric of space-time, we'll soon see disputes over manger scenes, and more wrangles over the use and even the nomenclature of symbolic holiday trees.  Some folks will complain that the proper spirit of the holidays has been compromised by materialism. Others will push back against religious overtones.
    My friend Harry watches with wry amusement. He likes to consider himself an armchair philosopher. Harry says some of the stuff that goes on during the holidays is like a family squabble.
    Being human, Harry does have Christmas grumbles of his own. Being a philosopher, Harry favors grumbles that are thoughtful. One of them features The Panhandlers. These are the people with bells and buckets who post themselves at public entrances and, with relentlessly cheerful demeanor, challenge passers-by to proceed without giving. Harry is especially irked by those whose station outside liquor stores implies doctrinal disapproval of demon rum.
    He responds with an animated refusal to give. He embraces his supply of demon rum and answers the bell-ringer's hearty greeting with an aggressively hearty one of his own. Harry says that neither one of them really means it. Deep down, the bell-ringer thinks Harry is a heathen skinflint. Not so deep down, Harry hopes the bell-ringer's feet are cold.
    Harry is not, in fact, a heathen skinflint. He is a churchman. He has his own spiritual concept of the season, and doesn't want bell-ringers pushing theirs upon him. In this, he says, he can see the desire of irreligious friends to celebrate the season in their own way.  But being a philosopher, Harry adds a caveat:  The proselytizing impulse points in all directions; those friends who like to skip religious notions would be happier if he did, too.
    And so goes the season. Holiday stresses, they test us, every one. We expect that public venues will be flooded with treacly music; that one neighbor couple will festoon their house with garish lights. We know that Uncle Wilbur will have too much eggnog and drone the same old stories. Aunt Pearl's Jello salad will be dreadful.  Cousin Fawn's children will be impossible. The in-laws will keep score on our time with them. And what, oh what, to give cranky old Grandma?
    Still, as Harry might say, you can't have a family squabble unless you have a family. Perhaps our Christmas grumbles are like Uncle Wilbur's stories: Tiresome but also comfortably familiar. Yes, I wish one house in our neighborhood did not resemble an Interstate truck stop at night, but I drive by to see it anyway. Yes, I wish that Frosty and Rudolph would run far away together. But not until my grandchildren have grown up.
    The unifying thread in all the holiday kerfuffle is this: Most of us, in our own chosen way, care. I'll take the season in all its various parts.
    And I'll give Grandma a gift card. She'll like the control.