A Time to Laugh

From Me to You

I’m leaving by night.
I’m leaving alone.
I’m leaving it lie
When you waken I’ll be gone.
I would not beg for me
As I would not beg for you
Though I’d like to be
The one to see you through.

Every step you have taken
Disappears with the tide.
You’re torn up and shaken
With changing your mind.
You haven’t got the grace
To say you’ll finally decide.
And you haven’t got
The strength to stay to fight.

Those people who surround you
Only want to see you weak enough to crawl.
They’ll lie for you, decide for you
And buy up all your rights
And all your wrongs.
And they’ll try to stop your singing
In the middle of your song;
For they do not want you free
And they will not make you strong,
But only drag you down
In the hole they’re coming from.

They say you are foolish
In wanting the sun.
Say you are selfish
In learning to run.
Tell you that the darkness
Is a blessing in disguise;
For you never have to notice
If you’re sighted or you’re blind.
And they’ll do their best
To keep you from the light.

You’re more than beginning;
You’re learning to fly.
You feel like you’re falling.
But it passes in time.
I hate to see a friend go down
In flames without a song.
So I’m waiting by the doorway
But I will not linger long.

And I’m leaving by night.
I’m leaving alone.
I’m leaving it lie.
When you waken I’ll be gone.
I would not beg for me
As I could not beg for you.
But I’d like to be
The one to see you through.

Technorati Tags: Reformation Day

The Drama of Grace: Taking it to the Streets

So. That’s the theory side. In sum, if you’re going to take the Bible seriously, your drama should be different. You should tell the story of Grace. Your rhetoric must be a comedy.

The Book

I got my box of a dozen free copies today. You never know . . . . you might get one as a Christmas present from me this year. ;) But it’s weird to see so much of yourself shrink-wrapped and stacked on the counter.

Sometime I might explain in the style of Nothstine, Blair, and Copeland all the behind-the-scenes steps that brought me to that last, now-expunged chapter. Currently the book is nearly unchanged from its original 2001 form. It both describes and prescribes to religious sectarians. I argue that separatists are crafting a new drama in the public sphere. Instead of killing off their Other (which doesn’t jibe with the Great Commission) and instead of critiquing (which implies an equality that’s a little too vulnerable), religious sectarians are trying to woo the secular Other to Christ. They separate from those outside the faith in order to win them over. My BJU texts are the campus museums, the art gallery, the extension ministries, and Campaign 2000. My critical voice is very feminine. Very Esther-like. Very Christine de Pisan. I’m whispering in the King’s ear with that book — “stay beautiful, dear King” — while asking the secular scholar, “What happens if we add to the Burke canon?”

The Chapter

But living in ongoing romance is tough. We might say with an empathetic giggle, “Dating’s hard!” It’s difficult to be beautiful all the time. And since my 2001 defense, I heard a different story that wasn’t as romantic as the histories or as comedic as the Museum and Gallery. This was tragedy plain and simple.

The drama of sanctification is a key story in the Christian life. After justification and before glorification, what’s up with the still-sinning, but no-longer-condemned believer? Pick up any respected Protestant theologian or read any New Testament Text, and the drama is the same. The catalyst for my closer-look at this drama was my former grad student, Christie Moye, and her rhetorical critique of Jonathan Edwards’ “Resolutions.” A pentadic analysis would look like this:

• (Co-)Agents: God and the believer
• Act: Minister (a big word!)
• Agency: with Grace
• Scene: This earthly life
• Purpose: God’s glory

I heard a friend express that drama as “God’s going to do His ongoing work with or without me. But He invites me to join him.” John Murray puts it as “because God works we work.”

The drama I was hearing, however, rearranged and narrowed those dramatistic elements. In the past, I’ve labeled it Keswick theology. But after more study, I’ve found that there’s really no difference between Keswick’s drama and the so-called dispensationalist and the Pentecostal view of sanctification. All three are fairly close in age (mid- to late-Nineteenth century). All three are direct products of Anglo/American revivalism (but indirect products of a much older Pelagius). All three sell very well in our consumer economy. All three differ from the older Reformed and Wesleyan narratives of sanctification. Their stories are the same:

• Agent: God or the believer (it subjectively vacillates)
• Act: Kill the self
• Agency: Through separated living
• Scene: The believer
• Purpose: To get Grace/God

Kenneth Burke would talk about the idea of action versus motion. It’s the difference between sentience and habit. Only human beings can act; animals can only move. When you act, you are deliberate, aware, moral, and communicative. When you move, you are passive. Breathing is motion, but sighing is action. Burke urged human beings to act since passive habits almost always get us into trouble.

Back to the pentads above. Living in this “Kesidispiecostal” drama, you never quite know if the believer is acting or moving, the agent or the scene. If you’re having any trouble, the automatic advice is the opposite of whatever you appear to be doing. If there’s any criticism against you, it’s because you’re too passive. Or maybe you’re too involved and, thus, too selfish. If you’re sinning, it’s probably because you’re not trying hard enough. Or maybe you’re trying too hard and you need to “let go and let God.” If you’re an anorexic (the ultimate example of denying the self), you’re actually just selfish. All sin is reduced to selfishness (the bigger, biblical definition of “missing the mark” is forgotten). All Scripture is re-read and misread as a battle between the (redeemed or otherwise) self and God.

Ironically, Marilyn Manson sums it up perfectly:

So initially I was drawn into the darker side of life. But it’s really just human nature. I started to learn that everything that’s considered a sin is what makes you a human being. All the seven deadly sins are man’s true nature. To be greedy. To be hateful. To have lust. Of course, you have to control them, but if you’re made to feel guilty for being human, then you’re going to be trapped in a never-ending sin-and-repent cycle that you can’t escape from and you’re going to be miserable. Ultimately, you’re going to be living in your Hell, so there’s no need to worry about going to Hell because Hell is going to be on Earth.

The bottom line.

It’s just a bad drama. It’s tragic. God or the believer (you’re never sure which) must kill the self through separated living in order to get grace. Grace becomes a badge to be worn – something to “get” because you’re humble enough. No wonder grace becomes so difficult to demonstrate to others when it’s treated as a commodity to hoard and display. The believer fetishizes his own good works. It’s a hybrid push-pull of overt unselfish selfishness — a story with built-in criticism ready to blame the believer for doing the opposite of what he should. 

And in this Kesidispiecostal drama, separation doesn’t woo anyone. Instead the believer separates in order to insulate against an infectious world. Like a surgeon and his gloves, the believer dons his own insulating gear to protect his spiritual health. Because the dispensationalist view of salvation and the end times insists that the world is getting worse, the need for ever-increasing insulation grows. And if you have trouble, you’re simply not separated enough. For the fundamentalist, it’s that popular novel you read that is causing you harm or that believing friend who’s a bad influence. For the Pentecostal, it’s that your skirts are too short and enticing or maybe they are too long and worldly.

All in all, it’s really no different than karma.

Salt and Light.

Please understand — you’ll never find the separation as insulation drama in Scripture. Christ proved that His holiness was contagious as He dined with prostitutes and tax collectors and smelly fishermen. We are secure in Christ, and the lost and dying world needs the salt of the Christian to preserve it. Salt doesn’t get ruined when it’s in the meat; that’s what salt is for! It’s useless if it stays in the salt shaker. And light can’t help anyone — including yourself — if you hoard it under a basket.

The problem.

The end product of the Kesidispiecostal drama is a kind of solipsism. You’re always looking inward to the self to see if you’re unselfish, always (secretly) keeping score of your good deeds. It’s a trap that only pinches harder when you try to break free. Manson said it as well as anyone. The drama is hopelessly tragic.

When Kenneth Burke in his Rhetoric of Religion (mis)reads Augustine, he comes to the same conclusion as the Kesidispiecostal. I put it this way in the expunged chapter:

Thus, in this text the romantic sectarian is far from beautiful. Too encased in hazmat gear to even be seen, the sectarian kills the self as a scapegoat. Even the romantic’s position before God is insecure since the divine is both elevated and reduced to a goal. God’s grace must be earned by regularly removing dangerously growing fleshliness. The insider without proper protection might even be the worst secular outsider: the reprobate. . . .

In sum, both [Kenneth Burke’s Augustine and the religious sectarian] purge. Both confuse the action versus motion dichotomy. Both make the believer the actor and the scene. Both make the divine a goal never quite reached. And in doing so, in making God an irretrievable carrot-on-a-stick, both are recalcitrantly tragic. Neither seeks resolution but persists in the cycle of tragedy like a hamster stuck in its wheel.

And let’s be honest, who would want to be a Christian if that’s all that Christ has to offer? How depressing and futile! As I joked in an earlier post, Christ would be no different than Jenny Craig – teasing us with the unrequited hopes of being spiritually svelte.

The point.

I remember hearing this Kesidispiecostal drama after our daughter died, and I just would blink in astonishment. Someone said, “You’re obviously doing something right because so many people can see God giving you His grace.” Huh? No . . . I was feeble and weak. I cried often. I felt sad and wept loudly and publicly. It didn’t seem like I was doing anything – right or wrong.

I remember hearing this drama after some friends, who had just weathered a big storm, were blessed with a long-awaited but still unexpected answer to prayer. Someone outside of their struggle said, “I don’t understand why God is blessing them after they obviously did the wrong thing.”

No. No, that’s not it. I’m secure in Christ. God blesses whom He blesses. When He sees me, He sees His perfect Son. My righteousnesses are not the point. I don’t earn God’s grace by being more unselfish or by straining at humility (an oxymoron). I already have it and I need to give it away. Nothing’s in peril. I’m safe.

When I rock my sons to sleep, I sing them a little song that helps me remember all this. The poetry isn’t great, so I’ll just summarize the last line: “you are good just like you should be because Jesus makes you so.” Every time I sing it, the prodigal’s brother haunts me. You remember him — that good son who works so hard. Yes, he would scold me: “No, he’s not good at all. He’s totally rotten. He needs to do good.” But that’s not it. The thing that saves my sons is the same thing that saves me — God’s love through Christ. All of us are totally incapable (not totally rotten) to do good outside of God’s love.

You see, sanctification is something God starts and accomplishes and something we join. God sets us apart (a.k.a. “sanctifies” or ”separates” us), so any external separation is at best a distraction and at worst a hedge. How will others know that we are Christ’s disciples? Not because we look peculiar or rich or professional or neat! But because we love one another. You just can’t love anyone in tragedy because you’re too worried about your own safety.

When you realize you’re safe in God’s love because of Christ, everything changes. You don’t stay stuck in Romans 7, but you can go on to relish the rest of the book. It’s easy to do the right thing. It’s easy to eat that beautifully catered meal in your Father’s house and invite others in to share your Father’s generousity.

It’s all a divine comedy. It’s a gift. Totally unearned.

And that is contagious.

Technorati Tags: Kenneth Burke, Rhetorical Criticism, Productive criticism, Burkean comedy, comic correction, tragedy,  Grace, pentad, dramatistic criticism, Keswick, dispensationalism, pentecostal

The Drama of Grace: A Pentadic Analysis

I woke up with this on my mind this morning. I’m going to write it out. This is exactly what the dropped chapter of my book was about, if you’re ever curious, but this will be in normal talk (not weird geek-speak).

Rhetorical Criticism

As with any academic discipline, rhetorical criticism has several “branches.” There’s the Neo-Aristotelian sort that reinterprets and reduces Aristotle to effectiveness and analyzes a given example of dead-white-guy talk against the five canon (invention, style, delivery, organization . . . and what was that other one? Oh yes, memory!). Most Neo-Aristotelian stuff was a history lesson that diverted away from the text altogether. So Edwin Black came along in 1952 and said, “Hey! What happened to the speeches? And why are we only talking about the effective ones. Let’s find the ’strange and moving’ ones.”

And the discipline really blossomed from there. We still have the historians who painfully and carefully reconstruct the context of particular rhetorical situations. We’ve got close-textual guys who talk about the text, the whole text, and nothing but the text; they see speeches like literature — beautiful works to be unfolded and appreciated. We’ve got ideological critics (Marxists, feminists, etc.) who identify and judge the power discourse in all sorts of texts (buildings, ads, recipes) against a particular set of values. I’m, of course, being overly reductionistic about this, but it is a blog post.

Kenneth Burke 

These are all my teachers. I had a Neo-Aristotelian. I had a Edwin Black sort. I had a bunch of historians. I had a close-textual guy. I had a a few ideological dudes. But I put most of my money on Burkean criticism.

Kenneth Burke looked at the drama of a given text. His pentad is rather familiar: agent (who?), act (what?), agency (how?), scene (where?), purpose (why?). But the answers to those questions are never as simple as the speaker, speaking, on TV, in America, to get votes. Burke wanted us to get behind those immediate details and see what drama the speaker is re-creating. What’s his story?

And . . . there are basically two: tragedy and comedy. The purpose of tragedy is to purify a person or group through some kind of death (literal or figurative). Tragedy needs a scapegoat to take the guilt and punishment for everyone else to be pure. Burke argued that all human endeavor was bent toward tragedy. We want perfection, we fall short (Paul’s lingo, not Burke’s), we look around for someone to blame (the Jews, the poor, the oddball, the dissident), we expunge/punish/kill that person, and we’re perfect again! Which, as you can guess, just reboots the whole process. If that sounds somewhat familiar to Christian ears, it should. Burke had a bit of a morbid but agnostic curiousity with Christian theology (to him, it was the best example of rhetoric in the West. To take an infinite God and explain Him to finite creatures!), and he saw Christ’s death as the archetype for tragedy (he was wrong, but I’ll get to that later).

Burke was disappointed in tragedy. He saw it too much. Human beings too easily throw their own “under the bus.” Deeply disturbed by what he read in Mein Kampf, he proposed comedy instead. In comedy, there is no expunging or punishing or killing; there’s correcting and critiquing and laughing at the flaws we all share. Rather than reach for perfection, poke fun at human foibles. Rather than point fingers at the weirdo in the corner, look inside at yourself and see your own problems in him. Rather than kill off the unsavory element, correct and educate. We’re all fools, Burke assumed, and we all need critique.

Comedy isn’t ignorant or hypocritical or permissive or forced unity. It can get heated. It can get intense. But Burke urged us to see our “others” as adversaries, not enemies. You kill off your enemies because they are evil. But you argue with and correct your adversaries because they are simply mistaken. Grant always reminds me of this when I get too intense: “Honey, they aren’t evil, just mistaken.” Ack — I hate it when he listens to me. ;)

A Christian View

Burke got it wrong when he concluded that Christianity originated tragedy. And that’s why I picked up Walter Wink in the first place. In describing his “Myth of Redemptive Violence,” Wink finds tragedy’s pagan roots. Pagan creation myths, for instance, describe our beginnings as starting with death and chaos and violence and with life springing from that tragedy. God tells the story differently. His world began as “very good,” and human beings messed it up.

At the cross, however, Christ “finished” the story of tragedy. He turned us all into comedians. The debt was paid. Sacrifice was over. The law of love was restored. We believers were “very good” again in the eyes of God.

In other words, God’s story of redemption is a comedy. Burke didn’t know it. He knew it was possible and assumed we could only get a glimpse of that comedy every so often. But in Christ, there’s no need to kill or expunge or punish. We are complete in Him. It is finished.

So Grace is a totally different drama. It is Burkean comedy. The Gospel is the opposite of pagan tragedy in every way.

The Drama of Grace

And when you look at the stories in Scripture, every one of them is a comedy. Every one is about Grace in Christ. Tragedy is a pagan perversion. It is all a human can imagine outside of God.

Awhile back a friend brought over her favorite Bollywood movie. I had never seen one before. The production values were impressive. Colorful costumes, lively music. She told me that all the Bollywood stories are the same:

• Boy grows up.
• Father arranges marriage for boy within the caste.
• Boy meets girl outside of caste.
• Boy and girl are married.
• Father rejects boy. “You are dead to me.” Father concludes.
• Boy leaves for London with wife. Boy builds a successful, happy life which should make his father proud.
• Boy returns to Father. Boy begs for forgiveness. “I am dirt. You are a god to me.” Or something similar.
• Father very reluctantly half-forgives him.
• The end.

Compare that to God’s version — the Prodigal Son.

• Boy grows up.
• Boy leaves Father with his inheritance.
• Boy blows all his money and ends up living with swine.
• Boy figures life as his Father’s servant is better than this.
• Boy returns, prepared to say he’s dirt.
• Father, who has been looking for him, sees him returning and calls the caterer and presses a new Armani suit for him.
• The end.

It’s entirely different story. The “good son” — the one who stayed around and thought his father loved him for how he had worked for him all these years — was still stuck in tragedy. Just like the workers who worked all day long for their pay. They thought it was about them. It wasn’t. It was about the Father’s generous love. The story of Grace is God’s story. It’s the Gospel.

But . . . .

You may be thinking, “Yeah, but, Camille. I don’t buy it. You were mean to me. You said something ugly about so-n-so. You talk about Grace but you don’t live it out. You’re ruining God’s grace by __________.”

Yeah. I mess up. You’re right. I was sorry then, and I still am. But honestly, rather than hoisting me on my own petard, you’re proving my point. If this story were about me, you’d need to throw it out because I’m just totally unable to cut it (tragic stories by their very nature rise and fall on human consistency. If you hear demands to be consistent, look for the tragic mechanism.). But it’s not about me getting it right all the time. We’re all prodigals (even the good son that stayed behind was a prodigal because he didn’t know that the Father just loved him because the Father was good. The son thought the Father loved him because the son did good.). We all end up with the swine.

But living with the swine doesn’t ruin God’s Grace at all. I can’t ruin it. It’s not about me. I can’t let it in and out by my actions. It just is. I can live in it and I should. I mean, nobody wants to dine on swill, but sometimes we’re too stupid (not evil!) to know any better. And I’m still the Father’s child even sitting with the hogs.

What Grace Isn’t

I’ve perceived some talk that presumes Grace is saying “please” or being calm or smiling while you punch someone in the throat. Or Christian rhetoric is always polite and mannerly and well-groomed. No, Grace isn’t a function of style. It’s not just nice. It’s a whole new story. A whole new drama. A completely different rhetoric.

One of the most gracious stories in the Gospels is Christ’s driving out the money changers out of the temple. That was our story last week in Children’s Church. As we colored the picture and talked about it, a little girl across from me observed that the money changer looked very, very angry. I’m sure he thought that Christ wasn’t full of Grace at all. Now, we all know He was! Christ was not being “nice.” He didn’t say “please.” He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t calm. But angrily and forcefully driving out the corruption from His Father’s House was the most gracious thing He could have done. It was shocking! But it was comic correction (to use the Burkean vocabulary).

The Story

And this has been my goal since my professor explained it to me way back when. How can I make this event into a comedy? Or, better yet, how can I make this a Grace story? How can I tell this in the light of the Gospel?

When our daughter died, I read a lot of stories from moms who described their lost children as “too good for this world.” I thought, “No. That’s not it. That’s deifying the child — sacrificing her for this lousy world. Christ already finished that.” And I’ve tried to tell Elise’s story as a comedy. That doesn’t mean you end up laughing at the end. It means that her death is not a tragedy that purifies me, but a horrible event that God has made into something beautiful (hence the name of this blog).

When God blessed us with our sons, we were thrown into a tailspin. All this praying for children, now what? How do we raise them? God brought us to understand that instead of expunging evil from their lives or treating them as a sacrifice for our sins, Grant and I must live out the Gospel in our parenting. Correcting, of course, but never expunging or rejecting them based on their mistakes. Our actions or their goodness doesn’t save them, after all; Christ does!

There are more stories that I could relate. Some are too fresh still. I fail often, I assure you. And I’ll do it again. God, I believe, is teasing out this drama of Grace all the time. I mean, it’s one thing to tell the story of Grace when you’ve got it altogether. But how do you tell the story when you’re the scapegoat in someone else’s drama? That’s a toughie. And I’m still working on that one. . . . Christ does pretty well with that though.

So I’m trying to tell the stories of my life as the drama of Grace — as corrective comedies that point toward God’s goodness. So . . . what’s your story?

Technorati Tags: Kenneth Burke, Rhetorical Criticism, Productive criticism, Burkean comedy, comic correction, tragedy, stillbirth, Grace, pentad, dramatistic criticism

“A Singing Zoo”

Technorati Tags: Denyse Graves, Elmo, Lullaby, Sesame Street

Paul’s Appeal to His Children

I found this in my reading this morning. I love how God plans ahead even in what I’ll be reading for a particular day. It’s from Tom Wright’s Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians.

GALATIANS 4.12-20 Paul’s Appeal to His Children
Become like me! — because I became like you, my dear family. This is my plea to you. You didn’t wrong me: no, you know that it was through bodily weakness that I announced the gospel to you in the first place. You didn’t despise or ridicule me, even though my condition was quite a test for you, but you welcomed me as if I were God’s angel, as if I were the Messiah, Jesus! What’s happened to the blessing you had then? Yes, I can testify that you would have torn out your eyes, if you’d been able to, and given them to me. So have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?
The other lot are eager for you, but it’s not in a good cause. They want to shut you out, so that you will then be eager for them. Well, it’s always good to be eager in a good cause, and not only when I’m there with you. My children — I seem to he in labour with you all over again, until the Messiah is fully formed in you! I wish I were there with you right now, and could change my tone of voice. I really am at a loss about you.

The French teacher was a strict disciplinarian. We weren’t allowed to speak a word of English during the classes, and neither did he. Everything, even trivial comments or requests, had to be made in French. He was determined that we would not only learn to read, write and speak in French, but come to think in it as well.

So we were all the more startled when one day he walked into the class, stood in front of us, and quietly spoke in English. We’d never heard him do that before. He was very angry. We had all done very badly in our examination the previous week. The only way he could make the point with sufficient shock value was to break his normal pattern and to talk in English, as though he were saying to us, “You’ve done so badly in French that maybe I can’t even speak to you in it any more.” It made a deep impression. Then, after a few minutes, he resumed the normal lesson.

This is the point in Galatians where Paul, as it were, stops talking theology, breaks off his train of thought, and speaks in quite a different way to his surprised hearers. Up until this point, at least since 2.15, he has been mounting a step-by-step argument, requiring his hearers (not to mention his readers 2,000 years later!) to follow it closely and think hard. Now, quite suddenly, like a teacher stopping the lesson, coming to the front of the class, taking off his spectacles and speaking to the pupils directly, he tells them what he’s thinking, how it feels, what sort of thoughts are rushing through his head at a more personal level. This is a heart-to-heart moment. Almost every line is an appeal to friendship, to family loyalty, to a mutual bond established by their common experience of what God has done for them together.

It all goes back to the time when Paul first arrived in Galatia. He was in bad shape. We don’t know what the problem was: some think he was sick, others that he had been badly beaten in a recent persecution. (If he was sick, we don’t know what sort of sickness it was, though there has been a lot of speculation on the matter.) In any case, his physical condition when he arrived was so bad that it was quite off-putting to the Galatians. But this didn’t stop them from welcoming him; in fact, as he announced the good news of Jesus, God worked so powerfully through him that they knew they were in the presence of someone extraordinary, and treated him accordingly. “As though I were an angel,” he says; “as though I were the Messiah himself, Jesus in person.”

The underlying point here seems to be that Paul is reminding them that his flesh, his physical condition, was no problem for them at that stage. Now, therefore, they ought not to suppose that their own flesh, their present condition (i.e. uncircumcision) will be any problem to him or to anyone else. Whether it be personality cults, fine clothes, physical circumcision, wealth, noble birth, social status — whatever it is, it’s all irrelevant when it comes to preaching the gospel, hearing the gospel, or living by the gospel. Paul wants them to see that just as he, a Jew, has been cheerfully prepared to suffer for the gospel, so they should be prepared to share his status, that of being defined simply and solely by their faith in Jesus Christ.

So, he asks, what has gone wrong? What happened to that blessing, that wonderful state of opening their hearts and lives to the word and power of the gospel, and finding it transform them from within? At the time they would have done anything for him (to speak of “plucking out your eyes for someone” was a regular way of saying “I would do anything for you”). Now, since all he’s done is tell them the truth, surely they aren’t going to turn away from him? This is a direct appeal to the loyalty of friendship. Theological argument is important; but unless it takes place within a context where people are bonded together in mutual trust and shared Christian experience, it will only reach the head, not the heart, and probably not the will.

The real reason for the break — or the potential break — in their relationship has been the other people who have come in. Paul here only speaks of them as “they,” but it’s clear what these people want to do. They want to shut the Galatians out. Remember chapter 2: they want to set up a two-level fellowship, an outer circle for Gentile Christians and an inner circle for Jewish Christians. That way they can present themselves to their Jewish friends or family as proper, law-abiding Jews; and they will then compel the Galatians to come, cap in hand, to seek circumcision as the price of admission to the inner circle.

But Paul knows that there can be no outer circle and inner circle within the grace of God. “They,” he says, “are eager for you”; the word he uses for “eager” is actually zealous, filled with the zeal that he himself had once had, zeal for God and the law, zeal to make converts to Judaism. But Paul is now using the word in a wider sense as well. Zeal in this wider sense is a good thing: it is fine to burn with eagerness for God’s work, but it must be on the right lines (compare Romans 10.2, where he describes his fellow Jews as having a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge). Paul wants them to be on fire with love for God, for the gospel, for the fellowship of all other believers. The zeal that “they,” the opponents or agitators, are exhibiting is of another kind: they are aflame with eagerness to consolidate their view of God’s people as a family based principally on ethnic, physically marked membership.
 
Faced with this, Paul is almost in despair. What can he do? What can he say to make them change their minds? He feels like a mother who, after giving birth, finds herself going through labour pains all over again, watching her children struggle to become the mature adults they were supposed to be. Here he describes his aim for them very strikingly: “until the messiah is formed in you.” His goal is that the messianic life — the self-giving love which embraces all alike — should appear in their own community. If only he could be there in person and explain it all to them kindly, sympathetically, with the language of face and body that would tell them how much he loved them; that would win from them an answering love and trust! Letters are a poor substitute for personal presence, though they have spin-off value: if Paul hadn’t written Galatians, we wouldn’t have all this wealth of insight and teaching.

This little section, then, stands here in Galatians as witness to the marriage of head and heart in the teaching and pastoral work that belong to the gospel. We may convince people’s minds, but unless we can look them in the eye (or make them feel, through other types of communication, that that is what’s happening), we may have little effect. Paul, one of the greatest ever theologians, knew that what really mattered was the formation of the Messiah’s own life in this community, the life in which there was neither Jew nor Greek. He was determined to make the point by every available means. He now returns to theological argument, having reminded them that he is not just a brain with a mouth attached, but a warm-hearted human being with a primary claim on their love and loyalty.

More reminiscing today. . . .

Five years ago, in July of 2002, I was pregnant with our third child — a little boy. I know now that God never intended for him to live in this world. He had Trisomy-10, a genetic disorder so rare that the one seasoned OB said he had never actually seen a case before ours.

Remember that we lost our first child due to a miscarriage, and our second, Elise, we lost due to a full term stillbirth. There is nothing more of a kick-in-the-gut than a stillbirth. You have all the hope of a life after 41 weeks of carrying that little soul and then virtually no memories to comfort you after she’s gone. After a year of mourning and infertility, I found myself pregnant with that little boy. It was a wonderful gift before Elise’s first birthday in Heaven, but things were never safe feeling for that little guy.

The OB clinic took an HCG level one day and then another two days later — the usual protocol for a pending miscarriage — to see if the numbers doubled to indicate a viable baby. After that second test, the clinic assured me they’d call before lunch. I waited. I waited some more. I put off a meeting as late as I could. I called the clinic and couldn’t even get a human being to answer. Just a machine. I left a hysterical message begging for help. Still no call.

I found out later they were calling my social security number. :/ Sigh. “And I’m supposed to trust these people with test results?” was my first thought. We came home and waited again for the call. Grant finally gave up at 5:30 thinking that the office was closed. He left to go to Lowes to buy mulch.

The call came while I was alone. And I kid you not. This is exactly what the nurse said:

Well, Dr. So-n-So already left for the day, so she hasn’t seen these test results. But I can tell you that the numbers don’t look good. So you need to call tomorrow to schedule a D&C. . . . You okay?

“Yeah. I’m fine.” I said very flatly.

With the open wound of Elise’s birth/death still smarting, this nurse unintentionally (I’m sure) but still unprofessionally (at the very least) and unkindly (it felt to me) delivered the horrible news of a third loss to a vulnerable, hurting mom over. the. phone. With nothing more than a “you okay?” tacked on at the end.

I know she didn’t know any better. I know she just was trying to cross an item off her to-do list, so she could go home to her own family and relax in peace. I really do understand that.

But that was one of the lowest moments in my life. I felt beaten up and abandoned.

The good news — and I have to remind myself of this because it’s truly a miracle — is what God did next. A virtual stranger but a Christian sister who had also lost a child to stillbirth was already in the process of making phone calls to some doctor friends of hers. The next day when I was supposed to schedule that D&C, I pushed away from my desk in frustration and said, “Okay, Lord. Now what? Where do I go? I’ll go get the yellow pages.” And my dear sister-in-law called — RIGHT THEN – saying that this sister-in-loss had made an appointment with me for the next morning. Huh? Go figure!!

The next appointment at the new place was dramatically different. Sure — the news was the same. Like I said, that little one was never meant to breathe any air but celestial. But the coming-alongside approach at the second clinic was just what I needed and prayed for. And those were the doctors that cried with us through two more losses, prayed with us, and brought us through two successful pregnancies and births.

The system had thrown us straight into the lions’ den. Even though that nurse was unaware and similarily caught in a broken system, we still hurt. And we hurt really deeply. But God, like with Daniel, is bigger than the system and bigger than the hurt. I’m amazed that He cares at all.

Beautiful things. . . .

My first attempt at knitting with wire. Not bad, eh?

And when he saw the camera, my little punkin said “cheese” over and over. How could I resist?

“He saved Daniel from the power of the lions.”

Peace to you! Abundant peace!
I decree that Daniel’s God shall be worshiped and feared in all parts of my kingdom.
He is the living God, world without end. His kingdom never falls.
His rule continues eternally.
He is a savior and rescuer.
He performs astonishing miracles in heaven and on earth.
He saved Daniel from the power of the lions.

King Darius’ Decree.

We continued our theme of men of valor with our playing today. We’ve done David, Jonah, and Rach, Shach, and Benny. Today was Daniel. Get a load of our fiercesome lions there in their den (Daniel’s in the blue).

A triceratops, wholly mammoth, Superman (you can’t see him), a Halloween mask, a T-rex, an actual lion (puppet), a bear, an Elmo, a Heffalump, and a Cookie Monster. Oh, and a little guy in Scooby Doo jammies. Notice the snarls on their hungry lips. Pretty scary bunch.

I learned something though in re-reading this story several times today. Go see for yourself. There’s really very little in the story about Daniel or the lions or even the angel. The story is about very powerful human beings vs. an All-Powerful God. The king got it wrong when he caved into his toadies’ demands — really wrong — and he was beside himself. He couldn’t eat or sleep. He listened to the wrong people who cajoled his ego. And he seems to cross his fingers that God will take care of Daniel even as he follows the law — the written-in-stone cultural mandate that seems bigger than all of them.

The next morning everybody was still in one piece — lions, Daniel, and king. God’s angel shut the lion’s mouths. And I hear in the king’s final decree an honest humility that God was the true King of Kings, One Who doesn’t goof and send his honorable servants into the lions’ den.

I’ll never get over how God does not throw His children to the carnivores, but pagan human systems do. And even in this fallen world, He’s there to clamp those mouths shut for our safety. Just because.

Addendum: I’m bumping this up to remind myself of this story right now.

“The Lord God Himself rejoices over you in song.”

Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel!  Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem!  The Lord has taken away the judgments against you; he has cleared away your enemies.  The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall never again fear evil.  On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: “Fear not, O Zion; let not your hands grow weak.  The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.

Zephaniah 3:14-17

God always brings this specific passage to me during times of much weeping. And He’s done it again. Amen!

The Adhominem Defense

There’s, of course, a potential theory being built in all this although I can’t imagine its final shape. One of my favorite criticism anthologies from my grad years was Nothstine, Blair, and Copeland that dared to show the behind-the-scenes machinations of a successful published article.

Ideas surrounding liminal rhetoric — those who speak on the borders of a culture — have always intrigued me. Pied Pipers, prophets, cultural surgeons, casuistic stretchers, comedians – so many pictures for that person. And, of course, my suitor metaphor. <shrug>

But most critics have little experience with the insider/outsider rhetorics. And I do know them firsthand. So I’m going to take little notes that, if past experience proves accurate, will develop into a larger, more public offering. Maybe you have some suggestions you see in all this too. :) This inbetween my silly youtube stuff and crafting pics.

One trope that keeps popping up is what my brother chuckled about last night and named “the adhominem defense.” The adhominem fallacy, of course, is when you attack the person instead of the ideas:

Don’t believe him when he talks about his illegal immigration policy. He’s divorced!

The problem is that the retort is a distraction from the issues at hand. Wiki points out that it’s the converse of an appeal to authority, both as fallacious as the other. The attacker is trying to reform the discussion into the indefensible, private matters and take the upperhand in the process. It’s an argumentative sucker punch.

The adhominem defense doesn’t fit any boxing metaphor (king hit, rabbit punch, and feint don’t fit) because the initiator of the conversation didn’t know they were fighting at all. It’s a sort of tuo quoque, but more specific and passive-aggressive. Here are some examples:

• “Excuse me. You left your wallet here at the register.”
  “What are you saying? That I’m stupid?”
• “Sir, last class period you said that we should keep the last five rows vacant.”
  “Are you calling me a liar?”
• “I have some concerns that I’d like to discuss with you.”
  “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
• “When Lincoln spoke to farmers in a rural Midwest drawl, he was only slipping into the speech he had been brought up with.  It by no means meant that all reasoning would stop.  Middling style eased social mobility.  They allowed one to speak in public without having to master the gentry’s tone.”
  “How do you know? Did you ask him?”

In hearing a perfectly appropriate suggestion, reminder, or conclusion, the listener reads it as a personal attack, assumes the worst possible intent, and lashes out. The initiator is struck silent — either stunned at the tantrum being thrown (”Dear me, lady, I was just trying to give you your wallet!”) or  pitched head-first into introspective searching (”Huh? Why do I need to ask Lincoln about my academic conclusions about his words? Did I miss that day in Rhet Crit?”).

And the discussion ends. The wallet gets left behind or the Lincoln observation lies fallow. It’s a lose-lose situation really.

What it comes down to, I think, is reading everything as agon. No, that’s not it either. It’s more than a contest or a debate. It’s a war. It’s reading everyone as the enemy. It’s yelling at the dog who won’t pee. It’s continuous line-drawing in the sand just daring for someone to cross you, even if it’s just a stumble over a pebble. It’s worse than run-of-the-mill tragedy — it’s pushing everyone over the edge that comes near you, even your allies and yourself.

Oh . . . and Happy Anniversary, m’dears! It’s been quite a year.

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