I Heart Autumn

Oh mercy, I love this season! Little wonder that one of my favorite CDs is George Winston’s Autumn. Outside my office window, the trees are turning gold and shedding small leaves over our back porch. Years ago I loved to see a local landmark, a Southern Illinois hill called Millstone Knob, as it transformed in autumn and finally settled into that purple-gray tone of wintertime. Nearly as pretty as autumn leaves are fields when harvest approaches; here's an early fall picture from Four Mile Prairie, near our family cemetery near Brownstown, Illinois.

In my previous office I enjoyed two autumn pictures. One is an early fall scene from the Jefferson National Forest near Louisville, KY. I took that picture while assisting with my daughter's 4th-grade field trip. Just as we were walking out the door, the researcher for a writing project called and said she was going to fax several dozen pages of research for me.  I'd known she was going to send me the material but not when, and I think she was chagrined that I couldn't receive the material at that moment, given my commitment to help herd numerous nine-year-olds through the Kentucky woods.

The other photo, which hung in my previous office, depicts a line of cruciform power lines, railroad tracks upon the hillside, and fall colors along U.S. 250 west of Charlottesville, Virginia.  This scan is better than the original 1980s photo, which was slightly overexposed in the sunlight, and now I can manipulate the colors to make them more vibrant.

In my home, I’ve another picture of fall colors. This one is a New England scene, I think it’s U.S. 7 in northern Connecticut or southern Massachusetts, but I don’t remember the exact location. The trees are red, gold, yellow, and green; the small cliff is gray but growing from the rock are small plants with yellow leaves; the road is gray but the yellow "curve ahead" sign matches the yellow leaves. The picture was taken in October 1981 when a Yale friend and I went on a Saturday drive to see the famous New England color.

One more road scene, which I don't keep displayed, is a little highway bridge six or seven miles west of my hometown, photographed in early autumn.  Unnumbered now, the road was Illinois 140 for a long time, and before that it was the original path of U.S. 40, and before 1926 the road was State Route 11 and also a portion of the transcontinental National Old Trails Highway. This bridge is one such remnant of long-ago State Route 11, identified as such by the plague upon the inside of the bridge.  The road had made a wide curve and crossed this bridge, but the newer alignment makes a shorter curve. I love to see such early, now abandoned alignments from the 1910s and 1920s, left over when the highway was widened or straightened. You can spot these old pavements beside two-lane roads as you drive through countryside.

I didn’t have a camera along when, during the 1990s, I took my parents on a drive near the farm where Mom grew up, not far from the highway and timber that I feature on this blog. The timber’s colors were absolutely spectacular that year. Autumn scenery, though, doesn’t always translate well onto everyday photographs; I’d have needed a bigger camera with larger negatives to have captured those scenes the best.

Autumn is beautiful but also, for several weeks, it provides very comfortable temperatures. I love going barefooted outdoors on autumn days; the grass is softer than in summertime, the sidewalks are cooler, and autumn leaves feel good on your feet. One pretty, sixtyish autumn day, years ago, while other students were enjoying the day out on the campus lawn, I slipped out of my sandals and into a windbreaker, went outside, and eventually took a lovely walk to the neighborhood market for a snack. Down the way, I passed a barefoot classmate walking a dog through the thick layers of fallen leaves on the sidewalk. Great minds work in the same direction!

It would be interesting to know the psychological theory of why we have favorite colors. Ever since I was little-bitty, my favorite color has been red. Of course red, along with yellow, orange, and brown, is a traditional autumn color, so I was thus fated to be a fan of this season. In my first home, I kept a display of red-and-yellow Indian corn in my kitchen.

Autumn colors result from the plant’s process of growth and regeneration, as explained at this site, http://www.usna.usda.gov/PhotoGallery/FallFoliage/ScienceFallColor.html The cessation of chlorophyll production causes the leaves to change color and fall, but the tree is all the while preparing for winter. Reading that information, I made a roundabout mental connection to a horticultural image in the Bible, that of pruning, for instance, John 15:1-2. Unfortunately, there is an overtone of violence, a cruelty to the metaphor that is inescapable.

When we consider God’s guidance, I wonder if we shouldn’t add to the idea of “pruning” the additional image of autumn leaves. Like plants in autumn, the circumstances in our lives at the time may be times of change and abandonment--not even a time of current growth but of preparation for future growth. But such times will be positive for us and can become a source of blessing for others, too. We can think of discipleship as a succession of times and seasons that introduce beauty into other people's lives.

The Triumph of Goodness and Canned Greens

I love the Internet; you can find so many offbeat things so quickly.

Now that I live in St. Louis, I’ve been trying to think of the kid’s shows that the St. Louis TV stations produced when I was little. In those pre-cable days, my hometown was close enough to St Louis to receive the ABC, CBS, and NBC stations (KTVI, KMOX, and KSD back then), and the independent station KPLR, channel 11. Well, in my stoking of childhood nostalgia, I soon found a website, http://www.tvparty.com/lostst.html, that provides background on several shows that I liked, especially “Cookie and the Captain,” “Corky’s Colorama,” and “Captain 11.”

Another show discussed there was Jack Miller’s "Mr. Patches" show. I don't recall that one (at 5 PM, my folks had turned on the news), but from a source at Google Books, I discovered that Miller was behind another show that I loved, "The World of Mr. Zoom," which ran on KMOX (now KMOV) in 1962-1964. I believe it came on at 7:30 in the morning, right before Captain Kangaroo. I remember sobbing uncontrollably when Mr. Zoom was preempted in 1962 (I was five) for coverage of John Glenn’s space launch. I also remember feeling crushed when the show was cancelled. The show featured Cecil the Dinosaur, Princess Moonbeam, and Norton Downey the Henpecked Duck [1]. The characters referred to Mr. Zoom but he rarely appeared. Even though I was the show’s faithful fan, I can’t now differentiate in my mind those puppets with the ones on “Kukla, Fran, and Ollie.”

I wouldn’t have remembered which show featured “Popeye” cartoons (it was “Cookie and the Captain” on KMOX), but I must’ve watched that show a lot. I remember bits of so many episodes: Olive Oyl getting into trouble about fifty million times; Popeye doing battle on a flying trapeze, Popeye slugging alligators so hard they turn into luggage; Popeye being worshiped by “savages” who chant “salami, salami, baloney”; and the appropriately named Wimpy, who’ll gladly pay you Tuesday.

Popeye cartoons were so violent! I looked online to remind myself about some of these old episodes. On one show, “Baby Wants a Battle” (1953), Bluto’s father beats Popeye’s father while baby Popeye watches helplessly. (That reminds me of an actual news story a few years ago.) In “A Job for a Gob” (1955), Bluto sets fire to Olive Oyl’s property because she scorns his advances. (Bluto the arsonist stalker…) In “Child Psykolojiky” (1941) Poopdeck Pappy wants to spank baby Swee’ Pea with his fist. Subsequently Pappy throws the baby out the upper story window, catches him, and then teaches him to use a shotgun, and even tries to shoot an apple off the baby’s head, all to make Swee’ Pea more “manly.” In “Goonland” (1938), Popeye hopes to save Poopdeck Pappy, who is held prisoner by these beings on their island (considering his parenting skills, Pappy was probably sent there by Child Protective Services!) but the Goons capture Popeye and try to kill him.

A typical plot of a Popeye cartoon is as follows. There is some competition for Olive's affections between Bluto and Popeye. Sometimes Olive responds to Bluto but realizes he is awful. Or she rejects Bluto outright. In either case, Bluto abuses her or tries to kill her. But Popeye (beaten or otherwise incapacitated in some way) eats his spinach, renews his strength, saves Olive, and defeats the villain. Goodness and canned greens triumph!

A few episodes featured Popeye’s nephews who were mean and out of control, not to mention ugly like Popeye. In various episodes the nephews throw Popeye and Olive around, toss them through windows, punch them, tie them up, and cause all kinds of havoc. You wouldn’t want these kids in your day care!

The cartoons were sexist by modern standards and some were also racist. In the World War II-era show “Jolly Good Furlough” (1943), one of Popeye’s nephews slants his eyes with his fingers while another nephew mimics shooting him. I clearly remember this episode broadcast on television in the early 1960s (though I don't recall the specific kids' show), as was “Pop-pie a la Mode” (1945) which features Popeye being fattened up and then beaten into a steak by minstrel-show black cannibals. In other episodes, Native Americans are depicted as dim “wild Injuns.” However, I don’t recall other war-era shorts like “You’re a Sap, Mr. Jap” (1942) on TV.

When I was little, I overanalyzed the show's great deus ex machina: spinach. Why didn’t Popeye eat his spinach before he got in trouble? (He kept a can down his shirt, after all.) Why didn’t Olive have her own stash of spinach so she could handle matters herself? (We should give Olive credit, that when she tells Bluto, "No," she means it, and otherwise she acts resourcefully in some of the cartoons, though in others she seems fickle and/or helpless.) Also: why didn’t Bluto get the hint and eat spinach, too? Each episode was, as we'd now say, a reboot; no one learned, from show to show, how to avoid peril.

I’ve made “Popeye” cartoons sound awful! Some did frighten me (tenderhearted as I was), and I was too young to grasp their stereotyping. But I actually loved the shows and remember them fondly. Of course, Popeye still has many fans. E. G. Segar originated the comic strip "Thimble Theatre" in 1919 but Popeye didn't become a character therein until 1929. He soon became the strip's centerpiece. Fleischer Studios made numerous Popeye theatrical cartoons in 1933-1942, followed by Famous Studios in 1942-1957. King Features made cartoons for television in the early 1960s.

I recall that the King Features shows seemed gentler; Bluto became the pot-bellied Brutus, who always looked like he just got up. Characters like Alice the Goon, Eugene the Jeep, and Sea Hag appeared in these 60s shows. As I recall, Sea Hag had a "thing" for Popeye and used evil magic to get her way, but Popeye would never hit a woman, so Olive Oyl became more resourceful.

My last two blog entries had to do with violence and then with cartoons, so I thought … violence in cartoons! … But as I enjoy nostalgia about childhood TV, I haven’t even mentioned the live-action “Three Stooges“ shorts, which I loved as a little kid. The “Captain 11” show ran those in the afternoon. Hours of face-slapping, eye-poking, crowbar-up-the-nose entertainment!
　

[1] Tim Hollis, “Hey, There, Boys and Girls!": America’s Local Children’s TV Shows, University Press of Mississippi, 2001, page 169.

Some of this entry originally appeared in my Southern Illinois-related essay for "Springhouse," titled, “The Sailor Man from Chester, Illinois.” The annual Popeye Picnic is held at the Segar Memorial Park in Chester (www.popeyepicnic.com).

Those Wascally Wabbits

I watched "Citizen Kane" for the first time recently, on the TCM channel. I don't have a "bucket list" but watching classic films has been on my to-do list for a while. There's probably nothing original to say about this film but I enjoyed not only the story but seeing the various film innovations that I'd associated with later films and directors: overlapping dialogue, nonlinear story-telling, interesting camera angles, dramatic lighting, and unreliable narrators. I found the use of "deep focus" haunting, almost creepy, in the late scene where Kane strolls, tearful and dazed, from his wife's still-bright but destroyed room.

This morning I watched the 1939 "Of Mice and Men" on the same channel while I visited my mother. I'd not seen this film either. Burgess Meredith was a handsome young man as George, Lon Chaney Jr. was an affecting Lennie. I liked Betty Field's feisty, always-barefoot character in "The Shepherd of the Hills" and here she is the lonely, doomed Mae. Even though I'd read the story and knew the ending, I thought how the movie might be setting up the viewer to foresee revenge on Curly.

The problem with this movie is not the movie's fault, nor Chaney's. I couldn't get out of my mind the parodies of this film in various "Looney Toons" that I watched as a kid. "I want some rabbits, George ... I will hug him, and pet him, and squeeze him"--remember that?

There are other ways to ruin a movie for you besides giving away the ending!

There Will Be Blood

Yesterday, Sept. 17, was the 147th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day in American history with nearly 26,000 casualties in the countryside near Sharpsburg, Maryland. Tragically, the Union forces did not take advantage of the battle and allowed the CSA army to withdraw. The war dragged on nearly three more years; what difference would a decisive Union blow, on a hypothetical second or third day of Antietam fighting, have made on the war’s length?

Yesterday afternoon, I was engaged in other battles in a safe place: the coffee shop. I was planning lessons for my seminary class on American history, specifically the series of European wars of which the American Revolution was but one (prone though we Americans are to look at it in isolation, or perhaps only in conjunction with the French and Indian Wars). Although the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) ended religious wars on the continent (and gave us the principle of Westphalian sovereignty), warfare obviously did not end, and kingdoms tended to expand future warfare overseas. Subsequent wars--King William’s War/War of the Grand Alliance (1689-1697), Queen Anne’s War/War of Spanish Succession (1702-1713), King George’s War/War of Austrian Succession (1740-1748), and the French and Indian War/Seven Years War (1754-1763) shifted balances of power and also involved some fighting in North America. That last war gave British control in trans-Appalachian America and left Indians without France as their ally. But the large British war debt resulted in heavy Parliament-authorized taxes on British colonists. Those taxes, among other factors, led to yet another war, the American War of Independence (1775-1783), in which France, defeated in 1763, joined the Americans and helped gain victory over the British.

But, of course, the story does not end there, for the American experience influenced the French Revolution (1789-1797) which in turn led to the Napoleonic empire (1797-1815). Amid Napoleon's wars, British ships attacked those of non-combatant countries, leading to our own second war against Britain (1812-1815). The Napoleonic Wars also led the tide of European revolutions, nation-building, and liberal governments during the nineteenth century. Our Civil War (1861-1865) fits well within that overall worldwide phenomenon of nation-building.

Wars, rumors of wars, records of wars … We honor and love our country, which has been created, like many nations, amid a history of endless human violence.

The New Testament, unlike the Qur’an, does not give much advice on proper and improper warfare. Governments are instituted of God, as Paul reminds us, and governments have often made that tragic choice to wage war. We have New Testament stories of soldiers coming to faith, without any warnings that they should lay down their arms in order to follow Christ. And yet the example of Jesus himself--he did not resist the violence done to him--is such that some Christians have found pacifism to be the best choice. How can we follow Christ if we do not follow his example of nonviolence? How can we ever stop violence worldwide unless we stop it through our personal example and sacrifice?

I go back and forth on this issue, agreeing with the pacifists sometimes, but honoring the sacrifice of soldiers who, after all, give up very much--even their lives--for others. “No greater love,” as Jesus says. In fact, in our own time, not many of us Americans will have to die for our faith, but some of us will die while defending our country and our freedoms. The safety and security we enjoy in a country such as ours seems to require a suitable military and the potential choice of war.

And yet … When we look at the history of warfare, we realize: one war will lead to another war down the years, and yet another, and another, with no ultimate resolution, and innocent people will suffer. And yet ... reluctance to pursue decisive victory can lead to more warfare, which was Lincoln's heartache following Antietam (and Gettysburg, too).

The Vietnam War concluded just as I became draft-age, so I’ve the luxury of thinking about this subject as one who knows war only through books and my father’s stories.


(After I wrote this, I found a section from Robert Barron, The Strangest Way: Walking the Christian Path, Orbis Books, 2002, pp. 153-154: "Stanley Hauerwas ... has on his office door a sign that reads: 'A modest proposal for peace, Christians stop killing other Christians.' ... Between 1914 and 1945, millions of British, American French, Russian, German, and Italian Christians went at one another murderously. One presumes that the overwhelming majority of these warriors had heard Christ's command to love even your enemies and that they had been formed according to the doctrine of the mystical body of Christ. Yet, when the moment of truth arrived, they chose to place national loyalty above spiritual conviction, attacking other members of the body of Christ for political ends." But, of course, millions of those soldiers, like my Christian cousin who died in World War I in July 1917, must've considered some of those "political ends" as commensurate with the Gospel and, indeed, sacrificed their own well-being in order to protect the freedom and well-being of others. A difficult issue!)

Verdi on the Turntable and in the Car

I’m a mood-driven listener to music. Sometimes I get into moods when only rock music cranked up to sonic boom level, will do, or 80s new wave or synthpop.  Sometimes I want to listen to types of classical music, or to a cross-section of a composer‘s works.  Other times, I want to hear a lot of the same composer.  I liked Haydn’s music so I bought a 33-CD set of his symphonies. Messiaen intrigued me so I purchased his complete organ works. I loved Mozart’s 15th piano concerto so I bought an 11-CD set of all of them!

I used to collect opera LPs, especially Wagner, but also some Mozart, Verdi, Britten, and others. My first opera purchase was Böhm recording of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” with Sherrill Milnes in the title role. I recall buying it at the Chapel Square Mall in New Haven, Connecticut. My fondest set was “Le Nozze di Figaro,” also conducted by Böhm, with a wonderful cast including Prey, Mathis, Janowitz, Fischer-Dieskau, and Troyanos. At one point I loved Wagner and owned at least one set of his famous operas, even the early “Rienzi.”

I also found several classic Verdi recordings: Toscanini’s “Falstaff” and “Aida,” “Otello” with Jon Vickers in the title role, and also “Rigoletto” (with Sutherland, Pavarotti, and Milnes), Guilini’s 1958 “Don Carlos” (the five act version but in Italian), and the “Messa da Requiem.” I purchased “La traviata,“ donated it to a library book fair during a spring cleaning, then wished I had it back. (Fortunately there’s always Ebay.) I think I owned a used set of “Macbeth” at some point but don’t remember what happened to it.

I couldn’t quite get into Verdi. His operas lacked the chromatic interest and visceral force of Wagner’s. Benjamin Britten once said, “I am an arrogant and impatient listener; but in the case of a few composers, a very few, when I hear a work I do not like I am convinced it is my own fault. Verdi is one of these composers.” [1] I’m not an arrogant listener but--especially since I know almost no musicology--I respond to music on a purely emotional level and know that, sometimes, I’m still growing in musical taste. I was heartened by an article by Walter Clemons who also wasn’t touched by Verdi’s music at first.[2]

Sorting through my old LPs after our recent move, I brought my Verdi operas into my office and gave them a new listen. This time I was smart, however. I'd been looking for an emotional entry into Verdi's music and had never quite find it listening to whole operas. So I found a good collection of Verdi arias to help me, “Essential Verdi, 40 of His Masterpieces” on the Decca label.

What a wonderful set! As I listened to the two CDs (in my car), I kept grabbing the liner notes when I came to stop lights to see which opera aria I’d just heard. I finally appreciated Verdi’s gift for writing melodies. You hear it among old favorites like “La donna è mobile” and the “Aida” grand march but you also hear it in the lesser known dramas like “I masnadieri.” Clemons writes that he was convinced of Verdi’s greatness during a live performance of Othello’s aria “Ora e per sempre additio;” Othello despairs, yet “Verdi gives him back, in memory, the martial music of his days of glory” (p. 88). I found a similar moment in the “Ave Maria” from that same opera, sung on this set by Renee Fleming.

Famously, Verdi returned after "Otello" with one more, remarkable opera, “Falstaff,” only his second comic opera among nearly thirty. Verdi’s views of life were pessimistic but humanistic. As Osborne puts it, “In the Requiem … gentle resignation and joyful anticipation of an after-life were no part of his thoughts…. The intensity and compassion of his tragic view of the human condition are Shakespearian in stature: the prodigality of his technique deserves … to be called Mozartian” (p. 403). In this last opera, Verdi seems to have definitively joined his tragic view with a Mozartian comic spirit.

“Falstaff” ends:

Tutto nel mondo é burla.
L'uom é nato burlone,
La fede in cor gli ciurla,
Gli ciurla la ragione.
Tutti gabbati! Irride
L'un l'altro ogni mortal.
Ma ride ben chi ride
La risata final.

As translated by Vincent Sheean in the Toscanini recording: “The whole world is a jest; man was born a great jester, pushed this way and that by faith in his heart or by reason. All are cheated! Every mortal being laughs at every other one, but the best laugh of all is the one that comes last.”

I agree with some of that. We are all “pushed this way and that” and we’re all “cheated” of something. We're silly to think we can escape life's unfairness. Verdi suffered a terrible loss early in life, the death of his two children and first wife. Over time, he transformed his suffering and pessimism into wonderful theater and melody. Clemons writes that “Verdi’s long, fertile career can now be seen as remarkable in its steady progress and deepening insight as that of Dickens.” (p. 123) Yeats comes to mind as another artist who grew steadily and ended with depth and insight.

Here's one more quote from Clemons. “There is something clear and sunlit-square about Verdi’s music that makes it at first difficult to appreciate, if romantic mystery is what one looks for. The value of his honesty and clarity grows with acquaintance” (p. 123).


1. Charles Osborne, The Complete Operas of Verdi (New York: Knopf, 1979), p. 11.

2. Walter Clemons, “Viva Verdi! The Story of a Love Affair,” Vanity Fair, 46 (June 1983), 87-89, 122-123.

Christian Perfection

John Wesley taught “Christian perfection” but had to defend his doctrine against misunderstanding. Here are some excerpts from his work, “A Short Account of Christian Perfection” (http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/Wesley/perfection.stm)

“We willingly allow, and continually declare, there is no such perfection in this life, as implies either a dispensation from doing good, and attending all the ordinances of God, or a freedom from ignorance, mistake, temptation, and a thousand infirmities necessarily connected with flesh and blood…

"We not only allow, but earnestly contend, that there is no perfection in this life, which implies any dispensation from attending all the ordinances of God, or from doing good unto all men while we have time, though 'especially unto the household of faith.' …

"We secondly believe, that there is no such perfection in this life, as implies an entire deliverance, either from ignorance, or mistake, in things not essential to salvation, or from manifold temptations, or from numberless infirmities, wherewith the corruptible body more or less presses down the soul. …

"But whom then do you mean by 'one that is perfect?' We mean one in whom is 'the mind which was in Christ,' and who so 'walketh as Christ also walked;' a man 'that hath clean hands and a pure heart,' or that is 'cleansed from all filthiness of flesh and spirit;' one in whom is 'no occasion of stumbling,' and who, accordingly, 'does not commit sin.' To declare this a little more particularly: We understand by that scriptural expression, 'a perfect man,' one in whom God hath fulfilled his faithful word, 'From all your filthiness and from all your idols I will cleanse you: I will also save you from all your uncleannesses.' We understand hereby, one whom God lath 'sanctified throughout in body, soul, and spirit;' one who 'walketh in the light as He is in the light, in whom is no darkness at all; the blood of Jesus Christ his Son having cleansed him from all sin.' …

"This man can now testify to all mankind, 'I am crucified with Christ: Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.' He is 'holy as God who called' him 'is holy,' both in heart and 'in all manner of conversation.' He 'loveth the Lord his God with all his heart,' and serveth him 'with all his strength.' He 'loveth his neighbour,' every man, 'as himself;' yea, 'as Christ loveth us;' them, in particular, that 'despitefully use him and persecute him, because they know not the Son, neither the Father.' Indeed his soul is all love, filled with 'bowels of mercies, kindness, meekness, gentleness, longsuffering.' And his life agreeth thereto, full of 'the work of faith, the patience of hope, the labour of love.' 'And whatsoever' he 'doeth either in word or deed,' he 'doeth it all in the name,' in the love and power, 'of the Lord Jesus.' In a word, he doeth 'the will of God on earth, as it is done in heaven.' …

"This it is to be a perfect man, to be 'sanctified throughout;' even 'to have a heart so all-flaming with the love of God,' (to use Archbishop Usher's words,) 'as continually to offer up every thought, word, and work, as a spiritual sacrifice, acceptable to God through Christ.' In every thought of our hearts, in every word of our tongues, in every work of our hands, to 'show forth his praise, who hath called us out of darkness into his marvellous light.' O that both we, and all who seek the Lord Jesus in sincerity, may thus 'be made perfect in one!' ….

“It is to have 'the mind which was in Christ,' and to 'walk as He walked;' to have all the mind that was in Him, and always to walk as he walked: In other words, to be inwardly and outwardly devoted to God; all devoted in heart and life. And we have the same conception of it now, without either… "

What a lovely doctrine, which has become far less distinctive to United Methodism than Wesley would’ve wished. Wesley's words here are worth posting on the bathroom mirror; I feel ashamed at how far I still have to go to live up to these words (although Wesley affirmed that perfection is completely a gift of God, which he never claimed for himself).

I don’t want to draw too much of a parallel between Wesleyan perfection and the Buddhist notion of attachment. But some similarities are interesting. In “attachment,” you self-referentially base your happiness upon impermanent things. You chase things to bolster your ego, you make yourself miserable by circumstances you can’t change and things you can’t have, and live at some level of self-gratification. Don’t we all? But by freeing ourselves of attachment (through the lifelong practice of the Eightfold Path), we can stop assuming that the world exists to meet our needs and expectations; we reach a level of inner peace, kindness and harmony.

Compare that to Wesley. Obviously there are differences between Christian and Buddhist doctrine, practice and goals. But in Wesley, too, we radically experience the de-centralization of our egos in the experience of Christian perfection. We’re no longer motivated by striving after selfish opportunities. We gain greater freedom from temptation because our desires conform to God's desires rather than our own. We no longer feel ill-will toward other people or use them for our own purposes; rather, we feel harmoniously and kindly toward them. Our actions and words are motivated by love of God and neighbor and, as much as we can, toward God’s will.

Wesley’s doctrine creates a cognitive dissonance, frankly because the term “perfection” is misleading. The theological debate about the nature of the gift--whether it is a “second blessing,” etc.--has perhaps distracted from Wesley’s hope that everyone seek this gift. Studying Buddhism, though, alerted me that Wesley’s doctrine isn’t so strange. What could be more lovely than the search for an inner peace, a healing of our motivations, and a harmony with others? Wesley’s doctrine is deeply rooted in the finished work of Christ and the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in believers’ lives, which in turn empower us to seek deeper gifts of kindness and purity.

A few weeks ago (my entry for July 31, 2009), I wrote some thoughts about St. Francis’ ideas about inner peace and happiness. He thought a believer could feel all the more happy and peaceful the more we give ourselves wholly to God’s protection. Connecting those ideas to Wesley, I think Wesley could provide us with a similar spiritual path, less extreme than St. Francis (who wanted to live completely defenseless), but still rooted in a desire to wholly follow God’s will.

Walking the Line

A recent news story is the death of a Yale graduate student who disappeared mysteriously, then her body was found in a basement wall in the same research building where she worked. Her body was found the day she was supposed to marry a Columbia grad student. Since the research building has a pervasive security system, police are searching for suspects among people who’ve access to the facilities. The thought of your fiancee disappearing and then found murdered … words fail to convey the feelings you’d have. Words fail when you’re just an person on the sofa, watching the news.

Another scary story appeared on my online news in late August. I don’t know if this story made the national television media, since I didn’t have the TV on much that week. A pastor in Anadarko, Oklahoma, was found murdered in her church. She’d been stabbed multiple times and her body was left unclothed and in the position of a crucifix. The woman drove 60 miles each Sunday to preach at this church, which didn’t even have a regular congregation but she preached to and prayed with whomever attended. Police are still working on the case.

Yesterday was the 108th anniversary of the death of President William McKinley, who died as a result of an assassin’s bullet. When I taught a class on Ohio presidents, I noted the tragic irony that McKinley survived the entire Civil War without a scratch--even the hideous battle of Antietam--but died because of one stupid fool with a pistol. No one thinks too much about President McKinley anymore, but at the time, his death was an overwhelming tragedy on the order of the 1960s assassinations.

I affirm God’s providential care, but in my own thinking, I don’t always “integrate” life’s awful, tragic elements which occur in thousands and millions of incidents each day. I put “integrate” in quotation marks because none of us can, after all, fathom either the extent of God’s care nor the terrible things that happen. It's a hard line to walk: to affirm the truth of God’s care while, simultaneously, acknowledging tragedies that seem to mock the comforts of one's faith. But walking that line is necessary if we’re to praise God's active tenderness while responding honestly and compassionately to the human condition.