Is it as funny to other people as it is to me that I easily wasted at least forty minutes of my day dancing to this song?
Seriously. I have a secret affinity for gospel music. It’d been dormant for awhile, but Whitney Houston’s funeral woke it up.
Books in 2012: How Do You Kill 11 Million People?
Several months ago, Michael Hyatt — a blogger of whom I’m a big fan — wrote a post about a book called How Do You Kill 11 Million People?: Why the Truth Matters More Than You Think by a guy named Andy Andrews. Based solely on what Hyatt wrote, I bought a copy of the book. I read it — my sixth book in 2012 — last night.
My reading it in one sitting, however, is no miracle. Around 80 pages with an average of, like, 14 words per page, anybody who can read can read it in an hour. The book is far more political in nature than I expected, but it’s timely, considering our country’s impending presidential election. Basically, Andrews uses the number of people killed by Nazis between the 1930s and 1940s to illustrate the power that can be attained and abused by people who are liars. He doesn’t take a political side, but points out that “we the people” have another kind of power — the kind enacted when we use what we learn about the past to prevent a repetition of history.
I think he makes a great point with it, but I think what he wrote requires some clarifying. It easily can be inferred that he’s ultimately blaming the fate of people who are deceived on the people themselves, when I think in reality, the entire process of being deceived is far more complex than that. I won’t put words in his mouth, but based on what he wrote, a person can infer that he’s calling anyone a fool who is deceived. But who’s the fool, really? Is it the person, or the people who raised him or her without modeling common sense or critical thought? And are those people the fools, or are the fools the people who raised them without modeling common sense or critical thought? And even then, are they fools, or are they products of another complex system composed of cultural and familial values and beliefs and habits that don’t happen to include all that much common sense and critical thought? It’s just not simple.
This, of course, is not to say I didn’t get anything out of the book. I did. Its point is applicable, really, to multiple parts of life (like mass media, mental health, relationships). A few of the excerpts I underlined are below:
“But in terms of why we do what we do, how we govern each other, what our society allows and why—very few of us intentionally connect the truth of the past with the realities of where we have ended up today.” -page 11
“You see, the danger to America is not a single politician with ill intent. Or even a group of them. The most dangerous thing any nation faces is a citizenry capable of trusting a liar to lead them. In the long run, it is much easier to undo the policies of crooked leadership than to restore common sense and wisdom to a deceived population willing to elect such a leader in the first place. Any country can survive having chosen a fool as their leader. But history has shown time and again that a nation of fools is surely doomed.” -page 42
“Why do the ages of our world’s greatest civilizations average around 200 years? Why do these civilizations all seem to follow the same identifiable sequence—from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, and finally from dependence back into bondage?” -page 46
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To read Michael Hyatt’s post about the book, click here.
To learn more about the book, click here.
To read about all the books I read in 2012, click here.
Books in 2012: Practicing the Way of Jesus
It’s fitting that I finished reading Practicing the Way of Jesus: Life Together in the Kingdom of Love a couple days into Lent. Practicing the Way of Jesus — the fifth book I’ve read in full this year — is written by Mark Scandrette, co-founder of RE-IMAGINE and the Jesus Dojo.
The book outlines “experiments” in which Scandrette has participated: short and long term projects, some conducted privately, others in groups, others publicly in his community. A lot of what resonated most with me from the book was focused on the importance and purposes of self discipline and self denial, both of which are big parts of Lent for me. See below for some of my favorite excerpts:
“And yet, a tremendous gap exists in our society between the way of radical love embodied and taught by Jesus and the reputation and experience of the average Christian. … We can be frustrated by this gap and become critics, or be inspired by a larger vision of the kingdom and get creative.” -pages 21-22
“If the invitation from Jesus to practice the Way sounds like a burden or obligation, then we aren’t hearing him correctly. The offer of the Rabbi promises the freedom we long for: ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden light’ (Matthew 11:28-30). … The invitation to follow the way of Jesus doesn’t help us cope with the busy lives we have or support our quest for the American dream. It does offer us a radical alternative to the ways of this world that are making us hurried, weary and tired. We are being invited to discover a way of life, in surrender to the Master, that is more fulfilling and free than any way that we could imagine or make for ourselves.” -pages 35-36
“The crisis of evangelism in the Western world is not a lack of information about the gospel, but a scarcity of examples of transformed people who would provoke others to ask, ‘How did you discover this remarkable new way of life?'” -page 90
“Think back to the account of Adam and Eve in the garden after they had eaten fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It was the cool of the day and the Creator was calling out, ‘Adam, where are you?’ They were hiding in the bushes, covering themselves with leaves. Who had withdrawn? Was it God? No, Adam and Eve were the ones who pulled away. Nothing, including their disobedience or shame, could keep the Creator from continuing to pursue relationship. Even now we are being invited to step out of the shadows and into the light of God’s loving presence. For many generations we have been on the run from God, both in our minds and in our bodies. This posture of hiding is what keeps us from being more aware of God’s care and presence. … We do many things with our minds and bodies to distract ourselves from God’s presence. The pace of life in our society and the pervasiveness of media and technology make it challenging to find space to hear God’s voice. It is countercultural and it takes immense courage to be quiet in body and mind.” -pages 115-116
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For more information about the book, click here.
For more information about RE-IMAGINE, click here. And for the Jesus Dojo, click here.
Death to self.
Lent is here.
Forty days of death to self.
Of discipline.
Of more You, less me.
Of empty, quiet stillness.
Forty days in the desert.
The new normal: births outside marriage — Part 2 of 2
In yesterday’s post, I wrote some commentary on a recent New York Times article. The story cited a study that says a baby’s birth to an unwed mom “used to be called illegitimacy. Now it is the new normal. After steadily rising for five decades, the share of children born to unmarried women has crossed a threshold: more than half of births to American women under 30 occur outside marriage.”
I don’t doubt the study’s results are legit. (In fact, I’m responsible for putting birth announcements in the newspaper for the county in which I work, and at least in that neck of the woods, babies with unwed parents far outnumber babies whose parents are married.) I don’t disagree that lots of people opt not to get married after conceiving a child or after giving birth. But, as I pointed out in Part 1, the story about this unintentionally implied that marriage and “a piece of paper” are one and the same when, in fact, they are not. Marriage is a miracle that helps us “to overcome self-absorption, egoism, pursuit of one’s own pleasure, and to open oneself to the other, to mutual aid and to self-giving,*”
Which is awesome.
But as awesome as that is, few people our age are interested in it. Few currently-married couples exemplify it. And so I was compelled to ask a question:
Why?
Unfortunately, I can’t answer that. For one, I don’t know (at least not with any kind of exactness), and for two, I do know the answer is so complex that I couldn’t do it justice if I tried. What I can do is list some factors that, in my opinion, contribute to why few people our age are interested in marriage, and why few married couples exemplify what marriage actually is.
1. People don’t know what marriage actually is.
Refer to Part 1.
2. People don’t think enough (some can’t, some won’t).
Part of the story says the following:
A woman, “27, was in an on-and-off relationship with a clerk at Sears a few years ago when she found herself pregnant. A former nursing student who now tends bar, (she) said her boyfriend was so dependent that she had to buy his cigarettes. Marrying him never entered her mind. ‘It was like living with another kid,’ she said.“
Another part says this:
“In Lorain as elsewhere, explanations for marital decline start with home economics: men are worth less than they used to be. Among men with some college but no degrees, earnings have fallen 8 percent in the past 30 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while the earnings of their female counterparts have risen by 8 percent.”
The point the story makes is that these women aren’t marrying the fathers of their children because to do so would be financially irresponsible and/or of no financial benefit. But if our focus is on deciding not to marry a man because marrying him is of no financial benefit, we miss a deeper point. The young woman in the story wouldn’t dare marry a man-child who can’t afford his own cigarettes, which is good, and I commend her, because she shouldn’t. But, then, I’m left wondering: if a dependent guy isn’t good enough to marry, why is he good enough to date? Why is he good enough to make a baby with? This points to the deeper point:
There are so many questions to ask before we promise exclusivity to someone and before we make babies with him or her — questions that few are asking.
Questions like is this person emotionally, socially, spiritually, financially fit to be my spouse? Would he or she make a good parent? Do I want kids to turn out like this person? Am I emotionally, socially, spiritually, financially fit to be a spouse? Would I make a good parent? Do I want kids to turn out like me?
We need to think about our answers to these questions, which implies we have to answer them. I think lots of humans are so generally horrified that the answer to any of them will be no that we neither ask nor answer them. But know that if an answer is no, it does not not mean it has to be no forever. It means somebody has some work to do — some growing to do. And that’s ok, and always will be.
Lots of other humans do think about their answers to the questions, but their thoughts backfire because they are are under the impression that if an answer is no, the act of entering into a marriage — or even just moving in together — will transform the non-marriageable half of the couple into a marriageable one. But that’s not how it works.
From the article:
“Almost all of the rise in nonmarital births has occurred among couples living together. While in some countries such relationships endure at rates that resemble marriages, in the United States they are more than twice as likely to dissolve than marriages. In a summary of research, Pamela Smock and Fiona Rose Greenland, both of the University of Michigan, reported that two-thirds of couples living together split up by the time their child turned 10.”
This is because when a relationship isn’t working, doing something that complicates it never makes it work. We’re better off taking something out of the equation (such as one of the people, or sex) and seeing what happens.
Which brings us to a third factor that contributes to why few people our age are interested in marriage, and why few married couples exemplify what marriage actually is.
3. People treat the sacred (sex, in this case) like it isn’t.
In our culture, you hit a certain age and the assumption is that if you’re dating someone, you’re having sex with them. And in an overwhelming majority of cases, that’s a safe assumption. It’s the norm. Which is one of several reasons we know what the norm isn’t: treating sex like it’s sacred.
Sex is not kept sacred when it’s something we do with every person we date. It’s not kept sacred when we participate in it selfishly. It is not sacred when we decide to have sex because we believe we can’t not have sex.
“It’s impossible to wait” is a lie. Humans, in my opinion and experience, are stronger than that — we can control our appetites. A couple of my favorite quotes about this are as follows:
“Temperance is the moral virtue that moderates the attraction of pleasures and provides balance in the use of created goods. It ensures the will’s mastery over instincts and keeps desires within the limits of what is honorable. The temperate person directs the sensitive appetites toward what is good and maintains healthy discretion.*”
and
“The virtue of chastity comes under the cardinal virtue of temperance, which seeks to permeate the passions and appetites of the senses with reason.*”
There are far fewer people who believe that than who simultaneously a) believe marriage is a piece of paper, and b) are currently unfit for a piece-of-paper-marriage, let alone for a real one, who c) are so unwilling or unable to acknowledge that they are currently (and probably temporarily!) unfit for marriage that they d) date while they e) are completely convinced they cannot date without having sex.
And that, over time, combined with a lot of other factors, results in new normals like the one in the article.
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To read Part 1 of this post, click here.
To read the New York Times story in full, click here.
*This quote comes from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.