Here’s a thought-provoking analysis of the legal issues surrounding the espionage cases coming out of Guantanamo recently, by Phil Carter. I suppose I can guess why this doesn’t get so much coverage.
Author: Matt Powell
Oddly Enough Indeed
Talk about chutzpah- check out this story from Reuters’ Oddly Enough feature:
The mother of a man who killed three co-workers before shooting himself in a workplace rampage has asked the company to compensate her for her son’s death because it occurred at work, the company said on Tuesday.
She should probably get an honorary law degree or something for this.
Inspiration
Death on our Minds
I have just finished preparing the funeral service bulletin for Rev. Savage. You’ll forgive me if I’m of a serious turn of mind. This might be heavy reading with your morning bagel- if so, perhaps you should click this.
Still with me? Suit yourself.
From Conservative Postmodernism, Postmodern Conservatism by Peter Augustine Lawler, from a past issue of Intercollegiate Review:
“The modern individual- or the philosophers who constructed him-might be understood to be animated by the most insane form of pride ever. The modern individual aims to create in this world- not through grace but through human work- what God promised in the next. But viewed in another way, the modern individual seems less proud than desperate. The Christians are right about human misery and contingency; the modern individual is totally taken in by Augustine’s “negative” rhetoric about human alienation. But he does not believe in the Christian God; Augustine’s “positive” rhetoric about grace, providence, and salvation does not move him at all. And so he has no choice but to try to do for himself what the Christians believed God would do. The individual finds himself with a heavy- really, a horrible- burden. The modern individual is an alien- an absolutely contingent being who belongs nowhere in particular-who must build for himself his own place in the world.”
Modern thought is something I find myself examining and worrying about a good deal. I self-consciously practice a religion which is out of step with modern thinking on a great many points, although I am not so foolish as to think that my own behavior and thinking is unaffected by the world in which I live.
My professional choices as well as my faith require me to attempt to communicate a philosophical structure to a world that does not want it. And so I try to understand: How does the philosophical structure of Christianity differ than that of the world in which I live? That conflict is the conflict I must overcome in my communication with that world, and conveniently, it is also the conflict which I must myself overcome as well. Two for one.
Again, Lawler:
“The more secure or free from contingency he is objectively, the more he experiences his existence as contingent and the more he is haunted by death. The more death is pushed back by modern technology, the more accidental it seems. The more accidental or less necessary death seems, the more terrible it seems.”
As recent posts may indicate, death is something that is a good deal on my mind just recently. An ironic truth I have experienced very intimately in these recent events is that we Christians, who view death not as something natural or normal, but as a vicious horrible distortion of the natural order because of the curse of sin, are able to approach it and accept it with great dignity and grace. But moderns, who are supposed to view it as simply part of the natural cycle, yin vs. yang, fear it and avoid it and fight against it with all their hearts. I do not believe this contrast is caused by hypocrisy or inconsistency on the part of either camp. Rather, I’d assert that the seeming paradox is caused by the perspectives themselves. If death is part of nature, then like all of nature I should be able to control it. It is an enemy to be defeated by me. If on the other hand it is the judgment of a sovereign God over me, then it is something I must simply accept, and in accepting it the individual can transcend it. But there is no transcendence over nature if nature is all there is.
Modern man desperately needs to see how destructive a position of pure individualism is. The idea of man as a pure individual is something completely fabricated by the philosopher, and impossible to actually experience or live. But man has come to see anything which prevents him from being that pure individual to be repressive and false, whether it’s family or government or church. The further he gets away from the contexts that define him as a human being, the more miserable he becomes, but his misery only causes him to pursue pure individualism more, that being the false heaven constructed for him. The gods of the world are cruel taskmasters.
But wait a minute….
…I thought it was already Established Fact that people were born gay, or not. Here we have someone researching it AS IF THEY’RE NOT SURE!!!
And they still aren’t. This study seems pretty ambiguous at best.
What A Day
Well, this has been a day. I wanted to tell everyone, I’m just an intern!!
As I had communicated earlier, Rev. Dorman Savage is on his deathbed. I was just on my way out to spend some time with him and his family, when I got the news that another family in the congregation here in Limon had lost two young nephews in a car crash. Boy.
To anyone who doesn’t know, I am serving the Reformed churches of Limon and Karval as an intern, while I finish my Master of Divinity. So I’m a pastor, kind of. As such, I perform a great many of the duties of a pastor such as preaching, teaching Bible studies, and doing counseling. Fortunately, everyone here knows my status as a bumbling neophyte, and so they are very generous with my shortcomings.
Now grief counseling is something special of its own. It’s a real privilege to be with families and friends at such a time, to be someone who is welcomed when others are not. Sorry, we’re only allowing family and clergy in, they might say. And especially, to be given an opportunity to help people when they need it most. But it’s there that one feels especially inadequate. I don’t know what poor words of mine will really change anything. But of course that’s not the point, I remember. The important thing, I think, is that The Pastor is there, whoever it is. It’s a comfort to people to have the church represented at such things. And it’s not my words that matter, it’s God’s words, and so I read some Scripture and pray with people and I’m told that helps.
One thing I know for sure, I gained a great deal more from Rev. Savage than I can imagine he gained from me. To see a man passing on with such dignity and peace is a real witness. He’s lived as good a life as most anyone I know, and now he’s dying a better death than most anyone I’ve heard of.
Now the situation with the young boys- I imagine that will be a whole different kettle of fish. Dorman’s death has been expected for a while, and he’s lived a full life. So while there’s grief, there isn’t a lot of shock, anger or denial- all the things that may be present in the other situation. I don’t know the boys’ parents, but I may come to know them through this event.
Both situations at the same time are exhausting emotionally, but of course anything I may be going through in the exercise of my professional duties are nothing to what these families are going through.
One thought that went through my mind- I had been reading a lot of lyrics from a certain death-preoccupied ‘musical’ act (don’t ask- something in the nature of a research project). On the way back from one of these such visits, it occurred to me how very very little most of these kinds of pop acts, whether goth, or rap, or heavy metal or whatever, actually know about death at all- about as much as David Bowie knew about space flight I suspect.
Plaxo
Has anyone else gotten an email from someone they know asking to help them update their address book, and then you’re asked to give info to a third party, Plaxo? Does this make anyone else nervous?
I get enough spam now, and the emails look automated, and I certainly wouldn’t want to be sending any spam out myself unintentionally. The addresses that I got were forged, as I could see when I hit ‘reply’ to those emails. I don’t know who Plaxo is, and i know that their privacy policy says they won’t share that info, but they can change that policy any time, or they could be bought by someone else, or their servers could be hacked by spammers. It sounds like a really bad idea to me. Does anyone have any more info on this?
UV PC How-to
Feel like building a PC that glows in the dark? With spinning ultraviolet lights on the fans? With a see-through case so you can show off all of this nerdy goodness?
Me either, but if you do, Tom’s Hardware has the how-to guide.
Cracked
Cracked: Putting Broken Lives Together Again
I’d mentioned earlier that I had bought Cracked by Dr. Drew Pinsky of “Loveline” fame. I’ve read most of the book now, and I have been thinking a great deal about what it says. In particular, the issue I’ve been most interested in is how his view of the causes and cures of addictions intersects with the Reformed view of sin.
Dr. Pinsky is not a Christian. He is not even sure if he believes in God at all. But there are a lot of things said that a Christian couldn’t agree with more, or at least this Christian. For example, from p. 222, dealing with an alcoholic patient:
“For a moment, I can picture her fifty years earlier, a spry young woman at a cocktail party holding a martini glass and a cigarette. The early 1950s. A whole generation of women like her defined themselves by their freedom to smoke and drink. The next generation would partake of drugs and sex. If a show like
Sex and the City is any indication, the current generation is defined by a desperate inability to maintain a genuine relationship. I’m reminded of the old Virginia Slims cigarette slogan: You’ve come a long way, baby. But is this progress?”
Dr. Pinsky’s main point is about human interconnectedness. He says that chemical addiction is the combination of two main factors- a genetic hardwiring for abnormal sensitivity to the effect of chemicals, and childhood trauma. The trauma causes a person to not trust other human beings. This creates an inability to form normal human connections, which is how most people regulate their feelings. In times of highs and lows, we turn to other people. We turn to memories of loved ones, or we talk to someone, call them on the phone and share our joys and our pain. The trauma victim can’t do that. So they use something else to regulate their feelings, which will be chemicals if they have that genetic hardwiring.
So, what the addict needs is first of all the detox, of course, being brought off the chemical effects of their addiction. But that’s just the start. After that, they have to face the trauma, and all the trauma they’ve suffered since then as a result of their inability to deal normally with people. They have to feel feelings, and they have to come to be able to accept their life. This is where the “higher power” of the 12 steps comes in. They have to come to accept that there’s a reason for things.
Now, how does this compare to a Biblical understanding of sin?
1. We have no control over our sin.
To interpret Dr. Pinsky’s book through the Biblical understanding- it is because of our cursed, fallen nature that we rebel against the reality of the world, and use drugs or alcohol or sex or money or whatever to try to control things we have no control over.
The trauma victim will blame himself for sexual or physical abuse, or all sorts of other terrible things that happen to him, because to admit that he’s not to blame is to admit that he’s not in control. We all do this in one way or another. The one thing nobody wants to be is helpless, and we’ll do or say practically anything to avoid saying that.
Dr. Pinsky says that people, especially of the older generation, are very unwilling to admit that there isn’t any problem that can’t be overcome by sheer willpower. Christian people often talk this way. Alcoholic? Well, just stop drinking. But the Bible is clear- we have no control over our sin. If we did, we wouldn’t need Jesus.
2. Trust in God is the only way out.
Dr. Pinsky doesn’t say any different. He’s oddly (perhaps not so oddly) reluctant to definitely say it’s God, but he’s also unable to say what makes the difference between patients who “get it” and ones who don’t. But he does know that whatever it is, it’s entirely internal. It has nothing to do with the treatment, the doctor, the medications, or the program. He views all of these elements as absolutely necessary, but not sufficient. There’s something else that comes along that he doesn’t understand. From p. 88:
“It is a complex and mysterious process, so much so that most of my patients who get it attribute it to divine intervention. They say God steps into their lives, which explains the spiritual component of recovery.”
The heart of it is, only by accepting that things happen for a reason, and that there is a benevolent power in charge, can one accept the reality of one’s life and stop trying to control or change things over which we have no control. That is to say, in Christian terms, we have to start trusting God and stop rebelling against Him. This is why the fifth Commandment is so important, and for adults even more so than children: “Honor your father and your mother” means that I have to accept that God gave me my parents for a reason, and that to hate them or be unable to deal with what my parents are like is to rebel against God, which will simply continue the cycle of destructive behavior, as I try to control things I have no control over.
3. Love your neighbor as yourself.
The whole of the law is, Love God and Love your neighbor. That’s just another way (a better way) of making Dr. Pinsky’s point about human interconnectedness. Once we learn to trust God, then forming human connections is the way to live a normal, functioning life. That is, we need to love our neighbor. Not because of some arbitrary law that God created and needs to have obeyed, but because God created us that way and it’s the only way for us to work the way we’re supposed to work.
Dr. Pinsky makes the point that most of us are happiest when we’re with other people. Our fondest memories are of times spent with family and friends. I know mine are. Nobody’s ever going to get to the end of their life and say, “I wish I spent more time at the office”. They’re also not going to wish they spent more time alone.
It’s fascinating to me that Dr. Pinsky, with the truth staring him in the face every day, still cannot accept that it’s God that makes the difference, preferring to call it “a mysterious process” that everybody just calls God because they don’t know what else to call it.
That being said, though, this is a very good book, engagingly written and emotionally honest. There are a few places where he leaves stories unfinished and the reader confused about what happened. And the stories are heartbreaking, and really tough to read a lot of the time. But to anyone interested in how addiction really works, I’d recommend Cracked.
Wow
Bill Whittle has written a beautiful essay on Power. Beware- it’s long, and captivating, so don’t start reading until you have a spare half-hour.
Link via Instapundit.
