Christ is Risen!

This past Thursday, on which the Orthodox Church celebrated Christ's Ascension, I called a friend to make plans for the weekend. She greeted me with a hearty "happy feast day." I responded "Christ is Risen!"

My friend, who is not a convert (edit: like me), paused for a moment and then responded in Greek, "Alithos Anesti!" before asking whether or not we were allowed to use that greeting now, and I had to stumble through an apology for a bad religious pun (rise/ascend). I didn't broach the subject of St. Seraphim of Sarov's use of the Paschal greeting year round.

Anyhow, check out Fr. Joseph Hunnycutt's post (& podcast!) It's good for what ails me.

Prognosticating Peace

U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich - OH has been chillingly prescient in foretelling the disastrous effects of Bush43's administrative consolidation of power in the executive branch. With respect to the U.S.A. Patriot Act, Kucinich recognized the dangerous and unwarranted expansion of power as a serious threat to Fourth Amendment rights, a truth that is only now being widely recognized.

One of the leaders in Congress against Bush43's Orwellian onslaught and the rush to war in Iraq, Kucinich stood alone on the Democratic ticket in 2004 emphatically denouncing the war and the lack of universal healthcare (though, by that time, he was joined by others in denouncing the U.S.A. Patriot Act). It seems as though Kucinich was just "ahead of his time" since the "frontrunners" in the 2008 Democratic race now sound like they're using D.K.'s 2004 talking points. Let's step back and consider for a moment where we might be had Kucinich been given more respect (from his party and the media) in 2004, and the Iraq War and national healthcare were issues we tackled three years (and $300 billion) ago...

Kucinich's major obstacle in 2004 and also in 2008 is also the strongest argument in favor of his candidacy. As a candidate with no strings attached, Kucinich is depending on well-reasoned argument, common sense, and grassroots support to get the Dem nod for 2008. The downside to not being in someone's pocket is that its a lot harder to be visible when you can't buy the million-dollar TV spots. Let's be clear on one thing: it's not just the media that's to blame for the lack of coverage for Kucinich's big ideas. The Democratic National Committee was so keen on declaring a nominee for 2004 that they effectively declared the race after the media frenzy over Dean's post-primary speech in Iowa. I truly believe that the Democrats lost in 2004 because they effectively silenced competition so early that they failed to realize that the most "electable" candidate was the most uninspiring.

Kucinich is electable if you vote for him.

All of which begs the question, why should we vote for Kucinich? Think about Bush43. What are your criticisms of his presidency? (Mine are) belligerence, cronyism, abridgment of constitutional freedoms, shortsightedness. Kucinich, by contrast, is committed to peace and diplomacy, is as much a threat to the DNC establishment as he is to the GOP, has been a voice in the wilderness since the passage of U.S.A. Patriot Act, and was delivering this message long before it was just so much old news rehashed on the 24-hour networks.

[Edit]I've taken down this video so that you can load the page without having to wait for this to load or listen to it again, but I highly recommend this compilation of quotes from Dennis Kucinich as an example of what we knew and when we knew it.

April Snowshowers bring May's...

A snowy central Texas Easter - photo courtesy of Donna O'Connor











...Global Warming?

One of my biggest pet peeves right now are the folks (in the media and otherwise) who point to unseasonably cold weather as evidence against "global warming." I'll readily admit that the term "global warming" probably does a disservice to the cause in that it is easily interpreted to be something other than what it is not (much in same way as the term "gifted" seems to imply that children two standard deviations above normal IQ don't require special services when those in the opposite position do). Perhaps a better descriptor is "global climate change," though I suspect that this phrase doesn't have quite the alarmist overtones that serve both supporters and detractors.

For those who have yet (or are unwilling) to see Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, I'll give the two minute version here. Yes, Gore does use his bully-pulpit to make a few good-natured jabs at the 2000 elections. he also masterfully translates the science of global climate change into common parlance much in the same way that Dr. Stephen Hawking does for theoretical physics. There are a few points to the take-away message: 1) The ocean currents power our global weather; 2) Increased temperatures at the poles result in ice melt, ice melt results in exponentially faster ice melt because water absorbs the sun's energy and melts the ice from below (when frozen, most of this energy is reflected back into space); 3) increasingly warm water at the poles will shut off ocean currents causing massive, widespread climate change in a matter of years instead of millenia.

Those who would point to unseasonably cool weather to disprove global climate change fundamentally misunderstand the thesis; they are, in fact, unwittingly drawing attention to the harbingers of such a shift. Though "global warming" accurately describes the root of the problem at the poles, the resultant climate shift everywhere else won't necessarily mean higher temperatures. It might mean less rainfall, or more. It might mean more big, destructive weather for some, and milder weather for others. Certainly, one year of cooler-than-average springtime doesn't provide conclusive evidence for climate shift, but three years looks like a trend, and in five we might have completely different weather patterns.

Taking a broad view of the global ecosystem, one might argue that there have been much warmer periods in earth's history (Mr. Gore does point this out). What is markedly different about this moment in history is that the change is likely to happen far more quickly than it has in the past, and with much greater impact on the world's ecosystems, which are already hard-pressed by other man-made threats such as habitat elimination and excessive harvesting.

The sobering, and hopeful, coda to An Inconvenient Truth is that we can make a difference. Start thinking about your carbon footprint and how you can live a lower-impact lifestyle. Check out Slate.com's Green Challenge. Save your gas money and ride a bike...or a Segway. Vote for green energy and sustainable practices with your wallet.

In closing, I offer these thoughts penned by His All Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew

The Lord suffuses all of creation with His Divine presence in one continuous legato from the substance of atoms to the Mind of God. Let us renew the harmony between heaven and earth, and transfigure every detail, every particle of life. Let us love one another, and lovingly learn from one another, for the edification of God's people, for the sanctification of God's creation, and for the glorification of God's most holy Name. Amen.

So long, and thanks for all the fish

Kurt Vonnegut's death this week has left me with a peculiar sadness that is hard to describe. Though I enjoyed (very much) the two books of his I have read (Galapagos, Timequake) and have fond memories of my stepdad telling stories about Tralfamador, from which planet a younger brother was purported to hail, I've never really thought of myself as a Vonnegut fan. Thinking about it now, I suppose that Mr. Vonnegut might have thought about the concept of fans as slightly ridiculous anyhow. I've not yet read Slaughterhouse-Five or Cat's Cradle, though I have vague plans to do so in the way that I think all English majors have a list of great books they just haven't gotten around to reading yet. In spite of this all this good-natured disinterest, Vonnegut's death leaves a hole in my world that I don't think I could define better than Jon Stewart's comment, "the world got less interesting." Vonnegut was one of those rare authors who seemed to be able to work hope out of postmodernism. A comment made in a literary obituary in The Observer sums up Vonnegut's genius this way: "he told us the hardest of truths, but in the gentlest, funniest and most amiable way he knew how." I really think Vonnegut is what Mark Twain would have been like had he been an optimist.

Vonnegut's death made me think of another unexpected loss of an author whose distillation of hope from the absurd has helped me understand the human condition. Douglas Adams, the author of The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy and all its related stories, and Last Chance to See. Though Adams' death is several years past, his passing also permeates the sense of loss I feel for Vonnegut. I think that it is increasingly rare to see such selfless truth-giving from authors, and that we're worse off without them. I don't think that their perspectives necessarily need to be lost, though, as their readers--dare I say, fans--can take advantage of a cultural tipping-point in calling to account the absurd abuse of power in the world. I don't think their lessons are being lost, we just have to act rationally irrational. Both might agree, "Don't Panic."

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

This time last year I was on a trip abroad with my Century Scholar Learning Community class visiting London. On March 17, Ashley and I took a day trip to Glastonbury Abbey in Somerset. The trip itself was quite an adventure. We got up early to catch the first train to Bath where we spent the better part of the morning. Towards noon, we finally purchased bus tickets for the rest of the journey to Glastonbury. The bus ride was close to three hours...we had anticipated spending about half of that time traveling. We arrived at Glastonbury Abbey about two hours before they were to close and stayed until close to 6:00 PM.

Glastonbury Abbey is noted as the site of the earliest above-ground Christian church in Europe. Legend holds that Joseph of Arimathea (who purportedly dealt in tin...a good reason to travel to Britain) established a daub and wattle structure on the spot thirty years after Christ's Ascension (and his staff, once planted, also bloomed into a unique thorn tree). The oldest ruins extant, the Lady Chapel, are about 1100 years newer, but are dwarfed by the ruins of the later church. The disrepair dates from Henry VIII's schism and subsequent persecution of English monastics. In the small museum on the grounds, I was sorely disappointed to find a brass etching plate of Henry VIII among other icon rubbing plates, given his hand in destroying the vibrant community there. I was similarly disappointed by the lack of recognition of the historic church in England that, no doubt, stems from inherited distrust of anything Catholic. How ironic that one of Prince Charles' favorite retreats hearkens to that rich heritage.

Glastonbury Abbey is rich in legend. In addition to Joseph of Arimathea, other storied visitors (and sometime residents) are St. Patrick, Arthur and Guinevere, and perhaps even Christ Himself! I was particularly pleased to say a prayer at the old stone altar in the chapel dedicated to St. Patrick on the Abbey grounds which was spared in the Reformation. There are competing legends about where St. Patrick is buried, but one claim holds that he was buried on the grounds of Glastonbury Abbey with the honor of being its first abbot. This is the closest I've come to a pilgrimage, and was incredibly humbling to honor St. Patrick on his feast day.

Through the prayers of Sts. Patrick, Dunstan, Benedict, David, and Bridget, and of all of the British and Celtic saints, may God Bless and keep you all!

Peace for our time?

This post is ambitious. I hope to look at the nature of war, the threat of perpetual war, my take on the proper Christian response, and what we can do about it. I should make a note here that while I have faithfully tried to represent Orthodox Christian teaching as I understand it, there are a number of Orthodox Christians who would disagree with my take that all war (understood as combat between humans) is evil and avoidable for Christians. I earnestly entreat the forgiveness of any who might be scandalized by what I've written here.

Though I’ve been actively involved in peace-making since 2002, the particular stimulus for sitting down to write now is a pair of interviews on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report. Most recent was Zbigniew Brzezinski’s evaluation of how the last three presidential administrations have squandered opportunities to change our foreign policy to effect peace.



AND

Ted Koppel on “Our Children’s Children’s War”

After watching Brzezinski’s interview, my wife turned to me, holding our three and a half week old boy and said,” I don’t want us to still be at war in twenty years.” Her statement was fraught with meaning. What would perpetual war mean for an already de-stabilized economy? How much further might our socio-political relations crumble in the face of increased fundamentalism (on all sides)? What role might our son be forced to play in this future? I responded that we have to be proactive in pursuing peace.

During my military training (Army National Guard), I came to a realization that I would wrestle with for five years. The realization didn’t crystallize overnight, but was something I came to gradually. The first germ of the realization was in the cognitive dissonance I had trying to integrate the training I was receiving into my still-developing value system. My mother had instructed me never to start fights, but told me to finish one if someone else started a fight with me. My drill instructor told us that he believed he was damned to hell because he had participated in war. If the notion that a strong military is a deterrent to military aggression, thereby securing peace, was true, then it seemed as though civilization was being held together by training men and women to do the most uncivilized of things. To Kill. Basic training has a number of facets. New soldiers learn chain of command, equipment recognition, disaster response, first aid, teamwork, and self-respect (and probably not enough military history and ethics). But, if all that had to be trimmed out of the training process, what would remain would be combat training: rifles, grenades, bayonets, and hand-to-hand combat. I recognized that the change in me was that I now knew how to kill someone. I don’t expect that 17-, 18- and 19-year-olds regularly engage in this kind of metacognitive evaluation (neither, I suspect, does the military establishment).

War has become a very useful metaphor in the English language. We can wage war against drugs, cancer, obesity, poverty, and a number of other social and physical ills. We are also able to war against an idea: Terrorism. In Western Christian history, the idea of the “Just War” developed to provide some insight into the always sticky prospect of Christian participation in war. One thing that just war theory, and most wars up until our “War on Terror” commenced, assume is a known enemy. War, as it has been redefined, is not limited to a particular theatre, enemy, or timeframe. Instead the war against terrorism mirrors those socio-political “wars” in that it is a protracted, consuming struggle, or “jihad” as the concept is known in Islam. In Christianity, an analogue might be asceticism. I don’t believe that Bush43’s polarizing statements about an “axis of evil” and a fight between the forces of good versus evil are gaffes. I think that in those moments he is being truly transparent and revealing in that language his moral understanding of the stakes of this war. This is truly and epic, ongoing, and eternal struggle.

If that doesn’t trouble you, then I suspect that you are among the growing number of American revolutionists that wish to change our form of government. If you are troubled by the thought of becoming the (nominally) Christian answer to RadIslamism (not to mention the financial stake that this administration, broadly imagined, stands to gain from perpetual war) our call to action is simple. We need a radical politic of peace.

In the process of working for peace, Christians must be careful not to make the struggle an end unto itself, but understand such work as serving Christ, however disfigured His image might be, in our enemies, in the poor and destitute, in those imprisoned, and those dealing with spiritual and physical illness. We have to be careful not to expect Paradise here on earth (chiliaism), but to be good stewards of the economic and political power we’ve been granted. We Christians that have the privilege of living in the United States should certainly be grateful for the freedom we enjoy to practice our faith. At the same time though, that security is not worth mortgaging our faith. We should look to the early martyrs as examples of fidelity. If we truly believe in Christ’s radical transformation of reality, and that we have the opportunity to participate (however imperfectly) in Paradise now, we need step into a role of active peacemakers, forgiving and loving our enemies. For the obvious reasons, this would be an inappropriate stance for the United States government to take, given its role in the social contract to protect its citizens. Indeed, this would be an inappropriate stance for any secular government to take, as it would require its citizenry to be willing to become martyrs. As individuals, however, we can utilize the means at our disposal—wealth, influence, and votes—to influence a compromise in the direction of true Peace.

My response to my wife’s concern about perpetual war, that we have to proactively wage peace, is ultimately a personal choice with universal implications. St. Seraphim of Sarov told us that if we could acquire peace, thousands around us would be saved. I believe that St. Seraphim is talking about physical and metaphysical salvation. Ghandi’s experience with Christianity in practice led him to conclude that Christians aren’t much like Christ. As Christians practicing in what is arguably the most permissive (on all sides) society we have ever known, we don’t all naturally get the privilege of suffering for Christ. Like the men and women that fled to the desert to preserve Christianity, I think that modern Christians can find a useful ascetic yoke in pursuing peace through practicing a personal politic of peace. We have few examples of this path which seems difficult to our comfortable sensibilities.

In persons like Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Theresa and Mohandas Ghandi, Christians can distill a sense of the spiritual import of waging peace. For Orthodox Christians, the example of St. Maria of Paris, and countless other Holy Fools for Christ stand out as shining examples of how we can put into practice the hard sayings of our Lord. Nor is this a journey that needs to be taken alone. The Orthodox Peace Fellowship is one of many Christian organizations (also Sojourners, CPT, Fellowship of Reconciliation) that persons with pacifistic mindsets can turn to for support and guidance in waging peace. There are analogous peace organizations that represent a number of religious and political affiliations. The crux of the matter is that peacemakers can’t be passive; we have to actively assert love and forgiveness, speak truth to power, and engage in these actions in our own lives.

Selected peacemaker resources:

Orthodox Peace Fellowship

Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors

The Saints on Peacemaking

The Early Fathers on War and Military Service – Louis J. Swift (out of print…I have permission from the author to distribute copies to my friends as necessary. Contact me if you need one)

The Peace Alliance – Campaign to establish a cabinet-level U.S. Department of Peace

Ladder of the Beatitudes - Jim Forest. This is a nice meditation on how to actually live out the "hard sayings" of Christ.

Love is the Measure - Jim Forest. A biography of Dorothy Day.

Mother Maria Skobtsova - Essential Writings - St. Maria of Paris

Noah at 3 Weeks

Last night Noah turned three weeks old. To mark the occasion, we held a bath party. It wasn't so much a party as a well-documented bath, but it was a bunch of fun. Noah seemed to enjoy the comfort of floating in warm water again.

Yesterday also marked our transition to cloth diapers. Much thanks to Pam for providing the bulk of our cloth diapers. Our Ebay purchased Swaddlebees made overnight changes much easier.

Pictures will be added as soon as I can figure out how to do frame capture from DVD (or even better, add video from YouTube).

Kucinich: The Black Candidate?

The current Doonesbury Straw Poll asks which candidate has the most authentic claim to blackness

Obama. His grandfather served as a houseboy in Jim Crow-era Africa. His white mom's from Kansas. How much more African-American can you get? If he wins, he goes down in history as the first black president -- so why are we having this conversation? Say Amen, somebody.

Hillary Clinton. Sure, technically she's white, but you could say the same thing about Obama, whose mixed parentage doesn't make him any more black than white. Also, she grew up in Chicago, city of blues and hoods, whereas Obama was raised in Honolulu, about as gay a hometown as there is. Plus, Hil's guy, headquartered in Harlem, still brings it, community cred-wise.

Not surprisingly, Dennis Kucinich is invisible in this discussion of Democratic candidates. What is troubling is that the good folks at Doonesbury had to stretch to include Edwards in this lineup:

John Edwards. Looked down on for being a trial lawyer, referred to by Rush as "Breck Girl", bashed by Ann Coulter as a "faggot" -- Edwards knows about having to fight for respect. Besides, we need three choices for the poll.

(emphasis mine)

Dennis Kucinich, on the other hand might have been and easy choice to include in the line up if there was actually some equivalent coverage of candidates. The Black Agenda Report ran a story with the headline, "Kucinich: The Black Candidate." BAR managing editor Bruce Dixon notes that Kucinich's voting record matches up with the best of the Black Congressional Caucus' voting record "across the board."

The Doonesbury Straw Poll cites "a recent poll" that says 84 percent of Americans claim that a candidate's blackness will have no bearing on the way they vote. Since the performance of racial/ethnic identity is something of a personal project (another story, another time?) I am very interested in the implications of both polls. First, the inherent privilege of whiteness is to disavow the existence of privilege. From Beverly Daniel Tatum's concept of passive racism (and here, and here), we see that uncritical participation in the accumulated privilege of whiteness is problematic. I don't trust the majority of white america to know that they would unconsciously seek to consolidate their relative positions of power by limiting access to the Oval Office (or any other threat, real or perceived to their way of life). Second, BAR's implicit and explicit (re)definition of blackness vis-a-vis Kuchinich mirrors my own thought that there is a voluntary, cultural element to black identity that could be universally accessible. I say the foregoing with full understanding that such a train of thought could go in a number of wrong directions including thinking of black identity and culture as a monolith; ignorance of/insensitivity to the involuntary participation in being stigmatized, excluded, and violated based on skin color.

What remains to be seen is just how accessible media-poor candidates like Kucinich will be to a voting public who desperately needs them. I got a call from a Democratic National Committee fundraiser the other day, who despite his persistence, finally got the message that the DNC screwed up '04 by encouraging the major media outlets to focus on Dean and then Kerry almost exclusively in the primaries. He finally conceded the point that while the DNC is going to support who the public supports (in the primaries) they have the power to make sure that the primaries are, in fact, democratic.

To Do items...marked Urgent

The New York Times has published a list of actions that need to be undertaken in order to reverse the slide into despotism that has marked the Bush43 presidency. Hopefully, these items can be checked off by Congress before the next President takes office. If not, here's hoping that Dennis Kucinich will be the person who oversees the final mop-up.

No matter who is elected to the Oval Office, my great desire is that the American people will see the last decade as an object lesson in what happens when we abdicate our democratic rights and responsibilities and let ego and money become the prerequisites for holding office.

He's Red, He's Curly...

Thanks to Amy Toth for this delightful homage. = )

I am working on the burly part...

More about Fish Camp, the biggest, baddest and most successful student-led college orientation program there is.

What's the deal with Hyberbilirubinemia?

[Please note, I am not a doctor and this is not intended to be medical advice.]

Several of you have asked for more information about the health issues that Noah has dealt with since his birth a week ago. Since his mom and I are first-class worriers, we've taken the time to study up on hyperbilirubinemia, the condition that Noah's doctors believe he has. Hyperbilirubinemia is a condition that is characterized by early jaundice in newborns, but is confirmed by blood test.

Many babies develop jaundice within a couple of days after birth. This is a result of their immature liver trying to recycle red blood cells. Bilirubin is part of the blood that if not flushed out of the body properly can cause jaundice (it also is responsible for that yellow color in bruises and the brown color of stool). In a very few number of cases, babies with very high bilirubin levels can end up with deposits in the brain that can cause mental deficits. Noah's doctors responded aggressively to an early high reading with phototherapy, which can help break down the bilirubin and get it to pass out of the body. In the first couple of days, while the baby's stool is transitioning from the meconium stool to the breastmilk (or formula, I suppose) stool, the color is dark green and looks like it has little black seeds in it. The appearance of these seeds in the diaper means the body is getting rid of the excess bilirubin.

Noah's levels have been coming down from a high of 16 at about two days after birth to just over 14 this afternoon. The older the baby gets, the higher the level they can tolerate, though eventually the levels settle somewhere around 1 for adults.

For those interested, a couple links to read up on hyperbilirubinemia and breastmilk jaundice:

American Association of Pediatrics - Mangement of Hyperbilirubinemia

Cost Consideration in Hyperbilirubinemia Treatment (requires registration)

Breastmilk Jaundice

A Very Merry-Unbirthday...

This particular unbirthday finds Noah at one week old (well later tonight it does). An unbirthday is not the same as a half-birthday, which Becca always manages to remember. Noah is continuing to adapt to home life despite daily visits to the doctor's office (and/or phlebotomist's office) for follow-up bilirubin tests.

This post will have a side-rant now to talk for a second about quality of healthcare. I am a supporter of Dennis Kucinich's Healthcare for All plan, and think that socialized medicine is the only way that we're going to correct the incredible disparity between rich and poor peaople's healthcare access in our nation. One issue that is being solved is the doctor shortage, and while med school enrollment is going up, we need to also address patient care expectations. In the last week we've had a doctor tell us that our baby is starving (he isn't and wasn't) and have had pescriptions for bilirubin management made without consulting--much less being familiar with--Noah's patient history. I explained to the healthcare worker that was relaying this recommendation that I understood that they talk to many patients every day with the same problem, but that this was our first time to deal with it. She agreed and thanked me for correcting her when I said that it was irresponsible to make reccomendations without knowing the context of our case. Our goals for building a sustainable, openly accessible healthcare system, I think, depends on training enough capable doctors to know their patients personally.

Oh, and we need an ethics examination prior to medical training. Our national "Burger King Mentality" has resulted in a generation of doctors (and I realize this is a broad brush; take some responsibility for the integrity of your profession...physician, heal thyself) that are more willing to do surgery than insist on lifestyle change.

[/end rant]

Poor bedside manner aside, we're doing well given where we are at with the jaundice. We had a wonderful consultant come out yesterday to talk to us about making sure that Noah is getting enough food. Why can't they all be like this?

So, now for some photos...

Our phototherapy has gone from Tron/Buckaroo Banzai sci-fi

to

Aeon Flux


Perspective...Grandparents for the first time...
grandparents for the eight time...

Thanks to all who have called, written, and visited. Hope to see you again soon!

Baby K...

Has arrived. Presenting Anthony Noah Kotinek!

Through the prayers of St. Anthony the Great and the All-Praised Theotokos, God grant wisdom, health, and grace to this our first-born child.

Noah is a Bradley Baby. We had a wonderful experience with our nurses at St. Joseph Hospital!


A QUICK UPDATE: We're still at St. Joseph's waiting on the results of a second bilirubin test after some intensive phototherapy. Though jaundice is common in all babies, hospital staff knew that it could be an issue for Noah because his extremely ruddy color indicated a lot of blood volume at birth.








Mom and Noah are doing great! Here we are enjoying a brief respite from those horrid goggles and nasty bright light.

Deep in the Heart of Texas...

We all know what sport reigns. That's right.

Basketball?!?

Seriously, though, it's really nice to see Aggie hoops have this kind of success. Though I might wish I could still walk into Reed Arena and sit wherever I like, I'm content with not even being able to get a ticket because students are filling all available seats (well, almost).

Though we're maintaining in the Top 10 (what will today's #1 Florida loss to Vandy do to the rankings?) nicely, TTU still manages to have our number. We're getting solid play off of our bench, and I was especially pleased to see the score continue to build in our favor when Acie had to sit down during the tu game with an injury. I can't say enough good things about Billy Gillispie...I hope we can keep him around.

Maybe he would like to coach football, too?

Thankee Sai

I've just received my copies of The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born and accompanying sketchbook from Marvel Comics. For the unititiated, Stephen King's The Dark Tower series is the only story he's ever written. All the other stories are bits and pieces of the larger universe in which he writes. I had started espousing this view in the early nineties, but was pleasantly surprised to find that I wasn't grasping at straws when King admitted he interconnection of his work in an epilouge to Insomnia. Since then, a number of guides have become available to document the rich detail of King's imagination, most significantly the Complete Guide to the Works of Stephen King, The Stephen King Universe, and The Road to the Dark Tower.

I'm looking forward to reading King's version of Roland's prehistory, but I know that the read will also be a little sad because it won't be my version of Roland's story. OK, so it's not totally mine...it was a sort of "writer's roulette" on-line RPG that started out at OneList.com (later absorbed into Yahoo! Groups); other contributors were Dennis, Jill, Juli, Karen and Tracy.. My apologies for the horrible site layout, etc.

At any rate, I'm grateful that King hasn't quite mothballed the typewriter yet. Thankee Sai!

Die-hard King fans might be interested in joining SKEMERs.

Theocracy Now?

Email forwards continue to be the most invigorating source of response that will spill over here. Yes, I did make it into 2007 (for those that were worried). It's just been an especially busy start to the year what with group review, the impending arrival of Baby K, work, school, and being named a 2007 Fish Camp namesake (!!!).

Today I received a message with a link to the Diamond Rio video for "In God We Still Trust." A particular lyric stuck out because it was the subject of conversation ending our parish's annual Meatfare Sunday BBQ lunch. Diamond Rio puts it this way, "There's no separation...we're one nation under Him," after first describing the fact that God's name is on our "most important" monuments and on our money. I had already intended to post my thoughts deriving from the lunch conversation, which started by talking about Mitt Romney and his chances for garnering the GOP nod.

My position was that, Romney's Mormon background notwithstanding, we've seen enough evidence from neocons in positions of power and enough blind support for the current administration's consolidation of power to believe that there is a sizable contingent that wouldn't mind dismantling our government to establish a theocracy. Even if the Southern Baptist vote wouldn't swing for Romney (I'm not sure that it wouldn't, and that it would matter if it didn't), it's far less likely that the Baptists with whom I grew up would vote for a Catholic candidate than a Mormon one.

As if to prove my point, one young gentleman joined the conversation by indicating that ours is a Christian nation (at least that's what I thought he said). I started to talk about the economic reasons for emigration to the U.S. and the myth of a Christian agenda on the part of the founding fathers. He quickly interrupted and noted that he understood that we didn't start off that way, but that he hoped we would become a Christian nation. We discussed for a moment, the relative benefits of living in a system that promotes your particular moral and social code, and both agreed that there isn't a better system than what we enjoy now, whatever work might still need to be done. I further pointed out that his suggestion that we become a Christian nation and prohibit public practice of other religions (if acted upon) constitued treason and is the very thing that our armed forces are sworn to protect against. Amazingly, he thoughtfully agreed.

Before hearing Diamond Rio's song, I wasn't sure how representative this young man's position might be, but I'm afraid that we're worse off than I imagined. I'm afraid that since we've allowed our democratic participation to be commodified, people are treating it as a luxury. Though my experience with the U.S. military has helped bring me to a conclusion that all war and preparation for war is at odds with a Christian worldview, I think that mandatory military service would force people to become more invested in the process...and it would certainly cool the urge to surge.

Red-Headed Stepchild

When I first came to A&M in the mid 90's, the titular epithet was a favorite for describing Texas Tech's relative rank as a state "flagship" school. Much has been written on the "rivalry" (e.g. here, here) or lack thereof in recent years. Talk from school administrators about holding the annual game in Dallas certainly does nothing to quash such debate [sidebar: Dr. Gates recently outed himself as Ranger65 on the premiere on-line destination for Texas Aggies, where he reported his own opinions that 1) the game should not be moved to Dallas, and 2) Tech shouldn't be considered our principal rivals].

I started this post two months ago after the first of three heartbreaking losses at Kyle Field that would have gone our way but for the combined total of six points. I saw the loss coming when, at a crucial third and two...from the two yard line...Coach Fran calls a timeout and J. Train knows what's coming because you could see a disgusted look on his face as he pulled his helmet off going to the sideline. Sure enough, when the Ags took the field again, we go for the pass (when we haven't completed one all night) and muff it, settling for a field goal. There are a lot of things that are out of the control of a coaching staff, but play calling is not one of them. (One astute poster at Texags.com put together this impressive set of data, knowing Coach Fran's penchant for coaching by the book, illustrating how thick-skulled this call was.)

Another thing that is a coach's responsibility, in my opinion, is a sense of urgency. Throughout the season I've commented on our apparent lack of a "hurry-up" offense and the lacksadasical manner in which the offense trots from the huddle to the line. I know, it's apples and oranges, but when I played in high school Coach Basinger taught us that the intensity it takes to drive your opponent off the line begins with the attitude you bring from the huddle. The commentators at last night's debacle of a Holiday Bowl echoed those concerns.

I closely resemble the titular epithet, though I can gladly report I wasn't mistreated the way the rest of the saying usually goes. I wonder if the Aggies (at least in football, hopefully not in basketball) are taking Tech's place as the hopelessly ill-fated younger siblings to the perennial powerhouses of the Big XII South (the recent win over t.u. notwithstanding).

Earlier in the week, my brother asked me if the Aggies were going to help him win his fantasy football bracket and I had to confess that the outcome depended alot on whether or not our secondary could stop the big plays. The defense in general and the secondary in particular have made great strides this season. But, we still couldn't shut down Cal's passing attack...and then were too demoralized to shut down their running attack. Perhaps one reason is that it looks like we spend too much time trying to strip the ball. I'd much rather see us hit with abandon (and wrap up!) and let the turnovers happen as they will.

So, I have an idea: co-head coaches. Has this been done before? Could we afford it? We give the Defense to R.C. Slocum and the Offense to Fran...maybe between the two of them they can strike the necessary balance of emotional connectedness and strategy we so despereately need.

Goodbye to 2006

A quick end to the year's postings...since I doubt I'll get the opportunity to set anything else down this weekend, and I'm apparently being quite prolific tonight. Here's hoping that some of you 80 visitors will check back and be rewarded with new (not necessarily useful or interesting) content for doing so.

It has been a year of travel for me: London, Seattle, Vancouver, Oahu, Galveston, Denver, NYC, Philadelphia, Marshall, Shreveport, and Dallas (and that's just nine months!)

I'm a first time daddy (or will be shortly)!

Aggie football gave us hope, Aggie basketball will hopefully give more results than hope.

Big-Government Republicanism failed, let's see what the Dems can do.

Here's hoping for Kucinich in '08 (let's see, in '04 his platform was universal health care and ending the war in Iraq)...maybe Obama will run with him...Dennis is, apparently, the black candidate in the race.

Rummy's out and Dr. Gates is in...

Saddam is also out

and so much more to be thankful for and cry God's mercy. May He bless each of you richly in the coming year!

Hurrah for books! and marriage! and books about marriage!

Observant readers (there are 80 of you so far...from as far afield as Europe and South America no less!) might have noticed the ever increasing list of books to the right hand side of the screen. Go ahead, look, I'll wait.

OK, now that you've had a chance to peruse the list of books I'm reading, have recently read, and my own sad, egotistical attempt to put together a list of books about Orthodox Christianity, let me mention something about a few of the books. Since elementary school (at South Davis), I have recognized in myself a penchant for reading. During my second grade year (in addition to wetting my pants while waiting to use the restroom in our class room...aren't elementary school teachers saints? aren't I glad that I lived literally next door to the school?) I read something on the order of 120 books to receive a certificate that required only forty or so. My mom tells me that my teacher disbelieved my reports until she quizzed me and I was able to give a plot synopsis for every book when asked. Anyhow, since then, I've loathed the book report (and it's grown-up cousin, the book review) mainly because I have a hard time getting past the whole work to provide a condensed version. If you're so interested, why don't you read the book yourself! *grin*

So, I'm not likely to give regular reviews on the books I'm reading (though I will be more than happy to discuss them if you ask...hopefully with specific questions), I wanted to take the opportunity the happy occasion of Shauna and Tony's marriage (and my current seclusion in a hotel room in east Texas) to mention the books on my list that deal with marriage.

Fr. John Meyendorff's book Marriage: An Orthodox Perspective is a wonderful exposition on how the vocation of marriage can and should be a reflection of Trinitarian theology.

Fr. Thomas Hopko's book Christian Faith and Same-Sex Attraction also deals with the theology of correct human marital relations, as well as providing a Patristic, nuanced, and thoughtful guide to how to lovingly deal with the marred expressions of our created intent for completing each other.

Dawn Eden's book The Thrill of the Chaste is unique in this collection in that it is written from the perspective of someone outside of the Orthodox Church. I was first alerted to Dawn Eden's blog and writing through the blog Orthodixie, written by a Houston-area Orthodox priest. Ms. Eden's book, like the other two mentioned above, provides a clear exposition of principles with which I had wrestled previously to express in internet conversations (e.g. here) and in email exchange.

The basic tenet shared in all three books is that marriage is an ascetic vocation (like monasticism) in which the selfish individual will is transformed by submitting to grace into a person in communion with God and the person's intended husband or wife. A point that I've made in personal conversation is that marriage was revealed to humanity before any other sacrament, and is thus, I believe, a natural state...one that is yearned for despite what ecclesiological, sociological and/or political structures might guide the expression of such a union. And since marriage is a sacrament, and sacraments are the participation of the material with the divine, we can look to what we know about God to describe marriage in its intended state. Fr. Meyendorff and Fr. Hopko's books accomplish this exposition explicitly through Orthodox teaching. Ms. Eden does so by faith-fully communicating the lessons she has learned through trial and error. And that is exactly what I'm talking about when I say that your religious/philosophical tenets need to provide a satisfactory explanatory framework for existence.

Agent of Change

In the midst of a large (by Texas A&M standards) anti-racism rally last Wednesday, I received a call indicating that Donald Rumsfeld had stepped down and Texas A&M University President Robert Gates had been tapped to replace him. Emotions in the crowd ranged from despair at the loss of a perceived ally in effecting lasting change to hope at the prospect of helping to select another progressive leader.

While Dr. Gates confirmation is by no means a done deal, his message to the Aggie community indicates some certainty on his part that he will be headed to Washington D.C. Dr. Gates history with the CIA during the Iran-Contra affair is likely to be an issue of contention during Senate confirmation hearings. Journalist Robert Parry of consortiumnews.com seems to be the most vocal critic of Dr. Gates' appointment. Parry has advanced speculation about Gates' politicization of intelligence during his tenure at the CIA in his bookSecrecy & Privilege, repeatedly at consortiumnews.com, and recently on the Democracy Now radio show. Parry's accusations about Gates' involvement in weapon sales in Iran and Iraq and concocting evidence in pinning the 1981 assassination attempt of Pope John Paul II on the Soviets are troubling, and my hope is that the allegations will be addressed front-on and wither substatiated and dismissed. Alternatively, Fred Kaplan at Slate.com has indicated that Dr. Gates is "the best man for Rummy's job". In this insightful editorial Kaplan makes the case for Dr. Gates as a thoughtful academic and, Parry's allegations notwithstanding, nonpartisan. Where Parry conflates Dr. Gates’ culpability with that of William Casey, Kaplan shows the two had a tenuous partnership. Kaplan calls Gates’ withdrawal from the confirmation process”ironic” after his role in the Iran-Contra affair became an issue when Bush41 first nominated him to the top CIA post in 1991:

Gates had risen through the agency's analytical ranks—he joined the agency as a Soviet specialist in 1966, straight out of college—and he would have been the first CIA director to have done so. Like many analysts, he distrusted the covert-ops branches. Although he was Casey's trusted chief of staff and then his deputy director, he did not, for instance, share his boss's enthusiasm for the Nicaraguan contras and their war against the Sandinistas; he saw it as a diversion from more-serious threats.

At the very least, Parry’s allegations are complicated by Kaplan’s read. Given the political milieu in which these accusations are based and which they now surface, it seems what is being politicized is Dr. Gates’ ties to the Bush family.

The politics of Dr. Gates’ tenure at Texas A&M have been eclectic, not partisan. Dr. Gates has lived up to the title he gave himself, "agent of change": he has overseen the creation of the Vice President of Diversity position as well as made meaningful connections with the Black Former Student Network and Hispanic Former Students; his plan for eliminating race and legacy in admissions decisions, coupled with targeted recruitment and retention programs have resulted in marked gains in the ethnic/racial diversity of our incoming students; his emphasis on staying true to Texas A&M’s legacy as a land-grant institution and our charge to serve the population of the state of Texas resulted in the creation of the Regents’ Scholars program which gives significant funding and support for first-generation college students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds; he has been vocal about preserving the traditions at Texas A&M that make it a “unique American institution” including a significant strengthening of the Corps of Cadets; he has repeatedly emphasized the role that Aggies are expected to play in serving their communities, especially in referencing Washington Monthly’s recognition of Former Students contributions to the nation; at a time when most colleges and universities were slashing budgets and circling the wagons, Dr. Gates announced the ambitious plan to hire 400+ new faculty and enhance the undergraduate experience at Texas A&M. Dr. Gates is a consensus-builder, and this further complicates the reading that those like Parry wish to make of his tenure at the CIA. This Washington Post editorial throws more cold water on allegations that Dr. Gates is a partisan hack:

Former senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), whose questioning of Gates in 1987 led to the withdrawal of his nomination to be CIA director, praised his "ability to work closely with Congress on a bipartisan basis" and said he "has a well-deserved reputation on both sides of the aisle for competency and integrity."

No doubt the details of Dr. Gates’ tenure at the CIA contain passages that would give anyone pause. If the recent elections indicate a shift back toward more open and accountable government, we should have every opportunity to investigate and have each explained. Given the service that Dr. Gates has performed for Texas A&M and the humanity that he showed in the process, I pray that the process is not vicious or vindictive.

Dr. Gates: good luck and God bless!