Scriptures – Page 3 – …All my darkest hours talking like this…

Resurrection

Today is Easter. It is also the Birthday of my daughter. We had a big movie party at the theatre where I saw Star Wars, Raiders of The Lost Ark, Back to the Future, Rocky… lots of iconic films. But the place is now totally different. During the time that I’ve been back in my hometown, I saw the city work with a developer to bring about a rebirth of that old movie theatre. I thought I could experience a flourishing rebirth in my home town, too. No.

Today was also a going away party. My fiancee, the kids, and I are going far away. The Movers arrive Wednesday.

Not for nothing, but I am totally done with this city. It is a place, full of ghosts, decay, and injustice. I curse this place as rotting, heartless, and forsaken.

Are you just being cranky ?

For many blessings, I am grateful. I met my fiancee here. Well, in the big city, anyhow. This happened a few days after I got back from my road trip, described in the previous post. That was nearly a year and a half ago. In summary, I had given up dating and had resigned myself to the reality that this whole part of the country was a terrible place to fall in love; romantic irony ensues. Of course there is way more to it than that, and love is a long road. Considering how negative I have been on this blog about my own penchant for self-sabotaging love, you’d think I’d have more to say about my courtship and this wonderful woman who’d put up with an insufferably cranky idiot like me. You’d be right. I have an plenty of wonderful things to say, especially about her about how much I love her. I say them to her. She hears me, and she understands me.

My hometown did provide a public school system where dedicated teachers helped my children grow and learn. They are like heroes to me, and I feel deeply indebted to them, and its a debt that I cannot repay. Sadly, being underpaid heroes is one of their defining characteristics.

I also passed the bar exam. It was expensive and stressful to do, and I wasn’t able to practice law in any real way. It was necessary for me to work in a totally different profession. But passing the bar in a second state was no small feat. Getting a new job in a totally different field is also no small feat. They say that if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. That’s a corny thing to say, but I assume the gist of the comment is that scarcity and a total disregard for decency makes any form of professional success a remarkable accomplishment in this neck of the woods. So I suppose, I should be really proud or something. But another popular thing to say here is “Big Whup” as in “Hi, I’m Paul Baldwin, and this is coffee talk. Where we talk about dogs, daughters, lofts and coffee. No big whup.”

It would be easy, therefore, to invalidate my feelings; declare that I am not grateful enough. Certainly it seems like a popular sentiment to express about me. And people certainly like to feel self-righteous and certain.

The fact is: my home town actually is a terrible place, and the whole region is a savage wasteland. So… no, I will not retreat from calling this place out for being what it is. The good things that I found, were despite the hostile environment; not because of it. My disgust is a valid feeling, I own it and it is mine.

I had a rant here about how my daughter was almost upstaged at her own party by my vain jackass older brother and how this bittersweet moment was nearly taken away from her.

There are times when a blog is a place to say the things unsaid in real life. But the Internet is a poor place to air dirty laundry, and in any event there was no incident, only my feelings about the near incident. Because my fiancee also saw the incident about to happen, she helped tamp down the situation, and nothing did happen. Ta da!

In private, she let me know that she supported me and reassured me that I am a great Dad. Her love buoyed me. So the scene that I was trying to avoid, was avoided. I didn’t blow up at anyone. Instead, I went to pay respects to my Mom.

That is where I encountered this cat.

This cat was in the woods behind my house, guarding the final resting place of my Mom. The cat made eye contact with me. The day was quiet and still. For a long moment, we regarded each other.

Hours later, however, I was told by a close acquaintance that “Some cat got hit by passing car” on the main road near my house. Although I didn’t see it, it made me afraid. A cat died on my road out of town; it is a bad omen for the road ahead.

I hope the cat that got hit was not this one who I saw. The person who told me was not an eyewitness, but had spoken with a person claiming to be so. Maybe, then, this hearsay was just a rumor; some misinformation as worthless as the rest of the gossip here. Yet, I doubt this hope. The suburban squalor belies a dark savagery of this place. I fear that the worst has befallen that innocent fellow. Poor cat, you couldn’t escape!
Whatever sorrows have occurred. And bad omens or notwithstanding, I will escape. I will start from my Mom’s grave, and take that same fatal road. I must put this hellish town behind me.
I will never live here again. If I can help it, I won’t even visit.

Lyrics :
Long before the screen door slammed, she was out of Xenia
A stranger could have loved that town but she had to leave

I wish I’d gotten to know her before I fell in love
I could say who’s to blame, say who’s the man in this cautionary tale
But I swore I’d be true and I’ll swear and I’ll swear ’til Kitten’s out of jail

It was like a TV show, the way she stole that car
Easy now to criticize, easy now to talk

I thought my luck was changing, I guess I was wrong
I could say who’s to blame, say who’s the man in this cautionary tale
But I swore I’d be true and I’ll swear and I’ll swear ’til Kitten’s out of jail

Didn’t want to be a slave
Just turned out that way

I wish I’d gotten to know her before I fell in love
I could say she’s to blame, say she’s the man in this cautionary tale
But I swore I’d be true and I’ll swear and I’ll swear ’til Kitten’s out of jail

Road movie to Berlin

I took a family reunion trip last week. I drove for eight hours to get there. The cliche is that road trips “Give me time to think” but the truth is more like it makes my escapist daydreams become real.

What kind of escape was it? Certainly not an escape from ghosts.

I went straight to the oldest living relatives in my family and spoke with them about my past, present and future. Specifically, they wanted to talk about my Dad’s past relationship with me; part out of loving concern for me, part because they miss him. The case can certainly be made that they are now the only people who could do anything like speak on my father’s behalf.

Really? You are not done blaming your Dad yet? Really!
No, its not like that…. or, heck, maybe it is? My hermeneutic of suspicion is poor.

Point is: They didn’t try to answer for him, but they did help me understand the things he said to his own family about his own life, which included his son (me) who he loved but who broke his heart by siding with his mother. They described his anger, which consumed him and destroyed him. They were traumatized by it, and saddened by it.

Inevitably, they spoke about the War. After the war, soldiers are supposed to leave the front. Some go back to the barracks, some go home. But because my Dad was a child when war took his mother, where was there to go? His whole life, he was like the solider who could never stop fighting the war.

For me, it felt like a breakthrough, and an escape from the infinite loop narrative that I tell myself about my life and history.

So it was a real escape, and not just a daydream.

NOW, Lyrics :

We were once so close to heaven
That Peter came out and gave us medals
Declaring us the nicest of the men
Time won’t mourn our loss
It’ll just sweep up out skeleton bones
So take the wheel and I will
Take the pedals

I Palindrome I (and the Book of Job)

So I got the job and start Monday. That’s good news. It makes whether I passed the bar less important and will more or less mark the end of an extended period of transition.

I was also made a deacon at my church here in New York. I’m not sure what that has to do with anything but as I was driving home last night thinking about what God has called me to do and to what extent I felt like I was not equal to the mission. I thought about two other things:

#1 As I was registering my kids for summer camp, I somehow managed to get out that it was important to “Let go and let God” fill your need. This is such a familiar and popular Christian aphorism that it risks becoming akin to “have a nice day.” But then she went in for the kill, “God is the one telling you that you can do it. It’s the other telling you all the ways you will fail and filling you with doubt.” Really? I thought it was me. “No, it sounds like you but that’s the trick. You should read Job.” It’s my favorite book. “Job was living a perfect life until the questioner decided to start causing problems.” This was a truly startling theological position: essentially that doubt is the anathema of faith [that part’s not radical] and is demonic in nature. Furthermore that Job is about the destructiveness of doubt. This isn’t exactly all that different from how I read Job, but its a very different focus.

So if you are just tuning in. Job is a book in the Old Testament which is not about an Isrealite, rather it is a folklore legend that had been circling around the region and was adopted into the scriptures because of its spiritual and moral importance. Under the legend, Once upon a time in the land of Uz. Job was the most righteous man ever. He never broke any of God’s laws and this pleased God and he was very successful. But then one day the question arose, “It’s easy to be righteous and prosperous. Would Job be so righteous if his life was terrible?”

Job losses all of his property. Job’s children all die. Job remains righteous as ever. Job develops a horrible case of impetigo and is covered in boils. Job remains righteous. What happens next is what I usually latch on to:

Three of Job’s friends (Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar) come out to condemn Job. Each of these friends represents a line of theological argument which Hebrew scholars were rebuking through this legend.

Eliphaz stands for the idea that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people, ergo Job must have done something bad. Eliphaz meekly suggests that Job is just trying to keep his sin a secret. In fact, Job has not sinned and says so.

There is a whole line of scholarship that then goes on to compare Job and Jesus, but let’s not go there. Ok… maybe just for a moment, but lets keep it brief: Job’s lack of sin is just to keep the story straight and the nature of Job’s lack of sin was that Job had observed every law set down by God. No prohibited conduct, all required acts performed. In comparison, Jesus’ lack of sin is intrinsic to his divine nature. Back to the story…

The theological point made through Job’s response to Eliphaz is condemnation of the assumption that somehow a secret sin invited calamity to befall a person who was apparently good. Psychologically, the Hebrew theologians were also addressing our secret grudge against a person who seems too good to be true. In any event, bad stuff happens to good people… and its not a punishment for sin.

Bildad represents the theological argument that bad things happen because we aren’t orthodox enough. Specifically, Bildad says “Please inquire of past generations, And consider the things searched out by their fathers.” (Job 8:8) The Hebrew theologians are condemning the idea that the cause of calamity can always be traced back to having strayed from a traditional interpretation the law of God. Also being challenged is the idea that everything there is to know about God was discovered by our ancestors. Not true. The causes of calamity may be complex, and there are new terrors and catastrophes which await humanity with every sunrise. So… you’ve got that to look forward to.

Zophar represents the tragically errenous theology that no man can ever profess not to deserve God’s punishment all the time and to say otherwise was itself sin. Zophar’s argument is tough, at first, because confessing that one is broken, sinful, and prideful is merely the acknowledgment of being human. Moreover, no one can ever be righteous enough to truly “earn” grace. But here’s the thing: Zophar’s argument fully articulated reveals an underlying assumption that our very existence invites God’s wrath. That’s the tragic misunderstanding. But here’s some Good News: God doesn’t resent humanity! God loves his creation; all creation.

Where was I going with this? Let’s get back to the story, and maybe I will remember…

Job rejects all of the arguments posed by his friends. But being right didn’t ease his suffering. The enduring nature of his miserable condition fills him with doubt and despair… making him contemplate suicide. He is tempted to curse God and end it all. He doesn’t curse God, but he does finally cry out, “Why is this happening to me?”

…

The lady I met basically forgave Job for that. The devil overcame Job’s strength, and made Job wail. Doubt doesn’t come from within, it comes from without.

I was stunned. Frankly, I never it saw it that way. It’s somewhat more merciful of a position in that it stops you from beating yourself up for beating yourself up.

#2. I was thinking about my marriage and my parents. My father died within a few weeks of my wedding. My mother died a few weeks subsequent to my divorce. The symmetry leads me to lyrics:

See the spring of my grandfather clock unwinding. See the hands of my offspring making windmills. And I am a snake head eating the head on the opposite side.