Facile Nation

I’ve been rather amazed to watch the post-election hysteria of the pro same-sex marriage crowd, holding rallies (a little late, guys) and demonstrations against the hapless Mormon church in West Hollywood.

Their view, as presented, is that a basic human right has been taken from them.

I don’t think so. Marriage between any two humans has never been a ‘right’ anywhere. They claim that two humans who love each other should be allowed to marry, forgetting entirely that marriage based upon mutual love is quite a recent phenomenon. Even in Ancient Greece where homosexuality was about as normative as it’s ever been anywhere, marriage was something that took place between a man and a woman for the purpose of raising up the next generation, for the stability of the nation itself.

But even without focusing on the historical facts, marriage is not a ‘right’ - it is a sacrament. When Caligula ‘married’ his horse, that wasn’t a marriage, it was mockery of a sacrament.

The line gets blurred for modern humanity because 1) by and large we have so little understanding of the sacramental and 2) traditionally society has accorded certain rights and privileges to the married state (these same rights and privileges are available, at least here in California and many other states, to domestic partners). The encouragement for people to take part in the sacrament of marriage benefits the state and brings stability to the nation. In a time when women at least were mostly celibate outside marriage, a man might be motivated to marry in order to have access to his own woman, to a woman he believed would be a suitable mother to his heirs.

A right is something we have inherently: we have the right to breathe, we have to right to sleep. In America we believe in the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (the pursuit of happiness and not happiness itself–). We have these rights: freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom to keep and bear arms, freedom to vote, etc. None of these are absolute rights: we cannot yell “Fire!” in a crowded auditorium; we may need to obtain a permit in order to stage a demonstration; we now require the person buying a gun to be licensed and we limit the kinds of arms a person can bear; one must be an adult citizen (and generally not a felon) in order to vote.

Marriage is not in the bill of rights. Neither is driving. The state says that you must be of a certain age and prove a certain ability, which may include the taking of courses, in order to hold a driver’s license. Throughout all of human history the state (kingdom, etc.) has said that marriage is between a man and a woman and that they must be willing participants or their parents give consent in the case of early betrothals. With extremely rare exceptions, a man cannot capture a woman and impose marriage upon her; if he captures a woman and imposes himself upon her sexually it is rape and if he keeps her it is a form of slavery.

All of these are ways of looking at marriage and seeing how it is different from a right - but why do I say that it is a sacrament? As a Christian that’s easy: Genesis 2:24, echoed by Jesus Christ when challenged on the matter of divorce in Matthew 19:4

For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.

Marriage is the first sacrament (well, one could argue that keeping the Sabbath is the first sacrament because God did it in Genesis 2:2) and its terms are established by our Creator: one male and female, each old enough to live without parents.

Throughout scripture God uses the example of marriage to illustrate aspects of His relationship with Israel and the relationship of Christ with the Church - marriage is unique among human institutions because of its use as an exemplar or type. He also uses father as a type to describe His relationship with His people (not all people but His people) - and we don’t try to redefine ‘father’ as ‘parent who disciplines’ or ‘legally responsible parent.’ No, ‘father’ isn’t even simply the sperm donor; ‘father’ is so much more than all that.

In fact, it is because of its quality as a sacrament that the gay and lesbian community fight to have marriage rather than civil unions: marriage entails a particular kind of blessing which is, by nature, sacramental.

But when a man ‘marries’ a man or a woman ‘marries’ a woman, it is like Caligula and his horse - it is a mockery of the sacrament and not the sacrament itself. We are created in the image of God; male and female together reflect the image of God; in order to reflect God both male and female are required. Two people of the same sex can have a legal partnership, a civil union, a committed and loving relationship; in some places they can even get a marriage license and ‘marry’ - but that doesn’t make it a marriage in reality. I can tie my shoe to my head and call it a hat but it’s still a shoe.

In California in particular we have a problem because the people of the state voted years ago to legally define marriage as “between one man and one woman” and then four California State Supreme Court judges decided that the people collectively have their heads up their asses, threw it out as unconstitutional and refused to hold off on granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples until after the November election. So this current legal brouhaha is entirely the fault of those four judges and the people who pushed the same-sex marriage agenda.

I am not without compassion; I understand the desire to be approved, to be accepted, to be “the same as” - but when I used to hang out with a group of lesbian musicians, I was not the same. They would joke with me and laugh with me and sometimes exert a little pressure on me - but it didn’t make me a lesbian. I finally stopped going out with them socially when they were amused by lesbian sexual harassment against me instead of outraged and protective. They proved they were not ’safe’ people and their values were inherently different from mine when it came to dealing with unwanted sexual attention; there was a double standard.

I understand that the shoe pinches if you read the Bible and it says that ‘man lying with man as man lies with woman’ is a stoning offense (Leviticus 20:13) or it describes lesbian activity as a degrading passion (Romans 1:24); I understand because the shoe pinched me when I was living with my boyfriend, 30-some years ago. And the choice I had was to either agree with God and continue trying to follow Him, or to do what I damn well pleased. I knew I couldn’t do what I damn well pleased and pretend I was following God, once I knew it wasn’t okay for me to indulge in sexual activity outside of the sacrament of marriage. And my boyfriend didn’t want to marry me (–the fool!).

I did not, however, stage a political movement against the Church and the plain reading and historic understanding of the scripture passages which convicted me of ungodly behavior. My choice was continue my ungodly behavior because it was what I wanted to do (and it was very much what I wanted to do) or give up the ungodly behavior (repent) and attempt to live a godly life because that was more important than the desires of my flesh.

But the GLBT movement, without by and large embracing Judaism or Christianity, demands that Judaism and Christianity change to accommodate the desires of their flesh. This is not something the faithful can do, no matter how much they love GLBT family members and friends - because the choice is between God and man and those who desire to live righteous know that God must win primacy in our hearts.

What I don’t understand is this: why do you care what a bunch of Jews or Christians think? If you believe your behavior is acceptable to God, why do you care whether I agree or not?

Now I’ve heard the argument that the scriptural bias encourages hate crimes against the GLBT community. That makes no sense because those very crimes are forbidden by scripture itself. You cannot blame bad behavior on scripture when scripture condemns that behavior, too.

Anyone who thinks that GLBT individuals should be stoned (killed, abused, harassed) hasn’t read and understood the context of the scripture: that was the Law as given to ancient Israel, for ancient Israel. Israel was not supposed to impose their God-given Law upon the other nations but aliens living within Israel were held to the Law. Even in first century Judea that law wasn’t being enforced because the Jewish people had lost the power of capital punishment (this is why the Romans crucified Jesus, instead of the Sanhedrin stoning Jesus). The Law is valuable to us today because it shows us something of God’s heart, God’s direction for His people. The vast majority of the Law is detailed “live like this” instruction; a very small portion of the Law details stoning offenses - we should pay attention to stoning offenses because God apparently viewed them as destructive to the nation in a particular way, a corrupting way.

We can argue with the Law, we can come up with all sorts of reasons God was wrong and we are right but we can’t legitimately equate mixing two different fibers with homosexual behavior because God didn’t equate them in the Law.

The relevant instruction, in this day and age, are the two great laws: ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind’ and ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.‘ The GLBT community asks people of faith to love their neighbor (the GLBT community) more than the faithful love God; that we cannot do, we dare not.

The other relevant direction comes from Jeremiah 29, God’s direction to His people when they are living in exile: ‘Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf; for in its welfare you will have welfare.’

We do not live in Ancient Israel under the Torah nor do we yet live in the Millennial Kingdom under Messiah: we are living in exile.  People of faith are called to embrace their faith and live their faith and put God first at the same time that we live in an ungodly world, secular communities, a nation which demands separation between church and state. But when the state steps in and tries to redefine a God-defined sacrament, we must stand up and hold fast. Happily we live in a nation which still accords us that freedom; it may not always and then it becomes more challenging.

In the meantime we cannot disagree with God in order to agree with the GLBT community; we must resist the temptation to fall into sentimentality or to bless that which God does not bless. And the GLBT community may become very angry at us because of it. That makes me sad; I still have lots of friends who define as GLBT and I don’t like it when my friends are angry with me. But I would rather endure the wrath of my friends than the wrath of God.

This year I’ve been reading the history books of the Bible interspersed with the prophets who lived and prophesied at the same time. One of the things that leapt out this reading, especially in the context of the Northern Kingdom, were violent transitions. How grateful I am that our system of government allows for a smooth transition of power from one presidency to another!  We are not a coup-friendly nation, and I am profoundly thankful for that.

Obama wasn’t my candidate. McCain wasn’t either, but he had my vote because his ideology and values are closer to my own and I believed he would do a better job of leading this nation. But now Barack Obama is my president (elect) and while there is disappointment and concern. I am also intensely moved by the significance of his election.

It struck me most profoundly when I heard a radio reporter mention watching Jesse Jackson weeping on television (as a TV-free zone I rely on radio for real-time descriptions of events). It’s powerful for me that we have elected a self-identified black man to the highest office in the land - but I’m a middle-aged white woman who grew up in a racially diverse part of Los Angeles and the truth is, I have no idea what full-on racial prejudice feels like.

So hearing this reporter describe with a sense of awe that Jesse Jackson wept continually, wept like a young child, I realized how extraordinary this election is for the black community– something they felt was out of their reach as a race has been grasped resoundingly, and not only by blacks but by all races. The Presidency is not a referendum on race but Obama’s win required the support of myriads of white voters - and I hope that fact serves as a balm to the weary and torn souls who’ve been encouraged to view all of life through the lens of racism.

I pray that Obama will be a great and wise President; I pray that he is not a man of the Chicago machine but proves to be his own man and a man with a true heart for the Lord.

.

The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord; He directs it like a watercourse wherever He pleases. Proverbs 21:1

Much has been made lately of Barack Obama’s “spread the wealth around” philosophy, taking from Joe-the-plumber to give to the guys “behind him,” to give them an equal chance to succeed as well as Joe has. But don’t they already have an equal chance? Aren’t the variables found in our individual gifts, abilities, vision, and work ethic? Or do we aspire to realize the nightmare of Kirk Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron short story? yikes–

When I indulge my indolent self, I accomplish much less than when I deliver a pep-talk to my go-getter self– it’s kind of the “two dogs at war within me” scenario.*

Being a television-free zone, I haven’t been over-exposed to television ads or last night’s Obama infomercial (caveat emptor: there is no money-back guarantee on this purchase and no ‘do-over.’ Bearing that in mind I’ve been fascinated by Obama’s strong encouragement that people vote early instead of waiting until Election Day; it sounds so much like, “Vote for me now before you learn something that might change your mind–”) but I’ve heard several references to Obama sharing his peanut butter and jelly sandwich in elementary school and his apparent comparison of that experience with his desire to redistribute wealth or, in his own words, “spread the wealth around.”

I don’t think so.

In fact, children sharing and trading lunches and sandwiches in elementary school is much more a ‘free market’ economy than a government redistribution economy. Remember? How often could you trade your liverwurst sandwich to another kid? I liked liverwurst but even I didn’t want someone else’s liverwurst sandwich; I liked the way my mom made them.

What Obama wants is for the teacher to collect all the lunches, pick out her favorite things, and then hand them back out the way she sees fit, so that it’s ‘fair’ according to her own agenda. Guess who is ‘the teacher’ in Obama’s left-leaning utopia?

But what if she cuts everything into pieces and divides it up, passes it back? She’s still going to ‘take her cut’ of the pieces. In a classroom of 40 students (which was routine for my generation), she’d cut everything up into 45 pieces and she’d keep those extra 5 pieces. Maybe she’d cut it up in to 50 pieces and keep 10% and, as in the first scenario, some of those goodies are never going to be ‘redistributed’ back down to the classroom.

That nice piece of chocolate cake? Gone.

Now, for the kid whose mother is a drunk and who routinely gets margarine sandwiches, this is hopeful. But in your standard schoolyard economy, some kids are going to notice that he rarely gets a decent lunch and share - at least, that’s what we did in the early 60s and I can’t believe that my generation, the self-obsessed generation, was more inherently generous than the generations which follow.

*A man observed there were two dogs at war within him: one that does good and the other does evil. When asked which dog wins, he replied: “The one I feed the most.”

Am I the only person who is chilled by the Barack Obama HOPE sticker, the only one reminded of Kelly Freas classic robot illustration?

Perhaps I am.

To add to my dis-ease, I’ve been watching the amazing, illulminating and depressing series, The World At War, a British television documentary made in 1974 using actual footage. I never realized I watched it so close to it’s original release - it must have been the first U.S. broadcast, or very close. My boyfriend Tommy and I would watch it together. Part of what’s depressing about watching this film is the sinking awareness that humans really don’t tend to learn from history. Seems to me there’s an argument against Darwinian evolution in there but I’ll avoid that rabbit-trail for the moment at least.

The series spends some time understanding the dynamics at play in Germany that lead to Hitler’s rise and his popularity; whatever Germans said after their defeat, there was certainly a joyful ‘golden time’ for them after they defeated France with so little difficulty in1940, and there’s a lot of footage of adoring crowds and the very image-conscious, media-savvy Nazis, with amazing quotes about the importance of propaganda, of controlling and manipulating the population.

It hasn’t been a good time to hear the crowds chanting “Obama!” and notice chilling similarities between the popular response and the adept manipulation of media and image; it was really not a good time to hear he wanted to speak at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin…

Populations are fickle. Crowds have a distinct ‘persona’ of their own (I say this with more than 30 years of performance experience) and it’s easy to get swept up in the energy of the moment; everyone who experienced rallies against the Viet Nam war during the late 1960s can attest to this reality.

Obama tapping into the zeitgeist, saying the words “change” and “hope”  has excited a significant portion of America; Oprah stands up and asks, “Could he be– The One?” and the crowd goes wild. Never mind that he’s actually a classic Chicago machine politician and has never ‘reached across party lines’ to risk angering his Dem friends (making his promised unification of the nation impossible right there: if all compromise is on one side and all control and tap dancing on the other, the result is not ‘unification’) or that the kinds of change that he describes will result in bigger, bulkier government and less personal freedom; probably not the kind of ‘change’ that most of his fans are really hoping for.

And I have no idea how he’s going to arrange to have the planet start healing itself, as of several months ago when he so modestly accepted the nomination of the Democrat party:

“We will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth. This was the moment—this was the time—when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals.”

I wish we were smarter as a species, better at recognizing when we’re being manipulated, recognizing our own susceptibility and frailty. But as it stands, most people will associate the current administration with the current fiscal crisis and the same people will associate Obama with “change” because the mass media, especially television, persists in promoting those associations.

I really hope that we don’t have to live through an Obama administration, the inevitable sense of confusion that will follow: where are the good changes we were promised? Why has the economy tanked even more? Why isn’t government-run health care the panacea we were told it would be? Where is that promised tax break?!

I take some hope in the fact that there are fewer Obama 08 signs up in the neighborhood compared to Gore and Kerry signage in 2000 and 2004– we shall see.

August 15-18, a very affordable Mythcon, as such things go. I’ve just started prodding local press, hoping to get some awareness - a challenge, because the committee is primarily located in NYC (and Boston–), so our site liaison is local and none other.

Still, a really quick and gratifying response from Richard Kamins in his Hartford Courant arts & entertainment blog. The man obviously ‘gets it’ when it comes to the MythSoc and puns!

On the more grim side of things, this first week in July has been dreadful for the SF community - a devastating traffic accident on the way to Westercon in Las Vegas killed Roberta Carlson, the driver, and injured the other passengers and, on the other side of the country, the very talented Thomas M. Disch committed suicide. The New York Times article gives an overview. Following Mike Glyer’s coverage in his File 770 blog and the blossoming links is pretty powerful. Disch’s own Is Thomas Disch the Right God for You? LiveJournal entry on June 24th is sad and ironic and the world is so full of pain.

Personally, a good friend’s father also died. Grab someone you love and give ‘em a hug - we’ve got to appreciate each other while we can.

Feeling awkward and clumsy
and fallen from grace
the doors and the windows are closed in my face
I feel displaced
all the locks have been changed
and we cannot go home anymore

The woman is awkward
the child is wise
so look at this placed through those innocent eyes
they don’t see the lies
that live in the woodwork
and we cannot go home anymore

I wish that I could do without it
sing and laugh and shout about it
wish I could see through the walls
and the curtain calls
that put on this show
but no–

The lighting is different
you can see that at a glance
and, standing divided, we’re trying to dance
they’ve sealed the past
revealed at last
that we cannot go home anymore

written by Lynn Maudlin; © Moonbird Music Co. 1974, all rights reserved

When I was 22 my parents moved from Los Angeles to San Diego, selling the house I grew up in. I have faint, fleeting memories, only flashes really, of the house we lived in the first scant two years of my life so, for practical purposes, I’d lived my whole childhood in this house. I literally got married in this house, at the tender green age of 17 to my high school boyfriend; a friend of the family played the love theme from Romeo and Juliet on the baby grand piano in the living room; later we all sat down to a dinner of cornish game hen.

It was a terrific house: five bedrooms, seven bathrooms (well, five full baths and two half baths) on a corner lot in Los Feliz. Summer evening traffic was a pain because we were on the Greek Theatre route but we knew how to drive to avoid the worst of it. It was lovely to be able to walk up the hill to attend most of the Crosby, Stills & Nash concerts (Neil Young was added between the booking and the gigs), either by an employee-friend letting us in, or patrons leaving after hearing Joni Mitchell (yes, she opened for the boys), or in the trees if need be…

It had a large lot with plenty of room for a swimming pool but my parents weren’t interested. In fact, there had been a pool in the house when first built, a therapeutic pool for a wheel-chair bound owner, in the middle of the patio. We called it “the patio” in accordance with the American Heritage Dictionary’s definition:

The Spanish word patio refers to the roofless inner courtyard that forms the center of the house in many parts of the Spanish-speaking world. In English, however, the word has come to have a broader meaning and can also refer to paved spaces that adjoin a house. Patio first appears in English in the 1700s in descriptions of houses in the Spanish-speaking world.

My parents remodeled the kitchen and dining room, adding a sliding glass door from kitchen to patio as well as a wet counter with a pass-through window, making it very easy to have outdoor buffets; after that we often ate outdoors at a small table round table, even breakfast throughout much of the year.

It was a great space for parties. I remember my dad inviting many people from his work at the Naval Ordinance Test Station to watch Neil Armstrong step onto the moon on July 20th of 1969. My dad and older brother managed to lug the massive color television set up onto the roof, facing the patio, and we set up chairs and folding chairs and maybe even borrowed chairs so we could all watch that incredible event. I was already pregnant, although no one knew and I wouldn’t be sure for another few weeks.

After Pete and I got married we moved into the “rumpus room” - it was a massive room with a separate entrance and bath (–of course!); the single-story house was situated on a gentle slope so this room was on the downside at the back of the house, about two feet below ground level at its entrance and probably 6 feet below ground level at the deepest point. This made it a naturally cool room, very pleasant in the summer. My folks had a 21-foot travel trailer parked behind the house, about 15 feet from the rumpus room door and we used its little kitchen. We lived there for eight or nine months while we both graduated from high school (I skipped ahead to graduate in February, seven months pregnant, and Pete graduated, president of the senior class, in June. I brought our son to the graduation ceremony; we were a big hit). I remember timing my labor in that room, finally waking Pete at midnight on a school night (!!) to say, “I think you’d better drive me to the hospital now.” Seven hours later our son was born.

My grandparents had moved out from Iowa about 6 years earlier and bought a house a mile or so away, a “triplex” - a three bedroom house on the bottom and two one bedroom apartments upstairs; when one of their tenants moved out, we were offered the vacant apartment at no increase of rent, I don’t remember if it was $75 or $80 per month. We took it gratefully and that’s where we were living when the big Sylmar Earthquake hit in February of 1971.

I remember the sound of the timber tearing, a soft roaring sound, and of course the insistent rattling of the windows. Every aftershock brought that window-rattling and for days my adrenaline would punch skyhigh; this was my first fear-of-death experience, the first time I really believed I might die - and I had absolutely no control over it.

I couldn’t stand being in the apartment so we bundled into the car and drove up to my folks’ house, my old home. It just felt more solid (well, it was more solid) and I was there when a Navy operator managed to get through the jammed phone lines, checking on our well-being for Dad, who was on one of his frequent business trips back to D.C.

Some eighteen months later, I moved back into that house with my son and lived there for a school year (August or September to June of 1973). My folks did an admirable job of letting me have some autonomy without entirely compromising their boundaries and standards; looking back at it I’m very impressed, although I didn’t have the maturity to appreciate it at the time. I made a close friend at L.A.C.C. and we rented a bizarre little apartment together: it was the upstairs of four garages with a stairway up the middle, two large rooms on either side in the front, a small bedroom, a bathroom with no door and the kitchen on the backside. Beth took the northern front room and I took the southern front room and my son took the little bedroom; I painted a concentric rainbow on his ceiling and stippled the color gradations - it was really beautiful.

We had a wild and woolly time for a bit more than a year, as I recall, and then that same upstairs apartment in my grandparents house became available again; I moved back.

My parents owned a lot with two houses on it, maybe a mile and a quarter from their home; the long-term tenants moved out of the front house concurrent with some friends looking for a rental property so Beth’s older brother and his wife and my son and I moved into this three bedroom house and I was living there when my folks decided to move to San Diego.

It wasn’t entirely their choice; the Navy Lab in Pasadena was closing and relocating to Point Loma and it wasn’t thinkable for my dad not to go; after all, he had all those computers to move and a couple of hundred people working for him at this point. The housing market had boomed in San Diego and was soft in L.A. - it took them more than a year to sell the Los Feliz home; I remember my dad getting nervous about the possibility of not selling it within the window for the rollover capital gains exclusion (that would have been disastrous).

During this time I did some of the care of the property. My former roommate Beth’s other older brother moved into the small front bedroom of my old home and kept the lawn mowed and the house occupied while real estate agents brought clients in and out and tried to sell the place.

Somewhere early in that window I wrote this song, Cannot Go Home Anymore, with apologies to Thomas Wolfe whose novel You Cannot Go Home Again was published posthumously in 1940. Writing the song was the way I processed the loss of this massive, solid, amazing house that I’d lived in for nearly 18 years of my life and around whose gravitational pull I’d orbited in every successive and intervening move. There were nine moves in less than eight years, all but one in the same zip code.

Then the word of the LORD came to Samuel, saying, “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following Me and has not carried out My commands.” 1 Samuel 15:10-11

How can God regret doing something?

This isn’t the first time we see God express regret; the first time is Genesis 6:6-7 which says The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. The LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.” This is problematic, if one believes God (as I do) when He says, “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, ‘My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’.” Isaiah 46:9-10

If God knows the end from the beginning, being Creator God outside the constraints of the time domain, why would He do anything He would regret? Would He not foresee His regret? Perhaps God doesn’t foresee His own emotional responses or, more likely, His emotional reactions are not the basis on which He makes decisions (what a thought– would that we all had that capacity).

Maybe ‘regret’ (nacham) doesn’t fully encompass His thinking, His emotions - or at least doesn’t for us. Certainly Isaiah 55:8-9 tells us that God’s thoughts and ways are not our thoughts and ways; perhaps this post is simply folly because I’m pondering things that I cannot know. At the same time, God invites us to know Him better, to enter in, to strive to come into agreement with Him.

But I think it may be related to the fact that God values freewill; He lets us make our choices even when they hurt us. He tells us what is good, what is the way of life and blessing versus the way of death and cursing, and He exhorts us to “choose life that you might live” but He doesn’t impose that choice upon us.

So, despite the fact that God sees the end from the beginning, God lets us go through the experience. He doesn’t sit at the beginning and judge humanity, choosing some and damning some based upon His foreknowledge. If He did, we would of course cry out, “That’s not fair! I haven’t done anything!” We go through the painful and joyful reality of life and freedom to make stupid and glorious choices.

This is always a poignant and delicate area for me: I married at 25 under the firm conviction that God told me to marry this man. This man wasn’t my ‘type’, this man didn’t make my heart catch in my throat or my stomach drop out from under me (those indicators I sought in the past, looking for chemistry) - but this man was a professing Christian, a virtuous man, a man who ardently pursued me (warts and all, divorced with child and all), an intelligent man, a funny man, an excellent musician with whom I enjoyed playing and performing and attending concerts. This man asked God to give me to him for a wife - and God granted that request.

Now this man might look at it and think, “why did I ever ask such a thing?” - if this man does any self-examination at all, which I suspect is not the case. But that would be his blog, not mine. I look at it and ask, “God, why did you tell me (invite me, anyway) to marry this man knowing that he would blindside me 17 years later, that he would blow up the marriage in as destructive a way as he could manage?”

And maybe, just maybe, it relates to this Saul thing– that God, rejected by Israel from being King over them, gave them Saul because they wanted a king (and Saul appeared to be kingly; he was an imposing figure) - so Samuel anoints Saul and prophesies to him and concludes with, “Then the Spirit of the LORD will come upon you mightily, and you shall prophesy with them and be changed into another man.” 1 Samuel 10:6

Saul was given the opportunity to be a godly king over Israel; God put His Spirit upon him and changed him into another kind of man, but Saul continually made choices inconsistent with God’s clear direction (via Samuel) and will (evident in the Torah) - so at a certain point God removed His Spirit from Saul (Now the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD terrorized him. 1 Samuel 16:14 - a truly terrifying thought) and He removed His blessing from Saul as the anointed king of Israel.

A year or so into the long, grievous divorce process God showed me that our marriage had the opportunity to be a good thing, He had a vision for our marriage - but we weren’t faithful to that vision and finally He redeemed out of the marriage that which was willing to be redeemed. Thus far that’s me. I hope one day it will include my ex - but it hasn’t yet; God has shown me specific things that will mark that redemption. Not things I’m looking forward to, btw, except in the sense that they’re signs of that redemption.

Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death; for Samuel grieved over Saul. And the LORD regretted that He had made Saul king over Israel. (1 Samuel 15:35 ~ end of the chapter).

I wrote this essay, summer of 2007 and posted it on BigBlondeBlog. I wrote it in response to an entry written by a friend on a diary site we both inhabit. The bold italicized portions below come from her entry and where there are ellipsis in the italicized portions they come from the original; I have not edited the quotations lifted.

i’m a fundamentalist christian and i read harry potter.

it’s funny because only 4 years ago, all things harry were banned from this house. i went right along with the idea that it was evil, confused kids and glorified things i don’t believe in. okay i admit, it was an example of blindly following the council of men that was both unbiblical (yes) and not one of my finer moments.

I was also very slow to read the books. Slow because I don’t jump on ANY bandwagon as it goes by; that’s just not my nature. It’s my nature to watch it, consider it, walk around it, kick its wheels, and then –if it appears to be a good bandwagon– gingerly climb onboard, assessing as I go. As I listened to people talk about Harry Potter (my first exposure being in a bi-monthly zine that discussed fiction and what the various members were reading) I heard reasonable discourse, some speculation as to why Rowling’s book had so captured the public imagination rather than Sherwood Smith’s Wren to the Rescue (which I quite enjoy), recognizing the “perfect storm” of marketing and timing that surrounded it, etc.

And then the Christian backlash. And then the backlash to the Christian backlash, which, I must say, has always seemed absurd to me on the face of it: you may freely disagree about whether a particular book is a bad influence (be it moral or spiritual or even regarding the proper use of language) but to disdain the very idea that a book could influence the reader is absurd on the face of it.

those who know me and know my experiences can probably understand why i would have been wary. my own experiences with witchcraft are of the variety that would have the wicked witch of the west saying “damn, that’s just wrong.” i’d always been hyper careful with the subject of witchcraft and wizardry, even shunning tolkien and other authors because it just gave me the heebie jeebies.
A friend of mine with an extremely abusive cult background (not the one I’m quoting here) started having great difficulty, being triggered in very negative ways, by reading the HP books outloud to the children she watched after school. I assured her it was okay to *not* read the books to the kids; that if they really wanted to read them, they could read the books on their own (or have their own mothers read to them).

And then I watched some friends become mildly obsessed. Obsession always alarms me a bit - it’s not healthy or balanced. Doesn’t matter whether it’s Harry Potter or The Beatles of Angelina Jolie or The Lord of the Rings or computer games or pornography, obsession makes me take a few steps backward. I was obsessed with horses from toddler to 13 year old - it wasn’t destructive but it wasn’t balanced, either. And watching a handful of young adults develop an obsession with Harry Potter was a little unnerving; children’s obsessions can only go so far but an adult’s obsession can swing in a much wider arc… With a couple of these people there were contributing spiritual dynamics that increased my concern.

So standing back a good long while seemed like a reasonable choice.

anyway… my husband and i had a conversation the other night about whether or not it was okay to continue being fans of the series and spoke aloud, for the first time, some of the things some of our fellow believers may have forgotten or ignored.

I finally decided to watch the first movie on DVD - and it was okay. I didn’t have that sense of wonder that a fan would experience (you know, the joy of seeing something you’ve read about for years embodied on the big screen) but, on the other hand, it was a really fun introduction to certain concepts - like Platform 9 3/4! I hadn’t read the book, so I wasn’t disappointed by things that were missing, etc., and I wanted to see whether I understood the story well enough (one of the criticisms I’d heard from several corners was that the story was muddled by the screenplay). I felt I understood it. Waited a few weeks - was there any negative spiritual dynamic? None that I could perceive.

So I rented the second movie (3 were out at this point) and was really tickled to watch the same actors only a bit older– very cool, I quite liked that. So then I rented the third movie and said, “awww– it’s a time travel movie!” So I actually had to buy a used copy.

But I still hadn’t read any of the books and was still quite ambivalent (now I’m only somewhat ambivalent) when I drove to Durango a few years ago with my friend Diana & her daughter Sierra; we stayed with the sister of one of Di’s close friends; this sister specializes in children’s education and tutoring and assessments of gifted children. In the course of several days there Yvonna mentioned her fondness for Harry Potter. Again, Yvonna is a strong, Bible-believing Christian (as is Diana, as am I, etc.) and so I really picked her brain about the books. And she’s the one who sold me - she said, “Rowling has written engaging, accessible books with all the fun of the boarding school environment, contrasted with wicked parent-substitutes and hideous cousin.” Yvonna expressed her conviction that the books were highly moral and very clear about what is good and what is evil (–funny that in a world where even the church starts blurring those lines and waffling, it’s the author of a children’s fantasy series who draws a clear line).

So at some point in the fall of that year, I took out the first couple of books and started reading. I found J.K. Rowling a good writer with a fun sense of humor and her story engaging. I think it was late last year that I finally finished the sixth book - and I am looking forward to reading the seventh, when I can take it out from the local library! I don’t anticipate buying the series unless the Folio Society in England decides to release them - then, if I can afford it, I probably would buy the set.

WHY, as a fan of the series, do I have ambivalence about Harry Potter which I do not have about The Chronicles of Narnia or Tolkien’s created world of Middle-earth? One of the powerful strengths of Rowling’s creation is that Harry Potter’s world is almost our world: planes, trains, automobiles, computers, medicine, television, Christmas - and a talent or genetic ability to witchcraft. Now if it wasn’t witchcraft but simply a propensity toward levitation, I would have no problem at all. But witchcraft bears the stigma of being condemned in both the Hebrew and Greek portions of the Bible. God warns His people about witchcraft.

It makes me feel like Indiana Jones when he looks down into the pit and sees the floor moving with serpents and he rolls back and says, “Snakes– why did it have to be snakes?”

Rowling’s creation has humans that can learn to become witches. Tolkien and Lewis have witches and/or wizards *but* they are not human. When humans attempt to embrace witchcraft in Lewis’ creation, it is a very wicked behavior - which is in line with scriptural prohibitions. So Harry Potter isn’t at a comfortable fantasy-arm’s distance, but presses right up against The Real World. It is a strength and a problem. Is she encouraging children to embrace witchcraft? I don’t know. I know there are kids who write to Hogwarts and ask to be admitted (the British Post Office has said so) and frankly if I felt misunderstood and abused and alone in my childhood life, Hogwarts would have looked wonderfully attractive - does that mean they are inclined to pursue witchcraft in reality? I don’t know. I sincerely hope not, because that would be tempting little ones to sin, which Jesus thoroughly condemns.

I actually think one of the big problems –at least for serious Christian readers– may be when their children run up against the “You shall not allow a witch to live” scriptures. Huh? B-b-but Harry Potter? Hermione is a witch! I like those people; what do you mean, they wouldn’t be allowed to live in ancient Israel? God says they have to die? Then God is a big meanie. By blurring the lines between a work of fiction, a fantasy world, and the Real World in which we live, Rowling creates a very real tension between God’s clear instruction that His people are NOT to seek knowledge or guidance from any spiritual/supernatural source other than Himself. I fear the Potter books may interfere with the ability of some children to “taste and see that the LORD is good.”

And that’s a big problem.

if it is creating confusion, i have to wonder why. is it not the responsibility of the parents, no matter what their spiritual beliefs, to lay a solid foundation for their kids? if the parents are confused, the kids will be confused… no matter what the religious affiliation.

if we haven’t, that’s our fault. not J. K. rowlings.

Of course it is the responsibility of the parents to bring clarity. But as a child raised in a seriously Christian home who *still* got demonized in early childhood, I’m very aware of the dangers and pitfalls and the complete lack of mercy with which the enemy goes after children - and very specifically targets Christian children (why target the kids who aren’t even being taught about God? They’re much less likely to grow up into Christians… from the enemy’s perspective, those kids already belong to him).

Confusion is not easily dismissed. For instance, it took me a long time to understand the whole Acts 16 thing - if this spirit is testifying to the truth, why does Paul cast it out? Because 1) the presence of that spirit in the girl is an offense to God and the freedom which He created humans to enjoy and 2) the spirit is self-serving; it is trying to increase its credibility within the community so that it will be more powerful when Paul & Luke and all leave the area; it is entirely parasitic and opportunistic.

I don’t think these books could encourage satanism (well, unless a reader finds Voldemort and Malfoy attractive and wishes to impose their will upon others; the true mark of satanism: I can make you do what I please) but I think the books make witchcraft appealing, and that’s problematic. One can argue that witchcraft, in the Hogwarts setting, is scholastically appealing and therefore might as well be chemistry or physics. But it’s not chemistry or physics, it’s witchcraft and the word itself is loaded. It is disingenuous to expect readers and critics to strip the historic meaning of the word from Rowling’s use of the word.

My friend offered a statement and responded:“it’s just not of God” - the bible says we are in the world but not of the world. as much as i respect the amish, i couldn’t live as they do. if i were to be diligent and wholehearted about shunning ‘things of this world’ i’d have to take a step further than the amish and live in a cave. there are many things not of God that can still be positives in our lives… when used properly.

I think that argument would be fine if these were books about linguists or chemistry majors or football players. But these are books about children attending a school that teaches them how to be wizards and witches. The problem really does boil down to the fact that that God instructs us, in the strongest possible terms, to avoid sorcery, witchcraft, divination, mediums, astrology, spiritists. Thus I would argue there are three categories: of God, of the world, and of the forbidden. What if these were books about adolescent boys exploring their sexuality with each other in a fun, bath-house kind of boarding school atmosphere? All the clear “good/evil” divides could still exist - rape is evil but consenting orgies are fun. Fewer Christians are willing to stand up and say, “homosexuality is not compatible with Christian life” and yet I imagine my friend would not allow her sons to read the series if the death-penalty offense was homosexuality and not witchcraft. Once again, unlike Tolkien or Lewis, Rowling’s creation makes the idea of being a wizard attractive and possible - and who wants to be a muggle, anyway?! I’m actually not very bothered by the racism in the books (muggle vs. magical) because I think it adds three-dimensionality to her world; the degree to which the reader engages with that attitude I find problematic in the same way that descendants of African slaves find “Uncle Tom” attitudes or behavior problematic.

if we’ve done our job as parents, we can use even this series of stories to build on the lessons we seek to teach.
love is by far, the greatest thing.
death is not to be feared.
there are things far worse than death.
keeping hold of the good can repel the bad (dementors are a powerful example)
evil exists, no matter how some may choose to remain blind.
to name only a few.

fact is, harry potter is responsible for the literacy of a generation. it’s certainly responsible for my kids’ growth as readers. and you know what? they’ve grown interested in the bible. something i doubt would have happened if their reading abilities hadn’t progressed to the point they could understand the language.

I agree; there is so much positive good in these books and they’re great springboards for discussion. And they have gotten kids to read (including big kids!) who were never excited about reading before - and THAT is WONDERFUL. I just don’t think that erases the problems.

And so yes, even though I’ve now read the books (6) and have seen the first four films and really enjoyed them, I am still ambivalent.

*sigh*

I am, at long last Lynn, putting up a blog through my own website.

This post contains a pun…