Pax Plena

Tag: Faith

  • Little Pricks

    Little Pricks

    The piece I wrote earlier in the week about Ben Stein and the economic meltdown has weighed on my mind lately. It isn’t a newsflash, but today’s headlines abundantly suggest that we live in an era of unprecedented economic uncertainty, and global unrest.

    Rioters in London burned their own homes in protest of UK budget cuts.

    Wall Street twists in the economic winds – soaring on the smallest glimmer of economic hope, crashing with the least bit of turbulence.

    Earlier in the week, naysayers warned of a Post-American planet, drearily musing whether we had already spent ourselves into oblivion.

    Meanwhile, others have taken a fancy to questioning the value of higher education, as if society would be helped by the masses remaining uneducated, helpfully observing that most Americans are wasting money on anything more than a high school diploma (special reference made to law students).

    In fact, people have become so fed up with bad news that nearly 200,000 people cancelled their cable TV subscriptions in the last quarter alone.

    Not even President Obama gets a break. The latest poll numbers, bless his heart, show Generic Republican besting President Obama 47% to 42%. And just a couple of days ago his vacation home on Martha’s Vineyard burned down (not really, but it did catch fire).

    Make of the above what you will, but it seems fair to say that times are tough.

    As the adage goes, desperate times call for desperate measures, so it seemed only appropriate to draw some words of wisdom from the Bible – just in case. Serendipitously, the writings of an old friend from high school (published on Facebook, no less), turned my weary eye to the fifth chapter of St. Paul’s letter to the Romans.

    Paul writes:

    Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

    Romans 5.1

    I won’t say the winds instantly calmed when I read the verse above. But something like that happened. I looked outside of the kitchen window, and saw our cactus sitting on the porch, warming in the sun, its tiny pricks of yellow gingerly reaching toward skies of blue. It occurred to me, that the world economy could crash this afternoon, and my cactus couldn’t care any less. So long as my wife provides it the occasional drink of water, it will thrive regardless of the calamities besetting the kingdoms of men.

    I can’t help but think the cactus has it right. The little prick. At risk of being over broad, the verse above strikes me as the simplest statement of Christianity ever written. At its core, the message is a compact one of assurance, written to all those twisting in the winds of the stock market, written to all those questioning whether their education is worth the price, and written to all those forced to watch Netflix Streaming because they cancelled their Cable TV package.

    The message is that faith in Christ yields peace with God. Nothing more. Nothing less.

    The other stirring aspect of the short verse is that it is without qualification. It does not assure peace only to stockbrokers. It does not assure peace if only we make the appropriate spending cuts accompanied by corresponding ‘revenue increases.’ The point is plain. Those justified by faith have peace with God. Period.

    Now, Stein’s article questions the premise of our calamitous world entirely. “Meltdown? What meltdown?” he would say. While it’s fair to question the origins of the situation, it’s also disingenuous to deny the phenomenon altogether. As my wife and I wait for student loans to come in, the reality of hard times is clear to us. We see similar concern among our circle of friends – mostly young professionals, and students, or some combination of the two.

    By contrast, Paul more or less takes the same approach to reality as my cactus Paul says, embrace reality. Sometimes life sucks, but come what may, those justified by faith have peace with God. It will be ok.

    And if that conclusion is good enough for my cactus, well, it’s good enough for me.

     

     

    PS: I realize the many jokes I could have made when I titled this post ‘little pricks.’ Most lawyers, Tiger Woods, and Ron Paul all come to mind. But gentle readers, I can only hope that my effort at more reflective commentary will compensate for lone cheap laugh I tried to get.

    UPDATE: Ben Stein adds some more thoughts in today’s (8/12/2011) essay on the ‘meltdown,’ and reaches somewhat similar conclusions to those I reached yesterday:

    6. The speculators do not have all power. There is only One who has all power and I live by His rules, not by the rules of fear and panic peddled by some cable TV systems.

    So, I can keep some perspective and go on with my life after all.

    And I can look out on this magnificent mountain lake and think how it must laugh at stock markets and the affairs of men.

    [Link]

    Stein’s lake laughs at the affairs of men, much like my little cactus laughed when I picked it up.

  • Why I Love America

    American flagA prominent Native American law blog I follow posted a tongue-in-cheek message to Americans celebrating the Fourth of July. The headline declared:

    Happy Fourth from the Merciless Indian Savages

    [Link]

    For the confused, the headlined referenced a brief passage from the Declaration of Independence, listing the offenses of King George III. The excerpt appears in full below:

    He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

    It’s true that the United States has had a violent relationship with American Indians. From an abject policy of destruction and relocation hailing from the early years of the Jackson Administration, to a policy of systemic termination of tribal governments, I suppose if any group in America has a grievance against the government we celebrate today, it would be my people, the Native Americans.

    The point is not to measure effronteries, but I can understand the purpose in the making the statement. The simple fact is that America is neither a perfect angel, nor an evil villain as the social extremes would suggest.

    The best description we can give America is that we are a wonderful, complicated, dysfunctional family.

    Think about our family tree. We have Bible-beating aunts from the midwest. We have uncles that drink too much from the south. We have mothers and fathers who don’t speak to each other anymore (but refuse to divorce for tax reasons) in the northeast. And we have lazy cousins who would rather be professional students than get a real job from the west.

    But even the most dysfunctional of families has to come together every now and again.

    So, we have an annual probate meeting to discuss the estate of our late Uncle Sam. Each family sends its delegates to the meeting down in Washington, D.C. where they take in the sights, and pretend to be very busy. Being a family meeting, however, you can imagine how little they actually get done. In fact, they spend most of their time yelling at each other, drinking, and having the odd sex scandal. The end result is the occasional bastard child, and the need for years of therapy.

    But sometimes we really do come together, and get important, things, done. This doesn’t happen often, but it does happen on occasion. And when it does happen, we’re a stronger family for it. That is until the next time Uncle John gets drunk watching Nascar, and mocks Cousin James for his vegan lifestyle in San Francisco. Then we have a family World War III and Grandma and Grandpa have to step in and settle things down.

    And that’s why I love America really. We behave just like a family, only on a bigger scale. And even while we may loathe our cousins for being self-righteous, at the end of the day, we would miss them if they weren’t around anymore.

    America’s greatness isn’t the moral high-ground we sometimes claim. And our weakness isn’t that we drive trucks instead of hybrids. America’s greatness is that we manage, somehow, to get along. Mostly.

  • Song of the Week: My Song Is Love Unknown

    Easter BloomsIt’s Good Friday here in Tucson. Outside my office window, the blue palo verde trees are alive with buds of yellow, their annual bloom timed almost in celebration of Easter weekend.

    It’s always a bit difficult for me to write about Easter. Putting into words an expression of the Divine has been mankind’s great struggle for centuries, across a multitude of disparate fields ranging from art to law.

    But as a recovering choir member, my favorite reflections on God have always been through music. I’ve only recently discovered the Pax Plena Song of the Week, but it has made a significant impact on the way I think about Jesus, and his death on this Good Friday, in particular.

    My Song is Love Unknown is not a new hymn. Written in 1664 by Samuel Crossman, an influential Anglican minister and eventual Dean of Bristol Cathedral, the original music was set to a tune called “Wesley” from a much earlier era. But the most famous iteration of the hymn’s music was composed by John Ireland in 1918 – a tune aptly titled, “Love Unknown.”

    Crossman’s words, in essence, are a collection of ruminations on Jesus’s death. As with most hymns, and much of aesthetics generally, the beauty of the lyrics is their simplicity.

    Seven stanzas strong, the song begins with a meditation exploring one’s personal insignificance vis-à-vis Jesus’s timeless act of sacrifice. In the opening strains, Crossman wonders, O who am I, that for my sake my Lord should take frail flesh and die? Although simply stated, Crossman’s question is really the mystery of the Gospels. Indeed, this ‘love unknown’ is exactly what humanity still hasn’t quite figured out, some two thousand years removed from the event.

    Other stanzas of the song include refelctions about the trial of Jesus (stanza 3), and the freeing of Barabas instead of Jesus (stanza 6). But the most interesting aspect of the hymn is the theme of friendship that runs throughout the lyrics.

    Toward the begining of the piece (stanza 2), Crossman acknowledges Jesus’s Divine origins, but rather than leaving the Son of God in abstraction, Crossman simply calls him “my friend.” But O, my friend, my friend indeed, who at my need his life did spend. In concluding the piece (stanza 7), Crossman again returns to the theme of friendship. After proclaiming the risen Christ, Crossman is not content to leave Jesus to the Heavens, but describes Jesus as simply a “friend” in whose company he longs to spend his days. This is my friend in whose sweet praise, I all my days could gladly spend.

    The compelling thing about Crossman’s emphasis of friendship is that when two people are friends they bring no obligation into the relationship. Typically, a person considers another to be a friend because they want to, not because they have to.

    When this dynamic is applied to a relationship with Jesus, and by extension God, the result is a beautiful expression of ‘love unknown.’ I suppose, in this way, Crossman actually gives definition to the abstract. The ‘love unknown’ in Crossman’s hymn becomes something that is quite familiar: the Love Unknown is the relationship of friendship itself – one between man and He who came to die for all mankind. And assuming one has free agency, one loves Christ because one wants to, not because one has to.

    In all, the song is a perfect song of the week for this Good Friday, and Easter weekend. In keeping with Crossman’s theme, my Friends, please enjoy a beautiful performance of the hymn below by the Choir of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, London.

    My Song Is Love Unknown
    By Samuel Crossman (1664)
    Arr. by John Ireland (1918)

    My song is love unknown,
    My Saviour’s love to me;
    Love to the loveless shown,
    That they might lovely be.
    O who am I, that for my sake
    My Lord should take frail flesh and die?

     

    He came from His blest throne
    Salvation to bestow;
    But men made strange, and none
    The longed-for Christ would know:
    But O! my Friend, my Friend indeed,
    Who at my need His life did spend.

     

    Sometimes they strew His way,
    And His sweet praises sing;
    Resounding all the day
    Hosannas to their King:
    Then “Crucify!” is all their breath,
    And for His death they thirst and cry.

     

    Why, what hath my Lord done?
    What makes this rage and spite?
    He made the lame to run,
    He gave the blind their sight,
    Sweet injuries! Yet they at these
    Themselves displease, and ’gainst Him rise.

     

    They rise and needs will have
    My dear Lord made away;
    A murderer they save,
    The Prince of life they slay,
    Yet cheerful He to suffering goes,
    That He His foes from thence might free.

     

    In life, no house, no home
    My Lord on earth might have;
    In death no friendly tomb
    But what a stranger gave.
    What may I say? Heav’n was His home;
    But mine the tomb wherein He lay.

     

    Here might I stay and sing,
    No story so divine;
    Never was love, dear King!
    Never was grief like Thine.
    This is my Friend, in Whose sweet praise
    I all my days could gladly spend.