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Four years later,

Today is the day that the curse is lifted.

Dear God, I can breathe again for the first time in eight years!
We have demonstrated to the world now that we are not, in fact, eat up with stupid.

I think this nation is going to come back to life now. As of tonight, immoral and ignorant are no longer cool. Decent and bright and informed are the new cool, no longer objects of ridicule and derision, but back in their rightful place as worthy values.

As a result, for the first time in years [because we will finally be bringing decency and informed clear thinking to bear on them], we will have traction when we face our problems. Now we can move forward.

Yes we can. Yes we have. The world is changed.

2008-12-19 update: Of course, even a curse lifted doesn’t imply we’ll immediately escape a tribulation of our own making. I take from Judeo-Christian scripture that, no matter to what degree God intervenes in human affairs, God almost never relieves anyone — individuals or peoples — from deeply experiencing the consequences of their actions [where in this case actions = having embraced self-proclaimed “conservative” thoughtlessness, self-righteousness, and the immorality that inevitably arises from all thoughtless self-righteousness]. Thus, for starters, seems to me, the [consequence of] deep recession is upon us.

Back on Election Day 2004 I wrote —

Let today be the day that the curse is lifted.

Same prayer today. What’s changed? Today more of us recognize the curse as curse and are ready to have it lifted.

Remember Not One Damn Dime Day? Great name, I thought.

I want today to carry more heft. Because of promises broken, diety blasphemed, accountability scorned, budgets busted, and blood shed, let today be

Not One Damn Republican Day

For everyone’s benefit.

Amen.

The extent of my silence lately surprises even me, someone who doesn’t say much anyway.

I heard an Apocalyptica tune, Drive, on Radio Paradise recently, and liked it so much I just bought the Apocalyptica album Inquisition Symphony from the iTunes Music Store.

Heavy-metal cello is what these guys do — “heavy cello thunder from the darkest depths of Finland” — which makes their sound striking whether you like it or not. Turns out, I like it, even though Metallica has never been my thing; the heaviest metal I usually like is Rush (ever since I first heard 2112 in 1977).

Struck me as I was rockin’ out to Inquisition Symphony on the way home that this is what the spiritual war in the U.S. sounds like. This music captures how my guts are responding to it: not settled, not peaceful, but instead loud, dissonant, raucous, hard hitting.

And yet in the midst of the sonic earthquake that is Apocalyptica there’s a strange beauty, an awesome skillfulness. I wonder if there’s an analogous beauty and skill at work in post-election America, a still small voice speaking into the cacophony of war, dishonor, violence, and lies. My hunch is, against all apparent evidence, there is.

The Moderate Independent: Betsy R. Vasquez: ‘What if John Kerry were to do both, concede publicly but, at the same time, look into every instance of mischief, and see if in fact the election was fair or fixed.’

‘We are of the opinion that the willingness to apologize is a sign of courage and strength.’

Alas, a Blog: Ampersand: ‘It is only by changing the country that we will win elections.’

I am temporarily shorn of hope; hence this lamentation.

The reason this U.S. presidential election is much, much bigger than a win/lose contest is that it is, at its heart, a spiritual issue with global consequences.

Here’s what I think today [the day after the 2004 U.S. presidential election]:

Because we in the U.S. have embraced the ways of the Enemy [by approving our government’s use of deception/fear/violence], we have become the enemy of the world.

We have chosen not to excise the cancer of fear afflicting us, and by this choice we have exchanged <bubble-headed?>the godly ideals we once held as Americans </bubble-headed?> for the Enemy’s secrecy and deception, anger and retribution, hate and oppression.

All our choices have consequences, individual and national, and because we the people are responsible this time for this outcome, the consequences will soon roll. Here begins the tribulation (in the very real literal sense: a time of “great affliction, trial, or distress; suffering,” “an experience that tests one’s endurance, patience, or faith”).

Earlier this week a friend reminded me of Jesus’ imagery in Matthew as he charges the teachers of the law and Pharisees:

You give a tenth of your spices — mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law — justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

Those in the Church who are dwelling on, and enraged by, individual issues like abortion, homosexuality, evolution, and “liberals” (as if liberal is a bad thing), with all due respect I say to you that you, too, are straining for gnats while swallowing a camel: the Religious Right worldview. For years to come you’ll be passing fœtid camel chunks while the gnats swarm.

The Church in America has failed her Lord because she has not taught her members to recognize counterfeit spirituality.

What is counterfeit spirituality? It’s spirituality that sounds good but leads to results that oppose God’s will.

• Is killing 10,000s of innocent men, women, and children God’s will?
• Is accusing an entire people of being an imminent threat when they aren’t, also known as “bearing false witness,” God’s will?
• Is favoring the wealthy at the expense of the poor God’s will?
• Is igniting war in the name of the Prince of Peace God’s will?
• Is plundering God’s good creation God’s will?
• Is blaming others for one’s own mistakes God’s will?
• Is being arrogant and haughty, either personally or nationally, God’s will?
• Is being spendthrift and reckless God’s will?
• Is loading our children and grandchildren with an unpayable debt, for all intents and purposes a generational curse, God’s will?
• Is forcing millions into poverty and hopelessness God’s will?
• Is living in fear God’s will, when God’s representives throughout scripture are constantly saying “fear not”? When John asserts that “perfect love casts out fear”?
• Is mocking study, learning, thinking, planning (in short, wisdom) God’s will?
• Is lauding any man and his ways over the Lord and his ways God’s will?
• Is divisiveness instead of unity God’s will?

We have a responsibility to recognize counterfeit spirituality, then to (1) not fall for it and (2) not propagate it.

Counterfeit spirituality is worse than no particular spirituality at all, I think, as evidenced by Jesus condemning the Pharisees while hanging out with prostitutes and tax collectors.

The Pharisees were sincere, but they were sincerely wrong. They were resolute — according to scripture, clear through to killing him — but their resolution scored them no points with Jesus.

I think endorsing counterfeit spirituality [as the Christian Right has] damages the kingdom of God because presenting as truthful and good that which God opposes [war, ignorance, greed] is misrepresenting God. The consequence is millions turn away in disgust, some forever, thinking our misrepresentation presents God as God is.

If “by their fruit you will recognize them,” what does our fruit — America’s results in the world — say about us? What are we being recognized as? Ambassadors of godly virtue or unthinking, arrogant warmongers?

Morally, how can anyone say ends justify means when the means are repugnant and the ends are catastrophes?

I’m left to infer that God, in his wisdom, recognizes that to bring us to repentance, we’re going to have to be allowed to suffer, else we will keep ignoring him, keep disobeying him, keep misrepresenting his son — by those of us called Christian — as Lord of War instead of Prince of Peace. I think we may be therefore entering our exile to Babylon, not just our children [being sent to die in Babylon, aka Iraq], but all of us.

Don McLean’s lovely version of Babylon, based on Psalm 137, keeps looping in my brain (listen, and weep):

By the waters, the waters of Babylon
We lay down and wept, and wept, for thee, Zion
We remember thee, remember thee, remember thee, Zion

Ah, ah, America, land that I love, I’m sorry we have forsaken you.

I’m probably about to go silent for a while. Peace to you.

[2004-11-04: edited to add section on counterfeit spirituality that came to me in a dream]

2004-12-03 update:
QotD: Can an Ichthus symbol and a W sticker coexist on a car bumper without tearing the fabric of the universe? (I think not.)

Let today be the day that the curse is lifted.

Let’s do this thing.

I’m with these people.

I’ve been thinking a lot about worldviews lately. Electing a president, I think, is only somewhat about the person we choose to occupy the Oval Office, and much more about the worldview — the lens through which we view the world and our place in it — that we endorse and put our power, treasure, and collective awareness behind.

This worldview choice is a big deal because it affects nearly every aspect of U.S. policy, life, and discourse. And, because of U.S. far-reaching influence (and effluence) in world affairs, our worldview choice proceeds to affect every person on the planet to one degree or another.

An easy way to recognize the radical difference in worldviews between the Democratic and Republican parties in the U.S. these days is to compare the keynote speeches from each party’s convention (nod to Al Franken).

Assuming each speech is representative of its party’s worldview — and I think it is as each was its convention’s keynote — the difference really is astonishing. Check it out:

Barack Obama (Democratic Convention keynote, July 27, 2004)

• full video, excerpts
• transcript, alt

Zell Miller (Republican Convention keynote, September 1, 2004)

• full video, excerpts
• transcript, alt

(Each speaker’s name above is a link to his Wikipedia entry that contains bio info and numerous links to further related information.)

For me, my Christian worldview preempts all others, and as I find it generally compatible with the Democratic worldview and almost completely incompatible with the Republican worldview — a finding made stronger by further study, interestingly enough — you can understand why I come down on the side I do.

Now presumably, a Christian worldview transcends both Democratic and Republican ones by encompassing more truth than either alone could hope to. But here and now as a U.S. voter I’m forced to choose between these two, so I choose the nearer approximation.

Sojo.net: ‘Remind America that Jesus taught us to be peacemakers, advocates for the poor, and defenders of justice.’

NY Times op-ed: Bruce Springsteen: ‘It is through the truthful exercising of the best of human qualities … that we come to life in God’s eyes.’

I think I know when the thief is coming …

Judgment Day? Yes, it’s coming, but judgment by whom? I have long perceived the judgment involved as largely one’s own, as beautifully pictured near the end of C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle, one of the most meaning-full books I’ve ever read:

As the land of Narnia comes to an end, its inhabitants stream out through the stable door past Aslan the Lion’s gaze. Some choose to go “further in and higher up” into the bright light of Aslan’s country, God-ward, we are given to infer. Others choose to turn aside and go into outer darkness. The most striking thing to me about this two-pronged parade is it’s not Aslan who’s doing the judging; it’s each one leaving who chooses the direction to take (193).

Lewis summarizes this understanding of judgment elsewhere saying, “Either you say to God, ‘thy will be done,’ or God must say to you, ‘thy will be done’” (The Great Divorce, 72).

Some in Narnia are caught in a dilemma, unable to cleanly choose — the circle of dwarfs sitting inside the exit door. They keep telling themselves they’re in a dark stable where things are at least familiar; meanwhile those around them see they’re sitting in broad daylight. Aslan says of them that they are in a prison of their minds’ own making, “so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out” (186).

It’ll be a surprise. As in unexpected. Paul says an interesting thing: “You know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, ‘Peace and safety’” [as in “The American people are safer, safer, safer” (GWB)] “destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape” (1 Thess. 5:2-3).

Matthew reports Jesus’ similar comments on this timing, “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. … Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him” (Matt. 24:36-44).

Here’s my hunch. The unexpected surprise is that judgment has descended from the lofty theological realm with its talk of salvation, heaven, and hellfire, and been made concrete, even mundane: U.S. election day is judgment day. (It will certainly be a judgment day.)

On that day, will we lose our shackles of fear and choose to go “further in and higher up” to a future committed to justice and to bringing all our will to bear on being blessed peacemakers, as Jesus commends?

Or will we choose to continue down this road of endless war [as in “I’m a war president … with war on my mind” (GWB)] with its accompanying inattention to God’s concerns: poverty, injustice, and hypocrisy?

Might I be overstating the gravity of the situation? Maybe.
Do I think I am? No — I think this is a pivotal moment in human salvation-history.

Let’s keep watch. WWAD?

2004-07-20 update:
I like to hope this Judgment Day choice is as evident to a resounding majority of us in the U.S. as it is to me. I mean, if we’re unencumbered by ideology, paying attention, and thinking, how much more clear-cut could the choice be, even for those of us who don’t habitually think in theological terms?

Yet today in my workplace breakroom I heard a colleague wet his lips and exclaim at the TV, “I don’t have to listen to a word that guy says to know he’s a liberal dipshit.” Personally, I don’t think any Bush supporter who stares open-mouthed at Fox News for minutes on end needs to be calling anyone else a dipshit.

Voting in the Tennessee primary last Tuesday must’ve been a Dean support closure thing for me, a last-reserves burst of energy like the final moments before crossing a 10K race finish line. I crossed it, and now I’m temporarily out of glycogen.

I really didn’t realize just how much sustaining hope I was deriving from the Dean campaign’s ideals and my support of them — and just how little wherewithal I’d have left for anyone else.

I’m around, just sitting down fer a spell to ketch my breaf.