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Sunday, December 23, 2007

Home for the Holidays

I received a card from my parents the other day, part of it said that even though this is the first Christmas I spend on my own, not to spend it alone. I struggle with Christmas. My denomination doesn’t treat it as a holy day, nor does my family. It is a family holiday, a chance for us to gather together. My first Christmas away from West Virginia I expected years ago would be different. The days I assumed I would spend that time in Memphis, the days where I hoped to call it home are now gone. I have traveled further south, to a different place, to a different home. In a place where I often feel alone, I rest in the cognitive assurance that I am not alone.

I remember looking for apartments in Jackson Mississippi. The first I walked into seemed to me to be a tomb. I fled that place as the day flees from the night. The second was different. I walked in, and smiled and knew this would be the place I call home. Three weeks after moving in, I met my neighbors, then I understood why this place felt right. It wasn’t long before we were all friends. It wasn’t long before we had come up with out own traditions, and our own weekly observances. It wasn’t long after that they became family.

I have always had a family in West Virginia, my first family, those who are akin to me by blood. I love them dearly, but it wasn’t until I found family else were that I understood my connection to them. This year I am away from my family of origin. I was sitting in church today, the last Sunday before Christmas, and I saw many people I didn’t know, I saw those who had come home. There was a slide on the powerpoint that said, “Home for the holidays.” Two songs in I fled that place.

God has blessed me with the ability to find family in any place. It wasn’t a month before one began to form here. That also carries with it a curse. It is a curse that all nomads feel. We create homes for ourselves, we create families, we build important relationships, then when the time is right we are torn from those relationships and are off to build more.

This year I won’t watch my niece open presents; I won’t see my nephew’s first Christmas. I won’t eat my mother’s fudge, or my grandmother’s turkey. There is a forlorn nature to which I sojourn through this world. Jesus said that he had no place to rest his head. I understand Jesus. I gravitate to Gethsemane, to the grief, for I don’t understand how he could build those friendships knowing they would be ripped away, that in the end they would fall. I suppose that is why resurrection is so important to me, and heaven. Because at some point my sojourn will end and I will come to my final home.

Advent, another season I grew up without, looks toward the second coming. What season looks forward to today? Looking forward to a great community in heaven is fine and dandy, but what about the community here?

Home for the Holidays… Currently home is where I hang my hats (for I have many). Knowing then that professing faith means that I have a God that always walks with me helps. Because these days I sit alone waiting for the season to end, and in these days I feel kinship with Jesus Christ, wondering how he dealt with his final Passover. Knowing that dawn come to all who lie awake I wait. In Advent… for the Triumphal Return. Until that day, I surround myself with those in whom I see the divine, and I walk. Sojourning through this land, knowing that I do because I have been called to. …for the son of man has no place to rest his head.

Monday, November 12, 2007

On being a Patriot

Last Tuesday night I had an interesting and informative conversation with a Vietnam Vet. He was standing on the corner, on the opposite end of the crossroads on which I live in Mississippi. He told me his name is Angel. I was talking to the Vet because it was cold and my neighbor, a very good hearted woman, wanted to take him a blanket but didn’t want to walk over alone (it seems her rottweiler wasn’t good enough). In truth I believe he was quite mad. He has PTSD, and has lived on the streets most of his life since his return from Vietnam. All I could think in hindsight was, fallen angel.

The next day I was leading a Bible study in the nursing home at the local VA. I lead one every Wednesday, because that’s what chaplains do. I was speaking on an interesting passage in Genesis about killing. The Bible study is always full, most of the people who come are WWII Vets. I reflected shortly after on my own patriotism.

My freshman year of High School I refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I got a lot of bad responses to that from the teaching staff of my school. I thought of them as judgmental, as idolaters, as fascists. Go figure, forcing me to stand and calling it freedom. In rebellion I blew my nose on an American Flag. The response of most of my peers has faded, and I don’t think much on the response of my teacher, or the vice principal who called my mother in for a conference that day. Oddly enough I don’t think much on my mother’s response. The response that lives forever in my memory was my grandfathers. My grandfather served during the Korean Conflict. He didn’t use many words, and to be honest I don’t remember them… it was the look in his eyes…

As I write this we are nearing the end of Veterans Day 2007. Today I serve as a chaplain for the local VA, every day I hear stories of WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq. I have had the honor to stand in the room with Tuskegee Airmen, WWII Airborne (the folk who jumped out of plains behind the enemy lines), Vietnam Vets who swear that if they had known what they were in for they would have fled to Canada, and Iraq/Afghanistan Vets (men younger than me) trying to put their lives back together. I however, am a civilian.

I was listening to a General speak today, and I also watched a movie about war. As I sit here, a world away from the conflict, from the car bombs, the bullets, and the death on a mass scale I consider the few years of eligibility I have to join what I hear every day referred to as “the service.” Don’t worry, I doubt that I will, but I wonder… what do those chaplains offer? What do they say when they talk to their fellow soldiers about losing their buddies and just making it out alive.

I also have to consider that I am a bohemian in thought. Let me explain for two days ago I didn’t know what that word means. I consider myself in some ways an artist, a singer, a poet. My friends are artists, singers, and poets. Last night I went to see La Boheme, and earlier that day watched (for the first time on screen Rent. I also have to admit that for the most part I am a pacifist. Yet I think… what would I have done as a pacifist if my number had come up in earlier conflicts?

When did I become a patriot? It’s not even that I believe in our current conflict or the man making decisions. It’s not that I have all the sudden become a supporter of this war. However, I must say that I do believe there are things worth fighting for, dying for, and in some cases… killing for. In the end all I know is that I cannot make the same mistakes objectors made after Vietnam and that I can support the men and women who fight. It is not my place to spit on a soldier, to call him or her names, or to judge them. Maybe it’s better that I am a civilian; I will never understand them… but I can stand with them here, and I can honor them, from home.

God bless you, and goodnight.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

To Whom It May Concern

To Whom It May Concern:

People don’t often think of me as an introvert. I guess because from the very beginning I was assertive, well maybe aggressive. My first boss couldn’t stand me, and could stand me even less when I told him I was going into business for myself. He was like a father to me, being rejected by him… in many ways wrecked my life. That isn’t to say I would want to work for my old boss again, but there were some good times.

Then there was that incident with that woman… I can’t remember her name right now. I can’t tell you how many people thought I was the shit because I approached her the way I did. They thought it was even better that I “tricked” her. I think that is a very judgmental and one-sided way of looking at things. I let her know the truth, the truth that my boss didn’t want to let her know, look I think information should be free, we shouldn’t hoard information, even when it is expensive. I think the prices we pay now are ridiculous, but then I am always called the bad guy.

I don’t get it sometimes. All I want to do is help, it isn’t like my enlightenment isn’t important, shoot if it weren’t for me then no one would really enjoy life. I would be surrounded by thoughtless automations with a fear of fruit. Ooh if you eat of this fruit you will die… like that’s fair. He pulled that shit with me and I stood up and said HELL NO!!! Who needs wings anyway?
And because of these things people think I am an extrovert. Look, I am the first one to tell you that I know I need a few friends around, I don’t like to be alone, but then at the same time, approaching people has always been hard for me. My brothers Mike and Gabe, they always knew how to approach and not feel awkward. It is that, so awkward for me.

I walked into Wal-Mart the other day and there was a greater. I could tell I made him uncomfortable, but then I can’t stand that outgoing bullshit, especially when it’s fake. I think I liked the ones in Memphis better; there at least the greater didn’t put on this facade like he gave a shit when he really didn’t. Down here everyone wants to look polite, regardless of their true feelings. See that’s what I am all about, true feelings.

I figure that if everyone was just honest with one another, then this world would be a much nicer place. If you don’t care say you don’t care, if you don’t like someone say you don’t like them, and for fuck’s sake, if you need to hit someone hit them.

Case in point, I was in church the other day, this fool up front telling me how to live. I chuckle at that every time I hear it, then of course he blames me for it. Actually I think that bastard blamed me for everyone who doesn’t like him, at least that is what I think he was saying. Oh, it’s my fault that the pastor lusts after the deacon’s wife, it’s my fault that the youth minister likes porn, and oh yes, it’s my fault your 16 year old daughter is pregnant.

I am not always whispering in people’s ears. Generally I don’t have to people make these decisions all on there own, regardless of me. In truth the last time I really even approached anyone it didn’t work. Sure the first one did. Most people don’t even listen to me. Generally people just want to blame me for their problems. All I want is a few friends: to drink with, to dine with, to sleep with. Anything I do is just to make friends. I’m like anyone else, lonely and scared to death of rejection.

Sincerely
Legba

Thursday, September 27, 2007

The Rosary

Hail Mary full of Grace
The Lord is with you
Blessed are you among women
Blessed is the fruit of your womb Jesus…


The rosary sat coldly in his hands though he ground the beads like they were sand. Try to keep the image; it’s all he can do; try to picture the Holy Mother… to know at least someone is praying for him…

…Its funny, I have been doing it so long I don’t know anymore if it even matters, anymore… I know it used to…

It was a cold day, but warm. I know that doesn’t make any sense it just was. There was a dry rain, and I hit bottom. Let me tell you, bottom is an interesting place to be, all I can see is what is below me, and there is nothing below me. Bottom, so low in fact, I could no longer hear the conversations of the people above me. Of course every now and again someone would get close to me, but never as low as me. Bottom’s are funny though, it isn’t like I was drinking, I hadn’t pissed anyone off, I hadn’t lost my job and by no means had I hurt anyone… not even myself. Often at bottoms people have suicidal idealizations, I had none, I knew what was before me either way, hell… no, capitol H Hell. Not in death but in life, and then in death because of the waste my life had become. And it would make sense if I was addicted to drugs or alcohol if I had just lost someone important, if I was so depressed I wanted to die… of course I was just so depressed I didn’t think I could be lucky enough to die… then one way or another get stuck with eternal life.

Hail Mary Mother of God
Pray for us sinners
Now, and at the hour of our death…


I guess I am not at my death, but now… will the holy Mother come to me, and even if she could… would it matter, I hear there are some things that can’t be forgiven… A contract is often one of those things, especially when Hell has the best lawyers. I know what you’re thinking, “This nut job sold his soul to the devil.”

Let me correct you, “This nut, Job, sold his soul to the devil.” Okay so I am not necessarily the one in the book, at least not the one the book is written about, but Goethe liked me enough to put me there… Okay maybe I am not that one either. Who am I then that this Faustian deal weighs on my soul? It wasn’t a long contract; you know there wasn’t even any fine print

I, state your name, blaspheme the Spirit
Signed,

Well, you know…

There were witnesses too, what was her name… hell I don’t remember anymore; maybe I can find the document. Of course I lost it years ago…
He really hasn’t bothered me since I signed either, he got a kick out of it, I didn’t tell him I wanted anything, in all honesty, I was just sick of being fooled, so I just signed… “Easiest soul I ever knew,” he said to me as he walked away. Mephistopheles has a good sense of humor, he threw me a rosary, I am not even Catholic. Years ago I thought about converting but you know… never got around to it… was too busy… hitting bottom.

Is there grace once one signs his soul away? Sometimes I wonder why I couldn’t just be like one of those folk I see every day who sign a wee bit more away every day. If they died right now it might take some purgatory to burn that shit out, but in a few years… hell… I might have a roommate, at least in Hell.

Should I continue with this rosary, I never really took to the doctrine of Mary… I mean it’s all right, just not my thing.

Grace… Damnation… Peace… how is it I feel like I deserve all these things at the same time… maybe I will be lucky and I will find out the Evangelicals were wrong, and the Catholics, and… well most everyone, and there is annihilation of the soul. I think that is what I want anyway… for annihilation I get peace…

Well… it’s time to go. Time to sleep, perchance to dream…if I am lucky, an empty dream… where my soul is already annihilated.
Mary looked down from heaven… Mephistopheles looked up from Hell… both willing to fight for a soul. Then there was Jesus… he smiled… because he knew something more.

Monday, September 24, 2007

... and a time for dancing

There’s a time for mourning and a time for dancing

No one who watches really knows… it’s not something that can be seen; it is only something that works in the experience. It’s neither good nor bad, neither dark nor light, but the language spoken on the floor of the smoke filled jukes. A movement of the arm, a shift of the weight, a lead, a follow… these things someone may see but it is something beyond that no one can see… it is the connection, oh I am sure you think you see it, but you don’t. It’s not just the hands, the placement of the feet, and the flaws of the turn.

Part of it is the sweat; the fact vision is impaired because of the salt in the eyes from the brow. To feel her, pressed against… breast against… arms in contact… and the music it drives on… and on... and on…

Look, it’s not about sex, and it’s not “not” about sex. It’s not about love, and at the same time it is. Hell, it often isn’t even about “like”… regardless of the feeling. It’s when there’s nowhere to go, no place to be, when the words just aren’t enough to express thought. It isn’t about technique, or how well a turn is lead… it’s about the conversation that only a soul can hear, a conversation that only the soul can see.

The sweat intermingles, and increases. Hormones… Pheromones… Sometimes it seems like guitars never stop, sometimes is seems like they stop too soon, and haven’t driven hard enough. Then again, to close the eyes, to hold her tight, to be guided, not by my own intuition, or even decision. To be guided only by the song. It’s the way music feels, what two people have say at the same time. Sometimes it’s about agreeing, and sometimes it’s about conflict, and sometimes it is anger. Bodies pressing against one another while the music articulates a heartbeat that can only be understood on the floor. There is no apology for moving; there is no discussion of appropriateness because nothing’s appropriate. But it’s not sex, no matter what anyone tells you, what is it they say? “It’s the blues,” and it’s time for dancing.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Death on-call

It was like thunder in the darkness, or an incessant ringing, it wouldn’t stop. The ringing that takes place in his head, it never stops. Sometimes, even when it does stop, it doesn’t stop. Nights are no longer sleepless, and my hip has always got that damn vibration. The clock says 3:32… damn… even if it is short my nights sleep is shot. Where did I put my glasses, where is that fucking light, where is the pager?

I can barely rouse myself from the edge of the bed, it is now 3:37, I still haven’t called back… I wonder if the nurses would think it funny, me sitting in my underwear, no shirt my stomach hanging over, my hair tossed to shreds, and my demeanor… pissed. Whey is this so complicated, and why do I want to say damn over and over again. Oop, it is going off again… same number… better call back.

“Hi this is the oncall chaplain returning a page.” I say with a hint of annoyance.

“We have a death,” she said coldly, and pronouncing the th with an f sound.

“Who is this?,” I say partially out of befuddlement, partially to be a smart ass.

“This is the ER, the patient is a 12 year old boy,” she went on to give me his name and all the pertinent information. This kid had so much internal bleeding that nothing could stabilize him, he was so torn up there was nothing left to die. So I put on my cloak, I grabbed my sickle, hooded my face… and walked out of the room to the ER, hopefully no one would notice the skeletal face, the bony hands… or me… What is it we say to these families, what is it I say to this family. The same one that comes in over and over again. Mom is going to cry out obnoxious things about God, Dad won’t even be around and little brother… he is six and taking care of the 3 month old.

“Does the family know yet?” I ask.

“No”

“You know I can’t say anything right?”

“Yes, we just figured you could be there for the family,” she said plainly, I couldn’t catch a hint of sarcasm, I was hoping for one. In my mind I say thanks for telling me how to do my Goddamn job, now you do yours and tell the fucking family, but instead I asked her when the doctor would be in. “I don’t know,” she said and walked off. I should sit my ass down and just wait for her to come back, show her and the doctor. Tie my hands will they… What would Jesus do? Aren’t ministers supposed to be nice? Fuck it… God is the one who put me here, guess he’ll work it out.

“Hi, I am one of the chaplain’s that works at the hospital and…”

“MY BABY WHAT HAPPENED TO MY BABY???”

“Ma’am I really don’t know,” I lied I know exactly what happened, a 12 year old took a bullet in the stomach because your boyfriend pissed off the local GD. An older man goes to comfort the woman that is obviously the mother, she looks to me to be in her late 20’s, but I have never been good with age. “Can someone fill me in on what is going on?” figured I would gather some info.

The older man comforting the mother spoke up, “I’m the grandfather,” I nod with acknowledgement, “I know what your thinking…” no he doesn’t, “your thinking another nigger family done fucked up got the boy shot because his momma runnin round with some gud damned gangster.” All the sudden a tear begins to run down his cheek. “Its my fault, he found my gun,” pointing over to the six year old. He called me out, he was right, all I saw was another nigger family that dun fucked up. Somewhere in their chaos life was all about me, such narcissism “See we was fittin to move out the neighborhood next week, and I moved it to pack it away…” he couldn’t finish…

“I’m sorry…” I say… and finally I mean it. They knew before the doctor came in… I often wonder if God damned my soul long ago… each night I look through my white eyes… I wonder if God damns my soul. I didn’t sleep that night… Grandfather and I had a long talk… beyond my prejudice, beyond his self blame, we came to trust each other. That’s the thing, if the Grandfather can be strong they will make it, but Granddad has a long way to go, of course so do I. About 5:00 AM I apologized to the Grandfather, this time for my judgments… I told him why I apologized…

“Your innocent to me son…” he said to me, “at least you can listen.” I walked back to the oncall room after everything had been dealt with. “Dealt with,” that is an interesting way to put it. A 12 year old died, straight A student, his brother scared for life, his Grandfather, a Vietnam Vet, twice decorated stands accused in his own court of law… I put my sickle down, I unhood my face, and remove the black cloak to find a human underneath. Sometimes I am shocked to find the human… sometimes I am shocked to know that if I cut myself I bleed, and some pains can even stab through my cold heart. Its okay two hours later my relief comes in and I go home, might as well see if the cafeteria is open. And there it is, my hip vibrates again.

I make the call… I grab my cloak and my sickle, this time to the ICU, 60 year old man coding, they don’t know if he is going to make it… family is erratic, crazy white man saying he is going to burn the hospital down. Probably trailer trash, probably dangerous. Dammit God when do I get to sleep. Then I hear the answer and I laugh to myself…

“Get over yourself, you’re a chaplain not an actor so avoid the drama,” I knew God could be sarcastic and I knew he had a sense of humor, and I knew he was right. I do tend to focus on drama. I can’t see for shit, but then at least I can listen.

Monday, September 03, 2007

The Faustian Deal as an Archetype: Individuation by the Process of Integration of the Shadow

This paper serves as a reflection only; I am beginning to organize thoughts in my head around the concept of integration of the shadow. If one is not aware of the terminology in reference to the shadow please read my previous reflection on an introduction to the shadow.

I will explore the archetype of the Faustian deal. This concept is of interest to me because of how often I have see the concept relived through popular media. Basically a Faustian deal refers very specifically to a deal that is made between humanity and some form of a malevolent Trickster for wisdom, wealth, power, etc… The terminology comes from the story of Dr. Faustus. Though he was a historical character, there isn’t much that can be said of assurance as to how he lived.

The two main authors penning the story of Faust are Johannes Goethe and Thomas Marlow. The two stories focus on completely different themes, and seem to even have different points. This reflection will mainly focus on Goethe’s Faust. It will then trace the movement of Faustian deals in modern media; I will begin with Star Wars, in relation to turning to the dark side, Ghost Rider, and Spawn. The latter two are comic book characters.

I had always been interested in this idea, early on because there is no Biblical ground for it, but more recently as I consider morality and ethics in a world that is not black and white. I began to notice themes in the media when I was very young. It started by watching movies where these deals were taking place, one that comes to mind is the George Burns movie, Oh God you Devil. I was later introduced to Todd McFarland’s Spawn, and when I was in college I read a Star Wars comic book series called Dark Jedi, where Luke “goes over” to the dark side, his reasoning, to defeat a Sith Lord.

While working as a hospital chaplain I began to read the works of CG Jung, and learned of the concept of the archetype, and his take on fantasy and dream interpretation. At that point I began noticing recurring characters in television and books. There is always a protagonist, always an antagonist. Often there is a Trickster, a Hero, a Mother, a Father, and then there was the ever-present Shadow.

This reflection is part of my journey. I can’t help but wonder, why does our culture tell the story of Dr. Faustus over and over again… what inherent need does it meet? Lets begin by tracing this need in Star Wars.

Star Wars
In the beginning Darth Vader is to be understood as an evil force bent solely on controlling the universe through terror. One important question is, is that the case? In the original movies Vader’s character development is interesting, if one were to open their mind they would see by “Return of the Jedi,” that Darth Vader no longer represents what he was proposed to be. What is Vader’s goal after finding Luke, his son? His goals are to first overthrow the Emperor, and then rule the universe with Luke as father and son. Vader believes that with Luke at his side, if he embraces the Sith side of his personality they will be strong enough to overthrow the Emperor.

It was always interesting to me that in their universe this epic battle is based off a Prophesy, “the one who will restore balance to the force.” In the beginning of a New Hope Obi Wan believes this is through Luke but with the addition of the prequel’s we find that this thought fell originally with Vader himself. In the end of “Return of the Jedi,” who is it that destroys the Emperor, it is not Luke who refuses to embrace his hate, but his father who acting out of hatred for the Emperor and love and concern for his son that destroys Palpatine.

The prequel movies build Anikan to be a new hope himself, but with deep confliction. He never learns to temper his rage but seems only to try and repress it, this is first completely evident in the second movie when he destroys the sand people at the death of his mother. He never learned to deal with grief, so by the third movie when he has found that his beloved would die he partakes in a Faustian deal, why? For love. We find that Vader has more depth than could be imagined from his original appearance.

Any true Star Wars fan will also have moved beyond the canonical series of movies and moved into the literature. In the canonical literature there is a comic book series that is very important to this discussion, “Dark Jedi.” In this series we find that the Emperor is not really dead but has been biding his time. We find that as the ability to use the force grows it destroys the body, thus the reason he became so deformed fighting in the third episode. How will a Jedi deal with this? Qui-gon Jin and Obi-wan found a way to deal with it through death, the Emperor through cloning. We find the he has grown beyond the bounds of his own skin and lives again through a clone.

Once Luke figures this out he understands his father all the better. He is forced to ask the question, is it possible to beat true evil through some perceived purity. He even begins to realize that he must embrace the dark side of the force; this realization comes to him as he takes a knee and refers to Palpatine as, “my master.”

Todd McFarland’s Spawn
We find the Faustian deal more upfront in the comic book series Spawn. A mercenary, one that has done many bad things, is on his deathbed and is given one more chance to be with his love by Malbolsha the devil. He is given five years then is expected to lead the armies of Hell. Malbolsha tricks him, and he awakens to find that he is deformed and five years has past. Wanda his love has moved passed him and married his best friend, they have a child, though oddly enough we find that the child is probably Spawn’s.

Spawn awakens to find a choice lay before him, whom will he follow? Not choosing is not an option by refusing to choose he chooses “Evil,” by choosing “Good,” he loses all hope of finding his love once more.

God must battle the devil; this seems to be the rule. Throughout history, through stories and through Literature we find the archetype of the “Divine Battle,” a battle that must be fought, it is interesting to me that in the case of Faust (Goethe), Star Wars, Spawn, and Ghost Rider God uses a, “demonic” force to win.

Ghost Rider
Ghost Rider is an earlier form of the Spawn storyline, tricked my Mephistopheles to sell his soul and live in servitude, his father does not die of cancer. There is always a trick when it comes to a Faustian deal though, in this case his father later dies in a wreck. Ghost Rider is forced to walk the world alone, belonging to the Devil. Later he learns to control his powers and fights against the devil himself. The character in touching his shadow is strengthened to deal with darkness.

Faust
I will spend my time with Faust as understood by Goethe, and remain most in the first book. Goethe’s first book is a love story. There are many character but I see three as major archetypes, not exactly as something different, but as stages.

Mephisto: in the prologue in a conversation with God he calls himself the Devil, later in the book he is called other things but desires most the name, Mephisto, or Mephistopheles. He is representative of the trickster, the one who is given the task of upsetting the balance. It seems that Goethe takes a queue from the book of Job. In a conversation with God a deal is struck, a deal, or one might even say a bet, in which Faust is set up as the deciding factor. Faust’s faithfulness is not decided by his morality but by his intellect, Mephistopheles engages Faust in the intellect. He stands as a liberal in a conservative world, offering Faust the opportunity to change his stance on life to something more progressive. Put simply he offers Faust a life where he can move away from helping those around him as a doctor but enjoying life, finding something that will finally entertain him.

Margaret: If Mephisto represents to me extreme liberalism she then is blind orthodoxy. Margaret takes issue not only with Faust not adhering to a creed but his association to Mephisto. She actually tells Faust that she loves him except when she is around Mephisto, then she hates him. There is a wonderful scene where She and a friend of hers are gossiping about a woman who is pregnant out of wedlock.

In the end her way of thinking is too inconsistent with the life she has begun to live since she met Faust. Though she is redeemed at the end of her life, she is put to death for the drowning of her illegitimate child. The child belongs to Faust.

***Take into account I have simplified the story and have simplified the characters. The characters are deep and on their own represent something deeper and fuller than my inadequate descriptions. Also take into account I am making these descriptions to emphasize a point, and this is the vision I have taken from the book, not necessarily the one intended by the author.***

Faust: Standing between what was and what could be Faust is forced to look upon both worlds. Though he did not enter in hastily he still entered into a pact with the Devil. There was something found wanting in his life, something he needed. Every day as a doctor he acted kindly to the underprivileged, working often pro-bono. The world that surrounded him revered him, for not only did he work for the poor, he taught wisely and raised those beneath him. But there was something missing something Faust was not able to do with the cards that had been dealt to him that is where Mephisto steps in.

Mephisto gave him youth, helped him find love, taught him regret, and at some point made concrete a morality that was slipping away. It was in the guilt over Margaret’s death that Faust is reminded one must live a certain way. Something that he had forgotten before Mephisto, and while walking with Mephisto. It was Mephisto that gave him the opportunity to learn more, to attempt to exhaust knowledge, all knowledge under heaven and earth.
Mephisto, then in the second book gave him an army. He sent him to help a king and in that time worked with the king. At his death he tricked Mephistopheles. In a final act of kindness, not only is he sure he can’t know everything, he puts himself in a situation where he convinces the devil to work to better mankind.

Goethe paints Faust as a picture of wisdom, though he may not be innocent as a dove, he is sly as a serpent. Faust understands that answers are not simple, like Margaret thought, but through Mephisto he understands some answers aren’t worth it.

This story has been told over and over again. Why is humanity so dead set on selling its soul to the devil? We live in a culture that uses phrases like, “Lesser of two evils,” and asks questions like, “do the ends justify the means.”

Edgar Allen Poe wrote a story called “Never Bet the Devil Your Head.” He describes it as his one “moral,” tale. In the story Poe does not stand between Progression and Orthodoxy, between perceived good and evil but accepts the dichotomy. In accepting that dichotomy no matter how tongue in cheek, he rejects his shadow, a shadow he faced in the rest of his writing. Poe recommended we never bet the Devil our head, but we never learn, why is that?
Maybe we have to bet the devil our head. Maybe we have to sell our soul to the devil to survive. I know what your saying so let me say this, I don’t think it literally, but in a figurative sense, we have to balance the force, not dichotomize it. I don’t think this ignores morality, nor does it ignore the wisdom of understanding good and evil. If we walk into a room with a set dichotomy someone isn’t going to fit. We can pretend that all people are Republican’s or Democrats, Liberals or conservatives, Believers or Unbelievers, Good or Evil, but at some point, someone will walk in to this room who doesn’t fit.

Our culture tends to ignore the shadow, thinking that if we don’t look at the darkness within ourselves it isn’t there. The thing is when we look into our own darkness often we find that we have damned things that themselves are not dark. It is as if we look at all people who oppose violence as weak, and the people that are willing to fight as killers. Not all solders kill babies, and not all pacifists are doing it because it is the right thing to do. But if we can label people who don’t think like us as evil, then we are good, we don’t need to reconsider life or to think about new things because we have arrived, and we can stop the car. I am a fan of life as a journey, where the hell we go isn’t as important as how the hell we get there… or vice versa, where the heaven we go isn’t as important as how the heaven we get there. Death… a place to rest? A new adventure? I don’t know but I can’t journey if I don’t have any road.

Can we look into our own darkness without being swallowed by it? And if we are swallowed are we stuck for good, is it as clear as “never bet the devil your head,” or can Darth Vader still make the right choice, even after making all the wrong ones.

Folks, there is power in the dark side of the force, and psychosis lives there too. We can ignore him, or maybe it is time to sit and have a discussion with Mephistopheles. Maybe it is time to learn what he knows. Morality is action. We are moral if we function within our bounds of ethics. Things… things are not moral, even actions.

The Bible says in Isaiah 45:7 “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. (KJV)” I don’t always know what this means, I know it isn’t referring to tornado’s and I know it doesn’t mean God isn’t good. But I know that in Genesis 1:3-4 for there to be light there has to be darkness. All the characters of these stories worked with their shadow side, integrating those things in it necessary for life and for higher consciousness, and were able to reject the things that were not moral… so what is hidden in your shadow that will bring you to higher conscious… and what there will kill you?

Friday, August 17, 2007

Reflection on Goodbye

I have considered goodbye. What else is there to do when one is leaving but to consider goodbye? It is often hard for me to know how to say goodbye, it is often hard for me to know how to know what is important to say, what is important to make known. I often see people die, I see their families and I hear the stories they tell. It is not uncommon, when asked, for a family to talk about the life of the deceased and the death they deserved, many of whom will either say in a peaceful death, "It is good the suffering is over," and in a tragic death, "She didn’t deserve this." I wonder if ever they really know what one deserves and what one does not, lest I consider goodbye.

In the days I didn’t know how to say goodbye I would plan "speeches", these long drawn out things more like monologues, what was important was summing up the entire life experiences of my friend and I so that I can have the appropriate closure and move on. It was a carefully planned procedure, at first I planned it for the last possible moment, the time when goodbye is imminent and if I would wait one moment longer goodbye would be missed. Living a life without equal sharing of feeling I had to make sure that this was known, that my feeling were known.
In my head it was pictured so cleanly, All my friends lined up in a row, one by one I would say something to each of them for the others to hear, one by one I would honor them, and I would organize by importance in my life. There was an epithet for each person, a statement of who they are, and their importance to me. Not only were my friends there but those people I respected but didn’t like, with them there was always a firm handshake. Then there was the girl that never knew how I cared for her. In one moment we would live a lifetime… together… in love.

Well these things never happened. I suppose that the mental process itself is important because I need to know what people mean to me, I need to know how they have blessed me and honored me. The thing I learned about this was more that my fantasy of goodbye was filled with narcissism. All people gathering in honor of me, my mind conceptualized that this meeting as the time when time stops. As I would leave and begin to grow and change without them, they would seem to no longer exist to me, only as a remembrance, a memory of my past, a part of me, created to serve my needs. That was the backdrop of goodbye for me, a chance to bring notoriety to myself through the self-flagellation of grief.

Later goodbye changed for me. Don’t get me wrong it was still grand, still narcissistic, it was just… different. I went with the narcissism and realized goodbye was something for me even more than it is for others. Yes they need closure but in my mind I realized that I fantasized all this because I needed closure. So then I consider my basic human need when it comes to relationships… closure, acknowledgement of change. It is still narcissistic, it still puts me at the center of the world but in truth… at least I got honest about it. Hugs were important, words, memories, and most of all to let them know how they have blessed me.

It has been interesting for me to learn that not all people need this form of closure and closure comes in many ways. My last two paradigms flowed out of a low self-esteem. Maybe my esteem has changed little but at least I see it. So what then is goodbye to me now?

I started preparing this time the same as usual, I began to think of gatherings, call them parties if you will. As I gathered with one group of friends I noticed, the party was not the point, the speeches I had prepared were unimportant something had changed. Maybe its growing older, maybe its growing healthier but I didn’t need the speech for me, and in this time I have learned that others do need that speech. I also noticed that it isn’t necessarily kind to inflict my narcissism on others through my speech. Sometimes all I needed was a hug, sometimes a handshake, and for many… just one more dance, knowing that next time we dance something will be different… it must be. And sometimes, I didn’t need to say or do anything, the life I had lived with this person, the experiences we shared said more than any speech I could write.
Even more so the relationship wasn’t culminating. In some ways it would continue to grow, and in other ways it would stop, yet there was this sense of culmination. I danced with a friend last night… The dance had ever bit of soul, every bit of the blues, and every bit of emotion I felt for my friend. We moved sometimes together sometimes apart, but I remember finishing the dance and saying to myself, "That was goodbye, and no word or speech could ever say it better." Goodbye was not in the words said, the hands shaken, the hugs given, but only in the life lived.

So as I go on from here, I think there will be times where I create a speech, but I might start calling it a conversation, and allowing for other input. There might be a statement of feeling and meanings, and there might not be. Sometimes just a dance… a smile… and even a hug… who knows I might even someday get the kiss I have always been waiting for.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Mood Indigo

I think I realized why I like to set my alarm 30 minuites before I would even consider waking up. I like that time in the morning, that time when I am half asleep half awake. It is neat, like dream, fantasy, and reality are all one. It is that time when I get a second chance to fix errors that in reality have no fix, it is that time when those who have said goodbye are still there... when my dreams are most potent, and the world is in the palm of my hand.

There was a chance once, well, less than a chance... not even a chance... to stair into a set of eyes gone, to relive a moment and choose something different. Like a time dancing in my room at 2:00 AM, the song Mood Indigo had just finished. She was about to tell me she needed to leave... maybe just maybe... maybe what made sense would widdle away or maybe something would happen. I remember her saying "I think I need to go." My heart never fell, never dropped I knew she would have to go, I knew it would end this way... too few things ever change that much.

"It's your call," was my responce. What is different than usual, I wasn't speaking from fear, she knew how I felt, the problem was that I knew how she felt... half interested... maybe I was just filler... incase of emergency break glass. In thinking about my response I don't think saying anything different would have changed anything, it would simply have just been a little more honest. But in this time early in the morning I remember the time and I realize it wasn't out of fear that I ran from the right phrase, it was from ignorance... I said the first thing that occurred to me.

It was a safe comment, my hope was to hear, "Maybe just a little bit longer." That wasn't what I heard. There was no goodnight kiss, no real hug... I walked her to her car and she left.

But as I meditate on the event the phrase that would have made the most sense, the phrase that would have at least acknowledged my feelings, "I want you to stay." I know what your thinking, but your wrong, it isn't about sex, it isn't about the hollowness of, "making out," it was simply staving off the inevitable for one more moment and for once speaking my desires aloud. To look for a few moments with a set of eyes that would never be the same. She would probably have still left, it would probably have been all the same except, it would have been a wee bit more honest.

I think about the deathbeads I stand beside. I remember one night a woman watched her husband die, she held his hand, I was privlaged to stand in the room with them, I was able to stand in sight of their love. More than 50 years they had been together, now he leaves. She wept at his bedside, and it made me ask, who will weep at mine. Don't misread me, I didn't expect it to be this woman... at least I hadn't expected it for a long time... sometimes my life is like a revolving door of what never happened...

But when I get out of bed, the morning shower washes it all away... the dreams, the fantasy, I put on my tie, my nametage, I grab my coat and step into life. It isn't sad, at least my life isn't sad, I am sad because I am in the process of goodbye, I stay often in Mood Indigo, but you know, I live... to hold and to be held, to dream of and be dreamt of, to love and be loved, to be angry and recieve others anger, these and many other things like them are to live... there is more, sometimes there is less, but always there is life.

So as you read this raise your glass and say with me
"LaChiam"

Saturday, June 30, 2007

The Journey

It was an odd day, the day that I died. I don’t think that it is worth getting into the details of the event, they weren’t very meaningful, at least not to me. Not in the long run. I think it is also worthless to talk about lights and tunnels and things, not because I didn’t see them, it just… wasn’t important to me.

See get this, I was lying there… I was in the hospital, I remember having to argue with my wife about what I wanted, there were a few things that were obvious that she already knew. She knew my flair for the dramatic and my desire to utilize what many have called, meaningless gestures, partially because I believe and also for the dramatics.

Its funny, I didn’t have to argue with her about getting a priest, a specific priest. Yes I know, I am not Catholic… but he was a friend, and he used to sneak me communion during Mass. It was funny I remember once over a beer I told him I wanted him to give me last rites, he figured that he’d go first so we just toasted our glasses and he said all right. I won’t tell the diocese if you won’t. I still remember him praying the rosary for me. It was neat, maybe the cross between Morphine and Dopamine… but I saw Mary there… She was behind my youngest son, there was a tear in her eye, and a smile on her face… her face was so warm and inviting, I wonder if everyone knows how warm and inviting her face is. Sure I know it is crazy for a protestant to talk about visions of Mary but hey… it’s what I do.

The room was strangely warm, I thought I would be cold… I wasn’t, I don’t know what was warming the room up… maybe love… maybe frustration… You know there was a chaplain there. I had hoped there would be one, this was a Southern Baptist fellow… I think I was conscious about two hours, he was there the entire time. At one point he sat with me and talked, just he and I, I had to smile, he was so young, and his eyes an odd mix of warm and cold. Like he was full of emotion, but fuller of a desire to only let it squeak out. He was a good guy, I don’t remember his name, he was in training, I told him a little about my training, I told him how I wanted to die… I opened the door for him.

"It seems like your ready," he said to me in a haunting voice. I always wondered if I would have that conversation with someone. The truth is, I was tired, I suppose a little young but still, I have two kids and a wife I love very much… The oldest is married, I won’t get to see my grandchild this side of the shadowlands, but I know he is coming, I know it’s a boy, they don’t believe me, think I am a damned old mystic. I will get a chance to speak with him before he goes, I will send a message, I wonder if they will get it.

Now the youngest, he is the most like me, he is in seminary, followed in my footsteps, I can’t believe it. I argued with him about it, talked about the hours, about pain, about the tears I had shed, about living paycheck to paycheck, God’s forced faith, knowing that he will provide because otherwise we starve. I knew I had lost the argument when I saw a gleam in his eyes… later a vision… I made the arguments of his grandfather, but my heart welled with pride. I know he doesn’t know about the pain that is coming, but I know he can take it. I feel that I can stand before God and feel redeemed because of my children… because through all the mistakes I made… they will change the world, maybe that is just the father in me… but God is a father too.
I will never see him wed… be he will. Its funny when Mary left his side she was replaced with the shape of a different woman, olive skinned… seemed cute… holding his arm. I don’t think he was open to the vision fully but I saw him shiver, then scratch his arm where she was touching him… he would meet her soon, maybe two years out, but soon.

The oldest… successful bastard, he is like his mother. I never thought I would spawn his kind. The popular kind, the sporty kind, but he was a little different. Sure I had to adjust his attitude as a kid but he seems to have gone a different direction. He seems to have… grown. He will be a good father, I can’t believe the woman he married. Every day I wonder how he got her… She is so kind, I think she is the reason he went back to church. My vision of him is interesting… a rose… he will be a leader someday… a leader in the church… not like my young son… but a lay leader… an elder...

My wife, she is funny. She has two silver dollars in her purse… because I asked for her to carry them, to pay the boatman. When I die I want them over my eyes. She will hand one to each son; they will cover my eyes. She is okay with that, but she wasn’t okay with me dying… at least not at first. I keep telling her I won’t make it, she keeps talking about miracles. I keep telling her I don’t want those miracles. I am not afraid of death, or at least wasn’t until that damn chaplain asked me a question.

"Yeah I’m ready," I heard myself say. "How about you, you ready?" I know the expectation of the chaplain, I know what the staff thinks he should do, I smile at him. I can’t help it, I tell him stories about CPE: About the years I spent as a chaplain and as a preacher, the years as a husband and a father, the years alone… in transit… wondering if I would ever find a home. I saw a tear in his eye… That bastard, he knew what I needed, and I think I knew what he needed. I needed to talk… he needed to hear… yes I was ready… it was right

"You are Catholic?" I always laugh when people ask me this question.
"No sir, never got around to conversion," my priest friend laughed.
"I think you understand what Catholic means better than most…" my Priest said.

My new Southern Baptist friend didn’t understand that comment, so the father, it feels odd to call my friend father, explained about the big church. This chaplain is just a kid, we both know he isn’t going to listen too well, but I like him. He is me… I am him…

My niece and nephew are there, and a man who became like a brother to me later… my sister-in-law’s brother. A good guy… I was glad he was there. I look forward to seeing my brother again. I wonder where he is…

All the sudden there is pain… God awful pain… So I do the only appropriate thing… I start to curse… the nurse gives me more morphine immediately I get loopy, it’s almost time… I glaze my eyes with the look of goodbye, I try to speak but I am too tired, I can raise 1 finger, I wave… the circle around me joins hands. Mary was back, Jesus was there, and Grandma, that is where I saw you first… My brother standing next to his wife… I hadn’t seen that in years… I can’t exactly remember why… oh now I remember. I don’t think she knows he is there…. Mom… Dad… smiling, holding hands. I really appreciate that theology about "believers but not knowers."

They are gone and I get up… blue lab coat… chaplain coat… I am in the hospital… "Code 1 to ICU 3" I rush to the code and find out it wasn’t a code… the chart says, "do not resuscitate." The family is standing around the body; Mary is here, Jesus is here… Mom, Dad… why are you here… Anna… Adam… why is my family here? I look down on the table, me… all the sudden I am looking up from the table… and I am filled with breath.

Grandma, that is when you handed me my chaplain coat… my sons placed the silver dollars over my eyes. I put my coat on… I walked through a corridor… another chaplain next to me… he wore black… pretty macabre for a chaplain… oh, he is "that" chaplain… I walk to a river… there is a boat, and a man with a lantern. "Charon?" I said. He smiled at me and held out his hand, I reached into the pocket of my lab coat, lets see… papers… more papers… census’… there they are. I hand over two silver dollars to Charon. He smiles.

The journey is short… peaceful, and oddly enough seemed like forever… I was a little nervous… now judgement it coming, now I stand before God… now the decision… Elysium or Tartarus… All the sudden no fear… I should be afraid, I am not… I got off the boat onto a dock… I walk through a door… I am in the hospital again… but it is a dream I had many years earlier… I walk into employee orientation… I state my name to the man behind the main desk… the bookkeeper opens a large book… this was just like a dream… he smiles… "St. Peter?" I ask. This is no longer the dream. I begin to walk and turn to ask a question, "can I check on my family?" he showed me a monitor. There was crying… even the chaplain… but it was okay… Mary was there… so was my Dad… and Mom… I looked to the right; Grandma was with me… she had never left me. Uncle Bud on her right… smiles… all smiles… The journey, I plot my course.

Friday, June 29, 2007

The Shadow: A Layman's Introduction

(I am not an analyst, you might read my stuff and think I have no idea what I am talking about, that is fine… I might just agree with you. I have recently come into the writing of CG Jung and am beginning to walk a road of understanding this requires the collection of my thoughts and dialogue therein. Please, let me know what you think)

Another of Jung’s core archetypes is the Shadow. The Shadow appears in our dreams and also in our fantasies as different things. The shadow itself is the part of the human psyche that we often don’t want to acknowledge. Often times parts of ourselves our relegated to shadow because of some strict moral judgement, and sometimes because of the way we fit into cultural norms.
For example, let’s talk about pride. Pride finds itself in the top 7 of the deadly sins list and for centuries has been the negative focal point of sermons and philosophical expressions. To view pride as a negative thing is rather black and white. I would say there are two sides to pride. There is the negative side, which I like to call Vanity, then there is the positive side, which can be understood as a positive self esteem. There are such phrases as, "pride in our work," "pride in our job," and "pride in the life we live." These things are important… we cannot live a life without pride it doesn’t work, but we take a word like pride and define it in a way that makes all pride seem bad.

Other examples might be in words like, religion, doctrine, and sexuality. All these things have negative connotations and often those connotations are exaggerated for the purpose of getting ones way or winning an argument. These things if not expressed find themselves in the shadow.
Of course it doesn’t have to be that dramatic. We often live unbalanced lives, there are very spiritual individuals out there who are accountants but never act on their spirituality because they are accountants not some form of minister. When something like this happens one might commit him/herself to work in such a drastic sense the spiritual aspect of the psyche is not experienced, the psyche will try to balance this, sometimes through dreams sometimes through fantasies, and there are other ways. Watch the imagery, a Catholic man dreams of a rose blooming from between the keys of his computer… the psyche might be saying something… something like, "Express me!"

I am typing all this to say, the Shadow is not necessarily bad or wrong, nor is it evil. When dealing with the shadow it is often necessary to cast no moral judgement until it is better understood. In dreams the shadow might appear anywhere from an elusive woman to a demon king, all depending on how ready we are to hear what the psyche has to say.
Does this mean we take the shadow in fullness and bend toward its will? Of course not, we have the ability to make choices in relation to, how we act and even what we believe. If one has been living a life of low self esteem and self deprivation he/she may figure that out and arrogate oneself falsely trying to compensate, because, well in all honesty a bit of an Ass. This might just be a case of letting the shadow run the show, remember when dealing with the inner self, the ego can and often must make moral decisions on what action is taken.

The same with Sexuality, Western Culture tends to dichotomize sex. It is either all evil or all good. Often sex is encouraged to be left in the bedroom and never mentioned, or something that is to be toyed with until one figures out his own way to make it work. That statement represents to polar views. Sex in itself is neutral, it is what we do with sex that places it in the moral realm. Human beings are sexual creatures, why do I say that, because all other animals are, and there seems to be this strong desire, whether it be bingeing or in sexual anorexia. An individual who deems sex, if not in voice but still in action, as evil or something to be feared might have very erotic dreams or fantasies that often seem out of control. Those who binge in the realm of sexuality might have dreams and fantasies expressing the opposite, maybe a nun or a priest, either way something will appear in the shadow.

In both cases one will need to connect to that aspect that has been relegated to the shadow as to gain psychic wholeness.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

The Slasher Flick as the Male's Expression of the Anima

Have you considered the "Dead Teenager Movies." I rented Final Destination 3 the other day and they had an extra on the DVD that talked about the "Dead Teenager Movies." To make it simple these are slasher flicks where teenagers die in large numbers, various examples: Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the Thirteenth, and Halloween. There are many others, but you get the picture.

The move often centers on two main characters, the slasher and the heroine. I suppose it might be a hero but often the movie brings a woman to the forefront. In the beginning of the movie we often find this woman taking a stance on sexual improprieties, and in some ways appearing chaste. The funny thing is that it isn’t necessarily their choice it just happens to work that way, they are never unattractive and often picked because they are attractive, but not the "Hot ditzy chick." This woman/girl is girl next door pretty, the one you take home to mom. She is also strong willed and able to defend herself and even often conquer the antagonist of the film.
Take also into account that most of the people who come to these movies are male teenagers. Why is it that a male wants to come and watch a woman who will undoubtedly have the chance to score but will not, and also at some point will be bound, either by rope or in a cage of sorts conquer.

I have an idea. One of Jung’s most popular archetypes was the Anima/Animus. The Anima is (for men) the female aspect of the soul, and the Animus (for woman) being the male aspect. Theoretically all people have both parts of the soul represented by archetypes and through life will try to express appropriately both sides. When one side is not expressed appropriately the collective unconscious will try, often through dreams, but also through fantasies to allow this aspect of the self to be expressed.

As one comes to a slasher flick males get the opportunity to express many different aspects of these relationships. First the male understands his own feminine sexuality (not to be confused with homo-erroticism) and at the same time sees expressed some form of ultimate woman, one who is "touring the facilities and picking up slack (listen the cake song, short skirt long jacket). This woman is perfect; she is feminine, attractive, and tough. At some point in the movie she will be bound, expressing the males desire to bind his own anima, and then she will be loosed, and the male will figure out that embracing the anima is not embracing weakness but strength.
To conclude, I think these movies represent something that has shifted to the periphery in our culture, something that needs re-connected with. We have been given this false version of masculinity that has no room for a natural femininity. This need, suppressed but the consciousness, is then expressed in by those who make the movies, and by those who passively watch them.

However, it is important to note that passive experience of the anima in a movie is not equivalent to appropriate expression through the conscious mind.

Let me know what you think.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Haven't posted in a while

Haven't posted in a while, sorry between my Myspace and Facebook accounts and the fact I have to use the public library I don't get to post much. I am currently working on an article that I hope to post, it will be about the archetyple of the Faustian deal in relation to integration of the shadow.

Friday, May 25, 2007

You're like a bear man!!!

Went to the casino's last night, not to play the slots but to see a concert. The Big Bad Voodoo Daddy were playing. When the song "You me and the bottle," came on and I started dancing I thought back to college. It was BBVD and the movie swingers that lead me to wanting to learn to dance. Shoot that goes back to freshman year at college, what did we call it, "The ultimate guy movie." It was a great show got a phone pic (really blury) pic with the lead singer. Got a few signatures on my ticket. They commented on my dancing and I told them about watching the dance scene in Swingers and then wanting to learn to dance. The dude just smiled and nodded, letting me know he rememebered the movie.

It was a dream to dance to BBVD live... after the dance we Lindy bombed (Ramdomly started dancing to a funk band) the Casino. We were dancing between slot machines, it was great.

Friday, May 18, 2007

Mother's Day

Who needs the attention at the death or dying of a loved one?

My pager went off at 10:30 PM, I wasn’t looking forward to going on a call but they really wanted me in the ER. I left the oncall room, put on my chaplain’s lab coat, and began to walk. As I got to the ER I got the info from the nurse. 19 year old girl coughing up blood, three hours earlier she felt decent, the day before she had been released from a clinic saying she was "Okay." She died the day after mothers day (this is very important), it was 12:30 a dark Monday morning. She left 3 sisters, a mother, and a daughter 3 years old. I can make no judgement as to whether she was a good mother I just knew her baby knew who she was, sometimes that speaks enough for me. Regardless it is none of my business, at least not anymore, if she was a good mother.

See I witnessed the death of three mothers that day (when working a 24 hour shift a day goes from 7 AM to 7 AM Monday morning) it was one hell of a mothers day. I called my mom to tell her I love her, she said, "You must have heard the same sermon I did." My reply was, simply, "probably." It didn’t matter that I hadn’t been to church that day, God speaks regardless.
Have you ever tried to connect with a 3-year-old. I am a pediatric chaplain (at least currently) it is my job to know how. If I can just get her eye early in the night, make a face, do the stupid removing the thumb trick. I did all those things. I remember at one point of the night she was being overlooked, please don’t judge the family you weren’t there and sometimes when emotions get high even the best lose direction, she came to me and held my hand. Her mom had been in the ER under constant work for two hours now, maybe more… I squatted down to look her in the eye… she said something about her mommy and pointed to the crisis room… I don’t understand 3-year-old eese. She just walked toward me, leaned on me so I hugged her.
I am not a huggy person… I get it from my father, but this girl needed attention. I picked her up and she put her arms around my neck. I generally don’t opt to hold children, this was a exception. While I was holding this baby her mother was called. I shut my eyes and imagined the magnanimity of growing up with no mother, knowing that your mother died on mothers day… but then I looked at my watch 12:15 AM. Mothers day was over.

On a death call whom do I give attention to? The family was in shock they were in mourning and they were taking care of each other. I did my chaplain duties, I took them in to see their fallen kin, I walked them back and forth from the chapel, I made sure paper work was taken care of, I listened, hell, I got water for those who needed it, these things were easy. My heart broke for a three-year-old girl who lost her mom…

I am just arrogant enough to tell this story because it is a neat story about me. I can’t help that… Another chaplain said he pictured this as a statue with the inscription, "The chaplain comforts the dying mothers child." That feeds my ego, at least on one level. It also makes sense of tragedy… at least on my side. The family still has to make their own sense… but I will never forget the child saying, "Mommy," and pointing to the crisis room.

Somewhere in the midst of shit there is grace. Somewhere in the midst of Hell there is hope. Somewhere in death there is life… Sometimes I ask why I am the one who has to stand there in the middle. Maybe because I am just arrogant enough to do it… maybe because it is the only way I am humbled… maybe because when I don’t have the strength to control life, God does.

A year ago I was afraid to walk into the ER during crisis… I am not sure when the fear dissipated… maybe God increased… not necessarily in my whole life but this one aspect. Fuck… I don’t know anymore. I was talking to a chaplain who has walked this a lot longer than me, I asked him, "What is wrong with us that we choose to do this?" I think about that every time people ask me how I work as a chaplain at a pediatric hospital. "Some folk are just wired that way I guess…" or at least that is what I tell them, and even sometimes that is what I tell myself.

See it isn’t hard, at least not the way you think. I looked at my shoes the other day. My work shoes, they were new a year ago this week. Now they are old, but more comfortable than ever. I got a shoeshine in the airport… made em look real nice. A week before that I looked at them while attending to the death of a 15 year old girl. Her dad asked me, "Why would God take my baby."

I thought about that in the airport when I put my feet up on the foot rests and said to the shine guy, "They been through a lot man, whatever you can do I would appreciate." I ended up tippin the guy three bucks for a four dollar shine, I wish I could have tipped him more.

What I said to her dad and what I thought were two different things. What I said was, "I don’t know." What I thought was, "Because she got hit by a car." I know its cold a bit macabre, but it makes sense to me. I looked at my shoes while standing on a blood stained floor. The airport shoeshine guy made em look nice a week later, but some blood never gets washed away.
Maybe the significance, you know the reason I am talking about death and shoes, is that my work shoes are also my dancing shoes. Ecclesiastes tells us, "There is a time to mourn and a time to dance." Tradition be damned… I gotta make sense of this life somehow.

Anyway I don’t reckon I will ever have any statues built for me… and most of these families will never remember my name… but I am called to stand in the place between shit and grace. My blue coat is often like the shroud of death. Its okay sometimes, because I know someday I will cross the river Styx… I just hope someone remembers the two coins to pay the boatman.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

We've been talkin bout Jackson ever since the fire went out

This in the news:
Dirty to Deep South
Memphis, TN: Justin McCreary is expected to announce today that in late August he will be moving to Jackson Mississippi. Jackson houses the GE Mongomery Memorial VA hospital. The hospital has a second year CPE program still in infancy. Justin's decision came through much prayer and consideration. When asked to comment on the move Justin said, "Get out of my face you stupid reporter." We can expect a word from Justin in the next few days concerning the move and some of his experiences as a pediatric chaplain in Memphis.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Down to the Crossroads

(All these pics were taken by my buddy Amanda (Bob)

These pictures are from a recent trip a few friends and I had taken to Clarksdale Mississippi for a blues festival (actually the annual "Juke Joint" Festival). Clarksdale was an interesting town, I like to think of it as the current home of the blues, I know I stay in Memphis and in theory I should claim it, but c'mon Beale is a sell out. There is a lot of music history in this small town. If you ever get the chance you should stop through on the weekend and check out some of the Juke Joints.


I know it just looks dark but that is the crossroads of 61 and 49 there is a myth that says Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil here. That isn't Robert or the Devil lurking in the darkness though it was me, and I was an hour late, it was 1:00 AM I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees
I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees
Asked the Lord above, have mercy now, save poor Bob if you please
-Robert Johnson, Crossroad Blues


This is us dancing at a juke joint in Clarksdale MS at the Juke Joint festival two weeks ago. I think it is a neet pic, the slim guy in grey is me.

This is the group of us with Mr. Tator. Mr Tator recorded with Jimbo Mathus and has been described as the last "true" streat corner performer. I felt lucky to get this pic.

This is Ground Zero, Morgan Freeman's club in Clarksdale. It was allright but reminded me more of a honkytonk. It is sort of commercial, I liked the small juke joints better.

I just liked this picture of me.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Searching for Experience

This morning I was driving to work meditating on Johnny Cash/U2's song the Wanderer. I don't know if the song is meant to be overarchingly religious or if they simply use religious imagry. But even if it is not itself religious the imagry says a lot about the modern conception of religion in America, even if some of the comentators are right and he is talking about cold war Russia. Lets look at this one section.
I went out there
In search of experience
To taste and to touch
And to feel as much
As a man can Before he repents

This section is spoken (even differently that most of Cash' stuff is like it is spoken. This section underscores the carnality of human desire. On a top layer he is talking about food in the line, "to taste and to touch." I think we can relate this interpersonally as well, not only with sex, but also with desire. The singer leaves and wanders searching seeking to find as many experiences as he can, maybe to "get them under his belt," before he decides to change, before he repents.

I often wonder (wander) myself looking for experience, looking for life, a way to understand it in its fullness, its joys and pains, its happiness and suffering. And often catch myself thinking, "I can do this now, but when I am older and more settled I will have to think differently." What have we done to our religion that says, all fun must come before repentence, all fun must come as a youth so that in old age we can live more uprightly. I wonder if Jesus would want Christianity the way we understand it in the west. A Christianity where one spends all his time trying to stay pure, well maybe, but maybe Jesus would tell us we don't really understand purity.
See, I don't want to, "sin that grace may abound," but I also don't want to use my religion as an excuse to make my lack of experience and regret okay. CS Lewis contended we ourselves don't understand what being a Christian is. He seemed to think we have turned the word into a synonym for good, "Wow, that guy must be a Christian he is so nice." The culture has identified ethics and whatnot that align with concepts of right and wrong, good and bad, and many people choose to call those ethics Christian. They are similar ethics to that of the prechristian philosophers like Socraties, Plato, and Pathagoras. I would never say a Christian should ignore morality, and I would never say morality isn't normative, but I would say that in trying to keep othres from sin we have also crucified our freedom in Christ. For those of you who know me this harkens back to my philosophy of the use of language, but I think of this much more broadly, when I ask the question, not necissarily who is my brother, but who is my weaker brother. some of my weaker brothers are weaker so they can be manipulative and get their way. One author called it the "proffesional weaker brother."

Experience something today, taste, touch, feeling... even if you have already repented. These don't have to be bad things.

Friday, April 13, 2007

Confliction and Contemplation

A year as a Hospital Chaplain Resident has taught me a lot about... well... me. In this time I have done a lot of inner exploration and discovery. I had the experience to open my mind to different authors and look at different way people understand the psyche. The other day I was listening to the U2/Johnny Cash song "The Wanderer" and the words hit me hard. If you have never heard it, i am sure you can find it at you tube but the imagry is amazing. What strikes me so much about the song are the dichotemies.

I went drifting Through the capitals of tin
Where men can't walk
Or freely talk
And sons turn their fathers in
I stopped outside a church house
Where the citizens like to sit
They say they want the kingdom
But they don't want God in it

I can't say I know the meanings I just know the confliction, I was watching Reba Yesterday and they broke in with some breaking news thing, it was about this Imus guy. I didn't care and didn't think it should have been breaking news. I read what he said and it appalled me. But does that mean he should be fired. "Where man can't walk, or freely talk."

I think about the direction separation of church and state has gone, I am a fan, believe me, you can't be a true Campbelite without it, but I wonder if there is overkill instead of balance. It tests our freedoms the most when we have to defend people we diametrically oppose. Evelyn Beatrice Hall said Voltaire said, "I disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Not a direct Voltaire quote but maybe a reflection of his thoughts.

The world is conflicted.

This is the phrase that gets me the most in the song:

I went out walking
With a bible and a gun
The word of God lay heavy on my heart
I was sure I was the one

No comment necissary

But the inner conflict of the world is a reflection of my own inner conflict, my own incongruities. Are any of ya'll incongruent?

This is sort of what my inconcruencies look like.


If you pay any attention to any of my later posts this is a modification of a zen garden of mine that stays pretty constant. The sun that was setting is now bleeding over the water. The raft I am sitting on is now in more conflict with the shadow to the right and light is now shining in the darkness. Light is now battling what Jung called the shadow. The shadow basically is that part of the self that we don't want anyone to see the thing we hide, often even subjectivly from ourselves. Often the shadow is the thing we hate most in others. When I look at people and wonder why in the world they might act or say something stupid, I contemplate what is going on within myself. I wonder what is this in me. Do I do this thing, or do I supress this thing because I like to do it. Does my mentality present an emortional binge and purge? It is like saying, "You can't do that it is wrong," but in truth feeling jealous because in the end they can do it and I wish I could too. facing the shadow is difficult, light must shine in the darkness, and the darkness must overcome it.

I am not so sure about this one, it is just the one I was thinking about. The lines oppose one another, why? I don't know they just do. There is a certain macabre to it. A balance, an annoying balance. Something as much above as it is below. Something just as low as it is high. Opposition... Frustration... like no matter how high one can go there is more burried more within that battles against the self, more that opposes the hights with which one can travel.
For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to
do—this I keep on doing.
So as I travel higher I go lower, I find that in the end my nature is currupt, maybe. Maybe yours isn't but there is a firmament around my true self, my real self... that corrupts me. But I do not stop looking nor do I flee from the things within myself, though it is easier to look to the issues of others and ignore them in me. Both of my gardens represent a battle with my shadow.


I know what your asking, "isn't this too much information?" My responce would be, "probably not, I think you are pretty screwed up yourself."


So how do I arrange this in my mind?

All I can do is just keep looking, because the darkness... well, it just can't stand the light.

Yeah I left with nothing Nothing but the thought of you I went wandering

Saturday, April 07, 2007

Inner Peace

I have begun utilizing the Zen Garden as a relaxation technique. I actually have two miniature zen (or Rock) gardens. One represents an overarching theme, and the other a more "in the moment" picture of life.


This first garden is the current representation of my psyche. It is very personal but speaks to me of change and growth. There are two rivers feeding into one. One river is very familiar to me, the other is one that I do not know, a new trait, a new aspect of the self. Maybe growth from transition.
This next garden represents an overall theme that doesn't change from day to day but is morely seasonal. The sun is setting over the ocean. There is a raft on the ocean watching the sunset. The white rock is the raft. The dark rock by the white rock is a recent addition. I can only explain it as a Jungian archetype. It is part of the shadow. In this case there is an aspect of the self that is becomming more prevelant that maybe I don't have to fear. The dark stone at the center is the sun cooling off in water awaiting the next days rising. I remember the description of the sun setting in water in Bislama (a Pijin dialect in Vanuatu) "Sun he drown"
So that is the current walk through my less than conscious self, stay tuned for more.

Friday, March 30, 2007

Just a feeling

I usually am not one to post the lyrics to a song, but this is how I feel at the moment, I think I am just tired. However, I do love the imagry of this song. I remember two months ago when a friend of mine died this was one of the songs that played eternally in my soul. My only version of this song is in the album, the actual LP, there is just something special when I hear things like this on LP. I remember years ago when this song was introduced to me as a child. It was the only tape we had in the car, and anytime my mother would drive me anywhere over and over again we listed to this short album. It brings back memories for me of simple times, trips to camp, and sleeping in the car when someone else would drive. The entire album is amazing if you ever get the chance to hear it I recomend it. So anyway, maybe you are like me and don't need to hear the song, knowing the lyircs and tune are always enough for me, I can sing them forever in my mind.

So from the album "So Far" I present to you Crosby Stills Nash and Young, "Helplessy Hoping."

Helplessly hoping her harlequin hovers nearsby
Awaiting a word
Gasping at glimpses of gentle true spirit he runs wishing he could fly
only to trip at the sound of good-bye

Wordlessly watching he waits by the window and wonders at the empty place inside

Heartlessly helping himself to her bad dreams he worries
did he hear a good-bye or even
Hello

They are 1 person
They are too alone
They are 3 together
They are for each other

Stand by the stairway you'll see something certain to tell you
confusion has its cost
Love isn't lying its loose in a lady who lingers saying she is lost
And choking on hello

They are 1 person
They are too alone
They are 3 together
They are for each other

Sunday, March 18, 2007

2 differrent movies, 1 plot, one happy camper

(Halt, movie spoilers)

Okay so you read my title, I am sure it drew you in, your thinking, what are these two movies? Well the first, I ended up seeing because "The 300" was sold out, was "Wild Hogs." After the movie all I could say was Wunderbar!!!! Four men stand against fifty bikers to reclaim their honor, it is on the field of batter their true selves.

The second movie I went to see on a Saturday afternoon, cause it was sold out friday, was "The 300." Leaving the the theater I was clapping my hands saying "bella bella," I mean what else is there 300 men stand against millions, and Esther's Husband, on the field of battle where they reclaim their honor (or something), but the true gift was that on the field of battle they found their true selves.

Both movies not only inspire those in the movies themselves to do greater things IE... a large Spartan Army, and the Town of Madirid standing against the Del Fuegos, but they inspire all the watchers to do the same as. One uses Comedy the other blood, and blood, and did I mention blood.

I give both movies a thumbs up, you know what that means, two thumbs... standing at attention ready to look the world in the eye and say, "sure we're just a set of thumbs but we're gonna kick your ass."

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

A few things I like

In no particular order but numbered for your convenience

1. Hot Oatmeal on a Cold day
2. New Castle after it has just started getting warm
3. Finally beating Freeza in DBZ Buddakai
4. Christian Imagry
5. Esoteric things, with a history (for example, I collect records)
6. A fast and perfect lindy swingout with a good follow
7. Bach played from an LP while I journal and drink coffee early in the morning
8. Female Jazz/Blues Singers
9. My balcony, my pipe, slow Jazz, and a warm breeze
10. A Hug from someone who cares and someone I care about
11. Cheese Fries from Huey's (on Madison)
12. Midtown (is Memphis)
13. Pizza and wine while watching Gilmore Girls
14. Classical Guitar
15. Liturgical Singing
16 on the list, 1 in my heart... Grandma's Front Porch Swing, especially after a morning of work with Grandad.

This was just something I thought of this morning.

Thursday, March 01, 2007

The Creek pronounced crick

One of the other major memories of aquatic bodies is the creek, pronounced crick. I understand the creed differently than the river, let me explain. As a child many of my happiest memories came from the time I spent at my grandmother and grandfather’s house a few miles down Peter’s Run Road in Tridelphia West Virginia. I remember I would always anticipate the drive and even break down the various sections of the drive. It was close to a thirty-minute drive but my strongest feelings associate to the last five minutes.

From the main road we would turn left onto Peters Run Road. For three miles we would follow a creek on the right. As I would drive I would see the hill and vegetation on the left, and a series of bridges on the right. We would pass "Ye Ol’ Country Church" on the left then a hill with a series of steps for drainage (this road was prone to mudslides). As we pulled toward my grandfather’s bridge I would begin to get a deep anticipation. The bridge was small and some would say it was a little nerve racking to drive over yet it was a strong bridge.

I remember as a child putting my hands in the creek and feeling the cool water run across them. Many Creeks in West Virginia had turned orange from the coal mines, my grandfather’s was not one of them. We were never allowed to walk in them barefoot because people had the tendency to throw bottles from their cars into the Creek. I didn’t need to walk barefoot, Sometimes I would enjoy just standing on the bridge and looking down.

In the summers on some Saturday morning’s my father and I would go and drop a minnow trap. Grandfather’s Creek fueled my ability to go fishing. The minnows would swim in the trap and not be able to swim out. As I got older friends and I would go to this place and drop the trap ourselves, sometimes we would just use a sane, at that age we were old enough just to go into the creek in our shoes, unless we could get a hold of some waders. I remember feeling the cold water rush against the waders… it was calming.

The drive filled me with anticipation. It was a different anticipation from descending into the river. The later was an anticipation of rebellion, and the joy that comes with freedom and the ability to keep from being chained. Grandfather’s house was utopia. At my grandparents house I had no desire to break the rules, actually I was filled with a desire for just the opposite. At my grandparent’s house I wanted to act well (this is not to say my brother and I didn’t get into our own stuff there). I would never sneak down to the creek when I wasn’t allowed, and I didn’t get into things I wasn’t supposed to. I was trying to be anything, I just had no desire to have my grandparents view me unfavorably.

As I got older I would help my grandfather tend to his yard and sometimes his garden. After a morning of hard work I would join them for lunch and then we would sit on the front porch, Grandma and I in the swing, Granddad on a wicker rocking chair. I once preached a sermon called, "A Glass of Iced Tea and a Front Porch Swing." To me this picture was heaven. I had no where to run to, and nothing to run from, I was safe behind the Creek, suckling at the bosom of the hills around us.

It was a different kind of freedom from the river. The river involved chaos, crossing the Creek involved peace. Cosmologically the Creek is at the opposite end of the river. The river was a place to descend into, a place where chaos ensued and we allowed ourselves to be swept into chaos, the Creek though it was calm like the words of the song, "Ripple in still water, where there is not pebble tossed, no wind to blow." The ripple in these waters came from the hand of God himself, an angel that came and stirred the water once a day.

We looked out across the big Pine, across the river to the road where cars and trucks would go to and fro busy with life. We would watch life from the outside I liken it to Lazarus looking at the rich man. He could see, but he was not there.

Memories fill my mind of the old horse swing that hung under the pine, in the summers. I remember the snow on the hill in front of and behind, being driven out on a snow day from school, Granddad getting out his old runner sled, and then letting loose. From the hill we would leave with a "swoosh," toward the Creek, we would see how close we could get, yet we could never make it in. That was fine though, the winter was not a good time to feel the cool water of the Creek.

Across the Creek we were free, but it was a different freedom. The deer would be down in the winter by the dozens, the turkey in the summer by the hundreds. The garden, full of green beans and corn in the summer, in the winter the snow like a blanket allowing the land to sleep. Across the Creek was hope, the anticipation of the drive reminding me of what is to come. Across the Creek… maybe I could say heaven, but it seems more like Eden. A body reborn, casting off the fallen nature, resurrection in its best form.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

I woke up dead this morning

I woke up dead this morning
Not another drop to drink
I woke up dead this morning
The wine and beer extinct
I woke up dead this morning
The angel waved goodbye
I woke up dead this morning
From hanging my head to cry
I woke up dead this morning
Where’d the time all go
I woke up dead this morning
So many things I’d never know
I woke up dead this morning
The remnants of a hug
I woke up dead this morning
I left the song unsung
I woke up dead this morning
My sickle left at home
I woke up dead this morning
I can’t believe he’s gone
I woke up dead this morning
I couldn’t take the fight
I woke up dead this morning
Because you didn’t wake up last night

By Justin
In memory of Waide Messer, a chaplain, a friend... We didn't just pass in the night.

Monday, February 19, 2007

Down to the River to pray

I have been reading "Memories Dreams and Reflections," basically Jung’s autobiography. Reading through it has been interesting even just into the second chapter. Reading the memories and dreams that were important to Jung are astounding. He talks about smelling for the first time, seeing the Alps in the distance for the first time, and seeing the stars for the first time. He discussed his awareness of the world around him and his understanding of it, even down to 3 years old.

If I were to think along these lines I would have to talk about growing up on the Ohio River. I don’t know if any of you ever grew up around water, there is something interesting growing up near water. Even though highly polluted the water from the Ohio is what I would drink, after a lot of filtering, and as a young child I was not allowed near the river itself, because of the undertow. I was told as a child that the direction of the water under the surface did not have to match the direction on the surface, that currents ran through the river all different directions, not just south. I imagined a river within a river flowing a different direction, I imagined fish passing each other going different directions, but just swimming, though I could imagine some animals talking, I have never much imagined fish that way, they were just fish.

I image that is partially because I don’t hunt but I do fish. I couldn’t kill a squirrel, a deer, or a black bear, I could imagine them with a voice but fish, they had no voice. That isn’t to say I kept any of them I caught them in the ol Ohio and nothing that came out of the Ohio was safe to eat. I think that is part of the majesty of the river, so powerful so dangerous with its undertows and poisons. I wasn’t allowed near the river as a child, so it isn’t strange that every day in the summers I was there.

You see, the river was cut into a valley, we had to descend to the river. I remember as a child my first time fishing, or at least as I remember was at the Dam. The Dam was itself a monster, maybe not a monster but a harness. Like the bridle of a horse the dam controlled the direction of the river. I have imagined canoeing from my house to my friend’s house in St. Mary’s. I think it would be a fun trip and I would have to survive the local dams along the way. It was an hour and a half drive how long of a canoe would it be? Maybe someday I will.

I think the most astounding thing about the dam was the echo. I recall my brother and I learning our voice hearing for the first time our own echo. The question came, "Dad, who’s yelling back." Dad explained the echo. I always looked forward to the dam because of the echo.
Descending toward the river was always a positive thing to me. Being close to the river and going through what I needed to just to be close. The river in one sense was my father and mother, in one way it was a river. To descend toward the dam I had to be sure footed (as my zodiac says I am) because the dike that had been built was walled by rocks some limestone some granite, some that were sharp some that were smooth, but all that were dangerous. It would be easy to slip and fall, rolling down the bank, but worst of all, spilling my tackle box. I have fallen many times but have never spilled my tackle box.

My old gang hung out by the river, every day we went down to pray. To which God’s I cannot be sure, but we did pray. With every drag from a cigarette every word we couldn’t say in front of our parents, we were baptized by the river. It was that baptism that symbolized freedom for me maybe even us. We named our places, they were like temples to us, temples with simple names: the hill, the rope, the rock bar, the beach, the dam, the rope swing, these were the places we would "hang" these were the places we would worship. For what is worship to a child truly but that chance to be, even if in farce, an adult?

That isn’t to say some had more dominion than others did, I was not the head of this priesthood, but a simple worshiper at the temple. Justice was like the river, swift and harsh. Not entirely physically but emotionally. It was at the river we learned to reduce one another to tears with words, it was at the river that we sacrificed our own scapegoats. We all played each roll; we each took a place as high priest, worshipper, or scapegoat. We had our own code, it was never written, but it was thorough and clear.

At our homes we lived under our parents, at the river we were free. My feeling climbing out was always different it was sadder, it was lower. Yet I was a surefooted Capricorn, and I could always survive away from my temple, away from the holy mother, the great river.

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

"Playing the Whore"


Playing the whore in Ezekiel

I have never read through Ezekiel, so I thought I would. I have come through to chapter 24 and it has been interesting. Over and over again Israel and Judah are accused of "playing the whore." I had to think about this phrase. The NRSV says whore the NIV says prostitute, but I am assuming whatever term they are using is the derogatory one. What then does it mean to "play the whore?"

At first I thought this would be a letter about sexual behavior between… well everybody, but that is only a part, and oddly enough doesn’t seem like the biggest part.
First off God is punishing partially because of his own reputation, his daughters should have been reared in his law and should know it, this doesn’t seem to be the case.

13But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness. They did not walk in my statutes but rejected my rules, by which, if a person does them, he shall live; and my Sabbaths they greatly profaned.
"Then I said I would pour out my wrath upon them in the wilderness, to make a full end of them. 14But I acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, in whose sight I had brought them out. –Ezekiel 20: 13-14

This is a statement relates to his people in the wilderness God wants them to remember their stories, remember their history.

I like chapter 22 it seems like at the core of treating God right is treating each other well. Being honorable to God is being honorable to his creation. (this is not to discount the idolatry) There is a nice little sentence here and many throughout the beginning of the book about how we are supposed to treat aliens in the land. Extorting them is a major issue. What is the extortion talked about here, it is a sin called usury, and Ezekiel will talk about it later. Dealing with aliens in the land is a very important theme throughout the prophets, see Amos as well. The Israelites were originally aliens in a strange land, not only was Abraham asked to go somewhere new, but Israel existed as a people group in Egypt as aliens. Ezekiel places this as one of their great sins, mistreating immigrants. How do we treat our immigrants? I like that this passage doesn’t make the distinction between legal and illegal. What do we say about them?

6"Behold, the princes of Israel in you, every one according to his power, have been bent on shedding blood. 7Father and mother are treated with contempt in you; the sojourner suffers extortion in your midst; the fatherless and the widow are wronged in you. 8You have despised my holy things and profaned my Sabbaths. 9There are men in you who slander to shed blood, and people in you who eat on the mountains; they commit lewdness in your midst. 10In you men uncover their fathers' nakedness; in you they violate women who are unclean in their menstrual impurity. 11One commits abomination with his neighbor's wife; another lewdly defiles his daughter-in-law; another in you violates his sister, his father's daughter. 12In you they take bribes to shed blood; you take interest and profit and make gain of your neighbors by extortion; but me you have forgotten, declares the Lord GOD. –Ezekiel 22:6-12

Mistreatment of our elders. Mother and father treated with contempt. I wonder the extent of this. They were commanded in the decalogue to honor Mom and Dad. We live in a world where the elderly are shifted to nursing homes and ignored, not by everybody but it is something that cannot be ignored. Talk to your local DHS get the low down on the local nursing homes, go to nursing homes and find out when people are visited. This commandment is not just for children but it is for anyone with parents. We learn to treat our parents as we saw them treat theirs.
Shedding blood. People are being paid to do it, people are being dishonest so they can do it. I live in a city that has the second highest rate of violent crime in a country that wants to increase its military so it can send more troops to die. God seems a little unclear about the shedding of blood in some places, you know the commanding of the Israelites to slaughter entire villages in Joshua and the Judges. God seemed pretty clear though at mandating when fighting was necessary. But maybe I shouldn’t put this passage to war I should just put it on one on one treatment of each other.

Ritual prostitution, sex as worship, finally we have gotten to some sex. The sex Ezekiel brings up is used for direct worship of other God’s. However, this isn’t all of what it means to "play the whore" it seems like the other piece on sexuality seems to be inappropriate relationships within the family system, and more specifically the step family system Ezekiel never talks about sex before marriage, divorce and remarriage, or even visiting prostitutes. I know these things get covered later in the New Testament but it is funny to me, playing the whore doesn’t have to do with as much sexual sin as it could.

The next piece is my favorite when it comes to high interest rates and whom we apply them to. This time it isn’t just to the immigrant society but to their own people. I wonder if they got 3 or 4 high interest credit card offers in the mail, of course they start low but then get much higher shortly after. Ezekiel seems to be very clear on this, using interesting to make prophet is wrong. I think I might send that to my creditors.

So what is "Playing the Whore?"

  • Mistreating the immigrant population
  • Mistreating parents
  • Murder, unlawful shedding of blood (in some places the clergy are critiqued for this)
  • Inappropriate sex, meaning, relatives, neighbors, and ritual prostitutes.
  • Usury, the art of making profit from others misfortune.
What I find interesting about this list is that these are things that most cultures would find unethical. It goes back to chapter 20, God is paying attention to his reputation because his children are even committing sins that the other cultures take issue with, not to say they don’t do. The thing is Ezekiel expects priests to be priests they are held to (and rightly so) a higher level. But everyone else is expected to be people, it isn’t like they aren’t allowed to mess up, they can mess up, that is why they have the law, but these sins are the ones God expects everyone who is human to understand. You don’t mistreat people because they are immigrants, you don’t mistreat the elders, you don’t murder, you don’t sleep with whomever you want, and you don’t make money off of other people’s misery. It seems then that God is saying, "You, of all people should know better."

It is interesting to my personal self and my country to this list. We don’t have shrine prostitution anymore, but there are many other ways to be idolatrous. How do we as a country treat our immigrants, parents, each other in relation to life, sexually, and financially? Are we good to one another, fair and upright in all our dealings, honest? I just don’t know. I don’t think that we should read Ezekiel’s message and translate the doom to our nation, but I think we should read his message and get at the heart of God, what does he really want? Hell I don’t always know, but I know there are some things that aren’t negotiable. This list is a good start. And what is funny is that it isn’t like it is a strict list. These things seem common sense to me, we treat people like humans. Do we even do that?