Monthly Archives: January 2018

Pub Theology

Pub Theology Belief: Lookbacks, Fast forwards, Suspension, Imbued 01/23/2018

Icebreaker:

Author Evelyn Waugh, when asked how he reconciled his private conduct (e.g. stained by offenses against chastity and sobriety) with his public beliefs (i.e. he argued for the operations of divine grace). His reply has become celebrated: How much worse would I be if I were not a Catholic?  How much worse would you be if you were …?  Pick one: (above the law, capable of making yourself invisible, infinitely wealthy, a “made man” (woman), God, a god, a devil-with-a-blue-dress-on)  How do you go about reconciling your private conduct with your public beliefs?

Question of the Night: 

Following an assassination attempt by an insane black woman in 1958, Martin Luther King Jr. issued a press release reaffirming his belief in “the redemptive power of nonviolence ~ I felt no ill will toward Mrs. Izola Currey and know that thoughtful people will do all in their power to see that she gets the help she apparently needs if she is to become a free and constructive member of society.  How hard is it to forgive those who currently and possibly never will acknowledge their misdeeds and will probably die threatening the peace of those who care for them?  For whom are you willing to risk probable personal scars for possible permanent change?

Other Questions:

From Christoph Luxenburg’s The Syriac-Aramaic Version of the Koran (a rare non-Arabic translation): The rewards of a “martyr” in paradise: the heavenly offering consists of sweet white raisins rather than virgins. How would your life be altered if you “found” that your beliefs were a result of “lost in translation”?  Do you seek paradise in sensuality or sustenance?

From Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire ~ The various forms of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people to be equally true, by the philosopher as equally false, and by the magistrate as equally useful.  On the board of your life, is religion treated as king, rook, or pawn?  What happens to societies when the manipulations of religions go unchecked?

Following an analysis of slavery’s history as influenced by religion, this arguable aphorism emerged: The chance that someone’s secular opinion would cause the denunciation of slavery and racism is extremely high. The chance that someone’s religious belief would cause the denunciation of slavery and racism is quite small.  Why did organized religion play such a small role in slavery’s demise?   Does individual resolve eventually trump financial and power interests in the pursuit of freedom and justice for all?

Fill in the Blanks

Think of a time when someone disappointed you, hurt you or a loved one:

First: You are harmed in some way by _________ (church, family, friends, pub fools, etc.).  Next: You learn that what you attributed to malice is better explained by __________ (stupidity, ignorance, a forgivable error, substance abuse, immaturity, mental impairment, lack of self-awareness, overmedicating, under medicating, etc.).

Finally: Does your new-found understanding allow you to __________ (forgive, move on, discount the incident, cancel the hit, etc.)?

Of Politicians and Polish Sausage

An old popular saying (paraphrased) has it that ~ If you want to maintain your respect for a politician, or your appetite for sausages, you should take care NOT to be present when the former is groomed, or the latter is ground. What might the process of creating a religion look like?  What assumptions might you make about a religion’s origins, keeping in mind that the religion was put together before most people could read?

Activity

The Big Chill

Freezing solid in Montgomery County Texas is a rare threat the good Lord giveth.  Almost like proverbial hen’s teeth.  The warning of winter storm sounds from rural to borough and citizens listening batten down their hatches.  A crystal cover soon cloaks each road and roof and wheeled ride.  Worry turns to wonder as Nature slightly smiles in arrogance at the halting power she still holds over the ever pushy and impatient men at her mercy.

For an old farmer, staying home (and far from the madding roads) is my default, anyway.  So, the calamity of traffic lines looms less important.  More important be the water lines in winter. And the great lengths that water hoses go.  Strewn and stretched.  To five coops, with four splitters, into three pools, from two sources.  One shrinking soul slinks out each night to protect the vessels of drink from the icy fingers waiting to grip them.  Cutting off water, draining off hoses, taking off nozzles. Maybe silently praying that I got it all.  Knowing from piles of coiled evidence that I did not.

The next morning icily crackles awake, an accompaniment to the familiar cackle of poultry.  Layered clothing and mud caked boots soon maneuver through a glass menagerie of thin, irregular glass panes glazed overnight in my muddy puddled pasture.  The Ice Queen!  Yes.  She was here.  From coop to pen, to my gloved hand, fingers numbing, in the deep freeze, exhausted smoke hurries up from my lungs and sun rises.  My cotton and wool weaves envy the victory that fur and feathers still claim against wind chill.  My ever-present canine companions relish the relief from the heat of this climate change, adding their own smoky dogs’ breath.  My fowl friends stare thirstily and indignant.  A steady gaze, one hundred pairs of eyes seemingly asking at once, “Who do I have to kill to get a drink in this place?”

Good question.  I go grab a maul (like an axe but blunt and fat).  The skinny chickens see me coming in brisk.  One would think, instinctively, the winged animals would take flight at the sight of an axe.  But curiosity overcomes them and all watch to see what this fool with his tool may do.  I speed past them to the waterfowl.

First, I deliver a love tap to this seemingly pitiful ice sheet on the kiddie pool that serves as the duck’s drinker.  Only a contusion.  Next, I raise it up higher, delivering a more insistent blow.  Maybe a fracture.  Followed by a big bounce.  Whoops!  Back atcha.  Finally, I chop at the ice like I would wood.  I’m attacking an evil, tightly grained, unseasoned green, stringy round of hickory.  That did it.

Drink it now, you young quacks, because in an hour or so the laws of physics will taketh it away.

Vignettes

Murder in Muleshoe

This past weekend my wife and I went out to dinner with another couple.  I asked the guy if he was a native Houstonian (my standard ice breaker question).  My friend answered, “Let me tell you about my granddaddy.”

Born up in Nacogdoches.  The youngest boy.  His eldest brother had married a girl and moved up to Muleshoe.  In the Panhandle.  Some while after the brother’s move, his wife killed him.  My granddaddy’s granddaddy bought a gun.  He gave that gun to his young grandson, my granddaddy, and admonished him, “You take this gun and you go up to Muleshoe and shoot that woman”.  That grandson, my granddaddy, bought a train ticket to Farwell, and said his goodbyes.

Farwell, Muleshoe’s closest neighboring town, provided the boy with a wealth of information about his older brother.  Many people knew of him.  Some people feared him.  More than a few hated him.  He labored at the rail yard about one day a week.  He got drunk every day of the week.  And he beat his wife. And his kids.

Farewell – This boy didn’t travel to this one-horse s***hole to mourn his brother. But to avenge him.  He hopped a freight train headed for Amarillo and jumped off at the Muleshoe junction.  He inquired.  He walked hesitantly toward his destination.  He stopped…watched a rail thin woman carrying wash from perhaps a hand dug well to her rain filled stock tank.  She saw him.  She dropped her wash into the rinse tub.  The well’s ferrous sediments bleeding out into the clear water.   At close range…he spoke.

He (ashamed): I’m…

She (relieved): I know…

Neither had any illusions about what would happen next.

She recounted her drunken husband’s cruelty.  The wind died.  Dead calm.  The low prairie grass.  The insistent trill of a distant sand crane.  Rare moisture in drops… washed out along the creases of swollen eyes.  Profuse perspiration in rivulets… stained young, ruddy cheeks.  Congealed mucus… in the breathing of two snot nosed kids.  His brother’s.  His niece and nephew.  Squatting. Curious.  Feeling protected in the dying shade between that tarpaper shack and off-kilter outhouse.

He noticed a tool laying atop a wooden barrel.  Its umbra attempting to hide an irregular stain. The hammer.  Visitor to the crime.  He imagined those nails.  Three cut nails.  Accomplice to the passion.  He envisioned them protruding from his brother’s resistant skull.  This last thought, sobered him to his purpose.  The young assassin’s hand recoiled as flesh touched revolver.  Each chamber held a fate.  Four smooth bullets.

Fare.  You can’t go home.  Not after this.  Not after murder and vengeance and cowardice.  It’s not deeds of family that haunt.  It’s deeds you choose.  My granddaddy traded a near-new gun for a fare to Houston.