florida sandals

Squee-flop. Squee-flop. I take a deep breath. Squee-flop. Squee-flop. My eyes are closed but I know that sound anywhere. Squee-flop. And then, I can discern the trickling that is wheels rushing over tiles. Thud. Thud. Wherever grout comes together, rivers in the sterile plain. Squee-flop. Squee-flop. They must have been running - that’s the only reason to have sweaty feet in this climate-controlled, 72 degrees all-year-around area. Though the outside weather doesn’t change that much either - they say we have two seasons: summer and Christmas. Squee-flop. Squee-flop. Closer. Closer. I open my eyes. She’s beautiful. Wearing a sun-dress that we must have gotten at Bellas, because it screams Florida, a uniformity of brown, sun-darkened skin that told of her more Northern and sun-scarce roots, and black plas-leather sandals that made the sound I would know anywhere, she was coming right towards me.

I guess I should smile or say something. Something clever. I mean, I am my state’s last representative that she will see on our soil. I should say something, right? But I can’t. I didn’t. And she walked right on past; and I don’t blame her at all. Squee-flop. Squee-flop. It was starting to fade into the distance. I would miss that sound of sweaty skin peeling away from the foam and plastic of distinctively Florida sandals. Oddly cognizant, I heard my zone is being called. From the years of practice and repetition, I stood up, turned into an Automaton, got into line, and let my identity fade away. That’s what I love about airports and transit. There’s no present. There’s no identity, no responsibility for what occurs right now, in that very moment. In an airport, we stretch always for the future, knowing where we have come from, but never knowing who or where we really are, just stuck in the middle of something.

Did I enjoy my time in Florida? Yes, thank you. We all live with lies. I left this place, changed, and when I came back, it had gone all different on me. It was as if a puzzle I had been working on for years, with the image starting to come into being, was flipped, and now, only brown cardboard was staring at me - all familiar shapes, but no familiar faces.

Fire. In my lungs. What stage was this? Bargaining? Denial? Acceptance? Damn this seven step ladder. That must be anger. And knowing that defuses and guts all meaning from it. I didn’t want the knowledge of how I am supposed to react. Things die when you pin them down - look at his butterfly collection. Why did he even keep that? And the coin one? Mom doesn’t even like bugs. Maybe that’s why I took it. Or maybe, I took because that’s all of him I have left - memories pinned down, stuck forever in the same position of beautiful horror.

Closure. I can’t have closure, because I can’t have grief. And I can’t have grief, because I don’t want fucking closure. I want my Father back. I want his hands to move across his collection or his train, wearing those stupid reading glasses. I small smile creeps up on my face. They made his nose look even larger than it was. I want his wisdom, his advice. I want all those things that everyone always wants from their fathers. But I want it from mine. And I will never have it. 19 A: a small, cramped seat, looking out the world at a world I would never understand. But right now, with this lady and her 13-month-old daughter, both who know nothing about me, seat 19 A seems a little like home. Or the closest thing I am ever going to get to it. Lights are down for take-off. I take a deep breath.





This is just something I wrote. My dad is still alive, don't worry.

a continuing dialogue

when i am alone, i am not an individual.

so, it goes something like this: individualization only occurs in the context of community, of interaction and inter-relation. nothing exists independently of anything else (support for triune theology), therefore, if i existed apart (which i cannot, but hypothetically...) i could not be. i could not interact, relate or do any other function or make any choice. what would my consciousness even look like?



okay. back to the dialogue that some of us have been having. i will face katrina’s note first, and hopefully within that address nolan’s comment as well.

why choose? if human nature is choice, we have no choice but to choose - paradoxical, i know. but doesn’t it make sense? we do not choose to come into existence, but after that moment we are in it, caught in its grip, forced to play by its rule - choose or cease to be.

disclaimer: heresy forthcoming as defined by western christianity.

i will admit that there are passages in scripture that seem to indicate an original sin doctrine, but this idea did not even pervade christianity at all until after saint augustine’s defense and avid support of it. look at the chapter katrina cited (romans eight). over and over again paul says, “live according to the sinful nature,” but marked by prepositions, “if”, and distinctions of “those” and “who.” one of the problems of the doctrine of original sin is: how is sin passed on? is it in the physically passed on? if so, what gene is it on? can we map it, maybe even turn it off? how is original sin passed on? again, if we have no choice but to sin, i will cite romans one as my defense again. there would be an excuse - kind of defeats grace and mercy, if we cannot but help to sin. and there is psalms eight, which calls man a little less than GOD (perhaps because we cannot love each other and GOD enough not to choose not to sin). but once we make that individual, socially/culturally habituated choice; well, we get what we see - a world in chaos.

there are other ancient scholars and early church leaders who were not supporters of the doctrine of original sin. most of them have been villianized. is history written by the winners? or at least strongly influenced? theology is a human discipline, and we are err.

no perfect man exists. could one exist? yes, i guess in theory, according to what i am saying, one could exist, but it is very, very, very unlikely. though, my understanding of eschatology supports this. i do not believe in the dichotomy of the ages - that we are trying to escape this earth and get someplace else, but i believe that GOD wants us to transform earth so that GOD and GOD’s love can fill our hearts and lives; that death and sin themselves may be defeated, forever. and i think that is what it comes down to - love ruling. forgiveness and reconciliation instead of revenge and fear. hope and peace instead of violence and hatred. love instead of human impotence.

jesus said all the law was contained in loving GOD and loving our neighbors. if the law is suppose to show us what is sin, well, didn’t he just do that? not loving GOD and not loving our neighbors is what sin is. why is this beyond good and evil? why is this different from morality? i should have been clearer. its beyond our ideas of good and evil, and our idea of morality. we are finite and GOD is infinite, and if GOD is good, then isn’t good infinite? isn’t it the same with love? how can we ever know then the furtherest bounds of goodness, of love, of GOD? what kind of love do we need? perhaps it is one that we can never fully grasp. first corinthians does a good job laying it out, and interestingly enough, in the greek, all the descriptions are verbs. love is being patient. love is being kind. what does those things look like?

i think every situation is different. just like how honoring our parents changes in time and in cultures - we do not honor our parents today like we did when we were five; nor would a chinese children honor their parents like americans would honor theirs. and even among american families there are differences! but the principle remains the same. so it must be with love. and whenever we love, we touch the infinite. which love wins? this, i really do not know. but this is why it is different than our idea of morality. it is not a system. it is an active, get-our-hands-dirty kind of thing. it’s being in the trenches. perhaps that’s why we should not judge.

back to my first thought. if individuals do not exist outside of a community, their choices and actions also must be void outside of a community. we may not have a choice where we end up, in what community. but we do have a choice, and therefore a responsibility (this ethic needs to be developed, but right now, my intuition tells me it’s there), to choose what we want the community to become. the choice might be considered ‘bad’ by the community. but if it furthers loving GOD and loving people, who is to judge?

katrina's question

what is the purpose of humanity?

if humanity is at its core, its central nature, a choice, then what is our purpose? obviously, it is to choose. every word, every letter of everything ever written or said or done was a choice. history is full of choices - all leading up to now. effectively, what humanity has done is created a story; one filled, more often than not, with violence and fear and hate. suicidal, self-destructive stories. but does that negate our nature? no. in fact, i believe that it reaffirms it, and our need to grow, morally, spiritually.

for the confessing christian, the implications are clear - christ came to show us how to choose (though, perhaps in a way, not necessarily what). the law is love. not rules and regulations, which is said often enough, but it is not self-righteousness either. underpinning every choice, every action in this world is the question - what are we becoming? and if the law is love, then what we should be becoming is an expression of love that fills every minute and every word and every choice. as nietzsche said, "what is done out of love always happens beyond good and evil." and if christ is GOD, and GOD is love, then christ did everything out of love, and beyond good and evil. meaning, that he did not have a morality imposing on him, but that in every choice, he had furthering love as his objective. well, maybe i should put it like that - he had no objective; he just had love.

but what does this have to do with the purpose of humanity? it is the purpose of humanity! to be everything out of love, to replace the suicidal, self-destructive stories with ones of love, peace, and restoration. it evokes the question: why did GOD create us? was it not to enter into our story and have a relationship with us? that together we could make stories of being and love?

the purpose of humanity is simple, as are most truths in the end - live, grow, create stories filled with love (esstentially, filled with GOD). BE. harvey dent said, "in a cruel world, the only morality is chance." well, perhaps in a tragic world (one where all the responsiblity of every choice rests on the individual), the only morality is love. what do you think?

Okay, so my friend, Bethany, has been talking about morality, human nature, judging, and responsibility over at her blog. I wanted to respond intelligently, so I have devoted a whole post to it. Namely, this post is responding to her "The Cider House."

Concerning human nature: I do not believe that we fallen, as such, but if we are, I completely agree with her - our behavior only plays out what we are (rather deterministic, though, isn't it?). My previous post dealt a lot with this subject, so I refer all of you to it.

As for the rest of her post, I actually seem to agree with most of it. Though, my reading of it might be off. We cannot judge one another, because we cannot actually see themselves as they see themselves. We can try, and as we grow further in our view of us-as-them, we empathize and understand, and, as in my experience, refrain from judgment, but offer an invitation of living life together, differently, if we believe that action to be harmful, perhaps not necessarily to them, but to the community to which we are inescapably tied. I find her statement, "Knowing human potential prevents me from placing myself above another," very interesting, because she has already claimed that we are fallen and there is nothing we can do about it. Is that what prevents her from judging? Knowing that human potential (thus, hers as well) is only destruction?

I reproduce her final paragraph in full here:

Nietzsche wrote in Twilight of the Idols, "We deny God, we deny the responsibility in God: only thereby do we redeem the world." But the problem with shirking responsibility is that the kind of forgiveness and redemption offered is not recognizable forgiveness or redemption at all. Instead of making clean, the effort is abandoned and experience is made insignificant. If our wrongness should be overlooked, and reconciliation is not possible for what has happened on earth, we might as well be done with it. Heaven, an eternity where there is good, maybe. We only hope. Our existence here, however, cannot be justified; life is endured futility.

In this, I am perplexed. First of all, I am perplexed with Nietzsche, for what is he redeeming the world to? Using a very religious, a very Christian term, he inexplicable turns it on its head, probably intending the renouncing of God and Christian morality, to becoming only an affirmer of whatever happens in life. And this, like Bethany says, makes experience insignificant, even sustained madness. Secondly, I am perplexed by the outcome of all this - life is endured futility. I guess if our experience is insignificant, if our wrongness should be overlooked, and if reconciliation is not possible, life is futile. Those are big 'ifs'.

Another offer.

What if we really are able to do good? Tragedy only exists if there is another viable solution. I cannot offer anything but a meaningful, tragic existence. The consequences of an inherent 'fallenness' are evident - futility, meaninglessness on Earth. But what happens when we embrace the human, immediate story that is filled with tragedy, suffering, and the like, because we have made it so? We are faced with the most tragic realization of them all - we are able to change things, but we have not. Yet. Lastly, a response to the Cider House: when legalism becomes the guiding light for any life, it also becomes futile, for it also denies the responsibility of choice. The power of the law is death. The dying of a free choice, and the responsibility that that entails.