Formal Creative Writing Practice II

[incomplete]
Practice 2:
(a) each section is a stand alone subject
(b) I experimented with satire in some of these, either by using:

1. internally incoherent grammar or concepts
2. using a 2nd order set of moral claims which I don't actually believe.

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His head coming up, his hands half-heartedly lifted the chalice as he watched the silver raising radiantly for the world and radiantly raising, like the dawn from on high, unto those sleeping in the darkness of the pews and those kneeling in the shadow of the altar.



Writing with character choices makes realistic tales, but characters with good habits bore me like happily-ever-afters.   



If it should turn out authority is acknowledgment or force, or if it should turn out to be something else, I shall have to determine.    

This is my strongest critique of Christianity, I believe: it's ethically problematic, when one is not religious, to exercise their freedom of speech when I should pray another's prayers four times a day.    

O lyre, teller of tales;
ring out melody unto mine ears.
Let thy words strike double time,
words to seduce
wrapped in ribbons, coupled with wine.
Thy notes strangle the words,
pleasing tongues and minds,
to be double-fold by blood.

....

Ironic Characters

for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord
                                 to prepare his ways;
To give knowledge of salvation unto his people *
    for the remission of their sins,
Through the tender mercy of our God, *
    whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us;
To give light to them that sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death, *
    and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

The character is the primary manner of articulating our being. It is the way of being, or a being on a way, in all its complexities, conflicts, and charity. Some characters look different inside different narratives, some cannot inhabit specific stories. The suburban housewife, the professional, the hipster, and the political pundit are ways of being inside an American narrative of the 21st c. So too the flapper girl, flower child, and "Rosie the riveters" were characters only possible in certain narratives of the 20th c., though they probably didn't co-exist temporally for historical reasons.

Of course history is just a narrative itself, told by characters from another time. What is to one character from one time, one city, might be the Dark Ages. To another it was one of the greatest times for Missions, a time of the great Carolingian Renaissance. Depends on what character narrates. The 19th and 20th c. sees the fabrication of a new character under a new way of narrating reality, "the historian," creating side by side to "the scientist." Both are concerned with non-normative "facts" which dictate "objective reality." MacIntyre has put this better than myself, but such characters presume a rejection of functional concepts, thus there being no purpose/end to things. Man included. Mm, objective.

Reading a text then depends on the character. How we inhabit the world depends on our character. How we speak, who we befriend, what we worship, all depend on, but also form, our character. But what sort of characters are available to us today?

The Harlequinn is one. Out of interest I'll focus only on one dress, and how that functions toward character. There are of course many other strands.

(1) the hipster thinks dress is a conglomerate, material form of individuality, rooted in irony. Irony being a gap between expectation and actual. What is expected and what is, are both politically formed. The way we organize language, thoughts, images, and ideas all form what we expect, as well as how we act. But irony en masse is contradiction, for then it becomes cultural norm. Thus hipster is a self-refuting politic.

However, the Mass makes a qualified notion of individuality possible, for it beckons each to conform in order to be individual, recognizing the politic must maintain both the One and the many in a coherent way.

(2) the professional thinks dress is universal and a mark of authority. They can both sweat and freeze within the same hour, going from a hot summer walk to lunch, to a frigid office. No one ever thinks to cut off the air condition and simply dress in shorts. A man who claims to be practical, a realist, the American pragmatist - yet does not know how to live in the world. The marks of authority: tie, the lab coat, a vest, a badge, all function as a source of pride. Pride because the professional believes he climbs a ladder of success, finding his place as earned, his mark as something to make him exalted by all others.

However, Humility climbs the ladder of love, finding her place as contingent on others and merited by Another, her mark as something which allows her to exalt the one which is above all others.


And so many other characters, wearing Irony like a robe. But I tire.
The garb of irony functions as a separation of what we are from what we say from what we do.
The professional divides private from public life, corporate loves from familial loves.
The hipster divides actual beliefs from spoken and embodied beliefs.
They are excuses for character, detached from any belief, shrouded in the shadow of their irony.
Eventually one form collapses upon the other, the irony becomes unironic; self-deception follows suit.
The only irony that remains is their mutual laughter at one another.

The only thing left to do in such a contentious culture of irony, is to debate the meaning of irony, or resort to bombastic, elongated, literary diatribes on the proper (a priori) meanings of irony. Of course characters give concrete, collective uses of irony, thus meaning since this is how language is constituted. Thus irony cannot be understood outside the political structures we inhabit, the characters that are available, the narrative we find ourselves in.

In an ironic culture, there is no irony of yesterday. The new irony would be to conform to a character that is not hodgepodge but unified, to dress simply, to not make choices, to not have experiences, to wear a mark of authority puts us into our place thereby humbling us. I would offer the cleric as such a character. Much more can be said, but Morning Prayer approaches, and I am in need of sleep.

Formal Creative Writing Practice

Each sentence is stand alone. Tried three variations of each form.

• She was savagely swept up in a current and drowned in foam and fury.
•  
• He was later raised by a fisherman who buried him by sweat and shovel.
•  
• She soon rested by my side breathing in dreams and exhaling hushed secrets.

---

• He wore a tattered pinstripe jacket, and the church bells rang for the work shifts to begin.
•  
• A hot breeze rolled over the hill, and the spring odors swelled with blood and rot.
•  
• His words were discomforting white lies, but his casket had beautiful lining.

---

• I became aware of reality again in the middle of saying the creed, on account of not having a consciousness, since the death of Freud at least.
•  
• The alms were given, since scarcity is scarce, to the blessed poor.
•  
• The cassock was dark, black is its only color after all, whether in day or night.

---

• Our judgment came before the fire, and like the fire, it was kindled more by the burning pages.
•  
•  The end started with the beginning, and as the beginning, it introduced the reader to the hero.
•  
• His hating eyes began before my response, and like the response, it began building to a violent conclusion.

---

• Divinity School can be a faith community; they can have their own gods.
•  
• Time is money, we're convinced we can own it.
•  
• Appeal to authority is a fallacy, or so I'm told.

---

• Many things drive us to attempt to consume God's being, the most distasteful, that I've witnessed, are experiences.
•  
• There are a few good ways to cook a fish, the best of which, in my opinion, is in a plate.
•  
•  Of all the forms that charity takes, the only one that matters, contrary to the spirit of the times, is in the form of our souls.

Prayer Vigils

Prayer vigils have become functional protests.
Protests are rain dances.
Rain dances also include walks, rides, and marches for money and/or awareness.
We might use a tool to an end,              -but it habituates us to its functions.

• those with a hammer think every problem is a nail
• those who play on the phone think friendships are kept through text messages
• those who hold "prayer vigils" think prayer is a special occasion
• instead of a way of life
• think God is a legislator to write to
• a monarch to protest, or protest to

Just as I'm habituated to think in lines on papers and writing software
because my paper since childhood consisted in lines
because I was trained to write in lines

We are not so easily removed from tools.
We use them to shape the world, and they shape us in the process.
Creation shapes the creature, the creature shapes creation.
Dominion does not entail separation, nor asymmetrical influence.
Lest we end up with silly prayers:

Almighty God, Father of all mercies. We your unworthy servants pray to you on this most special of occasions, not in thanksgiving or in praise, but in intercession alone. Thou alone art our tool to secure perpetual blessedness on this earth, that you might fully heal the world. Thou hast sent thy beloved Son, who stretched out his arms on the hard wood of the cross that we might pray when we are outraged at the unredeemed world. Send thy Senatorial Spirit amongst us that we might change the laws of the world. Trusting in thy manifold lobbying, we pray you to come to our aid to change the powers that be -- just as thy Son did by his death on a cross. Amen.

Give us the faith of thy patriarch Job who brought you, O Lord, to trial. Give us the faith of those who brought you to trial a second time before the Sanhedrin and the Romans. Give us the faith to bring others to court, that we might ensure others take up their crosses. We entreat thee to hear these, the prayers of The People, that you might see it fit to baptize our earthly city, for we have already baptized you in the waters of the world Lord. Hear, and read, our petitions O Lord, for the signatures are great in number. We beseech thy vetoing power that is inner governance of The Three Holy Branches of thy being: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever, world without end. Amen.

...joining our voices with political forefathers and pundits and all the companies of the world who forever sing this hymn to proclaim the glory of thy name:

Of course such prayers are not common, but sinners thinking they are pure enough to create their own liturgy is quite common. The form is much more subtle and devious than such satirical and improvisational prayers. God in my image, a god of my disposition, is no god at all, but an idol. God is the one who sides with me on how things ought to function inside the world. I'm not sure where one stands to make such a claim. If one is inside the Church, live within that city, that political, moral community. It is in the world but not of it. If one insists on making utopian like comments on how the city of the world ought to function, they become caught up in a grander conversation. A conversation that presumes the truth of certain political and social organizations that contradict the Church's own structure and functioning.

The world has already been redeemed.
God already tried to change the world and we killed him for it.
What good will we do holding silly prayer vigils for political action?
Are we so foolish?

There is of course a proper use to prayer vigils, e.g. for the deceased. What we have functionally around academies and larger cities though is, well, something else. We forget God's activities by which he has revealed himself. We forget the cross and take up the flag, even when we fool ourselves into thinking we're working so hard against the particular content of the flag. It's form wraps around us, and we smile as it slides around us, and we make it our own. We come to love it, for what it can do, how it can be used to do the will of God, so we cut a cross out of its fabric thinking it pure. So we hold prayer vigils for political action, raise up the "community," storming God or the world or both by prayer, making both our captive audiences.

Vigils like this are idolatry.

Rantings on Political Theology

We are taught to believe that being political is through participating in the executive, legislative, judicial systems.

If one is not a member of any of these, it suffices to vote.

If there is not election, it suffices to talk, campaign, or protest around the actions and thoughts of these branches.

Being political is to organize a community to some end.

To have an end is to make a normative claim.

Normative claims are moral claims.

To be political then is to have a moral community.

There are many communities that are organized and function to some end.

The end does not justify the means, for then one could pick a means which ultimately contradicts the end.

One politic is the judicial, executive, and legislative branches.

Another is an office, another a home, another a family, another a civic center, another a church.

Offices, homes, families, civic centers, churches, etc. then are all moral communities organized in a way to help achieve their end.

Thus, it is a myth that not voting means a person is apolitical.

The end of The Church is union with God: Father, Son, & Holy Spirit, in resurrected bodies, to praise God eternally.

The primary, political act of the Church then, is to worship God: hymns, reading of Scriptures, prayer, participation in the sacraments, etc.

The Church is organized with bishops, priests, deacons, and laity -- in communions, provinces, dioceses, local churches, etc.

If a moral community does not have these positions, then the are not functioning well towards the Church's end.

If a moral community views worship as about the worshipper, then they do not work towards the end of the Church.

If a moral community has neither the proper end nor organizing parts of the Church, they any claim to be a "church" is merely nominal.

If a moral community has both, then they have the necessary conditions for the possibility of functioning well as a political body.

Vocation is one way to describe Christian functioning.

Every Christian has a vocation to worship.

The Church worships God through daily prayer, Mass, feasts, and fasts.

Prayer, Mass, feasts, and fasts are particular political acts.

Theology is how Christians explicate and argue on the means of organization and particularity of the end.

"Political Theology" is redundant.

The organization of the American moral community is manifested in the legislative, judicial, executive branches, and the the voting body.

Political debates and voting are arguments over proper functioning.

Proper functioning is always presumably in reference to the end of the moral community.

The end of the American political community is freedom of a sort.

The American political system articulates Freedom as a struggle between economic policy and social justice.

American moral freedom is to be relatively without constraint on individual power or to spread financial assets to those in need.

The American moral community presumes "freedom" and "needs" are understood and well spelled out concepts.

The American moral community debates on whether "needs" should be met this way or that way, if freedom is procured this way or that way.

Many have centralized over one way or another on how these needs and freedom cohere, and how they ought to be pursued.

Most of the centralization results around two sub-communities: republican, democrat -- with a third labeled as moderate. Outliers rest in a variety and are without much effect on the general end nor means that the moral community acts.

Both sub-communities rest within the same general community because they still agree on the end.

Freedom of the American sort is ability to do as the individual will dictates. One sub-community believes all pre-conditions are met to enable this to all people, another sub-community argues these conditions are not yet met but need to be.

The will manifests it's desire in the American moral community by choosing "Economic goods," a physical set of objects which can be purchased.

The objects themselves only matter insofar as they fulfill the desire of the will, can be quickly discarded, or replaced with a newer equivalent or alternative considered more fulfilling.

Rules are established to help achieve a moral community's end. If not, then they become abstracted from their ends and thus arbitrary.

The American moral community's end dictates functioning or rules which help the fulfillment of the wills' desire, i.e. freedom, ought be established.

Corollary: rules are established which prevent someone from denying another person from fulfilling their will's desire.

The American moral community can give no account for someone who follows their will's desire to destruction.

It is either the case that some rules in the American moral community contradict the community's end or they are counter-evidence to what I have said is the American community's end.

Rules are established in the American moral community against certain practices that are fulfilling of the will's desire. E.g. suicide, alcoholism, youth refusing to go to school, statutory rape, being a beggar, etc.

The American moral community can give no account as to why any of these prior examples are wrong. Attempts include (1) effecting others negatively (2) destroyed their life, (3) is not being a productive member of society, or (4) is ruining the moral fabric of the society.

It is a contradiction for a functioning or rule to delimit the end of the rule maker.

(1) implies self-willed and self-effects somehow influence the others will.

(2) comparison of prior activities to current, assuming past activities were more of a "life," when both were willed, merely at different times.

(3)  the productivity of the society is to the each that each individual may be self-willed

(4) assumes self-willed is right with arbitrary moral exceptions, often remnant conclusions from bygone, lost arguments.

The Church however can and does give account for how a will can desire a wrong end.

The American politic, the American moral community, cannot give an account for a will gone awry.

Most people can give a story of a time when they willed something they should not have.

Most should then admit that the American political community can only give a reductionistic, insufficient account of their own will.

To participate in a thing is to function in a way that aids the end of that function.

To participate in the American political system is to function to the end of helping Americans fulfill the desires of their wills.

Not my will, but thine be done.

A Christian ought not participate in the American political system, for it contradicts the Church's end.

2nd Sermon: Salvation by Works

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

In the name of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

Hebrews 9:11-14
But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands, that is, not of this creation – he entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.


Salvation by Works

As Christians we are often quick to claim our beliefs.
I believe in God, the Father Almighty. I believe Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior. I believe in the Resurrection. I believe prayer is efficacious.But how do we understand such claims? And how do they differ from:I believe in unicorns? I believe candidate X will fix our political problem? I believe in myself?What are beliefs? We often treat them like propositions we can stand away from, objectively no doubt, to judge whether they are true or false as a mental exercise:Those candles are black or that oyster has a pearl in it.

If I said, “I believe I love my dog” to you every morning, and every evening you saw me beating that dog unmercifully with a stick, it wouldn't take you long to realize that I don't actually believe that. So then, our beliefs are only true insofar as our actions make them true. So then what about our beliefs as Christians? Do we believe the things we proclaim?

The writer of Hebrews makes continuous parallels between old High Priests under the Law and the new that is Jesus Christ. Often times these parallels are understood as the old ways being a shadow and the new ways being the perfect form of what the shadow represented. The veil separating humanity from the Holy of Holies is compared to Christ's flesh, the Holy of Holies to Heaven, the blood of goats and heifers to the blood of Christ, ritual purification to purification of the conscience, and so on. The tactic being to show to Christians how the priesthood of The Church and the Israelite priesthoods are similar. Now if we say something is new we don't mean it has completely different features, for if something had completely different qualities, then it wouldn't be the same thing. So if I said my red bouncy ball was made new by a bouncy ball craftsman, then described it as not red, not bouncy, and not a ball, most would say, “That's not a new red bouncy ball, that's just a completely different thing.” Thus the author of Hebrews uses language of shadow to explain how the old priesthood has been made new. So too then the altar is not gone, nor is the sacrifice, nor the priesthood, they are the same in a way and different in another way. 

We know the author believes his audience is still worshipping with a priesthood, yet is doing so wrongly. In Heb 10.11 he says And every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins. The author's problem with this audience seems to be that every priest in the community continues to offer the old sacrifices instead of the new one -- being Christ's blood. Furthermore in Heb 10.1 he says, Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who approach. The sacrifices made year after year refers to the one day a year, the day of Atonement, in which the High Priest with fear and trembling ventured into the Holy of Holies to make sacrifices for the forgiveness of the congregation's sins. But here the author tells us the old sacrifices are not efficacious towards sin nor do they give perfection, yet Christ's blood can do both. And it is given for y'all to purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. 

Do we believe this?

What is a dead work? Remember what it is in the Holy of Holies in the Temple. The Ark of the Covenant which contains the Decalogue, Aaron's staff that budded, and the manna. All three are signs of Israel's disobedience. Thus nor did our Israelite ancestors believe much in the Law. So too the disciples are called faithless for not being able to heal a boy. What action makes “I believe the blood of Christ is the perfect sacrifice” make sense? We seek the action that will not make us hypocrites like the Pharisees and Sadducees Christ dealt with. 

We're offered the eucharist. 

We know this from the liturgy, and it is affirmed in our Scriptures. Hebrews says Christ is in the order of Melchizedek, who in Genesis is a priest and king just as our Lord, who offered wine and bread just as our Lord. Thus in light of all things of the Law being shadows of what Christ perfects, this includes the priestly office and kingship of Melchizedek's, as well as his offering bread and wine. Gee, I wonder where this is going? What bread and wine do we receive now as being the perfect sacrifice? So then the eucharist cleanses our consciences to not dead but living works to serve a living God. 

But, there remains the ability to profane the eucharist, which say is the blood of Christ's new covenant to us as Heb 10:29 states – How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the man who has spurned the Son of God, and profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of grace?  

All have sinned and fall short though, so how can we ever receive eucharist rightly? Do we ever not profane the blood of Christ?

To have living works and a clean consciences is to be righteous according to Heb 10.38 my righteous one will live by faith, and 11.1 continues the logic -- faith is the assurance of things lived for. He further explains what faith is by citing actions of Abel, Enoch, Moses, Abraham, Noah, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel – where faith is bringing a son to an altar, building an ark, leading a people through the Red Sea. Thus faith is a sort of action. And so we can conclude that the eucharist will not be profaned should we do the works Christ has given us to do. 

Therefore we cannot say our beliefs, our faith, is something we judge as a true thought. So then is the oft quoted “I believe Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior” said from a clean conscience and a sort of action? If so how? Is being a Christian one day of the week enough? God forbid. Are we the person who believes he loves his dog but his actions say otherwise? Do we have faith that is living works? Or do we have a faith that is without works, which is to say dead works and dead faith? Then it is the eucharist that allows our faith to be something we do in thought, word, and deed – not something done only with our lips, but also with our lives. Come, let us reason together to examine our beliefs, our words, our thoughts, and our actions, for though we be crimson like blood, our Lord will be make us white as snow.
The author of Hebrews makes it clear not to neglect to meet together. What is this other than the Mass? So then let us never miss the Mass, presuming nothing prevents us, if we wish to truly believe, for we earnestly need the eucharist to believe in God. Then we might take up our crosses.


Furthermore, let us test the ways of the world we live in to discover what we often believe. For example -- I don't really believe Christ's blood gives eternal redemption because when I get sick I'm suddenly aware of my mortality, running to my doctor for the solution - medicine. I say I believe in the Christian hope, that is Resurrection, yet I still treat death like a terror and the worst thing that could happen to me. I don't really believe the Scriptures are right when they say usury is wrong, aka accumulating interest on money, because I allow banks to borrow my money at interest, ie a checking or savings account. I don't really believe I need to give away all my things to act like Christ, instead I accumulate massive amounts of shit I don't need. I don't really believe the poor are blessed, because I believe being a priest and still having a middle to upper middle class life is a blessing from God. I don't believe treating others as myself is true, for when one of the poor asks me for a dollar on a hot day, I question if they'll buy booze with it. And yet if it's a hot day and I had no air condition I'd want a cold beer. Why do I expect the poor to be more virtuous than myself? Why do I hold them up to a standard higher than I hold myself? For I will be judged on that Day according to the standard I declare. And finally, we don't really believe Christ's passion, his crucifixion, was a good thing, for we often say, “Follow your passions!” when asked how we ought to live our lives. So it follows I must think also think that the blood of his passion, which was not a following of but a suffering of passion, was a stupid, stupid, thing for him to shed. And so many other absurdities follow from my actions once compared to the words that I call my beliefs.

And what of suffering? How might we suffer in a world so nicely packaged to comfort us?
Duke University requires medical insurance for every student. If I refuse to buy some, I'm automatically given it and charged accordingly. My college loans and Bursar debts will accumulate interest which I will be required to pay, so I'll also suffer usury. Our world constructs organic grocery stores and fair trade products that make us responsible consumers who are globally conscious of workers who aren't given fair wages, simultaneously condemning fast or processed food. And yet our poor here in Durham are restricted by their poverty to eat fast food. They can't afford a $10 meal, but they can afford a $1 burger. And so the poor must suffer from us. What we declare is good, that they cannot afford, and what they can afford we declare evil.
When the reality is if I buy cheap food it is unhealthy and is made with slave labor, and if I buy expensive food then it is healthy and I condemn the poor. It's suffering either way for both parties.

So too rural farmers, blue collar workers, laborers – all suffer because they are second class citizens in our great, enlightened nation with the best education in the world. We try to help them with literature and meetings saying they have value. And in doing so we only say, “You're still a commodity. You were worth $7.50 to us, but now that we give you value and your dignity back you're worth $15 an hour now. Aren't we good people? You were a cheap whore, now you're an expensive one. So we suffer from the logic and concepts that created the suffering of the laborer, and we add to the worker's suffering.

So too with the uneducated. We make great spaces for reconciliation, but it turns into blaming the uneducated for their prejudice, and we marginalize one group to save the others. Then we stand on pedestals saying if only these poor idiots had more education they wouldn't be so prejudice. Now we suffer from the prejudice of the uneducated, and they suffer from ours. Yet we laud the Academy over someone born in a small town, and our churches find it difficult to find anyone called to Bumblefunk, Egypt – yet have no problem finding 25 called ministers to a big city with one spot open.
Or do we stand up preaching the gospel as myself, pretending I am not under immense judgment for declaring all these things?  

Do we really believe most of the things we are so quick to spout off? If so God help us all.
What we really believe is blessed are the successful, that if we could just make all the poor middle class the world would be better and God's will would be done. We believe immortality is through medicine or memory when he have memorial services, a perfect imitation of the pagan heroes. We believe usury is just how the world works, that money talks and makes the world go round. We believe we don't need to suffer because suffering is an evil that needs wiping off the earth. We believe reducing our carbon footprint is how we find a pure conscience. We believe being a consumer means you can still buy all the shit you want to, so long as no suffering is incurred in its production. We believe the eucharist teaches us nothing about how to be a consumer, for you never see someone kneeling at a cash register, arms outstretched for but a few crumbs of bread and a sip of wine. No the poor, who might beg for a nickel or dime aren't allowed in the store precisely because they are beggars all their lives, while we are but beggars once a week during the eucharist. Shame on them for infesting 9^th Street. 

Should the poor beg seven days a week we have them thrown out of stores, arrested in so called public areas. Like our Lord they have no where to rest their heads, wondering our streets, parks, woods. Even in our churches which once upon a time opened their pews to the poor for rest, we now find the doors barred. Now we fear the poor, let them in when it's convenient, because we are not ready to suffer their vices because we are all so righteous. We believe voting for institutions and bureaucracies will bring about the eschaton because they'll order everything perfectly and bring about a better political situation – the kingdom itself! We believe that passions are good things. We believe the eucharist doesn't do anything. 

And so more often than not, I profane the blood of Christ. And I think there is much to be said about taking caution in approaching the altar. For Hebrews tells us that the eucharist as “the chief means of grace” comes with a cautionary tale.

But there is hope. For in Christ taking on our nature, me made it possible for us to participate in his divine nature through his blood. This process of being divinized comes in degrees so too our belief comes to be true in degrees. Our beloved Apostles were called “little-faithers” in the gospel according to Matthew. But after Christ's death we see most of them go from fleeing the cross to embracing it, many ultimately being crucified, perfecting their belief in Jesus Christ. So too then God loves us when we are little-faithers, but demands we suffer and endure, even unto death. Then we too might come increasingly to operate as the Church instead of “good Americans.” If good Americans then we pat ourselves on the backs for going green when we won't make eye contact with the poor as if they are not part of creation, when the meek shall inherit the earth, and the last shall be first. If good Americans then we promote a social justice separated from the blood of Christ – as if Christ was a liar when he said No one is good but God alone. If good Americans then we describe belief as a choice to accept God, as if a mortal stands on equal footing with God in virtue of a free will. If good Americans then we worship our own will by speaking of it as self-determined, as if Christ was a fool when he cried out in the Garden of Gethsemane for God to take the cup from him, but added, ultimately not my will

but thine be done, thereby resisting the temptation of his human nature – and by his crucifixion doing the will of his divine nature.
Therefore let us not be driven by the sacrifices of our forefathers, neither those by the Law nor those by our American forefathers. For the former is not efficacious towards sins, but has reached perfection in the eucharist. And the latter openly contradicts our Lord in so many ways. Let us never confuse a phrase or confession as being entirely sufficient for salvation as if it were a magical incantation. We will all do well to remember belief, faith, are actions made possible through Christ's blood. We will no doubt sin and continue to believe in things other than Christ. We will be guilty of idolatry. But as our Baptismal Covenants tells us, when we realize it, we shall confess and repent, and be absolved of our sins, to receive the eucharist so that we might stand back up after the fall. Therefore, as your brother in Christ, I exhort you all in love to continue in good deeds. Take up the eucharist and suffering and be saved 

with Christ's blood

through the Holy Spirit
to God the Father
by our works

Amen.

The Vice of Progress

I realized a few months ago that I don't play games like I used to. I used to sit down and enjoy a good story line, investigating every nook and cranny, and taking my time. Now I rush through as much as possible and only look into the details if I'm awarded something for it. My goal in mind is to beat the game as soon as possible so I can get access to all the best items.

Several nights later I was sitting down drinking some wine and watching a TV show. I had an entirely different outtake. I actually resented progressing further into the seasons. This show has already been completed and will have no further seasons. So like the game, there is a finite about of material for me to enjoy.

Now for the game I quite zealously try to accomplish as much as possible as quick as possible. On the other hand, for the show I had a moment of disappointment at the end of each episode because I realized I was closer to the end of something I wished not to end.

So my question became one of progress. Why did I wish to progress through the game so quickly but not so with the show?

I used to tell my parents growing up that I enjoyed games more than movies because they were interactive. I'm finding that is slowly fading away. My interaction with games is dictated by the inner-workings of the games. And games today are highly centered on achievements, trophies, accomplishments, challenges, all of which require you to beat the game numerous times under differing circumstances and difficulties.

Now get any two gamers in a room long enough and they'll begin to discuss how games have changed in the last twenty years. They're rather simple yet poignant observations. One that is most notable in my mind is that of difficulty. Older games are notoriously more difficult. No one beat NES games in a day nor a week, but these things might take months or even years to beat. No infinite continues, no respawns, etc.

Now compare the modern counterpart which has all of the above. If you can't beat it there are more attempts to be had, no restarting from the beginning, you can invite your friends to help, so many other outlets are provided. What this translates to in the gamers mind is this -- games today are meant to be beaten with relative ease. If one checks gamer review sites, articles, magazines, there is always a "replay value" category that goes into the game's overall score. All in all, games are meant to be worn out over and over, beaten like a dead horse, then you await for the sequel.

Now this might all seem like nerdy gamer jargon. But it raises an interesting question in my mind. How do the inner workings of the arts and tools we use habituate us?

In games I am expected to have one of each type of character, to max each one out, encounter all the playable material, try out all the possibilities of play style. And the community of gamers, the inner working of the games themselves, push for you to rush. There is an overwhelming sense of there being more material, more quests, more levels await. Expansions are released, more levels allowed, and so forth. But there always comes a point you reach when you realize you've worn a game out. At this moment the total absurdity of it all hits me. Why did I do all this? What do I have to show for it?

One might posit the story line. But here I would say the telos, the end, of the game is always placed beyond the story. In order to unlock all secrets, experience all the material, you would have run through the storyline ad nauseam. And I don't use this phrase lightly. Video game plots are like whore's apartments, they've been in every novel and movie all day and night and only come back to video games when they've been worn out. No offense to whores, for my Lord did love harlots as any other person, but it is a fitting analogy. Point is, the telos of the game hardly ever stops with the story. Or, the story is afforded little time and development whereas the gameplay is fed by the cash monster.

So then the telos is separated from the storyline. Games become nothing more than a series of actions which lead to further actions, strength building strength, with no particular goal in mind. The villain is dead, the world is saved, romance fulfilled, yet you continue to play the game, and the producers' design is such that you haven't "beaten" the game until you do so. So you go onward, ad infinitum or until you realize there's nothing left to do, and the end is so anti-climatic that there's no grand end of the tale, no completion to your effort, you simply level one day, stare blankly at the screen, then turn off the machine.

Now this reminds me of other motifs I see in culture.

This notion of building onward to greatness is remarkably Enlightenment era thinking. Simultaneously with the rise of some sciences, came the idea that man was progressing towards something. In most references to this I'm never sure exactly what people meant. It often seemed to be an ad infinitum march which is absurd.

I say absurd because all actions have some end. If we ever realize there is no end we cease to do those things we thought led to some perceived end. E.G. I stop playing the game when I realize there is no grand end. E.G. A person who thinks they're in a race stops running when they realize there is no finish line.

In the last decade there have been some...progressions...on how progress is spoken of though. Sometimes our communities of medicine believe we are progressing towards immortality, that medicine will stop death. Some communities of technology believe humanity is progressing towards a sort of transcendental, pseudo-technological existence where humanity and technology become integrated. Think cyborgs, or matrix, or some other such thing. These aren't just radical claims people make to jostle people into argument, some people believe these sorts of things, and they have good reason to.

The point here is to say that the progress culture is seeking an end. They know they value progress as a virtue. Society must progress. Humanity must progress. We have better medicine and technology and sciences. Again, this word, better, needs qualification. By better all we can do is look at the inner workings of the communities -- their institutions, goals, tools, etc. The group wants to live forever, they desire immortality, so their narrative about progress gets dressed up in language about progress and science and medicine. All that is really being said though is, I want progress for the values I have. And value, much like rights, often means nothing more than I like, prefer, want, etc.

So the Enlightenment terms like objective also get thrown onto the science and medicine, and get drawn into a conclusion that can't be drawn from their premises. The data can be extrapolated, interpreted, put into general theories, but no where does a value statement come out of this about we ought be immortal or we ought progress technologically. These are additions which are tied haphazardly to the tools of our society, much like politicians sometimes add self-directed, self-interested clauses into bills with completely unrelated material.

What is medicine progressing towards? From our current political debates and the inner workings of medicine practiced, i.e. preventative, it seems we very much imagine a world where death is no longer a problem. The American narrative consists in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Now we can argue about the last two all day long, but the first is typically ignored. Life and mortality is something not taught to the sort of Liberalism (classical, not political use) that has infected America.

Death is something you hide from your children. You don't tell a child with they're dying. It's a tragedy if anyone under 65 dies. Theodicy is still a huge problem for American protestants. There is no sense of mortality, there is an ignorance of death at best, and at worst a fear and misunderstanding.

Funerals are some of the most awkward events I witnessed in my time at an Episcopal Church last summer. Never did I see the generational gap between the Great Generation and the Baby Boomer as I did in funerals. The former were dying off one a week, the latter were their children. The Great Generation dealt with two Great Wars, they knew how to die, had always been ready. This was a generation who were faced with it in great numbers. And as most veterans will tell you, once you come to acknowledge mortality as a fact, it never leaves. This is one of the many reasons why reintegration into society is such a problem for veterans, but this is another tale for another time.

The second generation were the children of the deceased. They were the ones who lived through Korea and Vietnam. They were children who wanted nothing to do with the wars their parents went through, rejected the ideology of their parents that they perceived as being under the auspices of Capitalism and Democratic propaganda. Whether or not they were right or wrong, the end result was a generation that didn't want to see another death. They rioted when 1,000 boys came home in coffins, which their parents generation would have thought was by the grace of God that so few had died.

The Great Generation still a generation of The Church, the Liturgy, of ritual and mystery, of faith despite great atrocities. The latter moving to separate spirituality from the Church with the rise of ecumenism in the 50's and 60's, a growing distaste for any sort of institution or authority, The Church claiming both.

So meet the two generations.

Mother or Father dies. Son or daughter suddenly wants to read a letter at the funeral. It is quasi-spiritual, a sort of pagan pep talk mixed with progress ideology, "Remember her/him and march on! S/he lives on in us!" The next generation literally believes they are the stepping stone from their parents. This implies the purpose of childbirth, of family, is simply to reproduce. But the same problem occurs, to what end? So the Baby Boomer generation doesn't know what to do with death anymore now than they did in Vietnam.

Work is easier. We can progress day to day in our own individual way. So enters the individuality factory. Civilian duty is reduced to being a good capitalist. If you cut as many throats as possible economically we call that being efficient. If you find a way to convince someone they need the newest model or new shit they really don't need, that's called being innovative. The inner workings of our society necessitate themselves. We need cars to go to work and we go to work to afford our cars.

Therefore, death is not a viable discussion in much of society. By extension the question of how to die well made impossible. Instead, our culture opts for another question, how do we remove death? To this we have harnessed medicine as the panacea to all our anxiety.

Others latch onto technological advancements, or both, either way there seems three options for the culture of progress that I can think of now. The first two are that it must find a viable telos. This requires something like immortality, either bodily through medicine, or consciously through technology. Case in point, socialized healthcare. Another option is for the culture of progress to acknowledge it has no aim, and without aim it is like a toddler pissing all over the toilet seat at 2AM who is too busy being proud of doing something the way his parents habituated him to do that we doesn't acknowledge to what end or what it means to do it well.

This pissing toddler example raises two important points in my mind. Both of which deal with modern philosophical "fallacies." The question of what is best or what one ought or should do is often referred to as the is-ought fallacy or problem. This was coined by old Hume, a product of the Enlightenment strangely enough... :-| ... who was left a system of philosophy without any sort of teleology.

So like our toddler, the question of doing things well was out of the question. What triumphed in the system at the time was Kant's ethics which teaches that most beloved categorical imperative. Strangely Kant's ethics do nothing but reaffirm his own societal teaching. What one can universalize is going to be determined by the inner workings of his societal structure which gives definitions, language, available ideas, and so forth. No one remembers Kant as the great ethicist who led a rebellion to a great society. In fact I'd imagine his quiet German town and those who read him continued to affirm their own beliefs, but attached "universal" to it in hopes other people willed as they willed.

So much of Kant is still rampant in today's cultures its yak worthy. But that's what we've inherited, and its mixed with so many other ideas we have incoherent language for ethics.

Instead of telos we're left with progress. Case in point, President Obama's campaign slogan was "Change." There was no direction nor qualification to this word, just merely an idea of something changing. Much like progress it says nothing more than "movement." And the notion of progress or change implies "good" change. But to say something is "good" or "better" implies some notion of functioning well. And without telos, functioning well becomes a nonsense question to ask. The telos determines what it means to do a thing well. For instance we judge a cook's expertise by tasting the product and by watching their method. Tasting good gives one sense of functioning well. But if they used box stuff we say they're not really a good chef. Thus the ends don't justify the means entirely, but the end and the function towards the end are integrally connected.

This is what Progress lacks.

And I have been habituated to it.

So I play games as if I'm trying to get somewhere, when I should fully well know I live in a culture that produces games that typically don't have much of an end in sight (at least the top hits). Another case in point would be first person shooters. People play these all day and you get nothing for it. So they introduced a leveling system for them, unlocked weapons at levels, and SHAZAM, progress. When you unlock it all there is no ultimate goal. One might say to dominate everyone else, but there is no clear and sufficient amount of this. Do you do that for one game? A thousand games? Until you feel sated? It's usually this last one. And this sort of habituation leads to people only performing actions believing there are pleasurable ends awaiting them -- but the "orgasm moment" never occurs.

But the Christian must prepare for suffering if need be, and has need to do many things out of love which are not always pleasurable. Thus virtues are needed which will habituate pleasure to right passion and reason.

And there seem so many other examples of progress in our habituated thinking. We say "time is money." We rush in cars, honk at pedestrians if they're too slow, always trying to get somewhere faster and with more efficiency. Friends and work are equally scheduled in with certain dates and limits on time. E.G. I can hang out for two hours then I have to meet so-and-so. There is no room to allow time with friends to transform naturally. We have limited time we are jealous of and if something is to be done it must occur in this slot.

There is public and private. In the public we progress to something. Rousseau and Tocqueville (if memory serves) often critiqued French and American culture in the 18th and 19th centuries for vegetating while not at work. Leisure time was turned into private time in which brain activity came to record lows. No longer was leisure time the activity of bettering oneself. It seems true vegetation has set in as a cultural norm.

We feel entitled to desert, a long weekend, sitting on the couch for 8 hours because we worked hard the day before. Part of this might be that our society is extreme by nature. Americas work longer work weeks on average than other societies. This means to work here is by definition a system which often habituates people into bad habits.

But what's more, even the vegetative acts I once partook in seem driven by progress now. I have a long list of movies I need to see. I need to watch all five seasons of this TV series before the next comes on in the fall. I have to beat all of this game by Friday. I have to see seven friends by the end of the week. So goes the list.

Even the home is dominated by it. We progress through types of furniture, TV's, gadgets, entertainment, and so on. As we progress in society and income so do our toys and our living styles. There is some sense of "climbing the ladder" as we say. This leads to indefinite indulgence at the service of one's pleasures. Reason is subjugated to the appetites, and the ultimate passion guiding it all is an absurd telos of Progress, that vague pie-in-the-sky word that can't place it's finger on anything concrete as an ultimate end. So our person becomes habituated to myths and tales told by our forefathers which teach us falsities about the human person, in how to organize the human anthropology, to what end we were made and ought to seek, and it pushes aside the question of what it means to live well altogether.

There is a lovely narrative told of man reaching into the stars, the infinite cosmos on and on through progress. But the truth is this is absurd. Should man do this for so long, we will eventually tire and ask "Why?" If a man seeks water and does not find it, he does not mythologize and romanticize his search this way, he says he's lost in an infinite abyss, wandering the desert thirsty. Maybe it was a cute and novel journey for the first few days, but by year forty one tires and seeks an out. And surely there are many temptations and wonderful things we are discovering through this idea of progress, but without telos the novelty where's off sooner or later. And I do hope my generation will shed this skin of novelty for it's own sake, change for its own sake, Progress for its own sake, for all are equally absurd.

So then we must ask questions. What is the end of our medicine? Of our sciences? If we do seek immortality why and how? There must be discussion on death before any such question can even be posed though. But I do not think our culture is prepared to have such a discussion.

Here the Church has much to say. And I could go on well into the evening. But I think the end would only be to feel as if I'm completing this rant as a whole. And I find this passion to be somewhat...progressive...in that I realize I could go on infinitely trying to justify positions. So I shall stop here, where I realize I sit comfortably within the Church, but will at least make a few parting comments.

The Church is well acquainted with death, much more so than our culture. We teach it, we show it, we preach it. Our Liturgy and Daily Office prevents the commodification of time and space that progress has lent itself to. "Time is money" where money has no ultimate end other than continual progress, but the Church has taught through prayer that time should not be thought of this way. Instead time revolves around God, not around my personal goals. In one sense of "happiness" I think God very much cares about us and wants us to be happy. But in another sense, the sense that most people mean when they say "happy," well, to quote one of my favorite quotes from a professor, "God doesn't give a shit about your happiness." Through Him we live, move and have our being, and prayer reminds us of this. Finally, the Church has been well acquainted with teleology, has never lost it in the faithful circles, and teaches that the human soul reveals telos in everything we do.

So instead of playing that damned game today, I went for a walk and read a book. I am rehabituating myself into finding how some arts are good in themselves, not in an unqualified sense, but good qua arts for how they make us think, feel, and view the world. I need to be careful of how I view things. I realize progress is a nasty vice that has infected many of my ways of thinking, from school to relationships to arts but luckily stopped short of my rituals. Instead progress hit my rituals like a brick wall so I got to thinkin'...So I read, I walked, I wrote, and damn if I don't think and feel more like a well functioning human than I have in a while.


Peace,
G. Blake Tipton