Minor Miracle by Marilyn Nelson

This is the second time this poem appeared in my feed since subscribing to The Poetry Foundation's Poem of the Day podcast. As a poem, it's not much, not even as blank verse. But as a testimony we all need to hear, especially in these dark days, it's something else.

Nat Hentoff

You know the day is inevitable. Since it's been three months since he last published his column, I suspected the end was nearer than when he first enlisted one of his son's help in writing that column. Still, my heart sank when I read news of his death on Saturday.

I started my newspaper reading on the funny pages. Eventually, I noticed there was always a cartoon on the editorial page. Herblock introduced me to politics, and the Washington Post columnists continued my education. Back then, Nat Hentoff's "Sweet Land of Liberty" was a regular feature, and from him I learned how to read the Constitution as a strict constructionist. More importantly, I learned from him how to adhere to one's principles.

Although an atheist, Hentoff had a religion: America. He loved our country, and he loved it because of the principles on which it was founded. Amongst those principles is the unalienable right to life, and so he opposed abortion, despite the chagrin of many of his so-called-liberal colleagues.

Nat Hentoff was one of the very few people whose disagreement made me question my own beliefs. Generally, a person states his or her disagreement and one nods politely before moving on with one's life. Especially when it came to the Constitution, I knew I had to have very good reasons to disagree with him: following Hentoff's lead, I realized that my strict constructionist read of the First Amendment required an equally strict constructionist read of the Second Amendment, no matter how skeptical I continue to be regarding the putative virtues of a heavily armed populace.

For those of us for whom worship of these United States poses a serious temptation to violate the First and Second Commandments, Nat Hentoff was a chief apostle and unwavering conscience.

And he produced albums for Charles Mingus. How cool is that?

Today's breakfast

Medium burger on rye, topped with bacon, cheddar cheese, over-easy egg, and country gravy.

This is a cry for help.

Another argument for books

As a people, the citizens of the great state of Colorado are united in their confidence in the superiority of Coloradan beer to that of the not-quite-as-great state of Oregon. Sadly, our unity is sorely tested when the craft beer scene of Denver is pitted against that of the All-America city of Aurora. 

(Just how "All-America" is Aurora? Mayor Steve Hogan, an Eagle Scout, personally answered an e-mail I sent to him through the city's website and then gave my Cub Scout den a tour of City Hall. That's how All-America Aurora is. 

But I digress.)

The breweries of both Aurora and Denver multiply at a dizzying pace, and even a dedicated IPA man such as my humble self is torn between Dry Dock's Hop Abomination, Station 26's Juicy Banger, and Comrade Brewing's Superpower. I have also been known to wax rhapsodic about Copper Kettle's Helles Lager. Living in Aurora and working in Denver, I have, like so many others, had my loyalties sorely tested.

That is, until the Aurora Public Library upped Aurora's beer game.

In 2016, the Library system offered a truly amazing deal. Visit four Aurora breweries, get an Aurora Library pint glass. Visit seven, and get a 64 oz. growler. As you will not be surprised to observe, I ended up with two pint glasses and the growler, which is even more impressive given the number of times I forgot to bring my "passport" when stopping by one of the participating taprooms.

In your face, Denver. And I won't even deign to mention how far in the dust this leaves Portland and its lumberjack-bearded hipsters. The Presbyterian Curmudgeon is too classy for that.

A reasonably merry Christmas album

You've got to give She & Him credit for effort. In their eight years of collaboration, Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward have released two Christmas albums, which makes that particular genre a full one-third of their output to date. As with their previous yuletide outing, however, the duo is, at best, adequate on Christmas Party. The arrangements are overly spare, which is odd given that one of the things that made their Volumes 1 & 2 so enchanting were lush soundscapes. Particularly objectionable are Deschanel's vocals on "A Marshmallow World:" she rushes through the lyrics as though trying for a new land speed record, and stomps on the line "What if spring is late?" until it's nothing but a lifeless corpse.

Far more satisfying is Jane Lynch's A Swingin' Little Christmas! featuring (deep breath now) Kate Flannery and Tim Davis with the Tony Guerrero Quintet (to which I was directed by Bullseye's annual holiday special). It's really more of a band than a solo effort, and the better for it. They've got a sense of humor, verve, and class (maybe in that order, maybe not). It may not be the Christmas album for the ages, but it's the best I've heard this year.

Speaking of Christmas albums for the ages, at the top of the heap remains A Charlie Brown Christmas from the Vince Guaraldi Trio. Nonetheless, I wish we could all admit that its children's choir rendition of "Christmastime Is Here" is as creepy as creepy gets.

I need to remember what I cannot comprehend

Books 11-13 of Augustine's Confessions are a meditation on the nature of time and God's work of Creation, and are often left out of modern editions. In the preface to his 1983 translation, E.M. Blaiklock writes,

Book Ten seemed to provide a natural conclusion satisfying to a modern reader. ...The mystical ponderings of the last three books are... quite detachable, and it is even a little difficult to probe the writer's purpose in placing them thus. They seem laboured [sic] in their striving for linkage, and are rather the utterance of the Bishop of Hippo than of the embattled man striving Godwards. We have taken leave to omit them.

Still, Maria Boulding did not omit them in her 1997 translation, and so our congregation's reading group, being fastidious completists, chose her edition of the Confessions from the Vintage Spiritual Classics series. We've been working through those mystical ponderings, and I think I can respectfully disagree with Blaiklock. Throughout the autobiographical Books 1-10, Augustine (prefiguring Proust's Remembrance of Things Past) wrestles with the nature of memory and time before, and as created by, God. A Scripturally-saturated mind such as Augustine's would naturally end up with the days of creation and the text of Genesis 1-2.

Reading between Blaiklock's lines, he seems to be saying that Books 11-13 make rather tough sledding, and with that I can heartily agree. Nonetheless, I recognized myself in this sentence from Book 12.

On reading or hearing the scriptural words some people think of God in the guise of a man, or as some huge being possessed of immense power, who arrived at a sudden new decision to make heaven and earth outside himself, as though located at a distance from him, and made them like two vast solid structures, above and below, within which everything would be contained.

Unintentionally, I create mental images while reading Genesis 1-2, and those images render the events in terms which I can understand. Augustine chastises my hubris by reminding me that what I imagine is almost certainly not exactly what occurred.

I would be the first to argue that the Genesis 1-2 account of Creation is a straightforward historical narrative and is written to be as comprehensible as possible to the average reader or hearer. Nonetheless, I need to remember it records much I simply cannot comprehend, such as the existence of light without prior physical source, or an earth without form and void (once one realizes that a jumbled mass has a form, even if a chaotic one, and is certainly not void), or the relationship of the divine decrees to the simplicity of God's person. As chapter 1 of the Westminster Confession of Faith states, the Scriptures are clear, but sometimes they speak clearly of things which are incomprehensible to us poor creatures.

Augustine's mystical ponderings may be labored and overlong, but they form useful instruction in intellectual humility.

A Canticle for Leibowitz

A Canticle for Leibowitz is Walter Miller's 1960 retelling of Western history through the lens of the monastic movement, but set in the American West after an apocalyptic nuclear war in the late 20th century. I read it after my Hindu neighbor insisted on loaning me his copy after we got into a discussion of comic books and science fiction during a Diwali party his family was hosting; such is ordinary life for a conservative presbyterian pastor these days.

As the Wikipedia notes, Canticle is widely recognized as a literary masterpiece, even being the stuff of dissertations and such. It's categorized as science fiction (since it spans the 27th to the 38th centuries), but as I note above, it's not really science fiction so much as an attempt to dramatize the role of the Church and persons religious in the development of the West during the first two millennia of Christendom. Much of the plot, such as it is, of Canticle's three sections focuses on the preservation of books and, later, development of the learning contained therein. But if that were all Canticle is, it would be little more than a presaging of Thomas Cahill's lamentably oversimplified How the Irish Saved Civilization.

Instead, Miller shows how the Church laid the foundation for Western civilization by insisting on the doctrine of the imago dei, man made in the image of God. In Canticle's first section, "Fiat Homo," the Church insists that those grotesquely mutated by nuclear fallout nonetheless are fully human and must be treated as such. In its second section, "Fiat Lux," an all-too unpleasantly human abbot boldly declares abominable a secular philosopher's suggestion that the men of their day are some kind of lesser, man-created beings precisely because that would make them something other than a reflection of God himself. While the third section, "Fiat Voluntas Lux," builds to another nuclear war, its centerpiece conflict is a debate between an abbot and a government official over euthanasia for the those in horrible suffering. According to Miller, mankind perennially and perversely denies his own humanity by refusing to value actual human beings and their lives; the Church and her members must bear witness against this dehumanization and insist that learning be founded on a Christian humanism.

As Miller tells the tale, it seems the Church is always on the losing side of the argument, but nonetheless her humanistic values work their way into civilization's warp and woof. I think he's right, and it's a fact worth remembering in these dark days for the citizens of the former American Republic. The Great State of Colorado, in which I consider it a privilege to live, just ratified a measure allowing for "assisted suicide" (one of the currently favored euphemisms for "euthanasia"). Our nation's misbegotten electoral college has permitted election to the office of President a man who aggressively dehumanizes all, individually and collectively, with the temerity to displease him. Humanism itself has fallen upon such hard times that the very notion is associated primarily with aggressive secularity, not the imago dei, and Christians shut down at its very mention. From my vantage point, all signs are that we have lost the argument.

In these dark days, A Canticle for Leibowitz helpfully reminds us that the Church's simple duty is to bear witness to the truth of God's Word, which against all common sense teaches us that man is made in the image of God to such an extent that God himself could become a man. Church history teaches us that we will lose many, many arguments, but because of God's grace and Spirit the Church will continue to bear humanity through the ashes of the destruction mankind repetitively and continually wreaks upon himself.

Regarding the clownpocalypse

So yesterday there was this news story regarding Ronald McDonald's decision to forego public appearances for a while lest he inadvertently traumatize youngsters sensitized to the ongoing "creepy clown" epidemic. Then I read in this morning's paper how several Colorado school districts are banning clown costumes this Halloween. 

Brighton 27J has also decided to ban clown costumes. “We believe it is the best way to avoid perpetuating any clown fear or paranoia in our schools,” superintendent Dr. Chris Fielder wrote in a letter to parents in the district.

Right. Because how better to tamp down paranoia over creepy clowns than by FORBIDDING SMALL  CHILDREN TO WEAR CLOWN COSTUMES FOR HALLOWEEN?

Good call, educators.

And now, Batman

I'm trying to remember 1989 and the excitement generated by Tim Burton's Batman. The character had more or less been permanently redefined by Frank Miller's unmatched (even by himself, when he tried with The Dark Knight Strikes Again) The Dark Knight Returns, and that masterpiece, along with Alan Moore's nightmare-inducing The Killing Joke, had seized my imagination. (In my not-so-humble opinion, these three works continue to stand the test of time, and I find myself regularly re-reading the two graphic novels.) Given my age and that late-eighties explosion of high-powered artistic genius focused on an archetypal character, it would have been nearly impossible not to have become obsessed with Batman.

But as I said, I'm trying to remember what it was to be 19 years old and seeing Batman on its opening weekend, and I'm trying to remember because he no longer means nearly as much to me. I think that's because Batman is an extremely difficult tightrope to walk. Push the darkness even a little too hard, and the result is pointless nihilism. Back up an inch too much, and he's just a clever dude figuring stuff out while being in super-good shape. You don't have to be Tim Burton or Alan Moore or Frank Miller to get it right: Jeph Loeb and Keith Giffen nailed it in The Long Halloween and Justice League International, respectively; Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale turned in admirable work with their own Dark Knight trilogy. While it may be difficult, it's not impossible.

For me, then, there's something more going on in my turn away from Batman, and that's my turn toward Superman and Captain America. My ongoing Superman obsession can perhaps be understood by an explanation of what makes the Zack Snyder/Henry Cavil "Superman" of Man of Steel and Batman v Superman so abysmal. By the second of those films, it became obvious that their Superman has no existential reason to fight for the good other than the possession of superpowers and not being bad. Meanwhile, his elevation of Lois Lane above the rest of humanity makes him just as self-centered as Lex Luthor. Contrariwise, the archetypal Superman's greatest power is his innate decency. Like Captain America, he is a Boy Scout and an American in the best possible sense of both terms: someone who lives in service of an ideal, and therefore of humanity.

In adolescence, I thought I had come to terms with the world's darkness, and so embraced the Batman who dwells in the liminal penumbras of shadow. With age, I've realized the best response to the darkness is a turn toward the light.

Learning from the priests & Levites

The priests and Levites who come to John the Baptist in John 1:19-28 are not interrogators, but inquirers. As servants of the Temple, they are experts in Biblical worship, and in John's practice of baptism, they recognize a new ritual. Notice that they don't challenge baptism's propriety or John's right to perform it; in fact, they seem to implicitly grant it. Instead, they want to understand what this ritual reveals about John's identity.

John the Baptist could be Elijah, who they thought would inaugurate the eschatological Day of the Lord (Malachi 4:5-6). He could be the Christ, who would defeat the enemies of God and his people and establish a reign of eternal peace (Psalms 2 & 45). He could be the Prophet like Moses who will bring a new, perfect and final Law (Deuteronomy 18:15-18). In other words, John the Baptist appears to be a, if not the, subject of prophecy who will inaugurate the eschaton precisely because he has introduced an new ritual which signifies citizenship in a kingdom and entrance into a new age.

Of course, John is merely the herald of that figure. But as he does not challenge the priests' & Levites' assumptions, he effectively affirms them. By so doing, he lets us know that we all could learn a lot from the liturgical expertise of the priests and Levites.