The Up Side of Down

On last week's Econtalk, host Russ Roberts discussed the salutary benefits of failure with Megan McArdle, author of the recent The Up Side of Down. McArdle forcefully argues that, as the book's subtitle says, "failing well is the key to success." I agree, but have to note (as Russ Roberts does) that failing well does not guarantee success.

Of greater interest to me than that principle was the theme of the first thirty or so minutes of the conversation: the crippling refusal to take risks which can result from a fear of failure. Being willing to risk failure is necesary to succeed at any noteworthy endeavor; refusing to risk failure can also be a refusal to experience the satisfaction and joy of acquiring a new skill or exploring the unknown. I was reminded of some conversations Mrs. Curmudgeon and I have been having about how to educate the curmudgelings, as it's become apparent they need to learn that failure is not a referendum on self-worth but an opportunity to learn something new. Along similar lines, I wonder whether a fear of failing at life draws some Christians to rule-based schemes which, absent any apparent Biblical warrant, promise a pain-free future for one's family.

Cleansing history

I just did a little mental math, subtracting 1989 from 2014, and realized one need not be so very young to not have a lived memory of the Soviet Union. Thus, today's youngsters may not know that while the USSR's consumer products were notoriously shoddy, it was nonetheless quite advanced in photo manipulation technology. In the West, a whole subset of Soviet-watchers were experts in studying old group portraits of communist party members. By comparing older with newer printed accounts, they discovered when individuals had fallen out of favor with the party hierarchy because their faces had disappeared from the photographic record.

The USSR was brought to mind by a report by another pastor in my presbytery, Shawn Mathis, on "the disappearing works of Doug Phillips." As an internet search will quickly inform you, Doug Phillips was a prominent leader in the family-centric and patriarchial segments of evangelicalism until discredited by revelations of an adulterous affair. As Mr. Mathis reports, "Doug Phillips' lectures, sermons, articles and interviews are disappearing from... the website of the National Center for Family Integrated Churches (NCFIC) (which organization he founded)" and also from the websites of other former Phillips associates.

One can empathize readily with the shock felt when a friend is exposed as a hypocrite and a liar, and can understand why shame might motivate one to disavow the relationship entirely. However, the impulse is strange among Christians. As many critics of our faith have noted, some of the more prominent Biblical figures, such as the patriarch Jacob and King David, behaved quite shamefully (the former a deceiver and the latter an adulterer and murderer). The mature believer, of course, understands these men are not in the Bible in order to be admired and emulated, but instead to give testimony to God's grace to sinners through Christ. Such a Christian can sing David's psalms without feeling any need to deny or cover up David's sins.

Some people once admired Doug Phillips and commended his teachings, but now are attempting to remove their assocation with him from the internet's historical record. Such actions lead one to wonder whether such people lead their lives on the basis of Christian grace or on something more like the principles of the old Soviet Union.

The black man in these United States today

Theatre Companion recently alerted me to a discussion between two African-Americans who frequently write on race. For having occurred on the webernet, said discussion is remarkable for clarity and centering on the issues rather than the personalities. From his e-mail to me:

That debate is between Ta-Nehisi Coates and Jon Chait and takes place here (in order):

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/03/the-secret-lives-of-inner-city-black-males/284454/

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/03/obama-ta-nehisi-coates-poverty-and-culture.html

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/03/black-pathology-and-the-closing-of-the-progressive-mind/284523/

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/03/barack-obama-vs-the-culture-of-poverty.html?mid=rss

Read through the various essays (in order, of course): they provide much fodder for thought. What follows are my conclusions (albeit fairly inconclusive). No fair reading them without having first diligently plowed through the above links.

  The core of the issue, though neither states this clearly, could be summarized thus: given that all races and ethnicities genuinely have equal status in law, can anything be done about the fact that many people continue to treat others unequally on the basis of race and ethnicity? 

  In this discussion, the party responsible for changing the attitudes/behaviors which result in unequal treatment (and that unequal treatment is found sometimes in casual interactions, such as hailing a cab, but also in formal settings like courtrooms) is the black man; that is, he should concentrate on getting his act together. Coates persuasively argues the black man is not the problem; instead, the problem lies with those who operate with inherently racist assumptions. Fair enough. If that's the case, though, I think the forecast is ultimately optimistic: just as ethnic prejudices from the 19th century have largely disappeared, so we see race prejudices beginning to fade. This should become all the lesser of an issue as whitey makes up an ever-decreasing percentage of the overall population.

  So while I acknowledge the grim reality of our racist present, I guess I'm optimistic over the long term. 

Free replacement caps!

I don't know what it's like to raise children at sea level; indeed, given the unhealthy vapors and miasmas so common at lower altitudes, one is somewhat surprised that any child raised there survives to maturity. While the health benefits of living on the western edge of the Great American Desert and the foothills of the Rocky Mountains are too many to enumerate here, one must be on guard against dehydration. Thus, all children carry water bottles, and water bottles thus become the bane of the high-altitude parent. When said children don't lose them, they chew on the mouthpieces and turn the bottles into portable puddle-makers.

Like many Coloradan families, ours has ended up with more bottles than lids. I have been particularly saddened when this occured to Polar Bottles, which are not only insulated but, in their 24-ounce size, carry enough water for a walk around the block. (Did I mention hydration is important up here?) Before throwing out a couple of these bottles yesterday, I thought I'd try to find replacement caps online. Having found none on eBay or Amazon, in desperation I went to the manufacturer's site. There I was pleasantly surprised to learn it will ship replacement caps to all its water bottles for FREE. As one might expect, I immediately fainted, but upon recovery placed an order for two.

Perhaps we shouldn't be suprised Polar Bottle is a Colorado company.

Be not afraid

One of our daughters has a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder. What happened was this: we brought her home, at birth, as a foster child. At the age of 16 months, she left our home to live with her biological father. Over the course of six months, he descended into drug use and violent crime, and she returned to us at 22 months. This mess inflicted pre-verbal trauma, which means that because of her young age, she literally lacked the vocabulary to describe or define what had occurred to her. Over the last several years, we have worked with her to construct a narrative which enables her to understand what happened during those six months.

To simplify, the narrative is something like this: she was taken away and bad things happened, but we came and got her, and now she is safe. She still (just this afternoon, in fact) asks me questions like "What would you do if a bad guy tried to grab me?" I ask back, "What would I do?" To which she replies, "You would punch him in the face and make him go away." Another way to understand her version of events is that she was kidnapped, but we rescued her, and now we (but me, as her father with a Superman fixation, in particular) will make sure nothing bad will ever happen to her ever again.

Being as I lack certain divine attributes such as omniscience, omnipresence, or omnipotence, it's an incredibly flawed narrative, but it works because she's (just barely) five years old: as she grows up, we'll be working to nuance it a fair bit. I bring all this up because the story my daughter tells herself sounds to me like something I've heard and seen elsewhere.

I'm basically a middle-of-the-road presbyterian, and have had a difficult time understanding why people fall under the sway of the loopy rhetoric of the National Center for Family-Integrated Churches' "Biblical Confession for Uniting Church and Family" or the obviously questionable parenting advice dispensed by the likes of Bill Gothard. A few years ago, though, I participated in a panel discussion with a Big Name in the family-integrated/homeschooling-only crowd. The audience contained a goodly number of people from said crowd, but a few curious members of my own congregation as well.

Truth be told, I set up said panel, and had encouraged the Big Name to approach it as an opportunity to win over a new audience from our congregation and others in attendance. I can't say whether he thought of it in that way or considered how to present his message accordingly. Sadly, the audio from that evening was lost, but I can say that his pitch sounded pretty much the same as I've heard it from him on numerous other occasions. To my ears, it ran something like "The secular humanist atheist conspiracy is very scary and wants to take away your children and turn them into homosexual prostitutes. I will give you a few very simple steps which will guarantee you and your family are safe." He had ten minutes to present, and another five to respond to the other speakers, and I'd say he gave about 80% of his time to the former sentence and the rest to the latter.

From what I heard later from members of our congregation, his pitch failed to land with any of them; most found him just plain weird and mildly hysterical. I think I know why: they aren't afraid the secular humanist atheist homosexual conspiracy will recruit their children the moment they're out of sight. Some people are afraid, of course, and it seems to me the easy-answer crowd is feeding their fears. The truth is, the world is a complicated place, and the parenting strategies which work in some families don't work for others; the same can be said for educational strategies as well. (As we've learned in our home, the same strategies don't always work for every kid in the same family!) But this common-sense reality isn't acknowledged by the Big Names in the homeschooling-only crowd. To put the matter bluntly, it seems to me they treat worried Christian parents like a traumatized five year-old: "Yes, you should be scared, but don't worry because I will keep you safe with my very simple recipe for life."

This Easter I'll be preaching again from Matthew 28, where both the angel of the Lord and our resurrected Lord himself tell the two Marys, "Do not be afraid." Jesus Christ has risen: the strife is over and the battle done. A movement which infantilizes parents by preying on their worst fears may be run by sincere Christians, but it seems to me their message and strategy are very much at odds with the heart of the Gospel proclamation itself.

Christ is risen. Be not afraid.

The Tallest Man on Earth

He's Swedish, but his English-language lyrics are so rich and dense I can only skim their surface. His primary musical gig is touring with a metal band, but his own work would make the young Bob Dylan green with folkie envy. And his guitar + vocal performance so rivets me I have to stop what I'm doing every time I hear him.

After a certain age, you wonder whether you can ever find a new act which captures your mind and soul like the music you listened to as a teenager did.

Yes. Yes, you can.

Animal Crackers

A revival of Animal Crackers

 closes out the Denver Center Theatre Company's season, running at the Stage Theatre through May 11. Sadly, no, the actual Marx Brothers do not rise from the grave. Happily, it features some crackerjack tap-dance numbers (I'm a sucker for a good tap routine) and is backed by an excellent swing combo, present on stage throughout. It's Groucho Lite, but a little Groucho is better than no Groucho at all.

He gave names to all the animals

I first took an interest in design when I started living entirely on my own, and on my own nickel, after college. When faced with a choice between two or more comparable consumer purchases, I tended to go for the cheaper option. I soon realized that what I saved in cash I lost in design: the product invevitably failed to work as efficiently or smoothly as the one which cost a few dollars more. Design, how we relate to a thing, is an essential element of the thing itself, not a secondary consideration.

Hence, I now subscribe to 99% Invisible, a podcast on design. A recent show pulled back the curtain on the incredibly complex process of naming things from consumer products to theories, which requires competence in linguistics, semiotics, and ontology. The Biblically literate cannot help but wonder how much more efficiently Adam would have completed his first task had he been able to outsource it to a naming company.

Shadowlands

The Denver Center Theatre Company presents Shadowlands, William Nicholson's play about C.S. Lewis's brief, late in life marriage, in the Space Theatre through April 27. Being as Lewis was a scholar, sometime Christian apologist, thoughtful analyst of culture and a writer of admirably clear style, the classically-educated Mrs. Curmudgeon elected to join me in attending a performance last week.

As I have come to expect, the Denver Center production staff oversaw a remarkably professional, if not especially creative, staging of this play. When a play is staged in the round, one can be sure he will get an actor's back at some crucial moment or other; this time out, our seats had the misfortune of missing the face of either Lewis or his eventual bride, Joy, during nearly every one of their scenes together. Nonetheless, I think I can say Graeme Malcolm inhabited C.S. Lewis, or at least this version of Lewis, rather convincingly, even if Kathleen McCall as Joy Davidman was somewhat less lacking in conviction. The other stalwarts of the Denver Center Theatre Company acquited themselves as well as ever.

But as I say, a thoroughly professional production is to be expected from the DCTC. Thankfully, such a staging allows for and invites a careful consideration of the play itself. Or perhaps not so thankfully in this case.

C.S. Lewis's stature amongst 20th century Christian writers cannot be overstated. In my hard-shell Calvinist opinion, he was out of his depth as a theologian, but his understanding of culture, and where a society determined to cut itself loose from all Christian moorings would end up, was remarkable for its insight and foresight. "Prophetic" is a woefully overused adjective, but I can think of no better for his The Abolition of Man. In a different, fictional vein, what I consider his best and most beautiful book, Till We Have Faces, is a lovely account of the Gospel's power to produce repentance and faith.

That being so, one expects a presentation of his most intimate encounter with human joy and grief to be set in the context of Lewis's consistent personal testimony of Christian hope. Instead, Nicholson begins with a Lewis absolutely confident he can explain Christian suffering, only to end with a Lewis utterly undone by the experience of it. "Shadowlands" is a Lewisian term for this present life as a preparation for the life to come: now is merely a shadow of a much greater and more substantial reality. At the play's end, after the death of his beloved, Lewis no longer says we live in the shadowlands. Instead, he says there are only shadows.

Whatever one thinks of C.S. Lewis, he was unquestionably a Christian man who, after his conversion, bore a consistent Christian testimony. Shadowlands turns a Christian man into an existentialist. Regardless of any other merits it might have, that fact makes this not a very worthwhile play at all.

How Churches can care for their pastor's children

The Gospel Coalition blog featured this helpful post from Chad Bettis. While all seven of his suggestions are sound, I most appreciated the first:

1. Give grace to the pastor's children on Sunday. Sunday is a workday for his family unlike any other person's workday. While her husband is ministering, a wife is parenting alone. The pastor's kids are often the first ones to arrive at the church building and the last ones to leave. You can minister to his family by giving his children grace, talking with them, and enjoying them. When his children are young, you can also offer to help his wife.

 I have long been suprised at how infrequently this matter is discussed in the literature on pastoral work. In my more cynical moments, I suspect this may be due to the fact the literature is produced and the classes taught by older men whose memories of parenting young children are rather faded and whose generations' fathering methodologies were much more distant than those current today. At any rate, I'm grateful for some public acknowledgement that Sundays can be the hardest day of the week for a pastor and his wife, and their children often suffer as a result.

To be fair, many pastors with whom I've spoken about this issue do receive the help Mr. Bettis suggests from one or two families in their congregations, and this has been our family's experience as well. In the cases where that help is not offered, however, the burden can be considerable, and it is often exacerbated by Church members who would rather criticize how others manage their burdens then offer to help carry them. On behalf of my profession, I hope Mr. Bettis's post goes viral.