The lesser of two.

One of my personal favourites is the image of a cigarette in arced profile, flaccid and droopy, with the tip shriveled in ash. The caption is hardly necessary: “Tobacco use can make you impotent.”

Thank-you, Health Canada. The ol’ “Smoking Kills” was simple and to-the-point but strangely less effective.

Readers of this blog hardly need such a crass warning. We’re intelligent adults. We think with our heads. We know. Inhaling the airborne effluent of smouldering tobacco is unhealthy. We shouldn’t do it. Enough said.

But what about television? Hardly anything is said anymore about the healthiness of T.V.

Kurt Vonnegut is one exception: “Future generations will look back on TV as the lead in the water pipes that slowly drove the Romans mad.”

Did ancient Romans solder their plumbing with lead? I don’t know. I missed that episode on the History Channel. But it would be a pretty dumb thing to do. Lead is very unhealthy.

Kurt figures television is like lead-laced drinking water. It make us ‘mad,’ foggy-thinking political pushovers. Is he right? Does a steady diet of passive entertainment tapped and swallowed in the comfort of our own homes somehow reduce the strength and character of our culture?

In the past week, Christopher Hitchens and Vaclav Havel have both died from decades of tobacco use.  Here a morbid question presents itself: What if instead of smoking they had watched T.V.? A straight trade, time spent sucking on a tube of tobacco for time spent staring at a tube of boob. For one, they would almost certainly still be alive. But how alive? And alive as whom?

Kim Jong Il also died a few days ago. Notoriously little is known about the secretive dictator. But we do know that he once kidnapped and held hostage a movie Director for the purpose of creating one of the few gifts that he gave to his masses.

Whatever else can be said of Havel and Hitch, neither was a pushover or a passive thinker. And it’s no secret that the deceased Supreme Leader was a manipulative despot.

Just a quick skim of recent obituaries, and of the two evils, television is looking the worse from where I sit.

We all know that tobacco is unhealthy. We know it so well that we have sent smokers hovelling to the margins of our vocational and social lives. The only thing our culture knows with equal measure about T.V. is that it is mysteriously integral to our fragile economy and unimpeachable in our most intimate spaces.

We approvingly endure the mini infomercials before our videos because they assure us it’s the tobacco companies that are trying to make a life-sucking habit look acceptable. The tacit message: The Entertainment industry (good guys) will helpfully identify the bad guys (peddlers of harmful addictive stimulants).

It’s an apples-to-oranges comparison, true, since T.V. can’t “kill” us in the simple sense. But a refrain from an Adbusters culture-jam comes to mind: “Do you spend more time watching sex on T.V. than actually making love?”

Maybe Health Canada should expand its campaign.

Television may not make life shorter, but there’s a good chance it’ll make it smaller.

Creepy

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

- Gerard Manley Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur”

Sometimes people admire me even though they don’t know anything about me. This always creeps me out. The person they admire is of course someone entirely different from me and in fact someone entirely different from anyone who actually exists. On days when I’m in a gracious mood I can chalk this up as a vocational hazard. On the days when I’m feeling especially unlike the imaginary spiritual action figure in question, patience comes less easily. The latter kind of days have been more common recently so I've been finding myself eager to drop an F-bomb or pick up a cigar or lay down some smack, just to etch an exclamation mark behind what I’d really like to say: Foo. Dat. Idol.

Several Greek Church Fathers, a few scholastic monks and a handful of retro-hip modern theologians all say that you and I are like the Trinity in at least one very important way: We have our ‘being in relation.’ By that I think they mean that we don’t first exist all cozy and complete and then go around making incidental relationships. No, they say, that would be backward. Instead, our lives are meant to be something closer to the other way round: We find, discover and receive our identities from others in the throes of our relationships with them. Identity is not the nugget inside, the island, the ‘substance’ beneath it all. Identity is the gift our friends and family inject into our spiritual bloodstream by acknowledging us as the person we are becoming. This is  true of whatever weekly jousts we might have with the gas-station attendant and of however we might know the Father through the Son by the Spirit.

In other words, I’m not me unless everyone who knows me keeps knowing me as the person we are collectively creating.

But let’s bring this back from brink of deep-thought gibberish: We are whoever the people we love allow us to be.

And yah, that’s loaded. What if we’re lousy at love? I’ve heard that’s common. Or what if the people we manage to love are occasionally grabby, selfish dinks? Also common, I’ve heard. Or, now back to the point, what if some of the people in our lives ‘know’ us as someone we really aren’t?

I’ve been a dad for twelve years now. And each of those twelve years is filled with twelve months of four weeks where most days I respect my own parents more. They were the first to acknowledge me as the person I am becoming today, and somewhere in those early years I was given a sense that I don’t need to pretend to be anyone else. I have no idea how that worked except that it likely had something to do with courage and trust and their uncanny ability to allow me to make my own mistakes.

It would be a mistake to accept my identity from people who don’t really know me.

And it’s no mistake that ‘know’ can be a euphemism for love.

Those who do know/love me know that although I might have a weakness for cigars, I don’t ‘lay down smack,’ can’t cuss without sounding dumb and am nowhere near as impressive as the idealized mirage of a spiritual hero that some people want me to be. On my good days I’m okay disappointing the confused caravan of some people. They’ll have to get over it. It would be good for them to get over it. On the more common days, the days when there are more mirage seekers than grace givers, I can almost hear my soul crack in the baking sun of false admiration. Ack. Blech. Gasp.

On those days it’s up to the frazzled shards of my childhood faith to creep and crawl back from the pounding hooves. Let the caravan pass. 

And let me find again the soothing shade of God’s Grandeur.

Big Tent. Big Kicks. Big Mess.

I live in a town where most people are plainly not interested in Jesus. There are many possible reasons for this disinterest but one in particular comes to mind today: Christians. My hunch – and ‘hunch’ is putting it mildly – my hunch is that people don’t bother with Christ because they are already bothered by Christians.

The immanent second coming of the ‘Jesus Christ is Lord Gospel Tent Rally’ is a case in point. If the nature of their last visit is any indication, the purpose of this event will be to ‘share’ Jesus by blaring religious clichés at excruciating decibels from a pop-up tent on the lawn at the Community Centre.

A week ago signs appeared in Pemberton advertising something variously described as a “Tent Rally,” a “Revival,” a “Gospel Meeting,” or in one ominously vague, less-is-more case, simply as "Jesus." 

No-doubt in a calculated effort to be relevant within the current economic context, the signage imbibed a distinctly frugal tone. Clearly intended for re-use, the plastic-board signs all followed a simple pattern: Stenciled in large, bright letters across the top were the various titles about Jesus etc. while the bottom halves were reserved for pasted sheets of paper with event-specific details. Within a day or two the weather had wrinkled the paper and made the ink bleed, but a determined observer could still discern info about location, dates and times.

Within a week the signs had been significantly modified. It was curious at first. Had the organizers suddenly adjusted their plans? Was this some kind of newfangled marketing stunt? The careful but rushed style of the emendations matched the original design, but the content was considerably different, and strange.

Eventually we got it: This had been a rogue re-branding campaign and Chuck Norris was the aptly chosen figurehead. Well-played Pemberton. And leaving the original papers unedited was a nice touch too. The scene comes easily to mind: Swarms of aggression addicts amped for big kicks and fast punches arrive to a very different kind of show, filled instead with guilt trips and judgment jabs.

I have only one qualm with the signs, in either form. Slight variations aside, there is a consistent and conspicuous omission on every one. Standard event advertising includes basic contact information. But on these, there was none. No phone number, no website or email address, not even an organization name to Google.

Maybe they were in a hurry and this was just a clerical oversight.

Or maybe this was an unintentional way of providing one more very relevant piece of information: We will do the talking. You will do the listening.

But here’s the thing: Unilateral communication is kind of like a Chuck Norris punch in the face, its not really “co-mmunication,” it’s a contradiction in terms.

If I were a vegetarian [this is a hypothetical scenario for rhetorical purposes only] and you graciously wanted to ‘share’ your bacon-wrapped tenderloin with me, I would need an opportunity to explain my culinary convictions to you. But if as I opened my mouth to do so, you mistake my gaping jaws for an invitation to jam a juicy morsel down the hatch, we have a problem.

In Pemberton, we have this problem. Enter Chuck Norris.

When we presume someone wants what we are willing to give – even if we genuinely feel really, really generous about it – it’s not ‘sharing,’ it’s just presuming. And when presumption like that takes action, people get ticked-off, things get screwed-up and, as in this case, big nasty stereotypes rise again.

Maybe I’m overreacting here. So what if the last time this revival preacher arrived in Pemberton it marked the seventh all-time-history appearance of a three-piece suit in this town? Honest mistake. We all overdress from time to time. Some of us just happen to overdress especially flamboyantly, that’s all. And, let me assure you, it is far beneath me to judge a man by his clothes. Or by his gold jewelry. Or his Mercedes.

I might be able to appreciate that in some churches a preacher should appear, sound and behave in ways different than mine. I might be able to appreciate that.

Not sure.

What I am sure about is that most people in this town see the bling and hear the racket and immediately take several giant steps backward. The less inhibited and more jovial might pick up some paint and a Sharpie to conjure the help of a fast-fisted hero, but the majority will give the spectacle a passing glance then chalk it up as yet another entry on their own personal list of reasons for dismissing Christianity. And - this ought not need be said - when people dismiss Christianity, they usually dismiss Jesus right along with it.

The people of Pemberton are, presently or potentially, my friends. So if you come here and yell at them for a couple days, I am likely to get miffed. But if you come here and yell at them for a couple days in Jesus’ name, ‘miffed’ no longer captures it. 

Here’s a surprise: Even fully miffed, I’m no Chuck Norris. But let me put this in a way that doesn’t pull any punches: ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’ – Amen! I believe it! And I also believe that a ‘Gospel Tent Rally’ of the sort we saw in Pemberton last Fall is just about the worst possible way to make that statement in this town.

To Whoever-You-Are: Would you please contact me to discuss your plans for Christian outreach in Pemberton?

Also: If you haven’t disposed of it yet, I’d sure like that one about the grilled cheese as a souvenir.

Cordially,

Paul Cumin

paul@crux.ca

604.905.9404

Prolepsis

Within one 24-hour stretch

last week, I sat in the dark

with a young man

who thought death looked pretty good,

and stood in the lights

of an Emergency Room

with a middle-aged one

who desperately wanted to live.

The day after, I had arrived

late into a large, carpeted church-room

stuffed with well-tucked presentation

and half-embraced deep thought.

Then yesterday, walking

with the big hand of my young son

happily inside mine,

I stepped past a polite homeless man.

At that moment driving by

another stranger,

Plain for those with eyes to see

that his metallic-beige SUV

was not financed

but paid in full,

It was perfectly temperate

yesterday, but his gold-tinted

windows tightly sealed,

And his clean, buttoned collar

reaching up his neck to match

the empty grip

on his face.

That moment passed,

But it has also not passed.

Nor have the others,

The dark, the lights, the room,

the hand and the strangers,

All of them linger heavy

and wait for reconciliation.

So am I, Waiting,

Expectant and leaning

forward with these

and other such thoughts

for longer than I care to recall.

Usually, I don’t

Care or recall

Usually I forget to anticipate,

stranded on the moment

beneath my feet.

Maybe forgetfulness is a mercy?

Otherwise life gets too full,

The bulk tumbles out into the darkness

or bleeds-out under the lights,

When the cup runneth over

it stains the carpet

and slips through the fingers.

Or maybe it should pile up

The cumbersome abundance

from time to time,

Lest all of life’s moments succumb

to the unconstrained present

without a stop

for the remembering that becomes anticipation.

Then, deadpan,

we glide right past it.

The Friday called Good.

For those of us unversed in the rambling routes between Olde English and modern, the held-over label for today – “Good” Friday – must seem a tad odd. As it happened, it was in fact a bad Friday.

For Jesus’ disciples it certainly was. A very bad Friday.

Jesus didn’t die peacefully in his sleep at the Jerusalem Home for Retired Prophets. His life ended violently and publicly in a prolonged and deliberately brutal execution. Russel Saltzman: “This is the final meaning of crucifixion: repudiation of a way of life so complete as to be a caution to anyone foolish enough to try it for themselves.”

So what were a rag-tag band of holy fools to think? Here’s their Lord, teacher, friend, Master; hung-up to die between two criminals. Shamefully, helplessly, bleeding and suffocating; in the kind of pain that defies explanation. What’s ‘good’ about that?

On that Friday which we call ‘good’ it would appear that God, the one this dying man so shockingly called ‘Father,’ was either just a dream or as good as dead himself.

And for those standing around watching, that is exactly the conclusion to which Jesus himself seemed to have come: Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani?

Had God forsaken this moral genius? What’s ‘good’ about that? What ‘good’ is a God who abandons such a man?

Such a God is no good at all. Or no God at all.

Elie Wiesel recounts a day in Auschwitz when an extra piece of stale bread was stolen. The man in charge decided to ask the offending prisoner to confess. As an alternative, and as some incentive, he threatened to kill six prisoners if no one stepped forward. A man confessed. He was hung. And to reinforce his point, the man in charge had the six other prisoners hung too. One of these prisoners was a child so light that his own body weight was insufficient to collapse his throat in the noose. He hung for five, ten, fifteen and twenty minutes – while the inmates were forced to watch him – gasping and dying.

“Behind me, I heard a man asking: 'Where is God now?' And I heard a voice within me answer him: 'Where is He?' Here He is — He is hanging here on this gallows.”

This could have been the disciples remark on that first ‘good’ Friday. Jaded and redundant: Where is God now? One look at this sight and the conclusion is obvious: God is dead. Or as good as dead anyway.

If all that sounds too much like sacrilege, it should. On a day when it would seem the universe had finally dropped the veil from its morbid face, what’s the point of religion? On such a Friday, either God is not worthy of our religious effort, or there isn’t a God to waste the effort on.

As far as most of our world is concerned, Jesus is dead. And though there is much goodness in life, if death wins then ultimately it is all swallowed by a total, endless, eclipse. Like a day that never ends, with a night that never comes. No Holy Saturday; no Easter Sunday. Only the sustained darkness that covered the earth on the day that Jesus died: Empty, meaningless, void.

Friedrich Nietzsche: “Where has God gone? … I shall tell you. We have killed him. … Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not perpetually falling? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? … Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to seem worthy of it?”

There is a word for ‘perpetually falling’ and ‘straying through an infinite nothing,’ for ‘the breath of empty space’ and ‘becoming gods ourselves.’ It is a small word, often peppered like punctuation through trivial babble: Oh, what the Hell?

The Friday Jesus died – the one we call ‘good’ – was Hell on earth. Everything backward, twisted, in-bent, dark and desolate was above ground and on display that day. It was on earth between the two hands nailed to some wood stood-up on a mound on the outskirts of town. Piled on him without mercy, until there was no backwardness left, anywhere else.

For those six hours, it was all there. Condensed and firmly in place, on him.

When I think of how that might look, I can’t even picture it. But still, I tremble. Hollow. Aching. Nausea. My God, my God… why have you not forsaken us?

Where is God now? He is there on the gallows. Right there. With all of the worst and not-good-enough we’ve ever done.

Where is God now? He is there on the gallows. And we have killed him.

If that is true – and, God help me, I believe it is – then everything is on the table. Everything hangs on whatever comes of this day.

Evil – ‘the Man in charge’ – he thinks he’s made his point: Put-down the mutiny of hope. Finished it, finally and for good, on that Friday.

As it happened, that would make it about the worst possible day imaginable.

But – as with all Fridays so far – a Saturday followed it. 

And after that?

… Sunday.

Pemberton Revelations.

Somewhere in the second half of the first century, John of Patmos heard from the risen Jesus in some of the most graphic and powerful images the Church has ever been given.

Stuck alone on an Island for God only knows how long, John received a vision that has struck more fear, more bewilderment and more sheer awe into the hearts of the faithful than any other book in the New Testament. 

Although some of us cannot resist adding an ‘s’ to it’s end, the book is called “Revelation,” and it is indeed packed with that. One of the most revealing of its parts comes early, in the second and third chapters, where Jesus speaks directly to specific churches of the day. Seven local bodies get his special attention – words of correction, challenge and comfort from the Head himself.

Along with three other pastors in the Province, I have been invited by the British Columbia Conference of Mennonite Brethren to write a letter in the style of Revelation 2-3 to my own church. These letters will be read at our annual convention later this month as a creative effort to hear from God and better understand what he is doing in B.C.

I have stuck pretty close to the style of the addresses in Revelation. I’m not trying to sound especially prophetic or dramatic with this, I’m just trying to allow the Biblical model to shape my own prayerful imagination about our church. As ever, I’d be very grateful for your responses and comments.

To the angel of the church in Pemberton write, These are the word of the One who strides across peaks and whose Spirit rolls through valleys:

By some standards you are small, but by mine you are large. You have held the course through difficult terrain and have become stronger. You welcome the stranger and embrace the newcomer. I am with you. And I am pleased with you. Remain faithful to me and I will remain faithful to you.

There are, however, two things I hold against you:

I hear what you are saying but I also see what you have refused to do. You sing and preach and pray with your mouths but your feet and hands are too quiet. I love those you do not notice and I look quickly past the things that hold your gaze. You borrow against my plans for your tomorrows to fill your homes today. The false fullness has shrunk your souls and the excess has made you heavier and slower than you realize. Now comfort and ease stalk you like confident predators. I advise you to re-evaluate.

Do not let your faith land short of the target. The Bible is my gift to you for knowing me, be sure that it does not become an idol that distracts you from its purpose. Misplaced zeal is worse than none at all. I am the One Who Saves you! This is also true for those who trust in a nameless ‘God.’ Do not mistake a puddle on the path for the Ocean at the end of it. You have pitched your chairs too soon. I am the Way. Get up! and continue the journey.

If this is something the Spirit is also saying to your church, then you should listen to it too.

Top Ten Signs You Should’ve Given up Social Networking for Lent

1. You think ‘news feed’ is a legitimate source of news and you spend more time reading it than actually feeding yourself.
2. You use your cell-phone to ‘check-in’ so often that you’ve forgotten it’s also a telephone.
3. You think ‘send friend request’ is a great way to meet new people.
4. You wonder about how to follow Jesus if he’s not on Twitter and doesn’t blog.
5. [#5 has been removed at the request of readers to allow a moment to check facebook. This list will resume at #6 momentarily]
6. You update your status more often than you empty your bowel and you think your cell-phone is ‘smart’ because it allows you to do both at once.
7. You used to workout, now you just Photoshop your profile pic.
8. You think ‘unlike’ is an unspeakably severe form of condemnation: ‘God loves the sinner but unlikes the sin.
9. You can’t even imagine going forty days without online social networking. Right now the thought is making you irritable, nauseous, clammy, and defensive. You just impulsively quit reading this to accept a friend request from a complete stranger.
10. This list has made you decide to ‘unfriend’ me for posting it.