Winning and Losing

The President recently was on the idiot box – a tool aptly named – and proclaimed that more troops were needed to achieve victory in Iraq. He noted that we are losing the war and that escalation was the necessitated strategy. I will be the first to admit that my memory is hazy, but it seems to me that the President declared that the war in Iraq had ended in victory and that the mission was accomplished. I feel as if we, the American people, are through the looking glass. If we won and victory was proclaimed – though I am still foggy about the identity of the enemy or the perimeters of the mission – then how can we be losing and require clarity as to the nature of the mission. Wasn’t “war against terror” ambiguous enough? I know that I’ve used St. Augustine’s Just War on more than one occasion to illustrate the point. A clearly defined objective is part of that construct. It seems that we don’t have one in Iraq and need more troops to accomplish the end that still remains undefined.

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I was thinking about the relationship between Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. All three of these religions share a common root: the promise made to Abraham by Yaweh (Gn. 12.1ff). All three of these religious traditions derive from the covenant cut by God with the patriarch, a wandering Aramean (Deut 26.5), bereft of future that had faith in the promise made. Sadly we have not learned to come together as children of the same father, members of the same family. The issue was that of land and an inheritance, at least in a penultimate sense. Each tribe – Christians, Jews, and Muslims – make a claim to the territory but have forgotten that all are part of the same family and that inheritance may be mutual.

Family fights over inheritance are the worst. I’ve seen families torn apart by what each thought that their parents would have wanted, or worse yet when the will allows a measure of ambiguity that allows each to attach the force of law to his or her interpretation of the stated intent. Perhaps the real intent is that we live together in peace and harmony as brothers and sisters should (Ps. 133); the idea of being at one in the place of worship stands as the existential metaphor of a life that transcends nation or claim and seeks the greatest good for all. Everybody gets what they need. Nobody hordes because they trust that they will be given in their need as they give to support those in need.

So what does this have to do with a war fought on the pretext of lies? Much in every way, I fear and trust.

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The issue that stands at the heart of the Abraham story is trust. Abraham trusts God and it is credited to him as righteousness (Gal. 3.6, Gn. 15.6). What does it mean to trust, or to keep faith? Allow me a commonly used image; inasmuch as the Bible has compared the covenant with the people as a marriage, it is valid: is it enough to say that I believe in monogamy and then to claim that I am free from mandates to go and act in a way that belies my confession of faith? How can a person claim to have faith in his or her marriage while committing adultery? Keeping faith is not an act of intellect. It is ethical as much as it is spiritual or confessional. Christians are guilty of having separated faith from action by claiming that justification by grace through faith (Eph 2.8ff) does not require a person to act like they believe the creed that they are confessing.

Abraham trusts God. The sons and daughters of Abraham are called upon to do the same thing. The pressing question is what form that faith should take in the penultimate context of our existence. Shall we become bellicose in our orthodoxy, creating division as we litigate the terms of our parents’ will? Shall we realize that we are three children called upon to share the family’s farm, each taking responsibility for its wellbeing and each investing labor that all may be fed?

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We are called upon to place trust in our leaders. But this assumes not a blind obedience, but willingness to question as an act of faith. The terms of this war have changed to match the whim of the President who, like a child caught in a lie, changes the terms to match the context in the hopes that his dishonesty will not be revealed. What I find most disturbing is that Mr. Bush claims to have been “in the spirit” (Rev. 1.10) when he made his realizations about the conflict in Iraq, an allusion to the epiphany of St. John the Divine as he envisioned the apocalypse.

And tell lies and the family continues to fight, each child claiming the inheritance of the father whose tears are shed like drops of blood in the land that was once called Aramea…

Ah, But I am only a fool…

Double Down

First it was “Mission Accomplished.” Later the word was “Stay the Course.” Now we are going to “double down” as if the dealer is holding a soft 17 and we can make 21 on a big hand. Either way, it is a poor gamble with the lives of our soldiers. The sad reality is that our nation has destroyed the stability of the region by our adventurism in Iraq. Whatever happened to “weapons of mass destruction” or to Osama bin Laden’s supposed connection to Iraq? All of these have been debunked. And this says nothing of our involvement in Afghanistan.

I am an unapologetic leftist. The war was immoral; it was waged on the pretext of a lie and has no clear objective. Without an objective there is no means by which “victory” can be measured or defeat determined. What I find most disturbing is that I see no way out that will not inflict more damage than we have already done. We created a civil war. Hussein may well have been a tyrant, but we have become an army of invasion short of occupation. Our nation has become a latter-day pirate, raiding a nation on the pretext of a lie with no interest beyond lip-service for the well-being of the people whose country has been destroyed.

Cut and Run
I have to concede that the neo-fascists in our nation have won the war of rhetoric. By creating a false dichotomy they have defined the debate to serve their own propagandistic needs: loyal opposition to the war becomes an act of cowardice and any dissent is couched as non-support of “our brave boys in uniform”. The Democratic Party, traditionally a war party, has done poorly in meeting the debate. Leadership by polls is not leadership: somebody has to have the courage to say “No” to the lies that have been told and to challenge the denegation of civil rights in the name on the “War on Terror” and to stand and say it take courage to fix what cowards have destroyed.

I do not believe that there is an easy way out of Iraq. To leave now is to leave a country destroyed. George Marshall – hardly a liberal – understood the need to rebuild Germany following World War II. It was not for the sake of generosity or kindness, but because it was in our national interest to do so. The reality is that doing good helps us to do well. So what is the good that needs to be done in Iraq? We have to admit that we have destabilized a nation by generations of manipulation of the region. Iraq became our friend when Iran became our enemy. We were happy to have the tension between both nations because that polarized their attention. Our CIA put Hussein into power. We are ultimately responsible for his having been put there, much the same way that we are the authors of Agusto Pinochet’s ascension in Chile. We went to Iraq for oil. We have blood on our hands.

Sadly the rhetoric has become the reality. Leaving Iraq now leaves the country embroiled in a civil war that has no certain outcome. It allows for flux that will be inherently destabilizing. We need to leave, but it has to be an orderly withdrawal that places the United Nations in the role of peacekeeper and arbitrator to avoid further deterioration in the region. Beyond this, we have to wean ourselves from our dependence upon oil. The reason that we find ourselves in such a mess is that this nation has reserves that are environmentally sensitive. We are the proverbial NIMBYs: Not In My Back Yard. We will not destroy our land and natural beauty, but are content to destroy a nation to feed our dependence on petrol-chemicals.

Changes at the Root
The word “radical” derives from the Latin word radix which means “root”. At the root of the issue is the essential instability that this addiction creates for our nation. It is in our national interest to use the great power of industry and government to create new sources of energy that are both green and available to all. This is not science fiction, it is a matter of will. Do we have the will to undergo a period of painful transformation to give birth to a new future that creates new markets and employment, allows us to be secure, and to diminish the power that the region holds to blackmail our nation with oil?

This is a bet that I would suggest we take. Hell, we’ll even double down.

Ah, but I am only a fool…

The Seven Deadly Sins

Following my last post – I should never write and publish when I am struggling to sleep; nonsense is the result, and not even my usual caliber of pontification or criticism at that – I thought to take some time and actually write, much as I used to do. Anybody that knows me also knows that I have had a virulent dislike for the holiday season. Partially because of the consumerist frenzy, partially because I become depressed, partially because I am loathe to celebrate simply because I am told, “tis the season to be jolly…” All of that seems rather contrived to me. Call be acerbic, cynical, or anything else that you may find in your lexicon; the truth is that I have little use for the holidays.

Apropos my dislike of holidays, I was given pause to consider the seven deadly sins. Most of us have heard of them, most of us are participants in these, and their opposing virtues as well – simil iustus et peccattor, I suppose – but I would equally suppose that such a listing of virtues and vices runs contrary to a culture that thrives on excess, hedonism, and egocentrism. I am not immune from this, indeed, count the occurrences of the pronoun “I” and one can quickly extrapolate that my universe may not me solipsistic, but it is certainly egocentric. At any rate, here are the seven deadly sins and a brief description of their characteristics (taken from www.deadlysins.com):

• Pride is excessive belief in one's own abilities that interferes with the individual's recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity.
• Envy is the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation.
• Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.
• Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath.
• Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.
• Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.

This looks like a corporate mission statement or a description of an American life. In a previous post, I commented on my realization of my gluttony. That was difficult for me. As a nation we consume so much more than we need. As an individual I have put myself in a place that I have had to lose 60 pounds. That is the weight of a small child (hopefully a healthy one). I’ve become aware of just how much the moral relativism that we embrace as personal freedom has been harmful to us – the plural is very intentional – as individuals and as a nation. I think that the Seven Deadly Sins provide a good framework for the discussion.

The truth is that all of these are exercises in excess and that they are all interconnected. One cannot be involved with one without encountering another. We all share these traits, we all, to a greater or lesser degree, find ourselves involved in them. There are no fingers pointing. This is the reality of life. Think about lust for a moment. It is born of greed and involves envy and or gluttony. Sloth, laziness – sadly, my favorite of the sins – has to do with avoiding spiritual or physical work. We dwell in a consumerist haze that blinds us to spiritual development (more later on that issue) and leads us into a fool’s paradise of new-age nonsense or, worse, a diluted embrace of an “Idiot’s Guide” version of a given religious tradition. Think about a person tattooing Hebrew letters onto his or her body to celebrate their Judaism when that selfsame religion forbids tattoos. That is like eating pork to celebrate Islam or, worse, thinking that it is OK to eat faux port to enjoy that “great pork flavor” without actually eating the flesh of the swine. What happened to the greater meaning of the command? It becomes overly literal or impotent and merely metaphorical.

The Greatest Possible Good
I have to confess that I have left theological ethics as a relic of antique religious confession. I find that the art of living in community requires that humans transcend our basic greed and adopt a functional morality that values the “happiness” of the greatest number as its driving principle. By “happiness” I do not mean contentedness or even satisfaction with a person, place, or thing: I rather think of a meeting of life’s needs that the person is free to live in a world that is marked by clean air and water, available food and shelter, freedom to pursue interests and freedom from poverty. This is a culture or society predicated on the greatest good for the greatest number. There is no need of God in this equation, though many may find expressions of the divine in this: “to have done this for the least of these is to have done this for me” are the words attributed to Jesus of Nazareth.

Happiness is not the fulfillment of desire. Indeed, this is the realm of the construct that we call the Seven Deadly Sins. Pandering to desire, to the passions of the self, drive systems of oppression such as capitalism and lead to violent confrontation. It is an issue of balance, an art to life in community that has to constitute the basis for any moral system that can be ecumenical, secular, and regard an individual or culture’s spiritual moorings. The irony is that pandering to desire leads to greater dissatisfaction and ultimately to despair. This is most evident when one considers the spiritual emptiness of the so-called developed world: we are rich in things and poor in soul. We try to find satisfaction in sex, in excess, in food, in making ourselves into more or less than we are. We are guilty of sin; we have forgotten that we are stardust that has had the good fortune of having become animate and sentient.

Creation Myths and Connection
I am most familiar with the Christian telling of the Jewish creation story. This myth is powerful indeed and seeks to convince us that we share a common origin and destiny: we are dust and to dust we shall return, as the Ash Wednesday Liturgy has it. From our beginnings and in our ends we are dependant upon others. To believe that we are not is to deny our connection to a community that gives us myth, language, means of expression of our thoughts and articulation of our needs. It also reminds us that we are of no ultimate importance in and of ourselves. Dust has not real importance. Neither do the constructs of dust. What is money but a metaphor for wealth that is not real in any absolute sense of the word? Gold is valuable because it is agreed upon as a value. It is nothing apart from that. The only things that we truly need are food, shelter, and tasks to occupy our minds and body.

Pride: we believe that we are more than dust. The question of whether God exists or not is irrelevant to the question: it is what we will do with the reality of our finitude and ultimate disintegration that matters in this moment. The truth is that we are nothing. So why not enjoy the ride? Take what you need, use what you take. Be kind because kindness allows us to live in harmony with one another and serves not only the greater good but “my” good and is in “my self-interest.”

The curious thing is that the Seven Deadly Sins deal not in proscription, but in excess; they counsel moderation that allows enjoyment of life. The exception to this is Pride. It is not that Pride disallows God, but that Pride denies origin and destiny thus making authentic life impossible. If I am free from myself, I am free for other things that allow a greater joy and happiness than I could otherwise enjoy. Just a few thoughts over the holidays… More on that later.

- tDF


OK, Just for Fun I did the quiz to see my favorite sins... No surprises here! -tDF

Greed:	High
Gluttony:	Medium
Wrath:	Low
Sloth:	High
Envy:	High
Lust:	Very High
Pride:	Low

Take the Seven
Deadly Sins Quiz

insomnia

that your mind races like a formula one in some European classic and it continues to accelerate spinning beyond the redline fueling the need for rest but disallowing the reality of rest so I sit here like a condemned man awaiting his fate the green room having been prepared and time which normally is fleet and winged seems to have come to a standstill as I await a rest penultimate though it may be that seems to be longstanding and distant like Tantalus standing chin deep in sweet fresh water with beautiful fruit only an inch from his fingers both drawing away as he nears them to satiate his needs and appetites but only tormented by their proximity and distance ironic that there is something of a brutal irony in the fact that I am sitting typing and cannot find a moment to rest my mind is rushing racing like an Indy car over Memorial Day thoughts rushing and saying precious little worth thinking much like the news of the past several days much like listening to our president stating that if we don’t pull out of Iraq we will not be victorious much like his response to the bipartisan report suggesting that his adventurism as only cost the lives of too many combatants and innocents leaving a blood trail a stain of guilt and a metaphor for our insatiable appetites for petrochemicals and yet I am loathe to admit that I would not even be typing were it not for plastics and energy produced at the cost of the environment is that an irony or an act of hypocrisy I don’t know the church called this a double-bind original sin that is damned if you do and damned if you don’t if I am equally damned then fuck it I’ll have a good time but at what cost I was thinking about the past a few days ago dazed and confused fucking my way though an office having become something of a joke an initiation rite for new female employees of a certain age it really did not matter how many women I did at that time don’t you hate that expression as if a person is simply something not someone that is done do me cream me fuck me oh fuck me for having been such an ass during those days truth is that I didn’t have sex with half the women that my reputation might have suggested but I was a kid in a candy store in a diabetic coma in a stupor induced by excess and my mind continues bush is an ass that has no idea what the hell is his doing in Iraq and does not seem to appreciate that we this nation are the cause of terror why do they hate us because we destroyed the order of the world a novo ordo secularum that is vastly inferior to the clear and present oppression that we are ghost writers to we put Hussein into power we put the Shah into power we have been playing poker with smaller countries as part of our chess match with Communism checkmate but the bluff still goes on like Texas hold’em the river has been dealt and we are still playing the cards without regard for the man the cat is crying at my feet he chased me out of the bedroom and attacked by foot as I walked past he is a good puss cat like women you never know what makes them happy but sure as hell can tell when they are pissed I love women but do not understand them but that is part of the charm I admire and adore women but cannot claim to understand them I walked into the coffee room at my former workplace one day and overheard a conversation between two women one that had slept with me the previous week and another that had not who said that she wanted to fuck me I walked in when she said this and could only reply and so you shall my dear but never did no I never did morality confuses me why is sex a bad thing but killing on a massive scale makes for statesmanship unless you are on the wrong side of the battle in which case it becomes a war crime it seems that the whole dilemma is somewhat relative there are no absolutes left in this world Christmas is coming the goose is getting fat bad for the heart I really hate the true spirit of the holiday who really cares that it is an arbitrary declaration of the early Christian church in response to Saturnalia to have a child born of a virgin another ironic statement chastity in the face of accusations of harlotry I don’t grasp the contradictions of the Christian faith which I used to profess and now have regressed to a gentile agnosticism that is disinterested in the question because it is difficult for me to find relevance in the whole issue of God I hate insomnia the problem is