Interpretive paraphrase of James 4:1-3

For those with the faith and courage to really examine the subject, What is the truest, deepest source of the quarrels and conflicts among us?

Is not the source your own conflicting feelings and desires that are quarreling amongst themselves within your own being? - the habitual, largely unconscious impulses that, after years of constant practice, exercise authority in your own muscles, nerves and bones?

In this context, you want this thing. In that context, you want that thing. In the next context, you'll want the next thing: now compassion, now judgment, now justice, now forgiveness, now truth, now rhetoric, now exposure, now avoidance of what is unpleasant. Your desires flow in numerous confusing directions. So when you get something you desire in one context, it is the opposite of what you desire in another. It brings more or less continual frustration, no matter what you get.

That frustration leads to one thing, whether you are willing to face it or not: resentment. Aggression - active or passive. If you can't believe it about yourself, just ask those who spend the most time with you. Do you dare? Do you dare listen to those who criticize you, or do you dare imagine what people would say if they loved you so much that they would be willing to criticize you out of love?

You want what this person has; then you want to be free of what that person is free of. You think it's all about rightness and fairness. You won't let yourself see the rivalry of it. Thus: quarrels and conflicts. All that matters to you is, whose fault is it? You won't let yourself see that it does not matter whose fault it is, or who started it, or who the "real" culprit is. The thing that really matters is that you joined the rivalrous drama - out of envy.

But, really, if you really do not have God's best for you, what is the reason? Did you ever really ask in faith? Did you ever really wait in faith? Do you really believe in a God who has proved himself to be worthy of honesty, asking, and waiting with thankfulness? If not, is it really God's fault? Is your faith as great as you'd like to think it is?

But you say you are a prayerful, or spiritual, or religious person. You HAVE asked God for this and that. But you did not get what you asked for.

Is that the viewpoint that lies deep within you? Then be honest about it. And if you have the faith and courage, ask yourself: is there any other possible viewpoint that might be worth considering? In his great love for you, does God have something to say on the subject that you haven't thought of, but that might be worth hearing?

Is it possible that the God who is eager to shower good things on you is remarkably wise as well as remarkably loving?

My name is Absalom and I approved this message:

"See, your claims are good and right, but no man listens to you on the part of the king... Oh that one would appoint me judge in the land, then every man who has any suit or cause could come to me and I would give him justice."

2 Samuel 15:1-6

Lost In, and Hidden By, the Election

[I first published the following in 2004, but I'm reminded of it every time we near an election. I think it's one of the most important things I've ever written. So I'm offering it again.]

What will be the deciding factor in the elections? So many people have been spending so much energy saying so many of the same old slogans to so many habitual "undecideds” that a lot of really important stuff has got to be getting lost in the rhetorical shuffle.

-The election will be decided on issues and substance (if "our" guy wins)
-The election will be decided on fear, anger or deception (if "their" guy wins)

Those are the two main schools of thought. I’d like to add one more, one that gets virtually no attention at all in the world of public policy hype. This election, as well as several if not all previous ones, might just be decided by - please! I beg for your brief indulgence - spirits.

That word is cumbersome because, like the words flu and religion, it has so many definitions that it is easily manipulated. It appears in front of liquor stores as in, "Wine and Spirits." It is heard at high school pep rallies, which are now called "spirit rallies." Or we hear that someone has a lot of "spirit," as in spunk or energy. Then of course, there are the TV preachers with their Holy and various unholy spirits. But what possible role do spirits play in politics? A very big one, I think.

There are some provocative common threads in the examples I just gave. The booze drinker becomes, in various combinations, looser, sillier or angrier, less bothered, more confident, and eventually, sleepy. Significantly, the condition is not simply physical, emotional or intellectual. The effect of drinking alcohol, and especially of drunkenness, is what we might call a holistic one. Alcohol gets to your essence, wherever that is. We might say that alcohol changes one's "spirit" - one’s indefinable center of gravity. That is why it is called a spirit. To drink it is to, let us say, invite in a new spirit, perhaps along with a new year.

Likewise with a pep rally; what is going on there? Through various chants, cheers, mildly ritualistic bodily movements, and inspirational speeches, students drum up a sort of group identity and group focus which motivates them toward some action, often defeating the other team (!). Much of the effect is conscious and planned, but as with alcohol, there is also a great deal going on beneath the surface. Though pep rallies are usually harmless, it is worth noting that, down through history, similar behaviors have created volatile mobs and irrational frenzies more than once.

In short , the effect is not unlike that produced by alcohol, except that the energies or forces are of a different kind, and there is more group reinforcement. Still, the general tone of the psyche is changed: semi-conscious thoughts are gathered and focused in a certain direction, strong feelings are stirred, and certain inhibitions are dispensed with.

With all this in mind, let me offer a possible contemporary definition for the word spirit, one that accounts for the whole range of nuanced meaning, whether referring to alcohol, pep rallies, energetic children, TV preachers or psychoanalysis.

Spirits are any of various powerful, largely subconscious impulses within people that, crossing ordinary physical, psychological or social boundaries, express themselves inevitably in one’s behavior.

What will decide the election? I want to suggest spirits as a possible subject for consideration. Honestly, I do not see an election as all that rational or conscious a process - for anyone. Do you? If it is so rational, why do most people say they hate negative campaigning when the professionals know negative campaigning “works”? Why would it be so important, as it clearly is, for media types to repeat the same talking points over and over again long after we can repeat them in our sleep? How could there be so many undecided voters when candidates seem so diametrically opposed? What makes otherwise normal people stand in the rain on freeway overpasses, waving and holding up signs, when all of us, no matter who we vote for, always end up disillusioned a year later? How can we get so excited about lawyers, who we despise and ridicule on a daily basis, just because they want to run for office and become even more unaccountable?

I suggest that, largely without our conscious participation, we are imbibing some mysterious booze; we are surrounding ourselves with some covert pep rally. Is there a better way to explain the most disturbing fact of every election season?: with almost no thought, most of us are certain that our own point of view is best, yet all we know of the other side are the usual over-simplifications, half-truths and bogeymen. Would we allow ourselves such blatant stupidity in any other area of our lives (not including sex)?

I don’t think it’s a conspiracy, not in the usual sense of the term, because I think everyone - everyone - is being fooled by it. Through our choice of television shows, films, magazines, websites, books, music, school and church, through our chosen friends and social environments and workplaces - we are spirited in a certain direction.

To me, it's the major reason why governments can never seem to solve one problem without creating another one.

Ten reasons for America's decline that are more significant than politics

In an election year that is so intense,
perhaps it is good to remind ourselves why political change is NEVER the ultimate solution.

Ten reasons for America's decline that are more significant than ALL politics

1. The ineffectiveness of churches in connecting their members to truly transcendent Goodness

2. An undercurrent of distrust, resentment and rivalry between the sexes

3. The inability to discuss differences of opinion without defensiveness

4. Shame without mercy; the inability to face one's own wrongdoing

5. Sophisticated technologies that free body and mind from the challenges they need to mature

6. Too often seeing a lack of funds as the root of an issue, when the lack of money is itself caused by a deeper issue

7. Parents who don't know how to parent and who don't care to learn

8. Replacing real relationships with text messages and chat rooms

9. Ignoring problems when they are still small enough to fix

10. Using complex human beings as symbols of one's own prejudices

A reporter for Peepurr Magazine (looking for a scoop)

Three sheep - trained to form the basis of a huge tripod.

Virtual Proposal

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I.You - that is, our radiant impulses
make the footloose connection with You.Me
Untied web connections untried content
i.you stand upon my.your professionally groomed proper boundaries property
you.i speak with a softfistication that smells to us of groperfumage
i.you am.are non-dim witty
we LaffOutLoud at our InYou-endoes
in you so into you n2u
you.i don’t no me.you
Would It update beyond Re-Cog-Niche-Un
if we went on L(OL)ine?
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[2004]
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When we like or value ourselves
we assume it is because we are inherently likable or valuable.
But when we feel ashamed
we assume it is because someone is humiliating us.

When we act boldly,
we admire our inherent courage.
But when we feel frightened
we assume it is because someone is scaring us.

When we feel love
we assume we are loving, by nature.
But when we reject, ridicule or hate
we assume it is because someone is being intolerable, ridiculous or contemptible.

When we want more money
we assume it is out of legitimate need.
When we give away our goods
we assume it is because we are inherently generous.
But when we are jealous
we assume someone is hoarding and feeling superior.

We have explanations and justifications
for ourselves and those who stand with us.
We have few excuses
for those with whom we will not stand.

When others wage war
we protest war.
When we wage war
We speak of justice.