Calacirian

The bright blue sedan sped merrily down that major artery; providing oxygen on an otherwise dreary journey into the city. Small and fuel-efficent, there were a number of profiles the driver might fit into. But it was the array of festive bumper stickers that made the car merry. They were happy; cheeky. Then there was the central sticker, located under the brake light: “I pray that God isn’t too picky.”

Hmmmm …

That one made me think of the firestorm that has recently engulfed the social media world (blogs, twitter, facebook) concerning a certain book by a certain young cheeky pastor (Rockstar) and his (potential) views on Hell and who might go there.

I never planned to write about this one. I don’t care about it. Mostly, I’m no theologian. The finer points that these people are arguing make my head spin and in a world where much more interesting things are happening (like democracies emerging in the Middle East) and tragedies must be observed (Japan), my poor brain has very little space left over for jots and tittles. But then, along sped this merry little automobile and I began to think.

Why is it that the Gospel, the so-called Good News, has become this? Yay! When you die, you don’t go to your room. If you are very, very lucky or something … you get to go to God’s room.

Now. I know that a bunch of people are going to come on here in comments to correct my description of the Gospel. Yep. You are all probably correct. I’m not talking about that. I’m writing about what our popular culture HEARS from the church. Because it doesn’t matter what we think we’re saying. What matters is what people hear. If what people hear sounds like the teachers/adults in a Charlie Brown television special, why then it doesn’t really matter what Rockstar writes (good, bad or ugly) or what his detractors say about him … because the only people listening are the choir.

The church is now arguing over how many camels will fit on the head of a pin … really?

This year has been interesting here in the LightHouse. By year, I mean calendar year. The year which began on January 1, 2011.

One could speculate that it all really began back in the holiday season of 2010. Yep, I think that’s where I’ll start.

We were busy (as usual) prepping for Christmas, getting gifts sent. Purchasing gifts for each other and friends. Wrapping, decorating, baking. Best of all, anticipating the arrival of LightMom and TheGrandPea for a Christmas visit. We love having my parents visit and hanging out with them. There aren’t a lot of expectations and we just take things as they come. There was one thing I wanted to do; I wanted to see True Grit with both my parents, but especially with my dad. We both love westerns, you see (so does my mom) and I remembered that he had seen the original when it came out.

Something was off though. Something with me. I was walking through thigh deep water and could not get myself together. Plus I had a horrible cough that would not let go. When LightMom says, “You really need to see the doctor.” Yep. You make the call. Off I went. And came home with a diagnosis of pneumonia.

That just takes all the fun out of everything.

So, I spent January recovering from pneumonia. It’s a long slow boring slog.

LightHusband (in the meantime) was having a series of treatments on his back which left him … well … on his back for most of January and February. A home with two teenagers and no drivers for the better part of a month was … ahhhh … interesting. We muddled through, but none of us are really sure how that happened.

Along came March and I got sick AGAIN! This time no pneumonia, just an ordinary upper respiratory infection/bronchitisy kind of thing. The problem was that my lungs had not fully recovered from the pneumonia and it put me flat on my back because I couldn’t breath. This time though I fought the beast hard. I sequestered myself in our guest room with not one, but two vaporizers going. LightHusband brought me a television and meals. And that’s where I was for about 18 – 20 hours a day for the better part of a week.

Now one would think (being an introvert and all) that being alone in a room for 18 – 20 hours a day would be heaven. And I won’t deny that there are parts of that journey that I loved. I loved being able to say, “I’m going away now for awhile, I need to rest.” Sometimes that rest was just as much mental/emotional as it was physical. But, that room got awfully tiny after a while and I wanted to be out and around people. It got lonely in that room. When you have to make a hot, steamy environment for yourself, people don’t like to visit too often … even when they are family. And, like all sick rooms, apparently it began to take on a certain aroma, defined by LightHusband as “sweat and stale bananas.” I told him that it was the tropical atmosphere …

One thing it did give me was a lot of time to think … and read. I’ve been reading a lot about what’s going politically and economically in our country. No surprise there. And I am disturbed. Deeply, profoundly disturbed. The progress and protections that were put in place for children, for women, for the disenfranchised of all ilk in the 20th century are being attacked at every level … both in state and federal legislation. I cannot keep quiet any longer.

I started this blog July 2005 as an exercise in community. I am no longer a member of that community and have not been for four years this week. The focus changed and for a long time I wrote about the state of the church and often about women in the church. There’s not much more for me to say about that here. It’s been said. And I think that is why my pen (keyboard) has been still for so long. I haven’t had anything new to say.

Calaciriya is a place. A mythical place to be sure. But a place nonetheless. It is a place that is noted but once in the Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Rings (I think on page 229?). The translation of the name is “Ravine of Light.” And that is where this blog gets it’s name and it’s focus from … to be light shining in darkness. To be a place of light. A place where we can be reminded of who we are, who we are meant to be and what we can strive for. So the minutae of this blog is going to change and I will be writing more from a justice perspective. How does love (sometimes specifically Christian love) intersect in the public sphere to create justice? What does that look like now and what could it look like?

What, indeed, are we striving for?

One of the best new things about this school year has been that I’m teaching/leading a class with some of the LightChildren’s peers.  We started out with about 15 students, and we’re down to about 8 or 9 now.  That’s okay because we’re intense and learning a lot.  It’s a philosophy class.  We’re using a text book called (without much inspiration), Philosophy For Teens:  Questioning Life’s Big Ideas.  It’s a really good text which is introducing the kids to a lot of great philosophers and (yeah, I’ll say it) big ideas.  Lately class has consisted of the kids reading the chapter and then we discuss the ideas contained therein.  This unit of four chapters is focusing on justice and began with a chapter on civil rights (Malcomb X).  The chapter we discussed the other day moved to animal rights.  That chapter opened with a dialogue between two boys about whether one of them had the right to force his dog to jump through a burning hoop and withhold food when the animal refused to comply.

So.  Of course, I opened our discussion with cell phones.  All of the students have one.  I wanted to know how they took care of their cell phones (there was a range of caring from downright love to abuse), how they would respond if their cell phone was lost or mangled, and how they would respond if/when the cell phone was replaced.  We talked about that for a while and I moved them to an understanding of the idea that cell phones are “property.”  They got that.  Everyone was happy.  But I sucked in my breath because I knew what I was about to do and it was going to be hard.

I asked them to think about our last class when we talked about civil rights and slavery.  I asked them to take a moment and consider all of the ideas we had just expressed about property as they concerned our cell phones and apply those ideas to human beings as slaves.  Everyone stopped for just a few seconds.  Most of the kids didn’t quite know where to put their eyes.  One even said, “Wow.  This isn’t so funny when we’re talking about people.”  Then we spent a few minutes talking about how just as there had been a spectrum of care for cell phones, there was a spectrum of care for slaves.  That most people throughout history had been considered property at one time or another (feudalism) and that slavery has existed in many forms.  We talked about slavery today (sex trade and child warriors).  I recommended “Half the Sky” by Nicholas Kristoff to them because if they can handle this discussion, they can more than handle that book.

We needed a break at this point.  I knew ahead of time that this class was going to be hard and uncomfortable.  That my wonderful students were going to need some sustenance and assistance to get through this.  So I made brownies for them to have at break (it’s a two hour class).  There’s nothing like a brownie to boost your spirits and keep you going during a rough spot.  If I’d had my whole act together, I’d have had milk for them to drink with the brownies.  But I only had half my act together.  They all wanted the brownie recipe … so here it is, because some of you might need some sustenance too.  I got the original here, but I tinkered with it and my tinkering is below:

Brownies From Heaven

• 1 cup butter or margarine
• 6 (1 ounce) squares unsweetened chocolate (I used Ghirardelli)
• 4 eggs
• 1 cups white sugar
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 cups whole-wheat flour (I used King Arthur)
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• confectioners’ sugar

1. In a saucepan over low heat, melt butter and chocolate; cool for 10 minutes.
2.  In a mixing bowl, beat eggs with wire whisk.  Add sugars, vanilla and salt, beating after each addition with whisk.
3.  Stir in the chocolate mixture. Add flour and nuts; mix well.
>4.  Pour into a greased 11-in. x 7-in. x 2-in. baking dish. Bake at 325 degrees F for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out with moist crumbs. Cool.

I think peanut butter frosting or adding chocolate chips to this would be even more heavenly … but I didn’t have the chance to try either of those.  Ohhh … or I might add dried cherries and cream cheese frosting the next time I make these.  Yum!

Weren’t those good?  Are you revived enough to continue our discussion?  Well, the students were.  I told you … they are great kids.  I am really privileged to have the opportunity to meet with them, hear their ideas, and share mine with them.

After the break we carried on and moved to animal rights.  We talked about how animals are different from humans.  They are not really sentient beings and some cannot care for themselves, so we must care for them.  We talked about their relative intelligence and shared our favorite pet stories.  I shared some information from this sort of creepy article on crows and how they can recognize humans, pass on information to future generations and generally are smarter than you think.  This lead to a discussion on what rights should we give animals in the wild (i.e. wolves vs. sheep in our western states).  We talked about how it’s uncomfortable but okay to discuss euthanizing an animal, but that sort of discussion is off the table for people.  So we ended up in a place where we agreed that animals occupy a grey area.  They have rights, but they are sort of property … sort of.  It’s something we will probably discuss again.

Interestingly, at the very end of class one of the students wondered what would happen to a grizzly bear that had killed a man.  We joked about sentencing the bear to jail … the zoo.  Until the kids realized that wasn’t so funny.  Then another student wondered about dogs who had been so abused that they attacked people.  What happened to those animals.  Could they be redeemed?  And we decided that some could.  But some cannot.  So they decided that the ones who cannot should be euthanized.  So, I asked them … what should we do about the very real problem of criminals who cannot be rehabilitated?  What do we do with those individuals who are repeat offenders, who do their time in prison, but get out and are worse … sexual offenders, murderers, etc.?  I asked them to think about that and we’ll pick it up there at the next class.

But I have to say … these kids are fearless.

As long as I give them brownies.