This was posted by a friend of mine on a FB discussion board, one that seeks to draw together people of varying viewpoints for discussions on interesting topics. Message me if you want in.   

Anyway, I thought this was stunningly well-spoken, and quite striking that the man writing these deep insights is agnostic, having rejected Christianity by early adulthood. (I know him because he is the son of my childhood pastor.)

The topic of the discussion was technically "are people actually rational?" but the thread ended up trailing into the question, "How are Christians to interact with society for the sake of righteousness?" One of the main examples brought to the table by Christians on the forum was gay marriage.  This is an excellent post.  [I have clarified some of the punctuation from the original.]

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Having established all of that [LJR: rational thought/worldview map] - back to the subject of godliness and its expression in a ban on gay marriage.

With all of your set up of Christians affecting their culture for godliness, the one concrete example that came off the top of your head was "ban gay marriage"; not "feed the hungry and clothe the naked" (safety net for the poor), not "take in the strangers" (treating the aliens and immigrants among us justly and well), not "visiting those in prison" (reform of a deeply flawed correctional system), not anything that had to do with using Christian influence to benefit the "least among us" -- in other words, not any of the social issues that Jesus himself listed as being the only issues of importance in dividing the sheep from the goats, the blessed from the damned. Rather, you went right for "don't let the homo's marry."

I think that this illustrates a flaw that has become deeply embedded in Christian's approach to both society and morality - a flaw that is endemic among American evangelicals, but that, to some extent or another, reaches all the way back to the earliest centuries of the church. That flaw is two-fold; first, approaching morality as a fundamentally negative thing - i.e. "don't do this," "that is forbidden," - rather than an essentially positive force, as the example and words of Jesus illustrated over and over -i.e. help the dying man along the road, treat the least of these well to render service unto me, give away all of your goods and follow me.

Secondly, and closely tied to the first, is an unhealthy emphasis on sexual morality above all other concerns - an emphasis that was decidedly lacking in the ministry of Jesus. So long as American Christians remain focused on a negative morality that is overly obsessed with sex, don't look for them to have any significant impact on the godliness of their society.

Last night, Coart & I attended the presentation in Clemson of CARGO, an informative work about the modern-day problem of human trafficking (since "slavery" connotes all the wrong images for the 21st century situation).

It's hard to describe what exactly I saw last night ... I understand now why no one was actually able to explain to me what I was planning to attend when I bought my tickets for CARGO.  My best description thus far: take a Christmas "cantata" (the old-fashioned kind) and replace all of the themes/lyrics about Jesus being born with themes/lyrics about how slavery is bad and we should do something about it.  Honestly, it was a weird mix of medium and message. But that's not my point.

The presenters confronted the audience with several gruesome facts: that there are many more "slaves" in 2010 than there ever were 300 years ago; that 70% of all modern-day victims of human trafficking are women, and 50% of them are under the age of 15. The average age that an American girl gets drawn into prostitution is 13.  And 100,000 children in the USA are believed to be held in some kind of sex-trade/prostitution enslavement.

Last night's presentation raised money (and awareness) for Upsate SC/NC charities like safe houses for women or groups that work to get laws changed. They also had some booths for fair-trade coffee and chocolate, and other information resources.  Economic slavery is a totally different animal than the sex-trade, and I wish the show had taken some time to explain the differences, but it was a good start.

What frustrates me is this: Modern-day trafficking, heinous as it is, presents as merely the fruit of major, underlying, foundational problems in the world economy. This is a highly-nuanced, complex issue.  Girls are lured into the vans of kidnappers because they and their families are promised vast sums of money, far more than the families could ever earn in their impoverished villages (and remember, some of those villages are in the heart of Central and Eastern Europe ... not just Africa and Asia)

The fair-trade movement in the rich Western nations has focused attention on the reality that we can't really expect to get $5/lb coffee beans unless something shady was going on in the supply chain. "If a deal is too good to be true, it probably is." That extends beyond culinary luxuries to cheap Tshirts and tennis shoes too -- and I'm glad Hanes and Nike and other companies have begun publicizing the details of their suppliers in an attempt to eliminate child labor and dangerous working conditions.

But this whole deal is like an unraveling sweater -- pull a single thread and the whole thing starts to fall apart.  "Fair-trade" sneakers cost $100 a pair.  Starbucks coffee is $9/lb.  Now, I don't have to drink Starbucks, and I don't buy brand-name tennis shoes because I'm not some world-class athlete who sprints a couple miles a day. But the economics of the entire world are wrapped up in this question of "what is an ethical business model for a global company?"  

And if we all start buying the expensive fair-trade products, a lot of families in East Asia and elsewhere will starve because those shoddy factories and deadly child labor markets put bread on the table.  Stop buying chocolate harvested by children in West Africa, and you aren't ending slavery --you're just putting a lot of kids out of work. They won't magically be transformed into well-fed school children. They'll just end up dead.

My point? 
Complex issues are ...well, complex. Nuanced. And lodged deeply into foundational problems of the world which need our attention.

I'm glad people are trying to lock up the sickos who kidnap girls to turn them into whores.  I'm glad Western companies are beginning to realize (for whatever cynical reason we'd like to list as the cause) that they need to forego a little profit in the name of human ethics. I just wish we could label causes for what they are.  To discuss issues more than 1/4" deep.

But CARGO was a start.....

Human Trafficking: Prevention

How To Recognize a Trafficked Victim

five year Xanga-versary today. Yup.

Always worth taking time to evaluate / mull over a recently finished enterprise. While The Curious Savage was the brainchild of Mary & Coart much more than me (I just did the graphic design & some backstage work), I can still compile a list....

Useful Tidbits of Life Advice Gleaned During The Curious Savage

• It's useful to observe a different method/point of view firsthand. 
• Practice makes perfect. But if it has anything to do with tech (lights/sound/etc), then practice probably won't make it perfect. lol
• A good show starts with a great script. No exceptions. Doesn't matter how good/bad your actors are; you have to build on the foundation of a good story before you can get anywhere.
• Little kids are cute and adorable. People will come in droves to see them perform badly. Adults don't think teenagers are cute and adorable. It's a lot harder to fill an audience once the actors go through puberty. *coughs*
• People from Boston are just as cool as I expect them to be. What a great city.

Congrats to the outstanding cast & crew of The Curious Savage! You guys did a phenomenal job with a nuanced and challenging script.

Opening night for The Curious Savage went very well tonight, and several people sought me out to say "that was the best show you guys have ever done!" Always happy to hear that. The script is just so strong ... I firmly believe that the secret to a strong show is a strong script. You can't make up for a weak script with great acting -- not really; but a great story will carry itself along despite actors' weaknesses.  I just love the wit in the dialogue for CS; the thought-provoking insights into human nature; the depth and complexity of the characters.

We're praying for strength & health as there are 4 more shows in two days, and the NCS kids have never carried that full of a performance schedule on top of their usual classes. Mercifully we don't have school tomorrow. I'm exhausted and hungry -- never had time to eat supper, so I went from 11:30am till 9:30pm on nothing but a piece of gum & adrenalin.

I think I'm too tired to eat.  Will mollify the stomach in the morning. For now, I need to find my bed before I fall over.

I found myself craving good ol'-fashioned cinnamon toast today -- the kind I used to make as a kid out of that totally nutrition-less-yet-somehow-still-awesome white bread, butter, cinnamon, & sugar. 

Mmmmmmmm..... I miss... it.....

I shall call it "WonderToast"

*****
One week till we open The Curious Savage. Still tons to do, but it's coming together.  Busy days ahead.  Ten days till I get my life back.... lol.

Is it bad to think that way?

*****
Recently began watching the series Mad Men thanks to Netflix. The detailed portrayal of advertising in 1960 has me hooked.  Anyone who doesn't think America needed a movement to adjust the treatment of women in the workplace needs to watch a few episodes. So thankful I've never had to put up with that level of Neanderthal sexism.

*****
How ridiculous is it that all of my friends who are in college are on spring break during my two busiest weeks of the year?

Something inherently unfair about that.

*****
I designed four posters for the current NCS play. I think this one might be my favorite....

More Curious Savage photos here...

I saw someone on FB (I don't know him) who posted his album of play posters -- some of which were done for professional/community theaters -- and it was definitely an ego boost. There are some crappy posters out there in what's supposed to be a professional world.  I wish designing play posters paid my bills. lol

When I teach John Donne to my Brit Lit students each year, I take time to show the class the film W;t, written by Margaret Edson and starring Emma Thompson. The tale of a Donne scholar facing terminal ovarian cancer, the movie helps students grasp the depth of Donne's themes without drowning them in 17th Century metaphysical conceits. It's an excellent film.

It's also a very difficult film for me to watch.  I usually detach my emotions when I watch it -- after all, I'm in class and it's not my general M.O. to cry in public (ever) or in front of students (especially). But Vivian's dilemma is a real one to me -- she trudges through the hell we call chemo, and suffers greatly in the name of "treatment." Cancer is a horrible disease.

I was thinking today of the phone call I got in my dorm room my senior year in college ... Mum was starting a second round of chemo in her battle against recurring breast cancer.  It's such an insidious, rude disease. "They" say that if you make it 5 years cancer-free, your survival rate is 80%.  Apparently Mum was one of the unlucky 20%, for despite 8 healthy years after her first onset of cancer, the beast returned with a vengeance to chew up her remaining short life.

The first 6 months of chemo (which fell during my junior year of college) were bad. I've always felt a little guilty that I wasn't home then to help my dad take care of my mom.  I think I might make different choices now, given the chance to redo it ... but my parents were insistent that nothing interrupt my education. I think they would have physically thrown me out of the house rather than let me stay home from college so I'm not sure that my regrets have much foundation in reality. I've commented on here before about the incredible sacrifices my parents made on my behalf; this is somehow a capstone.

Mum had a good summer in 1995, when the first round of chemo was over and her hair started coming back -- growing in thick ringlets (that was new) and completely gray instead of flaming red (in case you've ever wondered where my temper comes from LOL). She was healthy enough to come all the way to SC from PA to see me at Thanksgiving my senior year, and meet Coart's mom. (Coart & I started dating in '95.)

I wasn't stupid; I knew recurring cancer is bad news.  But that didn't soften the blow much when our conversation in February of '96 turned to life and death. "I'm not going to take any more chemo," Mum told me.  The first dose was bad enough of the second round of hell-as-medicine.  After three days lying on the bathroom floor (to be close to the toilet during all the dry heaves), Mom had come to the decision that enough was enough.  This life is not THAT precious.

I can't really explain how it feels to be 21 years old and have your mother tell you that she's done.  My mom was 39 when I was born, so I knew she would come to the end of things before my friends' parents would, but this was too much. I didn't understand. Why wasn't she fighting? I would fight, I thought. I wouldn't just quit.

I understand her a lot better now.  Faced with equally bad choices of dying soon of cancer or dying later of the treatment, she chose to let it end sooner.  It still ended up being a horrible 6 months -- the chemo plus the advancing cancer triggered a stroke, and if I could delete my memories of those visits in the hospital and nursing home, I honestly would. Really.  That wasn't my mother as I want to remember her -- a strong, beautiful woman. 

Truly, this life is not so dear that I would fight for it at any cost.  If I'm going to die (and I will), I might have no control over the circumstances. But I don't have to be a slave to them either.  I'm glad that Mum stepped up to say, "I'm done."  She knew that Glory lay before her; she knew that she had prayed for the years to raise me to adulthood, and God had given her those 8 years. 

I'm positive that historians will shudder at our barbaric cancer treatments as they write their new textbooks in 200 or 500 years.

Today would have been my mother's 74th birthday -- March 3rd.  I usually write about my parents on their birth and death days.  Humor me -- memories are all I've got right now.  I've said it many times -- the worst part of death is that it literally removes someone from our daily lives. No one talks about them. No one weaves them into the fabric of our lives any longer. It was not meant to be that way . . . .

I look forward to a good reunion in Aslan's Country.

I thought about titling this note "Notes Squared." lol

I don't usually get to see the same play 4 times unless I'm in it, directing it, managing it, or somehow in charge of worrying about something connected to it (which tends to destroy my appreciation). Thus, such a refreshing change to simply enjoy seeing Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground staged at NCS this past weekend.  John & the Devil's Advocate Players brought a wonderful show to our town.  I'm just sorry that so few people (relatively) ended up in the audience. [Sometimes I swear Anderson is a cultural wasteland. But even in this, God ordains our steps. *shrugs*  We tried.]

Anyway, I needed to see all 4 shows to really wrap my head around Dostoevsky's words.  Their general gist made sense at the first run, mostly because the actors did their job. And the second half was so striking that it gripped my imagination, making further contemplation somewhat simpler.  We don't usually get to see someone who's that much of a jerk be so honest about his depravity.  Unless, of course, you're reading Flannery. Then you get the thieving Bible salesman, the drifter who abandons a mentally handicapped girl in a diner, the self-righteous racist old lady.  Those folks would loathe Dostoevsky's Underground Man and shift over a few seats in the coffee shop if he happened to walk in and start his tirade.... but he merely "has the courage to act out what they only conceive in their hearts."

Anyway, as I sorted through the lines more smoothly each night, I noticed that Notes, unlike other plays I've watched multiple times, seemed to fly by much faster each time.  The ideas were so thick, they really did slow you down during your first hearing. Once the lightbulb clicked on and the words grew familiar, they soared. (Or plummeted, since this wasn't exactly a happy show.)

It's been funny to watch people's reactions to Notes from Underground. The play is disturbing. If you understand what Dostoevsky is saying, you will be disgusted and angry that his assessment of the human condition is accurate. We want preachers to confront the "world" with its sin.  But as a Christian culture, we can't stand to have anyone talk about OUR sin. Um, no.... that's icky. And inappropriate. (The irony is amazing.)

Americans, of all people, don't need to hunger after more 'escapist' storytelling. We have enough money, sex, and pleasure to dull our senses past all feeling.  "We must first be offended by the Gospel before we can ever bow the knee to King Jesus," says my friend (and John's pastor) Brad.  

Indeed. 

Current thoughts positioning themselves in my mind for followup & reflection:

• How do I ignore or downplay my own sin nature when evaluating myself?  Am I more likely to seek salvation through self-loathing or self-righteousness? (Honestly, I think I sample both approaches in some kind of twisted buffet of bad thinking.)  The Gospel is bigger than the Fall. Shout it from the roof!

• What would the Underground Man do if he ran into someone as absolutely mean & evil as himself? would it be some kind of cosmic battle of Evil vs Evil? What if Leza had fought back?
• Irony is a powerful device in storytelling. To me, it is the most powerful. I think that's why "Apropos of the Falling Snow" struck me so hard the first night.
• It's hard to get adults to buy tickets for shows that demand mental effort. Maybe it's because parents are always so busy investing time and money in making their kids think. Maybe it's just the bum economy. But it's tough to get people to put down money for anything that won't be "entertainment."  [Don't read my words too harshly -- this is a brutal time of year, and I myself often miss really good shows because I can't afford the money for tickets or the time out of my schedule. I'm just noting a general trend over the past few years, in my experience.]
• What place should cold honesty have in our cultural expressions?  I don't want to be a (neo)Platonist ... but there is something to the idea that you learn to appreciate the good/true/beautiful by being exposed to the good/true/beautiful. What's the balance? What about in the classroom?
• John's sweater looked really hot. [That's "one-T hot" ... as in "I hate wearing sweaters when it's actually cold outside. Wearing one during a performance would be hell."'] LOL
•  Perception and insight aren't connected to age. And great stories speak to all ages. What other hard-but-good ideas should be brought to the stage so more people have access to them? 

That's not a bad start. ha!

Am also thinking about the multiple roles of fathers and mothers as they image God to their children ... my own interests in the arts of various kinds... lots of graphic design stuff for Curious Savage .... the high interest level that new friendship brings to conversation ... and why our church's coffee always seems to be so bleh. lol

Thanks to today's world of instant video uploading, I can show you this.

And this

And finally this

Tomorrow will be "Warrior Day" at NCS, and there's no telling what craziness will emerge once the dust has settled.  Yes, my school IS better than yours and it might have something to do with the fact that when the going gets tough, we get a little silly.

Pondering what strange sights might fill the halls tomorrow, I find myself drifting through memories of previous years' special dress days.  The high school student council calls one whenever we seem to need it.  This is February; ergo, we muchly need some cheerfulness and enthusiasm.

The first special-dress day was more of a practical joke than anything else. A student (or two or seven, I can't really remember) had the idea of provoking a reaction out of the current headmaster Dennis Bills by getting everyone to "dress like Goth kids."  It worked brilliantly; stories from that day live as legends in NCS lore (and on my Xanga).

It might just be nostalgia, but NCS special dress days really hit a peak in 2006 and 2007. I'm not sure what odd alchemy within the student body brought together a perfect storm of personalities suited toward dressing like crazy people as an excuse to get out of wearing school uniform clothing. But the result was Failed Superhero Day, Barbarian Day (still my favorite), Your Favorite Halloween Costume Memories, and other gems.  Who could forget the Swamp Monkey Head incident? Or BOTH Sam Martin and Taylor Stone showing up at school dressed like carrots? How many carrots could one expect at a school with barely 100 students?!

Last year, Dress Like Your Opposite definitely won for "freakiest moments." It's just ... unsettling... to come across doppelganger incarnations of people you know really well.  Especially when they suddenly turn nerdy. Or redneck. lol

Sometimes great ideas come from the younger grades. My 7th grade drama students from a few years ago were studying Objectives and Tactics. Their project was to convince Mr Thames (objective + tactics) to let them sponsor "Ninja Day" at NCS. Their tactics worked, and we had a rollicking game of "ninjas stealing each other's hidden paper clips."  Ok, so it's not a normal game, but it made the day a lot more fun. 

The longest-running special dress day in NCS history has to be International Talk Like a Pirate Day every year on September 19th. Some guy started the tradition in honor of his ex-wife (hahahahahahaha) and the rest of us reap the benefits of his sense of irony. That first year, upperclassmen pirates raided classrooms to kidnap hapless students and put them through a grueling pirate competition, forcing the losers to walk the plank. Or something like that.  The photos bring back great memories.

There's no telling what will show up on my Xanga tomorrow after Warrior Day. I promise that if there are any hilarious moments, I'll post them.

New Covenant School: Things are different here.