On my way home from work yesterday I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things (bread, tea, juice) and to get a birthday card for my father. I’d already looked for a card in three other stores and hadn’t found one I liked. I was anticipating having to look through every card in the rack, again not finding one that I liked, finding two that were okay, endlessly vacillating between them, and all in all spending way too much time in the card aisle and not even being satisfied in the end. That’s pretty much every card-buying experience I’ve ever had.
Instead of that, though, I went to the card aisle and the very first card I picked up was exactly the one that I wanted. Somewhat stunned, I got the other things that I needed, not even minding so much that they were out of my usual bread, and left the store.
Outside the sun had set and it was cold, but not frigid. The now-familiar tang of piñon smoke came to me across the hazy twilight. I inhaled deeply, then looked up through the bare branches of the cottonwood trees and was gobsmacked by the sight of the huge, nearly-full moon rising over Sandia Peak. I put my grocery bag down and just stood there, watching the moon until it disappeared behind a low-hanging cloud.
Then I went to my car, and when I started it up I was just in time to hear the opening riff of “Sweet Child o’ Mine” on the radio. You know, Guns N’ Roses had a checkered career both musically and otherwise, but at their best they were one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll bands on the planet, and “Sweet Child” is GN’R at their absolute best. I fucking love that song, man. And it was the album version, not the radio edit, so for six minutes I sat in my car totally rocking out and not caring if the people passing by thought I was weird or insane. Then I went home.
I just want to thank the Universe for handing me that short span of time in which things were really good.
January 25, 2005
January 24, 2005
I don't even know where the Caucasus IS.
A week ago was Martin Luther King Day, a day that always provokes a lot of thought and discussion about color, race, and ethnicity. There’s a bit of irony in that, since Dr. King dreamed--as do most of us, I think--of a society in which those things don’t matter. Of course, despite the progress we’ve made since the beginning of the civil rights movement, we’re not even close to having such a society, and so we continue to talk about race. Depending on the context, sometimes that’s a bad thing and sometimes it’s a good thing.
In addition to MLK Day, a couple of other things have had me thinking about race. I finally got around to watching a PBS documentary about Los Angeles that I taped weeks ago, and it had a lot to say about that city’s ever-changing mosaic of ethnicities and the relationships among them. (Strange thing: when I was younger I had nothing but contempt for L.A.; as I’ve gotten older I’ve become deeply fascinated by and even enamored of it.) Then there was Jamie Foxx’s win at the Golden Globes for Ray, along with Don Cheadle’s nomination for Hotel Rwanda. (Judging by the audience, Cheadle was the popular favorite, and I kept imagining that if he’d won as well as Foxx, Julia Roberts would have popped up out of the stage to tell us that she loves her life.) There was also a recent experience with my bank, an erroneously bounced check, and white privilege. Actually, I was going to write something about that, but it seemed too serious, and as serious a subject as race can be, I’m not in the mood to be all that serious about it right now.
So, there was also the 20 minutes or so of The Big Lebowski that I watched as I was eating breakfast on Sunday. I’d seen it before (underrated movie, by the way) and was on my way out so I didn’t watch the whole thing, but it was near the beginning where Jeff Bridges refers to the guy who peed on his rug as a “Chinaman”, and then John Goodman says something to the effect of the “preferred nomenclature” being “Asian-American”. In our politically correct age we often have to negotiate the pitfalls of preferred nomenclature, and even when you’re sensitive to it, the nuances can be tricky. I’m not entirely sure, for instance, why some people seem to prefer “African American” over “African-American” (i.e., non-hypenated versus hyphenated). To me, they connote different things: an African-American is an American of (black) African ancestry (which is generally what we’re talking about when we use the phrase), while an African American is an American who emigrated from Africa. This is obviously a grey area, though, which is why Snoop Dogg can make a joke about how Charlize Theron should give him a call, because they have so much in common: they’re both African American.
Since moving to the Southwest, I’ve noted that while the American Indians I knew in the Northeast seemed universally to disdain the term “Native American” (and to prefer “Indian”), out here it’s “Native American” that takes preference (so far as I can tell). I’ve also gotten straight on the fact that “Hispanic” and “Latino” are not interchangeable, since “Hispanic” includes natives of Spain and those of immediate Spanish descent, while “Latino” refers only to emigrants from Latin America and their descendants.
None of those terms applies to me, so I don’t really feel entitled to an opinion about them. (Note that I didn’t say I don’t have one, just that I don’t feel entitled to it.) But I’d like to talk about a term that does apply to me: Caucasian. I’ve heard it on numerous occasions recently (which is what got me thinking about it), in various contexts, from the playful (like Jamie Foxx’s acceptance speech) to the serious (like the L.A. documentary). And here’s what I think: it’s a doofy-ass word, and it’s time we got rid of it. It’s a holdover from a time when scientists believed that all humans could be categorized as one of 3 races, which they termed Mongoloid, Negroid, and Caucasoid. They’ve since realized that things are far more complex than that, and indeed have begun to question whether race is even a viable scientific construct. Plus, “Caucasoid” and the sibling that replaced it in popular speech, “Caucasian”, were never accurate terms to begin with, since the theory that the peoples they described originated in the Caucasus region of Eurasia proved false.
In modern American English, of course, “Caucasian” is a synonym for “white”. It would surprise the scientists who coined it to learn that it was being used in this way, and it would surprise most people who use it nowadays to learn that it originally included a lot of folks who aren’t considered white, including the peoples of North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. (It would no doubt surprise a lot of white Americans to know that whiteness itself is a flexible concept, and that if their ancestors came from places like Italy, Ireland, and Poland, they weren’t considered white when they got here.)
But anyway, the fact that “Caucasian” and “white” are synonymous obviates the need for both, so I’m voting we dump Caucasian. To me, it’s like “Negro” or “Oriental”: not offensive, exactly, but clunky, anachronistic, and weird. It just grates when I hear it in a sentence. If it’s being employed for comedic effect, that’s different, but no one should use it seriously.
Another synonym for “white” as it’s used in Present-Day English is “European” (or “of European ancestry”). I’m hardly going to be offended if someone refers to me as white, but I like the term “European-American” better. “African(-)American” came into use as a means of identifying people by their ethnic ancestry rather than the color of their skin, which--as long as we have to keep sticking people into categories--I think is a good idea. So I started using “European-American” to describe myself some time ago, but people always kind of looked at me funny…in many cases I think they thought I was making some sort of sardonic comment on “African-American”, which was totally not the case. Lately, though, I’ve started to see “European-American” or variations thereof popping up on forms and stuff. Usually it’s something like “White/European”. I’m trying to encourage it.
At the very least, though, let’s get people to quit with “Caucasian”.
In addition to MLK Day, a couple of other things have had me thinking about race. I finally got around to watching a PBS documentary about Los Angeles that I taped weeks ago, and it had a lot to say about that city’s ever-changing mosaic of ethnicities and the relationships among them. (Strange thing: when I was younger I had nothing but contempt for L.A.; as I’ve gotten older I’ve become deeply fascinated by and even enamored of it.) Then there was Jamie Foxx’s win at the Golden Globes for Ray, along with Don Cheadle’s nomination for Hotel Rwanda. (Judging by the audience, Cheadle was the popular favorite, and I kept imagining that if he’d won as well as Foxx, Julia Roberts would have popped up out of the stage to tell us that she loves her life.) There was also a recent experience with my bank, an erroneously bounced check, and white privilege. Actually, I was going to write something about that, but it seemed too serious, and as serious a subject as race can be, I’m not in the mood to be all that serious about it right now.
So, there was also the 20 minutes or so of The Big Lebowski that I watched as I was eating breakfast on Sunday. I’d seen it before (underrated movie, by the way) and was on my way out so I didn’t watch the whole thing, but it was near the beginning where Jeff Bridges refers to the guy who peed on his rug as a “Chinaman”, and then John Goodman says something to the effect of the “preferred nomenclature” being “Asian-American”. In our politically correct age we often have to negotiate the pitfalls of preferred nomenclature, and even when you’re sensitive to it, the nuances can be tricky. I’m not entirely sure, for instance, why some people seem to prefer “African American” over “African-American” (i.e., non-hypenated versus hyphenated). To me, they connote different things: an African-American is an American of (black) African ancestry (which is generally what we’re talking about when we use the phrase), while an African American is an American who emigrated from Africa. This is obviously a grey area, though, which is why Snoop Dogg can make a joke about how Charlize Theron should give him a call, because they have so much in common: they’re both African American.
Since moving to the Southwest, I’ve noted that while the American Indians I knew in the Northeast seemed universally to disdain the term “Native American” (and to prefer “Indian”), out here it’s “Native American” that takes preference (so far as I can tell). I’ve also gotten straight on the fact that “Hispanic” and “Latino” are not interchangeable, since “Hispanic” includes natives of Spain and those of immediate Spanish descent, while “Latino” refers only to emigrants from Latin America and their descendants.
None of those terms applies to me, so I don’t really feel entitled to an opinion about them. (Note that I didn’t say I don’t have one, just that I don’t feel entitled to it.) But I’d like to talk about a term that does apply to me: Caucasian. I’ve heard it on numerous occasions recently (which is what got me thinking about it), in various contexts, from the playful (like Jamie Foxx’s acceptance speech) to the serious (like the L.A. documentary). And here’s what I think: it’s a doofy-ass word, and it’s time we got rid of it. It’s a holdover from a time when scientists believed that all humans could be categorized as one of 3 races, which they termed Mongoloid, Negroid, and Caucasoid. They’ve since realized that things are far more complex than that, and indeed have begun to question whether race is even a viable scientific construct. Plus, “Caucasoid” and the sibling that replaced it in popular speech, “Caucasian”, were never accurate terms to begin with, since the theory that the peoples they described originated in the Caucasus region of Eurasia proved false.
In modern American English, of course, “Caucasian” is a synonym for “white”. It would surprise the scientists who coined it to learn that it was being used in this way, and it would surprise most people who use it nowadays to learn that it originally included a lot of folks who aren’t considered white, including the peoples of North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. (It would no doubt surprise a lot of white Americans to know that whiteness itself is a flexible concept, and that if their ancestors came from places like Italy, Ireland, and Poland, they weren’t considered white when they got here.)
But anyway, the fact that “Caucasian” and “white” are synonymous obviates the need for both, so I’m voting we dump Caucasian. To me, it’s like “Negro” or “Oriental”: not offensive, exactly, but clunky, anachronistic, and weird. It just grates when I hear it in a sentence. If it’s being employed for comedic effect, that’s different, but no one should use it seriously.
Another synonym for “white” as it’s used in Present-Day English is “European” (or “of European ancestry”). I’m hardly going to be offended if someone refers to me as white, but I like the term “European-American” better. “African(-)American” came into use as a means of identifying people by their ethnic ancestry rather than the color of their skin, which--as long as we have to keep sticking people into categories--I think is a good idea. So I started using “European-American” to describe myself some time ago, but people always kind of looked at me funny…in many cases I think they thought I was making some sort of sardonic comment on “African-American”, which was totally not the case. Lately, though, I’ve started to see “European-American” or variations thereof popping up on forms and stuff. Usually it’s something like “White/European”. I’m trying to encourage it.
At the very least, though, let’s get people to quit with “Caucasian”.
January 14, 2005
I got lubed by a hot guy
I took Marylou to Jiffy Lube yesterday for her three-month oil change (if it's not obvious, Marylou is my car...she's named both for the character in On the Road and a favorite singer-songwriter of mine, Mary Lou Lord) and I thought the guy who--ahem--serviced me was totally hot. Why is this a blogworthy event? Because, excluding celebrities, I see a guy that I think is hot like once every...I'm gonna say two years. The last time I remember seeing one was actually about two-and-a-half years ago, I think. My friend Jessica, singer-songwriter par excellence and my former bandmate, was playing a show in NYC and there was a guy at the bar who looked like Chris Cornell (Soundgarden, Audioslave) with a bit of Colin Farrell thrown in (not, fortunately, the eyebrow bit). Hot.
The Jiffy Lube guy, whose name was Tim, was a 50/50 cross between Edward Norton and John Cusack, but with black hair and blue eyes. I think both Norton and Cusack are good-looking men, but more importantly I like them both a lot as actors, which I think was informing my attraction to Tim. Also, black hair/blue eyes is something of a magic combo for me, which helps explain my burning lust for Lauren Graham (of Gilmore Girls). That, and her smokin' bod.
Yeah, don't mind me. The long, cold, lonely winter nights are getting to me, is all.
The Jiffy Lube guy, whose name was Tim, was a 50/50 cross between Edward Norton and John Cusack, but with black hair and blue eyes. I think both Norton and Cusack are good-looking men, but more importantly I like them both a lot as actors, which I think was informing my attraction to Tim. Also, black hair/blue eyes is something of a magic combo for me, which helps explain my burning lust for Lauren Graham (of Gilmore Girls). That, and her smokin' bod.
Yeah, don't mind me. The long, cold, lonely winter nights are getting to me, is all.
January 12, 2005
Music alert: Shivaree
When I discover good music that I've not heard before, I like to share it with people. And what better forum than this? Um, well...maybe one that people actually read, but...you know. I also like it when people share good music with me, so fire away anytime you've got something.
Shivaree takes their name from an Anglicized French word meaning (according to Dictionary.com) "a noisy mock serenade for newlyweds", and their singer's name is Ambrosia Parsley, so how can you not love them? Imagine a whiskey-drunk Christina Amphlett possessed by the spirit of Billie Holiday and singing Kurt Weill songs at a dive bar in Buenos Aires. Their website calls them "strange, sultry, darkly comic, and constantly changing", and from what I've heard I agree. Listen to clips of all the songs from their new record at the site, or check out this one for a few full-length streams from a previous record.
Shivaree takes their name from an Anglicized French word meaning (according to Dictionary.com) "a noisy mock serenade for newlyweds", and their singer's name is Ambrosia Parsley, so how can you not love them? Imagine a whiskey-drunk Christina Amphlett possessed by the spirit of Billie Holiday and singing Kurt Weill songs at a dive bar in Buenos Aires. Their website calls them "strange, sultry, darkly comic, and constantly changing", and from what I've heard I agree. Listen to clips of all the songs from their new record at the site, or check out this one for a few full-length streams from a previous record.
January 11, 2005
Racial profiling? You make the call.
So, I’m trying to be vigilant. That’s how we’re supposed to help fight terrorism, right? Keep our eyes open, report anything suspicious or weird? Narc on our neighbors and whatnot? Actually, despite the Orwellian implications, I think it’s generally a good idea. People mostly tend to be oblivious to…you know, everything, and disinclined to act even if they do notice something. Although I’m a pretty observant person--I like to think I have a writer’s eye--I’m often guilty of the latter, mostly because I don’t trust my instincts, or I think I’m just being silly if I feel like something’s wrong. I’m trying not to do that, both for my sake and everyone else’s.
For example, last summer I was coming out of the post office in Manhattan--the huge one across from Penn Station--and I noticed two large--LARGE--suitcases sitting in the middle of the steps. They didn’t seem to belong to anyone. Mind you, there will people everywhere--it was lunch hour, and a beautiful day, so the steps were crowded with people sitting and eating as well as going in and out of the post office. But the bags were just sitting there, and no one seemed to notice. I stood there for a little bit to see if anyone would retrieve them. I thought about calling 911 but that definitely seemed excessive. I looked around for a cop but of course I didn’t see one. I remembered a few years back, when I was sitting in a Paris train station and a guy sitting near me left his briefcase for like one second to go grab a schedule or something, and immediately the case was surrounded by three or four assault-rifle-wielding soldiers. This was way before 9/11 or the Madrid bombing or anything like that. People love to make fun of the French and especially the French military, but let me tell you, they’re on top of shit.
Anyway, I went back into the post office and sort of wandered around, looking for someone I might tell, but again there were no cops, and there were long lines at all of the windows. I went back outside and looked at the bags again. By now they’d been there for at least 20 minutes, and it’s pretty hard to imagine someone legitimately leaving their possessions alone like that in the middle of New York friggin City. Now I was really going to call 911, but then I remembered that there was a police substation right across the street. So I walked to the corner to cross, and then I see this guy come running up out of the subway station, run over to the bags and grab them, then disappear back down into the subway. It was very odd. In any event, I decided not to tell the cops, and since the subway didn’t blow up, I guess it was all right.
That was my only experience with being on the front lines of the War Against Terror, until recently when I was returning from my trip back East for the holidays. I flew into and out of Newark, where things always seem a little bit more tense than they do at other airports. I mean, it’s where Flight 93 took off from, so I guess it’s understandable. And after having to remove every article of clothing that wasn’t in direct contact with my skin in order to get through security, and then passing a dude spread-eagled against the wall and surrounded by cops, I was feeling a little tense myself. So as I was waiting in line to board my flight, I glanced over at a row of empty seats and I noticed a book sitting there. It was softcover, about the size of a magazine, like the workbooks we used to use in school. It had a maroon cover, and yellow writing in Arabic. There was nobody anywhere near it.
Now, maybe it was a workbook. Maybe somebody was learning Arabic, something I’ve thought about doing myself, and accidentally left their book behind. Maybe any one of a number of other plausible, non-terror related reasons for the book being there was true. But you know how sometimes in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, when Bugs would get the better of someone, as he often did, they’d morph into a lollipop with the word “sucker” on it? I swear, as I stood there looking at that book, the Arabic letters on the cover morphed into Roman ones reading “How to Blow Up a Plane”. As I got closer to the woman who was examining boarding passes, I wondered if I should say anything. There was just something about that book sitting there by itself that struck me as odd. If someone had been reading it, I don’t think it would have been so. I reached the head of the line, and as I handed the woman my boarding pass, I leaned in and quietly mentioned the book. What freaked me out was when I said the word “Arabic”--she totally froze in the act of handing me my stub and her eyes widened. At that moment a security guard walked by, having just got off the plane, apparently, and the woman grabbed her and told me to tell her (the guard) what I’d just told her (the boarding-pass-taking woman). So I did, and got the same reaction, with the freezing and the eye-widening, when I said the word “Arabic”. I pointed out to the guard where I’d seen the book, and she went to look, but there was a crowd of people behind me waiting to get on the plane, so I couldn’t see what, if anything, happened. And since I didn’t hear any news reports of books being found at Newark Airport with the fingerprints of known terrorists on them, and an unknown but stylish and attractive blonde who saved a planeload of people, I guess it wasn’t anything.
The thing is, I felt all guilty about it after I got on the plane, because obviously I was working from the assumption that Arabs, or anything related to Arabs = terrorists. I like to think I’m above such base prejudice, but clearly I’m not. Actually I know I’m not, and I hate when something happens to prove it. I tried to assuage my guilt by pointing out to myself that there were three Middle Eastern-looking men sitting right in front of me on the plane, and I didn’t think anything of it, but the fact is that, although I didn’t recognize the language they were speaking, I did recognize it as an Indic and not a Semitic language. So am I a big creep? Am I just as bad as everyone else?
For example, last summer I was coming out of the post office in Manhattan--the huge one across from Penn Station--and I noticed two large--LARGE--suitcases sitting in the middle of the steps. They didn’t seem to belong to anyone. Mind you, there will people everywhere--it was lunch hour, and a beautiful day, so the steps were crowded with people sitting and eating as well as going in and out of the post office. But the bags were just sitting there, and no one seemed to notice. I stood there for a little bit to see if anyone would retrieve them. I thought about calling 911 but that definitely seemed excessive. I looked around for a cop but of course I didn’t see one. I remembered a few years back, when I was sitting in a Paris train station and a guy sitting near me left his briefcase for like one second to go grab a schedule or something, and immediately the case was surrounded by three or four assault-rifle-wielding soldiers. This was way before 9/11 or the Madrid bombing or anything like that. People love to make fun of the French and especially the French military, but let me tell you, they’re on top of shit.
Anyway, I went back into the post office and sort of wandered around, looking for someone I might tell, but again there were no cops, and there were long lines at all of the windows. I went back outside and looked at the bags again. By now they’d been there for at least 20 minutes, and it’s pretty hard to imagine someone legitimately leaving their possessions alone like that in the middle of New York friggin City. Now I was really going to call 911, but then I remembered that there was a police substation right across the street. So I walked to the corner to cross, and then I see this guy come running up out of the subway station, run over to the bags and grab them, then disappear back down into the subway. It was very odd. In any event, I decided not to tell the cops, and since the subway didn’t blow up, I guess it was all right.
That was my only experience with being on the front lines of the War Against Terror, until recently when I was returning from my trip back East for the holidays. I flew into and out of Newark, where things always seem a little bit more tense than they do at other airports. I mean, it’s where Flight 93 took off from, so I guess it’s understandable. And after having to remove every article of clothing that wasn’t in direct contact with my skin in order to get through security, and then passing a dude spread-eagled against the wall and surrounded by cops, I was feeling a little tense myself. So as I was waiting in line to board my flight, I glanced over at a row of empty seats and I noticed a book sitting there. It was softcover, about the size of a magazine, like the workbooks we used to use in school. It had a maroon cover, and yellow writing in Arabic. There was nobody anywhere near it.
Now, maybe it was a workbook. Maybe somebody was learning Arabic, something I’ve thought about doing myself, and accidentally left their book behind. Maybe any one of a number of other plausible, non-terror related reasons for the book being there was true. But you know how sometimes in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, when Bugs would get the better of someone, as he often did, they’d morph into a lollipop with the word “sucker” on it? I swear, as I stood there looking at that book, the Arabic letters on the cover morphed into Roman ones reading “How to Blow Up a Plane”. As I got closer to the woman who was examining boarding passes, I wondered if I should say anything. There was just something about that book sitting there by itself that struck me as odd. If someone had been reading it, I don’t think it would have been so. I reached the head of the line, and as I handed the woman my boarding pass, I leaned in and quietly mentioned the book. What freaked me out was when I said the word “Arabic”--she totally froze in the act of handing me my stub and her eyes widened. At that moment a security guard walked by, having just got off the plane, apparently, and the woman grabbed her and told me to tell her (the guard) what I’d just told her (the boarding-pass-taking woman). So I did, and got the same reaction, with the freezing and the eye-widening, when I said the word “Arabic”. I pointed out to the guard where I’d seen the book, and she went to look, but there was a crowd of people behind me waiting to get on the plane, so I couldn’t see what, if anything, happened. And since I didn’t hear any news reports of books being found at Newark Airport with the fingerprints of known terrorists on them, and an unknown but stylish and attractive blonde who saved a planeload of people, I guess it wasn’t anything.
The thing is, I felt all guilty about it after I got on the plane, because obviously I was working from the assumption that Arabs, or anything related to Arabs = terrorists. I like to think I’m above such base prejudice, but clearly I’m not. Actually I know I’m not, and I hate when something happens to prove it. I tried to assuage my guilt by pointing out to myself that there were three Middle Eastern-looking men sitting right in front of me on the plane, and I didn’t think anything of it, but the fact is that, although I didn’t recognize the language they were speaking, I did recognize it as an Indic and not a Semitic language. So am I a big creep? Am I just as bad as everyone else?
January 7, 2005
Faith and the tsunami
There were any number of things I considered writing about over the holidays: how beautiful Albuquerque looks at Christmas, and how good it smells (piñon woodsmoke: one of my new favorite aromas), how airline travel in the Age of Terrorism sucks even more than it used to, how cute and wonderful and amazing my nephew Dylan and niece McKenna are. It being the Christmas season, I thought about some religious topics too, like the annual controversy over Nativity displays on public property, and the larger questions it begs. I’d still like to address that sometime in the future. But after December 26th, I felt like I couldn’t write anything without first somehow acknowledging the epic tragedy that was unfolding on the other side of the world, and I didn’t know how to do it. It felt so overwhelming. Nonetheless, here I am, taking a crack at at least some aspect of it.
My friend Kirk wrote this in his blog: "I doubt I could say anything about the tsunami that hasn't been said better elsewhere. Shit. I did read an interesting editorial in the Guardian that talked about the difficulty of sq[u]aring a belief in God to natural disasters such as earthquakes & the like. Of course that's not an issue for me [Kirk is an atheist.--J.], but the writer had a good point. Wars & mass murder and such are easy as long as you also believe in human free will. But one does wonder what the believers say about things like this." As one of “the believers,” I thought I might try to say something, although again: overwhelming. I mean, this is the sort of thing that far more learned folk than I have been debating for millennia, and have compiled vast tomes on. So I don’t expect to make any kind of definitive statement on the subject. These are just a couple of thoughts, and of course, they are my thoughts only. Your mileage may vary.
One answer might be that Kirk, and anyone else who raises this question, is looking for a rational answer, and faith--a belief in something for which there is no proof--is by nature irrational. Not very satisfying, but true nonetheless. However, such an answer could be seen as either an ignorant or disingenuous attempt at circumventing the question, so let’s move beyond it.
I remember watching, a couple of years ago, a documentary called something like Where Was God on 9/11? Frankly, it pissed me off. Unquestionably, 9/11 was horrific--the worst single thing I’ve witnessed in my lifetime, and I hope the worst thing I’ll ever witness. But when I see Americans questioning their faith in light of it, all I can think is that they’re being typically, nauseatingly solipsistic. Human beings commit atrocious acts of violence, both large and small, against other human beings every single day, all over the planet, in an astonishing variety of ways. Yet not until it happens here do Americans feel the need to confront it emotionally--not until they dimly realize that God does not, in fact, bestow special grace upon the USA do they begin to question God’s existence. Please. Where was God on 9/11? Everywhere. With the people on the planes and in the buildings. With us in our homes, in front of our television screens. With everyone who was a victim of man’s inhumanity to man that day, whether in America or China or Palestine or Sierra Leone or anywhere else. With them, with us, grieving. Just like every other day.
As Kirk points out, it’s “easy” to deal with such things from a faith standpoint as long as we believe in free will and maintain a healthy cynicism concerning human nature. I bring the topic up, however, because I think there’s something similar at work when it comes to natural disasters. Obviously we can’t blame human nature for such things as earthquakes and tsunamis--in fact we often refer to them as “acts of God.” Again, the South Asian tsunami is probably the worst natural disaster I’ve ever seen, and again I hope I never see something worse. But again, so-called acts of God kill people every day. Why, if these small but daily disasters do not cause me to question my belief in God, should this enormous one do so? The magnitude of the tsunami disaster is, as I said, overwhelming, and the morbid fixation on horror that inevitably afflicts news organizations in these situations only serves to make it worse. Shots of corpses lined up row upon row, or of mothers keening over their dead children, grieve me worse than I can stand, and I’m forced to turn away. But what about the mother whose child is swept up by a tornado, or swallowed by an earthquake? What about the mother whose child starves because of drought? What about the mother who loses a child to cancer, to malaria, to AIDS? Does her grief matter any less than the mother whose child was drowned by the tsunami? Does any human being’s grief matter less than any other’s? I’m almost offended by the fact that people seem to expect me to question my belief in God in light of this tragedy, as if I’m somehow unaware of the reality of human suffering until it shows up on CNN.
Sorrow and grief are as much a part of our lives in this world as are joy and contentment. Sometimes more a part of them, unfortunately. Thus it has ever been, yet somehow faith has endured across the ages--something like 95% of the world’s population believes in a higher power. When confronted by suffering, some people choose a retreat into existential atheism: we are alone and adrift in a cold, insensate universe. That’s never going to work for me, because I know in my heart that God exists. The Deists who flourished during the Enlightenment imagined a “clockwinder” God, who set the universe in motion, then abandoned it to its own devices. I believe in a God who is actively, intimately involved with the world. Some people choose to believe in a wanton God who metes out punishment for any infraction of the myriad rules they are supposed to follow--metes it out, sometimes, in spectacular fashion. We heard as much from bigoted, big-mouthed “Christians” like Jerry Falwell after 9/11, and it’s being preached in Indonesian mosques right now. My faith teaches, and my heart tells me, that God is a loving God. This of course begs the corollary question: why does a loving God allow such suffering? Again, that’s a subject that has been written about by better thinkers and writers than me, and I doubt I can add anything new. My religion--just to be clear, I’m a Roman Catholic Christian--teaches that God is our divine parent. (Actually it teaches that He’s our Father, and I accept that, but I also know that She’s our Mother, too.) I try to remember what it was like to be a young child, so new in the world and so unfamiliar with its ways--my parents often said and did things that bewildered or angered me, things that only as an adult am I able to understand. They did these things because they loved me, not in spite of that fact. And I fear I’m perilously close here to equating vast destruction and death with being forced to eat broccoli, but I hope I’m making my point: I believe that God made the world the way it is for a reason, and just because we don’t understand it doesn’t mean that God doesn’t love us. God loves us, and grieves when we hurt, grieves especially when we hurt each other.
So what can we do? We can stop hurting each other, and we can help each other when help is needed. We can pray for the tsunami victims and everyone else who needs prayer. We can offer money when it’s possible and necessary--my small check went to Save the Children--and offer of ourselves otherwise. We can remember that every one of the scores of thousands of lives lost or devastated in South Asia matters, as every human life matters. And we can keep our faith in the God who made us and made our world, the God into whose presence we will one day come. On that day, I believe, we will all understand.
My friend Kirk wrote this in his blog: "I doubt I could say anything about the tsunami that hasn't been said better elsewhere. Shit. I did read an interesting editorial in the Guardian that talked about the difficulty of sq[u]aring a belief in God to natural disasters such as earthquakes & the like. Of course that's not an issue for me [Kirk is an atheist.--J.], but the writer had a good point. Wars & mass murder and such are easy as long as you also believe in human free will. But one does wonder what the believers say about things like this." As one of “the believers,” I thought I might try to say something, although again: overwhelming. I mean, this is the sort of thing that far more learned folk than I have been debating for millennia, and have compiled vast tomes on. So I don’t expect to make any kind of definitive statement on the subject. These are just a couple of thoughts, and of course, they are my thoughts only. Your mileage may vary.
One answer might be that Kirk, and anyone else who raises this question, is looking for a rational answer, and faith--a belief in something for which there is no proof--is by nature irrational. Not very satisfying, but true nonetheless. However, such an answer could be seen as either an ignorant or disingenuous attempt at circumventing the question, so let’s move beyond it.
I remember watching, a couple of years ago, a documentary called something like Where Was God on 9/11? Frankly, it pissed me off. Unquestionably, 9/11 was horrific--the worst single thing I’ve witnessed in my lifetime, and I hope the worst thing I’ll ever witness. But when I see Americans questioning their faith in light of it, all I can think is that they’re being typically, nauseatingly solipsistic. Human beings commit atrocious acts of violence, both large and small, against other human beings every single day, all over the planet, in an astonishing variety of ways. Yet not until it happens here do Americans feel the need to confront it emotionally--not until they dimly realize that God does not, in fact, bestow special grace upon the USA do they begin to question God’s existence. Please. Where was God on 9/11? Everywhere. With the people on the planes and in the buildings. With us in our homes, in front of our television screens. With everyone who was a victim of man’s inhumanity to man that day, whether in America or China or Palestine or Sierra Leone or anywhere else. With them, with us, grieving. Just like every other day.
As Kirk points out, it’s “easy” to deal with such things from a faith standpoint as long as we believe in free will and maintain a healthy cynicism concerning human nature. I bring the topic up, however, because I think there’s something similar at work when it comes to natural disasters. Obviously we can’t blame human nature for such things as earthquakes and tsunamis--in fact we often refer to them as “acts of God.” Again, the South Asian tsunami is probably the worst natural disaster I’ve ever seen, and again I hope I never see something worse. But again, so-called acts of God kill people every day. Why, if these small but daily disasters do not cause me to question my belief in God, should this enormous one do so? The magnitude of the tsunami disaster is, as I said, overwhelming, and the morbid fixation on horror that inevitably afflicts news organizations in these situations only serves to make it worse. Shots of corpses lined up row upon row, or of mothers keening over their dead children, grieve me worse than I can stand, and I’m forced to turn away. But what about the mother whose child is swept up by a tornado, or swallowed by an earthquake? What about the mother whose child starves because of drought? What about the mother who loses a child to cancer, to malaria, to AIDS? Does her grief matter any less than the mother whose child was drowned by the tsunami? Does any human being’s grief matter less than any other’s? I’m almost offended by the fact that people seem to expect me to question my belief in God in light of this tragedy, as if I’m somehow unaware of the reality of human suffering until it shows up on CNN.
Sorrow and grief are as much a part of our lives in this world as are joy and contentment. Sometimes more a part of them, unfortunately. Thus it has ever been, yet somehow faith has endured across the ages--something like 95% of the world’s population believes in a higher power. When confronted by suffering, some people choose a retreat into existential atheism: we are alone and adrift in a cold, insensate universe. That’s never going to work for me, because I know in my heart that God exists. The Deists who flourished during the Enlightenment imagined a “clockwinder” God, who set the universe in motion, then abandoned it to its own devices. I believe in a God who is actively, intimately involved with the world. Some people choose to believe in a wanton God who metes out punishment for any infraction of the myriad rules they are supposed to follow--metes it out, sometimes, in spectacular fashion. We heard as much from bigoted, big-mouthed “Christians” like Jerry Falwell after 9/11, and it’s being preached in Indonesian mosques right now. My faith teaches, and my heart tells me, that God is a loving God. This of course begs the corollary question: why does a loving God allow such suffering? Again, that’s a subject that has been written about by better thinkers and writers than me, and I doubt I can add anything new. My religion--just to be clear, I’m a Roman Catholic Christian--teaches that God is our divine parent. (Actually it teaches that He’s our Father, and I accept that, but I also know that She’s our Mother, too.) I try to remember what it was like to be a young child, so new in the world and so unfamiliar with its ways--my parents often said and did things that bewildered or angered me, things that only as an adult am I able to understand. They did these things because they loved me, not in spite of that fact. And I fear I’m perilously close here to equating vast destruction and death with being forced to eat broccoli, but I hope I’m making my point: I believe that God made the world the way it is for a reason, and just because we don’t understand it doesn’t mean that God doesn’t love us. God loves us, and grieves when we hurt, grieves especially when we hurt each other.
So what can we do? We can stop hurting each other, and we can help each other when help is needed. We can pray for the tsunami victims and everyone else who needs prayer. We can offer money when it’s possible and necessary--my small check went to Save the Children--and offer of ourselves otherwise. We can remember that every one of the scores of thousands of lives lost or devastated in South Asia matters, as every human life matters. And we can keep our faith in the God who made us and made our world, the God into whose presence we will one day come. On that day, I believe, we will all understand.
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