My two youngest chaps have gotten the giggles over our neighbor’s front yard. We lean on the couch by our big front picture window and study the sight diagonally across the street. A tall flagpole with a small golden cross atop it supports an American flag, and beneath that a yellow Gadsden (“Don’t Tread on Me”) banner. To the right is a statue of an American soldier, at night doused in floodlights.
The chaps find this display simply gaudy. I see it as an example of some very well-intentioned ideas wrapped in unintentional cognitive dissonance.
The cross, Old Glory and the Gadsden flag could not be more dissonant. The first represents a kingdom not of this world; the second, an empire beyond even Alexander Hamilton’s wildest dreams; and the latter the kind of spirit that would no longer countenance the second. The cross aside, the Star-spangled banner/Gadsden combination is as humorous to me as the American/Confederate battle flag pairings frequently seen in this part of the country. But I understand the intent. Southerners are proud of their regional identity, but equally proud to be American. Likewise, I give my neighbor the benefit of the doubt; he intends to show that “America” and the U.S. federal government are not one in the same, and the Gadsden flag is there to remind Uncle Sam that there are limits, natural and/or constitutional, to his power (especially, he might add, if the occupier of the Oval Office is a Dimmycrat).
But then there is this matter of the soldier statue. Has it not occurred to my neighbor that the soldier it represents is a government employee, one that could conceivably be used against his own people? As George Mason wrote in the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776), a standing army is a threat to liberty. But I understand where he’s coming from. As the father and grandfather of two women in the armed forces, both stationed in Afghanistan, he supports the troops. He also wants them brought home, which is why he supported Ron Paul’s bid to become the Republican presidential nominee in 2008. Apparently a majority of soldiers were on Paul’s bandwagon as well.
But his tone has changed some in the three years since. He has become more pragmatic. It’s more about getting Obama out of the Oval Office than Ron Paul in. “He ain’t purty enough,” he says of Paul, “and he ain’t a good enough public speaker to get nominated.” I understand those sentiments. “I don’t know,” he continues, “maybe that Romney can do somethin’.”
And that is beyond the limit of my understanding.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
"Fair" For Some
Just before Christmas St. Jude's Mission, along with other Anglican Mission churches, was asked to contribute to a "miracle" that would save a "fair trade" coffee operation in a certain East African country. I think the total amount this enterprise was seeking to raise was around $100,000. Apparently, if the business didn't raise this money it was going to default on a loan for a wash facility. So I asked myself, what kind of operation has to beg churches for a hundred grand in order to remain viable?
"Fair trade" coffee is an emotional subject because the people that support it do so passionately. And I am quite fine with that -- as long as it is clearly understood that "fair trade" amounts to a subsidy of a business based on supra-market prices. Furthermore, fair trade patrons ought to acknowledge the unintended consequences that attend this cause.
The term "fair trade" insinuates that there exists "unfair trade," i.e. free-market failure. Actually, we must understand that free markets are really few and far between. Yard sales (without a permit), flea markets and the like qualify as truly free markets. Coffee, like real estate and most other products, involves a regulated market. And no doubt certain Third World producers are jilted thanks to government regulation, corruption and patronage at some level.
But a price floor of $1.26/lb as stipulated under the provisions of fair trade licensure is its own kind of market distortion. A price floor, like a minimum wage or an agricultural subsidy, creates excess supply of the good in question. And excess supply means that marginal producers, e.g. some Third World farmers, are excluded from the coffee market. Therefore, this "good cause" is actually unfair to those farmers not a party to contracts held by the plantations. Just as a minimum wage creates the unintended consequence of higher unemployment among youth and lower-skilled workers, so the fair trade price floor results in the unemployment of some Third World farmers.
To point this out to some fair trade coffee drinkers is akin to insulting their mothers or questioning their religious convictions. So it goes on most economic questions. That people voluntarily choose to pay a higher price in support of their favorite Third World coffee plantation is perfectly their prerogative.
But it rubs me wrong when a church -- especially one as small and vulnerable as SJM -- is asked to shell out a goodly sum to bail out an enterprise that obviously isn't holding its own. There is nothing particularly "fair" or just about that in my reckoning.
"Fair trade" coffee is an emotional subject because the people that support it do so passionately. And I am quite fine with that -- as long as it is clearly understood that "fair trade" amounts to a subsidy of a business based on supra-market prices. Furthermore, fair trade patrons ought to acknowledge the unintended consequences that attend this cause.
The term "fair trade" insinuates that there exists "unfair trade," i.e. free-market failure. Actually, we must understand that free markets are really few and far between. Yard sales (without a permit), flea markets and the like qualify as truly free markets. Coffee, like real estate and most other products, involves a regulated market. And no doubt certain Third World producers are jilted thanks to government regulation, corruption and patronage at some level.
But a price floor of $1.26/lb as stipulated under the provisions of fair trade licensure is its own kind of market distortion. A price floor, like a minimum wage or an agricultural subsidy, creates excess supply of the good in question. And excess supply means that marginal producers, e.g. some Third World farmers, are excluded from the coffee market. Therefore, this "good cause" is actually unfair to those farmers not a party to contracts held by the plantations. Just as a minimum wage creates the unintended consequence of higher unemployment among youth and lower-skilled workers, so the fair trade price floor results in the unemployment of some Third World farmers.
To point this out to some fair trade coffee drinkers is akin to insulting their mothers or questioning their religious convictions. So it goes on most economic questions. That people voluntarily choose to pay a higher price in support of their favorite Third World coffee plantation is perfectly their prerogative.
But it rubs me wrong when a church -- especially one as small and vulnerable as SJM -- is asked to shell out a goodly sum to bail out an enterprise that obviously isn't holding its own. There is nothing particularly "fair" or just about that in my reckoning.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
A Fond Reflection
Frankly, 2010 was not a good year for me. At work I watched the appraisers under my charge struggle to heed my caution that the real estate market was going to continue its downward trend, and that the tax credits provided by the Federal government would succeed in only moving future purchases into the present. Sure enough, in the last two quarters of the year prices have fallen dramatically. Now they are scrambling to adjust their value opinions. Call me Cassandra.
2010 was a costly year. A kitchen renovation for our home went over budget. Our air conditioning compressor died twice during record-setting triple digit heat this summer. In June I received word that I was going to lose the use of a fleet vehicle for work. At the time we were a one-car household.
The thing I will remember most about 2010 was laying my uncle Wallace Layman to rest at the end of the long, hot summer. Wallace is my mother's sister's husband, and the grandfather of Ben Howard of Standing Small, the indie Christian band whose record I mentioned in an earlier post.
For Wallace it was sufficient that Jesus is the Son of God and Savior of the world. He was not given to doctrinal debate. He was a remarkably quiet and gentle man, the scion of a family of German settlers who migrated down the Great Valley into East Tennessee in the late 18th century. They were farmers who cultivated a large tract of acreage north of Sevierville in the little community of Harrisburg Mill. Their property occupied a hill that overlooked Murphy's Chapel, a white frame Methodist church nestled against the Little Pigeon River. Wallace quietly attended that church during his youth and again in the later years of his life. He said little but was faithful to give a word of encouragement to his pastor, recounting something meaningful that he had gotten from the Sunday sermon.
Wallace retired after a long career at Alcoa Corp. in nearby Maryville. But his heart was connected to the land and to the memories of his farmhand boyhood. In his garage were kept relics of his agrarian past, including a harness and the first saddle he ever rode upon.
The last living heir of his family, he inherited the land which had gone out of production, and began selling off parcels for an upscale subdivision development. It was aptly named "Windswept," with a view of Murphy's Chapel and the hazy, purple Smoky Mountains off to the south and English Mountain to the east. Wallace and my aunt kept a parcel with a large but plain ranch house at the crest of the development.
His Christianity wasn't one of words but of deeds. He was probably the most generous person I have personally known. Like Elvis Presley, Wallace had a penchant for gifting people with automobiles. Unlike the King of Rock n' Roll, Wallace was careful to give them to people in need, and to do it discreetly.
Hence, we were floored when, in June of this year, he phoned to say that he wanted to give our 16 year-old, who had been saving up, his first set of wheels. Then, when he understood my plight at work, he decided to give me a commuter car as well. When we went to pick up the vehicles over the sweltering July 4 holiday, he seemed to be aware that his days were numbered. He was possessed of a great sense of urgency in taking car of our transportation needs, saying, "I won't be around to help these other young'uns, so take care of these and pass 'em on."
A few weeks later he suffered a massive heartattack. I got to see him in the hospital. Then he passed on.
I was glad to be one of his pallbearers as he was laid to rest at Murphy's Chapel, within view of his peaceful home.
This past weekend, during the New Year celebration, my younger son reflected on how totally cool it was that Wallace had lived a long life and then was buried in front of his church, so close to his own land.
Yes, he mused, that was a perfect way to close this leg of the journey.
2010 was a costly year. A kitchen renovation for our home went over budget. Our air conditioning compressor died twice during record-setting triple digit heat this summer. In June I received word that I was going to lose the use of a fleet vehicle for work. At the time we were a one-car household.
The thing I will remember most about 2010 was laying my uncle Wallace Layman to rest at the end of the long, hot summer. Wallace is my mother's sister's husband, and the grandfather of Ben Howard of Standing Small, the indie Christian band whose record I mentioned in an earlier post.
For Wallace it was sufficient that Jesus is the Son of God and Savior of the world. He was not given to doctrinal debate. He was a remarkably quiet and gentle man, the scion of a family of German settlers who migrated down the Great Valley into East Tennessee in the late 18th century. They were farmers who cultivated a large tract of acreage north of Sevierville in the little community of Harrisburg Mill. Their property occupied a hill that overlooked Murphy's Chapel, a white frame Methodist church nestled against the Little Pigeon River. Wallace quietly attended that church during his youth and again in the later years of his life. He said little but was faithful to give a word of encouragement to his pastor, recounting something meaningful that he had gotten from the Sunday sermon.
Wallace retired after a long career at Alcoa Corp. in nearby Maryville. But his heart was connected to the land and to the memories of his farmhand boyhood. In his garage were kept relics of his agrarian past, including a harness and the first saddle he ever rode upon.
The last living heir of his family, he inherited the land which had gone out of production, and began selling off parcels for an upscale subdivision development. It was aptly named "Windswept," with a view of Murphy's Chapel and the hazy, purple Smoky Mountains off to the south and English Mountain to the east. Wallace and my aunt kept a parcel with a large but plain ranch house at the crest of the development.
His Christianity wasn't one of words but of deeds. He was probably the most generous person I have personally known. Like Elvis Presley, Wallace had a penchant for gifting people with automobiles. Unlike the King of Rock n' Roll, Wallace was careful to give them to people in need, and to do it discreetly.
Hence, we were floored when, in June of this year, he phoned to say that he wanted to give our 16 year-old, who had been saving up, his first set of wheels. Then, when he understood my plight at work, he decided to give me a commuter car as well. When we went to pick up the vehicles over the sweltering July 4 holiday, he seemed to be aware that his days were numbered. He was possessed of a great sense of urgency in taking car of our transportation needs, saying, "I won't be around to help these other young'uns, so take care of these and pass 'em on."
A few weeks later he suffered a massive heartattack. I got to see him in the hospital. Then he passed on.
I was glad to be one of his pallbearers as he was laid to rest at Murphy's Chapel, within view of his peaceful home.
This past weekend, during the New Year celebration, my younger son reflected on how totally cool it was that Wallace had lived a long life and then was buried in front of his church, so close to his own land.
Yes, he mused, that was a perfect way to close this leg of the journey.
Monday, December 20, 2010
A Thousand Years
Each morning I begin my day with the lectionary readings and devotional commentary from Rev. Mike Michie, rector of St. Andrew Episcopal Church in McKinney, Texas. Mike is a biblically orthodox minister of the Word. Here are his thoughts from one of the morning readings for December 20, 2010:
I'm going to be brave and attempt to help you with our reading from Revelation today! We'll be reading all week about the hope of the Second Coming of Christ. Just as we prepare for His coming at Christmas, so should we prepare for His coming again. The message of Revelation, however you interpret it, is that Jesus is coming again to make things right. Heaven and earth will be redeemed, and sin and Satan will be judged. I think the best way to interpret Revelation is just to simply understand what it says, not to try and manipulate the text to make ourselves more comfortable. With that, let's take a look!
A lot happens in our reading today. Satan is bound, the first-risen saints reign with Christ for 1000 years, Satan is loosed and gathers the nations around his cause, and he is finally thrown into the lake of fire for eternity. Satan is first placed in a bottomless pit... Now, he gets a 1,000 year taste of his own medicine (v. 1). It is interesting to trace the activity of Satan through Scripture. From the beginning, he's been a deceiver. No doubt, he had thought he'd won the day several times! At the fall and at the crucifixion, things looked a little bleak. In Revelation, we see his final efforts sunk into the Antichrist figure and this great final battle. And just like before, it doesn't work. This 1,000 period is a time where Christ will reign with a group of resurrected saints who have been martyred. It also is a preview of Satan's final judgment in the lake of fire (v. 3).
The first resurrection (v. 4) is for those believers who were martyred and had persevered during the period of the Antichrist. It is quite a picture that verse 5 paints for us: Christ and His saints ruling the earth in an unprecedented time of peace! These resurrected saints will be much like Jesus, now that He has risen again (v. 5). They have risen never to die again!
After Satan is let out, he goes out all over the earth in one last ditch effort to fight against God (v. 6-7). (For more on Gog and Magog, see Ezekiel 38-39.) The end comes abruptly. The "beloved city" is, of course, Jerusalem (v. 9). God separates, once and for all, evil from righteousness. Satan's punishment is severe and eternal (v. 10).
Friday, December 17, 2010
Besides Daniel
Happy accident. Or divine providence. I stumbled upon the band Besides Daniel while looking at a review of Standing Small’s Asleep At the Oars… on the Blue Indian web site. In a corner of the page was a video of Danny Brewer and Molly Parden performing at a small club in their native Georgia. Intrigued, I looked them up on Youtube and discovered a knockout cover of Big Star’s ”Watch the Sunrise.”
Then I found Besides Daniel (Brewer’s band) and its video for ”The Field.” It rolls through my mind every time I visit the graveyard above my mom’s house in East Tennessee. It convinced me that Brewer is what my wife calls an “old soul.” The ancients know his type.
I’ve listened to every Besides Daniel song my computer can snag from cyberspace. This music moves in every direction while remaining nominally “folk” (and dodging that dull appellation, “Americana”). Every syllable Brewer sings, every note played is worth listening to. Standing Small’s Ryan Fletcher put it best: “From the first couple of notes and the first line of lyrics, Danny draws you in.” I’ll confine my thoughts to just three of Beside Daniel’s lesser known songs – three that are radically diverse in style from one another – to infer just some of the breadth of their work.
“Ignatius” is named for the bishop of Antioch who was carried to Rome in a cage and fed to the lions around 108 A.D. This taut, up-tempo piece combines driving layers of acoustic guitar and dense harmonies in a style that glances early ‘70s British prog. Lyrically, it juxtaposes incisive images from the mundane with the thoughts of the determined martyr: a homeless person looking to sell cigarette butts to a convenience store, a varmint ravaging a garbage can, and a man who has grown too large for his clothes. These elements are swept along by the ardor of Ignatius’ desire to be “ground by the teeth of beasts / made into flour or more / baked into bread for my Love to eat.” The song suggests that the sheer enormity of Christ’s death and resurrection – which the martyr longs to share – infuse meaning into the seemingly random events of everyday life. Among Brewer’s gifts is the ability to report what he sees with clarity, but free of premature judgment. A rare quality, indeed.
“car, duck, train, bird” is a devastating, funereal dirge. The one repeated phrase in the cut-and-paste soundscape is simply:
What were we thinking (of), me and you?
I thought better of love than this
The words merely frame the drama within the sounds: a glib female voice repeating “car, duck, train bird,” a descending, reverberating piano line, distorted accordion, and an overdriven electric guitar. Ringing over the first half of the piece is a Glockenspiel. Halfway through the track the tension reaches its apogee: the female voice and Glockenspiel give way to an electronic bleep. Brewer’s voice becomes manipulated and distorted. It’s an experience akin to not being able to take your eyes off a terrible accident: the spellbinding soundtrack of a relationship destroyed – or of Adam and Eve driven from the Garden.
And finally, “Lake Michigan.” Here, Brewer’s voice and guitar could easily be mistaken for a young David Gilmour, especially when he strkes G major in the refrain. Here, a week before Christmas, a young man is on the run (though not very far) from an abusive guardian, on a drinking and driving binge in an “old orange car….as big as a satellite.”
You wouldn't know it now
If you did, you would blow it down
Yeah, your anger, it would shake the ground
As it is you don't make a sound
Circumstances, including the weather, seem to conspire against him, until finally,
It happened so quickly
You lost control of your car
You lay looking up at the stars
Wondering how far they are
You closed your eyes
You took your last breath...
But this is never quite the end. In Brewer’s reckoning there is a providential love deeper than Lake Michigan:
And now here you are
Here on my front step
Son, welcome home
Grace. No matter where it roams, Besides Daniel’s music is surrounded by a grace that draws you in. So I keep listening...
Then I found Besides Daniel (Brewer’s band) and its video for ”The Field.” It rolls through my mind every time I visit the graveyard above my mom’s house in East Tennessee. It convinced me that Brewer is what my wife calls an “old soul.” The ancients know his type.
I’ve listened to every Besides Daniel song my computer can snag from cyberspace. This music moves in every direction while remaining nominally “folk” (and dodging that dull appellation, “Americana”). Every syllable Brewer sings, every note played is worth listening to. Standing Small’s Ryan Fletcher put it best: “From the first couple of notes and the first line of lyrics, Danny draws you in.” I’ll confine my thoughts to just three of Beside Daniel’s lesser known songs – three that are radically diverse in style from one another – to infer just some of the breadth of their work.
“Ignatius” is named for the bishop of Antioch who was carried to Rome in a cage and fed to the lions around 108 A.D. This taut, up-tempo piece combines driving layers of acoustic guitar and dense harmonies in a style that glances early ‘70s British prog. Lyrically, it juxtaposes incisive images from the mundane with the thoughts of the determined martyr: a homeless person looking to sell cigarette butts to a convenience store, a varmint ravaging a garbage can, and a man who has grown too large for his clothes. These elements are swept along by the ardor of Ignatius’ desire to be “ground by the teeth of beasts / made into flour or more / baked into bread for my Love to eat.” The song suggests that the sheer enormity of Christ’s death and resurrection – which the martyr longs to share – infuse meaning into the seemingly random events of everyday life. Among Brewer’s gifts is the ability to report what he sees with clarity, but free of premature judgment. A rare quality, indeed.
“car, duck, train, bird” is a devastating, funereal dirge. The one repeated phrase in the cut-and-paste soundscape is simply:
What were we thinking (of), me and you?
I thought better of love than this
The words merely frame the drama within the sounds: a glib female voice repeating “car, duck, train bird,” a descending, reverberating piano line, distorted accordion, and an overdriven electric guitar. Ringing over the first half of the piece is a Glockenspiel. Halfway through the track the tension reaches its apogee: the female voice and Glockenspiel give way to an electronic bleep. Brewer’s voice becomes manipulated and distorted. It’s an experience akin to not being able to take your eyes off a terrible accident: the spellbinding soundtrack of a relationship destroyed – or of Adam and Eve driven from the Garden.
And finally, “Lake Michigan.” Here, Brewer’s voice and guitar could easily be mistaken for a young David Gilmour, especially when he strkes G major in the refrain. Here, a week before Christmas, a young man is on the run (though not very far) from an abusive guardian, on a drinking and driving binge in an “old orange car….as big as a satellite.”
You wouldn't know it now
If you did, you would blow it down
Yeah, your anger, it would shake the ground
As it is you don't make a sound
Circumstances, including the weather, seem to conspire against him, until finally,
It happened so quickly
You lost control of your car
You lay looking up at the stars
Wondering how far they are
You closed your eyes
You took your last breath...
But this is never quite the end. In Brewer’s reckoning there is a providential love deeper than Lake Michigan:
And now here you are
Here on my front step
Son, welcome home
Grace. No matter where it roams, Besides Daniel’s music is surrounded by a grace that draws you in. So I keep listening...
Monday, November 29, 2010
Promise and Power
For the first Sunday of Advent our pastor Clay Thompson launched into a study of the Lord Jesus’ human genealogy as recorded in Matthew chapter 1. “The son of David, the son of Abraham.” This amounted to one of the best sermons Clay has delivered. His theme was, “the coming of Christ frees us from the fear of what we are in the flesh.” There is nothing quite like the holiday season to remind us of the sin and dysfunction that exists in our families. Tackling this subject headlong, Clay pointed out - beginning with Abraham and the story of Ishmael’s conception - that the genealogy of the Lord is strewn with human frailty and sin.
That line of frailty did not thwart the Redeemer. In His coming Christ redeems all that came before Him; for us He redeems all that comes after. There is no situation, no predisposition, nothing inbred that is too hard for Him. As Clay pointed out, the apostle Paul came to this conclusion at the end of Romans 7, an experience that brought him to the end of himself, his religion, his ancestry. The redemption of the body to come in Christ releases him from the fear of his own body of death.
C.E.B. Cranfield would add that Romans 7 is the experience of the believer this side of the redemption of the body. The more mature the believer, the more he feels the anguish of “what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do” (NKJV). There is now no deliverance from the present condition. There is, however, the joy of knowing that Christ will deliver us from this body of death (7:24-25). “The joy of the LORD is your strength.” Moreover, there is power from on high. As Cranfield puts it, the believer is given power to “rebel” against the flesh. This we do, day in and day out, as the Holy Spirit animates us to study the Scriptures, to pray, to share the Gospel, and to do the good works the Father has placed before us.
Clay made the point that Abraham’s faith was entirely in response to God’s promise and power. “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness.” There was no merit in Abraham’s faith per se; rather, it laid hold of God’s specific promise. In the weakness of his own wisdom he acquiesced to Sarai’s suggestion to conceive through Hagar. But Abraham’s confidence, his faith, was strengthened by God’s demonstration of power at various critical junctures in his life, particularly through the miraculous birth of Isaac: “[not considering] his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb” (Rom. 4:19). By the time he came to the foot of Mt. Moriah, Abraham’s faith had come to maturity by God’s exercises.
It is confidence in the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things which did not formerly exist that sustains and empowers the believer through this life. The coming of Christ frees us from the fear of what we are, left to ourselves.
That line of frailty did not thwart the Redeemer. In His coming Christ redeems all that came before Him; for us He redeems all that comes after. There is no situation, no predisposition, nothing inbred that is too hard for Him. As Clay pointed out, the apostle Paul came to this conclusion at the end of Romans 7, an experience that brought him to the end of himself, his religion, his ancestry. The redemption of the body to come in Christ releases him from the fear of his own body of death.
C.E.B. Cranfield would add that Romans 7 is the experience of the believer this side of the redemption of the body. The more mature the believer, the more he feels the anguish of “what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do” (NKJV). There is now no deliverance from the present condition. There is, however, the joy of knowing that Christ will deliver us from this body of death (7:24-25). “The joy of the LORD is your strength.” Moreover, there is power from on high. As Cranfield puts it, the believer is given power to “rebel” against the flesh. This we do, day in and day out, as the Holy Spirit animates us to study the Scriptures, to pray, to share the Gospel, and to do the good works the Father has placed before us.
Clay made the point that Abraham’s faith was entirely in response to God’s promise and power. “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness.” There was no merit in Abraham’s faith per se; rather, it laid hold of God’s specific promise. In the weakness of his own wisdom he acquiesced to Sarai’s suggestion to conceive through Hagar. But Abraham’s confidence, his faith, was strengthened by God’s demonstration of power at various critical junctures in his life, particularly through the miraculous birth of Isaac: “[not considering] his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb” (Rom. 4:19). By the time he came to the foot of Mt. Moriah, Abraham’s faith had come to maturity by God’s exercises.
It is confidence in the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things which did not formerly exist that sustains and empowers the believer through this life. The coming of Christ frees us from the fear of what we are, left to ourselves.
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