Agriculture, Marriage, and God's Word

In reading Wendell Berry and other writers on agriculture and land use in recent months, I have been struck by the analogy drawn between marriage and the land. The marriage relationship is not one to be easily disposed of. Similarly, our relation to the land should not be a temporary one or a consumer-oriented one. My relationship with my wife must be one that works today and forever. If not, then like those who use up the land and then move on, we’re not creating a sustainable relationship.
Some people do not nourish their relationships. They’re detached from the land or the spouse, allowing the relationship to wither and die. Others see the relationship as something that should serve and nourish them. They use up the land or the spouse, eventually destroying it.
I wonder if the same sort of analogy might be made in our relationship to God’s Word. There are those who ignore the Word. In that case, it does not wither and die, but their relationship never amounts to anything. Others see God’s Word as nothing more than something to be used. They grab prooftexts to shore up their pet positions. Or they mine the Word as something to satisfy their needs. Neither of these is a sustainable, nourishing position.
A true relationship between a person and God’s Word is one that nourishes the person and glorifies God’s Word. The Word is allowed to bring forth fruit and change the person. This idea is just an idea, but with a bit of development. It might be a good idea. Let’s see where it goes.

Heath Ledger

Don't get me wrong. I'm not some sort of heartless meanie, but I don't care all that much that Heath Ledger died yesterday. Let me rephrase that. I don't care more about Ledger's death than about the demise of any other twenty-eight-year-old with a lot of talent to offer the world. If this were my nephew in his mid-twenties, I'd care a great deal, although he doesn't have Ledger's talents.
I mention this because both of my twenty-something daughters found out about the news from my mouth. Daughter number two complained of having a bad day. I indicated that she didn't have as bad a day as Heath Ledger.
"What's up with him?" daughter number one asked.
"He died."
You'd have thought I died. Frankly, I'm not sure they would have reacted more strongly had they learned that a family member--say that twenty-something cousin--had died.
Why is it that a guy they've never met and probably never will meet drew that sort of a reaction from the girls? I'm not sure, but it's an interesting topic to mull over.

Global Warming Validation Redux

Who'd have thunk that a mere twenty-four hours after pounding out that last post, I would stumble across this story indicating that between January 1998 and December 2007, average temperatures actually went down by a tiny fraction. I'm no climatologist, but this seems pretty fishy to me. That's all.

Global Warming Validation

I've been reading a good deal about global warming recently, ranging all over the map of ideologies and scientific disciplines. What I've come to recognize is that a significant number of media types, governmental functionaries, and non-climatologist scientists have declared that the debate over global warming is over while the actual scientists who study this sort of stuff remain much more divided on the matter.
When the dust settles, we'll know which side had it right, but I'd really like to know before then. You see, if we decide that global warming is real--and if we turn out to be wrong--then we'll pour a huge amount of money into fighting it. If global warming turns out to be simply an Al Gore hallucination, that money will be largely wasted. And if it winds up being real but not fixable, then we might as well invest in bigger air conditioners.
On the other hand, if we opt to reject the current consensus on global warming then we all fry, drown, or otherwise die. I don't want to be wrong on this one, and since meteorologists seem to struggle to forecast tomorrow's weather, I can't get real excited about their prognostications regarding twenty years out.
So here's the question that I'd drop in the lap of the debaters: What results in what time frame can we agree on to demonstrate who is right? Let me explain. I recall somewhere back in my science education that Einstein theorized about light being affected by gravity. Most physicists accepted this theory as correct as they embraced relativity, but they still performed an experiment. During an eclipse, they noted, the light from a star, traveling past the eclipsed sun, should be bent slightly therefore making the star appear to be in a different spot in the sky. They performed their measurements and waited for the eclipse to see if, indeed, the star's light bent. And it did. Einstein's theory was vindicated.
Today, at my house, the temperature is a balmy twelve degrees, hardly the stuff of global warming. However, I'm not so naive as to believe that one cold day disproves an overall warming trend. But 2007 was not warmer than 2006, which in turn was not warmer than 2005. Presumably, global warming should produce some . . . warming, right? But again, we don't need to see each year inexorably warmer than the one before. But what sort of warming trend should we be able to observe to know that the earth is indeed heating up? Will a five-year trend suffice? A ten-year trend?
I'd like to hear both sides of this debate set out figures that say, essentially, "If we don't observe at least this sort of movement, then we'll shut up and concede defeat." I think they owe us this much. After all, if the Gore crowd is wrong, we're going to flush a lot of money down the toilet, while if the denier crowd is wrong, oodles of people will die. It seems like some level of accountability is the least they could offer.

Pursuit of Happiness, Part 4

So far we've looked at the height and width of happiness, leaving us with the length or depth as our remaining dimension. So what is the length or depth of happiness? For reasons that will quickly become obvious, I'd prefer to use the world length in this situation, because of its double meaning. The length of happiness refers simply to how long it lasts.
We've talked already about how the thrill of riding a roller coaster is a a reasonably high bit of happiness, but it is not a piece of happiness that lasts very long. If you're a coaster addict and you truly enjoyed a ride, then the natural thing for you to do upon exiting the coaster is to dash around to the entrance to ride it again. I can remember a couple of times in my life when I actually didn't have to get off a roller coaster since no one was waiting to get on. That's sweet!
But why do we dash around to the entrance again? If the thrill were not simply high but long, we'd walk out of the ride exit quite contented. "Well, that was great. Maybe I'll try it again next year!" we might say. But we don't.
On the other hand, when I walk out of a pizza buffet, I don't ever dash around from exit to entrance, eager to start my eating all over again. The thrill of the pizza, unlike the thrill of the roller coaster, lasts for a while. Last semester, I ate at a pizza buffet just about every Thursday for lunch. Once a week is enough pizza buffets for me, but come Thursday, I was ready to hit the slices again.
What lasts longer than a pizza buffet? What happiness have you ever experienced that remains in force for more than a few days? If you buy a new computer, you're probably ecstatic about it for a few days, but gradually the thrill wears off. The same thing goes for a new car or a house. There just aren't very many things that make you happy and keep you happy. The Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl in 1969. For Chiefs fans, that happiness has long ago worn off. In fact, although that victory was before my time, I'm pretty sure that it didn't stick very long at all.
We now have three dimensions to our happiness. The next step is to explore the world of solid happiness. But that's for another day.

Homeowners' Association

I've been thinking a little bit about clotheslines lately--clotheslines and homeowners' associations. In my neighborhood, we have a rule against clotheslines. Now I understand the rules and the need for them. I'm glad that people can't put a car on blocks in the front yard or leave derelict appliances on the porch. I appreciate that we have to mow our grass and that we can't burn lawn gnomes at Halloween. That's all good.
But what's this deal with clotheslines?
What is it that clotheslines conjur up in the minds of the czars of suburbia? In television ads, clotheslines are romantic and heartwarming. They're associated with love and family and better days. And what about dryers? Does anybody get all misty-eyed about clothes dryers? I don't think so. Oh, sure, when somebody wins one on The Price is Right, that's a good association, but who's going to paint a painting of a washer dryer pair? You'll see that painting of an oven or a kitchen table, but not the laundry room.
Are clotheslines ugly? Not really. Is the sight of a bunch sheets or shirts swinging in the breeze a real eyesore? Sure, Aunt Lulu's knickers might be a bit hard to take, but she could surely have the sense to put those on an interior line. No, most people seem to agree that clotheslines aren't ugly.
So why is it that something romanticized in TV ads and other venues, something that isn't ugly, is banned by the all-knowing protectors of tract-house sanctity? I think it's really simple and simply stupid. Homeowners associations want to maintain the appearance of affluence and value. And what do clotheslines signify? Today, they signify time and care and love. In a previous day, they signified that you couldn't afford to buy a washer and dryer.
Today, few people hang out their laundry because they can't afford automation. So why does the rule remain on the books of so many homeowners' associations? I think it's because they either don't know or want to admit the roots of their rules. They don't want to think that the preferences that they codify in the rules are all that much about economic class and appearances. That's what I think. What about you?

The Pursuit of Happiness, Part 3

Having examined the "height" dimension of happiness, let's take a moment to think about the breadth or width dimension. While "tall" or "high" happiness engages my whole being, "wide" happiness transcends my person.
In the last post, I suggested that, if only for a short moment, a good roller coaster can make me very happy. (If I didn't suggest that, then I should have.) If I happen to be on the roller coaster with a friend or three, then they may very well experience the same sort of happiness that I do. Of course, they won't necessarily have that sort of happiness.


But the happiness that I experience on the ride doesn't infect anybody else. It's my happiness. For others to experience that narrow happiness, they'll have to get on the ride themselves and get their own little sliver of happiness.
Similarly, when I eat a Chipotle burrito, the happiness is mine alone. Rarely will you see someone sitting at a table contentedly watching someone else chow down on their bedroll-sized burrito.
What is an example of something that creates wide-ranging happiness? Let's try this one on, even though it will seem to stumble over the speed bump of my previous Chipotle argument. Last night my family went to dinner at Olive Garden, where we gorged ourselves on bread sticks and cheese-laden pasta. (Yes, there was salad, too, but who wants to muddy the waters with talk of vegetables.) I would suggest that the happiness incurred there was a broad happiness, covering the five of us who sat around the table. Now you'll want to argue that one given my previous comments, but there's a distinction to be made. My fourteenth breadstick gave me a measure of happiness not quite as tall as number thirteen and pretty much restricted to me. Penny did not sit there enjoying that breadstick along with me as I ate it. However, the happiness of the entire experience lapped over all of us. The happiness of Alyson's entree was hers alone, but she shared in the happiness of the whole experience. Similarly, when I took my kids to Worlds of Fun last summer, I decided did not enjoy riding some of the rides. In fact, I honestly thought I might hurl all over one particular spinning hell called Cyclone Sam's. At the same time, I very much enjoyed sharing time with Thomas and Olivia. Their ride on the Mamba was happiness that only they--individually--enjoyed, but the day at the park was happiness shared by all.
So you get the idea of the breadth of happiness. I would argue that just as tall happiness is better than short happiness, broad happiness is better than narrow happiness. When something makes 100 people happy as opposed to making 1 person happy, then it is better. That seems pretty obvious, but we often forget it.

The Pursuit of Happiness, Part 2

So what is happiness? Economists talk about something called "utility," which can be roughly defined as goodness or usefulness or value, but these are not the same as happiness. I'd like to think about happiness as an object. Not a garden-variety object of the sort that you'd find loitering under a twenty-five-cent tag at a garage sale. No, I'm thinking of a more metaphorical, more abstract object, but still an object with three dimensions.
Happiness, I would argue, has height and breadth and length. We'll take a few minutes now to examine the first of these three dimensions, height.
The height of happiness seems to me pretty obvious. Imagine for a moment that you're driving along a busy road. If you're like me, you simply hate red lights, recognizing them for what they are: a conspiracy by public works types to foul up your schedule. As you drive along, coming up to one of those intersections that doesn't really need a stoplight but has one anyway, you see the scowling visage of the red light. "No," you think to yourself. "I do not want to stop for this ridiculous light at a cross-street where one car comes along every four hours." And then something magical happens. The light turns green and you drive through unimpeded.
Happy? Of course you're happy. I'm happy when I'm waiting for some slow webpage--some blogger page perhaps--to load and it finally pops into view. Yes, that's a little chunk of happiness, but it's not a very tall chunk.
What would be an example of tall happiness? You've just gotten engaged to the most fabulous person on earth. That's a tall chunk of happy. You've just found a bag with $187,000 in it. Tall happy!
But here's where the limits of the height of happiness come in. When I'm riding a great roller-coaster or hooking a fish or biting into a Chipotle burrito, I experience a significantly lofty bit of happiness. It's tall, but that's all it is. To get really great happiness, we'll have to go beyond tall happiness. And that's where we'll take this investigation next time. Unless I decide to take it elsewhere.

Political Punctuation

This has nothing directly to do with the pursuit of happiness. Instead it has to do with the current political season, specifically with the teacup of hot water that Mike Huckabee found himself in recently. You might remember that in early December Huckabee, after being asked for his opinion regarding Mormonism, asked, "Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?" What a hue and cry we heard then. Mitt Romney was incensed. The LDS church cried foul. Huckabee apologized. Every pundit in the Western hemisphere weighed in on the significance of the question and the sincerity of the apology.
What nobody seemed to bother to ask was do "Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers"? Do they?
FAIR, a Mormon apologetic cite, lists the "Jesus-Lucifer spirit-brothers" criticism among the unfair attacks to be refuted. They trace the criticism to a couple of anti-Mormon apologetic sources, but how did those people get this (apparently) crazy notion.
It seems that in 1870 Brigham Young, whom the LDS hold up as a prophet, described Jesus and Lucifer as brothers. In 1945, Milton Hunter, another high LDS official referred to the pair as "spirit-brothers." We can find similar proclamations from LDS apostles John Widstoe, George Cannon, Joseph Merrill, Joseph Young, and Bruce McConkie, and another of their prophet-presidents, Spencer Kimball.
So what do the Mormon's teach today? Apparently they teach that all sentient creatures are in one sense "children of God" and therefore brothers and sisters. According to that logic, Lucifer-Satan would be a brother of Jesus. That's not my theology, but they're welcome to believe whatever they want.
Here's my point. If two Mormon prophets and a fist-full of apostles have published materials that pretty clearly state this as their belief, why should anybody take exception to Huckabee's quite natural question?

The Pursuit of Happiness, Part 1

I've been thinking a good bit about the pursuit of happiness in recent days. I'm not talking about the recent Will Smith movie here. I mean that phrase from the Declaration of Independence--as in, "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
According to Jefferson, the pursuit of happiness is one of the rights bestowed on all of us by our Creator. That fact, he argued, was "self evident." Clearly, Jefferson did not mean that happiness was some sort of inalienable right for all people. If that's what he meant, then he would have said "life, liberty, and happiness." Instead, he mentions the "pursuit of happiness." As an analogy, I could note that the state of Missouri guarantees me the right to pursue largemouth bass. They don't guarantee that I'll catch anything when I put a line in the water, but I have every right to pursue them.
While I have some sense of how to pursue fish, I don't find it nearly so clear how to pursue happiness. In fact, I'd suggest that most people don't have a real clear notion of how to pursue happiness. In order to pursue happiness, we have to know pretty clearly what it is, and I don't believe that most people have that very well in mind. Over the next few posts, I'd like to explore this notion of what happiness is and how one goes about pursuing it.