Cruelty of Anonymity

If the internet has taught us anything about the human psyche, it is how miserable people can be in anonymity. But our internet persons aren't distinct from our social selves, just under-supervised aspects of our personalities. It's easier to bandwagon and mob when it's only an avatar, and your actions are not judged by those who actually know you.
I hesitate to say "in real life" because pitchforks are raised immediately when it is suggested that an online existence doesn't have merit. Of course it does. But if you suggest the internet carries psychological weight, then you must admit it does so for others.
I've been thinking a lot about privilege and racism and the horrors that mankind can inflict upon itself. Racism can be a bit of an umbrella word, like organic. We stack patches onto its meaning until it gets unwieldy and confusing, and every conversation about racism is about "All x are racist" and "I'm not a racist because" when every side uses whatever definition of racism leaves them the least culpable for their atrocities of character.
I am a person of great privilege, and I intrinsically act out of a systemic racism that I desperately attempt to fight, daily. Some days I succeed and some days I fail. But there are other definitions of racism, I'm sure, that would exonerate me. I do not believe I should be ashamed of that racism that stems from my phenotype. No one should be ashamed of their phenotype, whatever advantages or disadvantages it brings. Shame isn't the correct response to most anything. But I still need to understand the systemic advantages my appearance and social class have provided. I have so much more in the way of life chances, and that very privilege carries with it an incultured set of indoctrination and racisms that I may never fully shrug off.
But I will try.


I've been thinking a lot about hate recently. I can't think of an instance in my life where hatred of a person has been constructive. I can't think of a single time in my life where being cruel has helped or been beneficial. I can't even imagine how it could be.

Easy, Lucky, Free

Ascribing to the American Dream was never my prerogative. It's impossible to be a white, middle-class male and not fall into subliminal racism incessantly, and I skirmish internally with my "ease of life" every day, my inherent life chances. 

More and more, I feel a pervasive shame for my class. If I made a list of things I despised, near the top would feature "entitlement" and "cruelty" and "disloyalty" and "selfishness". These are the psychologies that are symptomatic of poverty, hunger, abuse, murder, and racial injustice. If I woke up in another shade of skin, would I deserve a different lot?

It sounds silly on paper, but yet it remains ingrained into our society. If I woke up Black or Asian or female or gay, my "life chances" drop considerably. It's strange looking at our country and seeing our government deny bathroom equality for transgenders and think, not that long ago we had segregated drinking fountains and buses for differing melanin levels. It's not about the bathrooms; it's not about the buses and fountains and lines. It's about a cultural baseline that entitles a racial injustice, and rather than those people feeling shame, they feel morally superior in comfortable ignorance of the cruelty of the subjugation their are perpetuating, either actively or passively.

My life is easy, lucky, free, but simply as a byproduct of my phenotype rather than my morality or generosity or graciousness. 

In which everything falls apart but I'm still so blessed

When your furnace breaks, making for a cold Christmas; when a water pipe bursts and floods your living room, and when, while ironing, a circuit breaker gives up the ghost; when you're stressed contemplating match day and feeling like the future is especially arbitrary; when your car's transmission bids adieu; when, after all these things, your laptop breaks and you have to still think about the hemorrhaging of money because all these happened in a month; when you are feeling the sorrows of those passing away and those wasting within from cancer... Sometimes you must surrender control.
I am no Job. I suffer magnitudes of grief less than the truly stricken and poor. These things are a refocusing of sorts. A reminder. And if there is still so much joy, well, then you've at least married the right person.

Cast Die

I think the greatest obstacle to my motivation and accomplishment is confidence. Perhaps overconfidence. It stems from a competitive inclination and quickly becomes an inhibition. I'm a great lover of competition, and yet I struggle mightily with correcting myself when I'm not actually "losing". In those situations where the conditions for victory remain obfuscated by circumstance or the object or opposition against which the game is played is enigmatic. And those situations where my opponent lies within myself - those I always lose. The problem is, once I've acquired some semblance of inertia, even I cannot easily gainsay my own inclination. It isn't impossible, but so much more difficult without outside motive.
When I must practice to better myself, yet without any relative comparison, I fail. I'm overconfident in my abilities and fail in the daily follow-through. One of my most difficult problems with my competitive spirit was that once I knew that I could win, I moved on. Once winning was technically within my grasp, everything else was academic. I knew I could do it; those that mattered understood I was the stronger competitor. That was my youth - never an opponent worth beating.
Except myself.
And now, forcing myself to maintain rigor, to daily accomplish various rituals of living and life, I struggle. What competitive urge forces me to eat a certain amount, exercise just so, or write a certain quantity? The competition rests in the long haul and the terms of ambiguous.
Another of my competitive angsts was in chance. I disliked games of chance and sometimes even games of dull strategem. I loved the knowledge games. Games that possessed not only a breadth of opportunity, but a depth of decision. But life contains its own fair share of frustrating chance, or seeming chance. Why does one child get cancer, and another fly free? Why does one get born into poverty and another wealth? Why does this curmudgeon survive into longevity and this kindly soul find an early grave?
The dice feels weighted against good sometimes, or most ostensibly so when those miseries occur. And the hard part for me is deciding to struggle against myself when I know that my future seems somewhat contrived and chancy rather than directed. There are too many variables.

I used to play a game with myself. I would ask myself impossible statistic questions like: "I wonder who is both the fastest, shortest, and most stylish person on this field?" The problem with questions like these is the weighting of the variables. Is "fastest" the most important? What if the fastest is also the tallest? Or the least stylish? How do you diagram that out? Even one of those seems so arbitrary and subjective. That's how life feels, except with more variables. Each person has a say in my destiny, and so does the spontaneity of factors too invisible for me to ascertain: genetics, environment, and so on.

With all this, how does one maintain motivation towards an uncertain end? It feels like that line in Annie Hall about why Alvie was not doing his homework. "Because the universe is expanding, and eventually everything is going to collapse" was the (inexact) response. That can be how it feels - a bit fatalistic. But then you can so easily get stuck in the rut of doing nothing at all, which is worse, sometimes, than mistakenly taking a wrong step. At least you can learn from a wrong step. And all this is really just a bit of rambling sophistry, but it's interesting to think about those tiny obstacles and factors that stagnate us like flies in honey. When we are our biggest enemy, who will lift us free? I think that's question answers so many others. You can tell a lot about a person by who will lend them a hand, and how many kindnesses come when the dice lands poorly.

LGBTQ in the Church (a meeting on a minute)

Is this Spirit here? Or just high spirits?
Does the Spirit split two ways? Is it a river or a hurricane? Every "leading" eddies and suffocates - which side holds the sense of truth?
How is it possible to exist so divided and so compelled and spirit-filled within the unified body? Is it possible not to? Can we? Do we?
Does anyone know, with shadowless certainty, the Truth? Or even one Truth? In such a multifaceted view, both sides tossing out vindictives and dismissives at the brick-wall-minds of the other side.
The "other side" doesn't value diversity or discussion, acceptance and unity, love, grace, or forgiveness.
Or the "other side" exists in shallow theology, being biblically naive, sitting with sinners, misrepresenting a "holy" God and wholly disregarding a depth of tradition and wisdom and practice of faith.
What middle ground between the spectrum of hell and bigotry? When it's either damnation or discrimination. Where are the enlightened sophists who have risen above the sheeple in middling belief and sit in the golden means of compromise? Surely these possess some Gnosticism worth being? But everyone is so obnoxiously right sometimes, or humbly condescending. Where are the patient listeners? The quiet dialectic?

Spectrum of Life

A lot happens in a year, a month, even a day.

I’m married, and I was not.

Arguments regarding LGBT in the church community.

Legal suits in town against the yearly meeting of friends.

I’ve been surprised how quickly people rear up with opinions like king cobras. Beliefs on wedding timing and relationship mantra, or arguments against persons – all with such violent strikes. Less than the content of the arguments, the entitlement and anger with which people defend their beliefs can be appalling. And frightening.

Not that such a righteous anger is always wrong. Au contraire, a righteous anger is often warranted. The scary portion is the direction of the anger targeted towards persons rather than ideas. Rarely is hate an agreeable ideal. Rarely is vindictiveness a moral imperative. It’s that same quality of person that stands outside an abortion clinic killing doctors in the name of Christ (or any higher cause).

I haven’t written in forever, and my first is somewhat angry, itself. Shoot. And that’s what I’ve noticed. Anger begets only anger.   

I think what’s been a joy to see in the passing weeks is that the flipside is also, often, true. Generosity, grace, and mercy often beget similar reactive replies. More than all of the miserable actions, more than all of the hatred and anger and angst of an uncertain people, the generosity and kindness of those loving persons in my community sticks with me.  At the wedding, people jumped into action to help, even without being asked. Whether it was pushing tables outside, organizing books, or grabbing Ems and I a bite to eat, people leapt into action. I couldn’t help but smile. It’s reminded me of all those times I’ve had the opportunity to help my friends, and how it’s never a chore, but a great blessing to be that servant. I remember how lucky I felt getting to look after a friend following a surgery (dental) and just hang out and make sure everything was okay should anything need doing. I feel similarly blessed helping each of my friends when they have to move (packing, and lifting) even if I’m the least qualified person for the task (have you seen these biceps? Most people’s ankles are bigger).  I honestly love it. And that’s what fills me with so much joy. When Ems and I wrote our prayer for the day, we hoped that the day might be filled with joy, and that that joy would be an evident reminder of our beliefs and hopes and joys. Our wedding was.

I hold these two great  scenes in balance, teetering forwards and backwards into each. The anger that bubbles up in reply to such, and the grace I force myself to remember, having been shown so extravagantly where joy is begat. These weeks have travelled fast, and are filled with great and weighty feelings, spanning a sea-wide spectrum of emotions. But I’m happy. I’m joyful; full of joy. There are heartbreaks, and there are moments so perfect I’m brought to tears.

I’m thankful for this and my community. In sickness and in health, in joy and in sorrow, I’m married to it in my spirit and I love it. I’m learning a lot about community and belief through my marriage already, and I’m only getting started.

Here’s to many more such days, weeks, and years. Here’s to life.

On the Road (with help from Tolkien)

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

I find that as I edit and struggle with the beast of writing I've set to tackle, I consider the road the
script and I have journeyed upon. It's like any life progression, physical, spiritual, or emotional, filled with pit stops and potholes, rivers and rolling roads. Sometimes we stop, sometimes we go, and often we find we've gone nowhere at all, yet progressed forever far.


Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.

This is it, Tolkien. It can sound so glamorous. Who tells the stories of blistered feet and damp days? We remember clearer the glories and summits along the way, rather than the sorry days burdened by sun or rain. And then telling tales like this, remembering the sorrows stronger than those. It's a temporal relativity masquerade: in summer, you remember the fireplace, the christmas dinner, the snowmen and snow days; in winter, you remember the green, being outdoors, walks and warmth and sun. But in both you forget the miseries, sometimes, and so it is with the cruelty of editing and writing for me, this week. It sounds glamorous, but I'm stuck in the ruts of a broken railroad. I believe the story is without value, knowing the pacing is poor, the dialogue dismal, the progression pathetic (puns intended), even though I simultaneously understand its meaningfulness to me.