Nathan Key

As both Seth and Jim pointed out in the comments yesterday, the practical outworking of a theory is probably just as important as the idea itself.

I heard Brian McLaren mention something like this when he talked about how hard it is for atheists to buy into Christianity when they see the evils that the Church has perpetuated throughout the ages. They can't rationalize the teachings of Christ- even if they are correct- when the people who "practice" these beliefs are just as guilty of hate and violence as the rest of the world.

Add to that Jim's comment regarding the "fruit of the vine" which is a great reference to Jesus' own call that we should align our assumptions about who people are based on the practical outworking of their lives rather than the beliefs they claim as their own. In other words- an apple tree bears apples, and a pear tree bears pears. Even if the two look a lot alike when they're growing into maturity, the moment the fruit appears, you know what they're really made of. Likewise, the fruit of our labors and the outworking of our lives will tell what we're really made of.

Of course, this doesn't take into consideration whether or not the person really practiced what they preach.

For instance, a bankrupt individual might come up with a foolproof financial plan which could help millions get back on their feet- regardless of his own financial status. In order to really assess the merit of his ideas, we need to 1) ask him whether or not he's following his own financial plan. If he says yes, we write him off. If he says no, then we move to step 2) and get some further proof that his ideas could work if they were actually followed.

This is sort of a non-transferrable example because you'd hope that a person wouldn't proselytize a theory or belief they don't actually hold themselves- but there's probably something there.

What do you think?

I just began listening to a lecture series on Martin Heidegger, the German Philosopher with questionable ethics due to his involvement in Nazism.

Honestly, the first time I heard that he was involved with the Nazis, I got really cautious about listening to his ideas at all. I mean, why listen to the philosophy of someone who was part of one of the greatest evils of all time? What on earth could he possibly say that would have any sort of value for me?

But no sooner had that thought occurred to me, than another one entered my head: Why is it that I'm so quick to judge or label everything a person is (or was) based on one area of their lives?

I can't rationalize what Hitler and the Third Reich did. It was terrible. But that doesn't mean that individuals within the Nazi Party were completely devoid of good. (What about Shindler's List, for instance?) It would be like labeling me as an American and writing off everything about me because our Country's foreign policy is pretty messed up right now.

What's more convicting to me is that in a sense, that's exactly what the Nazis did when they began a genocide against Jews, Homosexuals, and Gypsies (among other victims of the holocaust). Hitler's gang couldn't see beyond ethnicity, religion, or sexuality. They reduced human beings to one defining characteristic and made an assumption that the person was completely worthless because of it.

So, even though I'm not the one carrying the gun- if I can't see beyond the fact that Heidegger had ties to the Nazis (or if I reduce anyone to a certain label), I think it puts me on shaky ground. I think it puts me just a few steps out of line with the Nazis.

That's why I've decided to listen to this lecture  with an open mind, hoping for something good rather than assuming that I'm going to be listening to flawed logic and corruption.

I finally finished watching 'No Country For Old Men' the other day.

Like many of the other Coen Brothers' films No Country played with the themes of fate and free will and I especially enjoyed the end of the film when Carla Jean tells Chigurh that the decision to kill is his alone- that the coin is not the deciding factor.

If you've seen the film I'd love to hear your thoughts on:

Whether the random accident at the end is symbolic of anything?
Is Bell destined to die, even if he retires?
What's up with Chigurh's coin toss?

Micah, Christopher, Jeff, and I have been having an excellent conversation surrounding Nietzsche, Progressives, Irony, and the Kingdom of God. I loved Micah's articulation of this idea which you should read over on his blog: End of History and Kingdom Come (parts 1-4).

Chris & Jeff had their own questions/comments, while mine were regarding Terry Eagleton's book which outlines that the New Atheists, Humanists, and Progressives are certain of humanity's ability to rise above oppression, poverty, and violence through legislation or cooperation. I've been involved in a spiritual community that's been heavily focused on social justice- they call it "Bringing the Kingdom of Heaven to Earth" and I thought that our own doctrine was eerily similar to this humanist approach to social justice.

Now, don't get me wrong- I strongly believe that we should continue these efforts. My community (and my heart as an extension) is set on making the world a better place and I think that's a good thing- an important thing. Jesus almost always met immediate physical, emotional, or relational needs before moving onto spiritual needs. But we also need to come to terms with the fact that there's a problem in the world that's not going to simply go away with a lot of hard work and cooperation- there's a soul problem. A sin problem.

Poverty is caused by sin. Violence is caused by sin.

We, as Christ-followers need to help the victims of poverty and violence, sure, but we also need to address the root issue- that the hearts of men are set against God and against each other. Until hearts change, the poor will always be among us and war will always be a reality. And as much as it pains us to admit it, heart change is something beyond the scope of human accomplishment. We can't really do in our own strength. There's no amount of Human Progress that will clear the way for men to let go of hate and fear.

Only God provides the sort of kindness that leads to repentance.

God alone can usher in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Yet, He’s allowed us to be a part of the process. And when we participate, we get to know God better and we get to be with God. That’s why it’s so important for us to engage in social justice and heart change. As Jeff mentioned: “I’m supposed to work to bring about God’s kingdom not because God needs me but because I need God.”

Today I'm going to post a slightly embarrassing revelation about myself:

When I'm around someone (especially other men) that I feel the need to impress, my voice gets higher.

It's a nervous tick, I'm sure, but it's a dead giveaway that I'm feeling intimidated or unsure of myself. I noticed it a few years ago, but this week it's been more obvious than usual because my new boss has a voice with a particularly low register- quite a bit lower than mine to begin with- and this makes my own nervous intonation all the more obvious to me.

But, I wonder if this is actually something bigger than mere nervousness?

I ask this because as I've had the opportunity to experience and interact with different cultures, I've found a common denominator of respectful positioning seems to permeate them all. What I mean is that each culture has some sort of respect tradition that gives those with experience or skill a visible indicator of honor. Some are a bit more obvious- like bowing or shrinking down to make the honored more prominent. Others are a bit more subtle- like deferring to the senior person's judgment or waiting for the honored person to respond to a question or action before making one’s own response. But whether they are minimal gestures or grand posturing, each culture has some sort of honor that they bestow on those who are seen to be experienced or skilled or respected.

I think that this idea of honor and respect is wired into all of us, as humans.

Of course Westerners would like to think that this sort of thing is behind us- that we've outgrown these sort of positioning games- but I really doubt that we can ever put something that's so fully tied to humanity completely behind us. Even as we thwart the more visible respect cues, subtle and subconscious ones inevitable take their place. So, I’ve decided that this is what my voice change is all about. I think it’s anthropologically aligned with the ideas of honor and respect rather than a mere nervous tick.

Here’s why:

Consider the differences between men and boys. There are many, of course- strength, hair, muscles, and sexual maturity (among other things). One very obvious difference is the tonality of a man's voice versus a boy's. The deeper, booming voice is an indicator that a boy is growing up- that he is coming of age. It’s one indicator that we are becoming "manly" rather than “boyish.” Boys who haven't hit puberty yet have much higher voices than men, more feminine voices like their mothers, and so this change is an powerful indicator of identity. They are becoming more like their fathers- they are becoming men.
 
I can remember very clearly the first day back in school after the summer between fifth and sixth grade. Everyone remarked that my voice had changed. Of course, I hadn’t noticed until then. For me it was a gradual thing that happened over the duration of summer break- I didn't even have the cracking voice. But my friends hadn’t seen me in three months and so they picked up on it immediately.

It made me feel special! I felt like I was more mature and grown up than they were since most of them were still still singing alto in concert choir.

If I take my own experience of growing up and couple it with the idea of cultural respect traditions, I’m going to make a leap and assert this: When I’m around men that I’m impressed with, a subconscious indicator is triggered, signaling my body and my heart that I feel immature or less important than the person I’m speaking with. And if I'm somehow less of a man than this other fellow, I take on a subtle, more "boyish" tone, indicating that the other man is more mature, more manly, more respected.

I believe that this has less to do with nervousness and more to do with the fact that in Western societies, we've tried to cut ties with visual respect signals and are now bound to subconsciousness ones.

Anyhow, as embarrassing as it may be for me to reveal this about myself, at least you've now got a good measuring stick for how comfortable I feel around you. If I'm speaking to you in a high tenor tone rather than baritone- you can be sure that I find you a bit intimidating…

I don't really think that humans were created to endure alarm clocks.

When we lived in Seattle I had the wonderful opportunity to work for a company who didn't really care that I was "in the office" at exactly 8:30. They were more concerned with whether or not I was coming up with good ideas within my deadlines. So since I didn't have a bus to catch or the requirement to be at work at a certain time each day, I got into the wonderful habit of sleeping until I woke up rather than according to the alarm clock.

Something amazing happened.

I found out that I usually woke up within 15 to 20 minutes of the same time each day so long as I went to bed around the same time each night. The difference was, sleeping until I needed to wake up rather than being awakened felt more natural.

I felt more rested.

I was on my game.

All this changed again when I began working at Advantor last month.

I didn't want to begin my career by coming in later than the official 8:30am office opening and so I began setting my alarm clock to make sure that I was getting up on time. And even though I began going to bed at a reasonable time, I found that I was much more tired and exhausted because of the artificial wake-up time.

I'm not entirely sure what to do to thwart this, because I obviously can't risk going into work habitually late... but I'd like to go back to my body's needs rather than something external. I just don't know that my new boss is going to be happy if I come in late every once in a while because I'm trying to "go natural."

Anyone have ideas on how we can meet the standards of Western Work Schedules and also trust our own internal clock rather than technology to wake us up?

My good friend Tom and I don’t agree politically very often- so I’m really glad to be in his corner on the issue of the evils of the bailout money and the tragedy that our government is spending our tax dollars to salvage really awful, shortsighted, and greedy decisions within the financial district. I’m glad that we can also agree that the government has no right to keep a failing US Car industry afloat by stealing money from its citizens after they chose to support non-US brands instead.

While it’s shocking to me that we can throw out $700 billion at the financial district, I don’t really think that most people truly understand numbers this big. Billions of dollars are simply so much money that we can’t wrap our minds around it. We simply can’t garner the mental capacity to understand how much that really is.

And because we don’t really have the ability to wrap our mind around numbers that big, the media takes advantage of the situation and pulls data that makes us even more angry about the situation. Take, for example, the recent bonuses that AIG gave their upper tier executives. When we heard that they gave their executives Millions of Dollars in bonuses (paid out of the billions of bailout funds), it turned into hysteria.

Now, they’re reporting that $22 Million have been spent lobbying the government to relax some of the very restrictions that have been put in place to keep these sort of things from happening. We can’t help but freak out at this point. They’re seriously using MILLIONS that WE gave them to LOBBY for GREEDY ENDS?

-- HANG ON: I need to interject a side comment here for a moment to remind readers that I’m very much against restrictions and government intervention in the market, I think that Federal government should keep its head OUT of the private sector. But I also believe that corporations and big businesses have no right to buy off congress, either. When the government sticks its head into the market it’s almost always results in the kind of socialism that results in stagnation and poverty. When businesses (or religions) stick their head into government it almost always results in fascism and corporatism that results in stagnation and poverty. So, both are terrible. I wish they’d leave each other alone. :END of RANT --

OK, before we get too carried away, let’s stop our anger for a moment and put these monies into perspective.  $22 Million is a lot, right? Here’s what it looks like numerically:

$22,000,000.00

It’s a big number. More than any of us will probably see in our lifetime.
But let’s see how it stacks up against $700 Billion? Here's the two amounts next to each other.

$22,000,000.00
$700,000,000,000.00

OK, so $700 billion is obviously a lot bigger, right?

But these numbers are still so much bigger than the sort of money we're used to exchanging that it's still a bit hard to put these into perspective. So, let’s go back to 7th grade math for a moment and kill some of those extra zeros. This will result in a proportional set of numbers that are a little smaller- a little closer to what we might expect to interact with in our lifetimes.

$22
$700,000

These two sets of numbers are a little more manageable. I’ve spent $22 dollars within the past week.

But what about that $700,000?

I still feel like that sum is a little too big. It’s the cost of a really nice house rather than the sort of money that I’d be able to exchange on a frequent basis. So let’s make this number $700 instead. That’s more like the amount of money I might get in a paycheck (or paychecks depending on job).

$.02
$700.00

When we make these numbers comparable to what normal Americans interact with on a daily basis- it turns out to be about the same as a guy who takes his $700 paycheck (or to make the analogy even more pertinent takes a month’s worth of unemployment claims) and tries to put in his “2 cents” worth to a senator or representative.

Of course, the principle remains the same- “why would any of these businesses spend money that wasn’t theirs to begin with on things that are just going to make the public enraged?”

But when we put it in perspective these sums should actually beg a different question- Why does anyone need $700 BILLION dollars? What on earth did they do to get that far into debt that $22 million dollars of lobbying is comparably 2 cents- a sum so small that it doesn’t even seem to matter?

But another story here is that we need to be careful lest our heads and hearts and opinion be swayed by manipulated data from the media. Given the right perspective, it’s easy to believe things about certain individuals or governments or situations that aren’t actually the reality.

Take for example the “Swine Flu” thing that’s going around. Sure, we need to be careful because it’s a potentially lethal disease. But so is the regular flu. In fact, the regular flu kills off thousands of humans each year in the United States alone. So far there haven’t been ANY substantiated fatalities in the US from Swine Flu.

Which one is more dangerous? Which one should we truly be scared of?

Apparently, that doesn’t matter. The media needs to find a story that will make us tune into their broadcast. They need to create emotions and so they feed us swine flu hysteria and bring on their experts to remind us that the evil financial district is spending huge sums of money with the bailout we gave them.

Don’t get sucked in; do the math and check the facts.

And don’t freak out.

Taken from a letter written by Studdard Kennedy to his family during WW2 :

"The first prayer I want my son to learn to say for me is not, 'God, keep my Daddy safe', but 'God, make Daddy brave, and if he has hard things to do, make him strong to do them'.

Son, life and death don't matter, but right and wrong do.

Daddy dead is Daddy still. But Daddy dishonored before God is something to awful for words.

I suppose you'd like to put in something about safety too and Mother would like it too. Well, put it in afterwards, always afterwards. For it really doesn't matter as much as doing what is right."

* * *

Studdard Kennedy was a chaplain during the war. An unarmed para-military person, working on the front lines with the men who served our country during the Second World War.

Now, I've heard about the sort of firefights that went on during WW2 thanks to my grandfather's stories (as well as an endless supply of cinematic displays from Spielberg and others who are passionate about war movies) so I'm fairly certain that being a medic or a chaplain must be some of the most nerve-wracking roles in the military. You faced the same dangers as the rest of them- without being able to defend yourself against attack.

That's guts.

And I'd honor those guys even without letters like the one above. But when I see the contents of Kennedy's letter- I'm shaken. Oh to be like the men who place honor, goodness, bravery, and strength before safety. They want to be safe, sure- but never at the cost of the aforementioned attributes.

* * *

I don't know that I'm ever going to be in a war situation, but that doesn't lessen the impact of these words on my life.
I truly hope that my son will want me to be brave and strong rather than safe.
And even more than these- I pray that he'll want me to be good.

And I pray that I will be.

I’m sure that every community in the world is full of paradoxes and contradictions.

When we lived in Seattle, one that blew my mind was that the same folks who liked to attend Labor Union Rallies with slogans like “Cut a Tree, Save a Job” were also adamantly against cutting down trees because of the impact that harvesting lumber has on the environment.

What paradoxes and contradictions do you see in your own community?