Of Things to Come

It's been two weeks since The Election, and I've been thinking about the outcome and its implications.

To my friends and readers who supported Mr. Obama, may we all have joy in your choice. For will-we or nil-we, you have dragged a large number of the population along with you. May none of us have cause to rue it.

For those of us who would have preferred the results to have been otherwise, I present, with some amendments, this list of resolutions I made late on Election Night, November 4th:

With the help of God . . .

1. I will not succumb to Obama-derangement syndrome the next four years, as so many Democrats have wilfully and luxuriously subjected themselves to Bush-derangement syndrome the past eight;

2. I will remain involved in Republican party politics, and resist the temptation to feel like It’s No Use. I will do what I can at my grassroots level to steer the party away from the Democrat-lite thinking and policies that landed us with such a lackluster presidential candidate in the first place;

3. When I supply a pulpit, I will pray for Barack Obama as president, as I have previously prayed for Bill Clinton and George Bush, according to the command of St. Paul in 1 Timothy 2:2;

4. I will resist the temptation to hope that Mr. Obama proves himself to be as harmfully radical and socialistic as his own mouth and associations have declared him to be, and I will support his policies whenever they seem to lead to good for our country;

5. I will exercise my rights as a citizen under the coming administration, affirming Barack Obama as my legally-elected president;

6. I will resist the temptation to feel that it’s pointless for me to keep working on my house, stymied by my fears that under an Obama administration I’ll probably lose it anyway;

7. I will resist the temptation to feel that I will never get a fulltime job given the likely business climate under an Obama administration, or let that give me the excuse to throw up my hands on looking for one;

8. I will not allow myself to believe that everything would be wonderful in this world, if only Mr. Obama had not been elected president;

9. I will not confuse the kingdom (nation) of the United States of America with the kingdom of God, and I will not let any awareness of decline or error in my earthly country cause me to lose hope in my heavenly city.

I do not resolve, however, to refrain from an occasional quiet but ironic laugh over how "Change!" currently seems to mean bringing back everyone and his dog from the Clinton administration . . .

Be of Good Cheer

I'm not preaching anywhere this morning; in a few minutes I'll break off and attend worship at a church in the area.

But I wish I were in the pulpit this morning, for, God leading, I'd give a rousing sermon on the Two Kingdoms.

No, that's not something out of The Lord of the Rings. It's the biblical teaching that we as Christians are citizens simultaneously of some kingdom of this world (in my case, the representative republic of the United States of America) and of the kingdom of God.

Trouble is, a lot of my American fellow-Christians tend to confuse the two. They believe that the coming of the kingdom of God depends on their reforming and remaking this their earthly nation to conform to their vision of God's righteousness. That the kingdom of God actually is America made perfect and holy after the model of Scripture.

Ergo, there are Christian partisans on both sides of the American political divide who believe that the inauguration of the kingdom of God depends on their particular candidate being elected this coming Tuesday. And upon the other party's slate being soundly and roundly defeated. Somebody's bound to be disappointed, and if you feel your God and your faith, as well as your political party, have been dealt a crippling blow, you're going to be devastated indeed.

But this identification between the kingdoms of this world and the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ is not biblical. Yes, at the end of this age the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ (Revelation 11:15), but not by any party politics or social activism or theocratic initiatives or any other piddling human promotions of our own. This will happen by God's own effort through His Son Jesus Christ, on the day when Christ puts all enemies, especially death, under His feet and delivers up the kingdom to the God and Father of us all (1 Corinthians 15:24-25).

Meanwhile, we Christians live and operate with dual citizenship. We pledge allegiance to our earthly nation, whatever it may be, and to its rulers insofar as they are not usurping the rights and prerogatives of God. For we know that all authority is delegated to human rulers by God to promote good and suppress evil. And that includes those human rulers whose policies we don't happen to agree with, who might not even believe in or acknowledge Him. And we owe fealty to Jesus Christ as our eternal king, who has made us fellow-citizens with all the saints by the new covenant, the new constitution, if you will, sealed by the blood of His cross. God sheds His grace on both kingdoms, but with the former it is common or providential grace, given alike to the just and the unjust, to those who worship Him and those who do not; with the latter it is saving grace, which is reserved for those whom He has called to eternal life in Christ. God ultimately is sovereign over both , but only the kingdom of God has to do with matters of salvation, and only the kingdom of God will last forever.

Yes, God wants us Christians to do good in and through and for our earthly nations. He wants us to be responsible citizens of America or wherever He has happened to place us in this world. But being a good American is not the same as being a good Christian. And if God forbid! America should someday be no more, the kingdom of God and our citizenship in it will stand.

I've picked my party. I will be voting for those whom I believe will do my country the best good in the foreseeable future. God may well work things out the other way, for our blessing or our judgement. However it comes out, it helps me to remember the last two lines of Martin Luther's great Reformation hymn, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God:

God's truth abideth still:
His kingdom is forever.

"May I Introduce . . . ?"

It's been edifying, milking present-day life lessons out of my Easter experience on the island of Iona nineteen years ago. Gives me something to ruminate over while I dig my vegetable garden.

One big piece of mental cud I'm chewing is how things coulda-shoulda-mighta been different between the young man I'm calling Lukas Renzberger* and myself that Maundy Thursday night during the tea break at the abbey. He confessed to me later that he thought I expected him to integrate me into the group spending Holy Week at the abbey, and due to the concealed conflict among those people, he couldn't deal with the prospect.

"Integrate," hmm? When I was doing an entirely different program in another building and only encountered the abbey group during worship services and evening tea times? Hey, guy, whatever happened to a simple introduction? Something like, "Blogwen, this is Malcolm. He's here from Edinburgh. Malcolm, this is Blogwen. We know each other from Oxford and she's from the United States." Straightforward, gracious, and leaving each introduced party free to pursue the acquaintance or not, as they wish.

The simple introduction: whatever happened to it, indeed? I've observed the past twenty-five years or more that the routine introduction seems to be moribund or dead. I recall in 1985 or so, standing with a friend in a recital hall lobby after a performance, when a young man came through the outer door and greeted the man I was with. The two began to talk, and I gathered that the newcomer had been the piano soloist with the city symphony at their concert the same night, and had come over to the other hall when he was done in hopes of meeting up with my friend, his old buddy from music school. All very interesting, but I was left standing there, irrelevant as a third wheel on a bicycle. Finally the pianist grew embarrassed at my friend's neglect, and introduced himself. If he hadn't, my friend would have chatted on and on and left me out entirely.

You see it all the time. People are together in a public place or maybe in a social setting, someone else joins them and greets someone of the original group, and the two focus entirely on each other and give the rest of the group no way to participate. Or it's the newcomer who gets left out.

The extreme version of this is the person who takes cell phone calls when she's in company. Not that anyone expects the recipient to introduce the caller to her friends who are with her physically. Which is a good reason why the cell phone should be put away on such occasions!

Then there's the larger impact of the decline of introductions. Used to be, thoughtful people would systematically introduce others to people it would be advantageous for them to know-- for marriage, for professional advancement, for social networking. Now we have to depend on Internet matchmaking sites and resume services.

Why do we not do this? Why has the introduction gone by the boards?

Some would claim it's because they don't want to meddle in other people's business. "After all, if he wanted to meet that big executive in his field, he'd introduce himself!" "I wouldn't think of introducing my niece to my friend's son who's just moved back into town! If she wanted to meet men, she wouldn't put in so much overtime at work!"

But I think it's just another sign of American individualism. Or, considering my experience on Iona, Western individualism. We focus moment by moment on who we are and what we want to do, with whom and when we want to do it. It's just too much trouble to expand our notice to include others, even others we've been with up to then.

American individualism can be a good thing-- if we spread it around and intermingle it so we all benefit. Making a point of introducing people would be a good place to start. At work. At parties. At church. Where you hang out. If you're concerned about protocol, it's the respectful thing to introduce the younger person to the elder. And, at the risk of being politically incorrect, the less experienced/less powerful/more junior person to the experienced/powerful/senior individual. And the man to the woman. But if you get it turned around, that's better than leaving a fellow human being dangling while you create your own private world with a third party!

Besides, if you introduce, you may find you get introduced-- to some people it'd be really valuable to know.

However-- however-- there is one place where the introduction is not dead. And that's in blogdom. It's called the link. It's the chaining blog awards given out by bloggers like Sandy and her colleague Daryl before her. It's cogent and thoughtful comments left on each other's posts.

No, we haven't met in the flesh; we don't necessarily know each other's real or full names. But in the virtual world we've been introduced, and that's been a benefit and a pleasure to us all.

Domestic Comedy

This evening I was at the local WalMart to pick up a few things. Even at 9:30 PM, the place was a madhouse, with not enough cashiers to check out the long lines of customers.

But oh, look! The "10 Items or Less" line was pretty short! Only one customer between me and the person being served! And I had . . . let me count . . . five, six, only seven items! Bingo! Should be rung up and out of here in no time!

Uh, maybe not. Just as I approached, two young women pushing a cart filled to the gills with food, household supplies, flowers, and clothes pulled in right ahead of me.

Oh, good grief, I thought. Two precious products of the modern-day American educational system. For obviously, they could neither read nor count.

I was wrong. Let us say, rather, two shining examples of modern-day American ethical education.

Young Woman 1: Here we go!

Young Woman 2: It's "10 Items or Less" . . . but hey, there's three of us, right? That's like if we had three carts, ya know?

YW1: Yeah! We can each do ten items at a time! You do ten, I'll do ten, and when Charlene* [the third member of their party, presumably; off somewhere in the store still shopping] gets here, she can do ten!

YW2: Great!

While the customers ahead of them were checked out, these enterprising young persons passed the time changing the prices on a display of DVDs. This diverted them so well that a great gulf opened up between their cart and the cash register, while behind me the line was extending back and back and around into the walkway. Spoil-sport that I am, I stage-whispered "Excuse me!" and YW2 quickly put down the price card she was fooling with and pushed their overloaded basket up and started putting things on the belt.

Cashier didn't say a thing, didn't bat an eye. (She might've been the one who got through twelve grades unable to count or read). Just stood there stolidly scanning the items as they rolled down the belt.

While I had a front-row view of the unfolding comedy. It was amazing. YW2 counted off ten items; cashier rang them up; YW1 paid for them. She counted off another ten items and paid for them herself. Then another ten, rung up separately again, which her friend paid for.

And not just any ten items. They had to be chosen carefully. Wouldn't want our orders getting mixed up, now would we?

Meanwhile, the line is getting longer and the atmosphere is getting tense and restless. I'm thinking, "For goodness sake, could you please hurry up, I'm about to be sick standing here! Come on!"

YW2 was deliberately and selectively pulling another ten items from the communal cart when I noticed something odd about her clothing. She was wearing a white and black sundress over a tee-shirt and slacks, and the top of the sundress was hanging down around her midriff. Is this a new style?

No . . . the tags were still on it. She must've tried the sundress on over her clothes to see if it fit, then couldn't be bothered to take it off. I wondered if she would be bothered to remember to pay for it, or if the cashier would have the wit and perspicacity to notice and get it scanned.

But I didn't get to see this part of the comedy played. YW2 was pulling out the cash for the fourth group of ten purchases, there were maybe fifteen or twenty articles of clothing still lying in the cart, the mysterious Charlene* had not yet appeared, and the natives in the queue were getting not only restless, but downright irritated, when YW1 exclaims, "Oh! I have to get a card!" To the cashier: "Where are the cards?" Cashier gives her directions, while I'm thinking, "Ye gods, they're going to go pick out a card and leave their basket here blocking the line. I know it ! I know it! Now I am going to be sick!" But YW1 says to her friend, "This stuff is mostly Charlene's*. Let's go get a card and find her." With that, they pulled away from the checkout and disappeared back into the maelstrom of the store.

Hilarious [she says grimly], just hilarious. Talk about adhering to the letter of the law and stomping all over the spirit! When is it okay to take fifty or sixty items through the "10 Items or Less" line? When you hold up the queue for ten or fifteen minutes paying for your haul in ten- item groups!

Not ethical, but oh my, how clever!

What was it that Jesus said about the children of the world being shrewder in their generation than the children of light . . . ?

"And the home of the brave!"

A photo or two before and after our successful rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the Pirates' game this afternoon. The acoustics were actually pretty resonant there around home plate of PNC Park. And happily, the stands blocked the wind. Pretty chilly for the 1st of May.

This was a grand experience, but it raised a question that's been bothering me for quite awhile: Why doesn't the crowd at sports events or at patriotic observances ever get to sing the National Anthem any more? It really isn't that hard to sing. If you can't hit the high notes, don't hit the high notes. The tune started out as a drinking song, for goshsakes. Let the citizenry jump in and have a go at it, like we used to in dim ages past-- oh, around five years ago.

It's as if we expect some professional artist or special group to be patriotic on our behalf. Kind of like sending the troops over to do our fighting for us. Yes, they are specially-trained, and we can't honor their dedication and sacrifice too highly. But it doesn't take the rest of us off the hook. It doesn't make us into spectators. It doesn't mean we can sit back and watch as if their fight has no claim on us. If--(God forbid) when-- the terrorists strike on our shores again, we're all combatants. That's how we need to think of ourselves, even if we never strike a physical blow in freedom's cause. Even if we only respond with courage and determination and resourcefulness in the face of atrocity. But how are we going to get ourselves into that mindset if we can't or won't even sing our own National Anthem for ourselves? That is not a job that should be left to the pros!