My Essay from Vespers

Modernism, part two

We all walk through the dark.  Unfortunately, it is lit.  Today I saw a map of the United States at night and finally understood the death of the night.  The low southeast coast of Florida, the high coast near Maryland and Pennsylvania, the far western coast of California; the amount of light truly staggers the mind.  Instead of walking outside to look at the stars, spinning, now one only has to drive around the block: the only stars visibly shine like reflections out of the windows of skyscrapers and convenience stores.

Scientist and philosopher Richard Dewitt explains the size of the universe as such: if the earth were a foot in diameter (the size of an office globe), the sun would be a ten-story building two miles away, hulking; the outermost planet in our solar system would circle, tennis-ball size, eighty miles away; and the nearest star would shine fifty thousand miles away from our small sphere of colorful moulded plastic.

I looked at the stars several nights ago while my breath misted the night air near my chin.  Those glimmering puncture-wounds of light squinting through the roof into our cave.  I wondered if there was knowledge to be gained from them - not that the stars elucidate true human suffering, but perhaps we might know the nature of the world in a greater way by looking at them.  Whether or not they explain the mystery of the atom is obvious; but might we know the future if we gaze at Orion long enough?

The question is nearly moot: it seems that the modern man lacks the equipment to comprehend even obvious answers in front of his face.  To find knowledge in the stars is almost as foreign an idea as to know just how many apples one should buy at the market by gazing into a fishbowl.  To reverse this?  God only knows.  If I look at the stars, my neck begins to hurt.  If I lean against a slightly-reclining tree to rest, my rear end gets wet with dew.  If I fall spine-down on the grass to simply look up, my eyes close with weariness.  I am a child of my age: my eyes too impatient to see the future, my muscles too weak to comprehend anything beyond the edge of my fingers, my body too covered to feel the damp cool of the earth.

So we stumble in the darkness, forgetting the natural lights placed in the top of this midnight circus tent to show us the way.  If only we could look up without wincing, gaze into the darkness to search for illumination, relax in the midst of mystery.

Modernism, part one

I have sat here for several hours, looking and looking. The Grapes of Wrath lays on the glass surface of my desk, to the left of the computer screen is a stack of books from school, and my burning eyes can barely see anything. I don't know what I'm looking for, but I think it has something to do with my future.

Modernism has hold of mind and will not let go. It keeps whispering something like this: "You are losing your life to me and my daemons. Your iPod does nothing for you, and yet you grasp it like a starving man with a mouldy slice of bread. You devote more mornings to my television in the room next to you than your Bible. You surf and surf and surf. You are chained to me, but the fetters are of your own making. Now, add another link just to pass the time." And so I do.

This thing, modernism, is quite a monster. It split the family right in two - fathers went to the city, children went to the schools, and no one ate lunch together anymore. Business has steadily boomed into isolation, and men and women alike have slowly sunk further and further into their offices and cubicles lit by white lights and smelling of lemon-freshness.

But don't think that I am ignoring the benefits of this Promethean revolution and its first-born child, indoor plumbing, because the truth is far from that. In fact, it seems that our lives are much richer now than they would have appeared one hundred years ago. Most people smell of some sort of soap, and the ease with which goods and services appear in front of us bespeak privileges that even thirty years ago would have sounded ludicrous. Even this medium, the internet, has radically sped the evolution of human communication to almost up-to-the-second instantaneity. Impatience is slowly climbing its way up the ladder of virtues.

Thoreau has been speaking to me lately; I don't know if that is a good thing or bad. In defending the solitude into which he plunged to write Walden, he says, "I believe that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark, though the witches are all hung, and Christianity and candles have been introduced." This thing, modernism, breeds in our hearts an unnatural fear for the worldly and the sensual because they impede the progress of science and technology. We have Febrezed the sweaty air of summer, Shouted out the stains of a good meal, Mustanged away the muscles of a good horse, and Googled our way into ignorance.

Punch out the light bulb, just one time. See what happens. You will not die, nor will you lose your soul to the unknown. Instead, you just might find yourself hiding in the corn like Muley Graves, Preacher Casy, and Tom Joad. Hiding from the searchlight of the tractor-men coming to find you enjoying yourself. And you will laugh as they drive away, duck from the last swipe of their light, and feel a tap on your shoulder. Turn around: it is God at last making a move now that you have turned off the white lights of fear.

An E-Mail from Yesterday

A letter from the capital:

Last week, while traveling to Chicago on business, I noticed a Marine sergeant traveling with a folded flag, but did not put two and two together.  After we boarded our flight, I turned to the sergeant, who'd been invited to sit in First Class (across from me), and inquired if he was heading home.
“No,” he responded.
“Heading out?” I asked.
“No. I'm escorting a soldier home.”
“Going to pick him up?”
“No. He is with me right now. He was killed in Iraq. I'm taking him home to his family.”
The realization of what he had been asked to do hit me like a punch to the gut. It was an honor for him. He told me that, although he didn't know the soldier, he had delivered the news of his passing to the soldier's family and felt as if he knew them after so many conversations in so few days. I turned back to him, extended my hand, and said, “Thank you. Thank you for doing what you do so my family and I can do what we do.”
Upon landing in Chicago the pilot stopped short of the gate and made the following announcement over the intercom:
“Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to note that we have had the honor of having Sergeant Steeley of the United States Marine Corps join us on this flight.  He is escorting a fallen comrade back home to his family.  I ask that you please remain in your seats when we open the forward door to allow Sergeant Steeley to deplane and receive his fellow soldier.  We will then turn off the seat belt sign.”
Without a sound, all went as requested. I noticed the sergeant saluting the casket as it was brought off the plane, and his action made me realize that I am proud to be an American. 
So here's a public “Thank You” to our military Men and Women for what you do so we can live the way we do.

signed:  Stuart Margel -- Washington, D.C.

"No arsenal, no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women."
-- Ronald Reagan

I put this up here because I have two friends in Iraq - one named Chip Herrin (U.S. Army) and another named Jeffrey Ruark (U.S. Marines).  It is always good to remember that they need our prayers.  Even though the war in Iraq has become a disaster, we can still pray that God would birth good peace in the midst of chaos and keep our brothers and sisters safe.

Currently Listening At Folsom Prison By Johnny Cash see related

Not the healthy

Recently, I took a trip.  I packed my bags, only a small blue duffel and my book satchel, and walked out into the balmy autumn air of my mind.  The breeze blew here and there, the clouds floated around, occasionally obscuring the sun and helping my shadow do a disappearing act, and I walked to the train station.

Platform 7 was my destination, the one leading to my thoughts on the state of man, the value of human life, and the character of God.  “One, please,” I said to the man at the window.

“One ticket to your worldview?” asked the man at the window.

“Yes, please,” I said.  “My body is at a conference on ethics and I need to reacquaint myself with the area.  It shouldn’t be too long, I don’t think.”

The register beeped and buzzed and finally wheezed to a ding as the man at the window slid my ticket to me through the bowl-slot in the counter.  “Have a nice trip,” he said, smiling enthusiastically.

After making a quick stop at the large coffee shop just to the left of the ticket window, I trekked to Platform 7 with my ticket firmly folded in my left breast pocket.  I sat down on the wooden bench just opposite the big yellow sign with black letters that read “Platform 7: to Worldview,” and glanced at the rest of the platform.  Surprisingly, there was no one else around when I boarded.

I thought long and hard while the train bumped and jostled along.  The conference my body was attending had proved surprising – I expected to discuss Christian ethics or how the Bible related to ethics or how Jesus looked at peoples’ hearts instead of their clothes; what I got, however, was a rude introduction to the world of relativistic worldviews and the confusion lurking therein.

I returned, arriving back at Platform 7 without much delay.  I saw just the people I expected to see when I exited the train station.  There sat Michael Wood, the son of a Southern Baptist minister.  He was a senior Economics and Philosophy major at Wofford College, and a declared agnostic.  As I approached the small group in which he stood, he turned and asked, “But why would God create people just to send them to hell?”

Next to Michael stood Amanda Kilbourne, a junior Business Economics and Religion major who also went to Wofford.  She waited, intensely aloof, asking me about the worth of a person’s identity and the value of human life.  “How can we know anything?” she asked.

Behind both of them waited Jerry Voight, an older man, who only repeated, “Don’t forget to love and respect each one another.  The Bible is only a bunch of stories, and we cannot really know if God exists.  Just remember to not impose your beliefs on each other.”

There I stood, Biblical worldview in hand, ready to defend myself and all the points I learned my freshman year.  There they stood, relativism in hand, ready to love everyone and every part of any religion.

And then my heart broke.