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Word
Gems
Personal Statement #11
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December 5, 2008
"Let's get this done, so you can go and get ready, and go to confession tonight." Dad has just made what he thought was a simple and harmless statement, not unlike innumerable other ones as he sought to manage the affairs of his family. But little does he know that these seemingly innocuous words would now send me careening and crashing, spinning out of orbit, send me around the world, send me far away from home and hearth, for decades to come; in a sense, never to return. It is a summer Saturday evening, and we are working rather quickly to unload a trailer filled with hay bales.
... the stack of hay bales - the launching site of my new orbit
I am 17. I knew this moment would come, and it's finally here. It's been popping and percolating in my head, under the surface, since I was 15. For these last few years, I have been reading and thinking and re-evaluating this whole issue of God, and what he might want; the nature of the church; the southeast Asian war; what life means; and how I fit into all of this. I have had many conversations, the first real intellectual conversations of my life, with my good friend, Grover Diemert, the young assistant priest, not so much older than myself.
I hear Dad's words; and, as the nanoseconds flit by, I sense that things will soon never be the same. It's sort of like Picard, having collapsed on the bridge of the Enterprise, living an entire lifetime in his mind, while the crew perceives only seconds to have passed (SNG #125, The Inner Light,1992). And, in those few seconds, before I respond, with my emotions now wild with apprehension, my synapses dancing in ways previously unknown to me, I see a flash of my future - I see that my days of "the good little boy" will be over in the next moment; that I will now disappoint, and cause grief, to parents and grandparents; especially, to my mother, who harbored a secret wish for me to be a priest; that I will now assume the mantle of "the black sheep" in my immediate and extended family; and even to friends and neighbors. In the midst of this swirl of chaotic vision, a small voice, deep within, speaks softly to me, comforts me, but goads me:
And now, seeing, in an instant, all of this future trauma, I pull the trigger... "I'm not going to confession tonight." Dad at first says nothing. Surely this is just a little communication error here. This good boy went to parochial school for 8 years, and he must mean that he's going at another time; yes, that's it, of course. I am asked for clarification. But, you might say, it is 6 AM, September 1, 1939, and the cannons begin to roar at the Polish border. And I say, "No, I'm not going to confession at all."
(1969) the tractor and trailer - stage props of a great drama in my life
Dad is not a fanatic. He's not pleased at this announcement, but there is no undue histrionics; others would play that role. Some time passes, and Dad is trying to figure out how to deal with me. He comes up with the idea that maybe I will go with him to speak with a priest - "not that trouble-making young priest friend of yours, but a real priest, a good one" - he's hoping, of course, that an aged religious official might do the trick, and defeat my arguments, which, he assures himself, are merely "a phase" that I'm going through, anyway. Reluctantly, in respectful deference to my father, I agree to this. This was a most critical point in the negotiations. If Dad had thought about this more, and had taken me to see Father John Kuhn, a close relative, a real gentleman and saint of a man, I might have been persuaded to cool down and to work peacefully within the system, seeking for answers that way. And my life would have evolved along much different lines; but it seems that I was meant to grow in another more turbulent way, and to experience something else.
True Confessions This local-chieftan priest is not happy to see me. And he is not impressed with my questions. This is not only the most arrogant priest, but among the most unashamedly arrogant individuals, that I would meet in my entire life! And look at him now, on stage, quite a good performance, actually: he puffs, and he struts, and he snorts, and he pouts, and he sneers, and he beats on his chest, with his lower lip extended in proper aristocratic fashion, as his spirit makes abundantly plain to me his sentiment: "How dare you, you insolent and uppity young ******* pipsqueek, that you should, first of all, take my evening, and then sit there, and say that you don't believe what your Dad tells you to believe - not to mention what Holy Mother Church tells you to believe!" And I know that this ecclesiastical politician is very threatened by me. He really doesn't know what to do with me. This is not the way it's supposed to work. He's not used to somebody answering back and questioning his pontification; and I know, because I can hear it in his dark malevolent tone, and I see it in his dark eyes, that if he could get away with it, he'd so quickly bring back those handy little tools that used to win all theological arguments, the torture devices of the Inquisition. At this stage, this ingenue has not yet had the benefit of a large theological research library at his disposal. I know a few things, very few, and I bring them up; but I don't know too much. What I do know is that this angry little man is lying to me! He cannot answer my questions, neither with any degree of equanimity nor reasonableness; so, in the spirit of that famous gangster, "When arguments fail, a gun can come in very handy," he tries to bully me, tries to push me around, and insult me.
And this local church demagogue, this sophist, now just spews whatever the hell he wants to, knowing that he will not be held accountable. And he begins to make wild pronouncements like, "If it weren't for Holy Mother Church, people like you wouldn't even have a Bible!" That is a lie, and I knew it; but he's playing to the "swing voters in the middle," my Dad in the audience, who is listening to all this, and can't get a clue about any of this religio-techno jargon. But, now, I stop playing the game. I'm done, and I'm not talking to you anymore, pal. It's so over, and I am so outta here. And I am mad. And I am more than mad. I am enraged. I am seething and boiling. There is lightning in my veins - along with gross hatred in my heart.
Well, I made good on that promise. I did become an expert. But it took me decades, and the price was high, maybe higher than I would have been willing to pay had I really known. But, allow me to say, that this rage and hatred in my heart shut down my emotions, shut down my true feelings, separated me from my true self... and from the people in my life who meant most to me... and would do so for many years to come. I would now enter a long period, many years of hell-bent anger, and years of depression, years of being hard to live with. It would be some time before I realized, in my dark broodings, that I was in danger of becoming just like that little man who had vilified me. I am happy to report that I finally righted myself, and my healing continues today.
I spent some time at a bible college. I made some life-long friends there. Some of the professors, too, were very good to me; but, in the main, the faculty did not like me too much, and would not promote me: "There you go thinking again! Why can't you just accept what our High Mucky-Muck Apostle says! you and your questions again! How disloyal of you! - why don't you just listen to God's Chosen Teachers - and, by the way, we'll never make you one of those, you know, we can see that right now!"
And I remember in class, in front of everyone, this instructor trying to insult me, point me out for ridicule, trying to put me down, because I had dared to question something he had said. How threatened he was. I am reminded just now of Churchill's words:
I love it! Yes, they are panicked and terrified by words and thoughts; because, as Betrand Russell said:
No wonder the Dear Leaders hated me! What I had done was to jump from a large cult religion to a small one - the stage and props and dialogue were the same, only the actors and background scenery were different. Cult leaders desperately want to control the flow of information to their party faithful: "we certainly wouldn't want your little heads to get confused; so, don't read that, and you mustn't read this, and you're disloyal if you buy that book." What they frantically wish for you to do is to read only their approved and censored literature: "We limit your freedom for your own good, you know." The dictators of history always talk about taking away freedoms for the protection of the people.
Don't look behind that curtain! said the Wizard of Oz Allow me to tell you about how I would research a subject. If you want to find theological truth - that little part of the truth which might be had via academia (the best parts, in fact, are to be found elsewhere) - you have to approach it in the right way. For example, if you were going to research the subject of hell, it would need to be done this way:
(1) Words You must find all the occurrences of "hell" in the New Testament (NT). To be thorough, you must also find all related terms such as "eternal fire," "everlasting fire," "eternal destruction," and many more.
And then you have to do the same thing in the Old Testament (OT). Depending on the importance of the subject, meaning, the degree to which it is discussed in scripture, we are talking about hundreds, maybe thousands of references!
(2) Languages There are jokes in theological circles about narrow-minded people who say, "If the King James Bible was good enough for Paul, it's good enough for me." I hope you know why this is funny! Today, we see the Bible written in English; even, American slang, if you want that. But the NT was originally written in Greek (or Aramaic); and, some of it, not in polished Greek, but just common street-language Greek. The OT was written in Hebrew; a little bit in Chaldean, too, just to throw you off. Now, this really increases complexity's order of magnitude; because, for example, a certain Greek word, in one instance, might be translated into English as "hell"; but elsewhere, that same Greek word might be translated as a different English word. That's some of the fun that different teams of translators had when they produced the English versions.
Bottom line, if a researcher wants to do a good job, he or she will have to visit all of those Greek and Hebrew words, as well, just to see how they were translated; just to make sure that you haven't missed something.
(3) History and Culture If I mention "the 4th of July," you will immediately know that I am speaking of something more than a date on the calendar; because wrapped up in that little term is a great deal of history and meaning. But if you had just arrived, let's say, from hundreds of years ago, and I used this phrase, you would take me literally, and totally miss my point and the deeper meaning. This is how language works. And in Greek and Hebrew there are multiple thousands of these little metaphors, little abstract pictures of something else, packed with ancillary meaning, generally unknown to us today of a different culture, but common knowledge to anyone living back then. This means, of course, that literal translations of words and phrases can be utterly misleading without additional knowledge relating to local culture. The literal interpretation of "4th of July" is merely a calendar date; and if that's all you see, you've missed the whole point.
(4) Archeology and New Discoveries The Bible is actually a collection of nearly 70 separate documents, all sort of packaged together and sold, on sale, as a unit. These documents were written over a period of 1500 years. Words are slippery little things; they mean one thing here, and a different thing there; and, even worse, meanings tend to drift over time. Here's a tiny example: the little word "gay," a generation or so ago, meant one thing, but means something else today. Some people think that the dictionary is "the law," and that we have to obey the meaning of words found there. The dictionary, in fact, is merely a report regarding current usage, what words mean today! Language is a living thing and merely reflects the changes we see in society. So, if you're working with a Greek word, you have to know something about how that word was used at a particular time! New discoveries in archeology can tell us how words evolved, how they were used at certain moments in time; and you have to keep up with the latest findings.
(5) Context Let's say I use the word "run." You say, hey, I know what the word "run" means; but I say, really? am I talking about a baseball term? that line in her nylons? a morning jog? fearful depositors demanding their money at the bank? A good dictionary might have dozens of meanings for this word. Not all words are quite so hard to catch, but, in difficult cases, there's only one way for us to determine the author's original meaning - and that is context. If the author is talking about baseball, we can assume, with some degree of confidence, what "run" might mean in that context. The same is true for divining the meaning of the biblical text. It is critical to ask the question, What did this writer mean when he originally used this term? What is the flow of his argument? What is the overall sense of the message? What is his purpose in writing? What is the overall context? And it is right here - exactly here - that so many cult leaders, small and great, love to cheat at the game. Because, they will tell you, with a solemn and severe face, that John spoke of runs in his stocking, when any honest reader can see that John is talking about runs in a baseball game - if you see what I mean. It really is like that. And this is how cult leaders make the Bible sing and dance and say whatever they they want it to say. They cheat, and just inject their own private thoughts, irrespective of context; and then they will tell you not to look behind that curtain, because you might notice the context, and then the game will be over... for them.
(6) Major Interpretations Cult leaders, in their efforts to shape the minds of their sheep, will try to tell you that a certain book, or a certain doctrine, has only one legitimate meaning, only one interpretation... theirs, of course. The reality is that there will often be several possible interpretations. This is to be expected as absolute knowledge is hard to come by in this world, and reasonable minds can differ, each offering a somewhat varied editorial comment. For example, the Book of Revelation is such a favorite book for demagogues, where it's easy to claim all sorts of interpretations.
You know, there really is a good message in that little book. I can't get into it right now; but you will never hear about it from your friendly neighborhood cult leader.
(7) Church History Part of the search for doctrinal truth must focus on current official positions. And questions must be asked regarding why, historically, certain positions were taken; that is, in the face of many other options. And you must listen closely to the answers given to defend decisions made way back then. Can it pass the smell test? Many of you are not impressed with what's happening in politics and in Congress today; you are not impressed with the raw ambition; the self-dealing; the constant flow of lies; the fraud and corruption. Is there even one person who is honestly working for the people? And yet many of you might be offended if I were to suggest that an august Church "Congress" of the past, might not have been 100% spiritually motivated when certain doctrines were adopted! The problem, for true believers, is that we have abundant historical records indicating that what today passes for "God's Law" and "God's Truth" and "God's True Doctrines" were once railroaded into legislation, and popular acceptance, with motivations and bully-tactics that we might see in some southside Chicago gangland thuggery. We must understand that even thuggery, sanctified by the passage of much time, with official history written by the victors, can take on an institutionalized veneer of respectability. In the main, the popular doctrines of Christianity, today - the way they have been presented to the masses - represent little more than an effort to control people for some elite group's private gain. And any scholar worth his letters knows this to be true!
And when one studies in such a manner over many years, employing this kind of methodology, this kind of depth, one develops a kind of x-ray vision, allowing one to see the skeleton, sinew, and cells of a subject, as large numbers of references pop into the brain at the mention of the major theological topics. It's like seeing the building blocks, the DNA, the molecules and atoms, jumping and dancing, regarding the deep substrata of what is passed off to the public as inevitable gospel truth! Such insight, for me, was a tremendous intellectual high. I lived in this whole research process, most of my spare time, for nearly 30 years. I estimate investing, maybe, 40,000 hours, the equivalent of many Ph.Ds. I don't do it anymore, stopped 10 years ago. But information like this can make people angry. The question, however, becomes - do we want to know what's real? People who have not done much biblical research might assume that such enquiry will be a most pleasant inspirational Sunday picnic... Well, not quite. If you look at things with any depth at all, if you go beyond the approved literature of your church, you are going to feel the heat pretty soon... you're going to have to admit that you've been wrong about many things.
There is so much money involved in religion, so much power over people. The history of this troubled world is largely a chronicle of our wars, the efforts of the few to dominate the masses - some historians have commented that we wouldn't even have history but for the wars and the thuggery. But if you want to finally surmount all of this, and find out what's real, if you're ready to pull that trigger, the information is out there; but the gatekeepers to the kingdom, those collecting tolls at the entrance, will try to keep you from looking behind that curtain, and they will attempt to do so with all manner of intimidation, fear-tactics, and guilt-trips.
And it's hard to admit, and to discover, that all of your time devoted to the church choir, or bake sales, and so many other church activities, will earn you zero points, a big fat zero, regarding making any difference in any cosmic accounting of things; and your nice neighborhood priest, or your nice minister - the ones that smile at you, and pat the heads of your kids every week - it's hard to admit that they've been a part of such tawdry historical procedure; and many of them are very nice, but many of them are just as ignorant of the things spoken of here as any - though nice, many are incompetent, essentially uneducated, poorly educated, mere underling technicians, and have no clear idea of the things of which they speak, and have merely read what they were told to read, and that's all they know. The question is, do you want to know what's real?
So, this is just one man explaining what happened to him... one man in the wilderness; one man still searching and fumbling in the dark; but, I'm happy to report, it's not quite as dark as it used to be. Pack light for the trip... I'll bring the beer... because we won't be going for the kool-aid too much any more.
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