ON INAUGURATION, AN ESSAY, KEEN'S

Alternative Title:

"The Crippling Farce of the Separation of Church and State, Constructive Criticisms."

"On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics." - Barack Obama, inaugural speech

"Almighty God, Our Father, everything we see and everything we can’t see exists because of You alone. It all comes from You, it all belongs to You, it all exists for Your glory. History is your story...And may we never forget that one day, all nations, all people will stand accountable before You...I humbly ask this in the name of the one who changed my life—Yeshua, Esa, Jesus, Jesus—who taught us to pray: Our father, who art in heaven...[etc,etc.]" - Rev. Rick Warren's invocation at inauguration

I watched the inauguration, aired at midnight here, by means of digital cable in the house of one of the wealthier people in Palembang.

Before the ceremony begins, we flip through the local news channels to see what reports were being broadcasted. The Indonesian news, fueled by its flagrant bias and a recent surge of global Muslim solidarity, and unburdened by the concerns of airing violent imagery, is completely frank about the recent events in the Gaza Strip. Looped images of mangled, bloody, broken women and children linger for silent minutes on the screen; the amount of blood rivals that seen in a Mel Gibson film. The cameraman takes a tour of the dead-houses and hospitals, trying to find the most gruesome and horrible cases of injury and death (e.g. showing dead children and the pieces of shrapnel protruding from their chests) to show to the fulminating Indonesian populace. There is no room on the Indonesian news for any mention of the action out on Capitol Hill. To be in a vast-majority Muslim country at a time like this is quite the experience.

In the last two weeks, life at the Islamic boarding school has taken a turn for the tense. Almost daily there are meager but eager donations collected from the students to send to Palestine. Students are putting up posters in the hallways showing more violent images, along with rallying cries such as "Stop Death!" and "Destroy Israel!" (an ironic juxtaposition). Evening sessions in the mosques neighboring me have lengthened, with the intensity of the nightly lectures delivered to the students noticeably increased.

While life in a Palembang pesantren may provide a more extreme example relative to the average school community in Indonesia, the activism and anger is generally ubiquitous. At an education conference this weekend in the nation's capital, Jakarta, there happened to be a Palestine rally at the hotel where I stayed, graced with the presence of the country’s vice president and some heart-throb Indo-pop bands who had come to show their support. The lobby was awash with beautiful actresses representing various television syndicates, cameramen, gaffers, and an abundance of Palestinian scarves. Walking to dinner, driving to the way to the airport, and searching for a corner store, we'd see groups of motorcycle roaring by with political flags waving, dump-trucks full of cantankerous protesters. Some of these rallies have been explicitly anti-American, and those instances are avoided at a distance by us tall white guys.

While Indonesia is indeed a majority-Muslim country, it is not governed by an explicitly official Islamic institution. This is a Republic, and the separation of Mosque and State is, at least in writing, maintained and respected. But practically, that separation is a complete illusion. Despite the diversity of religions in this unbelievably diverse archipelago, Islam is the overbearing and undeniable ideological force at work in the government. This can be seen in first and foremost of the 5 founding laws of the new Indonesian state in 1945, "1. Believe in God." Indonesia seems to be the case in point that a nation can claim to achieve this said “separation” yet still remain a theocracy.

Many people, including my students and other Fulbrighters, argue about whether the Palestine-Israel conflict has its roots in politics or religion. Whether it does or not (my answer is that both are inextricably and dialectically involved, because, as I argue in this post, the divide between the two realms is a farce), people here are certainly discussing the conflict in religious terms. I know this by simply listening to the various conversations that occur in the teacher's office throughout the day. It is evident in the language and labels used in the local news. This last week, I gave a religion survey to my students, asking them some uncomfortable questions, the last and most extreme being this: "Would you rather stop being Muslim or kill 50 people?" 100% of the 314 students who completed the survey answered the latter, and 13% of them added, on their own accord, versions of the same parenthetical note at the end of the second option: "if they are Jews."

I have come to realize that it is countries like Indonesia, the tragedies in Gaza, and now the inauguration ceremony of our 44th president, that demonstrate clearly that the idea of the “separation of Church and State” and the idea that such a thing should remain a permanent goal of modern society are illusory. Not only that, but such “liberal denials” protect and even contribute to the perpetuation of volatile, destructive, distracting, and ultimately unendurable ideals.

The language of the inauguration last night made self-evident the illusory divide between the Christian church and the state to a degree that cannot be ignored. As I watched, I was blown away by the stifling amount of explicit and unabashed Christian language coating the prayers, songs, speeches, and symbolism of the event. I mean, the fourth sentence of Rev. Rick Warren's horrendous invocation was the unbelievably imprudent - although certainly intentional - verse, ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.' John William's beautiful composition was an obvious adaptation of a Christian hymn. Oaths were taken over a Bible. President Obama, in his absolutely fantastic speech, was heard to quote Scripture, refer to the founding freedoms of our nation as "God-given" and call upon "God's grace" in his closing words. The Benediction was given by another religious leader, albeit of different skin color, but of course not of a different creed. Religious plurality, even the acknowledgement of it was utterly absent from the event -- except in statements disparaging the idea that any creed or heritage is of any special importance, which as we shall see is problematic despite the liberal ease with which it is swallowed. (Even if plurality were present in the proceedings, plurality wouldn't be evidence not for the separation but the union of Church(es) and State.)

Granted, many of these religious outbursts are entirely excusable. Pledging oaths over Bibles can be as much an honor of national tradition as it is devotion to the Christian holy text, and, after all, what other equivalent book is there that one could take such a pledge over? (Actually, there are several religious and even secular texts that outline an ethical guide that is equally or even more substantive for those in political office.) Furthermore, who would deny a man his right to insert his opinions into his own speech, even if they are religious in ilk? To do so would be just as unconstitutional as the unification of church and state. And who knows if Obama's words were what he wanted to say or what he knew his people wanted to hear? The truth is, if the people want there to a Bible present and a shout-out to God in the inauguration speech, why shouldn't there be? I mean, "In God We Trust" is written on our currency and all over our national monuments. Theism is certainly our national tradition. The words "God" and "divine" are in our Constitution. We are guilty of the same theocratic status, same as Indonesia, albeit less explicitly. So why should the inauguration ceremony put on airs of utter secularism? Wouldn't doing so be more farcical than all the religious language going on under the banner of "Separation of Church and State?"

The answer is yes, it would be.

A historical perspective makes this obviously impossible “separation” seem like less of a naïve goal. Our forefathers, in writing our founding documents, were reacting to the explicit connection between the British king and the Anglican church, and all the oppressive problems that such a union incurred. This is most likely what was explicitly meant by the demands of religious freedom and separation of church and state in our Constitution’s preamble and Bill of Rights. However, by definition, a republic whose constituency is mostly Christian and almost entirely theistic cannot claim to be governed by a secular government, if that government is in fact representing its people. Whether or not this is the conflict to which our founding fathers were referring in the Constitution, today in this ever globalizing and precarious world it is a conflict of the same name that is urgently relevant to our collective fate. There is no actual basis for any purported empty space between religion and social order. How naïve it is to assume otherwise, considering that the two institutions claim governance over the same bodies, the same world, and the same future! Any such “separation” is a delusion, and realizing so may enable prudent, effective change that would otherwise would be self-inhibited. When parts of scripture are challenged by new bits of scientific evidence or a new social predicament that could never have been imagined two thousand years ago, insisting upon the separation of church and state has never prevented conflict from arising. All too often, insisting there is not an issue prevents any kind of reasonable conflict prevention from occurring at all. The inescapable union, and therefore conflict, of Church (or Mosque, or Temple, or combinations of those) and State is a reality, whether or not personal beliefs are discussed officially or publicly or never.

According to the basic definitions of belief - essentially that beliefs, in being believed, govern actions - religion is not and can never be only a personal issue. Nor should we ever want it to be. Aiming to make that so would strip away some of religion's most valuable roles: that of a community glue, that of a forum for exchanging ideas, that of a medium for fellowship, etc. This all-too-common idea that "religion is a personal thing" belongs to the same school of "tolerance" we Fulbrighters were taught at orientation here in Indonesia, and it is the kind of tolerance being proselytized around the world today by “global citizens” who misunderstand the purpose of liberal values (and they can't be blamed - often, it is a matter of self-preservation and popularity to pretend not to care about different religious ideas, even if those ideas are completely ridiculous). Yet such doormat ambassadorship is not tolerance, it is not respect, and it is not fair to ourselves, our world and certainly not to our future. It is simply avoiding uncomfortable conflicts of ideas, something that Obama vowed to put a stop to several times in his speech last night, incidentally.

But does disagreement necessitate frail sensitivity and undesirable discomfort? Must it? I insist that it does not have to, and that we are in control of whether it does. While discourse may involve negation, the very act of discourse is an affirmation of our faith in one another’s beautiful humanity, humble fallibility, and desire to become better, more responsible, more fulfilled people. The conflict of ideas, executed humanely and with poise and with unwavering elemental respect, is the very basis and value of democracy. It is in such discourse that the deepest bonds are forged and the most rewarding social and spiritual progress can be made. Protecting religion from disagreement and criticism is not actual protection. It is analagous to letting a foot wound fester because asking the doctor to look at it would be scary and probably painful - but it would certainly be better than your toe falling off! To pretend that religion is merely a personal thing and that it should stay that way is to pretend that religion does not cast its ballot in decisions of national security, development and social justice. This is a demonstrable mistake. This simply gives religion more and more ballots to cast, until situations become unfathomable and we can't remember why we got ourselves into a mess in the first place (case in point: Iraq). True tolerance, which translates into conservative social concern, honest inquiry, and the willingness to be wrong and change (and the expectation of others to do likewise) does not endorse such denial in any form.

The pretend separation of church and state, the complete privatization of religion, is no perfect system relative to that of their explicit union, especially in a global society. In the long run, it is certainly as inhibitive to significant social and environmental reform as the latter, even though the costs of the former may not be apparent until things come to a head. You may look at Saudi Arabia and find that their records of justice and humanitarianism are lacking compared to America's (although it may depend on how hard you look at America). But the world is vastly connected now, and the way this changes things much be acknowledged. As “secularized” countries promote turning-a-blind-eye as proper tolerance and religion-sponsored states are militantly convinced of their righteousness, more sensible "secular" nations are threatened by less sensible neighbors while all nations are unwilling to address the realm of ideology that is their common source of ineffective rule. When will secular moderates learn that ignoring religion in political forums will not make it go away? Non-confrontational “tolerance” has not protected us, and it has not quieted the eruptions of religion-inspired strife throughout the world. We can only conclude that neither the separation nor the union of church and state are proper goals to strive for, and I don't think either was the intention of Thomas Jefferson, a true believer in the potential of the Enlightenment.

Perhaps what Jefferson had in mind was that we should think of the separation of Church and State as an interim solution – a kind of short-lived self-discipline. I practice the same discipline, almost daily, in class here in Palembang when I have to separate two students who together are unbearably misbehaved. Hopefully, I won't have to separate them every day of class for the next 5 months. Hopefully, I will be able to work with them to find a way for them to be partners. To leave them in separate corners for the rest of the time would be looked upon with shame by teachers who know better. It is clear from examples like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and Israel that explicitly religious states are volatile, difficult to work with, and often unfair to their own citizens, generally more so than secularized states. These are the reasons church and state started off separated in new nations like America. But we should not settle for this illusion of life in two corners at once, simply because it is impossible and even less desirable given our alternatives. As we stand now, we are a house divided against itself, much as we were during the Civil War. We should stop asking ourselves, as we have since our independence, "How can we make sure church and state remain separate?" Did Lincoln ask how to maintain slavery in a way that made slaves less miserable? No, he called for slavery’s end, the unification of the House, all for principled and enabling reasons. Similarly, we should be asking, "How can we unite the two realms of our ideas and our lives - those of religion and those of reality – in a way that leads to a better world for us all?" Can't we agree that doing so would further human order and progress? That it would provide an opportunity to tear down the next divide, should another be found?

How is such a reunion of church and state possible? How to unite the house without sending it teetering over, as is happening in the religious nations throughout the Middle-East? What would such a compromise between politics and religion look like? Well, to begin with, putting the burden of concessions and compromise on the shoulders of the State is silly, simply because in our country the State isn't some disconnected body but actually the population of religious citizens. I am afraid that the burden for revision rests for the most part on the two-thousand-year-old ideology that most of us guard so close to the chest. It is a simple fact that religion (as it is now) and politics don't mix because religion (as it is now) and reality don't mix. Realizing that a durable state requires the support of a "reality-based community," and that America, being in actuality a Christian nation, is far from that, change must come from within the walls of religion itself.

Inevitably the inescapable link between republics and their religious majorities always becomes obvious due to one cause or another, and hard questions must be asked and answered. But are these questions really that hard? Why shouldn't our goal be the consilience and integration of knowledge, the unity of perspective? I don’t have in mind everyone becoming atheist or everyone agreeing to the same religious claims. I have in mind a world of everyone remaining religious, fulfilled and united, without dependence upon dangerous, divisive, foundationless ideas. Anyone who thinks they can't have a fulfilling, "religious" existence without the ideas of God and heaven have succumbed to the internal, circular logic of their self-interested belief system. Only after we realize that the human source and capacity for sanctity and hope lies within us and is not divvied out mysteriously from above, can we take the next promising steps in love, hope, progress, environmental stewardship, and general integrity. This can happen with the free exchange of ideas and the administration of proper tolerance. What we need, taking wisdom from recent economic lessons learned, is a more highly regulated “religious market,” governed by the principles of accountability, gratitude, amazement, ethical duty and the freedom from oppressive absurdities.

The bold, brash Christianity of the inauguration's Invocation and Benediction was troubling - scary, even. How does America think the Muslim world will react to those prayers?! The reactions of the Indonesians I watched it with were telling enough for me. How can we as a nation, after seeing the recent manifestations of such explicit religiosity in the Palestine-Israel conflict, celebrate the control Christianity has over our government so proudly and recklessly? Why is it that we all assume a collective incapacity for reverence, meaningful ceremony, or official dignity without reference to the Bible or to God? Why aren't the planners of these government functions calling upon speakers who are able to elicit the deeply religious and communal in all of us Homo sapiens without vomiting the cliches and inanities of antiquated religions that cheapen, not deepen, our collective experience of the holy, of progress, of change, of hope, of a renewed nation?

Rev. Rick Warren, a controversial, pro-life, "purpose-driven" man, was jarringly out of place as the opening act of the most important inauguration in recent history. But he was also eye-opening, in that he exposed bluntly the current state of Christianity's marriage with a world power in the throes of various crises.

How can we reconcile Obama's inspirational words of progress, reason, integrity and respect with the language of the formalities surrounding his inauguration? How can a country so willing to put on a half-assed farce of simultaneous leadership and religious tolerance hope to forge a durable future for itself in the years ahead? For how much longer must this go on before we actually start having faith in ourselves, not in one book written about 2,000 years ago? When will we learn to be religious without being religious at something, especially not fictional personality? When will we become empowered by our own capacity for resolving differences, and achieving the seemingly impossible?

Yesterday, our nation officially broke the color barrier. The near-nomination of Hillary Clinton earlier in 2008 broke through that glass ceiling once and for all. These are all considerable achievements, and they all involve a collective resolve to ignore bad ideas and harmful practices in the effort to restore hope to an ever bigger, ever more desperate world. It is time to turn to the next divide, the next bad idea given too much unquestioned respect, the next urgently harmful practice.

Do you think we can?

for the Bible tells me so

A week ago a student showed a great film entitled for the Bible tells me so. The film chronicles the lives of five families who have a member of the family come out as a homosexual. Here is a link for the movie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajBR0dq0XXk) and more information can be found at http://www.forthebibletellsmeso.org/indexa.htm. Eric's most recent post about religion and how rigid some could be brought me back to this film. If you have a chance to rent or Netflix this film I highly recommend it. It also includes Bishop Gene Robinson who is the Bishop of Vermont, a Sewanee graduate, and openly gay. Let me know if you watch it as I would love to discuss it sometime.

ON RELIGIOUS MANIFESTOS, KEEN'S

These things are never easy. After months of being pestered by my questions about their religion, a couple fellow English teachers asked me to explain my religion. Here goes.

I hesitate even to use the term "religion," a) because I like to think that my "religion" is different enough to merit a less ambiguous, less history-laden, and less highly-qualified term, b) because I don't want anyone to think it is something they can join (find your own religion, that's the whole point!), and c) when taken seriously, religion equates to an explanation of your life and how your live it. A religious manifesto, therefore, is essentially a self-justification.

You won't find any pillars of faith or fundamental precepts in an outline of my "religion." Rather, it is best characterized not by what I "believe," but how. My religion is about method. I will, however, have to explain what I do not believe, because a) my own religion obviously has formed in reaction to the other beliefs in my intellectual environment, and b) you readers need some tangible grounds on which to place where I stand on certain ideas. This is frustrating, becaus it makes my religion out to be one of negation, when I like to think that it is the opposite, one of affirmation.

But before I explain the "how" of my religion, I should explain the "why." What drives my religiosity? "Religion," or the array of behaviors and psychological predispositions that compose our definitions of it, is a human word for a biological phenomenon with a biological basis. My genes and my culture have rendered me deeply desperate for life, deeply disturbed by death, and overwhelmingly appreciative for people, places and experiences. Consequently, I am hyperbolically curious, scared and thankful. These traits create in me (and, I think, in most of us) our emergent religious impulse. It is the single source of both our supreme joys and our supreme affliction, a bittersweet adaptation brought about by gene-culture coevolution. Religiosity: can't live with it, can't Live without it.

As a methodology, two of my religion's goals are intellectual honesty and responsible inquiry. It follows that I do not believe in metaphysics, the divine inspiration of any Holy texts, an afterlife, or gods of any sort. I do not find any compelling evidence in nature or in the pews that God is real. Yes, I understand that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence," but there is also undeniable evidence - namely, the simple fact that ideas and people have real effects on each other and the earth - that compels me to take the accuracy of my convictions very seriously. In doing so, accepting the idea of God and commiting to an explicit faith becomes impossible for me. I do not think that theism, particularly that of the Abrahamic religions, is a responsible choice. From the goals stated above, it follows also that I consider it irresponsible to be a member of any religious organization that enables or encourages the reduction of critical thinking and the sense of adventure with which we engage the world.

The most unfortunate and intellectually destructive aspect of conventional religion is that it forces new experiences to fit into worldviews rather than uses them to add to or change a worldview. Within religions like Christianity, experience becomes complacent and subjugated to prior opinion, messily if necessary, rather than used to serve the much more exciting and adaptive purpose of being transformative. Conventional religion, at its lowest and most fundamental frequencies, has robbed the religious life of primal adventure. Discovery becomes a threat instead of an opportunity. I have no interest in that.

Do I concede that God may actually exist? Of course. To say otherwise is to be blindly dogmatic, which is precisely what I am reacting against here. Do I know what evidence could ever convince me of God? Honestly, I can't imagine what form convincing evidence could take, but I am willing to be surprised.

Clarifying religious terms: Rather than the word "truth," I like to use the word "accuracy." I don't think I could ever bring myself to make a claim about the way things actually are. I consider such an act, which is the tendency of all religionists and some scientists, as nothing less than arrogant. Rather than identifying truths, I am interested in recognizing patterns.

The words "faith" and "beliefs" are used today to mean "convictions based on recognizably insufficient evidence." These words equate shameless to the "license people give each other to continue believing in the absence of good reasons to do so." This is, after all, the basis of blind faith and why employing it is placed on a pedestal in our world. I am not interested in that. Rather than "faith" or "belief" I prefer the admittedly bloodless word "conclusion," or maybe "conviction." Do I believe in evolution? No. I am convinced by it enough to provisionally accept it.

Ideas like "eternity," "ultimate truth," "divinity," and "free will" are distracting and irrelevant (especially the last term). The words "sacred" and "profane" are helpful if we tweak their definitions by equating them to the words "relevant" and "irrelevant," respectively, and toss out any metaphysical associations attached to them. To calibrate these revised definitions, I'll use Christianity: that which is sacred, from a Christian perspective, includes God, human destiny, Jesus, his words, salvation, moral righteousness, love, ultimate truth, free will, sin, fellowship, Christ's return, the afterlife, wealth, the Bible's contents, evil, and in some cases, the Creation. That which is profane includes scientific discovery, personal pride, good deeds, other religious perspectives, and the birds of the field.

So, given the methods I've outlined for constructing a worldview, what conclusions or convictions have I arrived upon? Answer: not many. And that is OK. Religions like Christianity tend to emphasize the importance of decisions to an extent that can pressure people into irresponsible choices. These religions are what I like to call very "claimful." Such claimfulness is irresponsible and unneccessary for religious fulfillment. I have heard many people use the following observation as a reason to believe in a higher being (I am guilty of using this when I was a believer): "There's just something abut reality - about the world - that makes the idea of God fit. It just makes sense." Npw, consider the alternative, more accurate version, and note the crucial difference:"There's something about how I make sense of reality, of the world, that just makes the idea of God fit." We Homo sapiens have inexorably religious minds, inclined to mystical thoughts and powerful emotions. Mistaking these evolved neurological quirks as outside evidence of a higher being is both irresponsible and unfortunate. We, not the cosmos or its Creator, are our own fountainhead for religion, meaning, mystery and transformative love. Realizing and embracing that is key piece of my religious identity. The result of doing so is being more interested in my own religiosity that in what I am religious about. The experience of religion is what interests me. Outsourcing and externalizing one's religiosity by devotion to a god is not only a mistake, it is also a loss. I am grateful for life and people, to a religious degree, but I am not thankful towards any ultimate cosmic order or personality. I am certianly in great debt, but I am not in great debt to anything ultimate. My immense gratitude and wonder is aimless, and that's OK - in fact, it is preferred.

Some might read a statement like, "the experience of religion is what I am interested in," as advocacy for believing whatever you damn-well please. It is not. In fact, it's the opposite. Having convictions is important, but as your neighbor I beg you to arrive at them as carefully as possible. What the above statement does do is free us to "believe" in something that is ethically helpful. Since fulfillment is provided by the experience of religion, we can reserve the recipient of our religious energies to something morally defensible. Often, this translates to more love towards people around you. Why love God because you love your life or your mother? Why not love life and your mother because you love life and your mother? What I love about Christmas time is the family time, the carols, the colors, the cups of hot chocolate, the contra dances, the fellowship and the community. I don't need to distract myself from those things and think about a baby in a food trough to celebrate the season well. Why celebrate the mythical birth of a dude 2,000 years ago by spending time with family, when you can celebrate family by spending time with family? We don't need unfounded beliefs to justify religious levels of love and reverence and celebration.

So far, I have only explained one half of my religion. While the first half focuses on the construction of an ideology, its complement has to do with the application of that ideology to my actions and interactions. Religion, in general, I believe, consists of two parts: ideology and application. Ideas and action. The biological analog is the genotype (DNA code of an organism) and the phenotype (physical maifestation of a genotype, e.g. translated proteins, eye color, or less tangibly, more extended applications like behavioral predispositions and ecological footprints). Both complement each other, and a proper understanding of an organism can't be achieved by attention to just one of the two. Thinking about religion along similar lines grounds big ideas in a world of consequences, which is important to me. While my religion's genotype (convictions) are careful and bloodless - that is, scientific - my religion's phenotype (application to the real world) belongs to the realm of art. Creativity and adventure have a rightful place in what you do with your convictions, not in the convictions themselves - there is too much at stake for that. A careful assessment of reality deepens the well from which our inspiration for life in the grandest sense springs forth. The idea is that my religion magnifies the most redeeming virtues of human's religiosity: our intellectual engagement with reality and our passionate exploration of the margins of our creativity. In this sense, religion fuses science and art, allowing a responsible and fulfilling engagement with the world. It's about science, and it's about dancing. Shifting our religious focus from needless claimfulness to the experience of life is anything but bloodless. Rather, it is transformative, immense, overwhelming.

Jesus, Buddha, and Billy Graham are people I can learn alot from. But so is everyone.

The single-most celebrated worship event in the Bible, the Last Supper, took place not in a synagogue or on a mountan top, but over dinner with some friends. With bread and wine. Religion belongs at the dinner table with friends, at sunsets and in late nights, in naked swimming and in the classroom. We emit sanctity, we do not receive it from above. I am alive with affliction, gratitude and wonder. I dwell in amazement at my ability to make so much meaning out of a meaningless world, and to care so damn much. I am horribly sad and inexplicably happy. Religion is about dancing, laughter and saving lives. It needs a responsible (that is, scientific and ethical) foundation. The Earth, girls, the past, the future, biodiversity, humans everywhere, youth, and growth are sacred. Irresponsible beliefs are profane.

ON THE TEACHING LIFE, MINE

Here are a few tales from my life as a teacher in Indonesia.

To set the scene: I live in what is nationally notorious as the most rude and obnoxious city in Indonesia. In this city, I work and live at an Islamic boarding school, called a pesantren. It is run like a boot camp. If the student's hair get too long (longer than a finger), the teacher cuts their hair in front of the whole class. If the student comes to school late, he or she has to crouch down in the "number 2" position for about 2 hours. If you do not go to the mosque at 4.30 in the morning, you have to sit in that position all day. Every night the students go to the mosque for 2 hours, listen to angry speeches and recite prayers from the Al'Quran. On Saturday mornings, a pair of teachers give a lecture from 4:30 until 8:30am, with no breaks (I kept time this morning).

The teachers at my school are currently on strike - it's really an exciting time. They stand up on desks and make speeches to other teachers. They are angry because the administration recently created a policy that stated this: "If teachers do not go to class, they will not get paid for teaching that class." The faculty are furious. I thought it was funny, until they started citing me as a reason that it is not fair. They say, "Mr. Keen is able to miss a day of class, but he still gets paid!" And I say, "No, I don't. I am not an employee of this school. I don't get paid by this school EVER." And they say, "Exactly!!!" So I am currently avoiding the teacher's office.

I usually do so anyways because everyday the teachers cook a big lunch in the office, and the lunch always involves deep fried sardines, bones and all, or some other kind of fish they got out of the local river. The local river is a poop-brown color, because there is an industrial fertilizer production factory right on the river that pumps excess poop into it. Somedays, the whole city smells like poop. Somedays, the fish they cook smells like poop. They always insist that I eat the meal they cook. So I try avoid the teacher's office, strike or no strike.

Another reason I avoid the teacher's office is because I keep accidentally stepping on all the cats that live in it. All cats in Indonesia, except the tigers, are tiny, malnourished mangy demons. They crave attention, so when I get out of my chair, the run after me and under my feet. I have permanently injured more cats than I like to admit. Some of the cats clearly have rabies, and sometimes they get in fights. It sounds like the gates of hell are screeching open against a chalkboard floor, but the teacher's don't mind. They don't seem to even notice it.

Another reason I avoid the teacher's office is that the teachers have been gossiping lately about a certain pattern they have noticed: wherever I seem to travel, there is flooding in that part of Indonesia immediately after, and therefore I caused the flooding. This isn't just a non sequitur, the pattern they seemed to have noticed just doesn't exist. Furthermore, it is currently the start of the rainy season in Indonesia, and it is flooding everywhere. This week, I walked into the office and the teachers fell silent, and a few glared at me. One came up to me and asked me to apologize, and when I asked why she said that her hometown, Padang, is experiencing bad flooding. When I asked why this is my fault, she said, "You travelled to Padang last weekend, didn't you?"

I still have one teacher who wants to be my friend, but she is insane. Like most Indonesians d0, they take befriending an American as an opportunity to loosen up and disobey the usual cultural rules they must adhere to so strictly. This insane teacher friend, a 30-year old unmarried woman (pretty rare in Indonesia) likes to talk to me about menstruation and flatulence - ALL the time. She updates me via text-messages about her menstrual patterns and farts out loud in my house when she invites herself over. She makes me promise not to tell anyone. I just can't resist.

In the afternoon, after classes are out and after I sneak into the teacher's office to grab a cup of Sumateran coffee, I walk the 50 meter path to my house, past the volleyball court, past the girl's dorm, past the entrance to a junior high school, past the mosque, and past some other teacher's houses. The students yell things at me the whole way down, and the teachers' children, playing in the front yards of the houses, yell things at me, like "You Crazy, mister!" or "You eat grass!", and I wave and smile and count the seconds until I get into my house.
Once in my house, I sit and listen to the junior high students standing at the stoop of my front patio, giggling and screaming as they dare eachother to run up to my door, knock, and run away. They treat me like the old witch of a small Southern town that the brave kids mess with in efforts to impress a girl. Sometimes I open the door and invite them in, and they run away screaming. Sometimes I wait until a kid runs up to my door, and right before he knocks-and-runs, I open the door and yell "BOO!" and they ALL freak out and don't come back for a couple days.

ON BEING WRONG

In my last post I mentioned this topic and how I recently heard Bishop Kee Sloan of Alabama speak on this at Growing in Grace. This past summer he attended the Lambeth Conference in England, which brought together leaders of the Anglican Church from all over the world. One night college students attending Oxford from all over the world invited all the bishops out to a local pub to talk about life, religion, politics, basically shooting the breeze with students. Unfortunately only a handful of bishops even attended the gathering. Kee was one of those few. At the gathering a woman from Ireland, who supposedly could not get any more Irish with her freckles, red hair, thick accent, and affinity for the drink, approached Kee to talk about Adam and Eve. She asked when that story took place. Kee answered that the Jewish tradition dates that story at around 6,000 years ago or whatever the exact date is. She started bringing up the fact that we have found fossil records from long before that. Kee started sweating a bit, not because he believes the earth is 6,000 years old, but because it can be hard to convince someone that you believe in the spirit of something and not the actual historical truth of a story, especially while wearing a clerical collar.

It was at this point that Kee remembered directing a special session camp for the physically and mentally handicapped at Camp Bratton Green. A 30 year old man name Billy who had Down Syndrome came up at the end of an evening when everyone was enjoying the nightly milk and cookies and asked "Mr. Keys" (the name the man had given Kee) if he could go behind the chapel to smooch his girlfriend. Kee had never dealt with a situation like this, so the request seemed a bit fishy. He told the man, "I'm sorry Billy, but that's against the rules." Billy quickly replied with, "But the counselors do it all the time!" Kee was put off, yet he was quick on his feet and explained that he was the director of the camp and it was his judgement and that the rules were the rules. Billy sulked off to tell his girlfriend the upsetting news. Kee went back to talking to other campers and couselors, though his mind was still with Billy and the words he spoke.

On his way to the director's cabin, Kee came across Billy again. Billy stood with tear stained cheeks right in Kee's way. The 30 year old man then told the camp director, "You know Mr. Keys, you could be wrong." As those words hit Kee's ears they stung him harder than perhaps any message of his life. Kee thought for a moment and took Billy by the arm, "You have ten minutes behind the chapel and that's all. Only kissing." Then, Billy headed off gleefully to tell his girlfriend, while Kee headed off to inform both their counselors where they would be and to make sure they were back in 10 minutes.

Kee drifted back to the pub in Oxford and realized that he was still talking to this Irish student. He came again to the realization that sometimes he could be wrong and that what was important here was not so much whether or not Adam and Eve truly existed, but the truth that lies within the story. As Kee wrapped up his story in All Saints' Chapel several weeks ago, I began to think of instances in my own life where I held onto things that were proven elsewhere to be false. Perhaps the most valuable lesson that I continue to learn in conversation, in reading my fellow fishermen's posts, in hearing others speak, and in attempting to empathize with everyone I encounter is that I could be wrong. How then shall I correct my wrong?

ON THE MOST MEXICAN CONVERSATION OF ALL TIMES

Mexicans have several main concerns, two of which are saying hello to people and telling me how pink I am. Greeting people is of the utmost importance. Not doing it is a tremendous mistake and could seriously hurt some one's feelings. In the MBA class I am taking, every student who walks into the room goes one by one to every other student, shakes their hand and makes a comment about tacos, siestas or señoritas. Of course when they get to me they say something along the lines of "Hello, American. You're looking pink today."

So, today I had a conversation that was so typically representative of these two traits, I had to share it*.

Co-worker: "Hello you!"
"How come you no longer greet me?"

Pink American: "What do you mean?"

Co-worker: "The other day I passed by your desk and you didn't even turn around"
"Or do you think a lot of yourself because you're pink"

Pink American: "Well, did you say anything?"

Co-worker: "Yeah, but you didn't even turn around"

Pink American: "Maybe because I didn't hear you?"
"It wasn't on purpose."

Co-worker: "I forgive you....but only because you are pink."

Pink American: "Um, thanks."


*Although I usually lie in my posts this is the actual conversation, only translated into English. No exaggerations.

ON BARACK OBAMA, HOW HE WILL DESTROY OUR FREEDOMS

A gem from James Dobson's Focus on the Family:

http://focusfamaction.edgeboss.net/download/focusfamaction/pdfs/10-22-08_2012letter.pdf


Whoever you choose to vote for, I don't think it should be because gay people will ruin the boy scouts (see page 3).