Jon Stewart Vs. Stephen Colbert

As a Mets fan, it is exciting to see the season the team is having. The Mets are running away with their division, are the heavy favorites to win the NL pennant, and have a realistic to shot to win their first World Championship since that crazy alcoholic coke snortin’ team of 1986 (for a true appreciation of that team and that season, read The Bad Guys Won, by Jeff Pearlman. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060507322/sr=8-3/qid=1153410989/ref=pd_bbs_3/103-2731034-7671857?ie=UTF8 ). The only sad part is that they are doing it without their star player of the past 8 seasons, and the greatest hitting catcher ever, Mike Piazza. Is this another example of the Ewing Theory, where a team gets better when its star player gets injured or leaves via trade, retirement, or free agency? I don’t think so, because for the previous two seasons, Piazza had faded into an average to mediocre player. His replacement, Paul LoDuca, is a veritable upgrade. But, Piazza still has enough name recognition and occasional hints of greatness in him that it does allow us to open up the Ewing Theory as a suggestion.

The Ewing Theory is not just for sports. It can be applied to the world of entertainment, as well. A prime example would be the Daily Show. Host Craig Kilborn (and previously a SportsCenter anchor, as well) left for network TV, taking the Late Late Show on CBS, before fizzling out and giving way to Craig Ferguson. However, Kilborn’s replacement on the Daily Show, Job Stewart, took the show to new levels, winning late night Emmy’s over Leno and Letterman, and giving our nation some serious social satire. Stewart got so big that his “correspondents” began branching out. Steve Carrell had memorable supporting parts in Bruce Almighty (as the tongue twisted news anchor) and in Anchorman as Brick (“Would you like to come to the pants party?”, “I love lamp”, “LOUD NOISES!”), before starring in The 40 Year Old Virgin and the TV show The Office. Lewis Black became even more famous as a comedian. And, Steve Colbert branched out to start his own show The Colbert Report, airing after The Daily Show.

Colbert’s show is a spoof on Fox News’ O’Reilly Factor. Colbert plays an ignorant know-it-all right wing pundit. He never comes out character, giving “heat” to his liberal guests, for example, asking Tim Robbins, “why do you hate America?”, and making suggestions such as keeping gay marriage legal in Massachusetts, since it’s a bunch of liberal tree huggers anyways, that way we can keep it contained there and out of the rest of the country. Colbert even stayed in character when he spoke at the White House Correspondents Press Dinner, causing President Bush to become visible uncomfortable as he “praised” him with lines such as, “you never change your mind, sir. Your beliefs are the same Wednesday as they were Monday, no matter what happens on Tuesday.” (To see Colbert’s speech, click here to read the speech: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/4/30/1441/59811 )

This cannot be an example of the Ewing Theory, since Colbert has not taken over for Jon Stewart, but I believe that Colbert has surpassed his mentor in social satire. Jon Stewart has allowed the political events of our nation since the 2004 election to affect him. It may be justifiably so, but the Daily Show has changed. The humor is still there, but Stewart seems to think he is now a political commentator. Take, for example, his appearance on CNN’s Crossfire over a year ago. He mocked Tucker Carlson and company for being talk show fodder and not real journalism. The criticism was probably justified, but Stewart was being himself, not his character from the Daily Show. Stephen Colbert never would left character, remaining his ignorant right wing alter ego, keeping Crossfire light, with laughs thrown in.

Jon Stewart’s show is still good, although he has lost a focus of what he wants Daily Show to be. Where he used to keep it light, he is trending towards going “Garafolo.” His conservative guests are never given a fair chance, with not so much an intellectual exchange, or even debate, but more Jon Stewart out to get them, with humor strategically inserted at times when the guest would best be able to respond intellectually. Liberal guests turn into a smug-fest between Stewart and the guest. Again, this may be because our current crop of politicians (i.e. Bush) are inept and causing serious damage, as opposed to the previous crop (i.e. Clinton) who were easy to make fun of because of their foibles (i.e. enjoyment of overweight women), but ultimately harmless and actually effective at running government. Yet, Colbert’s strict satire better gets at the heart of this Republican administration’s flaws than Stewart’s dalliance in a serious journalism/intellectual humor balance.

What Happened To Britney Spears?

The Fall of 2003 brought a lot of changes in my life. The previous four years had been amazing. I had attended St. Michael’s College, in beautiful Vermont, surrounded by the Green Mountains, with a rotation of colorful fall foliage, white covered winters, and breezy springs. I had made amazing friends and began to form my own worldview on life. Now, I was in Washington, DC, at Catholic University, in the beginning stages of grad school. It was a culture change, being in an urban setting where I had to lock my doors and regularly heard police sirens outside my window and the occasional gunshot. I missed college and my friends. I made some really good new friends, but was still very lonely. Because of this, I made many excursions into the heart of the city, exploring and learning my way around. My favorite part of DC was probably the National Mall, which is not a shopping mall, but the giant strip of grass that goes between the Capitol building and the Washington Monument, surrounded on both sides by the Smithsonian Museums, and often populated by a collection of tourists looking around and residents getting a break from work.

The beginning of the school year also coincides with the beginning of football season. Each year for the last several, the NFL has opened the season by having one game on the Thursday night preceding opening Sunday. That year, the opening game was the New York Jets vs. the Washington Redskins, at the Redskins home stadium. Since DC was the site of the first game, the NFL put on a big, commercialized, extravaganza on the National Mall. Up by the Capitol was set up a huge stage, and each giant patch of grass stretching back to the Washington Monument was roped off. There were giant projector screens set up stretching all the way back for the people way back near the Washington Monument who could not see the stage. This event was called “Operation: Tribute to Freedom”, with a collection of singers coming on stage including Good Charlotte, Aretha Franklin, and Aerosmith. Soldiers got to be up front, with a soldier getting to announce Joe Theismann and Joe Namath coming on stage, and a soldier getting to announce each band or singer to perform. Of course, we saw an African American, a Latino, and a woman, so they could fill every token. Out of all the performers in this Vanilla Pepsi sponsored commercial patriotism, the biggest star of the night was Britney Spears.

One may wonder now how Britney could be a bigger star than Aretha or Aerosmith, but this was the heyday of Britney’s fame. She was an absolute star then. Also, an absolute knockout. I was lucky enough to be one of the few out of the 70,000 or so on the National Mall to get up within 50 feet of the stage. In person, Britney was stunning. She is the best looking woman I have ever seen in my life. Now, 2 ½ years later, she is washed up, tabloid fodder. She went from big time star to washed up seemingly overnight.

Reading Bill Simmons’ mailbag on ESPN.com (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/060714 ), I was alerted to some corollaries. One of his readers made the comparison to Doc Gooden, the Mets phenom who at 19 years of age struck out 276 batters and won the rookie of the year award, following that up the next season by winning the Cy Young award. He never returned to his early greatness, within a few years receding into an average pitcher before hanging on to mete out a pretty good career, far short of the greatness that was expected. Another reader made the comparison to Counting Crows, who started out with a couple hit albums, before fading into oblivion, popping up occasionally, like with their song that was in Shrek 2, but otherwise being irrelevant.

As a Mets fan, I am too young to remember Doc Gooden’s unhittable heater and curve, and as a Counting Crows fan, it is sad to see them never blossom into what they could have been, but at least I can say I saw fleeting greatness one muddy night in DC.

Only the Good Die Young

“Only the good die young.”—Billy Joel

Billy Joel popularized this sentiment in song and verse. We lose all the good people early, while we’re stuck with the grumpy old bags. Obviously, we have some nice examples of good people biting the bullet early. Think Jesus Christ and Ann Frank. And, there are bad people out there who refuse to die. Think Fidel Castro and George Steinbrenner. Of course, I’m sure there are many bad people who died young (Jeffrey Dahmer) and good people who lived to ripe old ages (Mother Theresa, St. Antony the Hermit). What Billy Joel, and anyone who uses this phrase, could really mean, I think, is that the people who leave us early don’t have the chance to mess things up with us. There are people we rarely see who we miss, who we might otherwise not think so fondly of if they were always around. Think of the t-shirt that says “How can I miss you if you never leave?”

We recognize this impulse with our beloved sports figures. We’d rather they retire early, even if we miss watching them perform, than see them hang around too long as shells of their former selves. Think Babe Ruth hobbling around that final season with the Boston Braves, Muhammad Ali getting pounded in the late stages of his boxing career, Michael Jordan unable to will the Washington Wizards to the playoffs, let alone a championship, Barry Bonds limping around the outfield with his oversized head, flailing and missing at pitches he used to deposit into McCovey Cove. On second thought, I enjoy watching Barry Bonds struggle without the cream and the clear. It’s the others we cannot bear to watch disintegrate.

This impulse even causes us to wonder if classic tragedies may even be for the best. Romeo and Juliet never were able to stay together because of family politics and fate, but who knows, maybe if the Capulets and Montagues got along, Romeo and Juliet would have grown sick of each other after a decade of marriage. Juliet may have grown impatient with Romeo always going to the bar after work, coming home late, and never helping with the dishes. Or, maybe Juliet would have cheated on Romeo, causing him to leave her. Then, they would have split up and grown old and bitter, instead of dying young, always having the memory of what was and what could never be.

Maybe our daydreams and fantasies are better when they don’t work out, and we wonder about what could have been. The tragedy that prevents the dream come true may be less sad than the dream come true not being what we expected. This brings to mind another cliché, “be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.”

This is probably why dating advice columnists in magazines like Maxim tell you to chat with a girl for a few minutes, get her number, and get out of there. If you stick around too long, you are bound to do something stupid to cause her to lose interest.

We all want the perfect ending. There will always be that aura of mystery about figures like James Dean and Roberto Clemente, who died young and tragically, or Sandy Koufax, who retired early and stays in mostly seclusion. They don’t come back into the public eye to tarnish their image, like Joe Namath did with Suzy Kolber, or William Shatner does every time he appears on anything (Click here to see William Shatner sing Rocketman at the 1978 SciFi awards; he was actually trying to be serious. Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN3MGN899yE&search=William%20Shatner ). It’s a weighing of possibilities. Do I give up the chance to further my legacy, or do I go for it and risk ruining what I already have? It’s the internal debate that happens every time a person weighs whether to attempt to take a friendship with a member of the opposite sex to the next level. Do I risk the friendship for something more, knowing that if a romantic relationship does not work out, it may be hard to go back to being just friends?

Is it better to fly swiftly into and out of people’s lives, leaving a good mark and then going, having them wish you could have stuck around longer, being a “good” one who “dies young”, or is better to stay awhile in people’s lives, allowing others to experience the good and bad, to let others see your flowers and your warts, to see fully the real you? I don’t know. But, the later is probably better. We will be revealed in full before our Creator at the end, so why hide it all now?

African Christianity

We often look at humanity from a Western worldview, especially when it comes to our religious viewpoints. Recently John Allen, the National Catholic Reporter’s correspondent to the Vatican, had an interview with a Catholic theologian from Uganda. Here is the transcript (and here is the link to Allen’s weekly column: http://www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/word/ ):

To unpack some of this, I sat down with Fr. John Mary Waliggo of Uganda, a widely influential African theologian and currently a member of his country's human rights commission. Waliggo is an enormously appealing figure, with a ready smile, an infectious laugh, and a salty tongue. In Padua, he led a group of Africans who decided to create a steering committee for a new society of African ethicists.

How can Africa influence the global church?
For one thing, missionary congregations today come to Africa and recruit, so they have many African members. If you really looked into it, you'd find the percentages are enormous. There are also many other Africans priests and sisters serving abroad in various places. Right now, the local church in Africa usually has no idea who these people are or what they're doing, it has no contact with them. I think a critical moment will come when these Africans begin to connect with one another, to form a network, to become aware of the voice they already have.

What will they use that voice to say to the rest of the church?
First, racism will be challenged.
Second, Africans can stimulate theological development. Theology in Europe and North America is not creative enough anymore, and so they get renewed when they read theology from India, from South Korea, from Africa. Our theology is a little bit more dynamic.

For example, we have much to say about inculturation, offering new models for theological reflection … Jesus as proto-ancestor, the idea of the dead living among us, the emphasis on active participation by all in the community. There's also African liberation theology, which includes African feminism. It's a theology that departs from injustices to Africans and by Africans. It keeps the government dancing, because they don't quite know what to do with it.

There's the theology of remembering. We Africans have our own Exodus story in the form of the slave trade, which is a story we must always remember. The past is part of us, it's a big instrument in forming our future. We also do a very historical sort of theology, such as what we should learn from the Rwandan genocide. If you forget this sort of thing, you are naïve.

Our theological style is very concerned with narrative, expressing teachings in story. Our people listen better when you give them a story. This means using local expressions and rituals, linking the gospel to their story. Everything is brought into the story, the animals, the plants, the whole environment. It's a way of doing theology that's almost dead in the West, but it's very Biblical.
As Africans move around the rest of the church, they will carry this way of thinking and teaching with them. If I'm called to Munich or somewhere else, I won't stop my way of doing things.

What else is a distinctive contribution of African Catholicism?
We have refused to leave our cultures and traditions behind. We believe that the old wine and the new wine must be mixed together. Jesus did not come to destroy, but to create. Christianity is in general something additional to what the people already believe, not its complete replacement.

What do you think when you see Catholics in the north discussing matters such as whether the correct response should be "and also with you" or "and also with your spirit?"
Is it a priority for you? Look, I was part of the fight to get rid of Idi Amin, when my country was bleeding. I went into exile for five years, but we finally got rid of him. I wrote four books on the political education of our people. I came back, and fought against [Milton] Obote, who was no better than Amin. I had to go into exile again, to Kenya, but we got rid of him too in 1986.
I then became the General Secretary for writing the new Ugandan Constitution. We went up to all the villages to consult the people, including women, people with disabilities, everybody. It took six years to do it, but in the end the constitution is full of Catholic social teaching.
I'm now a commissioner on the Human Rights Commission. I visit the jails, and if I say so, I can get somebody released within 48 hours. The idea is to be sure that people aren't just tossed in jail and never heard from again. This isn't just me. The chair of the AIDS commission in Uganda, for example, is a Catholic bishop. We believe that theology must be relevant. It has to contribute to the constitutions, laws, and policies of the country. We see our role as social change agents, as people who work and unite themselves with the poor who are struggling. We do theology for them, to help them to have life to the full.

What sort of question does interest you? To me, the important questions are, 'How are your kids fed?' 'How do you get along with your Muslim neighbors?' I don't invent the questions, I find them in the community.

Is it true that Africans are more traditional on sexual morality?
Yes, it is true. There's a basic cultural value in our heritage in which sexuality is sacred and respected. We talk about it in very clear terms. Things such as homosexuality are not just seen as sins, but as perversions. They're seen as hideous, they make you an outcast from your clan and village. If a man impregnates his sister, or if he has sex with another man, this is a kind of social sin which people believe will bring misery on the entire village, so he'd better just go away. This is what the people believe, and [as a theologian] you can't isolate yourself from society.
The presence of Muslims is also very important. If you're a homosexual, they come to stone you. Those who practice traditional African religions would stone you too. The Catholics isolate you. If everyone agrees to that, who are we to reject it?

We've had too much armchair theology in the church. We want to be synthesizers and prophets of the people.

Do you think there will be a rupture in Catholicism on these issues, as in the Anglican Communion?
If it's pushed, it would be a big split. But the church generally tries to avoid sensitive issues which simply divide it, and I don't think it will come out "soft" on homosexuality.

What about abortion? I identify with the victims of suffering, and no one is more speechless, more voiceless, more silent, than the unborn child. To me, it's like defending the blind. If I see someone attacking a blind person, I will beat him with a stick. This is my attitude to attacks on an unborn child too.

So by Western standards, your views are in some ways quite "liberal," in other ways "conservative."
I suppose you always fit 50 percent. But in the end, we remain accountable to our people. We don't want to be like our dictators, pursuing their own ideas and their own interests.

Conservative Granolas? Yes, Meet the Crunchy Cons

“Take out the granola! It’s raining hippies. Left and Right.” Anonymous

The scene: Mesopotamia, 3000 BC. We are at the dawn of civilization, in one of the first cities, along the Euphrates. Igor and Qahog are sent by Donald Trumpatomes to irrigate the water from the river to the city. Then that annoying guy wearing the first ever pair of Birkenstocks tells them to drop their shovels, disdain the Man and soulless city life, and head off with him to the country, where our ancestors lived a “real” life gathering berries and spearing an occasional wooly mammoth.

Ever since there has been cities, and especially since industrialization, there have always been doomsayers telling us that city life squashes the human spirit, and we need to head for the country and drop all these mindless technological toys that we bog down our lives with. Usually, we associate this with the Left. In the 60’s, we had the anti-war hippies telling the world to mellow, smoke weed, and make love not war (said lovemaking as such must have been pretty nasty, considering they never showered or shaved). Nowadays, we think of granola types, in their Birkenstocks, suggesting we leave the cities for the hills, go hiking, and explore nature.

A twist in this idea has arrived with a recent turn by some conservatives to embrace this granola outlook on our culture. Conservative writer Rod Dreher, who writes one of the conservative columns for Beliefnet.com, has recently come out with a book called Crunchy Cons. I must confess that I have yet to (and probably won’t) read it, but moral theologian Gilbert Meilander has written a fine review of it in the May 2006 edition of First Things (http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0605/articles/meilaender.html ).

Meilander begins his review with a personal story. He commits what would probably be a serious sin in the eye of Dreher by going to Burger King for a quick bite to eat. Noticing a family with two young boys of about eight and ten talking about baseball and the Cleveland Indians, Meilander joins in, being a Tribe fan himself. He ends up getting a Hershey Pie and sticking around longer in conversation. This was a nice family, a type of family that in Dreher’s book in criticized for being overly materialistic.

Meilander praises Dreher for pointing out the pitfalls that do exist in our society and culture, but questions Dreher’s conclusion that it is necessary to recuse oneself from the city life and live more granola. Granted, Meilander concedes, a granola lifestyle can be a morally exemplary lifestyle, however Dreher is wrong to claim that this is the only way, or the best way to live. Meilander admits early on that he is “pro-choice” when it comes to lifestyle choices such as what types of food to eat, and what places to live, and that Dreher, while right to criticize excesses of our culture, is wrong to highlight one good way of living as the ideal.

The problem, Meilander says, is that Dreher is encouraging parents to raise kids to be dissenters, rebels, and rabble rousers. There is a time and place for dissent and rabble rousing, but ultimately a parent’s job is to raise his children to be, first and foremost, good people, not rebels against society. Meilander concludes by noting that he has a lot of hope for the two nice boys he met in Burger King, but is concerned about the kids who are being raised to be rebels.

Anthony Sacramone continues the discussion of this “head for the hills” mentality in the July 12, 2006 edition of First Things online daily blog (http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=302 ):

Among several books I intend someday to write, one stands out: The Great Indoors: Why Going Outside Is Vastly Overrrated. Now is probably the time to pitch it—contrarian cant at its finest—given all the hugga-mugga over Crunchy Cons and the various websites supported by sundry disciples of Wendell Berry, who believe consumerism, free markets, and technological obsolescence are destroying our souls, families, and communities.

This concern is an old one. And the solution—high-tail it for the Ozarks—is also old. I believe Aristophanes was the first to give it dramatic form (while side-swiping poor old Socrates at the same time): Abandon the cities, abandon false patriotism, abandon the quack sciences and gimcrack philosophies that threaten old religion; abandon the battlefields, politics, and sausage salesmen.

But, as Sacramone rightly points out, people are just as susceptible to sin and vice in the country as in the city, even if it is in smaller quantities. “As for greed, envy, lust, and all those other black arts for which the city is a synonym, you can’t tell me Farmer Jones doesn’t practice them in spades, simply on smaller luxuries, more primitive needs, and stockier women. So instead of keeping up with the latest E: True Hollywood Story, he’s only keeping up a new pair of bib overalls, because he won’t be outclassed by that wise-acre who runs the general store.”

As for me, I am leaving the urban, city life of Albany to head up to the beautiful St. Lawrence River, away from cable TV, the internet, and the daily newspaper sports section. But, only for the weekend. I will be back Monday or Tuesday to continue my mindless, technological comma-induced, city life.

All-Star Game

Manny Ramirez hit two doubles and a single in Saturday’s Red Sox game, and played all 19 innings of Sunday’s game.

One is inclined to see this as just something the average ballplayer would do, or in the case of a superstar like Manny, actually rather pedestrian. But one would be deceived, because Manny was playing injured. He is so injured in fact that he is opting out of tonight’s All-Star game because of a sore knee.

**Quick little side note: When did “one” become the serviceable term for a generic person we refer to? It’s the pretentious gender neutral way of speaking of some unknown solitary example person, for those who don’t want to offend the politically correct police while at the same time wishing to avoid the grammatically incorrect singular “they”. Alright, back to my column.

Manny is not the first professional athlete to somehow come down with a mysterious injury right before his sport’s All Star game. The Pro Bowl in football is legendary for players pulling out with phantom injuries. We shouldn’t even count that because the Pro Bowl couldn’t be any more irrelevant if it was a WNBA game. The NHL All Star game has a tough time mattering when hockey doesn’t even matter. The NBA All Star game has no defense in it, but it does have some importance. All Star weekend isn’t the Black People Super Bowl for nothing. But, the one All Star game that matters, the Mid-Summer Classic, when baseball is the only sport going on, is the baseball all star game. Yes, it is just a glorified scrimmage, even with it affecting home field advantage for the World Series. Home field rarely matters in the playoffs anyways. The All Star game used to matter because of National and American league rivalry. That no longer exists, but the players honored by being picked should show up.

I know, they could use the rest. But, part of their job is entertainment for the fans and ambassadorship of the game. It’s the equivalent of your regular 9 to 5 worker who has to go to annual company party, or go to some regional business meeting. No one enjoys those galas predicated on bullshit, nothing really is accomplished at these events, but it’s part of the job. If you receive the “honor” of being picked to represent your company at some night meeting, you just go. And, if it’s an overnight business trip, there’s always the hotel bar after the meeting and the possibility of some extra-curricular fun :-)

Why Bad Things Happen to Good People...Part 2

(Make sure you read part 1 below before reading part 2)

The book of Hosea in the Old Testament is a rather tragic story. Hosea was a good man, a prophet of God, always faithful. Hosea married a woman named Gomer, who was a prostitute. He loved her, and hoped he could change her, but she was continually unfaithful to him. Every time Gomer strayed, Hosea forgave her, and welcomed her back into his house. Yet, she would fall back into her sinful ways, betraying Hosea each time. And, each time, Hosea forgave her, and embraced her. Hosea’s relationship with Gomer symbolizes God’s relationship with the people of Israel during the time of Hosea, and God’s relationship with all of us. Most of us have faith in God, and make some time for God, but often we put other things such as money or sex or booze first, and treat them as our gods, ignoring God. God always forgives us and is always striving to repair the relationship with us.

There are times we are faithful to God, and times we stray, before realizing we have sinned, and returning, begging for forgiveness, like the Prodigal Son. The underlying problem may be not that we reject God or hate God, for most of us believe somewhat in God and want some sort of relationship with God, but that, no matter how much we love God, have faith in Him, and honor Him, there is always other things and people that come before God, that we love more, that we love most.

There is a person I know. He is smart, funny, fun to be around, laid back, relaxed. He is tall, has nice dark brown curly hair, and beautiful eyes and eyelashes. He is nice, but not too nice where you get sick of it. At times he can be annoying, but he is never boring. He was in the popular crowd in high school, played three sports, was a star in two of them, but was friends with everyone in class, and was liked by the not so popular kids as well as the popular kids. In college, he was involved in campus activities and played a varsity sport. He was one of the most well known people on campus, and well liked by everyone. He was often the life of the party. He fits in great at his job, is liked by his colleagues and those he is in charge of. Women like him too, think he is great fun to be around, but he never comes first for them. There is always some other guy who is better when it comes to dating. He is firmly stuck in the friend zone.

Just as this guy is liked by women, but not enough to be “the one”, God is liked by most people, but people are unwilling to put God first in their lives. It could be that this person, like Hosea, was given a certain set of circumstances so he could see what it is like for God to be rejected, to not be placed first, or to be an example for others see by analogy what we do to God, whether it be being unfaithful to Him or just giving Him a lukewarm faith, where other things always come before Him.

Why Bad Things Happen to Good People...Part 1

Why do bad things happen to good people? This question has been asked ever since the ancient Hebrew people came to realize that there is one God who is all powerful and all good. People have written books on this subject since time immemorial. One of the more famous, Why Bad Things Happen to Good People, by Rabbi Harold Kushner, written by a man whose son suffered from a tragic disease, is full of heart, emotion, and wrestling with God, however his argument is flawed since his answer attributes a lack of power to God, i.e. God allows bad things to happen because He is incapable of stopping it. Two better books to grapple with the problem of evil are The Problem of Pain, by C.S. Lewis, and Making Sense of Suffering, by Peter Kreeft.

Why do bad things happen to good people? As much as we grapple with this question, it is a rather new question. Ancient cultures before the Jews discovered monotheism never faced this question. For them, there was not just one God, who is all powerful and all good. There were many gods, with varying degrees of powers, and varying degrees of virtue. The religious and the ethical were separate. Ancient cultures were not unethical or immoral, they just believed that good or bad behavior solely had to do with our relationship to others in society. Ethical behavior was not of concern to the gods. One’s responsibility to the gods was to perform the proper religious rituals. When the ancients saw some people suffer and others prosper, their initial thoughts were not, “those who suffer must be bad people and those who prosper must be doing good.” Instead, they thought along the lines of, “those who suffer are not honoring the gods properly, while those who prosper are performing the right rituals.”

When Yahweh revealed Himself to the Jews, they came to know that there is just one God, a God who created us and loves us. Early on, the people of Israel believed that when they suffered, when other nations defeated them in war, it was because they were somehow unfaithful. When Israel prospered, they believed that they were faithful to God. However, when the Jews lost their homeland, and were deported in the Babylonian Exile, they needed a new understanding. Either God had completely abandoned them, maybe they had destroyed their relationship with God beyond repair, like a husband who has been unfaithful to his wife, or they needed to come up with a new understanding of their relationship with God.

The book of Job symbolizes this new understanding. Job is a faithful servant of God. As such, he has been rewarded with land, property, prosperity, a beautiful wife, and many children. Meanwhile, up in Heaven, a mysterious figure known as the Advocate (often interpreted by readers to be the Devil) makes a wager with God. The Advocate points out to God that it is easy for people to follow Him when things are going good. If people really had faith, they would stick by God even when they suffered. God told the Advocate that he could cause suffering to Job, and see if Job would remain faithful.

Job’s fortunes began to change. His livestock died, he lost his land and property, his wife and children died of diseases, and he was left with boils all over his body, sitting on a dung heap. If that wasn’t bad enough, his three best friends mocked him, and accused him of being a bad person, since they thought God only punished bad people. Despite all this, Job remained faithful to God. To be sure, he wrestled with God and struggled with his understanding of God, but he kept his faith. The message of the book of Job is that God, even though he created us and loves us, and is all powerful and all good, never causes but sometimes allows bad things to happen to good people. Evil and suffering began because of Original Sin, because the first humans, whoever they were, chose to put themselves before God. God may not take away all of our sufferings, but he is always there with us. And, in the person of Jesus Christ, God is fully present in our sufferings, taken them all on Himself to bring us to a final redemption back to what we were originally intended to be.

Maybe the better question is not, “why does God allow us to suffer?” but rather, “what is it like for God to constantly be rejected by those who He loves and gave life to?” Books of the Bible such as Hosea explore this theme. More on this in a later blog…

Khalil Gibran

"Every beauty and greatness in this world is created by a single thought or emotion inside a man. Every thing we see today, made by past generation, was, before its appearance, a thought in the mind of a man or an impulse in the heart of a woman. The revolutions that shed so much blood and turned men's minds toward liberty were the idea of one man who lived in the midst of thousands of men. The devastating wars which destroyed empires were a thought that existed in the mind of an individual. The supreme teachings that changed the course of humanity were the ideas of a man whose genius separated him from his environment. A single thought build the Pyramids, founded the glory of Islam, and caused the burning of the library at Alexandria.

One thought will come to you at night which will elevate you to glory or lead you to asylum. One look from a woman's eye makes you the happiest man in the world. One word from a man's lips will make you rich or poor."

Khalil Gibran, Broken Wings

We have all the tools to keep us connected that our forefathers never could have dreamed of. Cars and airplanes allow regular visitations between friends thousands of miles apart. The telephone and the internet allow direct connection with those not in our presence, the cell phone extends this connection to all times and virtually all places. Yet, do we take the time see what we do to those who really are around us, when we leave the guest in our living room to check and see who is signed on to our buddy list on our computer? Do we see our friends’ hopes and dreams, joys and sorrows, when we ignore them across the booth in the restaurant to answer our cell phones?

Every action I perform has an effect on someone else. Many people that we meet, we only see that one time. I wonder what their impression of me is. I wonder if I have uplifted them, or hurt them, or barely made an imprint at all. I wonder if they ever look beyond how I have changed them to see me, to see beyond the generally relaxed, goofy, at ease outlook I put on the situation to see how I really am feeling at the time.

Our feelings, our outlook on life, our hopes and expectations can change in an instant. When that person you are thinking about calls or emails, elation ensues. When you don’t hear back for awhile, doubt and yearning go through you mind. Yet, it could just be random, the person deciding to send a message just to say hi, like I often do to my friends.

Okay, I am rambling again. That passage above by Khalil Gibran comes from his short book Broken Wings, written from a first person perspective about a man’s first love, Selma, who was betrothed to another. This passage was from one of the middle chapters. It caught my eye, and I am still trying to make sense of it, what it is really saying. Any thoughts? Feel free to share. You can post comments on my blog anonymously.

Nothing Good Ever Happens After 2 AM

One of my favorite TV shows is the CBS sitcom, How I Met Your Mother (for more on this show, see me previous blog: http://spidgetales.blogspot.com/2006/05/how-i-met-your-mother.html). In an episode earlier this year, Ted is sitting home all night, waiting for his girlfriend, who is in Europe, to call him back. Ted’s friend Robin, who he still has a crush on, is back home in her apartment. She just had a bad date with a guy, is lonely, and has feelings for Ted, too. Ted receives a phone call at 2 AM. He thinks it might be his girlfriend finally calling, but it is really Robin, who is lonely and asks Ted if he would like to come over. Ted says yes, but his friends tell him on the phone that it is not a good idea, because nothing good ever happens after 2 AM. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out what happens next: Ted shows up at Robin’s apartment. Robin asks about the girlfriend, Ted says he broke up with her. They start making out. Ted says he needs to freshen up in the bathroom first, where he is really going because he feels guilty and wants to break up with his girlfriend on the phone for real before going forward with Robin. Only, he can’t find her number on his phone because he grabbed Robin’s phone by mistake. When he walks out of the bathroom, Robin tells him that his girlfriend just called. Ted now has two women pissed off at him…

I guess, once it gets to be 2 AM, you are better off going to bed, because something dumb is bound to happen if you if you go out, when chances are, you are already a little tired and a little drunk. I faced this dilemma, myself, on Thursday night. My friend Matt from college was in town for the night. We headed out from my apartment around 7:30, and visited about 9 or 10 places, before catching a cab back home. We went in, sat on the couches. It was 2 AM. Matt was surprised and excited to learn that the bars in Albany stay open until 4 AM. We could have crashed and went to sleep, but there is a dive bar named Mcaffrey’s down the street.

The saying about nothing good after 2 AM did not ring true this night. We sat next to a couple late twenty something guys and girls, along with their two hot 19 year old friends who were out past their bedtimes (the 19 year old girls were drinking sodas. 1—I tell you this because it’s true, they really were obeying the rules, and 2—I do not want some cop reading this and shutting down my new favorite bar). These guys had been coming here since they were 15. It was the only place to let them in when they were minors, so now they continue to patronize Mcaffrey’s out of respect. ‘It’s not that we won’t go to other bars. We just won’t not come here.” Matt and I thought we were gonna conclude the night with a beer or two, but no, we joined the crowd for shots. “Hey bah-ten-duh! Come ovuh here.” Other than the token leather skinned 40 to 50 year old lady in the nasty looking tube top who was their by herself, drunk, and horny, it was a good time. The real loneliness, at bars, I think is in the afternoon crowd.

Yesterday, I went to one of my favorites at 4:30. A real hick, biker type bar, but it has cheap drinks, a pool table, and dartboards. I got talking to a couple of the regulars. For some reason, the conversation steered towards relationships and marriage. Both guys looked to be in their 50’s. One had just gotten out of jail for drunken driving and being lumped in with a murder conspiracy or something (although, he says he was wrongly convicted for the second charge). He had a beer and a shot in front of him, but his buddy was going to drive him home. This guy, we’ll call him Guy #1, was on his second marriage. When the hot bartender came to replace to so-so looking bartender (I think is a rule: save the hot bartenders for prime time), he asked if she had gotten a boob job done. She said yes, but did not oblige Guy #1’s request touch them and feel them out. #1 got a little mad at me when I would not stair at her “fine looking ass” when she walked away. Guy #2, the designated driver, had on sweatpants shorts that had probably been sweatpants that he had cut down, kind of like homemade jean shorts, except not. He had an orange t-shirt, tucked into the sweatpants shorts, with the sleeves half cut off, plus gray hair, with the pony tail tied back, making it look like a Davy Crockett hat. He had been married, but “the bitch left me 22 years ago! If I had to do it over, I would have cheated on the bitch. Then at least she would have had a reason to leave me.”

I kept thinking that I would never want to be them in 30 years. One of the interesting things about alcohol, and bars, is that they do not make you happy. If you are already happy or in a good mood, they can enhance that feeling. But, if you go over a certain point, you will still end up feeling like shit. And, if you are in a shitty mood already, alcohol, and the bar scene, just makes it worse. It’s not so much the 2 AM thing as your attitude and demeanor. The 2 AM probably rings true often because we’re usually tired and groggy at that hour.