Outward Journey / Inward Journey

First, I would like to note that due to my own sloth and lack of a computer (the latter situation being now rectified; the former, probably not so much) I haven’t blogged at all lately.  Sorry about that.  Furthermore, I have arrived at the conclusion that the general ‘theme’ of this blog suits me no more.  I originally set this up so I would have a place to post my writings and findings as I attempted to discern God’s vocation for me as I kibbitzed about the country.  Hence ‘Outward Journey, Inward Journey.’

However I have arrived at a point both inwardly and physically (wonderful dichotomy, that) where I feel that I have by God’s grace am better able to discern and live into what I feel He is calling me to over the next significant portion of my life.  I am no longer moving around the country, and my living situation now is such that I am able to start laying the groundwork for a new church development.  In short, I am now living in a radical community in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, and the ways in which a church plant will materialize are quickly being revealed to me.  This new life situation has prompted me to reconsider whether this blog now suits my needs, and my answer is ‘no.’  Soon, I will be launching another blog, probably entitled ‘Bushwick Street Theologian.’  I will post a link thereto when the time comes.

Secondly, I want to write about capitalism’s present crisis.  Clearly, it is possible to surmise that capitalist interests are the beneficiaries of economic precarity.  High unemployment causes lower labor costs and higher margins for the parasitic class of bosses, who, producing nothing, command and control the means of production. Furthermore the current crisis has been transparently a means through which capital has been redistributed upwards — while the banksters cut jobs and foreclose, they pay themselves billions of dollars in executive bonuses from federal monies.  The claims that Obama is promoting ’socialism’ are farcical, if by socialism we mean the redistribution of wealth to the working class.

Even though the Recession itself is being manipulated by capital to suit its own ends, nevertheless I am hopeful.  In fact with each new twist in the downturn, with each bank loss totaling billions of dollars, every time the stock market takes yet another significant plunge, I react with some glee. Why? Because it opens up the opportunity to the anti-capitalist movement to significantly escalate our tactics. Indeed, I believe that measured escalation must be the principal goal at the moment. Specifically I think that eviction and foreclosure resistance would be a particularly fruitful tactic right now. Falling city and state budgets will lead to decreases in police budgets, leaving them less able to enforce the will of banks and landlords, and rising public anger will make them less inclined to do so. We should be developing ad hoc direct action networks of people to turn up at a home slated for eviction, occupying the house, thereby protecting the family who would otherwise lose their home. The worse the economic crisis becomes, the more people will be subject to this fate, and the more angry and radicalized the public will become.

It is only a small step from eviction-resistance and widespread squatting to the occupation of workplaces in the same manner as the occupations of 1968 France (although we should not fall into the trap of making reformist demands that they did), in which 10 million workers, from students to astronomers, occupied their workplaces in solidarity with the student revolt in Paris. Eviction-resistance also, if widespread, could lead to the organization of armed neighborhood defense committees. The former would be a giant leap forward in seizing the means of production from the bosses for the producing workers. The latter would establish at least semi-permanent autonomous zones from which the power of the capitalism-propagating State would be excluded.

As I stated, I believe the Recession poses an opportunity which we may not see again in our lifetimes. The longer it lasts, the better, for it allows for us to purposefully organize, and the more prone to radicalization people will become. Likewise, the deeper the Recession gets, the more opportunity to radicalize entire sectors of the public.

There are also signs that the anti-capitalist movement may actually, contrary to all past expectations (!) be rising to meet the challenge. For instance the Left Forum here in New York actually seems successful in bringing together communists of various varieties, democratic socialists, and anarchists together to the same event. This is an accomplishment.

Further, I believe that a sustained attack on capitalism will be tremendously powerful if the Christian Church is able to come to terms with the fact that capitalism’s ills are the direct result of its flawed and inherently sinful foundation: ones of greed, pride, idolatry, oppression of the poor, and the failure to recognize the inherent dignity of every human person. It is irreformable because these dreadful vices are inherent to it: without them the entire intellectual and economic system tumbles. The Church has been held in bondage by the ideology that a humane capitalism is possible: the idea is contradictory because the moment the economic system begins to be truly humane (rather than making pantomimes of humanity), it ceases to be capitalism.

Let us strive on, demanding that our political and economic system strive toward the model of the eschatological Kingdom of God, which although we are unable to achieve and which will be the work of God, we can use as our example and inspiration. Organize, agitate, escalate. Organize, agitate, escalate.

It is we the workers who built these palaces and cities here in Spain and in America and everywhere. We, the workers, can build others to take their place. And better ones! We are not the least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth; there is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie might blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the stage of history. We carry a new world here, in our hearts. That world is growing this minute.

-Buenaventura Durriti

Right.  So if everything bodes well (c’mon SallieMae), I will be departing the city for Philadephia on Thursday evening to volunteer for the Obama campaign and be a poll observer on Tuesday, in case the Nasty Party tries to stop anyone from voting (read this).

In exactly one week from now, the networks will be preparing to make their projections about the winner of various elections.  Even though I know no one cares, I thought it might be fun to attempt to predict the outcome.

In the Electoral College, I predict that John McCain will be defeated by Barack Obama by a vote of 326 to 212:

Bush (2004) states carried by Obama, West to East:

Nevada
New Mexico
Colorado
Iowa
Ohio
Virginia
North Carolina

Kerry states carried by McCain:

Zilch.

In the popular vote, I predict Barack Obama will beat John McCain by 7.5%, 51.5% to 42%, with record-shattering turnout.

In the Senate, I predict that after next Tuesday we will know that the new make up will consist of 57 Democrats, 40 Republicans, and two independents.  I think it’s quite likely that Joseph Lieberman will either bolt or be expelled from the Democratic caucus soon.

Democratic pickups, West to East:

Alaska
Oregon
New Mexico
Colorado
Minnesota
Virginia
North Carolina
New Hampshire

Republican pickups:

Nada.

I further predict that the Senate race in Georgia will go to a run-off.

I predict that Democrats will pick up 25 to 27 seats in the House, setting the stage for a majority in that body which may last a generation.

Finally I predict that Democrats will take control of the New York State Senate, narrowly, for the first time in many, many years.

As it stands, I’m optimistic, but cautiously so.  I think the battle over Proposition 8 in California is a toss-up, although there have been encouraging signs for the ‘no’ side.

We’ll see house this pans out.

To take the holy scriptures and read them is the first thing we have to do to open ourselves to God’s call.  Reading the scriptures is not as easy as it seems since in our academic world we tend to make anything and everything we read subject to analysis and discussion.  But the word of God should lead us first of all to contemplation and meditation.  Instead of taking the words apart, we should bring them together in our innermost being; instead of wondering if we agree or disagree, we should wonder which words are directly spoken to us and connect directly with our most personal story.  Instead of thinking about the words as potential subjects for an interesting dialogue or paper, we should be willing to let them penetrate into the most hidden corners of our heart, even to those places where no other word has yet found entrance.  Then and only then can the words bear fruit as seed sown in good soil.  Only then can we really “hear and understand” (Matthew 13:23).

-Henri J. M. Nouwen (1966) Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life.  Doubleday, New York.  135-136.

On Saturday, I spoke with a friend from Lampeter over the telephone.  I would consider him to be one of my best friends, and since I left Lampeter he and I have kept in fairly regular contact via phoneline.  When we were in Lampeter we spent a great deal of time together, and at various points we had planned to get civil unioned (so I could get a residence visa), start a business together, and move to New York together.  He is very intellegent and charismatic, and I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that my friendship with him is probably the most influential adult relationship that I’ve had — both intellectually and personally.

Several months ago he moved into a caravan without a landline or internet access, so contact has been limited to occassional emails.  I have felt the loss.  When he phoned on Saturday, the conversation was noticably awkward and pretty distant.  That pained me.  I’m now considering spending this year’s Christmas holiday in Wales to visit.  I’d like him to come over and visit New York, but money-wise that is not a possibility.

Perhaps I should have seen this coming.  He is in philosophy, is English, and now working under the table at a goat farm in rural Wales.  I’m in theology and preparing for the Christian ministry, soon at a seminary in New York City.

Is it inevitable that friendships without facetime drift apart and eventually end?  Or do divergent lifepaths eventually mean that friends will in time become so dissimilar that there’s not much to talk about?  I don’t know, but the price of a plane ticket seems like it’s worth it to find out.  I hope the answer is ‘no’.

I sit in Harrisburg train station, waiting for the 1430 to Pittsburgh, two more connections and a car ride before I get home. I’m too fidgety to read my book right now; I’m snobbishly proud that I’m reading a Nobel-winning author whilst others, philistines, are reading cheap paperback suspense or mystery novels by pulpy and hackish authors. In spite of my origins, in spite of other evidence to the contrary, I fancy myself cultured and will grasp at straws to find proof of it.

Another passenger, about my age and like me wearing sandals, waiting for his train, pulls out a mandolin and begins to play softly. His improvisational music haunts our section of the station. Five Amish people walk by, three women and two men finding their way to their platform, chatting in German dialect. An older straight couple puzzles over which platform they ought to be at. In his teeth the man grips a pipe. The part of the pipe which holds the tobacco is held in place by pieces of wood resembling fingers. I don’t know if it’s lit, but I can smell the tobacco.

I could very easily fall in love with a musician, a man who expresses himself through his stringed instrument. Tacky representations of angels depict them as playing harps, but this symbolises how through music our souls can find a foretaste of heaven. When the right music reaches me at the right time when I am in the right state, I am in escasy  and the here-and-now kingdom of God is readily apparent. Perhaps that’s why I find musicians so alluring — even though I’m not a musician myself, not really an artist at all — having a life filled with music is one of the happiest ones that I can imagine this side of the eschaton.

Today, it’s the soft, sublime mandolin music that reaches me when I am receptive to it. Just momentarily, I fall deeply in love with the player. Of course, being a complete ninny, my response is not to go over to chat with him, but instead to write about it on my laptop. He puts his instrument away to start eating an apple, and suddenly it’s all over.

To apply or to not apply?

It could only be for a year…

Right, so after forays from Wales to Wisconsin to Seattle to Alaska to Brooklyn to Philly to whiplash, I’ve finally (finally!) started seminary classes.  Just finished my first, actually, Christianity and the Visual Arts, taught as a January intensive by Betty Snapp-Barrett and her husband Prof. Lee Barrett.  ‘Twas a good experience, especially as someone who’s not technically skilled in artistic techniques: I realised that doesn’t matter so much.  My final project was a shoebox with ashes in it, attempting to critique our efforts at creating metaphysics to know the Unknowable.  Originally my idea was to put dog poo in aforementioned box, à la Piero Manzoni but figured that might not go down so well with the home team at First Congregational in Bloomer if they were to find out.  Other folks’ art projects were beautiful, adept, genuinely emotional, and well thought through.  Mine, probably not so much.

My next adventure here invoves choosing classes for the regular term.  I know which courses I’d like to take but whether I’ll have much liberty in my choices remains to be seen.  I’m put into a somewhat odd position as a January admission, ac hefyd I haven’t made my intentions for next autumn clear to the seminary, and I’m not ready to yet.

I’m happy with the seminary, but not sold on Lancaster as a city.  It brings to mind Bloomer without the one thing that I like about Bloomer: friendly smalltowness.  The public transit is for shizzle.  And, as in Bloomer, I’m also finding it hard to meet folks.  Other seminarians from the Arts module have been really nice, but they all live on campus and since they’ve been here for a term or more they have their own groups already going on.  I’m looking forward to the start of term.

I ventured into Lancaster’s [only?] fag bar on Saturday night.  It was dead.  When I asked the bartender when the other fags turned up, it turned out to be much later, and he made a point of telling me about his wife.  He needn’t have been concerned.  I had a couple beers and left.  I’ll go back some other weekend, much later in the evening.  I want to talk to a local to see what it’s like to be a queer here in Pennsylvania Dutch Country.  Maybe I’ll get lucky and meet an Amish poofta.  Wouldn’t that be something to write to First Congregational about, or at least a hell of an ethnograph?

I have turned into quite a wondering vegabond.  On Friday night, I was in Fremont, moving my mountain of bags, filled with clothes and theology books, to the Seattle Greyhound station to transport them and myself to Wisconsin.

 A lady approached, noticably attractive and no older than myself, and asked nicely, ‘do you want some bread?’  I was rather taken aback by this simple, kind offer.  I looked at her incredulously and said, ‘I’m not homeless!’ as if:

1) homelessness were something to be passionately disclaimed, and
2) this was something that she even asked.

In February I got a tattoo on my right forearm that repeats Saint David’s old proverb, ‘gwnewch y pethau bychain’, do the small things, because in so doing large things will be accomplished.  I realized later that in my small encounter with this good-hearted woman that I had failed to be gracious and incarnate Christ in the situation, as she had done.  I was cold to her, and I ignored the fact that there was a man up the street, most likely homeless, who would have probably indeed appreciated her bread.  One more demerit on the long list of this miserable sinner.

After my ‘I’m not homeless!’, the lady said, ‘oh, I didn’t think you were homeless, I just thought you might just be on your travels.’

She was right, and on a deeper level than she probably intended.