Lighting a torch in the darkness
We’d become very successful very quickly. I remember walking down the high street and girls were coming out of the clothes shop and screaming at me. I thought: “This is amazing.” But you can’t turn it off. I thought that proving myself would make me happy, but I still wasn’t and that was a f**king shock.
—-Kevin Rowland, founder of the band Dexys Midnight Runners, and the author of the hit song “Come On, Eileen,” reflecting on his past in The Guardian.
I came across a posting of a 2000 essay by Rabbi Elias Lieberman, suggesting a connection between the New England Thanksgiving celebrations and the ancient Jewish festival of Sukkot, known to us as the “feast of tabernacles” (or “festival of booths”) or the “feast of ingathering”.
Sukkot is mentioned in the Old Testament books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy; From Leviticus 23:
On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the produce of the land, you shall celebrate the feast of the Lord seven days. On the first day shall be a solemn rest, and on the eighth day shall be a solemn rest. And you shall take on the first day the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days. You shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord for seven days in the year. It is a statute forever throughout your generations; you shall celebrate it in the seventh month. You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All native Israelites shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”
Our early Pilgrims, known as The Separatists, were a persecuted Calvinist sect who left England and sojourned in Holland for a time. Predominantly they settled in the university city of Leiden, where they produced cloth for the textile industry. They would have rubbed shoulders with another persecuted minority group, the Sephardic Jews, who had fled from persecution in Roman Catholic Spain.
In his 1996 book The World of Jewish Cooking, Rabbi Gil Marks notes:
Before reaching Plymouth Rock, the Pilgrims spent several years in Holland, where they came into contact with Sephardim who had immigrated to that country, following the expulsion from Spain.
He points out that a classic Pilgrim dish, Boston baked beans, are a variation of a slow baked sabbath bean stew known as “Shkanah”.
As Rabbi Lieberman puts it:
While we cannot be certain about what motivated those Pilgrim settlers to initiate a feast of thanksgiving, it is likely that they consciously drew on a model well-known to them from the Bible they cherished. Seeing themselves as new Israelites in a new “promised land,” the Pilgrims surely found inspiration in the Bible, in the Books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, in which God commands the ancient Israelites to observe the Feast of Booths — in Hebrew, Sukkot, “to rejoice before Adonai your God” at the time of the fall harvest [Lev. 23:40].
(Available at interfaithfamily.com)
There exists debate as to how much the early Pilgrims were influenced by Jewish practices. As quoted in Jewish News Service, Brandeis University professor of American Jewish History, Jonathon Sarna says,
The Puritans did not believe in fixed holidays. If it was a good season, they would announce a thanksgiving, but it’s not like the Jewish holiday which occurs on the 15th of the month of Tishrei (Sukkot). They did not believe in that. So in that respect it’s different.”
Regardless, we offer our warmest greetings to all who celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow. It is customary at Sukkot, to sing Psalm 136:1-3, and we here take up the refrain as well:
O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.
O give thanks unto the God of gods: for his mercy endureth for ever.
O give thanks to the Lord of lords: for his mercy endureth for ever.
Our prayers go out to the victims and families of the recent mass shooting in Thousand Oaks, California. This kind of thing is becoming depressingly common
I must shower after reviewing this yucky story. In 2005, a jealous 46 year old machinist and Sunday School teacher named Thomas Montgomery killed a younger coworker, Brian Barrett. The two were in love with the same cyber entity, an 18 year old blonde girl named Jessi, who had the handle “talhotblond” on a video game chat room. Montgomery had been posing as a 20 year old marine combat veteran. His posts apparently exhibited some troubling “rage issues” and he expressed the desire to “slide all the snake slowly into his lady.” (His Sunday School pupils will likely need some therapy after this).
Many of the creepy twists and turns of the story I will pass over, but they are the subject of a documentary and a recent article by a Larry Getlen in The Daily Beast. As police investigated the murder, they were led to get in touch with Jessi, the young blonde. However, they quickly discovered that although Jessi was a real person residing in Oak Hill, WV, she had no clue about the communications. Her photos and identity were actually being used by none other than her own mother, 45 year old Mary Shieler. Mary had taken revealing photos of her daughter and used them to fuel a fantasy life online.
Mary, who is now divorced, apparently expressed no remorse, and said to her daughter during the proceedings, “Why don’t you just get over this?” Getlen concludes:
The final irony to this case and talhotblond is that behind the well-matched youthful sizzle of the Jessi and Tommy personas lay another, equally well-matched pair: the two malcontented strangers who created them. Montgomery and Shieler were both lonely people who reached their mid-forties with their best days behind them, who then created deadly deceptions in the hopes of recapturing the glory of youth, and of finding real intimacy by fervently denying their true selves.
Few stories better deserve the appellation of our recurring category, “Reflections of the Fall”
I am still processing my emotions after binge-watching the Netflix series “The Haunting of Hill House.” As with most shows and movies produced lately, this tale is nearly devoid of any traces of Christianity, so I recommend it mainly as creepy fun for Halloween—the media equivalent of visiting a haunted house attraction. Yet I think it transcends the horror genre a bit more than most haunted house movies.
“The Haunting of Hill House” is as much a psychological tale of dysfunctional relationships as it is a supernatural tale of ghosts. It is also a good specimen of the classic gothic literary genre, like Edgar Allen Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher—classier and spookier than many of the more comically outrageous special effects-laden haunted house movies out there (in which I include the 1999 movie “The Haunting”, inspired by the same Shirley Jackson source novel)
I therefore have mostly praise for this series. Solid acting and writing effectively establish an atmosphere of sadness and foreboding, as the Crain family’s present day struggles are set against a tragic backstory that is slowly revealed. Along the way it achieves moments of creepiness that I have scarcely seen since “The Sixth Sense.” While not above an occasional jump scare, the show’s spookiness is mostly earned through more subtle storytelling.
I’ve seen mixed reviews of the final episode. Some praised it for wrapping up the story lines and revealing the mysteries in an emotionally satisfying way. Others raged that it offered a “cheap” happy ending, slapping on a saccharine finish that betrayed the dark depths to which the story had previously gone. (One contemplated version of the ending had the Crain family remaining trapped in Hill House forever). Much as I sometimes enjoy an art house movie with a grim ending, in this case I am glad they opted for the former. The father’s sacrifice to save his children was dark enough for me, and tugged at my own feelings as a parent who loves his children deeply. Few movies bring tears, but Hugh’s final scene pulled some out of me. I would have been disappointed if he had died in vain.
Reviewing this story from a theological perspective, of course, Hugh’s sacrifice has a lot of resonance. His character was certainly not a perfect Christ figure: Hugh was guilty of willful blindness early on, and he was emotionally unavailable to his children later. I’ve rarely seen a more muted and tortured character than the quiet mumbling man who showed up for Nell’s funeral. But at the end, he showed some redemptive mettle. He put his family first, to the point of being consumed by a sacrificial death that allowed them to live.
The seductive nature of evil is another theme, especially in the last episode. Evil offers a false echo of goodness that promises to assuage some deep hurt or satisfy a craving, but this proves illusory. The mirage dissolves, and evil instead devours its prey.
Finally, the way in which a life can be “haunted” by past mistakes was portrayed compellingly. “Guilt and fear are sisters,” Nell’s apparition tells her family near the end. The final sequences of dreams play on these powerful “demons” in the lives of Steve, Shirley, and Theo, and demonstrate how these forces have dragged down and “haunted” each of the characters, more so than the actual ghosts of Hill House.
No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. (Matthew 6:24)
On the heels of my post about the misery brought into the life of a WV businessman by winning the lottery, I will mention the plight of another person who received a massive financial windfall. This case was brought to my attention by my children, both of whom at one time were avid fans of the game Minecraft.
Markus Persson, known as “Notch”, was the creative genius behind Minecraft. In 2014 the 36 year old sold his company to Microsoft for $2.5 billion.
Subsequently, Persson made some honest observations about wealth and loneliness. Despite “being able to do anything I want, I’ve never felt more isolated.”
In a series of tweets posted on Saturday, Persson exposed his feelings. Raw and deeply melancholy, they reveal that money truly isn’t everything — at least for him.
He began: “The problem with getting everything is you run out of reasons to keep trying, and human interaction becomes impossible due to imbalance.”
The author of the CNET article, Chris Matyszczyk, made the astute observation that “all the money in the world doesn’t actually buy anything other than things and more things.”
Regarding Mr. Persson’s current state of spiritual or emotional well-being, I know nothing more than what was revealed in this fairly old (2014) article. I certainly hope that things have improved for him.
His situation punctuates the fact that we humans often find ourselves with a deep spiritual hole at the center of our lives, which money can’t fill. We here at this site believe that God can do so.
Source: “Billionaire Who Sold Minecraft is Sad and Lonely”, available online at CNET.
See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction…Choose life!” (Deuteronomy 30).
Sometimes the worst thing that can happen to a human is to be given exactly what he or she wants. In fact, this may at the heart of what is meant by “Hell”. It is the curse of God turning away, and allowing the darkened soul to banish itself to a self-sought outer darkness.
An unencumbered pursuit of transient pleasures yields devastating and self destructive results. The risks taken become ever higher and the rewards ever more elusive. Relationships are destroyed, with bonds of friendship and familial affection severed, often to be replaced by the human equivalent of parasites, or else by abject loneliness.
This kind of curse is what happened to a West Virginia construction contractor named Jack Whittaker, who in 2002 had the misfortune to win the largest powerball payout to date. In the words of Misty, an employee of a strip club called “The Pink Pony”:
Over the months, the once-dapper Jack grew slovenly, Misty says: “He would come in a sloppy shirt, all wrinkled. His hat would be dirty. He’d be unshaven.” And he became demanding. “At first he was, like: ‘I’m Jack Whittaker. I won all this money, yay for me,'” Misty says. “Later it was, like: ‘I’m Jack Whittaker. You’ll do what I say . . . I have more money than God.’ Who talks like that?
“It was like the money was eating away at whatever was good in him,” Misty says. “It reminds me, like, ‘Lord of the Rings,’ how that little guy — what’s his name? Gollum? — was with his Precious. It just consumes you. You become the money. You are no longer a person.”
Jack had helped out a waitress named Brenda, whose life similarly unraveled when others discovered she had received some of the money:
Heartsick, Brenda sold the house that Jack bought and moved away. “I probably would have rejected the money in the first place if I’d known then what I know now,” she says. “It seems like money brings out the ugly in people.
The money also allowed Whittaker’s granddaughter and several young people in her orbit to spin out of control on drugs, resulting in petty crimes, and two tragic deaths from overdose. One member of this circle, Josh Smith, got spooked by what was going on, and pulled away, noting that the effect of money on friendship was “it turns it to hell”:
”I turned into a different person…I had so much money, it turned me cold-hearted.”
The entire heart-wrenching account seems like something out of a tawdry novel. You can read the fascinating tale at Washington Post.
My approach here has been to avoid taking sides in disputes where all partisans are “inside the fold” of faithful Christianity. Therefore I don’t hold out a particular view as being required of someone who wants to be a Christian. There are very faithful believers who hold a traditional view of earth being formed in six literal days. There are faithful believers who fully embrace the scientific views on evolution, yet feel that God is behind it all. There are several species of “old earth creationism” as well. (See my post “Varieties of Christian thought on Creation, with sources of further information”)
Genesis 1 gives every appearance of being a song, or poem, with stanzas that end with “and God saw that it was good.” Bibles, hymnals, and church prayer books will often call this the “Song of Creation” or the “Canticle of Creation”. One may extract very valuable theological information while yet recognizing that this isn’t intended to be a textbook of scientific data. We don’t need to get hung up on the particulars.
The major theological point here is that the universe we perceive isn’t an eternal, static thing, nor did it come about merely by mindless forces at play, but instead it is a purposeful creation by an unimaginably powerful God. Furthermore, it bears God’s benediction—it is “good”. In our tiny little corner of the cosmos, this should make us want to work toward the preservation of nature, and the well-being of all humans.
I once heard a sermon on the prophet Jonah, in which the preacher opined that the fish story “makes good faithful Christians go weak in the knees” because it is hard to believe in a great fish swallowing a man whole, and then spitting him up again; and yet he does in fact believe. The reason is that once you have “swallowed” that God became incarnate as a human being, died on the cross, and was resurrected, and ascended into the realms of glory, then believing in Jonah is a little thing. Who are we to cherry pick which parts of God’s story to believe? To do this is dangerous, making God subject to our whims and sensibilities—making God to be not God. “The world needs more believers,” he concluded.
A great deal of discussion rages on about the historicity of Adam and Eve. This story reads to our contemporary context like a tall tale. I myself go “weak in the knees” when I contemplate the idea of defending the veracity of this story of a man and woman in a garden full of magic fruit, being approached by a sentient talking serpent. It just seems preposterous.
However, I take a similar approach to the tale of Adam and Eve, as the aforementioned pastor took to the story of Jonah. I have swallowed the idea of a Creator capable of bringing into existence a universe full of galaxies and black holes and many other wondrous things—this is a being of great power, and nearly infinite knowledge. Such a being, if it chose to interact with humanity, must be accorded the utmost respect. I believe that this God has indeed interacted with us, particularly in the person of Jesus, thus piercing the idea of a deistic God who observes some kind of “Star Trek”-like “prime directive” of never interfering with the course of natural events. Jesus of Nazareth, the “Son of man”, appeared among us, fulfilling many predictions from centuries past. This man mysteriously appeared to many after his death and then vanished, leaving behind a continually growing movement of people dedicated (imperfectly) to the love of others and reconciliation with God.
Therefore, I embrace Adam and Eve, and the Garden of Eden. A God who finely tuned the physical laws of our universe would not be sloppy in allowing mere fables into the sacred texts of His chosen people. Whether read literally or allegorically, the story must be taken seriously, as the very word of truth from on high.
Notes:
Christians have read Genesis 2-4 in a variety of ways. A fairly recent book of interest would be Barrett and Caneday, editors, Four Views on the Historical Adam, Zondervan, 2013. Featuring essays by Denis Lamoroux and others, it lays out some of the different positions taken by Christians.
My recollection of a sermon in the first paragraph is from notes taken on a homily preached by Fr. Michael Spurlock at Evensong, St Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, Oct 15, 2013. As far as I can discover, neither a recording nor any notes exist online at this time.
Photo credits:
1. “Eve Tempted by the Serpent” William Blake, c. 1799
2. “Jonah and the Whale” (oil on board). Aris, Fred (b. 1934). The Bridgeman Art Library International.
Are megacorporations and the government colluding to keep the working man (and woman) down? The recent spectacle of a real estate services giant, Cushman and Wakefield, suing a lowly janitor for violating a non compete clause, has prompted a very interesting reflection by Matt O’Brien in the Washington Post.
O’Brien points out the interesting paradox that capitalism works best when there is competition, yet capitalists wish to eliminate competition wherever they can. It boils down to the most powerful wielding ever more control over their workers.
Noncompete agreements have been increasingly foisted upon low level employees:
… noncompetes, which used to be about keeping top executives from taking actual trade secrets to rival firms, have now become much more common among all types of workers. This includes 14% of non college educated employees.
Not surprisingly, companies have been suing more frequently to enforce these noncompete agreements, which have a chilling effect even in jurisdictions where they can’t legally be enforced. Workers don’t generally know when this is the case:
All they know is that they signed something that they couldn’t afford to fight in court.
The entire opinion piece is worth a read.
We have filed this one under “Reflections of the Fall.”