Germany vs. the USA - the Maternity Ward Edition

The main difference is the screaming. There's more of it in Germany.

Let me explain. My first daughter was born back in the good ol' US of A, while the second was born here in Deutschland, so I've gotten a front row seat to the birthing philosophies and practices of both medical systems.

In the United States, we pay good money for medical services, and for that reason, these medical services should be as painless as possible. This is, of course, the purpose of medical services, to painlessly prop up our bodies, regardless of condition, so that we can fulfil our purpose by getting back to work as soon as possible. Americans agree with classical economists with this purpose, that all things work together for the good of those who love profit and work hard according to its service. For this reason, Americans put great trust in profitable technologies to solve all our problems. Take, for instance, genetically modified food. Americans understand, and have seen irrefutable scientific evidence, that the only way to feed the ever-growing world population is to invest heavily in genetically modified foods, because what's natural has no way of keeping up with our industrial ways. This philosophy is also applied to birth. My German wife wanted to have a natural birth (we'll contrast the key German philosophy later), which was a novelty for all the midwives in the hospital. ("midwives" themselves were a novelty - what will those hipsters think of next?) Sure, the midwives were trained in the advantages of doing things naturally, but to actually have a woman in a hospital in America who wanted to be natural (and wasn't forced due to a speedy labor in the taxi cab) was exciting! Now, our daughter would be born on New Year's Day, and the hospital was full, perhaps because a number of families wanted their children to be the first born in the New Year (we didn't win that competition). But, there wasn't the kind of screaming you see in the movies. All the other moms sat placidly in their beds with needles in their spines, awaiting the child emerge with minimal resistance. From the silence, you'd think they were all waiting in those transport capsules from Alien. The screams from our end of the maternity ward must have been disconcerting.

Of course, for all our technology, no one noticed that our daughter was "sunny-side-up", i.E. facing the wrong way, until she was almost out. Moreover, and this is serious, a huge hole in America's healthcare system is postpartum care for mothers. Sure, we have all the appropriate vaccines and follow-up visits for the baby, good on-sight training and support groups for those who have trouble breast feeding... But rebuilding the woman's body through support and exercise is foreign to our system, yet it's such a boon to a woman's health, family, and happiness. Postpartum exercises is nothing but yoga for the yuppies who can afford it. Changing this seems like a pro-woman, pro-family, pro-life kind of policy we could all agree on.

Superior mother-care aside, Germany still has its own quirks. In Germany, medical service is almost an embarrassing necessity, sort of a sell-out. We have friends who send their daughter in our local "forest" kindergarten, where the little tikes forage around in the freezing rain and all the crafts involve tying sticks and leaves together with twine, and this is much more natural and therefore better than doing anything in a building. I'm surprised that they don't have forest hospitals, where patients lay on piles of leaves and surgery is performed with sharpened sticks, because it's natürlich. The word natürlich has a deeper, richer meaning than the English word "natural." It harkens back to a nobler time where we weren't so reliant on tablets and mobiles and shots and clothes, and people weren't so obsessed with bourgeois notions like pain avoidance or morality rates. Natürlich is better. Take, for instance, genetically modified food. Germans understand, and have seen irrefutable scientific evidence, that the only way to feed the ever-growing world population is to stop any and all investment in genetically modified food and go back to doing food the natürliche way that has fed mankind through the ages. Nonetheless, Germans, like everyone else, want to live and be comfortable, so they begrudgingly accept medical technology to keep us alive and warm and comfortable (gemütlich, which is almost as an important natürlich over here - if you have a product that can manage to be gemütlich and natürlich, believe me, it'll sell well here - but many things in Germany seem to be a struggle between Natürlichkeit and Gemütlichkeit). As having a baby is a natural process, however, Natürlichkeit trumps Gemütlichkeit, as we could tell during our hospital visit when the midwives (standard-issue over here) bragged about their hospital's low rate of epidurals. They went on to cite statistics about the horrifyingly high rate of epidurals by those snaggle-tooth, hill-billy American women who, for some backwards reason (probably involving fast food and a general lack of discipine), are reluctant to embrace the immense, natürlich, pain Mother Nature has ordained for them. Hence the screams. When we were waiting for my wife's labor pains to get going (no drugs, of course, only the help of the cocktail, which was sehr natürlich), we heard the mom ahead of us screaming like she was going through an exorcism. Oh, but in Germany, my wife got a hot tub to sit in during the process, so I guess there was a little Gemütlichkeit after all.

After the birth, however, the advantages of Natürlichkeit are clear. Our basic insurance covered standard midwife visits and, as I write this, my wife is at her postpartum gymnastics class, rebuilding and restrengthening her body with peer and professional support. Both systems, of course, helped bring a beautiful little girl each into the world and so for them, through all the quirks, I give thanks.

The Different in Europe

A couple weeks ago, my daughter and I went to a friend's house for coffee and cake. The coffee and cake was spontaneous - the original plan was a quick swap: translation of a letter for a couple of ESL books and some hand-me-down girl clothes. But when we arrived, the cake was on the table, the coffee was ready, and the other guests had already arrived. My friend and her family were about to move to Michigan for a couple years. In the weeks before our spontaneous coffee and cake meeting, I taught some English to her and her daughter while bringing in the occasional anecdote about living in the good ol' US of A.

Her other guests were a Turkish woman and her daughter. The Turkish woman wore a beautiful, gold-hemmed headscarf that, along with her excellent posture, gave her a stately presence. Her daughter, save for a slightly darker complexion, could fit in well with any Swabian play group. They both declined cake - there was something about it that made it unfit for the Muslim diet - but they ate generous helpings of fruit salad. The Turkish woman asked if my daughter was a boy - it seems like my daughter's name sounds masculine in Turkish ears - but no big deal.

I love Europe for these moments. In this little strip of land crammed with countries and tribes and dialects finally at peace with each other. Their last wars went too far, so they decided a common economy was a good way to keep the peace and make a little money. It made sense, with everyone so close together. I go two hours in any direction and the people are different. Sure, European, still, but different languages, cultures and mentalities, spiced with Turkish and African immigrants, not to mention the occasional displaced Yankee.

Now, the talking heads prophets are predicting European collapse - or at least the currency and Union, and, more darkly, giving voice to those who despise with The Different as our neighbor and collaborator. Plenty of the prophets, especially from my own country, can't hide their Schadenfreude behind the curtain of grim prophecies. Clearly those snobbish Brussels elites hadn't read their Keynes or their Burke or their own opinion polls or the Greek accounting sheets. The boom times hid all the structural problems and the bubble to bring about debt, stagnation, unemployment and overall hopelessness. Financial hardship is a common ground for a divorce.

They may be right. The whole kitten-caboodle could fall down all around us. Or, the magic elixir will work and we'll all have cushy jobs, a sense of meaning and tickets to Eurovision. But it's worth mentioning that whatever happens, we'll all still be here. Our neighbors will be our neighbors. We'll have to talk and trade and exchange and ask and immigrate and emigrate. The Different will remain both across the border and across the street. The Different are in that country in the north or the south that everyone is complaining about. Sometimes The Different is in the other balcony flying a foreign flag during the football tournament. Sometimes The Different is on the other side of the bed. For better or worse.

Whatever system, past, present or future, the second greatest commandment applies. We are to love our neighbors as ourselves. Judging by the story that follows it, our neighbors include The Different, especially those close to us. We're close to each other. We're different, and we can break bread together. Or cake. Or if you can't eat the cake, there's always fruit salad.

Two Eyes (Thoughts on Religious Brutality)

Shortly after Hurricane Katrina, I took a short-term job with the para-church organization now known as Cru to help coordinate their hurricane recovery projects. To the thousands of Cru faithful all over the United States, there was no more obvious way to live Christianity than to help those in need, and for the next two semesters, we hosted group after group (the high point being the thousands-strong spring break do-gooders) of students who would camp out, borrow tools and help recover houses and neighborhoods from the wreckage. I traveled to New Orleans quite a bit, though much of my work was from a cushy Orlando office. The real heroes were the student volunteers who took a semester or two off to live and work downtown for the remainder of the year.

During that time, I saw religious conviction at its finest. I mentioned the volunteers who put off their pursuit of the American dream to dig houses out of the mire. I was even more impressed by some of the local churches. One church not only housed our volunteers but refused to let them get away with just eating cereal from the local discounters every morning and, and their members whipped up eggs, grits, bacon and biscuits. People who lost so much in the Hurricane invested their time and treasure to ensure that those who came to help had a proper Southern breakfast. The resource sharing and generosity of those involved showed the meaning of "labor of love."

There was of course, another side to religious conviction. I saw plenty of silliness preached and promised in the name of the prosperity gospel. (One pastor told me his vision of everyone having a big-screen TV) I heard of another pastor using our volunteer efforts to promote his candidacy in New Orleans' local politics. My volunteers told me he had a habit of turning away people who needed help from outside of his voting district. Religious conviction can be a magnifying glass to the human experience. It can bring out our best, and it can very well bring out our worst.

In her Spiegel Online column last week, Sibylle Berg looked at the religious experience with one eye closed. (Note - if you can't read German, Google translate will give you the idea. I quote her using that and my own rough translations) She sees the bad and not the good, possibly because when she looks at the bad, there is so much to see. The column is entitled "Religion Is, When Men Oppress," and "men" is the operative word. While she stands with intellectuals, homosexuals and racial minorities against the religious oppressor, it's sins against women that most draw her venom. She writes:

"That what we in such a conciliatory way describe as "tradition" is nothing more than discrimination, sexism and racism. Instead of being satisfied to stay home and believe something that doesn't concern anyone else, the world is being ruled over by the power of muscle over mind." (that sentence sounds more eloquent in German) 

Her anger is righteous, appealing and rails against a form of repression that any reasonable person should find disgusting. And she has plenty of current events on which to build her case:

"Dealing with the uncertainty of people with idiocy and brutality is a powerful new trend... in Israel the religious are beginning to throw stones at lewd women. In many parts of the world they are still being circumcised, and then there's the death penalty for homosexuals. The urge to separate grows and makes their already difficult lives unbearable."

And there are plenty of events in history to add to her case - crusades, inquisitions, terrorism, human sacrifice and much else. In fact, when it comes to brutality, I don't think there's anything new under the sun - just new faces and new weapons. She has her vision of paradise - a mind your business coexistence that welcomes headscarves, thongs, chaps and animal masks and that "everyone can believe in something that, at the end of the day, won't prevent their death." Western Europe is closer to this, and I sure prefer it hear to Saudi Arabia. But her one-eyed view of things like religion or tradition misses a few things.

First, and briefly, it misses that not all oppression is religious. If Berg would look East, she would find countries where the religious aren't the oppressors, but rather the oppressed. In China, the officially atheist government evicted the Dalai Lama, crushes house churches that don't tow the party line and threatens Muslims and other minorities on the Western Border. Oppression is when men oppress. This has been done under the banner of every religion and with a little creativity can be done under the banner of every philosophy, humanism included. We rarely live up to our ideals, religious or otherwise.

Second, Berg's righteous anger makes her blind to religion's role in promoting the equity and justice she advocates. With one eye closed, she doesn't see the good folks who refused to mind their own business when Katrina wrecked New Orleans. Or consider slavery. Whatever the religious justification of the original Christian and Muslim slave peddlers, we should remember that it was a motley crew of Quakers and Evangelicals, i.E. religious nuts, who worked to bring down the North Atlantic slave trade. Over a century later, we should remember that Martin Luther King, a Protestant Minister, was one of the most effective forces against the brutality of the USA's endemic racism. King's "Letter From a Birmingham Jail" should be required reading for all people, but please note how he chides his coreligionists for doing precisely what Berg wishes religious folks would do - nothing. King wrote:

"When I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama, a few years ago, I felt we would be supported by the white church. I felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would be among our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained glass windows.

In spite of my shattered dreams, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through which our just grievances could reach the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed.
I have heard numerous southern religious leaders admonish their worshipers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers declare: "Follow this decree because integration is morally right and because the Negro is your brother." In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say: "Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern." And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular." (emphasis mine)

When religion is a passive player, it goes along justifying whatever the Zeitgeist happens to be. Those were the white moderates King criticized. True religion, according to the Apostle James, isn't polluted by such worldliness. Instead, it looks after the orphans and windows, the least of these in society. When they stand for something, you get the likes of Martin Luther King and William Wilberforce. It's true for dozens of my coreligionists, women and men, that I know personally. Whenever we stay home with our silent, private faith, and this is too often, we are doing it wrong. If Berg really cares for her oppressed sisters the world over, she'd do well to remember this.

I sincerely hope that all brutality and oppression will go back into the swamp, to paraphrase Berg's closing metaphor. But the desire to taste the divine lies in all of us, and to throw those of us who nurture it under the banner of thugs, bullies and ignoramuses is to look at reality with one eye closed. We Christians believe that the divine came to us, that he walked this earth in a time when both imperial and religious brutality were common. Something Berg wrote reminded me of him. She wrote that "in Israel, the religious are beginning to throw stones at lewd women." This, of course, happened before, and we get a picture of how the Divine confronted it:

But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

Pay to Potty? Only Under the Following Conditions

Whenever I'm in Europe (nowadays, that's pretty much all the time), I get a lot of advice. No, not personal advice, except for one time when a lady at a restaurant said I shouldn't allow my daughter to throw silverware at her. (strict, these people! Strict!) No, I mostly get advice about how my home country, the good ol' US of A, should be run. All sorts of issues come up, but lately, economics have been the hot topic. You see, they blame our current economic difficulties on a brand of cowboy capitalism that enriches the fat cats at the expense of Joe and Jane Average. Now, I agree, it's horrible to enrich yourself through exploitation. But friends, I've seen an insidious form of exploitation, exploitation of our basest needs, right here in virtuous Baden-Wuerttemberg. It happened while I was at Stuttgart's Main Train Station and I urgently had to use the restroom (note to my British readership: restroom is American for loo, which is slang for toilet, if you're still not with me).

Now, as the patriots over at Stuff America Does Best have pointed out, public restrooms are treated as a right, are readily available, and unlike other public institutions, they don't have to make ends meet with funding drives. But this isn't so in Europe, as I discovered in Stuttgart. No, in order to come to the appropriate place of relief, I needed to fork over a Euro (which is like a buck forty!) to a company called "Rail and Fresh Public Toilet Facilities," which is just one brand name of Hering International. Do you know what that means? Somewhere sits a German fat cat wearing a pin striped suit, legs crossed and propped on his antique oak desk, teeth clenched around a cuban cigar that he only takes out to yell at his Swedish secretary (named Kitty), and all he has to do is listen to the Euros plop every time we have to go plop. This is an atrocious form of predatory capitalism - demanding our cash when we're vulnerable and dancing in desperation. 

Ok, I know Rail and Fresh offers clean facilities and scent sprayers among other amenities, and plenty of women have already told me that they'd gladly shell out a Euro for a clean place to sit, but such luxuries necessities should be a given, not extra incentive to have us pay to do what our ancestors have always done for free using chamber pots kept under the bed. To get my hard-earned Euro, Mr. Monopoly Man's German cousin, you're going to have to offer the following:

1. Scent sprayers must spray top-of-the-line cologne, none of the cheap stuff. I prefer Eternity by Calvin Klein, but you'll have to offer a variety to suit the needs of your clientele.
2. Complimentary champagne, served in a crystal glass
3. Sauna, complete with steam room and optional Thai Massage 
4. An assortment of wordy and snobby newspapers and magazines, including the following: The Economist, The Guardian, The Times, The Financial Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Die Zeit, Die Welt, Der Spiegel, Die Frankfurter Allgemeine, Die Sueddeutsche Zeitung and all of their French, Spanish, Italian and Turkish equivalents. What? USA Today? If you must. But no tabloids. We want this place to be classy. 
5. A flat screen TV in each stall and over each urinal 
6. Silk toilet paper
7. Relaxing music, yes, but performed live by a professional string quartet
8. Professional cleanings, yes, but by the cast of Downton Abbey 
9. A short Circus Olay show, repeated on the hour
10. Beat Poetry reading every Friday
11. A warm towel after you wash your hands provided to you by a man in a tuxedo who speaks a southern accent. Doesn't matter from which country - it could be the southern part of the U.S. or the southern part of Portugal, as long as it's a southern accent. 

If none of these services are offered, then I will be forced to go with the competition. And by competition I mean a dark corner of the train station. Or one of the port-o-potties reserved for the Stuttgarter 21 protestors. Or a toilet on a parked train. 

Nones and Lovers

I've been wanting to write about Eric Weiner's New York Times column on Americans and God since it came out in December, but I've been busy doing other things, like trying to work for a living and thinking up warm-weather holiday songs. And the truth is, I wanted to give it some thought, because I think it's worth responding to as a Christian. Weiner represents a form of non-belief that is probably more prevalent than the faith of convinced atheism. He's undecided, a self-described "None." What's a None? Well, here:

We Nones may not believe in God, but we hope to one day. We have a dog in this hunt. Nones don’t get hung up on whether a religion is “true” or not, and instead subscribe to William James’s maxim that “truth is what works.” If a certain spiritual practice makes us better people — more loving, less angry — then it is necessarily good, and by extension “true.” (We believe that G. K. Chesterton got it right when he said: “It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.”) 

I suspect that Nones number even more than the increasing number of people who check "none" on the surveys. I bet that many who cross "Catholic" or "Protestant" or "Muslim" or whatever belief are practical Nones, the cultural inheritors of a religious faith without significant bearing on their thoughts, decisions or prayers.

Weiner's "Noneness" is more nuanced than the None who just hasn't thought much about the afterlife between work and family and recreation. After a "health scare", this "rationalist" began to explore faith. In doing so, he went on a literal spiritual journey, traveling the world to sample the varieties of religious experience, which he chronicled in his book Man Seeks God: My Flirtation with the Divine. At this point, I should make clear that I haven't read Weiner's book, and answers to the questions and criticisms  I'm about to write may be found there. Nevertheless, his Times column has made a statement about the Nones' view of religion in America, and it's worth addressing.

For starters, let me say "amen" to the None's strong discomfort with the cross-pollination of piety and politics. While there have been times when the church should have done much more (I don't think Weiner would argue with Dr. King here), and I've wrote here before how unimpressed I was by large Christian gatherings using lots of (self-serving?) superlatives in their marketing. It's the sort of thing that would have made me want to clutch Noneness like a life-preserver had I not already been spoken for.

Weiner himself thinks humor is important, and I agree with him (note my heading). He thinks that "precious few of our religious leaders laugh. They shout." Yes, I hear them shouting too. I hear them shouting every time CNN talks to the latest loudmouth to draw a crowd or some doomsday prophet gets much more media attention than they deserve. But I can testify that while every church will have its sour-faced mice, much laughter can be heard between the pews. I grew up in a laughing family, surrounding by laughing people, and all of them thought you could know the Lord personally and would be happy to talk about it. We Christians run the whole gamut of emotions if you take the time to get to know us. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and disagree with Weiner's Chesterton quote: "It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it." Well, every religion can be joked about, and the best jokes come from within the ranks. Rather, it is the individual's jokes that are the test of his own character. Are they capable of joking? And when they do, is it in the right time and place for the best effect? Or are their jokes there for reasons of poison, to prey on the innocent and to build themselves up at others' expense? As some religious guy wrote somewhere, for everything there is a season. If you're a None genuinely seeking God and you visit a church that seems incapable of humor (and I've been there), give it one more week to make sure that your perceptions aren't clouded by a bias against the kind of people who show up there every Sunday (I have to watch myself there too). But once it's proven that the jokes are either unavailable or inappropriate, run (don't walk) to the exit. Bad humor's a good reason to find another church, but it's be a poor reason to try and put distance between yourself and God.

If Weiner has distance between himself and God, humorless blowhards have contributed to it. He needs a new kind of religious leader. He writes:

The answer, I think, lies in the sort of entrepreneurial spirit that has long defined America, including religious America. 

We need a Steve Jobs of religion. Someone (or ones) who can invent not a new religion but, rather, a new way of being religious. Like Mr. Jobs’s creations, this new way would be straightforward and unencumbered and absolutely intuitive. Most important, it would be highly interactive. I imagine a religious space that celebrates doubt, encourages experimentation and allows one to utter the word God without embarrassment. A religious operating system for the Nones among us. And for all of us.

A Steve Jobs' of religion... sounds nice doesn't it? It sounded nice to me until I began to unpack the analogy. I'm a fan of Apple products, and I am using one to write this blog post. But as sleek, hip and user-friendly as they are, they aren't for everyone, as Microsoft's "I'm a PC" commercial slyly picked up on. Weiner's religious space wouldn't be something for all of us. It would be one more niche in a crowded market. Furthermore, high-technology is effective to the point that it is individualized, that I can sit alone in my computer which is my own electronic kingdom, filled with my apps and my favorites and my bookmarks and social networking sites where I can pay attention and ignore people at my own leisure without fear of boredom, pain or small talk. It's straightforward, unencumbered, intuitive and interactive because it's mine, made in my image and serving my purposes and, for the small price of targeted advertisement, I can be as spiritual and unspiritual as I want, I can experiment, celebrate my doubt or my faith with no book or leader to tell me that I might be in any way off base (and if they do, I can simply delete their comment). I can utter whatever the hell I want, because as far as I'm concerned, I'm alone.

Christianity, to my daily dismay and glory, has a different user experience. It involves other people. I go into a church and I sing songs and say prayers and listen to words with all sorts of people. People with the wrong politics, the wrong interpretations, the wrong family traditions, the wrong styles, the wrong jokes. Their flawed behavior is rarely intuitive and often encumbers me. It's interactive, alright, but the interaction involves me putting aside my desires and agendas to meet other people where they are. It can be very tedious and often takes years to fully feel like part of a Fellowship (and having recently moved, I'm feeling these bruises once again), but it is well worth it. To sing and pray together with someone else in the presence of Almighty God... to have actually done that makes it worth it to come back and drink from the fountain, again and again. Weiner contrasts the private and public nature of religion, but his conclusions are too individualistic. Spirituality is private and public, yes, but knowing God is a communal experience - it's community with Him and with everyone else who has taken the plunge. It's there that we "become more loving" and experience "human grace."

I sympathize with the Nones' desire to remain outside all of this. I sympathize, because I detect something in them that I know in myself: a fear of commitment. Let me explain by way of politics. I confess that I find it difficult to commit to a particular political viewpoint. While living in Washington, I knew people who delighted in this commitment. They had strong politics, and they could argue them so well that I would be convinced until I talked with my next friend who had a different view. Everyone was right, and they could prove it. Moreover, the incivility and ill-humor of our political leaders and the media's appetite for scandal and provocation makes me feel about politics the same way Weiner feels about religion. But at the end of the day, I have to vote. I have to check the box next to the candidate I think is best and which statue or bill sounds the most reasonable. If I don't participate, my voice is completely marginalized and I miss out on the privileges of representative democracy.

Much like politics, religions have their loud blowhards and people who take what I feel is an uncomfortable delight in having strong opinions. But the responsibility for my participation does not rest on them - it rests on me. Commitment to God is less like buying an iPad and more like getting married. It's all encompassing, and we don't get to sever our ties when confronted with suffering, discomfort, other people or the fact that it's often us that needs changing. But the reward, and Christianity's key selling point, if you will, is love. Indeed, the Bible says that God himself is love and that all of God's law is summed up in loving God and loving each other. We're invited into this love through an act of love. Jesus died on a cross 2000 years ago that we may experience God's love through communion and fellowship with him, even when we're humorless blowhards with bad politics. The question then, is not whether we have the right operating system. It's whether we embrace Love or none.

Germany's Next Top President!

Everyone back home in the good ol' USA is on the edge of their seats, watching the state by state results of the presidential primaries, but here in Germany, we've got some presidential problems of our own. The Republican candidates are going out of the way besmirch the President's and each others' credibility, dragging each other through the pigsty of dirty politics, half truths, contradictions and comparisons to a horrible-sounding place called Europe. Meanwhile, Germany's own President has jumped in the mud himself, and the media is piling it on.

Now, wait, you might say - isn't Germany's President that yellow-haired woman who keeps dragging her feet every time it's time to bail out a Mediterranean country? Nope! That's actually Germany's Chancellor, and she's the one with the real power. Germany's President is more of a Ceremonial figure-Head of State who gets to make speeches and sign legislation. The current President is one Christian Wulff, who, while governor of one of Germany's states, evidently accepted a cheap loan from a friend. A bit slimy, but slimier still when he threatened the Bildzeitung with "war" should they publish the story. This enraged the rest of the media so much that they united in calling for his head and focused their esteemed pages on the President instead of more important things, like the possible economic collapse of the Eurozone and play-by-play reports of "Jungle Camp," a c-celebrity, eye-candy reality TV show (ok, at least they saved room for that). Thus, if the German media get their way, Wulff will admit that he is no longer honorable enough to hold the post and step down.

The question, of course, is who would fill the vacancy. Well, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds, I am happy to announce my candidacy! With your help (especially if you happen to be part of the Federal Commission), I'll be the most honorable President the Federal Republic of Germany has ever seen. I look forward to being a figurehead - smiling, signing things, giving speeches and taking people to lunch while everyone else works to keep the Euro from unraveling. It's a tough job, but, as they say, somebody's gotta do it.

Now, let's discuss my qualifications:

1. Great hair - Thanks to my Italian barber, my hair is both honorable and presidential. 
2. Speeches - I give great speeches. For evidence of this, let me submit my "Toast to the Lassies," which I gave at my Scottish friend's Robert Burns Supper. 
3. Political openness - I will happily represent whichever honorable party chooses to nominate me, and take their advice in choosing judges and things like that (Again, I'm much better at the ceremonial parts of the position. I'll leave the important parts of the job, especially if it requires research, to my staff). The phrase "honorable party" excludes both the extreme right and the extreme left. However, I look great in black, red, yellow, green or pirate. (Herr Kretschmann, rufen Sie mich an - ich habe Zeit!) 
4. Experience with Foreign Dignitaries - The Federal President has an important role in welcoming dignitaries before they get down to business with Madame Chancellor. Hey, that's exactly what I did during my internship in DC! Score! 

Now, I anticipate some drawbacks. You might be saying, "Um, Mr. Un Till, the Federal President must be German and older than 40. You are neither." Well, let me respond to these uncivil accusations. 

First, let me address the age thing. Yes, it's true, I am not yet "over the hill" as they say. But, having a child has aged me at least ten years. Now that I'm a dad, I go to bed early, wake up early and avoid fast food. Moreover, I've become irritable, especially after 8:30pm. I've never listened to Justin Bieber, Katy Perry or Bon Iver, and I think most of the new technology out there, what with the fancy touch screens and portable readers and Facebook timelines, is strange and intimidating. I may not have a gray hair on my pretty little head, but trust me when I write this: I am old at heart. 

Now, the citizenship thing is a bit more complicated. But I did have a German (though a big part Estonian) Gramma, and I'm married to a German girl and I have a half-German daughter. In any case, this is another good reason for the German and American governments to follow the Economist's advice and and allow me to have two passports. 

So, what do you think? Will you join my campaign to restore honor to the Presidency?

Two questions - I realize one of the perks is a mansion in Berlin, but my wife is a Swabian, and from what I've read, her kind is not welcome there. Can we move things to Stuttgart?

Second, how's the pay?

Hamburger! Cheeseburger! Wutburger!

Speaking of Christmas markets and meat, if I ever set up my own booth for all the holiday festivities, it would be an old-fashioned, American hamburger stand. I mean, other than McDonald's, Burger King, Starbucks, Hollywood, Friends, Sex in the City, 65% of everything else on TV, Coke, Sprite, (all you who bleed red, white and blue, start humming "America the Beautiful" here) Pepsi, binge-drinking college students, Subway, Kentucky Fried Chicken, women playing soccer, foreign policy, the Ford Focus, CNN International, Gangster Rap, Jack Daniels, the Twilight books, Cowboy films, Native American street musicians and several military bases, the Germans really don't get enough of the good ol' U. S. of A. It's a good thing I'm here.

I would name my stand "Wutburger," after the city of Stuttgart's own wutbürger, those brave citizens who have stuck it to the Man and his insidious plans to... let me check my notes - build a nuclear power plant? No, that's not it. Send German troops to war? hmmm... nope, that's not it. To use child labor pour nuclear waste into the Neckar river? Hmmm... nope. Ah, here it is: The Man's insidious plan is to... modernize Stuttgart's train station. The wutbürger have thwarted this dastardly scheme by camping out by the main train station for the past... how long? Well, at least since I've been here. You can almost hear Neil Young singing:

"There's something happening here
And what it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man building a train station over there
and it might cost too much money to be worth it depending on who you ask..."

(In their defense, I should point out that the train deal was pretty shady and dishonest to begin with, and that the train station could cause damage to part of Stuttgart's historic garden. The frustration resulted in the reigning Christian Democrats being kicked out in the last election. We're now ruled by the Greens in partnership with the SPD, and I wish them all the best)

"Wutburger" is a wonderful word. Burger means citizen (this fact has done extensive damage to the transatlantic relationship, particularly at lunch time.

German diplomat: "We must ensure that our mutual economic policy is in the best interest of the burgers!"

American diplomat, drooling: "Mmmm.... burgers...")

Wut, pronounced "voot" is hard to translate into English, but it includes a distinctively German brand irate rage. You'll experience wut if you commit one of Germany's unpardonable sins, like walking in the bike lane or or driving on the sidewalk. (people are strict here!) If you'll take a comparison to American politics, the Wutburger combines the rage and demographics of the Tea Party with the politics of Occupy Wall Street. Thankfully, the German commitment to pacifism trumps even the most extreme cases of wut. Think peaceful, seething protests. Against train stations.

I'd name my burger stand for the Wutburger, because they've had a tough week. It seemed like a victory for them that the funding for the train station was put to a popular vote last Saturday. Alas, democracy revealed that their "people's voice" didn't actually represent the people. The citizens of Baden Wuerttemberg decidedly voted pro-train station, revealing either a state-wide love of trains or a deep-seated distrust of hippies. So to all the wutbürger: you fought the good fight. Put your plackets in the recycling bin. Roll up your tents. Come on down to the Christmas Market and enjoy something hot off the grill. Yes of course there's a vegetarian option.

My "Wutburger" hamburger stand would feature the following culturally relevant offerings:

1. The original Wutburger - When I think of wut, I think of spice. Yes, the wutburger would be covered in Dave's Insanity hot sauce and feature several of those chilli peppers that even burn your skin. Why? You know what's worse than the Man building a train station? The Man building a train station while your tongue is touching the sun.
   
2. The Swabianburger - This burger may look modest on the outside, but the quarter pound beef patti will be covered with spaetzle, lentels and brown sauce. Eating the burger change your pronunciation so that your "s" sounds like "sh", cause you to keep your steps swept clean and give you a better taste in automobiles.
   
3. The Berlinburger - Like the city it's named after, this burger is poor but sexy. Poor because it's made from grade "F" canned ground beef. Sexy because it's covered in curry ketchup (hey, it's what they eat up there, so it must be sexy). Instead of a bun, you get two jelly donuts. Being the cheapest burger among the menu, it will be the most popular among Swabians, which causes resentment (even wut) among actual Berliners.
4. The Bavarianburger - The Bavarian is the most expensive burger on the menu. Not content with a simple beef patty, the Bavarian is augmented with sauerkraut additional meat, including three strips of bacon and a huge slab of pressed liverwurst. It's also covered in honey mustard and served with a liter of beer (two liters if you show up to the stand wearing lederhosen). Because the burger is rich, it's favored to win the Burgerliga every season, regardless of form from other burgers, and usually does so as long as the superstar meats don't quarrel (when they do, people roll their eyes and complain about the Hollywoodburger). It is therefore despised by every other burger on the menu, but let's be honest, it's the only burger that can consistently represent the Burgerliga in European competition.
5. The Frankburger - Covered in delicious green sauce and laced with Euro Notes.
   
6. The Ruhrburger - The proud burger of the mining industry, it actually consists of several small burgers combined to make the largest burger on the menu.
   
7. The Freiburger - Vegan, crunchy and only cooked in a solar power oven. Which is difficult in December.
   
8. The Hannoverburger - The only burger on the menu that speaks Hochburger.
   
9. The Cologneburger - Chances are, you've already seen this burger on TV.
   
10. The Dusselburger - A more expensive version of the Cologneburger.
    
11. The Hamburger - A beef patty served on a bun with pickles, lettuce and tomatoes. Hey, what were you expecting?
12. The Buffettburger - Lettuce and tomato, Heinz 57 and french-fried potatoes.
    

The 1% and the Wee Little Man

Aside from breaking my solemn vow never to learn anything practical, a fun part of my venture in Frankfurt was the opportunity to see the "Occupy" or "99%" protesters up close. I love a good protest - the best ones are colorful, diverse and peaceful, and Occupy Frankfurt (from what I saw) has been all of these things (though giving Frankfurt's current significance, I expected it to be bigger, but maybe I'm just spoiled after living in DC during the Spring of 2003).

It won't surprise you that my attention has been focused by the worldwide movement's scattered references to Jesus (which I saw in pictures - especially from London - but did not witness in Frankfurt). Most of them refer to how Jesus drove money changers out of the temple, identifying the Lord with the protesters against the rich and powerful 1%.

There's much to this. God's economics are different than those of the world, and story after story, proverb after proverb, shows how unimpressed our Lord is with storing up treasure on earth. Jesus was often found with the poor and the marginalized and was often criticized for hanging with the wrong crowd, and scripture reminds us how God "brings down the rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble." Personally, whatever economic good they may achieve, I find the confidence, the slick suits, the making money from money, the pace and the goals of the financial industry foreign and uncomfortable, and all the more so for whatever complicity they have in the economic crisis. So put Jesus and me in the tents in Frankfurt, New York or London.

Except this. You see, all the prophetic language about the rich and powerful who ruin our lives got me thinking about a sermon I heard last February by a certain injury-prone Washington pastor (listen to the sermon - if anything I write is sloppy, inaccurate or just plain wrong, blame the blogger and listen to the preacher for your edification). It's about Jesus' confrontation with a character as slimy, if not more so, than the worst Wall Street or Washington has to offer. If you went to Sunday school, you've probably heard of him. His name is Zacchaeus, and we Sunday school kids used to sing "Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he!" Yes, he was little. And he was rich for all the wrong reasons. He collected unjust taxes from his fellow Jews on behalf of occupying powers, then exhorted plenty of extra for himself. He prospered while his neighbors suffered. He was the 1% in the town of Jericho.

As for Jesus, he was stopping by Jericho on his way to Jerusalem for the climax of the Gospel story, telling people about the Kingdom of Heaven along the way. Throughout his journey, he had mentioned that the poor were blessed, told the story of a rich farmer who died with his wealth after refusing to share it and had just pointed out that it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for the rich to come into his Kingdom. When the Gospel of Luke introduces us to Zacchaeus, the little man who preyed on the rest of the town, we'd be forgiven for expecting little Z to finally get what's coming to him.

That's not what happened. Zacchaeus was so desperate to see Jesus that the wee little man climbed up a tree - expensive digs and all - just to get a better look. But it was Jesus who looked at him. He called him by name. "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I'm staying at your house today!" A sign of honor and fellowship - Jesus would break bread with this stooge, this crook, this greedy slime ball. The good folks of Jericho, little Z's victims among them, understandably grumbled. I know I would have. Jesus was going to occupy Zacchaeus' house for all the wrong reasons.

That's the problem with Jesus. We line up to demand justice from those who ruin us: the 1%, corporations, political parties, presidents, slum lords, druggies, moral degenerates, academics, bureaucrats, foreigners, locals, family members and whoever else. And maybe we're right - everyone was sure right about Zacchaeus. Then suddenly, we find Jesus crossing the battle lines to have lunch with the very people whose head we want. This is painful. Real crimes have real victims - tragic ones at that.

And yet, look what happens to Zacchaeus. He joyfully receives Jesus, converts and gives justice plus interest. He says, "half my goods I give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold!"

This is good news, not just for Zacchaeus or his suddenly prosperous victims. A couple chapters earlier, after a rich young man was unable to do what little Z did (bringing about this "camel through the eye of the needle" remark from Jesus) the disciples ask a good question. "Then who can be saved?" Dietrich Bonhoeffer points out that they "regarded the case of the rich young man not as in any way exceptional, but typical... for every person, even the disciples themselves, belongs to those rich ones for whom it is so difficult to enter the Kingdom of Heaven." This isn't a problem of the 1%; it's a problem of the 100%. Jesus' answer? "What's impossible with men is possible with God."

Jesus' Kingdom is something very near, so close to us by his grace. He's willing to visit our houses, to eat with us and to be with us. All we have to do is something we can't do without his help - let go of all our idols, i.e. repent and believe this Good News. It might mean giving up wealth, family or ambition. It might mean loving the enemies, the very people against whom we protest. But if we joyfully receive his grace, we learn to give grace to others and maybe, just maybe, an excellent sort of justice will follow - kind of like 2000 years ago in Jericho.

Did a Big Idea Make Big Ideas Elusive?

This weekend, some friends sent me Neal Gabler's interesting New York Times commentary, "The Elusive Big Idea." In it, Gabler bemoans the lack of influence compelling intellectual ideas have on modern Society. We make icons of those who, in the past, not only thought of something new, but also captured the attention and commanded the respect of the rest of the Western world, to the point where their ideas not only transformed their own field but impacted society as a whole. Freud's study in psychology brought about a paradigm shift in his own profession and influenced literature, theology and much else. The same could be said of Einstein with physics, Niebuhr with theology or Keynes with economics. Not only that, Gabler argues, but the ideas, and the intellectuals who argued for and about them, held more respect in popular culture. He writes:

"A big idea could capture the cover of Time — “Is God Dead?” — and intellectuals like Norman Mailer, William F. Buckley Jr. and Gore Vidal would even occasionally be invited to the couches of late-night talk shows. How long ago that was.

If our ideas seem smaller nowadays, it’s not because we are dumber than our forebears but because we just don’t care as much about ideas as they did. In effect, we are living in an increasingly post-idea world — a world in which big, thought-provoking ideas that can’t instantly be monetized are of so little intrinsic value that fewer people are generating them and fewer outlets are disseminating them, the Internet notwithstanding. Bold ideas are almost passé."

Now, you might be thinking, isn't the screen I'm staring at now a pretty big, transformative idea? Couldn't we add the likes of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg to our pantheon of people with good, world-changing ideas? No, writes Gabler.

"Entrepreneurs have plenty of ideas, and some, like Steven P. Jobs of Apple, have come up with some brilliant ideas in the “inventional” sense of the word.

Still, while these ideas may change the way we live, they rarely transform the way we think. They are material, not ideational."

In fact, all this information technology is part of the problem.

"Where are you going? What are you doing? Whom are you seeing? These are today’s big questions. It is certainly no accident that the post-idea world has sprung up alongside the social networking world. Even though there are sites and blogs dedicated to ideas, Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Flickr, etc., the most popular sites on the Web, are basically information exchanges, designed to feed the insatiable information hunger, though this is hardly the kind of information that generates ideas. It is largely useless except insofar as it makes the possessor of the information feel, well, informed."

I understand these this intense need to be informed, and the makers of social media, not to mention search engines, were smart to capitalize on this. A few minutes ago, I had to close the tabs with my Facebook and Twitter feeds just so I could stay focused on this blog. Gabler goes on to write how traditional media, the disbursers of big ideas, is suffering in an instant information society. Print is shrinking in market share, and popular television talk shows no longer invite intellectuals to sit on their couches. Instead of pausing to think, we now have the means to gorge ourselves with information, and we use it.

We're a narcissistic society, it's true, though I'm sure other professors had said that about their students a generation ago. Also, I don't think profit and intellectual thought are as antithetical as Gabler says it is. He admits that there are indeed thinkers with ideas to give and mentions a few examples, but they just don't have the same impact or attention of the idea generators of the past. But I largely agree that today, with our glut quick, instantaneous information and fewer ideas that manage to influence everyone.

Here's the thing, though. Isn't the death of a big idea, in part, the result of ideas themselves? Gabler laments the fall of enlightenment thinking, which he says is related to the death of the big idea, but he never mentions a big idea that critiqued the enlightenment itself: postmodernism. Postmodernism's flagship tenet is the deconstruction of meta-narratives, which is another way of saying big ideas, is it not? Postmodernism became popular, because some big ideas, full of influence, impact, debate, scholarship and much else, were devastating. Consider this neat summary from an Economist article five years ago (about which I wrote here):

"The founding post-modern text (as books are called in pomo) is by two Germans, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer. Published in 1944, “Dialectic of Enlightenment” examined the culture that had given birth to Auschwitz. It declared that “enlightenment is totalitarian”—that the 18th-century attempt to replace religion with rationalism had supplanted one form of mental slavery with another. God had been elbowed out by fascism, communism, Marxism, Freudianism, Darwinism, socialism and capitalism. The post-modernists thought their job was to “deconstruct” these grand theories, which they called the “meta-narratives”. The pomos would free people from them by exposing their sinister nature."

What hath big ideas wrought? Yes, Freud and Einstein had big ideas, but so did Hitler and Stalin. Perverse as they were, they were birthed in an enlightened culture where ideas, to use Gabler's words, were not "intellectual playthings," but had "practical effects." Indeed, it was fear of Hitler that caused Einstein to apply his big ideas towards the creation of the atomic bomb. If big ideas are less important to many of us, it is, in part, because they managed to destroy themselves in the process.

What is the result of the postmodernist critique of big ideas? Well, one is mass individualism, which Gabler laments without naming. As the Economist article points out, Capitalism has taken advantage of this with niche marketing, which is perhaps why Mark Zuckerberg has probably had more of an impact on most of us than Steven Pinker (to use one of Gabler's examples). Aided with technology, we all get to pick and choose what we read, what feed we follow or whose pictures to tag. But it doesn't necessarily mean we cease to think; our thoughts rarely rest in conformity with our preferred ueber-thinker, and when they do, that thinker has less impact on society as a whole. I primarily use Facebook to share links and read the links my friends have posted, and much of it is good, substantial stuff. Ideas are not extinct, but there's a lot more of them, and, for better or for worse, it's less likely that the big few will dominate.

Yes, this leaves all of us wide open for narcissism. Furthermore, I share Gabler's dislike of celebrity gossip and the computer-like gestation of information without thought, not to mention a preference for long, thoughtful essays over the verbal volleyball of cable punditry. I wish Letterman would feature a prominent professor for every actor he hosts. But I would rather live with our frantic, electronic marketplace of ideas and distractions then go back to a time when an evil idea could become so dominate.

Will Wilkinson, in reply to Gabler, believes (and "would bet his immortal soul") that "more big ideas... were studied, discussed and produced in 2010 than in 1950." He goes on to put a sunnier face on modern intellectual discourse:

"A TED talk or a book-talk spot on "The Daily Show" may not have the audience or cultural centrality of a half-hour with Dick Cavett on ABC in 1970, but more people are consuming and discussing big ideas, old and new, than ever before. The difference is that the audience and the discussion has become fragmented and decentralised.

The fun part is that I, as a lay thinker, can join the discussion right here on the information super highway. For those of us who prefer a cooler, more intellectual environment, the answer is to remain relentlessly thoughtful, reading and considering the ideas we come across. Before, of course, we post them on Facebook.

Thoughts on True Belief

I'm taking "The Response," the much-publicized prayer and fasting rally starring Texas Governor Rick Perry, with a grain of salt. I've grown up in American and Evangelical culture, and both strands are prone to hyperbole. The website reminds us that we are in a "historic" moment that demands a "historic" response and that this "historic" prayer rally will start a "historic" movement towards... what? Prosperity? A more Christian nation? More Christians in the nation? A revival of sorts? Did this "historic" rally go above and beyond all the other "historic" rallies? I've sat in various stadiums and hotel ball rooms to be told how America was on a crossroads so many times that it doesn't really stick anymore.

This is not to downplay the problems in the U.S. or anywhere else. Debt, division and war are serious and sobering things. Prayer and repentance are appropriate responses. But I fear (and I hope my fear is wrong) that much of the hyperbole is to blaze a path for a great man (to rephrase the website), so that Governor Perry or someone like him will be a new Evangelical David, casting stones at Philistines with different political opinions, a legion of praying voters behind him.

These thoughts on The Response were first provoked by Frank Bruni's recent NYTimes column entitled "True Believers, All of Us." After commenting on the media response to, well, The Response, he begins to critique faith in ideologies all together, left and right, religious and political, corporate and private. Aren't we all like those silly Evangelicals in Texas, holding on to our little beliefs and refusing to face reality when challenged? Why do people hold such beliefs? Of course! They want easy answers in tough times. Bruni writes:

"Clarity seduces. So does simplicity. We don’t want to hear that different skills produce different results in different contexts, but rather that there are “7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” the number specific, finite. We like to believe that triathlon training will trump genes and keep all major illness and minor sagging at bay, and that the metabolic alchemy of a cabbage-soup diet or a no-carb diet or some other diet will work wonders and obviate humdrum moderation. Magical thinking, all of it."

As for America's troubles, Bruni has a response of his own.

"And right now, with the stock market floundering and our credit rating downgraded and millions of Americans stranded in unemployment and Washington frozen in confusion, the temptation to look for one summary prescriptive — for certainty, even miracles — is strong. We’d be wise to resist it. To get us out of this mess, we need a full range of extant remedies, a tireless search for new ones and the nimbleness and open-mindedness to evaluate progress dispassionately and adapt our strategy accordingly. Faith and prayer just won’t cut it. In fact, they’ll get in the way."

I share his skepticism of clarity and simplicity, five points to happiness, diets that claim you won't feel hungry or pre-canned political solutions. But like it or not, some form of ideology will always drive politics. If Bruni wishes to separate politicians from the ideologies of those who elected them, then he doesn't have a prayer.

More to the point, his criticism of ideology is guilty of the same simplicity admonishes us to avoid. Ideas often come from people with worldviews, and we have a lot of those. If he wants to see a "full extant of remedies" for our economic woes, then he can peruse the websites of various think tanks, newspapers and faculty papers. Few solutions would be faith-free, and I would be suspicious of anyone who claimed no bias. They come from people with different views about government, commerce, responsibility, economy and morality. Most of them are be well-reasoned, logical and accompanied by graphs. All the data, of course, must be interpreted, and here is where humans cease to be computers. We start debating how many angels can dance on the head of a deficit. After all, we don't have labs to test every economic idea in academia and advocacy (and, for good reason, we don't give our government the dictatorial power to do such things). We have data, ideas and history, all of which are opened to interpretation based on what we believe. True believers, all of us.

Rather than encouraging the impossible task of jettisoning belief for the ideal of rational social science, let's encourage our politicians to take Bruni's Times colleague Ross Douthat's advice. No American political party has the majority or the capital for a sweeping ideological victory, Douthat argues. They should not give up on their beliefs nor cease to hope about the future, but while America (and those who represent us) remains divided, they need to remember their responsibility to govern effectively.

Bruni is correct that we long for simple solutions and quick clarity. It sells well, and people in business, politics and religion have all taken advantage of it. But true belief is grittier. Among the reasons I remain a Christian is that Christianity refuses to be the bag of goods some folks sell it as (see the prosperity gospel, for a worrying example of this). Christianity never promises ease, health or worldly political conquest. The Biblical picture of Christianity is one of relationship: often parent to child, husband to wife, even friendship. The best of these relationships, from whatever perspective you experience them, are not a series of simple solutions easily replicated on PowerPoint. But they make life deeper, richer and more hopeful. When these relationships are perverted, we taste hell. Christian faith is a difficult, refining, fiery, trying, dynamic, wonderful, loving relationship with God through Jesus Christ, reconciled by His blood and sealed with His Spirit. It's complexer than the finest of wines, and it's worth drinking deep.

This leads us to prayer. Prayer is not a vending machine button to a better life or a better America. It's a the communication essential for the relationship to function. (For further reading on prayer, I highly recommend A Praying Life by Paul Miller, which I wrote about here). A life of genuine faith and prayer does not "get in the way." More often, it allows us to see clearly and humbly face our problems.

This leads me back to The Response. Again, I'm underwhelmed by hyperbola and weary of any political use of Christianity. But if 30,000 of my brother and sisters genuinely practiced repentance and prayed for their country, then a good thing happened underneath it all. If The Response enriched their relationship with God and sent them back into their communities in humble faith and prayer, then may they be examples and proclaimers of true belief.

A Summer Fashion Proposal

I just visited weather.com, and it looks like some afternoon storms are cooling off the DC area. That being said, I felt nothing but sympathy for the residents of my former hometown, who have spent the last couple of weeks sweltering in the hundreds. Here in Germany, it's been in the 70s, 60s when cloudy (Sunday felt like winter in Florida).

The summer months are particularly tough on the men of Washington DC. Women business attire allows moderately short skirts and short-sleeve blouses. This attire can handle the mid-Atlantic heat. But the conservative business dress of the District mean that men, from Capitol Hill to K Street to Think Tanks, must enclose their sweaty necks in a tie wear a suit jacket Amazon-like conditions. Moreover, male business attire ensures that the energy-guzzling air conditioning units of every office, restaurant and government building will be running until every room could house a flock of penguins (with Morgan Freeman's soothing voice narrating their activities. Hey, I'd watch it).

So, with debt payment and spending buts pending in Washington, perhaps they should consider their AC bill, not to mention the sanity of any man who has to walk from his taxi to the Longworth House Office Building as if going through a sauna.

Once again, Japan is showing the way - not just in reliable automobiles and penalty kicks, but in hot weather business fashion. Facing a summer energy crisis after the Fukushima disaster, the Japanese government is encouraging their suit-wearing class get rid of the jacket and tie for a look that conservative-dress purists would deride as business casual. And, really, why not? What's so important about the convention of a long-armed suit and a piece of silk hanging in front of your shirt that you couldn't withdraw them for a season for the expressed purpose of everyone's felicity, not to mention comfort and less energy spending. It may even help politics. Perhaps the current fiscal debates would be more effective, not to mention more courteous, if President Obama and Speaker Boehner were wearing short-sleeve cotton button downs with a throat capable of breath.

Plus, everyone can put their suit and ties back on in October. And in January, to save energy, not to mention the heating bill, everyone can wear fashionable, colorful sweater vests.

Curiosity, Exploration and the End of the Shuttle

Two of the past few weeks' biggest news stories are, at one level at least, more related than they appear. The first is NASA's final Space Shuttle mission, a story that captures the sentimental attention of this quasi-Floridian. Throughout my years in Orlando, we would be awakened by sonic booms, or join the entire neighborhood outside and look East for the shuttle launch. My father described it as a camera flash followed by a tail of smoke. Even before we moved to the Sunshine State, I would excitedly watch the countdowns with my parents to see those wonderful machines suddenly create tidal waves of smoke to propel itself into orbit. The idea that America's astronauts are suddenly international hitchhikers saddens me, not because there's any shame in in foreign air travel (indeed, I wish China, Russia and co. all the best), but because human space travel was an exhilarating American venture.

The second story is the News of the World scandal in Great Britain. I dislike both tabloid journalism (except for the opportunity to smirk at a clever headline) and schadenfreude, so I honestly haven't been following all of the lurid details. What got me thinking about the two stories in connection was both the Economist's decidedly unsentimental take on the space program and Die Zeit's smart reflection about the scandal and tabloid press in general.

The Economist seems more than happy to bury the risky ambition of human space travel, and their Eeyore-like response has been rightly chastised by its readers. It would be a pity if their prophecy, with a view of the world about as exciting as an accounting spreadsheet, proves correct. Yes, space flight is risky and costly, but those involved know the risks and know the cost. That is why they are called heroes. Space exploration, including human space exploration, is worthy of both public and private investment; It's worth the investment of intelligent minds, careful hands and courageous souls.

This leads me to the Zeit article. Die Zeit reminds us why tabloid journalism is so profitable, and why those who run and work for these newspapers have an enormous incentive to break convention, morality and law to sell us the profitable details. We want them, and we're willing to pay. Why? Because we are curious creatures. We're curious enough to slow down and look at the traffic accident on the other side of the highway. We're curious enough to look through the open windows of private residents. Curious enough to buy the newspaper that can feed us all the gossip as quickly as possible. Whatever else Murdoch did, he knew human nature well enough to spot a lucrative business opportunity. As politicians, pundits and public wax on about these crimes, we would do well to remember, as the Zeit does, that they would never have been committed had there been no market for it.

But inasmuch as curiosity is a vice, it is also a virtue. One of the most intelligent men I've ever met was a maintenance inspector for Walgreen's in Orlando. I got to know him, because his second job was my summer job when I was in college, and we would carpool to work together. Whatever he lacked in university knowledge, he made up for in his ability to ask the right questions on any given subject. These were the kind of questions, spurred by an uninhibited but non-morbid curiosity, that aimed like a sniper's laser at the heart of any issue, from theology to aerodynamics, to deliver the maximum amount of useful information. It was an impressive gift, and (I have to admit) I still envy it. On the same note, die Zeit has an interesting quote from Albert Einstein (my rough translation): "I'm not especially talented, but rather passionately curious."

Curiosity ranks high among the virtues that propelled us into space. And in the midst of budget battles, war, economics and everything else bringing fatigue to our nation, I worry that this curiosity is being squelched. Yes, as the Economist points out, much of that curiosity is still being worked by today's Einsteins, the scientists who launch satellites, look through telescopes and collect data to help us understand the universe in all its dimensions. This is wonderful and commendable work. But there is a courageous sort of curiosity that calls the bravest of us to actually go there ourselves. To break orbit. To land on the moon. To go beyond. Sure, we can lampoon this with Star Trek quotes or smilingly mourn them with these quotes (h/t Adam), but our society is no better without this spirit.

We are curious creatures. Curiosity is a gift from God, and like all gifts, we can use it for good or ill. The courageous curiosity of the explorer, out of fashion today perhaps, is a nobler investment than tabloid journalism. We're willing to invest a lot of money so that the Rupert Murdochs of the world can feed our curiosity about stars, celebrities and suffering souls. I'll admit that the gratification is not nearly as immediate, but perhaps our curiosity is better focused upwards.

Closed for Corpus Christi, or The Farming Practices of Protestants

Anywhere you live, you can see how the customs, culture and holidays of any land is bathed in their history. This is, of course, true in Germany, and one of the interesting things about being here is observing the remaining residue of the Reformation and the ensuing conflicts in produced. Many towns, including my own, have a large Protestant and a larger Catholic church, for example. Some areas still find a strong religious identity that defines their area, such as the proudly Catholic Bavaria. And of course, the States with enough Catholic citizens and influence have Catholic Holiday off.

So, my new home state of Baden-Wuerttemberg is closed for business today for the feast of Fronleichnam, or Corpus Christi. B-W is traditionally Catholic and Protestant and was historically divided by not just religion, but by tribe, fiefdom, economics and much else until Napoleon conquered the whole area and put it under one administrative unit (which no one bothered to change after Napoleon's defeat). We didn't growing up staying home for such religious holidays in the States, so not being Catholic (or high-church Anglican, for that matter), I couldn't tell you when the feast was or how it came about (but for the full story, you can read all about it on Wikipedia or talk to your Catholic friends).

I've since learned that Germany's Protestants had their own Corpus Christi tradition. Martin Luther called the day un-biblical and "the most damaging of all feasts," as Corpus Christi celebrates the Catholic view of the Holy Eucharist. As a provocation, Protestant farmers in Germany would always plan to fertilize their fields on Corpus Christi, creating a pungent smell for the Catholic processions. Patriotic Protestant that I am, I have neither fields nor fertilizer, and besides, there's not much of a movement to stick it to the Catholics anymore. Practicing Catholics still march in the Corpus Christi processions, while Protestants, and pretty much everyone else, enjoy the day off.

Paint the Town Green

In moving to Baden-Wuertemberg this year, I am experiencing a little piece of history. You see, B-W is one of Germany's 16 states (I like impressing, or at least thinking I'm impressing, my Germans friends by telling them I can name all 50 U.S. states. Thank you, "Fifty Nifty" song), the one that lies in the southwest corner. With the exception of the wonderful college town of Freiburg, which the Sueddeutsche Zeitung's "Jetzt" blog called the Portland of Germany (actually, they called Portland the Freiburg of America), the state is about as conservative as you can get here in Europe. It was the home of the Pietist movement and is still the closest thing to a Bible belt you'll find in these parts, plus it is a center of industry, boasting top companies like Daimler, Porsche and Bosch. All these combine to make B-W the German equivalent of a red state. Except that in Germany, the red party is actually the Social Democrats, who are the heirs of the socialists and currently their main left-leaning party. The color of the more conservative Christian Democrats is black, perhaps making it the Batman of political parties.

Except that now the Greens are in control. Yes, Green means the same thing here that it does in the States, except that in Germany the Greens are a viable political party. Foreign policy buffs may recall that the Greens even held a national coalition government with the Social Democrats several years ago. Americans may best remember Joschka Fischer, that same government's foreign minister during the Iraq war. During a speech about why he thought the war was not a good idea, he famously switched from German to English when Donald Rumsfeld took off his translator headphones, though I don't know if he actually shouted, "pay attention, Rummy!" In their parliamentary democracy, the dominant left- or right-leaning party usually needs to form a coalition with a smaller party in order to control the government. The Social Democrats like to partner with the Greens to form what nobody except me calls a Christmas tree coalition. The Christian Democrats like to partner with the Free Democrats, the yellows, to form a bumblebee coalition. The Free Democrats are what the Tea Party would be if it were dominated by university intellectuals.

But now the Greens rule Baden-Wuertemberg. Or, more accurately, they are the dominant party of a coalition with the Reds, which is a bit like having Ralph Nader asking Barack Obama to be Vice President. For more bad U.S.-German equivalencies, let me say that the Greens winning in Baden-Wuertemberg is a bit like having the Green party take over Texas. Our (I write "our" saying even though I'm not a citizen, I am a resident with healthcare and Kindergeld) new Minister-President - B-W's governor - is Winfried Kretschmann. Even though he shares a barber with Kim Jong Il, I actually find him to be a sympathetic figure. He's over sixty and comes from a small town in the Swabian Alps, Germany's answer to the Appalachian Mountains. True to the Green roots, he does not want to be known as a Landesvater, or "Father of the State," which is usually a perk of the job, though I don't know exactly what it means. He prefers to be a fellow citizen, who happens to be in charge. He has a strong Swabian accent, which is important as the governor of Mississippi saying "y'all", but he spoke enough high German for me to understand him on the news last night. Unlike pretty much every politician I've seen speak on either side of the Atlantic, he doesn't come across as a salesman. He has a reputation for being pretty even handed and fair and gave more diplomatic answers regarding his pro-bike, pro-train transportation plan (unlike his new transportation minister, who, in an interview with a national newspaper yesterday, called some Porsche-driving as a libido-form of car driving, which probably won't go well here in Germany's motor-city).

How did the Greens take over? I'm not sure exactly, but evidently everyone was upset about a train station, which the Greens bravely stood against because of tree-removal, but the other parties supported, because they had already paid for it. I just came from Washington, where the problems include two wars and a huge debt. It's not bad to move to a place where the biggest problem is a train station.
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Humanity Does Its Worst

Roger Cohen's anger is righteous. Any reasonable person should be angry. A buffoon of a cleric apparently burns a Koran in Gainesville, enraged Islamists react with murders, which their leaders fail to condemn. Jones' demonstration of what the Apostle Paul calls zeal without knowledge would have been more compelling if he himself were walking the streets Mazar-i-Sharif. As it is, his violation of another Pauline admonition ("to make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be Holy," as Adam points out) made unwitting martyrs out of UN staff in the same city. Of course, no act of buffoonery or provocation can justify cold-blooded murder, and if Cohen is right that Islamic leaders have failed to make unqualified condemnations, it is all the more despicable.

Here is Cohen's conclusion:

"This column is full of anger, I know. It has no heroes. I’m full of disgust, writing after a weekend when religious violence returned to Northern Ireland with the murder of a 25-year-old Catholic policeman, Ronan Kerr, by dissident republican terrorists. Religion has much to answer for, in Gainesville and Mazar and Omagh.

I see why lots of people turn to religion — fear of death, ordering principle in a mysterious universe, refuge from pain, even revelation. But surely it’s meaningless without mercy and forgiveness, and surely its very antithesis must be hatred and murder. At least that’s how it appears to a nonbeliever."

Indeed. But I think Cohen has the wrong culprit. Much violence has been committed in the name of religion. But much has also been committed in the name of politics, and people like Cohen certainly don't avoid that. Much has been committed in the name of tribalism. And much has been committed for reasons purely personal. Self-serving buffoonery and bloody revenge, as inhumane is they are, are human characteristics. Religion is at its worst when it channels and institutionalizes these characteristics. The same can be said for political or tribal activity.

Now, I can't speak for another religion, but Christianity agrees that religion is meaningless without mercy and forgiveness, the antithesis of hatred and murder. That's why Paul preaches against zeal without knowledge. That's why Jesus commands us to love our enemies and do good to those who persecute us.

"Religion" has as much to answer for as politics, tribalism, passion and so many other isms. The answers Cohen seeks actually belong to the perpetrators themselves. In fact, Cohen's longing for an answer, for justice, is a better reason than any on his list why "lots of people" (historically, the overwhelming majority of the human race) turn to religion. Jones, along with every terrorist and inquisitor, will one day give an account to God himself, who is far more offended, hurt and angry at murder than we are.

Unfortunately, the desire for justice, right at it is, will lead to a mirror. In The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis writes that the essential question of hell is not about Hitler, Nero or Judas Iscariot (here he could add today's religious terrorists), but about you and me. On that same note, Paul reminds us (I say remind, because if we're honest, we know) that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." We all will have to give account to God some day. Thankfully, Paul's sentence does not end there. He continues "...and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."

That's the best reason for turning. Not turning to religion, which anyone can use or manipulate. It's turning to Jesus Himself. God's own Word, made flesh, took on God's wrath, offering us mercy and forgiveness. We humans have a lot to answer for, and in Jesus, we find the answer we need.

Burns Supper II

This is over a month late, but regular readers (cough) may remember that I gave the Toast to the Lassies at the Robert Burns Supper party my Scottish flatmate threw two years ago. At the risk of being outdone, my sister gave the Reply on Behalf of the Lassies at event this past January. It describes the dating life in our own hometown of Washington (something I'm sure Robert Burns would have sampled had he visited), and is based on Burns' own poem, "The Rights of Woman."

This evening, I would like to read to you my adaptation of Robert Burn’s speech, the Rights of Woman. He wrote the poem for one of the many women he had his eye on, Louisa Fontenelle, to deliver at a benefit dinner. My version takes a slightly different approach, though one I believe our poet would have approved, to reflect the places and the means by which DC’s men and women carry out their romantic affairs. Please feel free to follow along on the papers provided, and then keep them for personal reference in the future.

DC’s Romantic Undertones

An Occasional Address

While the Nation’s eye is fixed on mighty things
The fate of health care and the fall of left wings
While quacks of State must each produce his plan,
And even children lisp Afghanistan
Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,
DCs romantic undertones merit some attention.

The first, in the sexes’ intermixed connection
Happens in the heat of presidential election
The tender flower, who delivers her debate
Makes helpless the man, and seals his fate
He may think partisanship renders their nexus a fling
Until it’s yearly rekindled at State of the Union bing-o.

The second connection – but ladies please take caution –
WMATA can offer the most thrilling option
Each man who embarks on his morning commute
Can be sure he’s observed and deemed unattractive or cute
There are, indeed, several different types
From politician to hipster, a lass can choose what she likes
Furtive glances over the top of a book
Shy smiles, batted lashes, sweep him away with a look
Now, foolish man, if you choose not to act
It is only your loss, for she’ll keep her posture in tact,
She doesn’t fret (though you find yourself quite the catch)
For at the next stop, there’ll be a whole new batch.

Our third and our final, could happen to any Washingtonian,
So never underestimate what could happen at the Smithsonian.
A man who gazes at the Hope Diamond so bright,
Or a woman “admiring” the work of the Wrights
Neither is present for their respective exhibits
There’s only one goal, and that’s to gather some digits
As on the train, the same tactics apply,
A smile, a wink, a flirtation, a sigh.
Whenever we use our museums to charm
It takes only a moment for us to completely disarm.

So in a city split upon party lines,
With do-gooders and cynics, and many great minds
To what really unites us we must all raise our glasses
And toast the romance, the seduction, of DC’s lads and lasses.

Searching for David

Last weekend's "Restoring Honor to America" rally, sponsored by Glenn Beck to promote his brand of faith, hope and charity continued a train of thought I've had for awhile now. What first made me want to blog about it (by which I mean the train of thought, not the rally) was Mel Gibson's bile-filled and inducing tirade, which we all learned about earlier in July.

You see, a few years ago, as he promoted The Passion of the Christ, he became the latest David for much of the Christian world. Like Israel's anointed king of old, he was our champion, casting rocks of truth at the cultural giants who have dominated for too long. I admit, with so many movies and plays about Jesus ranging in quality from poor to cheese, it was gratifying see a Jesus film of Hollywood quality craft - from acting to cinematography (the Aramaic/Latin was a nice touch too).

There was criticism, as you'll remember. The violence of torture and crucifixion was excruciating - an acquaintance called it "violence pornography." This didn't bother many of us - I've heard Good Friday lectures in which medical experts described, in graphic detail, the effects the process had on Jesus' body - every whip, nail and thorn. More to the point, each Sunday, I eat His flesh and drink His blood. Whenever the Lord's supper seems mundane in its familiar bread and wine, I remember the the expression a Chinese woman once made when I explained it to her. We both were in Germany at the time, and she knew nothing of Christianity, and her face contorted in surprise and disgust at such barbarism. Remembering the crucifixion, in all its barbarism, and the dark reality that it was in my place, remains a serious act of worship. Gibson may have taken it further than history or taste would have allowed (I do agree, he showed more than he needed to), but I wonder how many of these critics were so bothered by, say, Quentin Tarantino's flicks.

The more serious criticism was that of anti-semitism. I've never personally known a Christian who has promoted anti-semitism, and I was raised, along with many Christians, with a deep respect for Jewish people, not to mention a real awareness that all of our Biblical heroes were Abraham's descendants. However, many of us, myself included, were ignorant to the extent of which European passion-plays promoted anti-semitism, often to violent ends. Many Jews, of course, were not ignorant of this, and the Passion brought much darker collective memories.

Gibson, to defend his film, played the David, rallying conservatives and Christians alike to his cause. Friends of mine attended an event in his honor in Orlando, where local church leadership asked if they could pray and fast for him. Gibson, with a twinkle in his eye, jumped from his seat and said, "ok, nobody eat until the film comes out!" Whatever his original intentions, the Passion broke out into another culture-war battle, which only advantaged the film. Gibson was on the front line, a David on our behalf, throwing what we saw as stones, taking what we saw as slander.

Davids disappoint. Mel Gibson's marriage unraveled a couple years later, and gossip photos showed him drunk at parties with models in each arm. His inebriated, anti-semitic rant to police, seemed only to confirm the critics' view of his film. Then, to their delight, came the rant his second ex recorded this summer. Whether the tapes were fabricated, or whether he was just crazy, it put the nail in the coffin of his Hollywood career (so it seems), not to mention his role as anointed culture warrior.

Sounds familiar doesn't it? Actors, rock stars, presidents, prominent pastors - so many have been given the David mantle by excited evangelicals praying for the tide to turn. I've been caught up in it before, and I am not completely over the temptation not to get caught up again. I know I would hate to have that role myself - to have the hopes of Christians everywhere depend on my personality, decisions and ability not to sin. Of course, we know that the original David screwed up royally. (In fact, since he was king at the time, I wonder if that's where the phrase screwed up royally came from? Maybe the prophet Nathan coined it) This man after God's own heart committed adultery, covered it with murder, and set up a chain of events that led to bloody rebellion and civil war. He came through in the end, but what a cost.

David repented, privately and publicly. I hope that Mel Gibson will too, without the meddling of a PR team.

In the meantime, thousands of Americans marched on Washington this past weekend for an ecumenical church service of vague patriotic spirituality. Fortunately, this has caused some soul searching among Christians these days as many point out that whatever Glenn Beck is selling, it's not Christianity. But for others, he's wearing a heroes mantle, throwing rhetorical stones at perceived enemies, even as they throw back.

We look for heroes, but there is only one Anointed One who can bear that cross. We Christians, whether or not we stand in the light of cultural attention or political leadership, should honestly seek to emulate Him. Jesus is the hero of our story. Let's seek him first and stop searching for David.