It is true, Nikki and I (and the little one joining us in January) have relocated back to Fresno.

What better time to move my interweb presence than when we have severely downsized our space, hid from the midday heat in my parents’ pool, and are still figuring out our place in this valley?

I present Guardian of the Abyss. A blog dedicated to the things in life that I like. I hope you come around. Don’t worry about your shoes, I leave mine on. If you can’t get the cabinets open, don’t worry… we are baby-proofing.

See you on the other side…

Yet, we know that we are not without our prophets, our wise men and women, those who can give shape to the liminal spaces we inhabit. Whether they know it or not, they open up for us new possible futures.

We write to remind you of Zizek’s words on violence. Zizek exhorts us to remember the systemic violence within every structure. Violence is not just bloody murders, military brutality or clerical abuses of the powerless. We have been called to explore the ways that anonymous systems enact violence. We have been called to rupture this faceless violence.

So, we offer you our response to this call in visual form, in the hope that it will spark further experiments in violence. Violence done to the violent systems of late capitalism, the very systems that have made us exiles instead of pilgrims.

Water, flowing from Northern California, bypassing farms in the Central Valley, to make its way into Southern Californian sinks, swimming pools and golf courses. Fire, that decimated a local community just blocks away. In both cases, capturing images was strictly prohibited by official mandate. Our film represents a violent breaking of this locally established order that asks us to forget. The music from Eternal Sunshine represents the double violence of (un)memory.

People, funneled from their cars into the trams that will deliver them to the gates of Disneyland. Christ, perpetually crucified in the midst of the world’s largest Evangelical Seminary, largely forgotten. What does it mean when people stop to take pictures with Mickey Mouse, but ignore a statue idolizing torture?

More than wanting to provide answers, we want to provoke furthers questions and creative responses. As Rollins would say, “let’s see God not as the bandage, but as the wound.”

Peace be with you.

My web presence is under negotiation. If you squint, and use your hand as a shade from the bright sun, you can see me moving in the distance. I’m collecting sticks and stones, making mud. Trying to build a place to keep me warm, a place to invite friends to. A place to call home.

I have started blogging for a community of bloggers of sorts. My friend Chris has set-up a place for people (most of whom I don’t know) to submit essays on various themes. My first entry was a fun little diddy. I like that sort of writing. I will be writing for him a couple times a month.

Stick around. Visit this place again because I will likely be asking you to join me at the next place I inhabit. I have ideas. Ideas are best shared with good people like you.

Easy to get upset about modernity’s dirty underwear forced onto locals naked bodies to cover the human (dare I say God-given?) parts that we in the West like to suppress, harder to see the underlying reality in more (post)modern approaches: that our religious attempts at civilizing savage local communities is still lingering in desperate ways.

            We invade Iraq because we have democracy that “they” don’t. We make the biblical message “relevant” because it is the best of the holy texts out there. We film Africans in desperate situations of poverty and war that need our help. I’m not arguing for less help or a dis-engagement. I’m just concerned that we acknowledge the lingering colonial attitude, the economic imperialism, the religious arrogance. We, Christians in America, still think that we are “the best” the free world has to offer. Our more openly violent brothers and sisters from years gone by were simply open about their superiority complex. 

Every year there is a strange, albeit short-lived, fascination with the first child born in the New Year. Every local paper has a picture or article mentioning the baby born just after midnight while people around the city embrace, kiss, and toast the upcoming year.

This year, some brave American family should name their son or daughter Jeremiah, because Jeremiah is exactly what America needs.

Jeremiah started his prophetic ministry during Josiah’s reign. Josiah “found” a book of the law and started all of these great reforms that were associated with obedience and favorable ways of relating to YWHW. The religious cult was enforced, idols obliterated, all of the things that had previously added up to financial success and military safety for the Israelites. And Jeremiah, like any good prophet would, loved it. He was giving Josiah fist bumps and talking about all these good figs and their reforms that YHWH would love. Israel seemed pretty safe and faithful and Jerusalem probably looked something like Leave it to Beaver: black and white, cute, well-groomed lawns, looking safe and secure.

But, the Persian Empire wasn’t paying attention to Israelite reforms and after Josiah died, and the Persian troops were knocking on the door, Jeremiah (speaking directly for YHWH, mind you) changed his tune. “Oh, well, you know… the good figs are those that will get sent away. YHWH likes to send people into exile, it’s part of his plan.” Jeremiah basically undid everything that the Israelites knew and had been told and experienced: namely, that if you are obedient to YHWH you will be safe and blessed. Now, they had been faithful to the covenant and were still being sucker-punched by the Persians. Jeremiah deftly explains it away by promising a future hope after a long and painful exile. He flips his metaphor, explaining that YHWH has a plan to prosper the good figs, those sent into exile (most likely referring to the Davidic line sent away in 587 BCE). This isn’t all excuses, of course, this, for better or worse, is another step towards universalism in the Israelite religion; worshipping YHWH becomes more personal, available to outsiders, possible outside of Jerusalem.

The prevailing wisdom found over here in the US of A is that hard work, a puritan ethic, will pay off, everyone should get their hands on what is “rightfully” theirs and not worry about others. It is an individualistic, capitalistic ideal that is never questioned, blessed by the God of Christianity, and “proven” successful by the economic wealth stockpiled by the red, white and blue. Churches and politicians of all leanings uphold this system. But, as we now know, the free market wasn’t worried about our faithful hard work, God’s blessing of commodification, our past experiences with the power of the almighty dollar. The free market came on in and sent our leaders into exile, removed folks from their homes, and finally stripped humanity of value apart from production.

Much like the economic and religious reversal that Jeremiah communicated and lead for ancient Israel, American Christians need a prophet propelling them into a new covenant, a new understanding of God and economics. We need a young Jeremiah to grow up and lead through the popular reforms of a President about to take office that will assuredly not go far enough as our economy continues to sputter. We need our Jeremiah to introduce us to socialism. 

This Sunday, December 7th, Over the Rhine will play Travis Auditorium, Fuller Theological Seminary. The show is hosted by the Brehm Center, Empty Frames Productions, and Arts Concerns.

Please be sure to stop by the Q&A time from 3-4 in the Psych Lounge. It will be moderated by Barry Taylor. Tickets for the show can be purchased here.

Let’s make some memories…

It seems Mr. GW has said some things we all knew already… like that he was unprepared for the war in Iraq.

You’ve probably all read this. What do you think? What does it mean for a country and a party’s morale when their leader finally admits to being so off?

“Hope expressed only in the present tense will no doubt be co-opted by the managers of this age.” Page 64.

I’ve been reading Walter Brueggemann’s The Prophetic Imagination. It is a nice read, devilishly elusive with the guts of a saint. He is very much interested in texts speaking to today’s audience. The Prophetic Imagination deals directly with prophetic figures and texts in the Bible.

He assigns a two-fold task to prophets. The first is to remind communities of death. He uses Jeremiah as an example and talks extensively about the Solomonic regime, naming it the dominant or royal consciousness. The job of the prophet is to remind (typically through symbols and renewed language) the people of their coming death, the end of an age. This flies in the face of the royal consciousness that attempts to live in their moment, their “historical accident” as he calls it.

He claims “forever” is a word that kings use to numb us to death, to attach meaning and power to the things we treasure.  By using “forever” the royal consciousness hides our imminent death, their imminent death. Brueggemann says, “But ‘forever’ is always the word of Pharaoh, and as such it is the very word against which Yahweh and Moses did their liberating thing” (pg. 42).

After reminding communities of death, it is the task of the prophet to remind them of hope in creative and meaningful ways, ways that rupture the “given dimensions” (pg. 62). In other words, we need to imagine a gift that comes from outside our present reality and “violates our reason” (pg. 62).

Which brings us to page 64 and president-elect Obama. Obama’s campaign has continued to use the word “hope” as part of their strategy and “brand” (along with other words such as “change”). It is necessary for any leader or movement to create language and symbols for people to gather around (think about the early Christian fish, the Nazi swastika, the Neo-Con “war on terror”). Two things are striking about Obama’s use of “hope”:

1.)   It actually seemed to work. Die-hard cynics have been given a chance to hope for a better world. African-American children have been given a chance to hope to become President. Proponents of ending the Iraq war have been given hope that our troops might come home sooner rather than later. Traveling Americans have been given hope that they won’t have to be ashamed of their country when traveling abroad. David Bazan told me he has been given hope in the American people and in a system that let us down the last two elections. Bazan is not typically predisposed to hope. So, it was effective. Regardless of whether or not this hope is realized or responsible, hope has made a comeback. Hope is in vogue. And, before we saddle up our high horses to ride out on an “anti-messiah crusade” or a “that’s not-practical-hunt” let’s listen to Brueggemann: “we need to ask not whether it is realistic or practical or viable but whether it is imaginable” (pg 39). He believes that, “to begin with such questions is to concede everything to the royal consciousness before we begin” (pg 39). So, put your pragmatism in the garage and hop back on the dream-cycle.

2.)   Obama’s use of hope has an interesting combination of present reality (first African-American president, profound ability to make some drastic changes fairly quickly, especially in regards to Guantanamo Bay) and future energy. His future hope has taken on a heightened sense of urgency recently as his campaign has attempted to prevent disappointment. The reality is that no president has ever done what he has promised, but that is not my concern. Actually, it is. It is not that Obama will necessarily bring about a perfect America, but that the symbolic act of electing this president at this moment does point towards hope in a better America. Our addiction to violence and colonial impulses, our systemic racism and classification, our deathly love of the automobile and our bizarre willingness to believe the lie that we are “the best” nation on earth, none of these things will be fixed in four years. Brueggemann’s exact point is that as soon as the hope is for here and now it is lost to the royal consciousness, but as long as there is the idea of a better tomorrow (based in the death of today) then hope lives. Of course, Obama belongs to the royal consciousness (like any president, pastor or priest), but the hope that he sparked in his historic election can live on as a critique of his historical accident. In other words, it is up to us to believe in the hope (as symbol) that he used to win and not believe that we have now arrived. We have given ourselves a chance at new symbols and direction and now we must remind the royal consciousness of its coming death and tomorrow’s promised life.

But on a positive side,

I think Obama provides Hope

and challenges minds

Of all races and colors to erase the hate

And try and love one another,

so many political snakes

We in need of a break

Im thinkin’ I can trust this brotha

From ‘Black President” by NaS

I could say more. Graduate students are not exactly known for their brevity on controversial topics, but this should suffice for the moment.