A Sound of Sheer Silence

Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, “You are old and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations.” But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to govern us.” Samuel prayed to the Lord, and the Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. Just as they have done to me, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so also they are doing to you. Now then, listen to their voice; only—you shall solemnly warn them, and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.” So Samuel reported all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots ...

We have intentionally obscured the unambiguously clear, unifying message of the New Testament, in all of its diversity—that God’s agenda is to transfigure the world through nonviolent, self-sacrificial love. That is the Jesus way. There is simply no way around this. — Jonathan Martin (@theboyonthebike) October 4, 2018 I happened to see this first thing this morning.  It's very much worth reading in full, but I was particularly struck by these two observations. The fact of the matter is, the pendulum will swing hard the other way against the powers that be, & there is plenty I am not/will not be comfortable with. But don’t miss the point-even when it gets a little wild or far, that doesn’t mean Spirit isn’t at work in the anarchy. — Jonathan Martin (@theboyonthebike) October 4, 2018 It sounds like a rushing mighty wind, but it is only experienced as violence to those that resist it. Sons & daughter will go too far in their newfound freedom, like all liber...

Lots of people have said lots of better and smarter things about #metoo, particularly in light of the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings ( most recent update here , though this story is evolving at warp speed), than I can.  I have never been assaulted, so I cannot speak to the experience.  I have, however, noticed a couple of things out there in the discussion that I think are worth commenting on. 1. "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt" and "Innocent Until Proven Guilty."   Lawyers, and people who like to sound like lawyers, often try to gaslight people who are concerned about an accusation against someone by saying things like "people are innocent until proven guilty!" and "where is your proof beyond a reasonable doubt?"  The idea here, of course, is that you are a bad person for "immediately assuming" that a person is guilty of whatever they are accused of, whereas the speaker is a reasoned and broad-minded and fair person.  This is nonse...

I would like to talk about Union Seminary and their Twitter feed , but first I need to talk a bit about Bizarro. Bizarro is a traditional antagonist for Superman in the comics and related media.  Comics are notorious for rebooting their backstories and continuities, so this may not be the current story behind Bizarro, but the one I am familiar with involved Superman getting shot with some sort of duplication ray.  But the ray didn't actually create a clone of Superman, but instead a kind of mirror image of Superman (so, for example, Bizarro shoots cold beams out of his eyes as opposed to heat beams, is vulnerable to the kinds of kryptonite that heals Superman while being healed by the kinds that wound Superman, etc.)  Eventually, Bizarro leaves Earth and creates Bizarro World, whose founding principle is to be precisely the opposite of everything on Earth, so everything that is considered good on Earth is bad in Bizarro World, and vice versa.  So, on Bizarro World,...

1.  The summer between my junior and senior year of high school, I spent a week in Tallahassee, Florida at an event called Boys' State.  It was put on by the American Legion (an association of foreign war veterans), and it was a government/civics-oriented thing.  The highlight, at least for me, was that you could get yourself "elected" to various positions in a faux state government, and then form up and go through the motions of being legislators and other politicians.  I got "elected" to the State Senate, and we deliberated in the actual Florida State Senate chambers, voted on proposed legislation, and all the rest.  I "served" the State Senate with my (still to this day) close friend Justin (now Father Justin, the Russian Orthodox priest), and we had a grand old time. In addition to the legislative stuff, there was a great deal of, well, political content, for lack of a better term.  The biggest part of this was that we all had to prepare "Am...

In the last few days, a bombshell story has dropped that Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, retired Roman Catholic Archbishop of Washington, D.C., has been suspended from ministry as a result of a "credible allegation" of unwanted sexual contact with a minor when he was a priest of the Archdiocese of New York.  Here are some unorganized reactions. 1.  Don't Take Your Eye Off the Ball.   I have a prediction--not based on any secret evidence, just a hunch--that the victim who made a "credible accusation of abuse" is male, and was a teenager at the time the event occurred.  Fifteen, sixteen, maybe even seventeen, something like that.  [Edit:  turns out I was right ]   When that comes to light, and it will, there will be a segment of people who will say "see, this is what gay men do," and others who will say "well, jeeze, I mean, it's not really a kid, right?" Both of those takes are wrong and beside the point.  The relevant mental category fo...

I've been living to see you. Dying to see you, but it shouldn't be like this. This was unexpected, What do I do now? Could we start again please? I've been very hopeful, so far. Now for the first time, I think we're going wrong. Hurry up and tell me, This is just a dream. Oh could we start again please? "Could We Start Again, Please?"  Jesus Christ Superstar. I’ve had folks tell me they get tired of me talking like I do now. That’s more than fair, cause I’m tired of talking about the things I talk about too, & even more tired of thinking about the things I think about. Frankly, I want to crawl back under the covers & go back to sleep. — Jonathan Martin (@theboyonthebike) June 18, 2018 Look man, I try to be nice. But some of y’all make me bang my head against the wall, acting like it’s business as usual, like we aren’t riding shotgun on the titanic. What do you have to lose with your “platform”? Afraid you’ll not get to be a footn...

There is a conservative line of argument that goes something like this: "Sure, I get it, you hate religion and think it is bad and retrograde.  But, you haven't thought about what will replace it--that's going to be much worse!"  Now, I happen to think there is merit to this line of inquiry.  I think that people are religious on a fundamental level, and so will find some sort of religious cause or content, no matter what label that content is given. The problem, and this is where the conservatives get sideways, is in the examples of what that would look like.  In the conservative narrative, the nightmare scenario is something like gay couples living in the suburbs and going to the PTA meetings of their adopted kids, or women flying airliners and having economic autonomy.  Oh, the humanity!  No, the real danger is replacing the (flawed and often not consistent with their own principles though they may be) account of human dignity and the inalienable rights...