Thought For Today
“Myths are, in fact...neither primitive nor untrue. They are, rather, a kind of poetry that helps us make sense of the world and our place in it.”
- Stephen H. Furrer
Mythology has been central to human culture since the dawn of time. Myths tell us who we are, both individually and collectively. But myths can be damaging when they prevent us from seeing the truth about ourselves.
American culture is replete with a rich mythology going back to our formation. Our mythology says American pioneers conquered a vast, untamed wilderness. We omit that we destroyed an entire people in doing so. Our mythology says American industriousness built a nation. We omit that much of it was built on the backs of slave labor. Our mythology says we are a nation of immigrants. We omit that each new wave of immigration was opposed and despised by those who came before. Our mythology says our most revered value is our freedom to worship, or not, however we choose, as long as we choose an approved Christian brand. Our mythology says we promote peace and democracy around the world. We omit that, in the experience of other nations, we are an occupying force and leading cause of instability, death, and destruction.
It is long past time to confront our national mythology and see our truth. Only then can we take responsibility for our moral failures and build a just society.
Thursday, September 20, 2018
Tuesday, September 4, 2018
FAMILIES
Thought For The Day
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
- Leo Tolstoy (Anna Karenina)
I can usually tell if I’m going to enjoy a book by reading the first sentence. My favorite opening sentence in all of literature has to be the opening of Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities. The opening of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is a close second. As you can probably imagine from the first sentence, Anna Karenina is a novel about an unhappy family, described in an excruciating detail only found in works by 19th century Russian authors.
One of the things that bothers me about groups like Focus on the Family (ok, there’s more than one 😂) is their insistence that we all adhere to their idealized notion of the Perfect Christian Family. The PCF, in their view, seems to involve a dad who works outside the home, a mom who stays home, and kids, preferably a boy and a girl, who excel in school and love Sunday school. No single moms, remarried dads, or, heaven forbid, gay people, need apply. In other words, the Perfect Christian Family is reminiscent of those post-WW2 nuclear families beamed into our homes in the 50s and 60s, like Leave it to Beaver, etc. And if our families don’t measure up to this ideal we are somehow a failure in God’s eye.
Of course, even a casual reading of the Bible shows us that biblical families are far from this ideal. In fact, biblical families are a mess. One need look no further than the foundational family in the Old Testament, that of Abraham, to see how dysfunctional biblical families really are. And yet even in their disfunction, God was able to work through these families to accomplish great things. In the case of Abraham, God founded a lineage that spawned the three great monotheistic religions that now claim over three billion adherents in every corner of the world.
I believe God revels in the full spectrum of familial relationships found in the human community. And if God can accomplish amazing things through families like Abraham’s, just imagine what he can do through yours.
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
- Leo Tolstoy (Anna Karenina)
I can usually tell if I’m going to enjoy a book by reading the first sentence. My favorite opening sentence in all of literature has to be the opening of Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities. The opening of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is a close second. As you can probably imagine from the first sentence, Anna Karenina is a novel about an unhappy family, described in an excruciating detail only found in works by 19th century Russian authors.
One of the things that bothers me about groups like Focus on the Family (ok, there’s more than one 😂) is their insistence that we all adhere to their idealized notion of the Perfect Christian Family. The PCF, in their view, seems to involve a dad who works outside the home, a mom who stays home, and kids, preferably a boy and a girl, who excel in school and love Sunday school. No single moms, remarried dads, or, heaven forbid, gay people, need apply. In other words, the Perfect Christian Family is reminiscent of those post-WW2 nuclear families beamed into our homes in the 50s and 60s, like Leave it to Beaver, etc. And if our families don’t measure up to this ideal we are somehow a failure in God’s eye.
Of course, even a casual reading of the Bible shows us that biblical families are far from this ideal. In fact, biblical families are a mess. One need look no further than the foundational family in the Old Testament, that of Abraham, to see how dysfunctional biblical families really are. And yet even in their disfunction, God was able to work through these families to accomplish great things. In the case of Abraham, God founded a lineage that spawned the three great monotheistic religions that now claim over three billion adherents in every corner of the world.
I believe God revels in the full spectrum of familial relationships found in the human community. And if God can accomplish amazing things through families like Abraham’s, just imagine what he can do through yours.
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