Poor God

A shopkeeper in Tehran told a reporter she wasn’t a religious person and hadn’t voted in the recent presidential elections, but after watching the beatings in the street first-hand, she was disgusted.  They were “beyond belief,” she said (ironic, the words she chose). “They do this under the name of religion," she said. "Which religion allows this?”

When my wife sees something like this she sighs and says, “Poor God. It must make him sad.” And putting aside all the cultural and theological arm wrestling about how you describe your ultimate reality, she’s right.

It’s incredible how subtly I find myself moving people I don’t understand or who make me uncomfortable into a “there’s something wrong with them” category. How uncritically behavior that creeps me out begins to look to me like behavior that “isn’t right,” perhaps even that “should be stopped.”

The Monty Python guys always said, “No one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition.” But in big and small ways, it keeps happening anyway and, most maddeningly, way too often in some god’s name. 

Poor God.

No protection

“Against such frankness, there is no protection.”

British spy novelist John le Carré writes incredibly intriguing and complex stories of personal duplicity and disillusionment. He’s one of my favorites.

The line above comes from his book Absolute Friends. Two spies with lives drenched in deception, are spinning their tales when one of them unexpectedly speaks the truth, completely unsettling the other guy: “Against such frankness, there is no protection.”

I was never a hippie. But I got as close as a Baptist preacher’s kid could in the middle and late 60s. I hate to say this – it looks so un-cool now in print, but “let it all hang out” was one of my most dearly held values. I really believed if we could get the entire world in a big circle and “say it all,” we’d be magically redeemed by the honesty. (Love is all you need.)

It didn’t take many years to find out:
- It doesn’t work that way.
- I don’t want to know that much about most people.
- And I wasn’t really honest back then, only needy. I was holding my life out on a tray, wanting someone to, as we used to say, affirm me. (That looks strange in print too.)

Stan Freberg, a wildly inventive comedian and recording artist back when there were records, worked in advertising for a while. One of his airline campaigns – maybe it was for Pacific Airlines – tried to calm nervous flyers with honesty. Since their fleet had the fewest accidents, he did some wonderfully wacky commercials with the tag line: You won’t crash. It was true, but it turned out most customers didn’t want to think about it.

Still, I’m with le Carré. Speaking truth can be powerfully, breathtakingly clarifying. I often find myself wanting to say to someone, “That’s a powerful statement, I'm convinced you believe it and it's very well said. Unfortunately, it’s not true.” It’s the frustrated hippie coming out.

Trapped by the narrative

I was enjoying the sports page out on the deck Saturday morning when I noticed, once again, the difference between what’s happening and the story that gets told.

The U.S. Open golf tournament was being played in difficult weather. Tiger Woods played half of Thursday's first round in a rainstorm before play was suspended for the day. He finished the round in good weather on Friday but missed some short putts that left him well behind. I was off on Friday. I saw him miss them.

The Saturday sports page reported that Tiger was behind because he had the bad luck to play in Thursday’s rain. In fact, he was behind because he missed very makeable putts in Friday's sunshine. But that didn’t fit the weather story as well.

This is not a big deal, but it reminded me how much of our lives are driven, not by realities, but by the interpretations, the narratives, the stories that get woven around them. We organize complex happenings into simpler, easier-to-tell (or sell) tales.

Those narratives give us a place to stand. They become the substance of our perspectives,
the filters of our decisions, the basis of our expectations.

Did I really choose what I did today, or was it a product of my stories?

There’s more to talk about here, but … I’ve got to go watch the U.S. Open. It’s Father’s Day and ever since my dad began taking me to play golf, it’s part of my story.

Danger, talkers ahead

That brings me to the second reason why beginning to blog is dangerous. 

If you’ve got a blog, you’ve got to blog. And anyone who talks a lot will say a lot of dumb stuff.

Very few of us have enough quality content to justify much exposure. That’s why people who have jobs that require them to speak regularly eventually get caught sounding stupid.

Have sympathy for those required babblers on talk radio and cable news. Yes, I know many of them are busy meeting their own performance needs and they’re well paid. But seriously, they’ve really got no chance. Just on the principle of the thing, the 24 hour news cycle breeds nonsense. 

Politicians, pundits, sports figures, corporate figureheads, hired talking heads, even the most articulate President is memory, no one escapes. Say enough often enough and listening to you becomes a grim task.

I found this out firsthand 30 years ago, in another lifetime, when I pastored churches for a while. When the finger of God points at you every Sunday and says say a least something worthwhile, few of us are profound for long. That’s why sermonizing has a bad name. 

Beyond a few notable exceptions, open your mouth often enough – or hit the Publish It button often enough – and you’ll say a lot of dumb stuff.

 So now I’m blogging. Duh.

Impressive

I just saw a fascinating old interview with British doctor, director, sculptor, author and really funny guy Jonathan Miller. Incredibly impressive.

A couple of decades ago, Phil Donahue said that, from his experience as an interviewer, women tend to have conversations while men make speeches.

The dangers inherent in beginning a blog are by themselves impressive, so lets begin with number one: boring everyone because I’m trying hard to be impressive.

My youngest son says when I tell jokes, really set them up and expect the laugh, I’m not as funny. Maybe most kids are appalled when dads tell jokes. I don’t think that’s what he meant.

I’m guessing that whatever is inherently valuable in my voice and viewpoint appears only occasionally and when I don’t try too hard.

So there it is, danger number 1.

More to come.