The Dumbing Down of America? No!

Kathleen Parker's article in the News Sentinel stirred up some thoughts in me. The title was the Dumbing Down of the American Voter. She reported on a civic literacy test project by the ISI. I think Cal Thomas also had an article on this. The results seem to say we Americans on average do not understand basic facts regarding how our government works and significant historical political events. I read through the test and it does seem odd to me that so many performed so poorly.

However, this side of the 21st century it is important to keep in mind that we are living in a postmodern world that bombards us with an overwhelming amount of information and that we now process it differently than has been the case for educated people of the modern era. I say that as someone astride that divide, living in both worlds. I'll give my own experience as an example.

About ten years ago one of my sons brought home a test from school on word processing. Specifically they had spent some time learning Word Perfect. I thought to myself that I'd do rather well on the test if I were to take it myself. After all I had roughly ten years of experience with that software that included a fair amount of technical writing. Wrong! The type of knowledge called for by the test was different from my intimate, practical knowledge. For instance, the test would ask for the specific steps to accomplish a certain task. I would know how to accomplish that task but would not be able to recall each step. The type of knowledge I had was not total recall of a list of words of successive drop down menus but visual, tactile and associative knowledge that came to me when normal participation in the activity demanded the need.

The way we process information is different now. We do not have time to save all the facts we come across. We internalize the information in an associative manner. We remember values and relationships, not bare, dry facts. The surrounding context presents to us what is needed for acting and proceeding.

The Silence

At his father's grave, from Barack Obama's Dreams of My Father:

"There was only shame in the silence fear had produced....The silence killed your faith. And for lack of faith you clung to both too much and too little of your past. Too much of its rigidness, its suspicions, its male cruelties. Too little of the laughter in Granny's voice, the pleasures of company while herding the goats, the murmur of the market, the stories around the fire. The loyalty that could make up for a lack of airplanes or rifles. Words of encouragement. An embrace. A strong, true love. For all your gifts - the quick mind, the powers of concentration, the charm - you could never forge yourself into a whole man by leaving those things behind..."

Back from Waco and Houston

Saw my niece play two games this weekend down in Texas which they won. She scored 16 and had 14 rebounds against Rice Sunday, both game highs.

Now back to the grind.

God Wants a Fight

Have been reading "The Fidelity of Betrayal: Towards a Church Beyond Belief" by Peter Rollins. He discusses among other things Abraham's bargaining with God over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. And in his explication of Jacob wrestling all night long he says

For the blessing that God bestowed on Jacob brings us face to face with the fact that God wants a fight.

from chapter 2.

Big Twelve Player of the Week

The no. 17 Baylor Bears Women's Basketball Team beat #2 Stanford this past Sunday and my niece, Rachel, had a little something to do with it. She was named Big 12 Player of the Week.

Loving the Storm Drenched II

Upset over abortion rights, the gay agenda, and secular assault on Christianity? Please check this out. This is a beautiful article by Frederica Matthews-Green who talks about how society sometimes arrives at supporting values that Christians may affirm. She uses the metaphor of a weather storm. And as an example refers to a rather good movie from the 1930's in which the heroine smokes, smokes dangerously in a haystack, the leading man is a drunk, a character recommends violence to women as appropriate therapy, etc. She says that the cultural weather has changed so that now society as a whole, and not just "Christians" accept these as unhealthy and in some sense wrong. Regarding weather metaphor, here's quote:

What’s more, it is already changing-constantly, ceaselessly, seamlessly-changing whether we want it to or not, in ways we can’t predict, much less control. If you take the cultural temperature at any given moment, you will find that some of the bad things are starting to fade, and improvement is beginning to appear; simultaneously, some good things are starting to fall out of place, and a new bad thing is emerging.

Not only can we not control this process, we can’t even perceive it, until changes are so far developed as to be entrenched. Chasing the culture is a way to guarantee that you will always be a step behind the times.

The article appeared in Christianity Today in 2006 and was selected for an anthology of the best spiritual writing of 2007. And see a previous post in July where something she said there reminded me of Kirkegaard.

The Spiritual Meaning of Food and Drink

I presented some thoughts about the spiritual meaning of food and drink at church Wed night Nov 5. What got me going was a series of posts by Wade Hodges on his blog titled a Theology of Food. This link is to his November 2006 archive where the four posts are located.

He notes that if we removed all references to food and eating in the Bible it would be a might slim book. Why does food play such an important role in the Bible? He mentions 8 feasts instituted for Israel. These feasts are for remembering God's deeds. Enjoying a good meal together is a good way to celebrate and remember God's goodness. Food is an often used metaphor, eg words of God are equated with food. To return to God is to sit down at a feast. Wade made many other good points.

Wade calls up Isaiah 25:6 "On this mountain the LORD Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine the best of meats and the finest of wines." My comment here is that this must mean that God likes us to have feasts and for wine to be a part of them. Though, I didn't mention that beverage when I made the talk.

At this point I summarized what I once said before the communion at one Sunday morning a few months ago. It is here. Food played a big role in Jesus ministry. What was his first miracle? Yes, he helped with the food preparation sometimes. Sometimes he was served. Sometimes invited himself over to someone's house to eat. The location of much of his teaching was at meals. It got him into trouble. He ate and drink too much and ate with the wrong people. Maybe its what got him killed. His request for his followers to meet often to eat together and remember him conquered the Roman world, eventually.

Next I took a few points from Leonard Sweet's The Gospel According to Starbucks. This topic obviously derives scriptural justification from Revelation 22:17 "Whoever is thirsty, let him come".

Sweet notes that "Starbucks took an old, unexciting, hot dark liquid and made converts of millions who can't live without it." He asks why do people pay $4 for coffee when they can just as conveniently get it for 25 cents. People stand in line for it and a gallon of it would cost $16!

He has many things to say about coffee in the book, its positive health benefits, its use as a welcoming and hospitality drink, and its role in social and political change. Did it start the Renaissance and Reformation?

So what attracts people? He lists four things. They go there:

1. for the experience
2. to partipate
3. for the rich imagery
4. to connect

But what does this have to do with Christian spirituality?

He connects the experience aspect with what Jesus says in for instance John 10:10 "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." There are two greek words for life. Bios, from which we get biology. And, Zoe, where we get zoology and a name for girls. Bios just means existence. Zoe rather means "Flamboyant, Passionate Life". An online thesaurus gave me "an active and vigorous life". According to Sweet, that is what people are going for when they go to Starbucks and it is what the Christian can legitimately strive for as well. Churches should cultivate/enable it.

I had a more difficult time latching on to what Sweet meant by imagery. But I noted that God speaks to us in images. That is why Jesus is the representation of God as noted in Colosians 1:15. Imagery, setting, ambience, art and interior design are all important. Until recently in my life I thought that to think this was somewhat crass. But, we are not disembodied spirits. People like Leonard Sweet and Thomas More are showing me this. It is OK to enjoy life and appreciate the five senses.

Starbucks makes you participate. Afterall, there are 55,000 different drink combinations. There is a whole new lingo to learn. To make the most of the experience, one has to invest oneself in it. Spiritual life should be like this as well.

Next I changed to the topic of Chocolate, noting that different foods mean different things. I found a quote somewhere that one should never underestimate the power of chocolate to put a smile on someone's face.

I lifted a few thoughts from a blog post by David Congdon on the internet called

A Theology of Chocolate

1. It is a Gift of God - "Every perfect gift is a gift from above" James 1:17

2. It is a Result of Human Freedom - It is not found in nature but is fashioned by the human freedom to create.

3. Brings about Reconciliation - See II Cor 5 regarding reconciliation and Eph 2:13-15 about breaking down walls.

This was kind of tongue in cheek but it was fun. And, from talking about chocolate breaking down walls I moved to the fact of how eating the native food of another country with a person from that country is a way of affirming them and stating our common humanity.

A final slide on chocolate said that "Chocolate is proof that God loves us and wants us to be Happy" ( this is from a refridgerator magnet for sale at Cafe Press)

In Closing

As Thomas More says:

Good Food is anything that promotes intimacy.

Food is not a just a mixture of chemicals to keep us alive

When we eat certain foods, our imagination gains weight

And, if we pay attention, it feeds our souls

The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life

Inspiration for my talk last night came from several places. One was a book I read 11 years ago. Had forgotten about it till this weekend while making preparations.

The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life by Thomas More

He has a chapter titled "The Interiority of Food. Here are some samples:

"Tasting is a form of knowing, a school for the senses, and is central in food's ability to enchant."

In the kitchen, during food preparation. "The colors and the smells can take us out of "real" time, which can be so deadening, and lift us into another time and space altogether, the time of myth created by cooking."

"Its no accident that in our disenchanted times we have found hundreds of ways to short-circuit the production, preparation, and eating of food, and so it makes sense that to re-enchant our ordinary lives we could approach the supermarket, the kitchen, and the dining room differently, realizing that the extra time real food demands of us is not wasted but serves the soul."

This book came to me at a psychologically low point in my life all those years ago and was a big help.

Smell

I intend to make a presentation on the Spiritual Meaning of Food and the Gospel of Starbucks this coming Wednesday night at church. This morning I've been contemplating the sense of smell that is a part of eating and drinking. I found a 2006 edition of Parabola with an article entitled "Smell" by Christopher Bamford. He quotes a wonderful thing by Proust.

When from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflichingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.

I will savor this for a day then post additional thoughts about this most magical of the senses, the mediator between the heavenly and the earthly, or we may say, the material and the spiritual.

Am open to any ideas.