Obama and Strange Fire

Jesus said to his disciples: "Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. [Luke 17:1 (NIV).]

I hope I am not a rock of stumbling. This isn’t for my friends only; it’s for me, too.

1. Obama-hating.

I believe that some people hate Barack Obama more than they love America. When the economy ticks up, they’re not glad. They see America’s climb from this slump through the crystal of Obama’s re-election chances. So good news is, to them, bad news.

Likewise, a friend of mine heard early in the Obama administration that Defense Secretary Robert Gates was going to resign. My friend couldn’t conceal his percolating glee. He didn’t regret America’s loss of a competent leader; he rejoiced in potential disruption of the Obama administration.

2. More Obama-hating.

But it’s more than a willingness for America to sink as long as Obama sinks with it. Recently, partisans have been exploiting Obama’s verbal hiccup in his you-didn’t-build-that speech. In context, it’s clear that Obama knows that people build businesses by their initiative and hard work; his point was that America helps. His point was that the help that America gives includes help from our government. Government supplies (for example) roads, educated workers through free public education, fire protection, and police protection (so that you don’t need an armed posse to keep your business relatively safe). Non-partisan fact-checkers have shown that the partisan attacks on this speech are untruthful.

I have debated what Obama said with my friends. I have pointed out what the fact-checkers say. And I have pointed out other parts in his speech where he pays tribute to the initiative and hard work that business owners dedicate to their businesses.

What amazes me is this: some of my friends now think that context doesn’t matter. If somebody says something that sounds crazy, these friends now don’t think it’s necessary to look carefully at what that person said to make sure that they really meant that crazy thing. It’s legitimate, apparently, to lift a statement out of context, and impose on the speaker a belief that he doesn’t hold, and to judge him harshly if that belief happens to be crazy.

In other words, my friends hate Obama so much that they are willing to abandon logic, reason, and truth in the service of their hatred.

3. Defining evil and good by what Obama is and is not.

I lived in China for two years. A Chinese man compared America unfavorably to China. He said that America is young, implying that it is immature compared to China, who’s civilization goes back thousands of years. When I pointed out that the United States is older than the Republic of China, he missed a beat. Then he rejoined that China is "young and vigorous". In other words, whatever China is, that is good. Whatever America is, that is bad.

I find hatred of Obama is like this. Just like good or bad is defined to this Chinese man by China in comparison to America, so also, to Obama-haters, bad and good are defined by what Obama does or does not do.

No act by Obama is too trivial to overlook in the gathering of scorn. Do Obama and his wife tap their knuckles in exuberance and joy? That becomes a "terrorist fist-bump". Does Obama drink a Budweiser? Budweiser is foreign-owned!

Some hatred is directed at actions not so trivial. Obama kept America’s economy from sinking by bailing out American car companies. This saved jobs not only at those companies, but also at the American companies that supply parts to those companies. Almost all of that bail-out money has come back to the treasury now that those American car companies have regained their footing. Was this a worthy policy? Not to hear some say. To them, it was "socialism".

Recently, Obama expressed solidarity with families of victims in Aurora, Colorado. His said that his daughters like to go to movies; he expressed what it would be like for him if they were harmed in a movie theater. Naturally, this mourning with those who mourn (Romans 12:15) was a bad thing. According to Rush Limbaugh, it was "egomania" because it showed that to Obama the tragedy in Aurora was supposedly all about himself. Limbaugh is widely followed; I assume that that means that his words find many listening ears.

3. Obama-hating as a rock of stumbling.

It dis-eases me a little bit to tease out the implications of all of this. One of those dis-easing implications is this: if my friends hate Obama more than they love truth, then I worry that they hate Obama more than they love the one who is truth personified, namely God.

This is truly a dreadful thought. But it is not shocking.

We love God with our lips, if not with our hearts. Jesus knew this. "But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people." (John 2:24 (NIV).) One evidence of this is our preference for our own comfort. When we cherish our comfort instead of helping our needy brothers and sisters in Christ, we show where our loyalty lies. (1 John 3:17.) I don’t exclude myself from this judgment.

Barack Obama is a Christian. He is a flawed Christian like the rest of us, but a Christian nonetheless. He attended a Chicago church with his family. He professes Christianity. Recently, he recited very appropriate scripture when speaking words of comfort about the tragedy in Aurora, Colorado.

My brothers and sisters stumble over Obama. If we trembled before the word of God, and we don’t, we would tremble before this:

Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. [1 John 4:20 (NIV).]

If these words don't stir the waters by themselves, consider them with these words:

Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.  Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching.  [John 14:23-24 (NIV).] 

4. Furnaces of hatred.

Jesus said to his disciples: "Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come." Luke 17:1 (NIV)

We spend an hour or two in church; more time in front of the television. Some media companies are in American society great furnaces of hatred. Fox News might as well call itself the 24/7 hate-Obama network. And Keith Olbermann used to hate deeply on MSNBC. (I’ve watched almost no MSNBC lately, so I don’t know any current haters.)

This is the problem: we become what we behold. That’s why we are urged to keep our eyes on Jesus. (Hebrews 12:1-2.) Keeping our eye on the media haters, their strange fire touches us like a profane Pentecost, and we ourselves become little furnaces of hatred.

6. Hatred separates us from God.

As we hate, hatred marbles itself into our psyches. It becomes increasingly ingrained in our thoughts.

Jesus knew the danger of hating. That’s why he warned us not to oppose evil people, but to yield to them rather than to struggle against them. (Matthew 5:39-41.) (Yes, I know it’s hypocritical for a litigator to point this out.)

7. Better fire.

Not to finish down, but up:

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." [John 13:34.]

Also: John 13:35; Romans 12:10; Romans 13:8; Galatians 5:13; Ephesians 4:2; 1 Thessalonians 4:9; 2 Thessalonians 1:3; Hebrews 10:24; 1 Peter 1:22; 1 Peter 3:8; 1 John 3:11; 1 John 3:23; 1 John 4:11; 1 John 4:12; 2 John 1:5 (in case we didn’t get it the first time).

I write this essay as much for myself as for my friends. I will try to regard those I disagree with with sympathy. Maybe this will ripen into kindness, which will ripen into love. By grace.

Pain and Policy

I have lost no loved one to crime.

I doubt that I would know better what to do about crime if I had. I am human. To lose a loved one to a criminal act would rob me of my objectivity. I would want revenge. I would want to see the perpetrator caught, tried, and convicted; and I would want to see the needle go into his vein; and after that I would want to see his ribs stop the rise and fall that keeps him alive.

And I would want some prevention-measure made into law. Maybe I would want that law named after my loved one.

1.  Loss comes.

Speaking objectively, and not as a victim of crime might, I know that in this world, violence and hurt will come. In this world, people will die when they shouldn’t, and lives will be ruined that deserve to prosper.

But sometimes an event will shock so deeply that it spikes the urgent desire to make sure that the shocking event never happens again. It makes us turn against the tide of inevitable pain.

The tragedy in of Aurora, Colorado is such an event. But even that event is an ripple compared to 9/11.

2. The sky will fall, or parts of it.

The will to keep the sky from falling is human. And a piece of the sky has fallen in Aurora, Colorado. And it has fallen on some disproportionately.

But there are a lot of us, and there is a lot of sky. Were we to build a scaffold between us and the sky that was heavy and wide and strong enough forever to preserve the safety of everyone underneath it from the hard fall of pieces of the heavens, we would never again see stars or sunlight.

3. The American habit of overreaction.

The inevitability of pain does not daunt us from taking action, some of it to ill effect. Let’s look at 9/11. Some measures taken after it were right. Among my friends, only one was upset that Osama bin Laden does not walk among the living. And I suspect that his contrariness was more partisan than moral.

But the urge to do something also led us into a costly adventure in Iraq – costly in blood and in treasure and in geopolitical standing. Our sacrifices there seem mainly to have benefitted Iran.

And, domestically, hatred against Muslims has boiled so that many of us are willing to scald our founding document and curtail the freedom of American Muslims to spread and worship in peace.

It’s possible to learn too much from experience.

This is not a new thing. Overreaction is as American as muzzle-loaded muskets. Fans of Hunter S. Thompson know this. There was an alleged sexual assault by a motorcycle gang in – I think it was the late 50s or early 60s. Hunter S. Thompson wrote about it in Hells Angels. Having received no traffic tickets for years, after the supposed sexual assault he started to ride a motorcycle. He wore a sheepskin jacket, which no self-respecting motorcycle gang-member would ever wear. He soon had enough tickets to put his driver’s license in danger.

4. What we can learn.

So it's possible to overreact. But not everything is an overreaction. A pause to reflect on the impermanence of life is never inappropriate. Americans particularly benefit from a reminder that just because we cannot remember ever not living, that does not mean that our lives in this world will go on without end.

And some of my friends have been moved to pray, particularly for the victims of the Aurora shooting and their families. Good.

Aside from that, maybe the best thing to do is nothing. At least for a time.

5. Rapid-response overreaction.

But some take Aurora as an immediate call to action, predictably. I read the New York Times. Two editorials within hours of the tragic event in Colorado called for stronger gun control. This might be an overreaction akin the more retrograde parts of the Patriot Act, enacted in the aftershock of 9/11.

The Patriot Act and the call for sterner gun control grew out of the impulse that, after a true tragedy, something must be done. And both the Patriot Act and the proposed clamp-down on guns are, in fact, "something".

6. The unspoken fallacy that any solution is good.

Sometimes the "something" that needs to be done is not new legislation. Pain is a part of the process of life, and no effort, no law, will eliminate it entirely. And some laws may only fruitlessly burden the freedoms of persons in numbers far greater than those stricken by the tragedy that spawned the law.

So we need to sit still for a time. We need to mourn with those who mourn in Colorado, and with the thousands of victim of crimes without fame across the country day by day.

And we need to think hard. We need to count the costs of any measure meant to beat back the pain that wants to enter into our lives. And we need to make a cold, hard choice about whether we are willing to live with those costs over the long run. Only time can give us the objectivity not to overreact. So we need to take time before we give serious thought to any new measure.

7. Bearing pain.

And, this sounds hard. But we need to be prepared to bear pain. Great evil is done in the name of staving off pain; and great good can comes from taking it on. For example, the miracle of forgiveness is the boon made possible by a willingness to take hurt and to forego the salve of sending it back to where we suppose it came from.

8.  Action in the right time.

And, maybe, in the right time, we’ll take action. But the right action is likely to come only at the right time. An with considered and dispassionate thoughts.

9. Yes, but.

To say that a pause before acting is sound is not to say that we shouldn't revise some of our laws about guns. Some skittishness toward gun regulation is perverse. It's crazy that someone on the terrorist watch list is not impeded from buying a gun. And I don't like laws that allow guns in places where people go to get drunk. To give a couple of examples.

10.  Still.

My call for a pause, my call for calm, might seem cold-blooded. Fine. It is. But I have seen the reckless harm caused by a surge of passion following an event that makes us afraid or angry (two linked emotions). In hindsight, I see that we were not well served by some actions motivated by outrage.

We as a nation need to learn the difference between Pearl Harbor and a shocking event that can be addressed in calmer times. We as a nation need to shed the notion that after a tragedy something must be done, and that any "something" is a good idea.

I, Libertard.

I remember reading about a Union soldier and a Confederate soldier found dead after a Civil War battle. Each gripped the other, and each had thrust his knife into the other’s side. They lay together in death.

That epitomized the hatred in that conflict, a hatred still un-healed.

So. I was researching on the internet the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (known to its detractors as "ObamaCare"). People have written things like, "This explanation is so simple that even a Republican can understand it." Or, "Send this to your libertard friends and watch their heads explode"– or something like that.

On Facebook, liberals and conservatives often hate on each other.

1. A house divided against itself.

Abraham Lincoln said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." And he was quoting a higher authority. What Lincoln said was true then: hundreds of thousands died in a war to uphold a nation divided against itself.

An what he said is true now. In our hatred, we risk burning our abode. Some people hate the other party, or a particular person, such as Barack Obama, more than they love their country. They'd burn down their own house to kill their "enemy" in it.

For a scientific point of view, study Harvard professor Martin A. Nowak's article in the July 2012 Scientific American, called "Why We Help". Cooperation helps organisms survive.

2. Harming ourselves.

When we call someone a "libertard" or a "tyrant" or a "Republiscam" or a "fool" we muffle our own intelligence.

We could have a chicken-and-egg argument about whether movies and television dramas and popular fiction make us shallow, or whether producers make shallow entertainments because we are shallow. The fact is that it’s the rare movie or television drama that has a villain with any complexity.

Shows with complex characters become iconic. The Sopranos is an example. Tony Soprano was a thug. But he was a complex thug. He loved his family, and he was capable of kindness, for all his wrongful ways.

And that’s why Shakespeare endures. Nobody could read everything that has been written about Shakespeare and his plays, even if he spent a lifetime trying. When I lived in China, I knew a Chinese scholar who studied Shakespeare – not to teach, but to learn.

Shakespeare’s characters were complex, even the villains. Richard III is a rogue, but an interesting one. Macbeth murdered his king, but he is a human character with pathos.

The point is that when we summarize a person into a pejorative, like fool, we overlook richness and complexity in the personality of another human being. We make ourselves shallow when we regard others with small eyes.

And to those who care what God thinks, he is clear: hard judgments are a conduit to condemnation.

But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell. [Matthew 5:22 (NIV).]

3. The first step.

The first step to un-divide our house is not from those who do wrong; it’s from the wronged. It’s forgiveness.

I try. When I first saw it, I was burned by the term libertard. Hated it. I'm fine with it now.

Didn’t Jesus say that his kingdom was made for the simple, not the smart? Didn’t he say that who he was was for the simple to know? "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children." (Matthew 11 (NIV).) Maybe if I'm a libertard, I'm simple enough to see God. So I forgive libertard.

The importance of fogiveness is a core christian  belief. "And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins." (Mark 11.) This is a big idea that appears many places in the New Testament.

But to ground this piece in science, I'll refer again to Why We Help. That article discusses five distinct patterns of cooperation that favor an individual or group in evolution. One is called "direct reciprocity". On its basic level, it's tit-for-tat. One monkey grooms another so that the other monkey will groom him.

The author described the use of complex computer simulations to show how this kind of cooperation could evolve. Describing these computer-simulation results, he said:

What made our early computer simulations even more interesting was the revelation that there are different kinds of direct reciprocity. Within 20 generations the initial tit-for-tat strategy had given way to a more generous strategy in which players might still cooperate even if their rival defected. We had in essence, witnesses the evolution of forgiveness -- a direct-reciprocity strategy that allowed players to overlook the occasional mistake.

The last form of cooperation that the author described, which applies to "all manner of organisms, from amoebas to zebras", is the performance of "selfless acts for the greater good, as opposed to abetting a single peer."  No doubt forgiveness can be such an form of cooperation. It enhances group cohesion.

A happy confluence of science and religion exhaults forgiveness.

4. The second step.

The second step is to forebear from harsh words against people we disagree with. It divides the house against itself.

I say this fully aware of my own blog posts, such as "When Christians are Assholes." http://justsayinghere.blogspot.com/2011/08/when-christians-are-assholes.html I also remember blog posts that take down certain republican candidates. E.g.: http://justsayinghere.blogspot.com/2012/02/mitt-romney-up-tree.html And I have been happy to share on Facebook non-partisan fact-checker analysis that calls persons out for pants-on-fire political statements.

So you can call me hypocrite. I prefer complex.

Please remember that I have also called for prayers for Mitt Romney. http://www.justsayinghere.blogspot.com/2012/05/prayers-for-mitt-romney.html  And I wrote a post call Ten Things I Admire about Conservatives. Among others. http://justsayinghere.blogspot.com/2012/02/ten-things-i-admire-about-conservatives.html

5. The third step.

The third step is to pray for each other. Pray for blessings on people we oppose. Who knows? Maybe we will find it harder to find fault after that. Maybe that will be because God will change them. Or maybe God will change us.

Wildness and the Word of God

Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him. [Proverbs 26:4 (NIV).]

Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes. [Proverbs 26:5 (NIV).]

I accept that all of scripture is "God breathed." (2 Timothy 3:16.) So I wrestle with what it means that the Bible says one thing in one place, but another thing in another place.

1. Apology.

Let me be clear: I’m fine with anyone who takes the Bible as historically accurate in all its parts, and without contrast from one part to another. I respect that person. I crave that person’s prayers. I am not superior to that person; I know that, and God bless him or her. I know persons who know the Bible better than I do, and they accept it as literal, perfect history and completely consistent throughout. That’s fine.

Arguments over Biblical literalness and consistency might be like the "foolish controversies" condemned by Paul. (Titus 3:9.) I have no wish to press against anybody a "foolish controversy".

This is written for people who read the Bible, like me, and who find contrasts among its parts. This is for people who wonder: what does this mean?

2. Historical contradictions.

These are examples of what I’m talking about. History in the Bible varies from one part to another.

Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 differently describe the creation of the world. For example, in chapter 1, animals were created before man, and man was created to have dominion over them. In chapter 2, man was created first, and the animals were then created to be companions to him. Also, note that in chapter 1 God separated the light from the darkness twice.

David met Saul under two circumstances. A mighty warrior, he was called to sooth King Saul’s tormented spirit with music. (1 Samuel 16.) This is the first description of their meeting. But in 1 Samuel 17, David came to Saul because, as a lad, he slew Goliath.

In Matthew 27, Judas the betrayer hanged himself. In Acts 1, he pitched forward in a field, and his intestines spilled out.

3. Doctrinal differences.

Biblical doctrine also varies from one part to another.

a. Prayer.

Different Gospels say different things about prayer. This is Matthew chapter 6, which encourages short prayers:

And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. [NIV.]

And yet, Luke chapter 18 has the parable of the persistent widow. An unjust judge gave her justice because she gave him no rest from her petitions. Jesus compared her to believers who come before God with prayer:

And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. [NIV]

b. God’s treatment of the righteous and the wicked.

The speeches of Job’s accusers aren’t wrong. Scripture does say that God punishes the wicked and blesses the righteous. Compare Psalm 34 to Job 36 (speech of Elihu). Compare Psalm 112 to Job 8 (speech of Bildad the Shuhite). Compare Proverbs 12:21 to Job 22 (speech of Elipaz the Temanite). Yet Job was righteous, and Job was afflicted. This was true despite these scriptures and the words of Job's accusers. That’s the point of the Book of Job.

c. The Laws of Moses.

Then there is the controversy over what parts of the Law of Moses survive in the New Testament era. Here’s Matthew chapter 5, where the Law is preserved intact and in its entirety:

For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.[NIV.]

Contrast the letter of the Apostles and Elders to believers in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, about whether those believers should accept circumcision and follow the Law of Moses (from Acts 15). This is a pocket-ready version of the Law:

It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. [NIV.]

d. Faith or faith and works?

And then there is the question: is salvation by faith, or by faith and works? Romans 3:28 says:"For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law." (NASB.) James 2:24 says: "You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone." (NASB).

Martin Luther believed that these passages could not be reconciled; he wondered if James belonged in the Bible. Attempts to reconcile James and Romans spew like sparks from a fountain-style firework. (Go ahead, Google it.)

As to faith and works and James and Romans, I don’t know if this part of Matthew ties the twain, or if it makes a middle ground:

Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash. [Matthew 7:24-27 (NIV).]

But reconciliation might not be needed.

4. Plausible explanations?

There are plausible explanations for these differences.

a. Scope to the writers.

All scripture is God-breathed. (2 Timothy 3:16.) But that doesn’t mean scripture is God-dictated. God gave scope to the writers for their own personalities and opinions and traditions to enter into what they wrote. And because their personalities and opinions and traditions differed, the writings differed.

b. The Bible is pastoral.

Also, the Bible is pastoral; it leads people to God and salvation. Contrasts could be explained in that vein.

So differences among writers in the Bible might reflect differences among believers or circumstances. It might be important for some believers to pray persistently and at length, like the widow who sought justice from the unjust judge. But God might want to assure other believers that he will not neglect their prayers only because their prayers are brief.

Smug believers might need to hear that God will judge them by what they do or by what they don’t do. Struggling believers who labor and strive and become disheartened by their perpetual failure might need to hear the word of grace.

c. Tethering to the Holy Spirit.

God might not want us to be solely tethered to a book, even the Bible.

The Bible is very, very important to a believer. A believer who doesn't travel deeply into the Bible neglects a resource that can draw him upward to God.

But God might not intend for us to rely upon the Bible to the neglect of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate. The mysteries of scripture bring us to God in prayer, and certainly it is a mystery why the Bible says one thing in one place and another thing in another. When we come to God in prayer, that invites the Helper to guide us. And that help might be so important that anything that brings us to it is a boon and not a detriment as some see it.

5. The vitality of the word.

Here’s a thought: maybe the whole issue of consistency and inconsistency needs to be hissed at.

The Bible is a book apart. The Word of God has a unique brilliance. In its brilliance there is something wild and unmanageable.

In The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis said of his Christ-figure, the lion Aslan, that he was "not a tame lion." Maybe if we worry about contrasts in the Word of God, we err by trying to impose on it a buttoned-down quality, a tameness.

So in judging the Word of God like we might judge a witness in a theft trial or a mere philosophical essay, we fail to see its wildness and its vitality. This is a vitality that no mortal mind can contain. It stops us from judging the Bible as we might judge lesser literature.

6. The writers weren’t troubled.

The holy persons who wrote scripture fully knew of the contrasts among its parts. The two proverbs at the beginning of this piece, about answering a fool, appear literally side-by-side. Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are sequential chapters. The two ways that David met Saul are only one chapter apart.

If making the Bible less mysterious were the first goal of the writers of scripture, the solution would have been easy. They simply could have deleted one version or the other.

But that wasn’t done. And that tells me that the writers of the Bible were not unduly troubled by what might trouble a modern believer or by what might excite an unbeliever looking for a reason to un-believe.

The writers of the Bible saw and believed. Believers today can read and likewise believe.

7. The final word is God’s.

Perhaps it’s right to think of the Bible, at times, as a debate about God and about God and history. In a way, this debate is like the debate among Job and Eliphaz and Bildad and Zophar and Elihu. None of them were per se wrong. But the winning word, as in the book of Job, will be God’s.

Hope, Grudge, and Prayer

There is one who scatters, and yet increases all the more,

And there is one who withholds what is justly due, and yet it results only in want. [Proverbs 11:24 (NASB).]

1. Coming out of hopelessness.

For many years I thought that God had rejected me forever. I could not go to church. I could not read the Bible. When I tried to pray, I felt like I was trespassing.

This was the sin of hopelessness.

Things have changed. I go to church, and I read the Bible, and I pray. I do not share the modern American certainty of salvation, but I have a hope of Heaven.

The subject of this piece is prayer.

I pray several times a day. I regret the wasted years when I did not pray. But even before my years of alienation from God, I did not pray near enough.

2. Puzzling history.

When I was a young man, my mom confided in me that she had always prayed for me every day. This has been a lifelong blessing, even though she died long ago when she was about the age that I am now.

So why, when I practiced religion, didn’t I pray for my parents? That’s the merest thing that a son or daughter can do. I pray for them now, even though they are long dead. People always need prayers of the living, and, I think, always benefit from it.

3. The world’s wisdom and the foolishness of Christians.

The wisdom of the world says that prayer is an empty act. Claudius in Hamlet despaired that his prayers did not rise to Heaven, but clung flightlessly to Earth. Smart folk think that about all prayer. They think that prayers affect the world only as the flecks of spit from fervent supplicants moisten the air.

That is not the Christian concept. In The Book of Revelation, chapter 5, Jesus took a sealed scroll from the hand of God that only he could open. When he took the scroll, "the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people." (NIV.) The prayers of God’s people are incense in Heaven, saved by God for the right time.

4. Prayer evolution.

When I started to pray for people again, I prayed for my friends, for my family, for my church, and for my president. It wasn’t that long ago that I started to do that.

But now I pray for more people.

Here’s a secret about me. I hold grudges. Just yesterday, I was driving home from work and I remembered a judge who pounded me long ago. A prosecutor had subpoenaed my client’s medical records for a manslaughter/drunk driving case I was defending. She wanted me to agree that the jury could see those records, and she wanted me to agree to that before she unsealed the records.

I’m many things, but I don’t think that I’m stupid. I won’t agree to let records go to the jury before I actually look at those records and know what’s in them. There might be something in those records that hurts my client, and I might be able to keep that harmful stuff from the jury with a timely objection. But I won’t know that until I see what’s in the records. What the prosecutor wanted was ridiculous.

But when I refused, the prosecutor complained to the judge. And the judge was so angry at me that I thought that steam was going to geyser out of his ears. And in his anger he ruled against me on a pending motion on a silly technicality. He made it clear that he did this because of my lack of ethics in refusing to agree to let the jury see these records that I had in fact not looked at. He made it clear that he was teaching me a lesson.

As I remembered this incident, I invented a speech that I would have liked to have made to that judge. It would have lasted several minutes, and it would lacerated him with sarcasm. But slowly I realized that I was wrong to relish this speech that fortunately I had never made.

So instead I prayed for him. I prayed that he would have real wisdom as he performed his office. I hope that God answers that prayer, and I think that he will.

I hold a lot of grudges. That’s how I am. But now, as often as a grudge comes to mind, I use it as prompt to pray for God to bless the object of my grudge. Sometimes there’s a tug-of-war in my mind between fanning my grudge and praying it away.

And it’s not only these people that I pray for. As I said, I was blessed with a mom that prayed for me every day. But I know that some people have never been prayed for. So I’ve started to try to think of people who might never have had someone to pray for them, and I step up.

5. Scattering and increase.

Make no mistake. I pray more than I did, but I am far far away from praying without ceasing. (1 Thessalonians 5.)

But I’m grateful for the time I spend in prayer. That brings me back to the quotation at the start of this piece, Proverbs 11:24:

There is one who scatters, and yet increases all the more,

And there is one who withholds what is justly due, and yet it results only in want.

I scatter my prayers; I hope that these scattered prayers will increase the spirit of God in me.

The Meaning of Rodney King

Don't we gladly judge others? Don't we think it's weak to try to understand why someone has fallen? Don't we mock compassion?

Isn't it out of step with our times to say, "To understand all is to forgive all" – or, more famously, "You can’t understand someone unless you’ve walked a mile in his moccasins"?

1. Rodney King is dead.

Rodney King is dead. He was found submerged in his swimming pool in Rialto. He has been in and out of jail for drugs. I suspect that drugs played a role in his death.

2. Judging Rodney King.

And for that he will be scorned as a loser and as a drag on the gene pool. And people will judge him harshly when they remember that he blew through the slight fortune that he gained in a verdict against the City of Los Angeles after four officers of the L.A.P.D. beat him on videotape. He died jobless and pennyless.

3. How Rodney King’s beating changed his life.

Knowing what the present would be if the past were different is like trying to tell the future. It can’t be done. But it’s fair to predict that if a videographer hadn’t taped the police beating of Rodney King, his life would have been different in two important ways.

First, he would have been convicted of resisting arrest. The officers who beat him wrote reports that claimed that he had charged them, as I recall, even though that wasn’t true. They wrote that to justify beating him.

The officers could not justify the beating merely because Rodney King had fled from them in his car. But almost certainly that was the reason for the beating. As a former prosecutor and as a private attorney, I have many times seen that arc from flight to beating.

And when police officers write false police reports to cover up wrongfully beating a suspect, their victim is almost always prosecuted with false evidence based on those false police reports. Without some objective proof that the officers are lying, jurors want to believe the officers.

The second difference is that Rodney King almost certainly would have lived and died unknown to the world.

 2. How Rodney King’s beating changed the world.

But whatever might have been, Rodney King’s beating changed the world.

Before the videotape of the Rodney King beating played over and over on the news, people in general had no idea that the police could be so punitive and brutal.

I should correct what I just said. Before the videotape of the Rodney King beating played over and over on the news, middle-class White people in general had no idea that the police could be so punitive and brutal. In minority and poor communities, that was not news.

Also, the acquittal of the officers in a Simi Valley jury trial led to riots. Sixty persons died. The greater Los Angeles area suffered one-billion dollars of property damages. Buildings were burned down.

And the acquittal affected, for a while, the criminal justice system. Most immediately, during the riots, my workplace the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office was evacuated. The courts were shut down.

And some African American jurors for a time would not vote to convict a defendant; the amount and quality of the evidence made no difference. It was a form of protest. As a prosecutor in that time, I dreaded African American jurors, for that reason. But there was nothing ethically that I could do. I am proud of our justice system that it forbids rejection of a prospective juror because of his race. But under the influence of the Rodney King acquittals, my enthusiasm for this high principle waned. After the officer-defendants were convicted by a later federal jury, things more-or-less got back to normal.

I now do not begrudge the African American jurors their protest. In fact, the rule against rejecting jurors for their race exists for the sake of justice among races. And, certainly, those protesting jurors saw a White Simi Valley jury’s acquittal of officers who beat an African American man on videotape as a denial of justice among races.

Ultimately, justice was served, even if a number of criminals in the time between the two Rodney King jury trials gained an undeserved benefit.

5. Rodney King’s character.

But – to get back to understanding Rodney King. In his life, he did wrong. He probably did wrong up to the day that he died. But, like all of us, he was not all good nor all bad. You rarely err to expect complexity in another person.

His flight from L.A.P.D. officers began a chain of event that led to riot and death. Lives were ruined. He seemed genuinely tormented by that. He seemed in real turmoil when he said in front of television cameras, "I just want to say: Can we all get along? Can we get along? Can we stop making it horrible for the older people and the kids? " He had a conscience.

6. Thinking about Rodney King.

I never knew Rodney King. So I don’t know why he made the life choices that he made. But we would do well to think of him and remember the saying, "There but for the grace of God go I."

Of course, we are all under the eyes of an all-seeing God who knows our own failures as vividly as he knows Rodney King’s. And who knows if God judges Rodney King more harshly than he judges us? God is inscrutable. So maybe we would do better to think of Rodney King an say, "There I go."

7. "Send not to know for whom the bell tolls".

A John Donne poem comes to mind:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

This poem from 1624 reflects a very old idea. Compared to 1624, our modern technology is vastly superior. But our modern ideas about humanity do not surpass this poem.

The Strength of a Conqueror

On Friday, a daredevil crossed over Niagara falls on a cable. As he crossed, he could not step to the right or the left. He had to keep the moving cable beneath his feet. He wore a safety harness.

When Jesus walked the Earth, he also could not step out of place, out of the will of God. The devil was vigilant for a mistake. Jesus wore no safety harness.

Before his ministry began, Jesus fasted in the wilderness for forty days. Then, the devil tempted him. The devil tempted him with his immediate need, hunger. And the devil tempted him to doubt who he was.

And the devil took Jesus up on a very high mountain and showed him all of the kingdoms of the world. He told Jesus that Jesus could have these. But first Jesus had to fall down and worship him.

1. Great temptation.

Let’s be clear. The devil offered Jesus all of the riches and the honor and the power and the pleasures of the world. No kingdom of Earth has ever been as great as the kingdom that the devil offered Jesus. Jesus could have lived in any way he wanted. Jesus, who grew up with a poor carpenter as his father, would have had greater scope and power than any king who has ever lived. He could have spent his life adding pleasure to pleasure. Or he could have spent his life making the world just.

2. Temptation and me.

I once wrote that if the devil showed me or my friends the kingdoms of the world and offered them to us, we would at least think about it. That might be the dumbest thing I ever wrote. I soon changed my post.

Because we would not think about it. At least, I would not. I would be awed. I would instantly fling myself on the offer.

I am certain of this. I am certain because I know that the devil doesn’t have to offer me the world. I’m far far easier to bribe.

I have done wrong by God for ambition. For the sake of a career that is floating garbage compared to all of the kingdoms of the world, I have sinned.

I have done wrong for women. For the sake women who were attractive and charming but not the wondrous women that the ruler of the world could have, I have fallen down.

I have done wrong for money. Not the virtually unlimited money of all of the kingdoms of the Earth, but for a comparatively paltry amount.

Come to think of it, I have done wrong to save myself a minute in the grocery check-out line.

Come to think of it, I have fallen down for no reason at all.

3. Temptation and a man like myself.

I don’t think I’m alone. I met a man at a campground. He was a good man in the eyes of the world. He was an upstanding citizen and a churchgoer. But he fell short, like me. His sons were addicted to alcohol. That might be why his conscience told him not to drink. I didn’t ask why, but he was clear: his conscience counseled against his drinking. And he drank.

Alcohol is not a sin in itself. But if your conscience tells you not to drink, and you drink, you err. (Romans 14.) This man resisted God for an evening glass of wine.

4. Temptation and an American hero.

John McCain has lived an amazing life. I used to admire his straight talk. I admire his heroism in Vietnam. I admire his brilliant career. I admire his toughness.

But to win the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, he said that South Carolina had every right to fly the confederate flag over its capitol. He later admitted that it was wrong for him to endorse a symbol under which men fought for the right to keep slaves. McCain did not stumble over all of the kingdoms of the world. He stumbled over the chance to win the highest office in America, an office that he could keep for no more than eight years.

He divorced his first wife, the one who was faithful to him during his captivity. He divorced her to marry a rich young beauty.

In McCain’s recent re-election for his Senate seat, he was challenged in the Republican primary by a Tea Party candidate. He hewed to the right to beat back his challenger. To safeguard his nomination, he even claimed that he would not vote for an immigration bill that he himself had introduced in the Senate.

I can’t criticize John McCain from on high. I freely admit: John McCain is a better man than I am. He was tortured and lived under inhuman conditions as a P.O.W. in Vietnam. And as the son of a high American admiral, he was offered his freedom.

He refused.

That was courage. That was honor. That was dignity. That was patriotism. That was love of country. That was something that I would not have done, except in my dreams.

But this brave, honorable, dignified, patriotic man has stumbled over far far less than Jesus overcame. And I am not worthy to carry McCain’s briefcase. And McCain is not worthy to hold the robe of John the Baptist. And John the Baptist was not worthy to untie the sandal of Jesus.

5. The point.

The point is two-fold.

It gives glory to God to know how profound it was for Jesus to overcome the wiliest temptations of the devil. And the temptation in the wilderness was after forty days of fasting. After forty days with no food, I would have given in for a bowl of fruit.

And we must remember to be humble. Humility doesn’t come easily to me. For all I have just said about myself, I am sure that I think of myself more highly than I ought.

So I pray for humility. Only by being humble can we know how strong and wise and good Jesus is. Knowing the truth about our strong and wise and good god is a boon and benefit to ourselves.