The Island

We have one of the most beautiful views in the world from our deck. We overlook a section of Douglas Lake, with English Mountain in the background. Just east of that are hills that roll up to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and we can see the range from Mt. Cammerer to Mt. LeConte. In the winter there is snow on the peaks. If I ever left here, I would miss the mountains.
But....

I love Hilton Head Island. So much, in fact, that Anne and I just bought slots in an outdoor columbarium at a church on the Island, so that our ashes can rest under live oaks, Spanish moss, and palmetto trees within the sound of the ocean.

We first started going there when Anne's folks retired and built a house in Sea Pines in the mid 70's. Our kids grew up going to the Island two or three times a year--swimming, riding bikes, hanging out in Harbor Town and listening to Greg Russell sing John Denver songs (and the all popular "Booger Snot") under the big oak tree across from the lighthouse. Greg is still performing for the second and third generations. Naturalist Todd Ballentine taught us about marsh life and its biological chain, and about the dolphins who buried their dead in the caves of Port Royal Sound.

On our first trip we crossed a two lane draw bridge across the Inland Waterway, got lost on the way to Sea Pines, had to loop all the way around Skull Creek to get to the Island's other end, and realized that we "weren't in Kansas" any more. It was absolutely beautiful.

Today the bridge is a sweeping four lane affair that hop-scotches over Pinckney Island Wildlife Refuge and joins a cross-island toll way that by-passes the business district along highway 278. Traffic can be a nightmare during major tourist seasons. There are more restaurants and night-spots, and the bike trails are more crowded. But the Island has not lost its ambience. This is due mainly to the foresight of the local leadership who planned ahead with strict zoning and building codes, not to mention that there are a number of gated communities that enforce their own rules and do their own landscaping. Anne's Dad died several years ago, and her Mom moved into a retirement community mid-island, so we no longer have free access to Sea Pines--we either scrounge or pay for a pass. But we still love the place.

So why not retire there? Aside from the obvious fact that we probably can't afford it, there are a couple of other reasons:

1) Hilton Head Island means vacation. I have a custom of rolling down the car window and smelling the sea and the marsh when we cross the bridge. My breathing eases. My mind relaxes. I am Home for a season. I know that Anne and I are going to walk on the beach and evaluate our lives and make plans. But Anne and I have a fear that if we lived there, we would lose all that. The place would no longer be special. And that is something we don't want to lose. Better for it to be a unique get-away and stay its special self.

2) Hilton Head is memories. We planned our lives and dealt with crises at home sitting on the beach or bobbing in the surf. We watched two children grow up. The sizes of the bikes we strapped to the roof of the van changed. The distance they rode them grew. There was the time they wanted to take friends and go places without Mom and Dad. I see them through all the subtle changes of their lives whenever I am there. I also see the persons that Anne and I were then, sitting on that beach thirty, twenty, ten years ago. The changes on the Island are hardly noticeable when compared to the memories that don‘t change. Somehow living there would be an attempt to hold to a past that can only be visited.

Of course, if we suddenly struck it rich, I might renege on my reasons for staying where we are. But for now, we'll settle for long weekends and a summer vacation.

Letters to Cynthia

I'm in a dry period, between fighting allergies and preparing for vacation. Here are some quotes from Rosenstock's "Letters to Cynthia" to chew on. Cynthia was a student at Ratcliffe in the 1940's with whom Rosenstock corresponded. Later she became his secretary.

March 11, 1943:

"Gerda is back in our house since Phillip has scarlet fever. This 3 year old girl is asking me the two types of questions: Why do you do that? What is that?

"In watching her I became convinced that both questions are not asked without real pressure by her. She fears to be left out when she does not know. She feels life as a process and she desires to be a partner, a 'dancer' in the cosmic dance. Her question is not neutral, not curious, but fearful. How can I participate? The why and what express her effort to acquire new keys for participation. If she can be informed 'why?' she can join in the process unerringly. The question, then, makes her out not as an onlooker, but as a person thrown out by changes in the cosmic order and trying to re-enter it; the order in so far conceived by her three years, is upset by something new. And the new must be assimilated. Or it contains the danger of excluding her, Gerda, from further participation.

"All young people are eager for novelty because by learning new things they secure their participation in a world which for the adult is quite old and from time immemorial. Newness is so often just the newcomer's own newness. And his eagerness is very vital to him since his qualities as member of the cosmic ballet depend on his questioning in time and getting the right answer.

"This... question is based on a new person's volunteering to enter society. Questions are not meaningful if they attack the existence of any truth, any order, any power to join....
You may deny God by no longer asking for truth, you may deny man by no longer trusting him, you may deny the earth by committing suicide. But you cannot do so by ASKING those same questions as you quote Spengler, by denying God, Truth, progress. The simple fact that you speak, although in mere question, interrogatively, has ushered you into a universe in which truth and trust and toil are accepted by you. Truth from God, trust in man, toil on earth, are the pre-requisites for asking any question...."

April 28, 1943:

"Peace: a daily creation and a daily practice of our overcoming death.
Life: usually treated today as deathless. This amounts to the abolition of the law of cause and effect, for society.
War: the struggle between more integrated life and less integrated life goes on incessantly. Nature is in a state of war.
Wars happen when men relapse into a state of nature by not creating peace daily. These are my 'peace terms.' Obviously, no one can hope, under these terms to eliminate the relapse into a state of war as long as man is man.

"The specific form of war between nation states can of course be superceded in our time. It seems to become antiquated. But the "war" against which you rebel, is a more universal phenomenon. Its eternity means that any order for which nobody is willing to give his life is doomed. If wars between states are abolished, civil wars within this One Superstate will take their place. Man will not respect any order which is not made sacred by the only test we have. When people give their lives for something, they ascribe to this something a superselfish rank. This something may be an idol. The fact that Nazis die for their cause, does not prove their righteousness. Nevertheless, where nobody volunteers for giving battle, we do not even have so much as a cause! History is the story of real causes. This much I had to put down, lest you conclude that you have not been dealt with honestly from the beginning."

Dreams

This blog is personal to the point of being maudlin. I may be writing for myself alone, or hoping for a Joseph who can interpret dreams.

Last night I had the third in a series of repetitive dreams with the same motif. These dreams have occurred roughly a year apart. In them I am with Anne and a small group of other unknown but friendly folks. We are looking at property. In the first dream it was a motel, in the second an old house, and last night a school building--one story with separate access to each classroom from outside. Our concern in the dream is that persons unknown, but that we care about, have their own space in a larger communal setting. "Would so-and-so like this?" "Would so-and-so fit here?"

In all three dreams the property needs to be cleaned up, but not renovated. It is structurally sound, but the flower beds need weeding, and a screw needs tightening, or a door needs painting. All the basic essentials are there--it only needs cosmetic work. We are excited.

The atmosphere of the dreams is not gloomy or fearful, rather the opposite. I am usually in a deep sleep when these occur, and everything is sunny and in technicolor. There is always a landscape: trees, sweeping green lawns, and flowers. We are hopeful, and talkative, and pointing at this or that. The place evidently perfectly meets some important need.

Waking up from these dreams is different. I weep as I come into consciousness. There is a deep sense of loss. I can't go back to sleep, and the atmosphere of the dream stays with me for days. Prophetic? Something from the sub-conscious? Something from the past? The fact that they are repetitive and very intense is significant.

Interpreting dreams is difficult because it is easy to introduce extraneous ideas, but I do think of two possibilities. One is my life-long fascination with the Ephesians 4 model of the church. There is some connection here to the need for individuals to have their special space in a larger community. I've run from this model for years (because it is almost impossible to bring to birth and sustain), but it is apparently going to assault me in the middle of the night.

The other is more obvious. Yesterday I went to a seminar put on by Moral Kombat, a program used by juvenile officers to teach values, tolerance, and proper self-image to teen-agers. The statistics were troublesome. 10% of teen-agers are gay or bi-sexual. 30% of teen suicides are because of struggles with sexual identity. Most have no concept of proper ethics in relationships or in the work place. Commitment to long term relationships is difficult for them. Please understand I am not playing "ain't it awful." But my heart goes out to these that are simply lost (even though I can no longer speak Adolescent), and need a safe room in the company of safe people who can hold them until their roots are firmly planted.

These dreams may be all about church.

More Thoughts on Sevier

Several weeks ago I described the conflict in Sevier County over the posting of the Ten Commandments and the practice of prayer at County Council meetings. The conflict is not resolved, and we are awaiting Act II. Here are some more (rather random) personal opinions:

1) In The Origins of Speech, Rosenstock lists inarticulateness as a disease of speech. Christians in America are angry and frustrated, but are unable to verbalize what they feel or to clarify what they mean, even among themselves. Rosenstock states that revolution occurs when inarticulate shouts or groans find a voice or a word that summarizes the cause of the frustration, a voice or word that causes the discontent to say, "yes, that is what we mean." We may be on the verge of such articulation.

2)Peck and Strohmer, in Uncommon Sense, state that Christians are inarticulate because they do not use biblical language or concepts in their conflicts with unbelievers. For example, Christians insist on using political and "constitutional" language in the abortion debate, and in the process, back themselves into an unnecessary corner. Neither "right to life" nor "sanctity of life" are biblical concepts. No man has a right to his life; it is a gift of God. It is His to give and take away according to his will. And while a man's eternal existence as a perfected human being may be called "sacred," there is no "sacredness" to physical life in and of itself. The phrase has eastern overtones. The Bible, in fact, doesn't speak of "rights" or inherent sacredness, but of duties and responsibilities, which are intensely personal. The commandments are not demands that I lay on my neighbor, but revelations of my heart's attitude toward him. The use of "right to life" focuses on the fetus as an object outside myself that can be analyzed--hence the endless (and ridiculous) debate over when life begins. The question is not “when does life begin?” It is, rather: “what is my responsibility to the unborn?” This question is vitally personal and will not allow me the luxury of abstraction.

This is an illustration of how using political or constitutional, rather than biblical concepts opens debate on issues that miss the point. Somehow I feel we are in the same boat in the courthouse debate, and I am still working on that one.

3) It is my own conviction that when a culture has no absolutes to which it bows, the state becomes absolute. While humanists can list the oppressions and horrors propagated by religion (especially Christianity) through the ages, I can’t imagine that the statist solution offers anything better. In fact, it is far worse.

The removal of the Ten Commandments from a courthouse wall says, “We will not have this Man to rule over us.” But then, what else is new? That decision was made years ago. The pasture gate has been standing open for a while and the cows are gone. We live in a multi-cultural, multi or a-religious culture held together by a state with its own vocabulary and mythology. Taking a stand at the courthouse is a rear-guard maneuver that only looks silly in light of the age and depth of change in America. Is protesting at the courthouse really the "sticking point," the point of resistance, the point where one's own conviction crashes into the will of the state? I don't think so.

4) The fact is that outstanding believers in both covenantal eras faithfully served pagan or secular states. Classic examples are Joseph, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Mordecai, and especially Daniel and the three friends. The reason they could do so is simple: they believed that God was Lord of all history, that God governed through kings and emperors whom He raised up and put down. (Jesus recognized the authority of Pontius Pilate because He believed that His Father was the author of all earthly power.) That is why outstanding Old Testament believers showed respect to Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, the Persian emperors, and why Paul insisted that Christians submit to the authority of Rome. But they also believed that the king was subordinate to Jesus Christ, and there was the rub, or I should say, the sticking point. When the authority insisted that a believer confess his hegemony over whatever God the believer served, the believer refused. The issue was who possessed final authority.

Notice that the sticking point was not whether the state was godly, pagan, or secular; or whether the state recognized God's authority. The sticking point was forced acquiescence to the final authority of the state over all gods and powers. It was at that point that the three friends went into the furnace and Daniel went into the lions' den.

This was the issue that faced Christians during the Roman persecutions. Rome was a multi-cultural, multi-religious state that practiced commendable tolerance within its borders. I do not find Christian protests against Caesar's declaration of himself as Dominus et Pontifex Maximus, terms which the Christians reserved for Christ alone. It was only when the state demanded a bit of incense, a mere tip of the hat to the final and ultimate godhood of Caesar, that Christians balked. That meant the individual was being forced to deny the ultimacy of his God. Pushed to the wall, the Christian could not assign the terms to both divinities. Jesus was Caesar's Lord, and the Christian could serve Caesar for that very reason. Being ask to reverse their rolls was blasphemy, both to the Christian and to the Roman, who saw not religious fanaticism, but treason, in the Christian resistance.

The sticking point, biblically, occurs when the Christian is forced to choose between Christ and Caesar, and when the choice for Christ is considered an assault on the state. Are we there yet? The difficulty with answering that question is that we are moving backwards in comparison to the first believers. The early Christian grew up in a pagan environment and gradually so influenced it that even the emperor bowed to Christ. We today are moving from 1500 years of Christian culture to a flagrant rejection of it. It is difficult to assume that modern American Caesars will not test the commitment of their followers. In the meantime the inarticulate frustration will continue to latch on to less than important issues and long for a clarifying voice. It may be that the articulate voice and the “sticking point” will coincide.