Tributes

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. -John Adams (Works)

I never wanted to watch the Hunger Games movies. They sounded too brutal. But after some friends assured us that the series contained some redemptive themes, we borrowed the first release from the library, and of course got hooked. In a futuristic setting, an oppressive regime punishes a past rebellion by selecting citizens at random to fight one another to the death in a controlled arena. These citizen warriors are called "Tributes." The victor is lauded and rewarded, and the public is treated to the annual spectacle with its attendant celebrations. Of course the series ends with a long expected revolution.

HG Wells wrote The Time Machine in 1895. His protagonist travels thousands of years into earth’s future, where he finds the Eloi, a naïve race of pleasure seekers who live off ample vegetation and have a remarkable lack of curiosity or intellectual ability. The hero eventually finds that there is a race of underground troglodytes (Morlochs) who capture and feed on the Eloi like cattle. In some movie versions, the Traveler leads a rebellion, and everyone (except the Morlochs) lives happily ever after. But the book sees the Traveler flee in his machine without a resolution.

I loved Watership Down (Richard Adams, 1972). I read it several times. In it a small group of discontented rabbits escape a warren that is run like a fascist police state, and set out on their quest for freedom and security. On their way they stop over at a warren of very friendly rabbits, well fed, and given to poetry and philosophical speculation, with just a hint of resignation and fatalism. The bubble bursts, however, when a random rabbit, feeding in the field, is caught in a snare, and is ignored by his fellow philosophers. Turns out, the local farmer who owns the land keeps the warren fed on fresh vegetables, and harvests it according to his need. Our heroes beg their new friends to leave, to no avail. The warren is willing to pay the price for its prosperity.

These communities I described are diverse: a dystopia, a utopia, a cornucopia. So, what do they have in common? They are willing to pay the price, not just to maintain the status quo, but to protect their underlying worldviews. Some things are apparently worth the sacrifice.

Western liberal democracies are committed to compassion, love, openness, welcome for the oppressed and disenfranchised. They also have great faith in the innate goodness of man. I am writing this a couple of days after Brussels (March 2016). I have not heard any rhetoric from western leaders that varies from these themes. There are flowers and notes and burning candles in public places, just as in Paris, New York, San Bernardino, Boston, London, Madrid, Turkey, and places we have already forgotten. The Eiffel Tower is tri-colored again, and I keep hearing the word “solidarity.”

Worldview? Solidarity? I keep thinking about the victims, which is too weak a term. Let’s call them what they are: sacrifices, collateral damage, the acceptable statistical price to pay for the western view of mankind. But could we please recognize that fact, and honor the dead and wounded with something more than candles and flowers. A memorial in national capitals would be nice, with room for additional names. And let’s dump “victims.” “Heroes of the Republic” would be nice. How about “Random Citizen Soldiers,” “Keepers of the Flame.”

But I prefer “Tributes.”

Boredom

“But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony.” -GK Chesterton

Blogging is difficult these days because I find that have become boring. Not that I find that a bad thing. Boring is peaceful. Boring is the result of tasting what the author of Hebrews called “entering the rest.” Boring is drinking the same cup of coffee and praying the same prayers in the morning before Anne stirs. Boring is hearing the Canadian geese honking over the house at 7:14 AM, every day. Nevertheless, it is hard to communicate when one is boring. I have no great revelations or 6 steps to a deeper walk with God. There is nothing exciting or even disconcerting in me right now.

Boring, by the way, is not the result of getting older. “Older” simply means settling down into what I knew in the beginning before I discovered passion and excitement. It is the essence of what youth would be if youth were stable. I know that the ups and downs of amplitude waves, when averaged out, produce a straight line. It’s that line beginning in youth that is the sum of our lives, the thing that holds it all together, or in my case, since I am a Christian, the Person who holds it all together.

The Song of Songs is the story of the beloved learning to trust her lover. In the beginning she sums up her love like this: “My beloved is mine, and I am his.” Her place in the relationship comes first. She could have easily written a book on “how to make your man stay at home.” After several cycles of embraces and separations, she utters one of the most beautiful confessions in the Bible: “I am my beloved’s, and his desire is toward me.” He is all. She is at peace in the security of his love. The book ends with the pair going out, arm in arm, to see if the vineyards are ready for harvest. That, my friends, is boring.

Here are some boring things I have rediscovered. First, the whole of Christianity can be summed up in the phrase, “Repent, and believe the gospel.” Simply put, (1) I am not God; (2) He is.

Second, God without my permission has given me four things that are essential to my well-being. They are not my doing; they are his gifts. The New Testament church found them after Pentecost, lying at their feet, tenderly wrapped and addressed to them. They are (1) the preached word, which I need because I forget the truth at least weekly; (2) the Lord’s Supper, the visible word, a pledge of Christ’s sacrifice and of his union with me; (3) fellowship with other believers, whose gifts complement mine, and whose perceptions correct my warped ones; (4) prayer, both corporate and personal.

My suspicion is that these things are boring. They are not exhilarating, relevant, subjective, moralistic, individualistic, and contain no clue as to which current presidential candidate will usher in the Second Coming. They are repetitive, like eating.

(At this point I lost my thread of thought, and began to stare out the window, munching on cheese crackers and thinking about whether or not to weed the fescue in my Bermuda grass, or just hope it’s all the same color green eventually. I’m remembering people I have loved and still love, thinking I may go sit next to Anne on the couch and fall asleep. It’s quiet in the house. May the Lord bless us and Bore us all to Death.)