Signs of Life

So, its been a while since I've posted. Life has been busy... But, no excuses.

This Monday, Amber and I went in for her monthly checkup with the midwives who will be there when Amber gives birth - you know, the routine - take your blood pressure, take measurements, weight, pee in a cup, and so forth. Fun times. Anyways, they also check the baby's heart rate at these routine check ups. So, the nurse was putting the baby stethoscope up to Amber's belly in search of finding the baby's heart rate. And as soon as she found his heart rate, you could hear this "thump," to which she said, "I think I just got kicked!" So, she goes to find the heart rate again, and again, "thump." She replies, "He's really protesting having his heart rate checked!" Finally, she gets it in the right spot again, and from across the room - no joke - I see the stethoscope pop up in the air! A direct hit! That kids going to be one soccer player! She finally got the heart rate measured (140 beats/min, which is good), and said, "If he's kicking that much we don't really need to have his heart rate measured!"

So yeah, he's kicking all the time. It's really cool to put my hands on Amber's stomach and feel him moving around. I swear, sometimes he does cartwheels in there. I can just see him turning and turning over and over and until suddenly, the umbilical cord is twisted so much that it spins like a pinwheel. Okay, maybe not, but nonetheless, bringing a kid into the world is one weird, scary, mesmerizing, maturing, and amazing thing!

And tomorrow we're off to Lafayette for Thanksgiving with family... should be interesting (isn't it always?). If any of you are in that little corner of the world this weekend, drop me a line.

"Why I Voted Obama"

So I told myself that I wouldn't write a blog post addressing this topic, because its such a huge issue and its impossible to describe 4 years of formation in my spiritual and political views in just one blog.

But then my uncle asked me to write a post on his own blog dealing with the issue. So, if you want to read my (very short) response, head on over there and check out the comments too.

I'd appreciate any comments you guys have.

What is Hospitality? (Part 2)

[If you have not done so, read Part 1!]

Consider the fact too that “hospitality” comes from the word “hospital.” Recall the story of when Jesus was spending time with Matthew the tax collector, the Scripture recounts the following: “[B]ehold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick”(Matt. 9:10-12). Likewise, it is not the rich and wealthy who need hospitality but the needy, the stranger, the widow, the orphan. It is the foreigner that needs a host, the homeless that needs a place to stay.

And when we love the stranger, Scripture tells us, it may well be we are unknowingly offering our home to an angel (Heb 13:2) or perhaps even to Christ himself (Matt 25:31-40)! God does not afford us the certainty to distinguish when we are serving man or serving Christ, nor does he offer this as an option. For any man that does not love his brother cannot love God (1 Jn 2:10-11) and any man who does not love the stranger, orphan, and widow is clueless about the definition of religion (James 1:27). Everything is spiritual: there is no distinguishing between the sacred and secular, the divine and material, the glorious and the mundane. For when you see the face of the stranger, you see the face of God.

Consequently, however, we are not a people who know how to practice philoxenia (at least not very well). Rather, we have traded the practice of philoxenia for a culure of xenophobia. Fear (and capitalism) is what drives our home security systems, fenced in homes, and exorbitantly private lives. Fear is what sells our newspapers and drives our political policies. Rather than a culture of welcoming the stranger, we have a cult(ivating)ure of fear.

We have been led to believe that anything foreign ought to be feared (and use baseless notions to keep this idea alive), and we enjoy speaking in derogatory terms about anyone who is not like us (the fortifying aspect of community). “Those Mexicans” are going to steal our jobs and force us to all learn Spanish, we tell ourselves, to we should ship them off. “Those Middle Eastern” people better not come to our city, because they’re probably terrorists. “Those black people” better not move into our neighborhood or all the houses will become foreclosed. “Those homosexuals” better not come nearby or they’re likely to molest my children. Lies that contribute to a culture of xenophobia.

This culture of xenophobia is no more clearly seen than in our two-year (and almost over) heated presidential campaign. Numerous Republicans have utilized countless fear tactics to try to deter people from voting for Barack Obama. They have chanted his middle name “Hussein” in order to incite distrust and fear into America and make him into the “Other.” They have fabricated lies that Obama is a Muslim (which, by the way, when has being a Muslim been a smear tactic?). In fact, Rush Limbaugh went so far to say that Obama was not American but was an Arab (codeword for “Muslim,” which is a codeword for “terrorist”) and came from an Arab part of Africa. This is not only the continuation of a culture of fear, but its simply not true – Kenya (even though Obama is NOT “from” Kenya) is in sub-Saharan Africa, where the national language is English and 90% of its population identify themselves as Christian.

Obama has been said to pal around with terrorists, has been called a socialist (and if Obama is a socialist, then FDR must have been a reincarnated Karl Marx!), a Marxist, a communist, un-American (i.e., not White), has been called scary, unpatriotic, untrustworthy, suspicious, too radical, too risky, too liberal, and a whole number of other things. All of these comments have been made in order to scare the hell out of people and convince them that Obama is not one of us, is a stranger, is not a promoter of American (i.e. White) values, and that we ought to do everything (motivated by fear) to shore up our walls against him and anyone else that isn't just like us.

Christian leaders particularly have sunk to a new low when it comes to promoting a culture of xenophobia (and slander, I might add). Dr. James Dobson and Focus on the Family published a futuristic letter from 2012 that describes what four years of an Obama presidency has been like. The letter describes America as a place where pornography is freely displayed, euthanasia is a common practice, crime runs rampant because of Obama's view on gun laws, America has frequent blackouts because of such high environmental standards, has endured another four terrorist attacks, where homeschooling has been banned, where Christian doctors have been forced to perform abortions or be fired, and where Christians are emigrating to Australia and New Zealand in order to live by their convictions. Dobson even goes so far as to say that its the "younger evangelicals" fault that these things happened because they could have chosen not to vote for Obama. Others have said that a Christian simply can’t vote for Obama, or for any Democrat, and it is a sin to do so (and may wind you up in hell). Lies and fear tactics. As Jim Wallis says, Dr. Dobson owes Christians an apology.

This political turn in this essay is not meant to convince you to vote for Obama, and nor is it to say Obama is innocent of a negative campaign or saying un-hospitable statements (when he says “America is the last best hope for the world,” he is not being very friendly or welcoming or hospitable to all the other great people around the globe). But in the area of cultivating xenophobia, that simply hasn't been Obama's main tactic, because, frankly its difficult to arouse fear in people when your opponent is part of the traditional majority (e.g., white males). I believe there are plenty of good reasons not to vote for Obama and plenty of good reasons not to vote for McCain and godly Christians will go into the voting booth tomorrow and vote for one or the other because of their convictions (or for a 3rd-party candidate!).

Rather, my point is to say, as Christians we ought to be developing a culture of philoxenia and not xenophobia, so please do not allow fear tactics to determine how you vote. If you are going to vote this year, use your head and mind and don't just listen to all the sound bytes going around. Vote by your convictions. Don’t abstain from voting for McCain because you’re sick of him calling everyone his friend or because you’re tired of Palin’s fake Minnesota accent. And don’t abstain from voting for Obama simply because he has big ears or is black. In other words, don’t be stupid and ridiculous. Spend some time thinking about what vote will be most beneficial for the common good of not only America, but the world entire.

What is Hospitality? (Part 1)

I have often asked this question of late, and it came back into my mind recently when we hosted some out of town guests a couple weeks ago for a big philosophy conference here at Duquesne. I hope to write more about our interactions with our guests and what a joy it was to have them here in due time, but I wanted to get this question off my chest because of its timeliness.

So what is hospitality? In Christian circles, particularly, we throw this word around a lot, using it haphazardly and without contemplation. Oftentimes, we say someone is really hospitable if they’re really good at throwing parties, make good food for large groups, or their house is typically the place for people to hang out. These are all good things, but this is not at all what the word means.

The word “hospitality” comes directly from Latin, “hospitalitas.” In Latin, “hospitas” means hostess or friend. The Greek word in the Bible translated hospitality is “philoxenia” (eg, Rom 12:13) literally “the love of strangers,” or “strange love,” as I like to say (because to the world, loving strangers is really strange!). This nuance is carried over into the Latin word “hospitus” which can mean either “hospitable” or “strange, foreign.”

Thus, inviting friends over to one’s house is not philoxenia but more akin to philadelphia (“brotherly love”), or fraternity (Latin from “frater” = brother), or perhaps even cronyism at times. Why is this nuance important? Because when we invite our friends over, we expect reciprocity. If I have a friend over at my place, I expect them to do the same. I scratch your back, you scratch mine, right? But hospitality is supposed to be a gift – and gifts are freely given, no strings attached.

Jacques Derrida, a well-known contemporary philosopher (who is usually misunderstood and der-ided by Christians [Get it – Der-rida, der-ided? Derrida often did this kind of things with words which makes it all the more interesting!), wrote often about hospitality later in his life as it related to the notions of justice, nations, and democracy. He was very critical of fraternity because of its reciprocal nature and called for a democracy that involves unconditional hospitality, a welcoming of the stranger – a nation without borders, that welcomed the immigrant rather than drawing lines of superiority and inferiority based on nationality. Our understanding of nations, or of our community, ought to involve hospitality, a welcoming of the Other, the stranger, the orphan, the widow, and immigrant. But in order for this to be the case, some nuances of the word “community” must be removed. Thus, Derrida would often speak of a “community without community,” with the point being of trying to conceptualize the notion of community without the linguistic implication of essential sameness as well as the us/them or in-group/out-group notion that is inherent within the word. We might describe it as a call for solidarity without assimilation, perhaps.

In Latin, for instance, “communio” means both “communion, mutual participation” but it can also mean “to fortify on all sides, to secure.” Thus, when we say “community” we are often saying, “Yeah, come and join us, but you have to become just like us if you want to and we’re committed to keep out everyone who is different from us” – as is often the case for church membership or how many people understand American citizenship. Likewise, in Latin “communis” means common, united, or universal,” and we can see the detriment of this aspect of community in some forms of communism in which the unity of the group forces a complete eradication of all individuality, creativity, and difference. Too often when people say, “we need to be united” they really mean, “we all need to agree and believe the exact same thing.”

There is something else going on in our notion of hospitality that makes it a paradox, for when I welcome someone into my home, I am situating myself as the powerbroker, the owner of the house, the one who is the master and sovereign of the place. They are a visitor to my abode, a guest inside my possession. In other words, the notion of hospitality is supposed to be one of graciousness and love and welcoming, but it is simultaneously annulled by these binary positions of power and non-power. As John Caputo summarizes, “There is an essential ‘self-limitation’ built right into the idea of hospitality, which preserves the distance between one’s own and the stranger… So there is always a little hostility in all hosting and hospitality, constituting a certain ‘hostil/pitality.’”

In this sense, hospitality is a contradiction, an “impossibility.” Caputo continues, “[H]ow can I graciously welcome the other while still retaining my sovereignty, my master of the house? How can I limit my gift? … Hospitality really starts to happen when I push against this limit, this threshold, this paralysis, inviting hospitality to cross its own threshold and limit, its own self-limitation, to become a gift beyond hospitality… That requires that the host must, in a moment of madness, tear up the understanding between him and the guest, act with ‘excess,’ make an absolute gift of his property, which is of course impossible. But that is the only way the guest can go away feeling as if he was really made at home.” In other words, hospitality begins when the lines between host and guest become blurred, when my notion of community is rid of its desire to fortify and secure.

A wonderful example of this is the scene in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables in which the convict, Jean Valjean, stays at Bishop Monseigneur Bienvenu’s house. In the middle of the night, Jean Valjean steals away with the Bishop’s silver, pewter plates, and so forth. The next day, soldiers come to Bienvenu’s house (the maids all in a tizzy about the missing possessions), Jean Valjean in hand to inquire about the silver found in the convict’s knapsack. At the appearance of the convict, the old priest hurries up to him and exclaims, “Ah, there you are! I am glad to see you. But! I gave you the candlesticks also, which are silver like the rest, and would bring two hundred francs. Why did you not take them along with your plates?... My friend, before you go away, here are your candlesticks, take them… Now, go in peace. By the way, my friend, when you come again, you need not come through the garden. You can always come in and go out by the front door. It is closed only with a latch, day or night.”

Now that is hospitality!

Jesus said similar things. Jesus was once invited to a party by a wealthy religious ruler. At the party, he looked at the man who had invited him and said, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you” (Luke 14:12-14). Jesus and Derrida agree: Hospitality is not about reciprocity and is too often confused with other things.

[To be Continued...]