Songs of Pain and Hope

In the James Bond movie Skyfall, there is this great scene where M / Judi Dench is facing a government committee trying to get rid of MI6.  The committee thinks that the agency is obsolete, unnecessary.  

She then makes the salient point that conflicts now occur in the shadows.  That enemies are now more difficult and even impossible to detect.  That the world is now more opaque than ever.  I used to show this clip to colleagues to remind them of our responsibility.

As part of her speech, M quotes from Tennyson’s “Ulysses” – Though much is taken, much abides.  And though we are not now that strength in old days that once moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are.  One equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate.  But strong in will.  To seek, to strive, to find, and not to yield.

I used to prefer Achilles over Ulysses.  I’ve realized Achilles is just a man of violence.  Still brave.  I now see why Athena loved Ulysses so much, with his keen intellect and fortitude.

Tennyson’s poem captures an older hero bored with his wife and kingly duties.  His choice is to either run down the clock or sail again looking for adventure.  Other than those prior lines, I love the one that goes “I will drink life to the lees.”  

I have some close friends who really believe that life primarily sucks, we will all end up in a coffin, etc.  Not too sure about that approach.

And if not into Bond or Tennyson, the Peanuts strip. 

Charlie Brown : Some day, we will all die, Snoopy.

Snoopy : True, but on all the other days, we will not.

Or Game of Thrones.

What do we say to the God of Death?

Not today.

One time, my daughter told me about some mean kid at school.  I just told her to leave him alone.  Ok, I know, I won’t win the Christian Father of the Year award.  What I could have said was “Be nice to him, maybe he’s just lonely and misunderstood.”  But I was younger.  And maybe he was really a mean kid.

Watch the Enemy’s Camp Burn from Across the Shore.  The first of the 36 Stratagems I taught her.  We even role played this principle out with her Dr. McStuffin bed.  You don’t have to intervene or engage when someone evil is floundering.  The illustration I use is from Batman Begins when Bruce Wayne tells his former mentor and teacher Ras Al Ghul, who is dangling from a moving train about to crash into Wayne Towers – “I’m not going to kill you.  But I don’t have to save you.”

A pastor once taught that the best things about bullies is many don’t grow up.  Doesn’t sound too hopeful on the surface, but on closer inspection, it’s a poor end for those who torment and abuse others.  At the end, they know what they did.  No scrambling, mental gymnastics, prayers for forgiveness is going to change that.  (Yes, I believe in grace and the forgiveness of sins, but not erasure of the past).

Again, yes, not biblical – probably supposed to do good for those who persecute us, etc.  Not perfect.

If you couldn’t tell, I didn’t have the easiest time growing up in a Chinese church.  In a congregation made up primarily of Mandarin and Cantonese people, I was labeled a banana or Twinkie – yellow on the outside and white on the inside.  I really loved classic rock, alternative rock, and some metal.  But I think I just didn’t like the submissive compliant role I was supposed to play.

The summer I was in Minnesota, I got blasted by some church leaders for being difficult.  Ok, I am but those cases don’t get won by an easier person and neither do those students taught.

But I was young and got upset.  So I drove to Lake Superior, parked next to it, and wrote a poem.  I remember the first line, forgot most of the middle, but it’us the last line that has been etched in my memory.

“I know who I am

I am ready to go home.”

That was also the summer when I told a teammate to foul someone hard in basketball to prevent him from scoring.  To my surprise, a timeout was called and I got pulled from the game.  A deacon was summoned to tell me that’s not how they played the game.

In my head I was thinking, how exactly do you play the game here?  Like little girls?  Which would be an insulut to little girls because I ended up learning that little girls were much tougher than the guys I was playing with.

At that point of my life, I had already played in the inner city of DC,  Nashville, and most importantly, Philadelphia (tough as nails).  And I was raised on pre-offense only NBA basketball where every bucket had to be earned.

I didn’t really obey as you may have imagined.  I kept hand checking on defense and got talked to again.  I really miss this version of me.

(From the DA years)

A few years ago, 11-year old Miriam White stabbed and murdered a 55-year old hairdresser with a steak knife.  Both White and her victim did not previously know each other.  White said that the reason why she killed the victim was to get out of her foster home.  White had been abused and sexually assaulted by her birth parents.  The foster parent that she had been assigned to also gave up on her.  She was a mentally and emotionally disturbed girl. 

In prison, White tried to stab her tutor with a pencil, threw her excrement at the prison guards, and expressed her desire to kill other people along with other disturbing actions.  Under Pennsylvania law, she will be tried as an adult, but will probably not receive the death penalty.  White is currently 17-years old as she is still awaiting trial. 

My questions include the following: 

What is the appropriate penalty for someone like Miriam White? 

Can someone like her be redeemed and rehabilitated? 

How does God look at situations like this? 

Why aren’t we as Christians doing more to address these problems?

(I know this is rhetorical.  As a senior pastor put it at our past missions conference, our primary goal is to worship God, then service will follow.  Although that statement is theologically sound, it seems like a cop-out answer or excuse more often than not.)

This site will focus primarily on my original writing but I will on the very rare occasions post the thoughts of others because they are too valuable not to.

I learned about Thomas Merton in law school. For some reason, his work resonated with me. His path to becoming a monk was unconventional and powerful.

The following passage has remained in my consciousness since then.

“My hope is in what the eye has never seen.  Therefore let me not trust in visible rewards.  

My hope is in what the heart of man cannot feel.  Therefore let me not trust in the feelings of my heart. 

My hope is in what the hand of man has never touched.  Do not let me trust what I can grasp between my fingers.  Death will loosen my grasp and my vain hope will be gone.  

Let me trust in Your mercy, not in myself.  Let my hope be in Your love, not in health, or strength, or ability or human resources.  If I trust You, everything will become, for me, strength, health, and support.  Everything will bring me to heaven.  If I do not trust You, everything will be my destruction.” M

If I end up in a classroom again, I would open with a discussion of the ending scene from the first season of True Detective.  Two veteran detectives are outside a hospital looking at the night sky.  When one says there is only one story, the oldest – light versus dark, the other replies that it appears that the dark has more territory.  The first – Yeah, you’re right about that but you’re looking at it wrong.  Once there was only darkness, you ask me, the light is winning.

A friend, a former nun who now lives by the ocean, once told me that everyone needs to look at the banner flying over them to see which side they are fighting for.  Regardless of a person’s belief system, I think this framework holds a lot of water.

It is light versus darkness.  We are either life givers or life takers.  I don’t think there’s a middle ground here.  As Geddy Lee of Rush puts it – If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

But I understand that this can be a tough sell in a world that contains and rewards so much brutality and darkness.  

Another scene that I’ve found profound is from the Netflix adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman.  Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams, is in a thought battle with Lucifer.  They try to one-up each other with concepts – I’m a direwolf.  I’m a hunter.  I’m a serpent.  So on and so forth.

Lucifer, thinking she has made the killing and final move, goes “I am anti-life.  The Beast of Judgment.  The dark at the end of everything.”

Lucifer taunts “What now, Dream Lord?  What would you be now?  There are no more moves.”

Morpheus, now prostrate on the ground, seemingly defeated, gets a pep talk from his servant raven – “You know what survives the anti-life?  You do.  Dreams don’t f——— die.”

Staggering to his feet, he replies “I am hope. What is it that kills hope?”  Even Lucifer cannot bring herself to respond because she maintains hope of seeing heaven again.

Nothing kills hope.  And the raven is right about dreams.

Despite the validity of the Ten Commandments, children should learn to lie.  This isn’t just my crazy idea, it is grounded in the serious thinking of others.  A child who doesn’t know how to lie will be targeted, taken advantage of, hurt, or worse.

I once asked my daughter in kindergarten whether she would tell the truth if her friend was hiding in a closet and a bad person asked whether he was there.  She said she would tell him her friend was at the playground instead to divert and confuse.  Recently, my son asked whether dying on your feet would be less preferable than playing dead to be left alone. 

Proud dad.

The Art of War discuses the use of the conventional and unconventional.  Conventional to accomplish the unconventional and vice versa.  And they aren’t static – what is conventional today may be unconventional tomorrow, unconventional today, conventional tomorrow.

Like using lies to tell the truth.  Truth to tell lies.  And everything in between.  Unfortunately in my work, I was too familiar with these practices.  I once drafted some material for the Department’s propaganda wing.  Fun, but a bit icky looking back.

The way God often did things with me was to draw bullies.  At school, work, church.  It may not be apparent, but I am naturally shy and quiet.  It made me a target.  But what often happened (and will happen) is I could eventually fight back and get the better of then.  As I’ve said – hidden.  With skills and friends.

I don’t like it one bit.

My life was filled with showboaters and talkers.  Doesn’t it seem like they rule and run the world?  And wow it’s more apparent than ever.  You see it on social media – Instagram, X, LinkedIn.   Most of the time, I think to myself – please shut the f—- up – you’re really not saying much.  It takes a lot of thought and time to say less and more.

One of the most profound scenes about parenting is from the Godfather where an aging Vito has one last conversation with Michael about his vision.  It is profound and on point.  There are strings and levers to be pulled but it’s not what you think.  It’s easy to think it’s about power and politics- and yes, there’s a certain truth and reality to all that. 

Rather, it’s about the unseen.  The invisible spiritual with its unforced rhythms of grace.  We often conceive of God in our own image and that’s a really dumb and dangerous way to play it.  I do it a lot .

When you put God in a box, that’s what you’ll usually get.   But when you don’t, that’s when He can rise to the occasion and more.  At times, people thought I was stupid or weak because I remained quiet.  I was actually being careful, waiting for the right time to act, and planning moves.  Not fun or easy although satisfying at times.

The real lesson here though is to let God make His moves.  They are often quiet, hidden, counterintuitive.

Until they aren’t.

William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, once said “The greatness of a man’s power is the measure of his surrender.”  I’ve held this quote close to my heart to balance out the other well-known, but more cynical ones on power (this one that also stands out – “Every man can handle adversity but if you want to test his character, give him power.”)

Surrender is a difficult concept to wrap one’s mind around much less implement.  The word conjures up visions of retreating (a legitimate tactic at times), giving up, etc.  Not such a valued idea in modern society.

I haven’t fully understood the concept myself.  But an example I found instructive and captures it well is from the first Star Wars movie “A New Hope” when Darth Vader is in a lightsaber duel with his former master Obi Wan Kenobi.  Vader is bigger, younger, and stronger, Obi Wan an old man by now.  But Obi Wan still has game – he goes “You can’t win.  If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”

I don’t usually like to talk about the New Testament portion of my faith very much, more of an Old Testament guy.  But the parallels to the crucifixion and resurrection are inescapable.

I’ve had to practice surrender quite a bit, usually after struggling and exhausting all other options.  It does work.

I took the girl wall-climbing.  She’s pretty good Mulan style – certainly neither my DNA nor example (as a child, I couldn’t even do the monkey bars).  There was one wall, however, she simply couldn’t climb no matter how much she tried.

I just told her “Sometimes the wall wins.”

I have some very close friends experiencing major challenges.  All you can really do at times is offer up prayers of hope, listen, walk together.  

But sometimes the wall wins. A former student just died of cancer at the age of 37.  The wall f______ won.

People can say things like keep climbing, don’t give up.  Find another way to conquer the wall, go around, go under.  True most of the time, not all.

Sometimes, you just go, ok wall, you win. I’ll come back when I’m older or stronger.  Or I’m going to find something else to do.