Wow.

(H/T on the video to Powerline Blog) How come New Jersey gets Christie and we're stuck with the Governator?

RIP Michael Spencer

I've been too busy with work to even think about personal blogging lately and I feel like I have quite a backlog of writing built up. However I don't want to let the passing of Michael Spencer (aka The Internet Monk) go completely without notice in this space.

Michael died after a short battle with cancer and over the last few months as his friends have have maintained his blog I've dreaded seeing an unread story from internetmonk.com pop up in my news-reader; knowing and expecting that it would be the announcement of his death.

I didn't always agree with IMonk's articles but his generous spirit, concern for the gospel, desire for a Jesus-shaped life, and willingness to identify bullshit as such made me an avid reader of his over the last few years. The silliness and shallowness rampant in the contemporary Evangelical Church cry out for an adult response (and perhaps occasionally a little adult language). IMonk frequently provided that adult perspective and challenged me to relate to the whole Church through time and across traditions.

InternetMonk.com is re-running classic columns right now and one struck a chord with my recent experiences through the Easter season. At Easter, the oldest Christian Holy-day, it seems appropriate to engage with the traditions of the Church. Even if it's not a usual part of the regular weekly service, Easter Sunday should feature rather more prayer, vigils, reading of Scripture, singing of the many great Easter hymns, proclamation of the Creeds and involvement in the rich liturgical heritage of the Church. Give us depth - one or two Sundays a year, we can handle it!

This classic IMonk column isn't about Easter - but it is about the value found in looking to the traditions of the Church catholic in how we should conduct our worship. I haven't had as much experience with liturgical services - but reading this makes me want to.

Today the Christian year is one of my passions. Advent, Lent, Holy Week, Epiphany, Trinity Sunday, Christ the King, Ascension, Annunciation, Holy Baptism–all of these days teach us the story of Jesus and preach the Gospel to us. Why would we want to neglect this great heritage? Why can’t all Christians see the value in the visual and artistic celebration of the Gospel that is made possible using the Christian year?

Thank you Michael for providing grist for many interesting conversations.

His lord said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.' Matt 25:23

Boxing and Me Part II

(See the previous post if you haven't already.)

This isn't yet the answer to my question about boxing and violence. But I think it's probably worthwhile to start out with a sense of what training at an amateur boxing gym is like.

I was actually startled by the atmosphere the first few times I went to my boxing gym. In fact the first time I went in, I stood outside and took a couple of deep breaths before I sauntered in. I mean - come on - it's a boxing gym just north of the bad part of town (which is where I live), it has a grafitti-style sign painted on the wall - Bad to the Bonz - the gym name. It's between a body shop and a custom cycle shop with chromed bikes outside and a big rottweiler inside. I was prepared to be intimidated.

This wasn't just social profiling either. I've been in gyms all my life. I've never been a jock but I've always enjoyed a casual bit of weightlifting. A little excess of testosterone usually goes with the territory.

The atmosphere at this particular gym, however, is among the most friendly and open I've ever been around. Half the time there are little kids there, either training with a relative or just hanging while their parents train. And I haven't had a bad experience yet - there's no pressure to fight, nobody striking a pose, less "macho" by far than I would have expected.

And this extends to the fighters. When outsiders come to our gym to spar the sparring intensity level approaches a real match. Punches are thrown at full speed and people hurt when they take a punch. But I haven't yet seen any anger, haven't yet seen any bad sportsmanship. Even the TKO I saw ended shortly after with a fighter's embrace and mutual congratulation.

The reasons for this are eminently practical - boxing takes discipline and anger simply isn't helpful - at least in the context of sparring. The combatants enter the ring to learn something, to work on a particular skill and the pain they endure is simply the price that must be paid to learn.

I said I wasn't going to answer the question of nonviolence yet; I'm trying to keep these posts short. But my interests in nonviolence and boxing begin to merge at this point. How many self proclaimed pacifists do you know who could take a punch to the face and embrace their attacker? Me neither - yet boxers do it all the time. Could it be that pugilists have something to teach the peacemakers?

Confidence or Cowardice?

Last night wasn't as bad as last year - but I continue to be a little confounded by my Church's annual business meeting.

There wasn't anything ground-shaking on the agenda but we did modify our constitution in a couple of spots. And we did this with absolutely no discussion. While the changes weren't substantial they are part of our (very brief) constitution and merited a little discussion. If no one else was - I at least was opposed to the changes and I was curious about the ramifications they might have in terms of our practice. It was pretty clear however that leadership wasn't particularly interested in discussing the changes so we took a vote without discussion and moved on.

It occurred to me that there are two possible reasons not to talk about changes to our constitution. One possible reason is confidence - if our constitution contained inaccurate information and obviously needed to be updated (say our address changed) than we might feel confident enough that the changes are self-evidently necessary and approve them without needing to talk about them at all. And after all our modifications passed by the necessary 2/3 majority - so perhaps it was a case of justified confidence.

But I think that it is cowardice that leads us to silence. Maybe instead of confidence it's a desire not to talk about the path we're on. Maybe nobody wants to talk about this stuff because everybody knows that we're divided and we'd rather not face that fact. It might just be a case of Ignore them and maybe they'll go away

I'm not a psychic, so I can't tell you what motive predominated. But neither explanation is particularly comforting to me. I've spent most of my life out of step with my wider social circle for various reasons (fellow geeks probably understand this without explanation) and I've got that familiar out-of-sync feeling. I'm not confident about our path (Well - I am in the "Stop! You're headed the the wrong way" sense). And I've never been able to understand what you gain by avoiding talking about something that's true and there none-the-less. Whatever the reasons for the way we do our business, it always leaves me unsettled.

Update: I've had a couple of people give me feedback (via comments and email). Thanks! I had one thought I expressed via email that I thought I should drop here as well:

I was thinking reading your note how much of the past we bring to the present. I completely agree (after the fact) that I should have talked about this beforehand, rather than waiting till after. Part of it all, however, is I grew up in a Church that strongly discouraged discussing council meeting business before the meeting (I think the idea was they didn't want to encourage factionalism) but also had a strong tradition of hashing things out in the meeting. We had four council meetings a year so if something needed talking out we could usually just postpone it three months and bring it up again.

I have to say I chafed a bit when I was young at the cultural pressure against talking before the meeting. Now that I've a little more experience, I have to say that the insistence on doing the business of the Church as the Church was well founded.

I guess I express two separate concerns each year after business meeting. One concern is the decisions we make, the other is how we make our decisions. It would go a long ways towards assuaging my second concern if we met more frequently and talked more openly. Maybe I should be talking about transparency and good governance! What we need is a Brethren Tea Party movement! Yeah, that's the ticket...

Boxing and Me Part I

So if you follow me on twitter or facebook you already know that I've been into boxing lately. For the last 4-5 months I've been going to a boxing gym in my neighborhood 2-3 times a week for a couple hours at a time. I wrap my hands, put on gloves and hit a heavy bag for a while, take part in group calisthenics, and do drills or exercises afterwards.

I started because I wanted to get into better shape - particularly aerobic shape. That's definitely happening. The first time I went I nearly passed out during the calisthenics (literally - I stood up turned pale, and had to bend over. Ice cold water on the neck brought me right round) and now I'm able to lead a class and talk while we do a few hundred jumps, a few hundred crunch variations and squats and pushups. I'm sticking with it for the exercise alone and I'm going to be in the best shape of my life by the time the year is out.

Strangely though, I'm also finding the actual boxing side of things... interesting. In fact one of my annual resolutions this year is to work my fitness and skill level up to be able to take part in full speed sparring. This despite, maybe because, I really don't like getting punched so far.

This is also despite the fact that I'm a pacifist. I don't actually like the term but that's what people would call the practical outcome of my beliefs - as a Christian I believe I am called to renounce violence. I reject violence personally as a way of accomplishing things and I cannot participate in the various forms of state violence - the military or law enforcement for example - that are widely seen as moral or ethical.

So what the heck am I doing in a boxing gym contemplating participation in a sport that is - let us not kid ourselves - basically organized violence? How can I justify punching and taking a punch as a regular activity and still say that I reject violence in any meaningful way?

Breaking with my tradition of writing single long posts I'd like to instead write several posts answering those questions. For a hint at some answers, however, you might read Chuck Klosterman's tribute to Norman Mailer.

...his central pugilistic theory, which originally ran in Esquire in October 1993: "[Boxing] arouses two of the deepest anxieties we contain. There is not only the fear of getting hurt, which is profound in more men than will admit to it, but there is the opposite panic, equally unadmitted, of hurting others." This was the inevitable thesis for all of the Hemingway-influenced boxing writers. What made the sport transcendent was its relationship with the base qualities of being alive. There is nothing contextual about hitting another man, and there is nothing metaphysical about getting punched in the face. For most of the twentieth century, people who wanted to write about primordial reality wrote about fighting. But not anymore. It seems we have finally reached the point where modern Americans have no relationship with primordial reality whatsoever.