TxDOT's Messing With Prada Marfa

If the devil wears Prada, he must be one-legged.

Right-legged, in fact, if he wants to shop at Prada's elite shop in Marfa, Texas.

Which isn't, actually, open for business.

Confused yet?  Good, because that's kinda what the Prada family, along with pop culture artists Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset, want you to be.  Elmgreen and Dragset are European purveyors of the ironic and socially-conscious, and they talked the Prada family, purveyors of extravagantly-priced leather goods, into letting them make a point about the transitory nature of conspicuous consumption.

Complicating matters further is that Prada Marfa isn't in Marfa, Texas, but the even smaller, dustier two-bit outpost of Valentine, a half-hour's drive northwest of Marfa.

If you're really into the arts scene, you may have heard of Marfa, a small town which, compared to Valentine, may nevertheless seem like a metropolis.  Built as a railroad stop on the high desert, Marfa, with less than two thousand full-time residents, rivals some of New Mexico's quaint, remote Postmodern artist colonies in terms of its non-classical cultural expressionism.  Eclectic, with a decidedly left-wing bias, Marfa has experienced a resurgence since the 1970's as an outpost of avant-garde East Coast minimalism, replete with surprisingly high real estate prices, and a snobbery liberals like to pretend only Republicans display.

But still:  shopping for Prada?  Who'd go so far out of their way to spend that kind of money at such a store, you might ask?  Do they build any sort of outlet mall that far removed from civilization?  Even at their prices, how can Prada manage the customer volume to stay profitable?

At the Prada Marfa, there is no handle on the door.  In fact, the door is part of the art.  From the street, which actually is a plain ol' country highway, with two lanes of blacktop running straight and flat, the Prada Marfa sits off to the side, by itself.  A small, square box in the middle of scrubland, with a life-sized and lifelike facade, complete with awnings and four Prada logos.  Two plate-glass windows frame the non-existent glass "door," revealing a monotone showroom with chic purses and racks of shoes on display, lit by custom lighting in the evening.  Except all of the products on display are from Prada's fall/winter 2005 collection, like a time capsule from when the store "opened" in October of that year.

And it's not as if the products are even sellable.  The purses have had their bottoms removed, and all of the shoes are rights, with none of their matching lefts languishing in some stockroom in the back.  In fact, there is no stockroom; that's why the devil who'd wear these Pradas is right-footed.

Not only is there no stockroom, but there's no back door.  There's no cash register, no sales people, and no customers, either.  But there is plenty of advertising, and almost all of it is free.  Like the free advertising the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is giving Prada Marfa this week with its decision rendering the so-called art installation as unlicensed advertising, akin to a billboard for the famous Prada brand.

And TxDOT (say: "tex-dot") is scrambling to corral unlicensed billboards across the Lone Star State.  Pesky varmints.

For its part, Prada Marfa is situated on private, unzoned land with the consent of its landowner, so what's the big deal?  The reason it's unlicensed is because it's neither an advertisement nor a commercial establishment; it is, in the words of Marfa's culturally sophisticated denizens, "art."  It's sculpture made of glass, concrete, leather, all-weather awning material, and electronic illumination that happens to include elements that look suspiciously like a floor and a roof.

"So," demands TxDOT, "what about the 'Prada' name and logo in four places on the awnings, hmm?"

Well, for one thing, the signs are parallel with the roadway, which means they're not exactly legible to passing motorists traveling at 80 mph.  Their lettering is also relatively small, at approximately one foot in height for the largest logo.  Granted, the - ahem! - "sculpture" sits pretty close to the road, but that doesn't make the word "Prada" any easier to read.  And since the products in the artwork are now eight years old - a lifetime in fashion retailing - it's not like they're advertising anything, either.

Several months ago, a similar complaint from TxDOT was raised not far away from Prada Marfa, on the same desolate stretch of roadway, only it involved a towering neon Playboy bunny.  Playboy erected its logo atop a 40-foot pole by the side of the road, next to a concrete pedestal upon which a battered 1972 Dodge Charger had been mounted.  Maybe the iconic smut purveyor was hoping to conjure images of Cadillac Ranch, yet another roadside oddity in west Texas, to dispel the far more overt advertising aspects of its sculpture.  Hey, Postmodern art can be interpreted so many different ways!  But no, TxDOT isn't buying it, and is making Playboy remove their logo, even if they're letting the vintage Charger remain.

Elmgreen and Dragset built Prada Marfa out of conventional construction materials, but aside from some petty vandalism over the years, they've pretty much left it to decompose on its own.  Their theme, remember, involves a mixture of status, conspicuousness, superfluousness, and decay, but since they chose the arid climes of Marfa for their project, like the planes our aviation industry stores in the desert, Prada Marfa will take a while to disintegrate.  If TxDOT wanted to complain about it being an unsafe structure, like any number of far older buildings which have been left to disintegrate along plenty of Texas highways with their vintage Texaco and Champion signs still affixed to them - which might make a more compelling argument against Prada Marfa on their part - then they're going to have to wait.  By no practical interpretation can Prada Marfa be considered advertisement, so their current objection towards it is a bit silly.

Of course, since it wasn't cheap to build Prada Marfa, perhaps the same art connoisseurs who paid for the original sculpture should fork over some extra bucks to secure whatever permits TxDOT wants it to have just to get the bureaucracy off of its back.

But then again, maybe TxDOT is unwittingly playing into Elmgreen and Dragset's hands.  By badgering the project with governmental rules and regulations, TxDOT could be adding yet another angle to the artwork - that of the struggles private enterprise encounters as it deals with tax-collecting, fee-taking, and red-tape-creating authorities.

Leave it to Texas, and the bare-bones, supposedly business-oriented state government over which Governor Rick Perry so proudly rules, to be making such a case against privately-funded art.

Ironically, a number of years ago, TxDOT created the marketing slogan, "Don't Mess With Texas," for its anti-littering campaign.  Recently, as the slogan has become more widely known, the state has been quietly ramping up its efforts at protecting it as a licensed brand, wresting monetary legal settlements from the mostly innocent parties who try to use it without authorization.  TxDOT likes to claim that the phrase is popularly known as an anti-littering message, and should stay that way, but whether the general population knows that is debatable.

Prada Marfa may not have sought to mess with Texas and its deceptively aggressive TxDOT, and after eight years, it's a little ignominious for it to take a neon bunny for officials to discover the clever bit of sculptural social commentary out in the middle of nowhere.

So, maybe an "Open from 9am until 9pm" sign should get included on the window.

That way, Governor Perry could use Prada Marfa as a prop for his "open for business" bragging rights.

Crutch or Truth? Seeing God Despite Doubt

How do we know?

How do we know the God of the Bible is the one, eternal God of the universe?

How do we know that Jesus is His Son, and that our belief in that relationship saves us from eternal damnation in Hell?

How do we know there's a literal Heaven and a literal Hell, anyway?

What makes Christianity as true and compelling as its adherents claim it to be?  Can't Christianity simply be seen as a comprehensive collection of folklore, fables, superstitions, and moral traditions contrived to explain the reality of life as we encounter it?  What makes Christianity fact, instead of mythology?

These are questions people have been asking since the time of Christ.  In fact, people have been disputing the existence of God since at least before the time of Noah.  And, um, that great flood, that many people think is simply a far-fetched allegory about true goodness being rare in the world.

I mean, really!  How did so few men build so great a seafaring craft that it could sustain the menagerie of God's animal kingdom for those mystical 40 days?  Noah's Ark may be a cute theme for a child's bedroom, but I'm too intelligent a person to peg my identity on a religion that expects me to take it as historical fact.

It's that kind of pride and self-confidence amongst unbelievers that stokes their incredulity.  And even among professing Christians.  Indeed, not everybody who claims to be a Christian believes they need to take the Bible literally.  Isn't interpreting the Bible's stories and narratives as metaphors, allegories, and literary poetry a far more rational approach to Christianity?  A belief system which, after all, is but one of many ways of pursuing universal truth?

How can some Christians defend "every jot and tittle" of the Bible as infallible?  Inerrant?  Considering all of the translations, transcriptions, and primitive documentation techniques throughout the history of interpersonal communication, how do we know this stuff hasn't acquired a fanciful level of embellishment?  Line up ten adults, whisper a sentence to the first one, and by the time that sentence gets repeated through all ten people, it rarely resembles the original.

Don't Christians expect their adherents to take so much on sheer faith?

And then they tell us that the peace they receive from their Sovereign Deity makes all of the uncertainty, lack of quantifiable proofs, and unreasonableness worth it.  They can't really describe that peace, except to say that it "passes understanding."  Awfully convenient, isn't it?  Saying that the rewards they get for believing what they can't verify can't be verified, either.

We've seen the sort of "peace" members of certain cults exhibit:  the blind trust in their leader, even in the face of obvious fallacies.  What separates Christianity from any other cult, except the fact that Christianity is so popular and conventional?

Indeed, the culture of Christianity evangelicals have historically enjoyed in North America has created a deceptively shallow environment in which we've been able to perpetuate our faith.  Even within communities of faith, a lot of people really don't know why they believe what they believe - if they even know what they believe!  Now, we're seeing how shallow that environment has been, as moral standards that were once unchallenged in our society are becoming imperiled by greater and greater numbers of people asking all of these same questions in ever-louder voices.

How can one group of people expect protections and exceptions simply by saying their holy book is better than another religion's holy book?  What makes the way I want to live my life more offensive than the way you want to live yours?  You say yours is the religion of freedom; well, I want my freedom!

Evangelicals have been taught that we should respond to these questions, criticisms, and complaints from society in the same fashion that Jesus responded to Satan when he tempted Him.  In other words, we should use Scripture as our defense.  And there's nothing wrong with that.  But it's not necessarily the only approach.

Consider the fact that the Devil believes God exists.  He used to be an angel himself.  Jesus could quote Scripture and drive Satan away because they were both communicating with a shared knowledge of the Author of their reality.  Mortals, however, who don't believe God exists, aren't necessarily going to give any credence to His Word.  Why should they, if they don't trust the Author of the Bible?

Perhaps, when our audience can appreciate its legitimacy, believers in Christ can rely on the Bible to provide answers for the hope that is inside of us, and we can offer narratives from our personal testimony when our audience doesn't consider the Bible legitimate.  Think of it as a matter of perspective.  The Bible teaches that only the Holy Spirit can illuminate God's Word, but we can't always recognize those people in whom the Holy Spirit is at work.  Besides, Christians should be able to put into our own words the reasons for why we believe what we believe, right?

For example, we evangelicals believe that all of Creation tells the glory of God.  In fact, if we don't give God glory, Creation will literally cry out instead.  So, although it sounds eerily like New Age pantheism, I have to admit that I cannot look at trees, or contemplate mathematics, or watch the tide, or look at a newborn animal without believing that some sort of "greater power" orchestrated all of it.  Wouldn't this "greater power" have to be all-knowing and all-powerful?  I mean:  Look around you!  Don't just take all of what you see for granted.  If the God of the Bible didn't create all of this, then another supreme being had to.  Had to!

It takes more faith to believe evolutionary theory than the Bible's literal account of Creation.

How about the Bible as literature?  Doesn't it strike you as amazing that, aside from some minor technical aberrations, there is not one significant discrepancy within the content of a book compiled of different manuscripts by different authors, writing in different languages, over a span of centuries?  Our world has known some pretty impressive writers, but no other holy book has stood the test of time and academic scrutiny like the Bible.  Isn't it too consistent not to trust?

Then there's the Christian Deity Himself:  God.  God isn't just one person, but He's three people!  God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  Bizarre, right?  Why complicate your religion with a concept humanity will never understand?  Christians call our tripartite Deity the "Trinity," but that word isn't even in the Bible!  Why intentionally make a faith concept that has to utterly depend on faith in the unseen and unexplainable?  The only explanation has to be that this is simply the way it is.  Things can exist whether we believe they exist or not.  God's three selves - as the Chinese government officially describes Christianity - is/are one/three of those Things.

Of course, the hardened skeptic will still be protesting the idea that only God's Holy Spirit can reveal His truth to humanity.  What a cop-out!  So, Christians can simply dismiss somebody's unbelief as a lack of something none of us can see or quantify?  Shouldn't we be working a little harder at trying to make this make sense?

Which, actually, brings us to the most bizarre part of Christianity:  you and I do nothing to get it.  We do nothing to earn it.  We can't work for it, study for it, take a test for it, pay for it, slave away for it, kill ourselves for it, meet quotas for it, or even believe in it hard enough, with our eyes squinched really, really tight!  Faith in Christ is a free gift from God.  Christ is the One Who paid for it through His death, burial, and resurrection.  All we do is believe, in faith, trusting what God says in His Word is true.

Now, some of us Christians part ways over the process by which this belief is applied to us.  Some Christians, such as many Baptists, say that we "choose" to believe.  Other Christians, such as Presbyterians, believe God chooses us.  The difference is that, for example, Baptists say we have to make a decision to believe in God, whereas Presbyterians say God has already decided, in His infinite sovereignty, those people throughout history who will believe in Him.

Is that getting too theological for you?  Yeah, it gets that way to me too, sometimes.  Not only that, but every single question I've written in this essay I've also asked myself, and not just years ago, when I became a Christian.  Faith would be so much simpler and easier if I had concrete proofs upon which I could base my trust.  Yet God's power and status in our world is so incomprehensible, He wants us to give up the things we can see, touch, and even feel, not relying on them for our faith, but on His Word instead.

God wants us so dependent upon Him that we're willing to live in faith even if you mock me for doing so.  Even if I can't prove what I believe to your satisfaction - or even, sometimes, when I'm languishing in my own doubt.  Why?  Because by trusting in Him, I demonstrate belief in His ability to care for me, which illustrates His supreme authority over every area of life, which confers glory to Him.

During those times when I struggle with unanswered questions and fears about whether this whole Christianity thing is one big mistake on my part, God promises not to reject me.  Having doubts amid faith is not a sin.  I can't be excommunicated for asking questions.  God is not challenged by my shaky grasp of His reality.  His authority is not based on numbers, or memberships, or some other measurement of a customer base.  His sovereignty doesn't depend on how many countries claim to be a "Christian" nation.  God is so supreme, He never instructs us to ridicule or kill people for refusing to believe in Him.  What other belief system is so secure?

Meanwhile, many of us Christians have bought into a market-centered approach to God.  We view our Christianized culture as an affirmation of God's truth, and view the evaporation of that culture with fear.  Perhaps having had that cushion of cultural Christianity did us more harm than good, if we're incapable of expressing to new generations the reasons for why we can't just go with the flow.  Why we're so committed to what you think are stodgy and increasingly unpopular ideas.  And why some of us will probably waiver little from what we claim to be truth, even if our Christianized culture fades completely from our continent.

Some might see that resoluteness as a strength, but unbelievers don't.  They see us as hypocritically hanging on to goofy legends and hollow promises like fussy kindergartners waiting for recess on the first day of school.

Are we weak-hearted and feeble-minded?  Do we need some sort of crutch to fortify our emotional stability?  Is all of this belief in God, Jesus, and the Bible simply another coping mechanism?  A coping mechanism that is infringing on your preferred coping mechanisms?

To the extent that God provides us with certain spiritual "comforts," then perhaps at least some of our faith could be classified as a coping mechanism.  Christians can't deny that they need God's help to sustain their faith, and even I, as I've already admitted, have doubts from time to time about God's claims regarding Himself.  But that's all part of giving up ourselves for God.  It's a concept that people who will never be saved likely will never understand.  And yes, if that sounds like a cop-out, then we'll have to agree that you are entitled to your version of reality.  God hasn't yet dragged anybody - Baptist, Presbyterian, atheist, or otherwise - kicking and screaming into His Kingdom.

God wants our devotion, but He doesn't need it.

Can you say that about your god, even if your god is yourself?

Flight 93's Honor Roll

They took a vote!

We know what they voted on, and the result.  And it doesn't sound as though there were any dissenters.  Nobody asked for a recount, or pouted over their loss.

According to multiple reports relayed by loved ones of passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93, the vote was to charge the cockpit and thwart the attack.

September 11, 2001, began as a normal travel day for these passengers.  We'd likely have never heard about any of these folks had their flight made its way uneventfully from Newark to San Francisco.  And even today, we may not remember their names, since there were so many names on 9/11.  But we know what they did.

We know they knew their flight had become a weapon.  We know they knew it was a suicide mission.  We know they knew about planes being flown into New York's Twin Towers.  They knew.  They were talking from the back of their plane with relatives, co-workers, and even telephone operators.  One flight attendant began boiling water in case she found an opportunity to douse a hijacker with it.  Some reported seeing another flight attendant, dead on the plane.  Some were crying and screaming in brutal fright, anguished at the reality they all faced.

They weren't landing and simply walking off the plane when their flight was over.  In fact, they probably weren't even landing.  They were going to crash.

Flight data recorders documented the passenger's siege of the terrorist-occupied cockpit.  It took all of six surreal and selfless minutes, beginning at 9:57, and ending at 10:03, when Flight 93 pulverized itself into a field in rural Stonycreek Township, near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

At 563 miles per hour.

Early reports of this heroic effort included the rousing call, "Let's Roll," presumed to have been uttered by one of the leaders of the plan to rush the cockpit.  And maybe, in an attempt to bolster the spirits of passengers facing their eternal fate in terms of minutes, instead of years, somebody did issue those words as a charge to action.  Later, however, we'd learn officially from recordings made by air traffic controllers of the words "roll it," uttered at 10:00:02, in reference to a flight attendants' food cart being used as a battering ram to knock open the cockpit door.  Air traffic controllers could hear that food cart being bashed against the door, and exclamations of exasperation from the terrorists, who were seeing their plans unravel with every desperate, tinny clash of aluminum cart against aluminum door.

"Those bothersome, determined, gutsy Americans.  Can't they see none of us are going to make it out of this alive?"

A lot of us remember where we were when the Twin Towers were attacked, and when they fell.  We remember seeing the photos of black smoke billowing from the side of the Pentagon.  But because the fields around Shanksville are, relatively speaking, in the middle of nowhere, there was no TV station nearby, or a news crew, or tourists with cameras.  And it's precisely because Shanksville is out in the middle of nowhere that the passengers and crew of Flight 93 provided what just might have been the ideal coda to that morning's attacks against the United States.  If anything about 9/11 could be remotely considered ideal.

True, the deaths of Flight 93's passengers and crew were valiant, and they were confoundingly agonizing.  Yet in terms of the terrorists' plans for destruction in Washington, DC, Flight 93 fizzled embarrassingly.  Imagine, for a moment, the hideous compounds across the Arab world, in which cells of brazen, bloodthirsty jihadists were waiting for news of the glorious triumph of their evil brethren.

"What?  Those infidels tried to storm the cockpit?  They took a VOTE?  Honor to them meant SAVING lives, not killing people?"

You can almost see our Founding Fathers glowing with pride.

The phrase "roll it" may not have as much swagger and bravado as "let's roll," but it does denote action.  It denotes having a plan.  Having the resources to follow through on the plan.  And having the people to deploy the resources.

Fortunately, on Flight 93, the right people were able to roll with it.

Passengers and Crew of Flight 93

Crew
Captain Jason M. Dahl
First Officer LeRoy Homer
Lorraine G. Bay
Sandy Waugh Bradshaw
Wanda Anita Green
CeeCee Ross Lyles
Deborah Jacobs Welsh

Passengers
Christian Adams
Todd M. Beamer
Alan Anthony Beaven
Mark Bingham
Deora Frances Bodley
Marion R. Britton
Thomas E. Burnett, Jr.
William Joseph Cashman
Georgine Rose Corrigan
Patricia Cushing
Joseph DeLuca
Patrick Joseph Driscoll
Edward Porter Felt
Jane C. Folger
Colleen L. Fraser
Andrew (Sonny) Garcia
Jeremy Logan Glick
Kristin Osterholm White Gould
Lauren Catuzzi Grandcolas
Donald Freeman Greene
Linda Gronlund
Richard J. Guadagno
Toshiya Kuge
Hilda Marcin
Waleska Martinez
Nicole Carol Miller
Louis J. Nacke II
Donald Arthur Peterson
Jean Hoadley Peterson
Mark David Rothenberg
Christine Ann Snyder
John Talignani
Honor Elizabeth Wainio

Morality of Mortality in Still Life

Photo by David Lassman

This morning was bright and sunny near Syracuse, New York.  The last workday before a long three-day weekend.  And as people logged on to their computers, and surfed over to Syracuse.com, a local news website, they were greeted with this photo at the top of a story about a fatality accident in the area.

A white sheet, covering what's obviously a corpse, on the pavement, near a crumpled motorcycle, and a damaged Jeep.  Skid marks, a lone shoe, and what appear to be bloodstains on the white sheet.  Crime scene tape, two police cars.  With a small group of what likely are police investigators standing about a block away.

You can almost hear and feel the stillness of the scene.

By now, however, if you visit the website, the photo has been cropped to exclude the white sheet covering the motorcyclist's body.  According to purportedly eyewitness accounts from feedback to this story, the deceased was a worker at a nearby office complex.  It is believed that he ran a red light and hit the Jeep.

The reason Syracuse.com decided to crop out the white sheet covering the victim stems from a rush of criticism from dozens of readers posting feedback to this story, objecting to being subjected to such a garish scene in the original version of the photo.

Bad taste, showing what's obviously a lifeless body, even if it is covered by a sheet.  Disrespectful to the victim's family, should they be venturing onto Syracuse.com without knowing their loved one's body is under that sheet.  Needlessly sensationalistic journalism.

Or is it?

This story quickly became one of the most heavily-debated articles on Syracuse.com, as readers went back and forth, posting complaints about the photo, or complaints about the people complaining about the photo.  Hey, at least the corpse itself wasn't visible.  Blood, death, and tragedy are part of life.  Maybe such a graphic depiction of the results of running red lights, as has been assumed was the cause, will convince other people not to take such foolish risks.

On the one hand, it's simply a photo that's generated quite a bit of buzz in an otherwise sleepy corner of New York State.  We've seen far more disturbing images out of Syria lately, and Iraq.  Does it make a difference when the bloody sheet is covering an American?  Or a local guy that somebody might actually have known?

When I lived in New York City, I particularly remember seeing on the local evening news some coverage of a Mafia hit in either Brooklyn or Queens.  A mob operative had been assassinated while sitting in his car underneath an overpass.  It was a burgundy Lincoln, and the driver's side window had shattered from the close-range gunshots.  The news camera angled right in for a close-up of the victim's blood-splattered face, a middle-aged man with greying hair.  And the whole thing was broadcast unfiltered to New York City, as a reporter droned on in the background about plausible motives.  As I recall, there was no "some of the scenes you are about to see are disturbing" disclaimer.  It was simply ordinary news footage of yet another casualty of the city's time-worn mob wars.  Film at 11.

Granted, I have no idea how much angry feedback the station received after airing that footage, but chances are, it wasn't much.  It's not like mob hits are exceedingly rare in New York City.  What might be rarer are mob hits where news camera crews arrive on-site before police detectives have started covering up the crime scene.  Even in the Syracuse.com photo, it seems a bit odd that the body was left on the street for so long.  The accident happened at 7:54 in the morning, the photos were posted at 8:49, and even past 9:00, according to the story, the body was still there, eventually covered by a yellow tarp.  How long does it take for the coroner to show up at fatality accidents in Central New York?

Maybe it's no big deal.  Maybe it is a bit opportunistic of Syracuse.com to run an attention-grabbing photo like this, knowing that if they really have to crop out its most objectionable component, they can do it and still have a photo that tells a story.  We all know that motorcycles aren't the safest mode of transportation anyway.  And people die in motor vehicle accidents every day.  Plus, it's not like Syracuse.com is in the same league as the New York Times or even FOX News.  Millions of people around the world aren't going to see this story and be horrified at the disturbing depiction of a dead person lying on the pavement with a bloodied sheet covering it.

But looking at this photo, it truly is the finality that it captures that makes it disturbing.  Maybe even horrifying.  A lone shoe, thrown from the foot of its owner by the impact of the collision.  A motorcycle, wrecked, never to be ridden again, at least not by the guy who, mere minutes before this photo was taken, was riding it to work.  A relatively new Jeep, looking like a 2013 model, by the narrow shape of its broken headlight - still so new, it doesn't yet have a permanent license plate on its front bumper, assuming it's registered in New York State.  What about it's driver?  How are they coping with the reality that this wreck involved a fatality?

This story never was headline news on CNN or Drudge Report, and by now, it isn't a headline story on Syracuse.com, either.  It's hardly distinctive enough to be nominated for a Pulitzer.  The road is back open, the vehicles are gone, and the victim's body is in a morgue or funeral parlor somewhere near Syracuse.

All we've got left, those of us who never knew anybody involved in this accident, is this photo.  And the story, however ordinary, that it's telling.  A story about finality.  Endings.  Sudden impacts.  And, frankly, how ordinary they are.

That's why people who found it upsetting were, well, upset.  We don't like being reminded about how common mortality is.

One of those cops in the background of this photo appears to be leaning back casually against a squad car, in a pose suggesting far more ease with this type of situation than many of us have when looking at the photo.  And for the most part, that's to be expected.  Cops deal with this sort of thing all the time.  They need to maintain a certain level of detachment for their own sanity.

For the rest of us, however, I think it does us good to be challenged by photos like these every now and then.  They remind us of our humanity.

Even if it is far more fragile than we're comfortable admitting.

Gospel Truth Despite Doubt

What is truth?

That's the basic question of life, isn't it?  In what can we believe?  To what can we affix our hope?

It's the question Pontius Pilot asked Jesus.  It's the question all of us ask - however subconsciously - as we develop our worldview and make our way through our lives.

It's the question that born-again evangelicals say we've answered by putting our faith in Christ.  And while for some, that sounds like a trite answer, perhaps its triteness comes the consistency of its trueness.  Even if, at least for Westerners in general, and Americans in particular, it's an answer that's been given more in theory than in practice.

For generations, regardless of how strongly anybody believed in Jesus, as Americans living in our Christianized society, acknowledging the historicity of the Bible has sufficed in providing at least a benchmark for religiosity.  One didn't have to be "born-again" to acknowledge that the Bible is more than just another work of literature.  For people who took the Bible seriously, their claims that God's Word is true were met, on the whole, with at least a begrudging acquiescence by the general population.  Public dissent against Christianity and its teachings was extremely rare, and its doctrines seldom challenged in the public square.  And when they were, dissenters were portrayed as outside the mainstream.  .

When we talk about America entering a "post-Christian" phase, we're talking about all of that cultural context flipping backside-to.  Whereas Christians had become accustomed to commanding America's moral dialog, nowadays, we're finding ourselves on the defensive more than ever.  Over the past few decades, our culture become more pluralistic, and suddenly, it seems, more and more people have become comfortable with - and even driven to - openly challenging longstanding assumptions about Christianity.

"How do you know that God exists?  Or that the God of the Bible is the only god?"

"How do you know the Bible is completely true?  What makes it so special?  Plenty of cultures throughout history, around the globe, have created their own analogies, myths, and superstitions about how and why the world works the way it does."

"Isn't it awfully convenient for you to say we shouldn't do something, even when we want to, just because a book of Jewish mythology says so?"

Actually, it's not like any of these are new questions.  Nobody's asking anything today that hasn't been asked since Satan tempted Eve and Adam in the Garden of Eden.  What's different about today's questions, however, is that cultural tradition doesn't suffice as an answer anymore.  In the minds and souls of many Americans today, the Christianity that has been part-and-parcel of Americana since Pilgrims set foot in New England no longer is sufficient proof for the Bible's validity.

That's not to say that the Gospel has become irrelevant.  Or that Christ isn't as powerful as He used to be.  Or that God really can be Whomever we want to imagine Him as being.  The orthodox truth of God that has existed and been believed by angels since before the world was created is the same truth in which I believe today.

Evangelicals like me simply can't expect anybody else to take that at face value anymore.

Not that I haven't entertained doubts in my own mind.  After all, I'm not unaware of how bizarre much of the Bible sounds to people who don't believe it.  Six days to create the universe?  A flood that covered every inch of the globe?  Shouting until a city's fortifications were obliterated by some unseen force?  An immaculate conception?  Feeding thousands of people with five loaves of bread and two fish?  Resurrection from the dead?

Come on!

How do I know that I'm not making some massive, foolish mistake by living my life according to some ancient proverbs instead of my own intuition and emotions?  Didn't God make me as a person capable of independent thought?  A lot of those proverbs are found in the literature of other cultures, by the way.  What makes them so special just because they're in the Bible?

And don't tell me that I won't understand about the Bible unless some event like being "saved" through a "working" of some invisible being called the "Holy Spirit" takes place in my soul.  We are an enlightened, educated, and scientific society.  We need proofs, validations, and empirical evidence.  Otherwise, your word is as good as anybody else's.  Merely an opinion.  Which means you're entitled to your opinion, just as I'm entitled to mine.  Everything's relative, and the only absolute is the individual; the self.  Which means I shouldn't have to change my lifestyle to accommodate your beliefs.

Sound like a lot of the push-back evangelicals are receiving by society at large today?

Frankly, to a certain degree, it's all a fair argument.  Little of Christianity makes sense if you take its theology's linchpin out of the picture.  And that Linchpin is Christ.  And even with Jesus, plenty of secular scholars, along with other world religions, acknowledge that He existed, and walked on this planet, and did good stuff for humanity.  It's His divine nature as the Son of God that skeptics can't embrace.  There is no literal, physical proof that Christ is a member of the Trinity.  Even the "Trinity," as God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is a concept whose very name is never mentioned in the Bible.

So, how do I know the Bible is true?  That God is Truth?  And that Christ is Truth incarnate?  How do I know that believers through the past two millennia who've been killed for their faith haven't been gravely mistaken?  How do I know that God hears my prayers, and that He answers them?  How do I know that Heaven is where my soul will go when I die?

Again, these are just some of the doubts, questions, fears, and aspersions that have bedeviled almost everybody who has ever heard the Gospel of Christ.  They represent just a smattering of the questions for which society wants concrete proofs, so that when evangelicals advocate for heterosexual marriage, or life in the womb, or even morality in the media, we people of faith have what society at large can accept as a legitimate reason for why it should listen to us anymore.

I could provide a listing of Bible verses to try and explain why I believe that eternal truth resides in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  But none of it will mean anything to anybody who doesn't want to accept them as facts.

So I'll just say this.  Truth is that which honors God.  Don't believe it?  Well, even unbelief can honor God, because His Word teaches that without the Holy Spirit revealing His truth to us, none of us will truly believe it.  We might acculturate to it, like generations of Americans did before us, but that's not the same as accepting Christ as your Lord and Savior.  And maybe one of the unconventional truths about the Bible is that it teaches that the Gospel isn't for everybody.  Nobody can be forced into it, nobody can be chided into it, or guilted into it.  God has created belief and truth to exist whether you want it or not.

Not everybody will be saved.  Not everybody will believe in Christ.  Not everybody will tolerate the Gospel.  In fact, the Bible teaches that most people will not want to hear that heterosexual marriage is the only type of marriage that honors God.  Most people won't really care about protecting life in the womb, either, or whether a young female singer gyrates on a TV show watched by youngsters.  People will intentionally fly planes into office buildings.  People will kill other people simply because of the color of their skin.  People will hate, castigate, and fornicate with apparent impunity.  And some of them will claim the name of Christ.

But the Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  The Fruit isn't literally edible, but it is a lifestyle given by the Holy Spirit to everybody who accepts Christ as the Lord of their life.  And to the degree that these Fruit - they're a set - can be seen in my life, and in the lives of everybody else who professes faith in Christ, then you will know that we are His disciples.

You still may not want to believe that what we believe is the truth.

And you'd be in good company.  After all, the powerful Roman prefect, Pilate, didn't, either.

Holy Providence in an Inequitable World

Inequity.

It's a tricky thing.  Although we Westerners know that sociopolitical equality is good for society, we often forget that capitalism thrives on inequity.  Pursuing dreams is one thing, but even when dreams are realized, we know we're not all going to die with the same number of toys.  The ideal objective in capitalism is that everyone has a relatively equal playing field to pay for what they need in a peaceable society.

Not that this is about acquisitions.  It's about life experiences, and the paths along which God leads each of us in our individual faith walks.  Being humans, and Westernized humans in particular, we're enculturated to compete against each other, and peg our life's progress against a particular peer group.  We're told that if we don't aim our sights high enough, we'll be lazy, ineffectual, poor, and expecting handouts from others.  Aim too high, and we'll be hopelessly unfulfilled, perpetual strivers, conceited, and jealous.

The trick, we're told, is to aim for somewhere in the middle, between untapped potential and blind ambition, so that we stand a good chance of gaining respectable ground beyond where we're standing today - but if things don't work out as planned, we don't actually become unacceptably poor.  Fortunately for us Americans, we've been able to build the largest, most stable middle class in the world using the least amount of corruption and civil warfare.  When people say God has truly blessed America, this is what I think of.

The Lord Giveth, and Taketh Away

The problem, many of us soon learn, is that inequity in our society can hamper our conventional strategy for success.  Depending on how much we start out with, and the resources we acquire along the way, we may be able to insulate ourselves from personally punitive inequity, even without knowing it.  Others of us let our morality become our conscience more in theory than in practice, and we figure out which rules we can bend - or even break - along the way towards "success."  After all, the ends justify the means, right?  "Whatever it takes."

Some of us, however, particularly during these days of volatile - or, actually, downright stagnant - economic activity, are simply trying to hang on for the ride.  For people of faith, trusting in Christ for guidance and provision is a daily practice, not a grateful acknowledgement of sheer abundance during our quarterly update from our financial adviser.  We tell ourselves it's not what's in the bank - or our portfolio - that counts, as much as what's in our heart.

But what does all this mean about our understanding of God's perfect providence?

How many times have you heard a believer in Christ exclaim about the Lord's providence, and then learn that what has been assumed to be providence may simply have been His common grace?

Everything that happens to us is providence, right?  Everything!  In our Christian parlance, however, we like to reserve those things we think are extra-special as "providential," as if they wouldn't have happened to us any other way than an extraordinary working of God for our benefit.

For example, somebody gets a better job in a more exciting city, and they talk about it as though they wouldn't have gotten that job or the opportunity to move to the more desirable city without God's explicit intervention on their behalf.  Hey - at least they're giving God the credit!  We often forget to do that.  Still, sometimes, I wonder if this has become an acceptable way to brag about our accomplishments among churched friends, since cloaking the "good" things that happen to us in a garment of religiosity negates our personal pride in having something go our way.

Now, bear with me, I'm not talking about being jealous of somebody else's success, even though that's another real temptation in this scenario.

Nevertheless, think about it:  Isn't it common sense that, in the normal course of human events, at least for us Westerners, if we work diligently, study well, and engage with others productively, we ordinarily progress up the ladder of life?  Unsaved people do this all the time.  If we knock on enough doors for which we have the appropriate credentials, and they open, and we walk through them, what's the big deal?  Yes, it's providential, but isn't it also providential when people who hate God knock on those same doors and walk through them?  Isn't it simply what happens in a rewards-based society like ours?  Might the difference be that we know to thank God, and that we use this opportunity for His glory, not ours?

After all, plenty of unGodly people get promotions, earn big salaries, live in exciting cities, and lead lives that dazzle us.  Sometimes, God's people don't get chosen for promotions, but He's still sovereign, right?  According to Psalm 145:9, God is "good to all," and "has compassion on all He has made."  That's the essence of common grace.  The sun shines and the rain falls on both the just and the unjust, according to Matthew 5:45.  Not that it's wrong for us believers in Christ to praise Him when good things happen to us.  But how often, when good things happen to us, do we credit our own specialness as the reason?  Or when we think we're missing out on something good, do we assume it's due to some fault of ours?

Look at it this way:  How often do we credit God with a demotion, or the loss of a job, or having to move to a less desirable address?  How much less providential are those things?  Not everything "bad" that happens to us is our fault, is it?  Inequity, remember, is part of life.  God can use what we think is negative for His glory, and His glory is the reason for our very existence, right?  Scripture doesn't tell us that we should be happy when "bad" things happen to us, unless we're suffering something directly because of our faith in Christ.  But evaluating God's goodness to us based on the desirable qualities of those things He allows us to steward and enjoy is only half the story, isn't it?

Appreciating Blessings, In All Their Forms, and He Who Bestows Them 

After all, many more people on our planet live in poverty than live in wealth, and much of the poverty on our planet comes not from personal sin, but from various forms of suppression and exploitation, which are results of - you guessed it! - inequity.  And no, these inequities aren't necessarily caused by us big, bad Americans, but by unscrupulous power brokers within their own countries.

The point is that God has blessed Westerners with many good things, but that doesn't mean we're any more special to Him than people in Majority World countries.  Unfortunately, we Westerners often take for granted God's material bounty to us, even as we tend to inflate the parameters of what God's providence should provide.  God promises us that His people will not starve or lack clothing or shelter, but He never says anything about smartphones, automobiles, or even college degrees, or crime-free neighborhoods. 

Not that any of these things, nor reliable supplies of electricity, nor functional systems of law, nor cutting-edge healthcare, are wrong.  Taking them for granted - that's what's wrong.  Promotions, new homes, and better living conditions aren't wrong either, and neither is crediting God's goodness in supplying them.  However, isn't there a fine line between assuming we're entitled to things because we've worked hard to attain them, being genuinely appreciative to God for allowing us to experience them, and implying that if we don't attain these things, God is somehow being less good to us?

"It's a God thing" can be quite inaccurate, since everything is a God thing.  Even things that don't happen are God things.  Yes, God gives good gifts to His children, and many of those good things are enjoyable, and in a sense, we deny the goodness of those enjoyable things by, well, not enjoying them.  Don't not enjoy something because it's been granted to you and not somebody else.

In God's perfect Kingdom, there is no inequity, even though we may be responsible for different facets of His assets.  There's the parable of the talents, and also the metaphor of the parts of the body.  Ironic, huh?

So, if something isn't granted to you, couldn't that withholding be a form of goodness from God, too?  Probably not an enjoyable goodness, of course, but something in which a lesson exists for us to learn something more about God's providence?  Whether God gives us something or doesn't, is it necessarily based on whether or not we've earned it, or deserved it?

Sometimes, it doesn't seem that God "gives," as much as He "allows."  Evaluating the merits of what He allows based on our culture's expectations and definitions, then, might not be telling the whole story.

Collie Dog Days

They're here.

Those dog days of summer.

The hottest part of our year, in the Northern Hemisphere, anyway:  July and August.  And particularly August! 

For us Texans, all things considered, it has been a mild summer so far, with some downright rainy days dragging their way half-way through the month of July, of all things!  Usually, we say goodbye to the rain after Memorial Day.  We even had a couple of days in July when the temperature didn't get out of the 70's.

Of course, with the cooler weather, many right-wingers here in the Lone Star State were gleefully goading environmentalists who insist global warming is a reality.  "Gotta love that global warming when our first 100-degree-day comes near the end of June."  Instead of the more typical May.

Mm-hmm.

It was the ancient Greeks and Romans who coined variations on the term "dog days," in honor of Sirius, the bright "dog star" in the constellation Canis Major.  Oddly enough, as the millennia have plodded along, the dates for the original dog days have lost their astrological significance to our Northern Hemisphere's summertime, with the best time to view Canis Major now occurring in February, when summertime is winding down in the Southern Hemisphere.

But our dog days persist, if for no other reason than that our canine friends help exhibit the strain of July and August's heat on their fur-clad, perspiration-incapable bodies.  They tend to slow down, they pant a lot, and they enjoy walks on pavement a lot less.

My Dad used to have a wonderful, pure-bred collie that he rescued from a pound in suburban Dallas.  Before the collie had been taken in by the pound, it had suffered an injury to his rear-right hip, and he limped slightly from it, and had a hard time climbing stairs.  We figure a touch of arthritis must have set in, because Feliz - Spanish for "happy" - would love to go outside, even during scorching dog day afternoons, with temperatures over 100, and lay flat on the backyard lawn underneath blazing sun.  Always with his rear-right hip facing the sun!

We'd have to call him to come inside for his own good, even as his long torso heaved from all of his panting.  A few minutes inside, in the air conditioning, and with a bowl of water, he'd be fine.  He'd also sprawl beneath any of the ceiling fans in my parents' house, and enjoy the breeze, but almost always with his rear-right hip buried under his fur, and resting on the soft carpeting.

The times we all went to Maine in the summer, I think Feliz thought he was in Heaven.  Maine's summer sun seems even hotter than the one here in Texas, if that's possible, but the ground there stays cool and moist.  Maine's summertime breezes never seem to heat up like an oven's the way dog day breezes in Texas do.  What bliss for Feliz, who could lay in the sun all afternoon, and warm up his hip, but keep his overall body temperature down.  We sometimes had to sharpen our tone to order him inside on those days!

Feliz was a sweet and obedient dog, and we rarely ever had to raise our voice to him.  Usually, those times only came when he was smothering a visitor with furry, drooling affection, since he was one of those dogs who figured everybody who came to my parents' home was there mostly just to play with him!  He'd have made a pretty ineffective guard dog, except when it came to the neighborhood cats.  It got so that we couldn't even spell the word "c-a-t" within his earshot, or he'd be at one of the windows, growling, whining, and scouting for his mortal enemy.

He was great with kids.  He never bit, and only barked when they were making too much of a ruckus, or he thought they were hurting themselves.  He didn't like us humans to touch each other, which led us to believe that in some former home of his, he may have witnessed physical abuse.  Whenever we'd hug somebody, he'd always bounce over, growling, and try to nuzzle us apart.  We'd have to comfort him and thank him for protecting us, but that nobody was getting hurt.

Sweet, huh?

My best Feliz story, however, took place not during the dog days of summer, but one Christmas morning, when we were all getting ready to open presents in front of the Christmas tree in my parents' front living room.  My brother and sister-in-law and their family - which at the time, consisted of four kids (there are five now!) - were down from Michigan, and I was sitting on the piano bench when my sister-in-law swooped into the living room with my niece, who was only a few months old at the time.

"Here, Uncle Tim, you can watch your new niece while I go get ready," my sister-in-law pronounced, and she softly put my little niece, in her infant outfit and wrapped in a soft blanket, on the carpeted floor at my feet.  I can't remember if I already had something in my hands, which would have explained why I just didn't reach out and take the baby in my arms.  Anyway, my sister-in-law got back up, twirled around, and swirled towards the kitchen.

Feliz was curled up over by a bookcase at the far corner of the living room, and saw what had happened.  He looked at the tiny human, all bundled up on the carpet, and its adult caretaker bounding off to another part of the house.  Feliz pulled himself up from his corner resting place, and intentionally strode over to where my niece lay on the floor.

And he promptly settled down, length-wise, right alongside my niece!  He glanced around, with a look on his fuzzy face that said, "well, SOMEBODY'S gotta protect this helpless little creature!"

Collies are herding dogs, and exceptionally protective.  And that Christmas day, Feliz proved he was no exception.

As it happens, today, my niece enjoys a particular affinity with all sorts of animals, with an uncanny ability to immediately befriend anything from zoo animals to noisy seagulls at the beach.  I like to think it all comes from the morning when a huge, hairy, and somewhat smelly collie plopped himself down next to her to guard her when she was very, very young.

Happy dog days, y'all!

Frisk Risk Mars Racial Recognition

Imagine it.

You're walking along, wearing a hoodie.  You're young (remember - we're imagining here) and not Caucasian.  Suddenly, a male with lighter skin than yours demands that you stop and explain yourself.

No, you're not Trayvon Martin, but an even younger multiracial teenager in Harlem named Alvin, walking down 116th Street after visiting your girlfriend, wearing a hoodie in the early June air, and an empty backpack.

And this was your second time today to be stopped and frisked by New York's "finest."

Not because they had a bulletin from the precinct to be on the lookout for somebody looking like you who'd just robbed a bank.  But just because you're not white, and you're young.

If the Zimmerman verdict has proven anything, it's that the death of Trayvon Martin will not be contributing positively to our nation's dialog about racial profiling.  It's been woefully tainted by bias and crippled by a lack of irrefutable proof.  Meanwhile, farther north up the East Coast from Florida, a longstanding police policy that has been vehemently criticized for almost as long as Trayvon was alive has languished outside of the national spotlight.  It's a policy within the New York City Police Department called "stop-and-frisk," in which cops can basically detain anybody they deem suspicious on the spot.  They can frisk a person without reading them their Miranda Rights, or advising them of the crime with which police intend to charge them.

In fact, in the overwhelming majority of stop-and-frisk cases, no crime at all is involved.  Unless, of course, you count the actions and attitudes of the cops.

The practice has been heavily used and debated in the Big Apple for nearly two decades, with minorities and limousine liberals decrying stop-and-frisk as unconstitutional, while whites and the business community generally have been ambivalent about it, since it's been credited with helping give the city incredibly low crime rates.  The city lost a court case over stop-and-frisk ten years ago, but that didn't stop the practice.  Police officials are convinced that those low crime rates are due in no small measure to the success of their widely-used stop-and-frisk initiative.

It hasn't helped discourage the practice having bigoted agitators like Al Sharpton acting as spokespeople against it.  Nor has it helped that the overwhelming percentage of crime in the city is perpetrated by minorities, or that the "gangsta" culture prevalent among minorities intentionally intimidates whites in the city's streets, mass transit, elevators, and parks.  Stop-and-frisk became synonymous with the "broken window" theory, in which it's believed that the best way to increase public safety is nip crime in the bud, starting with the most basic of anti-social events, like a broken window, or a person who "looks suspicious."

Even though plenty of New Yorkers were uncomfortable with stop-and-frisk, it seemed to be working, and hardly anybody except the guys who were being stalked by the police really knew what happened during these stop-and-frisk episodes.  Episodes which took place a staggering 4.8 million times during the past decade.  And which, as statistics are now revealing, provided evidence of a crime - such as illegally possessing a weapon - only 12% of the time.

The Nation, a left-wing periodical based in New York and devoted to helping progressive urbanists feel ever so superior to everybody else, has been an ardent opponent of stop-and-frisk.  In 2011, they produced a video based upon the audio recording Alvin made that day on Harlem's 116th Street of an experience with stop-and-frisk.

For conservatives who had insisted that the NYPD conducted this practice professionally, it was an obscene wake-up call.  Literally:



In terms of their overall objective, please understand that The Nation espouses an exceptionally left-wing political platform with which I cannot agree.  However, it's quite obvious from this video that Alvin is not a pawn in any partisan agenda.  He was not stopped for any reason other than a punitive, vicious form of racial profiling.  There are times in which racial profiling can be relatively benign, such as when my friends and I were accosted for supposedly being rich homosexuals on the subway.  But there was nothing benign, partisan, or moral about how Alvin was treated by the cops.

Which begs the question:  out of nearly 4.8 million stop-and-frisks over more than a decade, how much of an exceptionally brutal example of the practice was Alvin's recorded encounter with it?  Doesn't it seem to you as though this was all part of their day's work for the cops?  Routine?  Kinda fun, even?  In a macho, drunk-on-power kind of way?

How could this continue for so long in one of the most liberal cities in America?  Well, as it turns out, the NYPD didn't pull stop-and-frisk out of thin air.  It's actually based on a Supreme Court decision from 1968 in which the Constitution's Fourth Amendment provision against unlawful searches doesn't apply when a police officer believes a person could be an imminent participant in a crime.  However, that was then - and in Cleveland, Ohio, too, where the Supreme Court case, Terry v. Ohio, originated.  Today, what stop-and-frisk has apparently degenerated into is a thinly-disguised form of racial profiling.  Currently, two bills are before New York's city council that seek to discourage stop-and-frisk, but the bills themselves represent typical political posturing that may not resolve anything.  A federal class-action lawsuit against the city that has been waged since 2008 may be decided by Manhattan Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin as early as this month, with legal experts predicting that Scheindlin will appoint a federal monitor to oversee the city's deployment of stop-and-frisk.  But powerful city officials continue to stake their professional reputations on stop-and-frisk's legitimacy.

Many New Yorkers, including the police chief, and its current mayor, Michael Bloomberg, have opposed any interference in stop-and-frisk since the tactic was introduced back in the early 1990's.  The time right before the city's crime rate began to dip drastically.  That's not coincidence, stop-and-frisk's defenders insist.

Maybe not.  Maybe some form of stop-and-frisk has a place in law enforcement's arsenal, as long the police are acting on credible information, and have specific characteristics for which they're looking relative to that credible information.  Nevertheless, no police department should simply assume that "crime is going to happen" so it's safe to assume that people who fit a broad generalization regarding what typical criminals look like can be harassed in the off-chance they might be walking away from a crime, or getting ready to commit a crime.  Can simply frisking people without a warrant and finding a knife or a gun on them 10% of the time be sufficient grounds for perpetrating stop-and-frisk on an entire race or gender?

According to The Nation's video, and the accounts of other whistleblowers within the police department, an unofficial quota system exists for stop-and-frisk that has likely corrupted the original intent of the practice.  Doesn't it make sense to start there, within One Police Plaza, the department's headquarters, and dis-incentivize stop-and-frisk?  Terry v. Ohio was about "reasonable suspicion," but New York City's version of it looks like "unreasonable racism."

Indeed, what's not up for debate is whether or not the treatment 16-year-old Alvin received from the police on that sidewalk in Harlem is acceptable.  It absolutely, definitely, incontrovertibly is not.  It's not a question of liberal or conservative, black or white, New Yorker or Texan, rich or poor, urban or rural, law or chaos.  It's basic humanity.

This is what many people wanted the Trayvon Martin tragedy to be about.  And maybe many cases of stop-and-frisk aren't as clear-cut as the one shown in this video.  But still, why the disparity in our mainstream media's coverage of both stories?  Was it the "gated community" or "stand your ground" buzzwords?  Was it the fact that Trayvon got killed, whereas Alvin was "only" humiliated?  Was it Zimmerman's gun?  Was it the fact that New York's profilers are intimidating, "professional" cops?  Even in New York City, while stop-and-frisk has generated heated debate, it hasn't been nearly as polarizing as the Zimmerman verdict.  Maybe that's because what happened to Alvin really is the exception, instead of the rule.  And maybe not knowing whether that's the case gives the same ambivalence about the practice to New Yorkers as the Zimmerman case gives to many whites.

That same ambivalence towards racial profiling that blacks have long suspected whites of harboring may have helped fan flames of pain and unrest among blacks after the Zimmerman verdict.  But much of what the Zimmerman verdict lacked in terms of its applicability to the subject of racial profiling is present in sobering abundance as we near a verdict in New York's class action lawsuit against stop-and-frisk.

Alvin's biological father is a cop.  If you listen closely, you'll hear one of the cops in the video even recognize him as the son of a cop.  But by then, the recognition came too late.

Seeing people for who they are can't be all about assumptions.
_____

Update - August 12, 2013:  Judge Scheindlin has ruled stop-and-frisk as unconstitutional, and will appoint a monitor to oversee the city's wind-down of the practice.

Profiling the Content of One's Character

Zimmerman Verdict Series
1. Sourcing Zimmerman Verdict Angst
Today's essay is #2
3. Eulogy For Home From Zimmerman Verdict

_____


We were three young, white, single guys.

Thin, well-dressed, well-groomed.  And yes - even I was thin, back when I lived in New York City!  I used to have a 29-inch waist.  No lie.  Of course, this was over twenty years ago, when even daily pints of Ben & Jerry's couldn't put fat on my bones.

Twenty years ago, too, the Big Apple was a far more dangerous place than it is today.

We left the Yankees game early.  Probably because it was a work night.  Probably because the Bronx Bombers were losing.  Probably because we didn't want to wait for the crush of fans at the Lexington Avenue Line subway platform alongside the venerable stadium after the game ended.

The subway car we boarded was practically empty.  But not for long.  A few minutes into our trip back into Manhattan, as the train creaked and rolled through the notorious South Bronx ghetto, the rear emergency door suddenly crashed open, and into our car swaggered a group of young black men.

And we three white boys were sitting ducks.

Boisterous and emboldened by our presence - and the lack of anybody else's - they hollered and bellowed in a gangsta dialect as they made a big production of coming over to where we were seated.  The three of us whiteys quietly glanced at each other, bracing for anything.  Those guys weren't coming over to chit-chat with us about the score of the Yankees game.  That wasn't necessary.  We all knew the score.

Those of you who've ridden New York City subway cars know there's a metal bar that hangs from the ceiling and runs down the length of the car, parallel to the seats.  Those young men came right where we were sitting, hanging onto the overhead bar, leaning down into our faces.  One of them plunked himself right down beside me, practically sitting on my lap.  I started perspiring.

I don't know how long it lasted, but these punks jeered at us for being rich (even though we weren't), white (which was obvious) and gay (which we weren't - but in New York City, it's rare to see three thin, stylishly dressed young white men together who aren't gay).  The guy who'd sat down next to me rubbed himself against me, and in my mind, I was playing the scenario I'd rehearsed about what I'd do if I was ever mugged:  give them my wallet with the $20 bill inside and the credit card, and hope they don't find the $20 bill, drivers license, and medical insurance card that I'd hidden in the socks I was wearing.  I'd heard that most muggers would be content with a $20 take, and if they roughed you up, most cabbies would still at least take you to the nearest hospital for $20.  The credit card could just be cancelled out, and maybe even used to catch whomever had stolen it.

By this time, my friends and I had been pushed tightly together by our tormentors, who were relishing the fact that we were all now perspiring, trying so hard to look at the ceiling of the subway car and ignore them, even though they were taunting us from mouths mere inches from our faces.  They weren't yelling, just amusing themselves with all the different vulgarities they could come up with for gay people, white people, and rich people.

Suddenly, the subway's passenger doors slid open, and other riders trickled into the car.  This was the signal our tormentors used to effortlessly step back from us and disappear from the subway car, while other people were still boarding.  The three of us silently reclaimed a bit of personal space between us, but remained quiet, not saying a word, nor looking at each other for the rest of the ride.  We were deeply relieved, woefully humiliated, and I can't remember us ever talking about it.  It was just part of what we should have expected, being in another ethnic group's territory.  Plus, it could have been much worse.

Facts Create Context, and Context Matters

As I've struggled for the past two days with the complaints black Christians are making about the insensitivity of us whites towards the Zimmerman verdict in Florida, two disconnects appear to be taking shape.  One of them has to do with the facts of the case, which I believe have been grossly misrepresented by the mainstream media, yet assumed to be accurate by many blacks, for whom television is a primary source for information.  The other has to do with the issue of racial profiling, which, as we all know, has been left utterly unresolved by both the trial and the verdict.

Now, the racial profiling those thugs performed on my friends and me during that subway ride may have been an isolated incident for us, but I tell the story so people will understand that I know what it's like to be racially profiled.  What I don't know about is being racially profiled like that multiple times during my life - or indeed, daily or weekly, but I can imagine how distressing and humiliating it must be.  I remember my brush with it vividly because it only happened to me two times during my three years in New York City (the other was also on the subway, by Puerto Rican and Dominican teenaged girls, who also presumed I was too thin and well-dressed to be straight).  If racial profiling is the issue blacks hoped the Zimmerman case could resolve, please understand that while I can't understand a life of such profiling, I've had a taste of what it's like.

Yet I still insist that this case was never going to resolve the issue of racial profiling, and while I'd like to be wrong about this, blacks who've allowed themselves to hope for even a productive dialog on the subject will only continue to be deeply disappointed.  And while whites may be responsible for some of the pain they're feeling, I believe that the mainstream media is mostly to blame, because they're the ones who turned a shooting in a gated condo community into a circus, full of glittery promises, hollow reality, and bitter endings.

It has been popularly believed that if it wasn't for racial profiling, Zimmerman wouldn't have gotten out of his car and confronted Trayvon Martin.  Yet while Zimmerman used the term "a**hole" while in his car, and then possibly the racially-derogatory term "coon" under his breath while he was on foot, looking for Trayvon, it was Trayvon who used explicitly racial terminology in describing Zimmerman to his girlfriend over the phone.  In terms of racial profiling, Trayvon's attitude was far more cavalier than Zimmerman's, which could speak to what his demeanor may have been like during his physical interaction with Zimmerman.

We also now know that Trayvon used marijuana, was a juvenile delinquent, and did not live at that condominium complex.  All three of those facts likely contributed to behavior witnessed by Zimmerman that combined to paint a portrait of somebody who might be up to no good.  What was the teen's mental state at the time?  How might his belligerent attitude been reflected in how he moved?  Being relatively unfamiliar with the complex, at night, and in the rain, how disoriented might he have been?  And how was Zimmerman to know that Trayvon may have likely been displaying this behavior not because he was trying to evade detection, but because other factors were impacting his demeanor?  Remember, the condo complex had recently experienced other burglaries.  If you were on patrol and saw something suspicious, would you just drive in the opposite direction?

Now, granted, Zimmerman did a number of stupid things.  He called 911, but he was impatient, and didn't want to wait for the police to arrive.  He got out of his car, which during a rain storm at night wasn't a wise thing to do.  We don't know much more than that, except that both Trayvon and Zimmerman had the right to defend themselves, and one of them ended up dead.  And the other one with bloody scars on the back of his head.  Considering all of the facts that were presented to them during the trail, Zimmerman's jury decided that it was reasonable to assume he was protecting himself, and they ruled accordingly.

That's what this case was about.  It wasn't about race, or racial profiling, or even a sweet, naive teenager being gunned down near his home.  The condo Trayvon was going to was owned by his father's current girlfriend, somebody he'd apparently started dating relatively recently, since Trayvon had been living with his stepmother until around that time.  It's entirely probable that Trayvon's troubles at school and use of narcotics stemmed from confusion, disappointment, and insecurity over his father's serial fornication.

Zimmerman obviously is no angel, but how likely is it that he's now going to have to live the rest of his life with Trayvon's death hanging over him because the youth's father didn't take his paternal role seriously enough?  Teenaged boys need their father to be morally stronger than Trayvon's was.

Content of Character Is Also Context

What does that have to do with racial profiling? Well, if we're going to go into the reasons why Zimmerman felt compelled to leave his car and pursue Trayvon, don't we have to consider the reasons Trayvon was acting the way he was to attract such attention from Zimmerman?  Remember, we don't have enough proof that Zimmerman was after Trayvon because he was black.  There's just as much proof that, had the teenager Zimmerman spotted that night been white, and had been acting the same way as Travon was acting, Zimmerman likely would have done the same thing.

But we don't know, do we?  And that is why this case is not a case for proving racial profiling.  Zimmerman was a gun-toting vigilante who was looking for anything suspicious.  When the 911 operator first asked him to identify the suspect's race, Zimmerman said he though it was black.  It wasn't until after he'd gotten a better look that he confirmed Trayvon's race to the operator.  By that time, Zimmerman was well into a state of high alert, and for people like him - see?  I'm profiling Zimmerman now - once you're that far along into a 911 call and following a suspect, race likely becomes a minor detail.

Sigh.

Part of me tells me to simply move on.  Drop it.  That's what plenty of other whites are doing, either out of their own well-worn frustrations over being unreconciled to blacks, or out of a closet racism that says blacks are their own worst enemy.  Part of me rationalizes that, attention spans being what they are, the media will soon pounce on something else, and the Zimmerman trial will become one of those wounds that scabs over, just like so many others.

Meanwhile, another part of me asks if I should ignore the reality that many people are still genuinely suffering over the Zimmerman verdict.  Wouldn't it be unkind - unChristian, even - to let them languish in their emotional pain?  Especially when they're brothers and sisters in Christ?  When one of us hurts, we all hurt, right?  Besides, I don't want to be a bigot in my heart.  Nor do I want other people to think I'm a bigot.

If explaining how the facts in this case doesn't help assuage the hurt blacks are feeling over its verdict, about all I can do is ask blacks not to fall into the same stereotyping traps into which we whites fall all too often.  We need to remember that racial profiling is a two-way street, and something all of us do in a variety of situations.  We also need to remember that different races and ethnicities are not our enemy, but the evil one who makes us think they are.

Didn't Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. have it Biblically correct when he elevated the individual above their appearance?

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

I'm not some white man rhapsodizing on a standard-bearer for civil rights simply to elicit some emotional affirmation.  If "content of character" is what we're aiming for, doesn't that set the bar a bit higher than the Zimmerman trial?

For all of us?

Why We're Not God's Pets

Do you have a pet?

If you do, is it happy in your home?  It probably is, isn't it?

After all, dogs and cats and hamsters don't get together down at the coffee shop or obedience school and compare notes about what kind of food their owners are feeding them, or the thread count of the fabrics upon which they sleep.

Children usually start out in life thinking their parents are the best.  It's not until they start socializing with other little kids that they begin to realize that not everybody has it as good as they do, or that their own home isn't as luxurious as those of other families.

We develop our jealousies early, especially when it comes to the amount of time we expect our loved ones to lavish on us.  But it's not until we start comparing ourselves to other people - even other little people - that we begin to learn about stratification, hierarchies, degrees of affluence, and the value of money.

Pets can be jealous, but not because one of them lives in a mansion, and the other one lives on the street with its homeless owner.  Jealousy among pets seems to occur strictly over levels of affection, not levels of materialism.  Some neighbors of mine walk their two dogs almost every night, and we're all great friends - except when one of the dogs thinks I'm stroking the other one more, or talking to it more.

My brother and sister-in-law used to live in a subdivision with low chain-link fences separating the backyards.  One of their neighbors had a big old black dog of indeterminate breed, and since they were hardly ever home, their dog spent a lot of its time pacing along the fence it shared with my brother's backyard, because my nephews and niece would be outside playing.  One year, my parents and I visited with my father's dog, a handsome, pure-bred collie.  Dad was over by the chain-link fence, petting the neighbor's dog, and talking to it.  But Dad's collie was not pleased!  He went over there, moaning and fussing, making whining sounds in his throat.  He actually tried to push himself between Dad and the chain-link fence, to physically separate Dad from the other dog!

"Hey!  This is my owner!" Dad's dog seemed to be saying to the neighbor's dog.  Of course, the neighbor's dog barked and barked, afraid of having my Dad's affection withdrawn in favor of this visiting collie from Texas.

Tucked down in a cul-de-sac where I live is a rambling house on a deep lot where a big, goofy dog named Hoss lives.  I've written about Hoss before; a happy-go-luck white-haired Lab who doesn't have a mean or jealous bone in his body.  He gets out of his yard all of the time, and our neighbors are afraid of him - but not because he'd bite or anything.  He's simply so big, he could literally knock some of our elderly neighbors over just trying to be friendly.  Once, when he was loose, of our neighbors made the mistake of letting him inside their own home while they called Hoss's owners to come get him, and with his stiff Lab's tail wagging and slapping about in the excitement, Hoss managed to knock practically everything off of their kitchen table!  The neighbor's wife told me she didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

When I'm out for my evening walks, and Hoss is loose, he'll come bouncing down the street to greet me, his tongue flapping out of the corner of his drooling mouth, his eyes full of mirth, and he'll bang himself into my legs and hop up for some instant affection from me.  Then he'll tag along as I walk back to his house, where he belongs.  He never stops, wanting to go home with me instead.  Hoss knows where he's "supposed" to be; he just happens to be on the loose, but he's not looking for anyplace else to live.  He has no idea how other households run, or whether another family would be even more loving towards him than his current family is.  He knows where his home is, and he never considers other options.

Don't you think God could have made us like that?  He made pets that way; why not us?

Because we're not God's pets, are we?

He cares for us, provides us with shelter and food, and grants us salvation through His Son.  He's invested infinitely more into us that we could ever invest in our own pets.  And while God expects us to render to Him our devotion, He hasn't wired into us the innate homing mechanism that automatically precludes our consideration of anything else that might be better than what we already have.  The Holy Spirit is our Guide, and the more we progress in the process of sanctification, the more "at home" we'll be in Christ, but that process of sanctification is often derailed by our wanderings when, unlike Hoss, we wonder if other enticements aren't better places to go and abide.

Sometimes I wonder if you and I aren't looking around at what the world offers and evaluating whether or not maybe that stuff really is better than what we already have in Christ.  I know that I live where I live, drive the car I drive, and wear the clothes I wear not because I'm perfectly satisfied with them, but because they're what I can afford.  I often look at what other people have and catch myself feeling slighted by God because I don't have what they have.

Do we live the way we live out of loyalty to our Master?  And if we're happy with our lives, is it because we're content in Christ, or content with the things and accomplishments He's allowed us to acquire?

One reason God hasn't made us to be His pets is because He wants us to show Him - and the world - that we can be content and loyal without being forced into it through biology or even emotion.  Or bought with status symbols.  He wants us to "come home" to Him without hesitation or second thoughts, because He is our Heavenly Father.  And He has a holy jealousy for our affection.

Weird, huh?  We normally wouldn't think it to be healthy if we were jealous of the affection our pet gave somebody else.  But that's another reason why we're not God's pets.  His Son died for our sins.

We wouldn't think of sacrificing a loved one in repayment for our dog's tail sweeping a neighbor's tableware onto their kitchen floor.  Yet that level of insignificance is how we often view our sins.

According to 1 Corinthians 6, being bought with a price means that we are not our own, and the Price that was paid is yet more reason for why we're not God's pets.  He desires from us a relationship that exceeds loyalty and affection, so that regardless of where we live, or our life's circumstances, we are at home in Him.

Not looking anyplace else for comfort, affirmation, or peace.