Solutions

Before my recent forays into the religious side of things (I’ll soon post on why that’s been on my mind of late) I had made mention of both my belief in sustainability and my distrust of technological “solutions”. We’ve heard a lot lately about being “green”, from “green” jobs as the answer to our current unemployment problems, to the need for more “green” vehicles from U.S. automakers, to “green” energy production, to the recent cropping up of “Recession Gardens” all over the country. Being “green” is a good thing to do—it’s a good first step for otherwise disconnected people—but, as it is usually presented, it is in no way sustainable and does not represent a lasting solution to either our social or environmental problems.

I’ve recently read about three different “solutions” to various environmental problems. Two are in the vein of “green” technologies; the other entails a simple, practical, low-to-no-cost change in thinking and behavior. I hate to give away anything so early, but let’s have a vote now: which of these three was not covered by mainstream media outlets? Darn, I let the cat out of the bag on that one, didn’t I? OK, how’s about another vote: which will likely gain the least traction in society as a whole? I know, that setup is unfair and cynical…but not wrong.

The first article talks about “artificial trees” that would use a special resin to soak up carbon dioxide. When the resin is rinsed with water it releases its CO2, which can then be separated from the water and stored for later industrial uses such as carbonated drink manufacture or oilwell pressurization. Each of these “trees”, with the use of 32,800 feet of resin, should be capable of capturing about 1 ton of CO2 daily, which is a substantial amount and pretty impressive I might add. Overall, I think this is a pretty cool idea, as it would give an excellent “on demand” emissions-reduction option for significant CO2 polluters like power generation stations. I have some reservations about the effects of producing that much (supposedly “environmentally friendly”) resin, but in a world where nearly everything else is made of plastic, who cares?

The second article discusses the rush toward “green” energy production and its unintended consequences. It seems that mega-scale solar and wind farms in the middle of nowhere and the transmission lines that carry their energy to more populated areas affect wildlife. Imagine that. And why is it that all these utility companies are moving so strongly toward renewable sources? Government-mandated production targets. (Honestly, I don’t mean to sound so cynical. Producing electricity from renewable sources is responsible and good and even the moral thing to do. And perhaps our society is so screwed up and driven by high profits and low prices that the government is forced to step in and mandate the responsible choice, but I don’t think that’s really what’s going on here. More on that later.)

The third article talks about the many benefits of grass-fed beef, but focuses on the benefits to the environment. It seems that the acreage used to finish cows (to fatten them up to marketable weight and characteristics for slaughter) on grass or on grain is, on average, the same. The article argues that if we were to replace the farmland used to grow grain for feedlot finishing with perennial pasture for grass finishing, we could reduce carbon emissions by a net 3000 pounds/acre/year over feedlot finishing on grain. This figure isn’t quite as impressive on its face as that capable by the aforementioned artificial trees, but when we start talking about millions of acres things kinda begin to add up. Also, it requires absolutely no new technological inputs.

Did you figure out which article was which? Just teasing.

Now I’m all for responsible technologies that keep negative human effects on the environment to a minimum; sure, irresponsibly practiced technological “progress” has brought about many of our current problems, but the wise use of technology could reverse the effects of many of our ills. The onus is on us to do just that.

I try to be “green”. I believe strongly in recycling, reusing anything and everything, reducing consumption…all the aims of the sloganeering of the late 1980s/early 1990s. I believe in using alternative fuels for personal vehicles (although I presently do not—my 16-year-old Nissan pickup absolutely HATES ethanol. In cold weather, ethanol blends reduce my mileage by about 35%. Even in warm weather, using a 10% ethanol blend reduces my truck’s average pure-gasoline mileage by about 20%, which means I’m actually increasing my net gasoline consumption by something like 19% by burning an ethanol blend…go figure). I believe in eating foods raised without petrochemical inputs. I believe in eating locally when possible, thus reducing fuel consumption from transportation. I have in the past used compact fluorescent bulbs (although I no longer do since I consider heavy metal toxicity to present a more serious threat to the environment than increased CO2 levels). I don’t do laundry on the “hot” setting. I keep the furnace set just marginally warm enough for comfort. I like all these popular things. I’m even occasionally willing to buy the “EnviroCare” paper products and scour my behind with recycled-stock toilet paper (using a cat’s tongue would be gentler…although much more traumatic…especially for the cat).

However, not one of these practices is truly sustainable. All of them together do not constitute sustainability. Even their combination with all the other pedantic pseudo-moralisms of our Earth Day concert-watching, slogan-chanting, superficially well-intended society cannot fix our problems. Only a radical shift in our thinking and our behavior (and, therefore, in our politics and economics) could do that.

I have a lot more I’d like to say about these articles and this topic, but I’m tired and want to go to bed. Also, I’ve been working on this post sporadically for over a week and I want to post something of it. So consider this Part 1. Tune in later for Part 2. Goodnight.

Federalism Amendment?

I just read this article from the Wall Street Journal on the wisdom of seeking a Federalism Amendment to specifically define federal and state powers. If you know me, you know I think this is long overdue.

The combination of the current economic crisis, the multi-trillion-dollar bailouts and government guarantees, a long history of unfunded federal mandates on the states, the economic parameters of Obama's $787 billion "stimulus" for the states, the proposed changes in tax laws, recently released reports from both the Missouri Information Analysis Center and Department of Homeland Security warning law enforcement agencies of the threats posed by those who question federal primacy, and the election of a Democrat president and Democrat supermajority Congress have come together to ignite quite a bit of anti-central government furor, for better or worse. No matter what the reasons are or what foolishness the excesses and grandstanding may bring about, the thing I like about this situation is this: due to economics alone, the United States will soon be forced to revisit, refine, and perhaps redefine the relationship of state versus federal primacy in governance.

If you are an American and have not read the Constitution and its Amendments (as most Americans have not), take an hour and give it a read sometime. If you read it you will discover how far we've moved away from it as a nation, even though it is supposedly our government's guiding and enforcing document. It is a pretty impressive work, one that we would do well to follow more closely, but it is not perfect—it left many loopholes for the unscrupulous and the power-hungry to find. The proposed Federalism Amendment would remedy many of those ills, and perhaps the national dialogue its formal proposal would engender would benefit us all.

A Tale of Adam

In light of my last blog entry, I would like to introduce some thoughts based upon something I originally wrote down a couple years ago as a way to deal with something on my mind at the time. Back then, I titled that discussion “A Discourse on Creation Pistology”. Yeah, that was back when I was still trying to sound important and impress people. Now, I’ll just call it “A Tale of Adam”.

In this little discourse I talk about a “philosophy of God”—by that I mean what we think God is like, how and/or whether we can experience God, how we can know anything about God, etc. Academic theology would cover these ideas in the disciplines of theology and pistology; however, I think these separate constructions are faulty and would rather see them as parts of an overall approach to God, hence my term "philosophy".

So, without further ado...



I recently read Tales of Adam by Daniel Quinn. I thought it was an excellently crafted work that made the first family of the Judeo-Christian tradition seem quite well what they always were—human. After all, the term adam is simply the Hebrew word for “a man” or, by extension, “mankind”; it should never have been considered a proper name. This story of “Adam” is representative of the story of humanity.

Tales of Adam got me thinking about the Taoist attitude which has made its way into Christianity by which we lazily allow circumstances to shape us, accepting things in the name of being the will of God. This turned my mind to the problems this situation creates—namely, the manic/depressive episodes of thankfulness and anger/despair felt in response to accepting the circumstances of life as the will of an assumably benevolent God, and the general apathy that can result.

What should happen to this situation when we look past the belief that the world was ever an idyllic place? What happens when we trace concepts such as sin and salvation back beyond their ecclesiastical constructions? What happens when we deconstruct beliefs such as these in light of and in favor of a more ancient understanding?

We would deny some of the bases for Christian doctrine. But we would open up the possibility of experiencing an attainable and intimate faith.

A faith in which we and the world around us are not at odds, not at enmity with one another, not different creations, but one and the same. This would free us from the restraints of enmity with Creation (and our Creator in the bad times) and allow us to rest.

We have created God in our own image. We have allowed thinkers in dark rooms to express in finite human terms the infinite light of God. We have taken their ideas and have elevated them to the status of being an ‘ology’—a study of, a dependable discourse about. Some strains of Christianity have taken this further and have reified a particular view of theology into an ‘onomy’—a law—particularly medieval Roman Catholicism, Calvinism, and modern evangelical fundamentalism.

In these systems, the constructed “faith”—one’s perception of his own relationship with God—is the tread of a wheel, the beliefs and doctrines its spokes, and their commitment to a particular philosophy of God is the hub, without which the entire wheel falls apart and the believer is left broken and in peril. What all these systems have failed to recognize (or admit) is that the hub rides along on an axle of human thought, finite constructions, and various responses and revisions according to the circumstances of belief over time and space, and is cotterpinned to these deficiencies by a choice of commitment. Upon the collective “wheels” and “axles” of all believers of all time ride our ecclesiastical structures—our denominations and hierachies, our missions, our ministries, our programs.

But what if the believer should consider this axle to be faulty and untrustworthy? What if his wheel is damaged? Does he lose his constructed “faith”? Where is he left? He is either adrift, alone and lacking a dependable archeology of belief, or he takes the more determined human route in which we whip the amalgam of our ideals, our desires, and our guilt into action until it surges forward beastlike in its traces and pulls our ecclesiastical structure along on a path of its own devising regardless of the lack of integrity in our vehicle’s construction and regardless of our lack of confidence in its design.

But what should happen if we deny this hub of human-made law, allow our spokes to fall away, break the axles of our own faulty construction, release the beast of our ideals and desires and guilt from its burden, step out of our rickety ecclesiastical constructions and down into the path of creation, where we find both the laws and presence of the one in whom we live and move and have our being? What happens when we stop midstride on the march of the Christian soldier and sit down among the meek?

The entire world becomes open to us, and we to it. And I say this not in the Zen, Toaist, or Hindu sense, and certainly not in some mindless New Age Aquarian hallucination, but in the very real and true and indisputable admission that it is in the Creation that humanity finds its most evident, effable, consistent, everlasting, and transcendent revelation of God. When we see the world around us in such a way, we begin to look around us for the revelation of God and not for the manifestation of evil, we look for the good in our fellow humans rather than for their sins. Our constructed “faith” is replaced by deep experience, and we find rest for our weary souls in the stasis of eternity. Suddenly, accomplishment of the greatest commandments—to love our God and to love our neighbors as ourselves—is not so improbable. When we find ourselves in the limitless sea of the revelation of God around and in us, our relationship with God is no longer a contingency of belief, and therefore then finds substance of its own. It then rests and finds its identity not in choices, commitments, or practices but in the absence of these—faith, the evidence of things unseen—while the turbulence and insubstantiality of a contingency upon commitments and constructions drop away from us like a burden turned out of hand.

Orthodoxy?

I was asked the other day by a pastor, “You’re not exactly what we would call ‘orthodox’, are you?”

No, I’m not. Being “orthodox” would suggest that I have the right worship of God, and the right thought, opinion, or estimation of him and his relationship to everything else which exists. I think that would be a problematic place to be. If I think I’m right about those things I’m going to stop looking for anything else that may be right; therefore, if I’m wrong, I will become nearly incurably so. As I told the pastor, I much prefer to focus on orthopraxy—right action or practice—which is experiential and to some degree self-corrective (if not allowed to become another orthodoxy in itself).

As an orthopractic rather than an orthodox follower of the way of Jesus, I tend to focus on the human element of the biblical narrative. I tend not to hold anything so dear as to consider it beyond questioning; or, perhaps I consider everything so dear as to want to understand it all. I don’t get tied up in the literal hermeneutics and the pick-and-choose proof-texting exegesis necessary for creating and upholding doctrines; therefore, my reading of scripture, my views on the nature and person of Jesus, and my entire concept of God are rather “loose” by orthodox Christian standards. This creates precious little in the way of confidence of belief. I have experienced my own “crises of belief” and have seen how they can destroy good people. I do not wish such crises on anyone else; however, if they bring us to humility rather than despair, if they lead us to a less self-centered expression of faith, and if they encourage us to treat others in the way of Jesus, they are worth the discomfort.

All that to say this: my faith is real and means a lot to me, but I look at the Christian religion much differently than do most people who would call themselves Christian. This leads me to unorthodox opinions and causes me to rail against some things I consider spectacular failures of Christianity. I will represent that thinking from time to time in this blog. I hope my musings will cause no one any undue offense; rather, I hope these thoughts can spur discussion and lead all of us to a more responsible faith.

Values

Sorry there haven’t been more posts lately. Having a kid tends to take up one’s time.

Now that I’m a “family man” I suppose I’m expected to have some new values, or at least different priorities. My mother-in-law asked me the other day if some of my values had changed over the last year or so. I didn’t have a clear answer at that time, but yes, they have.

Actually, those values that have “changed” have not so much changed as solidified into the trajectory they’ve followed for a few years now. Even though I spent way too many years in college aimlessly studying for this and that “professional” occupation, I’ve said for years that if I ever had a family I’d like to make as much of a living at home as possible. I considered home-based businesses or other work which would allow me to spend significant quantities of time at home. I liked the idea of being a teacher partly because I would have summers and holidays off. Back when I was living in North Carolinian suburbia I even hoped for a career-driven woman for a wife who wouldn’t mind me being a stay-at-home dad.

Of course, those preferences came as a reaction to my own upbringing. My dad grew up on his family’s farm, and when my grandfather had a massive heart attack at a rather young age, he gave up farming and opened a little country store. It was a great place, a social center for the rural community, but my dad had no interest in tending a store and, as far as I know, had no desire to try his hand at farming, either. Since there was still something approaching a manufacturing sector in North Carolina in those days (early 1970s), factory work looked like a pretty good alternative to the distasteful jobs at home, and it paid pretty well, too. So off he went to work for the Turbine Components Plant of the Westinghouse Corporation.

My dad enjoyed his work, and was content at it. He earned no extravagant amount from his hourly wage, but made what any NC farmboy of that time would have considered a decent living. He and my mom were married in ’76, and I came along in ’77. Whether it was financially necessary or was simply because he felt like he ought to make money when he could, my dad worked overtime and asked to switch off the day shift when he had a chance. He worked hard, he provided us with what we needed, and he made enough extra so that I could attend a private school K-12 and so that he and my mom, who were devout churchgoers, could always give their monthly gift to the church, which usually was quite generously above the customary 10% tithe.

But I didn’t get to spend all that much time with my dad when I was young, and, because of a pretty serious back injury he had when I was 3, his time at home right after work was often spent in pain and our time together didn’t really center around the stereotypical father-son tossing the pigskin/playing catch sort of thing. Not to say that we didn’t do that stuff—he often insisted on playing a little ball with me (after I had nagged at him for days on end) even when he didn’t feel good and knew that those minutes would cost him days of soreness. He did what he could, developing ways of doing things I liked that didn’t hurt him so bad (he threw a football underhanded, and could throw for a distance, with an accuracy, and in a tight spiral that would make any rugby player jealous, not to mention a few college quarterbacks), but I guess I just never thought it was enough. By the time that I was in my teens and “quality time” could have sufficed, I didn’t care to spend my time with him, as I was already well on my way to becoming the onerous jerk I was in my late teens through mid-twenties (by the way, thanks to Jason, Trent, and Magill for repeatedly pointing out that quality of character to me—I finally listened, sort of). So, as a teenager I decided that if I ever had kids I would spend more time with them.

After my disappointing time in church ministry, and after two more years of Bible college failed to help me make any more sense of the experience, I returned to university with no clue of what I was there for. Having botched several desperate attempts at romance over that same course of time, I decided that marriage and family for me were unlikely prospects in the near future and loosely directed my generally aimless educational endeavors toward what I considered at that time as positions of stature (hoping to make money and attract a girl, if I should be honest).

At this same time I became increasingly disenchanted with the culture I saw around me. The cheapening of community, the loss of a sense of belonging, the unfettered mobility of our day had all shown themselves to me through my experience of coming to Canada for college and moving on a whim to Wyoming for work. Back in NC, the emptiness of suburban sameness, the lack of individual purpose, the futility of workaday life, the growing corporatism and branding of everyday experience, the anonymity and objectification of service-sector work, the cultural desolation wreaked by a tourism-based economy showed me how much my area had changed since my youth. It was depressing. No wonder so many Southerners are depressed, obese, and disgruntled.

In my studies, I wanted as broad a humanities/social studies curriculum as possible, so I declared a double major of anthropology and political science with a minor in economics. I figured these areas of study would be a fine preparation for teaching social studies in middle and high school if I should settle down, but I dreamed of status and considered jobs with the US government.

When I wasn’t dreaming of “being somebody” I began thinking of some practical applications of what I was learning. Some of my anthropological case studies led me to ideas for effective social advocacy, petitioning governments to recognize the benefits certain marginalized minority cultures could bring to their societies if given ear and protection. I was also required to take a technology course and an ecology/environment elective; I thought a Society and Technology course which centered on culturally-appropriate technology and a Forest Ecology and Management course which studied silviculture and governmental policy would both interest me and be good selections for my program. From these courses (and from related articles in National Geographic which appeared, rather uncannily, over the same stretch of time) I learned of the troublesome politics and ethical questions surrounding “biofuel” production, the aquifer depletion of dryland irrigation farming, the inefficiencies of large-scale renewable energy production, the disincentives for paper product recycling. I began to realize that small-scale, low-tech solutions held significant advantages in nearly every circumstance over the industrial big-fixes and politically-expedient mantras I saw and heard tossed about in our culture. I decided that if I was going to help my hypothetical anthropology subjects live better lives with less financial and political clout, that it was appropriate for me to begin to incorporate these very principles into my life as well.

I made some changes to my thinking. I became skeptical of the blanket approach of all governmental and industrial “solutions”. I began reconsidering my economic identity of being a consumer. I gradually lost my desire for status. I came to desire to be productive. I grew my first garden, during my second summer at university in an array of pots on the back deck of my rented townhouse.

A lot more things have changed since then, constant gradations toward becoming more the person I am. Meeting Joelle, getting married, and considering the prospect of being a dad have further focused my thought toward its current state.

Yes, my values changed some time ago, and I have lately committed myself more fully to those more responsible values.

Now I must act.