Nate Knows Nada

If it ever slows down, I will write an actual post.  But I’ve worked all day and am way too tired to talk now….

So the semester has started, and I am concentration advising in my
department.  I spent eight hours yesterday with my undergrad
advisees, helping them with course selection and so forth.

Then, on to evening prayer with the monks.  Then dinner with Luis.  And then home to pack, e-mail, and try to get life in order.

I have some complaining to do about wedding stuff and all, mostly
relating to feeling like I’m being reduced to simply being a magistrate
rather than being a friend who’s performing the functions of a
magistrate but who can add more and be something more than just a stand
in for a judge.  But I shouldn’t say too much right now, on the
eventuality that the parties whose wedding this is actuallyread this
between now and then.

Back to work!  I’ll try to update throughout the day and while I am in California.

These lines — from the autobiography — might well have been the man’s
thoughts very early this morning.

“It’s about time for me to go to work, or if you like, to go play. That’s
what we music gypsies call it, after all. I’ll put on my black shirt,
buckle up my black belt on my black pants, tie my black shoes, pick up my
black guitar, and go put on a show for the people in this town.”

Johnny Cash died today.  I’m shocked. I might even tear up a bit.  Wow.  He’s such a huge part of my life, in many ways.

I may not post anything else today.

I talked about Life of Pi earlier this summer, and Ryan wrote a post a couple of days ago on it. It’s quite definitely worth a read….

I think I saw Wendy of Redhead Wore Crimson on the sidewalk on Oxford Street Tuesday afternoon. I would have introduced myself, but I am not entirely sure it was her, as I only know her from her web photos.

That’s kind of weird. I know all sorts of stuff about her, I have read many of her thoughts, and I work about 200 yards from her. But I have never met her in person.

Well, classes are about to start up here at Harvard, and everyone is back, filling the Square. Ran into my friend Luis a few minutes ago and hung out quite agreeably. Have an interview to be a Non-Resident Tutor in Mather House in about an hour and a half. Plenty of meetings tomorrow, and two drinks to get together for tonight.

But what’s most on my mind of late has been the visit of my younger brother to the area over the last couple of days. As regular readers will have picked up between the lines, my mom and dad have a lot of difficulties with my homosexuality, based primarily upon their beliefs as conservative to moderate evangelical Christians. (NOTE: Evangelicals and fundamentalists are NOT the same thing. My parents are not fundamentalists by any means. Please don’t confuse them….) In their view, my being gay is problematic but only insofar as I “act on it.” They know that there’s nothing I can do about the fundamental state, but they would prefer that I remain out of any sort of relationship, because they think that’s wrong. They won’t meet BF at their house; I can come to their house, but he cannot come with me. I’ve let them know that I’m sorry they feel this way, but I have to make my own moral choices and do what I think is right. As a result, I do not wish to visit their house, and we do most of our communication via e-mail.

My brother is also something of an evangelical, but he’s also a center-left political person. He hates the Bush admin, doesn’t vote for Republicans, has a generally positive view of some wealth redistribution, and so forth. But his religious legalism comes into play in a couple of ways, and these are bothersome to me, and they have been especially evident over the last few days that he has been here.

I guess I should explain that my brother is fairly introverted and also a writer, so most of his human interaction comes via words, it seems to me. Also, we don’t have a particularly close relationship: it’s not that we dislike one another, as far as I can tell, but we don’t talk to one another very much. And I don’t think that we have much in common, either. I have this feeling that my brother and I would not be friends or spend time together if we were not related. My brother is also a curmudgeonly and somewhat misanthropic sort of guy. So he’s not big on people in general. And finally, as regards me, he doesn’t really want to talk about my gayness, but he’ll deal with it. Regardless, I have no real idea what he thinks, but I often feel like he disapproves of who I am and is even disgusted by it. (The latter part I may be projecting, and since he HAS been willing to meet BF and hang out with him, I may be thinking worse than might actually be the case.) Mostly, I can’t tell which combination of these reason explains why I feel like he doesn’t like me.

But I don’t particularly enjoy hanging out with him, I find. He doesn’t talk much, and I find him often condescending, especially about interests we potentially share, like music, cycling, or such. I get really angry when he orders me around, such as when I say “Jesus!” as an expression of exclamation. His response is “Different word!” (And mine now will be, “It’s not your place to order me around. If you have a problem with something I say or do, you need to discuss it, not stomp on it. And you also need to be aware that there are things that you do that offend me.”)

But I feel somewhat regretful that we don’t have a closer relationship. He’s not a significant person in my life. And I feel like I often enough try to reach out and have a relationship with him, by calling occasionally and trying to see him when I’m in California, but I’m not sure there’s any reciprocity there. I feel like I’m trying, but I’m not getting anything back. And there’s a big part of me that wants to just cut my losses in the end. If he wants a relationship, that’s fine, but I’m rather tired of putting effort into something that feel so one-sided. I don’t enjoy spending time with him, and I don’t feel like I’m getting anything out of the relationship, and I don’t have any indication that I’m doing anything that he’s deriving any benefit from either.

Part of this could also be a projection from the situation with my mom and dad, I acknowledge.

It’s not that I don’t want a relationship with my brother. But I feel as if I am the person making all the effort at the matter, and it takes two people to do this. I can’t make him like me or really want to spend time with me, and I feel like giving up.

It’s not that I’ve abandoned this.  I’ve just not been in much of
a blogging mood over the the last few days.  I’m sure I’ll be more
inclined in a little while.  So sign up for updates, if you don’t
want to keep checking back.

Seattlites are considering a tax on espresso beverages.  Read about it here.

I fear that if they did this here in Cambridge, I would have to start paying an amount equivalent to my federal income taxes….

For those of you who read the main posts, I blogged the other day about idolatry and Roy Moore, and a discussion with BiblePimp
ensued.  I thought I’d bring it out to the main page, because it’s
taking up lots of space, and I haven’t blogged here in a few days.

TheBiblePimp (whose web page I cannot access, and whose e-mail didn’t go through) notes the following:  I believe if you were honest about it, you would agree that there is no conclusive proof that idolatry is occurring there. Unless you have the proof of their hearts and minds? 🙂

But I do have the evidence of their mouths and bodies, and that’s as
good as we can get, in some sense.  Specifically, I refer to two
news reports.

On 21 August, the New York Times reported the following:

And on 22 August, we learn the further information that,

I am willing to admit that not all the people doing the Ten
Commandments thing are involved in idolatry.  But at least some
component of them are, as the above seems to indicate.  As Christ
said in the Sermon on the Mount, “by their fruit you shall know them.”

But idols are those things which displace or get in the way of
God.  And they are more insidious when they are not golden calves
to bow down to.  Probably most of us religious people (including
myself) have engaged in idolatry at some point, when we let something
in our life — a job, a relationship, a treasured home, the Bible, or a
symbol of religion in the public sphere — get in our way of putting
God first.

How am I so sure about these people?  Because their devotion to
the two-and-a-half-ton piece of granite is such that they will risk
their health or even lives for it.  Yes, they realize it’s a
symbol, but the very fact that they will do this for a symbol points out that they have confused a symbol with God.

What does God require of us?  It’s not unceasing attention to
legalism (which again, can indicate idolatry).  As Christ noted in
Matthew “…You tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the
weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith….You blind
guides!  You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!”  Or as
the Hebrew prophet Micah noted about 700 years earlier, “What does the
LORD require of you but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk
humbly with your God?”

If we put half the energy into doing those things that we all put into
the “culture war,” I daresay the world would be a much better place to
live.