Modern Day Morality

I remember seeing disclaimers on books that informed me that if the book had been sold without its cover that it was a pirated book and the author and publisher had not received a share of the profits. I never saw a pirated book and so I always have wondered how prolific the pirated book trade really is, outside of college campuses where the work is done with copiers and not the actual book. Still the image of a torn book helps make it fairly revealing that the book is stolen, a violated product.

The same is not true with so many stolen items today, but in particular I am thinking of online products. Computer piracy is so prevalent that the lines get blurred on what is and is not stolen, what is and is not illegal. I do not know what all the rules are for burning tracks from a CD onto a computer, when it is legal and when it is illegal, etc. Even if I did it is harder to see it as a bad thing. We do not have the torn and tattered book to remind us that the song we are listening to was gained without proper compensation. We have no tangible reminder of the damage that is caused to others. I think on the primary reasons for computer piracy is that the seemingly victimless nature of the crimes. It is hard to see how a pirated version of Windows hurts anyone, except Microsoft, and they are some big "evil" corporation. The "evil" helps to further justify the action. Or so what if some millionaire singer does not get their royalties because of the song I illegally download.

Is there a decline the morality of our nation today, or are the temptations and grey areas just more obvious than they were in the past? Is the danger of the Internet generation that separation makes it hard to remember there are people at the other end of things. Stab a person you can feel them there, shoot them you can see their face, lob a missile at them and you may not even know they are there. Grab someone's purse and you can feel their resistance, rob a store at night and you likely know the person you are stealing from, even if it was just while casing the place, hack into someone's bank account online and you likely only know their name so you can use it to further the theft. Each step away makes the victim seem less real. In our Internet age we forget about the people around them, we objectify them, and suddenly morlaity is less defined.

In the end I tend to be a relativist when it comes to morality. I know what I value as right and wrong, but I know that at least some of those values are really a personal choice and not somehting I would feel everyone has to value in the same way. At the same time I think people do need to employ a certain broarder nature to their ethics. One of Kant's principles for ethics was that any ethical stance needed to be one that a person would want universalized. So if it is ok for me to pirate stuff from Microsoft than it is ok for others to pirate my work and not pay for it. Should I publish a book at some point I would then be fine if some people copied it and I did not recieve royalties. I should be ok with the logical consequences of my actions.

I do not know if the world is truly worse than it was years ago, but I do know this, the world today would be better if we all had a better sense of ethics. The world would be better if we thought not just about what is right and good for us, but what we would want if we were on the other side of things. The world would be better if we remember the divine spark within us all.

Ignorance is (not) Bliss

The first assignment I had as a soon-to-be philosophy major at Beloit was to write an essay. The question posed was whether it was better to be ignorant and happy or wise and sad. I went with ignorant and happy, because in the end, wisdom should lead towards happiness as well. If knowledge does not lead towards happiness, then it loses some of its value, at least to me. By the same token, ignorance that leaves us unhappy is bad.

Recently my wife and I took a group of youth down to the Twin Cities to work at the Fair, go to the zoo, and shop at the Mall. The less exciting part of the trip was heading to Hamline University to use their showers. What we had neglected to mention to people, or have people plan for was that the showers not private stalls. All of the youth were wonderfully mature and handled it well. Afterwards my wife and I were talking about it, and both of us realized that we assumed that showering under such circumstances was easier for teens of the opposite gender. Neither of us had solid reasons we could point to, but both of us, in our ignorance assumed that the awkwardness that we remembered and encountered was somehow less for the other side.

I find this to be a great example of how our ignorance did not create bliss, but in fact probably only worsened things. When it comes to things like, shame, one of the main things that feeds it is the assumption that we are less for feeling it. If we all have the assumption that we are the only ones feeling awkward about something, like showering in a public locker room, then we further deepen our shame, making things all the worse.

I do not have a grand solution to the showering dilema, but I do think it raises some good questions for all of us. How many people struggle and suffer in silence on other things, believing themselves to be the only person who struggles with such problems. If we did not focus so much on our precieved weakness compared to others, maybe who would realize just how strong we really are. If only we got past our ignorance, had the courage to share with each othter, we would all realize how weak we all are, and by extension just how strong each of us truly is.

Right Mindfulness

I cannot recall of the top of my head whether Right Mindfulness is a term I picked up from reading the Tao of Pooh or from Buddhism classes in college, but it seems like a particularly striking notion to me now. Not because I am finding myself in the right frame of mind, but because I am reminded time and time again that it is important. One of the great challenges of church planting ... I think more than simply being the pastor of a more established congregation is the day to day waves that shift and challenge my perspectives, my right mindfulness. One day I will feel like I am riding high, things are going well and the next I will find myself mired in the midst of challenges, faced with the overwhelming knowledge of everything that is still to be done. The challenge seems to be that everything in church planting is so fluid, or at least it feels that way. I am reminded of the line from a hymn "on Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand." While I try to live that out in some ways I feel Christ is not the rock on which I stand, but the lighthouse that I orient myself towards in the midst of a storm. Though the waves go up and down, I face towards Christ ... that is the right mindfulness that I seek.

Cleaning House

When I was a kid I was terrible at doing my chores around the house ...
ok ... full disclosure, I am still terrible about doing my chores around the house. When company is coming, or my wife is coming home from a long trip I can find the drive and the energy to get the work done, but day to day stuff is not my strong suit. When I was a kid though I never minded helping clean other places, whether it was doing stuff at school or at a friend's house.

I feel like we see the same thing when it comes to church work. People will drive hundreds of miles to do a mission trip but will not want to help people in their own backyards. Every year Park UMC struggles to get their members to work at their booth at the Crow Wing County Fair. Every year Hamline UMC struggles to get member to work at the MN State Fair. However without really trying my wife and have managed to find 20+ youth from Light of the Lakes and Grace, two smaller churches who are willing to go to the Cities to help out.

I guess it makes sense ... no one likes to do the work they HAVE to do ... we like the freedom to choose what we do, even it is the same kind of work we resist doing. I suppose this is why the maverick heros are so popular. Maybe this is why so many people struggle with faith. One of the key steps in the 12 step program is accepting a higher power. An implication to that can mean accepting that there are things we have to do because of that higher power. A relationship with God seems to imply things we have to do. What we really need to do is find a relationship filled with things we want to do. We need to remind people that a relationship with God is not about subservance but joyful service. Now if only I could think joyful about the dishes at home with my name on them or the jungle ... I mean lawn that surrounds my house.

Starting a new appointment

Before anyone who reads this gets confused, no, I am not being reappointed, it just feels like it. Right now I am stuck in the middle of changing two jobs at once. My role at Light of the Lakes has been switching from pastor to church planter. With this switch suddenly my hours are less concerned with sermon and worship prep and instead are focused on how I can reach out and meet new people and working with my launch team to make things happen. Basically one of the main goals to get out of the office and out of my comfort zone and to do more things in the community. Unfortunately that is running counter with my other "new" appointment, which is the temporary "sole" pastor at Park. With Rory on sabbatical in Australia I get the joy of providing the pastor care and limited leadership for all of Park's members. This means I also have increased pressure to be in the office at the same time, since that is a great way to keep a pulse on the congregation. All of this combines to really feel in some ways like a new appointment. I am having to rethink how I structure my work week. I am learning and being reminded of different things I need to make sure get done and I am taking on a whole host of new responsibilities. The bonus though is that I don't have to move to get all of this. It reminds me of those first few days a year ago when I sat in the office and tried to figure out what in the world I was supposed to be doing as a pastor. Three years later the feeling is still the same. It is kinda nice that ministry remains fresh, new and interesting.

NYC

I had the chance on my recent vacation to see New York City. This was my first time seeing the Big Apple and was excited to see what all the fuss was about. Having lived in Chicago for a couple of years I was not exactly a small town kid coming to the big city for the first time. Still even my experiences in Chicago did not fully prepare me for the mass of humanity that is NYC.

I think the thing I struggle with in NY is really the lack of private space, the notion that almost everyone shares some space with someone else, often a lot of someones. Having spent most of my life in a quiet suburb I am not used to having to share so much space. The fact that cost of living forces people into tiny spaces and economic realities emphasize the importance of sharing that space is just foreign to me.

Not only is living space shared, but so to is open space. Central Park becomes the space to get away from cramped living conditions, as long as you are willing to share it with thousands of other people. What is most unnerving to me about all of this is the way it leads to dehumanizing those around us. I walk around Brainerd/Baxter and expect to met someone I know. With so many people around in NY you begin to not care who is around. It is hard to care about and give care to people in need because you see so many. The result seems not to be to help open our eyes to the needs of those around us, but in fact force us to close our eyes, because we just get used to it.

I only have my limited experiences living in Chicago, the Twin Cities, and visiting NYC, but I wonder if the number of people around us changes how we think about people. Do we have a limited capacity to care? Are we limited in how many people we can recognize as individuals and not just another person, part of the mass of humanity and so ironically less human to us? Is the benefit of a small community not just the quieter way of life but the benefit that we can keep seeing people as people. We have the space to be ourselves and to let other people be themselves and see everyone around us as being human.

Just my musings for the moment.

The point of debate

Garrison Keeler, in "A Prairie Home Companion" jokingly talked about a Lutheran Synod meeting where people stood up and said the same things they had been saying to each other for 15 years and neither side changing their minds. Today I read in Star Tribune that often appeals courts, such as the Minnesota Supreme Court have often made up their minds on cases based on the briefs put before them before oral arguments begin and that oral arguments often do little to change people's minds about things. This certainly resonates with my own experiences of debates in student government and also my own personal experiences in matters of faith I have been involved in where it rarely mattered what was said since both sides had already dug in on their side of the issue.

So the question that I am musing on today is, if debate does not seem to really make a difference, why do we value it so much? Why do we spend so much time in structured arguments if they so rarely result in a change in opinion. Is it all about posturing for the future? Do we just hold out the hope that hearts/minds will change? Or is it just important that everyone have the chance to have their say, even if it likely won't matter? Maybe it really tells us that we all need to be more open minded when we enter into these conversations. In the end I think it is telling that often we value people saying what they think rather than valuing listening to them, or having the conversation make a difference outside the debate.