Archives For Lament

Pat Archbold’s Lament

October 31, 2018 — 6 Comments

 

In 2011 and 2012 Pat Archbold, contributor to the National Catholic Register, wrote laments that are difficult to find fault with.

As an online video game connoisseur (the casual kind), I hear a lot of what Pat discusses, expressed by men, in what is a predominantly male arena.

The church needs to engage with this topic and minister to it without leaning too heavily on an ideology to do so.

Pat’s laments are a good starting point for discussion.


For the ladies (2011):

”Our problem is that society doesn’t value innocence anymore, real  or  imagined.  Nobody aspires to innocence anymore.  Nobody wants to be  thought of as innocent, the good girl.  They want to be hot, not  pretty. I still hope that pretty comes back, although I think it not likely any time  soon… Girls, please, bring back the pretty”. – Pat Archbold…read more.

For the Gents (2012):

”I have a simple, yet effective rule of thumb for how men should act.  I  would never look at a woman or say anything about a woman that I would not do or  say in front of my wife.   To do otherwise would bring shame upon her and  me” – Pat Archbold…read more.

My personal, and somewhat biased, response:

With daughters fast approaching ”that age”, this is a subject close to my heart (and theology).

At the risk of sounding more like the pretentious Mr.Collins than Mr.Darcy, I say,  ”here, here…we love the epoch, we are obsessed with it’s art and it’s historical significance, so why not retrieve some of the Austinesk social deportments as well!”

Originally published 22nd April, 2013

In Church, Lament, Vulnerability , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Directing Light Under The Shadow Of Nihilism: How Abortion Negates Freedom

October 20, 2018 — Leave a comment

For those who believe in absolute freedom, any “no” spoken to humanity from outside humanity, is repressive, and unfairly restrictive.

In the shadow of this logic, even a lighthouse or global positioning navigation is offensive. Both the lighthouse and GPS direct humanity. They protect freedom, because in their very confrontation with us, they invite true freedom.

They remind us of individual responsibility. Their existence shows us the necessity and power of decision. They direct us to make responsible choices.

The existence of the lighthouse warns us that danger awaits. To act in absolute freedom and ignore this warning, is to deny freedom. The light which shines forth from its lantern encourages us to not see freedom as being without the necessary choice guided by self-limitation and external direction.

The presence of a lighthouse warns us about the consequences of living out the false doctrine of the nihilist.

In the shadow of this false doctrine, the lighthouse is viewed as anachronistic.

The lighthouse is viewed as an oppressive social construct from a by-gone era. So violence is done to it. Alongside well positioned propaganda, walks the advocate with placards demanding that the lighthouse be torn down. Through ridicule and raw emotion, the lighthouse is mocked, sentenced to the museum and ignored.

The ruling is that the lighthouse should be denied its right to speak; its right to signal danger and direct a pathway to safety. The lighthouse is viewed as something to be denied its right to confront us with it’s “no, not that way”.

In the case of the nihilist Captain and his ship, the lighthouse is ignored.This is until the unmovable brunt of a reef tragically rips apart the hull of his ship, and the shadow of absolute freedom is exposed for what it is: a denial of freedom. The reef is hit and lives are lost. Freedom is sacrificed to the abyss.

The ability and permission to say “no”, is as much a part of freedom, and love, as is the ability and permission to say “yes”. If someone is without the ability and permission to say “no” to themselves or to others, it cannot be said that this person is truly free. This is because direction and self-limitation are ultimate necessities for survival and healthy progress. Direction and self-limitation are necessary for freedom to remain freedom. In other words: No self-control, no freedom. Know self-control, know freedom.

The responsible parent will say “no” to an infant wanting to play with a loaded gun, sharp knife, and hot stove or in the middle of a freeway. The loving limitation of the infant’s freedom protects the freedom of the infant.  The loving parental “no” directs the infant towards true freedom. Absolute freedom denies this[1].  It denies that freedom exists in limitation[2].

This is because freedom-in-limitation is counter to the flawed logic of advocates who believe in absolute freedom (such as the nihilist). The denial of self-limitation, and rejection of direction, both form the cornerstone of a false doctrine which preaches that freedom can exist without limitation; without direction.

Advocates who believe in absolute freedom have no time for discussion about issues such as self-control, perseverance, and commitment. Their “Yes” is always spoken; permission always given, and their “No”, if spoken at all, is a quiet, uncertain “no”.

Under the nihilist doctrine of absolute freedom, the only one who is free to say “No” is the nihilist himself. In this way advocates of absolute freedom assert themselves as lords over others.

We saw this in Australia, when the State Government in Queensland, with the support of a broad list of representatives from different parties, passed a bill that would legalise abortion up to 22 weeks. The bill also allows for a mother to abort her unborn child right up to birth. This latter option is, however, conditional. The mother must have the signatures of two doctors. (Even if she does obtain two approvals, the doctor isn’t even required to view her file or meet with her.)

No amount of arguments in favour of abortion changes the fact that abortion is the deliberate violent interruption of pregnancy[3]. It’s where women (and some men on behalf of women) demand the absolute freedom for pregnant women to”miscarry on demand”.

With abortion, absolute freedom claims the higher moral ground. The battle cry is that absolute choice, and gender equality, must be won, no matter what the cost. Freedom of choice reigns over against any forms of, or reasons for, moral restraint. Like the lighthouse,  the warnings from those who fight for, and seek the protection of life, are pushed aside as irrelevant. The value of human life is shattered on the reef. Abortion is made into a commodity, where human life is bought and sold, at the command of doctor, parent or state.

Like the nihilist Captain who ignores the lighthouse, the reality of man and woman’s new dilemma is brutal. They are unaware of what they’re entertaining and what they’ve bought into.Absolute freedom negates freedom.

Industrial abortion is another manifestation of lebensunwertes leben (The Nazi ideology of life [deemed] unworthy of life). That’s good reason for why it should be rejected, not embraced. It’s certainly not to be celebrated as liberation, and abortion clinics should not be paraded as liberators – where all who are opposed to abortion are painted as anti-freedom or oppressors.

The false doctrine of the nihilist should be fervently rejected. In its theological form, this false doctrine spawns the false interpretation of grace as freedom to sin, as opposed to grace being freedom from sin; freedom to be for God and for others[4].

Consequently, under the shadow of nihilism, the light of God’s “no” spoken to humanity from outside itself is rejected. The power and sovereignty of God over life, is subsumed into the hands of men and women; patients, the government, family and professionals.

Man takes up the power of life and death, and (as he has done from the beginning of his choice against God, in order to be God), man puts himself in the place of God.

As summed up by anti-Nazi theologian Karl Barth:

‘he who destroys germinating life kills a man and thus ventures the monstrous thing of decreeing concerning the life and death of a fellow-man whose life is given by God and therefore, like his own, belongs to Him. He desires to discharge a divine office, or, even if not, he accepts responsibility for such discharge, by daring to have the last word on at least the temporal form of the life of his fellow-man. Those directly or indirectly involved cannot escape this responsibility.’ (CD.3:4:416)

God is thought to be dethroned or an unconcerned spectator. His absolute power is now viewed as a weapon in the hands of the nihilist. Power handed to them by man and woman’s selfish and self-destructive quest for what they have accepted, without question, as being true freedom.

Absolute freedom negates freedom. We cannot afford to ignore the lighthouse. For what we face without it is an age of darkness.

To be so convinced that true freedom is existence without the One who birthed that existence, is to give in to an arrogance which rejects grace, and chains humanity to the Dark agenda of total extinction and self-annihilation.

‘Blessed is the one who hears instruction and responds wisely to it’ – (Proverbs 8:33-34)

References:

Barth, K. Respect For Life, Church Dogmatics 3:4 Hendrickson Publishers

[1] My conclusions here rest on those of Albert Camus. To paraphrase, ‘absolute freedom is ultimately a lie.’ (The Rebel)

[2] Karl Barth

[3] Ibid, CD.3:4:416

[4] Karl Barth

©Rod Lampard, 2018

Photo by Sleep Music on Unsplash

In Karl Barth, Lament, Political Theology , , , ,
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Prayer For That Which Was Seldom Shown

April 29, 2017 — 1 Comment

.

Unlike greed, lies, abuse and false claims,

.           rain falls and doesn’t stain.

Lord, through grace,

as we call upon you in repentance,

teach us to grasp tenderness;

To build upon it a reflection

.          of your love and just benevolence.

.

(RL2017)

In Lament, My Poetry, Prayer , , ,
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When The Ashes You Inherit Have a Strong Connection to The Legacy of War.

April 25, 2017 — 3 Comments
Family_Fathers_War

Royal Navy & A.I.F, Holsworthy WW1, 6th A.B.G.R.O Coy WW1, 12th Reinforcements 4th Batt WW1. Papua New Guinea WW2, Royal Australian Airforce 1950’s & Army Reseve 1980’s. (Frederick Petrie not pictured).

I have a difficult relationship with Anzac day.

Firstly, I am fond of the practice of remembrance. It reminds the Australian people of their unique narrative, and place in the world. One that we can too easily take for granted, or pound into dust via political correctness.

For those of us with forefathers who were broken by war, it can be difficult to find a pathway beyond bitterness towards grateful ownership of our own narrative.

We find ourselves busy trying to repatriate ourselves into a family, in the shadow of those who found it difficult to be repatriated.

For example: ‘when the war ended, thousands of ex-servicemen, many disabled with physical or emotional wounds, had to be re-integrated into a society keen to consign the war to the past and resume normal life’. (AWM)

A personal example of this is my Great-Great grandfather, Frederick William Petrie. He was a locomotive fireman (stoker) and a volunteer, who enlisted in December 1916, at the age of 36.

From Australia he went to France, where he became a corporal in the ‘6th Australian broad gauge railroad company’ (6th A.B.G.R.O Coy). His war record shows that he served until July, 1918. Four months before the war was officially declared over.

Frederick’s reason for discharge was because he had ‘neurasthenia’. Neurasthenia is a general condition related to ‘shell shock’. That is, he suffered from ‘severe fatigue and emotional distress’. This was more than likely brought on by the trauma of spending eighteen months  shovelling coal into the belly of a steam train moving back and forth with supplies to ‘barren and bloodied battlefields’ (King).

Although Frederick was a non-combatant, as an engineer, his support role was crucial to the allied advance and it put him in harms way where he would surely have come under fire. Usually from artillery barrages, an enemy he could not see or even anticipate.

Lt. R.J Burchell in an interview for the ‘West Australian’ in 1919 illuminates the circumstances:

‘we were not fighting troops, but I may say that the whole of our sphere of operations was within range of the enemy’s artillery, and he paid particular attention to the railways, both with his heavy guns and aeroplane bombs. Even…the furthest back station of the 4th company was under fire from the 15in guns…With both planes and guns the enemy paid systematic attention to our main lines of rail, so you can realise that life in a railway unit was not altogether a picnic. The 5th Coy…had the worst of it…their section of line was continually exposed to bomb raids and gunfire, night and day, and their casualties were heavy…the amount of work behind a great army is tremendous. Despite the network of lines, I have seen 280 trains per day pass over a single section of line, and trains carry 1000-ton loads…the difficulties and odds against which they had to contend are seldom realised.’
(Lt. R.J Burchell 5th coy, The West Australian, June 1919)

F.W.P returned to Australia in 1918. Petrie had difficulty readjusting to a peacetime existence.

He helped raise my Grandfather, ‘Ted’, who had joined the Australian Airforce as an aircraft fitter in the 1950’s. ‘Ted’s testimony at a court-martial indicates the difficulty imposed on families by the ongoing effects of war:

Testimony_EdwardJHO

Adding to this the representative for his defence argued that:

assessmentbythedefendinglawyer_EdwardJHO

Although I have my reservations, I refuse to ‘howl with the wolves’ (Barth) and ridicule Anzac Day, deconstructing it, in an overexcited academic orgy that decries war, the evils of Patriarchy or the evils of Western civilisation.

I simply want to state that for me and my family, along with a large portion of Australians, Anzac day forces us to confront a ‘stubborn fact – the brutally elementary data’ (Arendt cited by Elshtain, 2000, p.135), that proves: causalities of war are not only the servicemen who were thrown into it’s abyss.

There is a ripple effect and it’s causalities also include the wives, children and the generations that followed these men.

Anzac day is not about a nations ideology. Anzac day is about a nations remembrance; its humanity and its theology. This is exhibited every April when a nation makes room for healing, gratitude and the acknowledgement that, those generations directly impacted by war are not forgotten.

Anzac day allows us the room to reflect and explain to others that we bear the burden of their scars, not just the benefit of their medals.

Anzac day should affect us. If the gravity of it doesn’t force us to reflect, we will end up in an ignorance which leads us to being only one misstep away from repeating history.

This also has theological relevance. For instance, we are reminded of  James’ call to look out for the widow and the orphan (Jm.1:27), and David’s reminder that ‘God is the father of the fatherless and protector of widows’ (Ps.68:5).

The benefit of Anzac day is that it allows a nation the room to grieve collectively.

According to my family history, we are the children of soldiers. We do not carry their wounds, but we do carry their scars.

Although we share different contexts, we still feel the effects of the price they paid.

Today, there are  serious interpersonal conflicts. These are largely caused by the hidden effects of a trauma still echoing through the generations. Because this goes unacknowledged, it is like watching ripples spread out from a point of impact in my family’s history. Anzac day helps me to frame that drama in a very real context. War, although now distant, is in large part the cause of that dysfunction.

Anzac day disturbs my complacency by confronting me with the story I am handed. It reminds us that we are given the gift of choice, and the chance to not make the same mistakes.

The Anzac pilgrimage each April is a paradox of thanksgiving grounded in the dialectic outcomes of war. War disinherits. Through the sacrifice of freedom it sets up an inheritance of freedom.

War costs families. It diminishes the potential for healthy and holistic relationships. Yet it opens the door for grace, forgiveness and gratitude.

Anzac day also brings us to find some deep sense of solidarity with Jesus Christ and the cross He was crucified on. It reminds us of His resurrection (Jn.15:13), and brings, by this fact, families to a place of hope, saying that through Him they can rise from the ashes of war.

Anzac day allows each generation to move forward in courage. It allows room for people to own their stories, leaving at the foot of the cross, the psychological, spiritual, emotional and financial dysfunction that war causes.

The hope of Anzac Day is Jesus Christ. It compels us to align ourselves with the table turning Messiah (Mt.21:12),  who, through His Spirit, is constantly at work in ordinary people, doing extraordinary things, even when we don’t see it.

It is here that we can catch our breath and find hope among the ashes.

#LestWeForget.

References (not otherwise linked):

Elshtain, J.B 2000 ‘Who are we?: Critical reflections and hopeful possibilities Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing company, Grand Rapids, Michigan

 

In Lament, Political Theology, Theological Reflection , , , , , ,
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Self-doubt Vs. Ability & Ambition

May 31, 2014 — Leave a comment

Here’s a thought that I repeat here with prayer-filled sigh and grateful amen.

working theory

‘…If you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of exile, knowing that you were ransomed from futile ways inherited from your forefathers’

(1.Pet.1:18 ESV)

 

 

In Deliberative Theology, Grace, Lament , , , , , ,
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On testimony and right response

May 11, 2013 — Leave a comment

I was working through a theological reflection today. As I was doing so I couldn’t help but reflect on a conversation between my wife and I earlier this morning. We were discussing the prodigal, his brother and why the church seems to “celebritize” the prodigals at the risk of ignoring the many faithful brothers or sisters. For context, my wife identifies with the brother and I identify more with the prodigal.

The first part of our discussion was centered on when the church inadvertently celebrates loss. This happens when the church celebrates a story of pain and heartbreak, because of the significance of the event. E.g.: the person is idolized. Such a celebration of negative life experiences can wrongly push people into becoming an ‘elite spiritual aristocracy…that claims ‘special gnosis (knowledge)’ (Peterson 2005:61). Conversely this could also lead to a false theological understanding about what it means to be a Christ-follower.Even though narratives full of despair, brokenness and scandal are worth sharing, they are never cause for jubilation. At least this has been the reality of my experience . For example: ‘It sucks’ (to use the urban meaning) to stand before people and tell them about the abuse and mistreatment I have experienced.

To share painful memories with others is painful and risky to do. However, testimony should energize dialogue. This is because sharing identifies each of us with the ‘suffering community which is the sacramental community’ (Chan 1998, p.113). The circumstances which lead to renewal are not something to be envyed, used for entertainment or plated in gold. They are circumstances which are to be mourned and grieved. In my view any expression of church which unwittingly places the prodigal, or the broken and their story above other brothers and sisters,  absolutizes their pain, ignores the power of lament and betrays a healthy sense of pastoral care.

Instead our celebration should be wasted on the God  ‘who created a way of life out of this chaos and misery, countered death, breathed life into creation and creatures’ (Peterson 2005:24).Our painful stories are significant, they are stories that need to be heard, not worshipped. Otherwise our focus remains squarely on the cross, consequently we are barely able to move our focus from it to the resurrected Christ. He is able to recognize us in the midst of the twisted mess of anxiety, fear, feelings of worthlessness and rejection. By restraining ourselves from worshipping the story we move past the ‘infrastructures of consumerism’ (Brueggemann 1993, 2:II), towards being like Christ, where we can recognize each other in the midst of their own stories.

This makes room for an equal, authentic and honest witness: After all ‘we are approved by God entrusted with the Gospel, so we speak not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts’ (1. Thess. 2:4 ESV).The church should lament. They should rejoice and weep (Jn. 11:35 ESV) with the prodigal, whilst not ignoring the stories of the quiet faithful ones, who stand steadfast in the background. Otherwise the Church caresses the pain and poor choices by popularising them, proving that they do so only in order to fund street cred and feed antidotes to nominalism.

Bruggemann on the Psalms of disorientation

Bibliography:

Brueggemann, W. 1993 The bible and post-modern Imagination, Fortress press MN, USA
Chan, S. 1998 Spiritual theology InterVarsity Press Downers Grove IL
Peterson, E. 2005 Christ plays in ten thousand places Wm. B. Eerdmans publishing Co.

In Lament, Theological Reflection
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Fallin

May 8, 2013 — 1 Comment

Walter Bright


There you go again… you did it.
You promised God that it will never happen again.
But there you go again… dealing, sniffing, lusting, gossiping.
You told yourself it was all over.
But there you go again… angry, grumpy envious, sensual.
You have fallen.

Well, it is not okay, but it’s okay.
“Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up.”
So get up!
Commit again…
Try again…

Quote: Chinese Proverb
Video: Trip, born William Lee Barefield III

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In Art and Theology, Grace, Gratitude, Lament
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