twokingdoms.ca

May

So what can we take from the Wildrose showing here in Alberta? Yesterday I focused on what went wrong, and frankly, I thought it was kind of derivative. While no one can claim decisively that a single factor killed the campaign, I think that it is pretty hard not to see the big factors, and when you play them against the backdrop of the whole of the campaign, ours and others, I think that you can get a sense for what went wrong. Ah well, Flanagan’s next book will at least be interesting and filled with cautionary tales about what can go wrong on the Hustings.

So, what went right?

First and foremost Danielle Smith went right. She was our greatest asset, and has been since the “beginning” of the party. I was a fairly uncomfortable PC when the Wildrose through Hinman stole a by-election and brought some necessary media attention to the party’s leadership race. When Hinman sat out (as much as I like the guy) I was relieved, given that while in person he is one of the most personable and incredible politicians I have ever had the pleasure of meeting, in front of a camera or a large group, he tends to fall kind of flat. I joined the party after a short personal conversation with Danielle wherein I cornered her about various issues and she held up better than any politician I had ever put those issues to before. She actually talked to me, not in political jargon but rather she decisively critiqued the issues off the top of her head. I wasn’t ready to join the party, but I was on my way. I started to obsessively research the party and the two remaining candidates, as I am wont to do. Then I read something by Tom Flanagan, who had joined the party, which was something to the effect of “I don’t want to be a member of a protest party, so if that is what this is, I am gone. We have to make a decision about what we intend to be.” That started me thinking seriously. Then Danielle won.

I followed up in having a conversation with a friend of mine, Andrew, who cornered me with his logic and reason. (Damn him) He said that if everyone waited to see if the Wildrose was the next big thing to get involved, no one would get involved. Someone had to be part of the first cohort. (Damn him, and he is soooo cocky when he is right about stuff) So I joined.

But I am getting off track.

Danielle was charismatic, photogenic, quick on her feet, and friendly. She was everything you could hope for in a Leader. The campaign had a picture of her looking silly, from her next to her humping dogs, to a Vulcan salute, to cultural dress, to serving coffee, and these pics came out every single day. It was a stroke of brilliance. I cannot overstate how important this was to the campaign.

We also had some of the brightest political minds that conservatism has to offer. From Vitor Marciano to Tom Flanagan, to all of the crew at HQ that patiently took my panicked calls day after day, this was the most well-run and professional campaign that Alberta has ever seen.

The policies were excellent. Yes, I know that we have gotten more than our share of flack for the Energy Dividend, the so-called Dani-Dollars, and as a libertarian I am not terribly excited about wealth redistribution, but if it is going to happen this is the absolute best way that it could happen. It would occur only in surpluses, would tie Albertans to the resources that they own, and disproportionately help the most poor and vulnerable among us. As for the rest, our policies on healthcare were my personal favourite, and judging by the amount of Doctors, dentists, and other healthcare practitioners that came out of the woodwork for to get involved in a political campaign for the first time ever, they knew it too. To be perfectly clear, the Wildrose policies on healthcare were positive and transformative. I truly do believe that our reforms would be a path to better healthcare for all Albertans.

Then there is the result. First of all, we must remember that even in looking at the bright side of things this result was a colossal failure. The party decided at the outset that the goal was not to make a strong showing and form a vocal Opposition in order to lay the foundation for our new government, the plan was to win a majority and form government. We came tantalisingly close, but it didn’t occur.

That being said, one in three Albertans who bothered to vote voted Wildrose. That is huge. After all of the name-calling, bullying, and mudslinging, they still came out in droves to support our party. The margin of our loss was incredibly close by Canadian political standards, even if our first past the post system of representation somewhat masked the astounding outcome.

We elected our Leader, and with her a team of 16 MLAs to the Legislature. Due primarily to voter support concentration and vote-splitting due to us, there are three Opposition parties in the Legislature, all of official party status. That is, to my knowledge, the first time in Alberta history.

Further, the PCs were held to a disastrously low share of the popular vote, I think that it was 1967 the last time their share was this low. Twinned with this is the fact that a large percentage of the PC support on Election Day was from people that had never voted PC before and probably are unlikely to do so again. It is a shaky and fragile type of support. And based on anecdotal evidence, there is a lot of voter’s remorse going on in Alberta today.

Further, every single Constituency Association had a sudden influx of first time donors and volunteers who worked their cans off during the campaign and now are experienced veterans of a Provincial campaign. They are excited, committed, and want to do it right next time. This is incredibly valuable for the future of our party.

Did we overreach? No. It just went horribly wrong. Did we learn as supporters valuable lessons at every level of the party? Absolutely yes. Do I believe that we can win in 2016? Yes. Four years is a long time in politics, as we saw during the campaign everything can change in only days. But while I am worried about the damage that could be done to the Province in the next four years, the prospects for a party that barely existed two years ago are very bright indeed. And I take a great amount of satisfaction in knowing that this fact will keep the PC partisans awake at night for years to come.

Apr

A Wildrose Implosion

By admin | Uncategorized

6 Comments

So the election is over and I am getting inundated with requests for my own version of an election post-mortem. Further, it is really time that I started updating and posting new content on this blog again. This was, after all, my New Year’s resolution and we know that we cannot breach the sacredness of that bond.

So, what the hell happened? Of course, many people have put their two cents worth in, some have been very insightful, others, not so much. But here are some of my jumbled thoughts.

First of all, if I only had to pick one thing that sunk the bid for a regime change in the majority government fashion, it will still have to be the so called “bozo eruptions.” I acted as a campaign manager for Edmonton-Goldbar and my candidate disagrees, but I will address that later. You see, everyone inside of the party that had been involved in even a few campaigns knew that the massive 17-point leads that we were experiencing in the early part of the campaign were not sustainable, but it gave us some cause to be optimistic. I mean, we were poised to make history, right? What would it matter if the majority were 70 seats or 50?

We need to remember that Wildrose did what so many on the left have been crying out for for many years as well, we brought new people into the political process. Huge amounts of people who had never been engaged in the political process, worked on a campaign or even given much thought to it at all were suddenly passionate and excited. And we had a very Pollyanna-ish view of things, especially at first. We thought that our ideas were better; they ensured freedom for Albertans, our Province’s prosperity for the future, and attempted to cull the massive corruption that had set into the PCs. We knew as much as anyone just how tired and bloated the PCs had become, and we had at our disposal our greatest political asset – Premier Redford.

Then @Kikkiplanet happened. This self-aggrandizing (but very talented) blogger has a history of manufactured controversy and apparently “discovered” that the Wildrose Party supported “conscience rights” in accord with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. She then wrote a long post lambasting same party, which she claimed to be an ardent supporter of (I did see her at some events) with the post’s notable addition to the public dialogue coming in the fact that she didn’t seem to have the first clue what conscience rights actually were. I actually don’t believe that she intentionally tried to spread misinformation, I honestly believe that she saw this term, tried to put together what it was, probably googled some nightmare scenarios from the manic minds of the American Bible Belt, and was off and running! She then filled in any and all gaps with the grasping of her fevered imagination and pictured a dystopian future in which anyone but white, straight Republicans (I mean Wildrose supporters), were going to be slowly removed from public life by a massive agenda of intolerance. I mean, think of the children!!! OMG111!!!!

Sigh.

The blog and issue garnered not a little buzz, but mostly from the journalistic literati and people of the progressive inclination on Twitter anyways. More than likely, no one that was going to vote Wildrose on Election Day would have been swayed anyways by this post. However, it provided a backdrop for the next controversy.

Next, the first and by far most damaging “Bozo Eruption:” Allan Hunsperger, who was a Pentecostal Pastor prior to becoming a political candidate apparently had written some inflammatory things about the LGBTQ/Two-Spirited community in his position as Pastor. Now let’s be clear here: His post spoke of concepts of Original Sin, the foundation of Holy Scripture as the fount for all understanding of the faith, and the homosexual act as sin. In these broad strokes, most orthodox Christians agree with him. The shockingly antagonistic and horrifying way that he spoke about such tender issues, however, were beyond the pale. This post reeked of anger and condemnation. And I know that as Christians and especially those of us who are Pastors, we are called to be the prophetic voice in the world and condemn sin wherever we find it. I just feel that as a Pastor, regardless of the sin, he could have reached out in love. Yes, it is loving to attempt to warn people about sin. No, sometimes no matter your best efforts it doesn’t appear that way to those affected by that warning. That being said, in this culture, in this time, in this context, a warm embrace and a gentle rebuke would, I think, be far more appropriate.

So, the ex-PC staffer Blake Robert found this blog post and others and began to make them an issue under a pseudonym on Twitter. It soon caught fire, and I started seeing it tweeted and retweeted, at first by my Alberta Party supporters, until the PC Twitterati discovered this gift and started publicizing it like mad. Reporters started to ask their questions, and the thing was blowing up in everyone’s face.

Danielle, to her credit, lived by the words that she spoke earlier in the campaign about free speech and the party being welcoming to all people of religious conviction. While she eventually did personally condemn the remarks, she would not throw this man under the campaign bus in order to keep it moving. Maybe this was due to some kind of naivety on her part, maybe idealism, maybe the polls lulled us into thinking that we could stand by our principles no matter what. I like to think that in the few times I have met and conversed with her, that she is the person she presents; ferociously intelligent, engaging, straight-forward, honest, and above all – principled.

Would this have sunk us had we fired him? Maybe, maybe not. It would have probably been less damaging. But I will leave that to the prognosticators and rest with the knowledge that I belong to a party that will not jettison me and mine when we become unpopular.

Then Dr. Ron Leach, a church leader who had worked with literally dozens of ethnic groups over 30 years of community service said some stupid things on an interview with Chinese language television. That not being bad enough, he doubled down in his “apology.” WTF?

Listen, I don’t think Dr. Leach is a racist. I don’t think he is bigoted in any way. I certainly know that his multi-ethnic campaign team certainly didn’t think so, but there it is. The problem is that with the conscience rights conversation as a backdrop, the perceived tolerance for homophobia in the public eye, this was the last straw. It was all over. Part of me knew it, but I idealistically chose to believe the polling.

I know that my candidate thought that the healthcare conversation was what killed Wildrose. And while I have thought very carefully about what she said (frankly, I think carefully about everything she says, she is a font of wisdom and I learned from her every day) I believe that she was right, but only when understood correctly. Yes, healthcare was a major issue in Alberta. It always is in Canadian elections. That being said, people were willing to give us the benefit of the doubt in this election, at least enough people to allow us to form government and show them what our vision would look like in practical terms. But the backdrop of the mess of these social issues provided meant that every one of our other policies looked extreme and scary. So, many swing voters stopped trusting us. Our support began to wane.

Then Danielle started telling people in this environment that she didn’t believe in anthropogenic climate change, that was all it took for the last of the swing voters to abandon us and go back the PCs where they were comfortable or stay home.

Our goose was cooked.

What did we learn? A tonne. Just watch.

See you in 2016.

Apr

Please Don’t Vote

By admin | Uncategorized

2 Comments

Please don’t vote.

No, I mean it. You see, I vote. In every election that I am eligible to vote in. I vote for school board trustees, student politics, municipal elections, I sit on a provincial Constituency Association where I vote at that level, I am a member of two political parties (one provincial and one federal) and I vote at that level. I vote provincially and I vote federally. Hell, I even vote in the voter’s assembly at church. I vote in advance polling and I take my daughter every time I can so that she can see the importance and value of voting.

I will be campaigning hard during the election and I have personally stood for election at the student level (3 times), at the Constituency Association level (1 time) and have been invited to stand in a provincial and federal election (turned down both of those).

I have a definite ideology. I am a libertarian. I have a lot of sympathy for social conservatives as I understand where they are coming from but don’t agree with them on many issues and will fight them on some. I, at one time, identified myself as a liberal and I love where they come from, but think that they are some combination of dangerously misguided and myopic on several key issues.

But as important as I think voting is, critical even to our democratic process, I don’t want YOU to vote.

Why? You see, every person that stays home on Election Day makes my vote more powerful. As it stands, everyone in this federal election that will vote will most likely get a two-for-one punch for their vote. The power of their vote is double what it could be. Further, I especially don’t want people who don’t agree with me to vote especially. You see, if you vote, you could cancel out my vote. Your candidate then holds fast against mine. I hate that.

You see, if you don’t vote at all, my candidate pulls ahead. That makes my vote even more powerful than it is now.

And I like that power.

So, please, please, today, stay home.

Thank you.

Mar

An Open Letter to David Dorward and the PCs

By admin | Uncategorized

Leave a Comment

Mr. Dorward,

Hello, I am a constituent of your riding, Edmonton-Goldbar, and up until recently, an unabashed supporter of yours. We have met a few times, but with a man of busy as you are, I will forgive you for not quite being able to place me.

I am not ashamed to say that I have admired you. You are a man of many accomplishments, a man that is civic-minded, and until recently I thought a man of deep personal integrity.

Unfortunately, I am beginning to have profound doubts. After fanatically supporting your mayoral bid (if only!) I watched and waited to see what leadership you would provide to the Provincial political world. Of course, in the spirit of full disclosure please know that I am a firm Wildrose supporter, and working on the campaign in Edmonton-Goldbar. I have worked on the Constituency Association for the Wildrose for quite some time, long before you announced that you were returning to provincial politics, but I still always spoke highly of you as a respected member of my community. In short, I respected you.

I mean, I was confused that a man of your convictions was able to swallow them and soldier on under the PC banner, but decided to try to put the best construction on things; “Maybe he wants to try and change it from within?” “Maybe he is unaware of how bad this party has gotten?” “Maybe he just doesn’t get that there is another option?”

But now the push-poll: Mr. Dorward, please, I know that you are aware that push-polling is just about the dirtiest trick in the book. Heck, you may even be aware that even Karl Rove doesn’t approve of push-polls, and he is not exactly renowned for his electoral ethics. And that push-poll was nasty. You implied that my candidate and the Wildrose Party wanted drunk drivers on the streets, supported drinking and driving, is going to shut down hospitals and schools, and many other patently false things. It was dirty, cruel, mean-spirited, and ugly. And deep down, I think that you know that it was wrong.

Please sir, as a man of faith and values, as a leader in our community, and as someone whom I have admired, publicly apologize. Prove that you value your integrity more than a political prize.

Please Mr. Dorward, prove all of the nasty assumptions about politics wrong.

Mar

Are We Homphobic?

By admin | Uncategorized

2 Comments

This is a piece I wrote for the Canadian Lutheran some time back, though it remains for me one of my favourite writings that I have ever completed. I hope it expresses for you some of the struggles that I have had with this issue.

During the lead-up to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s 2009 Churchwide Assembly (ELCA), I was at a fellowship conference/retreat in Atlanta, Georgia with the twenty of the most able young minds and leaders in American liberal theological seminaries; the absolute cream of the crop with regard to academics and leadership in their denominations’ seminaries. This group included three ELCA members studying toward ordination within the ELCA—one woman and two men; a couple of United Methodists; several Episcopalians; some United Church of Christ members; and a Unitarian Universalist. As the Assembly loomed and things began, so did the discussions—first among the Lutherans, then expanding to include everyone. What made these discussions rare and interesting for me was that of the twenty members of this theological fellowship, several were openly homosexual and pursuing ordination. This was hard for me because over the last year as I have participated in this fellowship and all of the retreats, conference calls, e-mails, Facebook chats, and personal phone calls, I have come to love these people.

All of them.

These were people with whom I radically disagree and will most likely spend my life struggling against in the theological/ministerial sphere; black and white, gay and straight, men and women; people who hold a high and low view of Scripture; who deny the Trinity and those who confess it with passion—my friends, my neighbours.

To continue reading, link here.

Mar

Explain Redford to Me – Please

By admin | Uncategorized

Leave a Comment

New polling seems to indicate that the Wildrose is coming within spitting distance of the PCs, though a closer look at the date suggests that the PC vote is far more efficiently spread in order to take ridings than is the Wildrose right now.

I must admit as to being slightly baffled as to how people of any stripe can vote for the ruling Progressive Conservatives, given scandal after scandal while stripping away through legislation much of the personal autonomy that makes Alberta famous.

I mean, Premier Redford has not, barring a very few minor exceptions, kept any of the promises that swept her to power and while not living up to these things and forcing new and unpopular legislation through the Legislature and dealing with scandals and corruption accusations she seems oblivious to it all.

I mean, the election is some time away, but can she really be as bad at this as she seems to be? Is she poised to become the last Progressive Conservative Premier?

Mar

Christian Vocation and Calling in Sick for Work

By admin | Uncategorized

Leave a Comment

This morning I found myself retching into the downstairs sink. I know, not the most attractive way to begin a blog post, but there it is. I am not sure if it something that I ate or if I was battling a bug, but I simply did not feel well. So, I tried to force myself to go about my morning routine until a few more bathroom stops made it clear that I was not going into work today. My boss was BBMing me after I told him telling me to stay home, my wife was dragging me back to bed, and I finally capitulated.

So, off to bed I went, and had a short nap punctuated by a few bathroom breaks and in a few hours I felt better. Then, against the advice of my boss and wife, I went back into work so that I didn’t have to cancel an appointment with one of my clients.

There is a point to all of this (I know you were wondering) in that this set me to thinking of the Christian doctrine of vocation. You see, in serving in my vocation as a Follow-up Support Worker at an NGO here in Edmonton, I am serving both my neighbour in the way that God has called me to, and also God Himself. That is part of the reason I was so hard on myself this morning.

The other part is simply that I was raised to believe that responsibility and hard work are THE defining characteristics of what it means to be a man, but the this part is that if I were to stay home when I knew that I could have called in sick, I would have been sinning.

You see, no one would have said anything. I was sincerely sick this morning. My boss advised me to stay home, generous soul that he is. Even my client would have understood. But my vocation asks me to serve my neighbour, and if I had stayed home this afternoon a client would have not been served and thus I would have broken the Tenth Commandment in not helping him improve his lot in life. I would have used a full sick day without really needing it and thus would have been breaking the Seventh Commandment in taking money and resources from my employers and their funders without just cause. Frankly, the more I think about this the more Commandments broken that I could come up with.

You see, we were created for work. God gave us work even in the Garden, as Adam tended it. Work is a good and Godly thing, and something that should be taken to with gusto and enthusiasm. It is a sign of a responsible person, and it is a sign of a productive Christian. It is simply unloving to not work, as you are not only rebelling against God’s vocational calling on your life, but also you are withholding your labour and its fruit from your neighbour.

However, I fail in this. I especially fail in that I have sinfully called in sick at times when I knew I wasn’t really sick. I have sluffed off at work and in school when I should have been diligently toiling away. I have missed the mark in these and so many other ways that my vocations are tainted by sin to an extent that not even I am aware of. For this, I constantly stand on the grace of Christ, His Atonement won for me through His Passion, Death, and Resurrection and freely communicated to me through the Holy Sacraments.

I try, I do. I try to live out my vocations as God intends. And then I praise Him as he forgives my failure. Then I try, I do. I try to live out………

Mar

BREAKING! Gary Mar Ethics Probe?!

By admin | Uncategorized

Leave a Comment

What an interesting day for Gary Mar. The once presumptive Premier of Alberta that was outmaneuvered at the last moment by Allison Redford during the leadership campaign for the ruling Progressive Conservatives and was then given what many (OK, me) saw as a plum position as an envoy to China/Asia.

In fact, that is probably a great use for the widely heralded talents of the man, but it still leaves me a little bitter as I tend to have to pay for these patronage appointments. Sigh.

Anyhoo, earlier today news came out that Gary Mar’s leadership campaign spent far more than his rivals, at around $2.7 million, and that he was about a quarter of a million dollars in debt from that campaign. Now, his salary is likely just above that annually for his new position, and added to that the fact that these leadership debts can linger for almost ever, or be dealt with in any number of shady ways, I am not that worried about him.

But BREAKING NEWS! Apparently he has been ordered to step down by the Premier for a possible ethics violation during a fundraiser here in Edmonton wherein he auctioned a free trip to Hong Kong to at the $400.00/person event.

If true, it does appear that he is selling government tied influence and resources, i.e., access to Alberta’s Hong Kong offices, etc., for what amounts to making money privately. If so, I am not sure what the consequences would be, but it looks as though the Hong Kong trip went to a businessman for $20,000. Wow.

Is this latest scandal the one that fells the PCs?

Mar

How Can You Vote for Harper?!

By admin | Uncategorized

Leave a Comment

“How can you vote for Harper?!” This was the rage-filled question hurled at me a couple of weeks back during a political conversation with one of my more left-leaning friends. As one usually does when they see a friend whom they love’s face turning purples with rage about your actions, and trying to both placate them while standing by an action that took quite a lot of thought to arrive at, I stammered out a sarcastic and unsatisfying response. Sigh. I am nothing if not quick-witted, except without the quick….or the wit.

Like all human beings, I thought over for a long time what I should have said in that moment. I thought of the sarcastic zingers I am known for, I thought of the reasoned answers, and even came up with a few that turned the tables on them. “Iggy? You have to be f—ing kidding me?!” But, until the exact same conversation comes up again, I just have to swallow the awesome that will be my comebacks.

Except, I have asked this same question before. Of myself. You see, I am not a “Party-guy.” I am one of those annoying people that make life rough for those that just want to do or say whatever they have to in order to get power. I am one of those idealist ideologues that actually believe the things I say and think that this provides a path towards greater justice and prosperity for all people.

Worse, I am one of those libertarians that make life difficult from within the Party on various issues that social conservatives hold dear.

So, sometimes I wonder if there might be a better place to park my vote. I mean, I have never been particularly inspired by Harper, he just doesn’t inspire that kind of devotion in the Party faithful. Nevertheless, I have watched as he outmaneuvered far more charismatic politicians time and time again to come out on top. I admire the man, but the things I admire I could admire in my enemies, things like his keen intelligence, his tactical genius, his legendary political patience, his steadfast resolve in the face of opposition, his determination which allows him to chip away at his opponents a fraction of a centimetre at a time, and his fidelity to the understanding that brought him to power.

What is that understanding? Well, the old Tories of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada were a truly centrist Party, defined mainly by not being Liberals. Not the most impressive bunch of chaps. The Reform Party was the West’s big hurrah that delivered crushing majorities to Chretien’s Liberals but set in motion a series of events that at once moved the new united conservatives, the Conservative Party of Canada, both to the right of what the old conservatives were, but at the same time impressed upon them a need to be far more pragmatic about winning elections than the Reform were. One simply may not form government with only Saskatchewan and Alberta, after all.

So, something that is not often understood by the left was born, an alliance. You see, the left is pretty much united in a sweeping understanding that there is “inequality” and that it is the government’s job to redistribute the wealth in order to redress that. Beyond that, there is not much of an agreement, but that provides much of the unity of ideology that can be observed among even the most disparate factions of the left. The right, however, is united in little else but their opposition to the left. That is what is so hard for many of my friends to understand. They see seeming contradictory positions come out of one Party and they say that the whole thing is irrational, never realising that these positions are arrived at by massive compromises by all factions within the alliance that is called the CPC.

You see, the monarchists, the libertarians, the red tories, the Paul Martin liberals, the fiscal conservatives, the social conservatives, and the populists have all gathered together under the understanding that while they may not agree with everything the other factions wants, they can probably live with them more than the leftists option, and if we all stick together, “I will fight your battles if you will fight mine.”

Does that make sense? I mean, you don’t have to agree with it, but it kind of just is the way it is.

Thus, as a libertarian, I think that the omnibus crime bill was a boondoggle. It had good parts, but many, many bad ones. I would go further to say that conservatives are to criminology what liberals are to economics. I think the recent internet bill was beyond the pale. The deficits, the nanny state, the growth in overall spending, and stimulus – all make my stomach turn. But I honestly believe that we are doing better than with anyone else.

The Gun Registry is done. The Wheat Board is done. The unions no longer hold our Labour Minister hostage. Electoral welfare is being curtailed. There is a plan to cut some spending. All steps, incremental though they be, in the “right” direction. And so, I park my vote at the only place that will move on any of my issues at all.

Or can someone convince me that the Greens, the Libs, or the NDP will welcome a libertarian like me?

Mar

CS Lewis, Liturgy, and Emotions

By admin | Uncategorized

4 Comments

NOTE: This was written on reflection of some work on CS Lewis that I had done a few years ago. Hope you enjoy.

I think that it can be said in all honesty that man is the supreme arbiter of his own perceptions. And these perceptions are the paradigm through which reality, as objective truth, are filtered. Assuming that there is an objective reality, and “true” reality is not shaped in any real sense by one’s own perception, then it becomes, if not impossible, difficult in the extreme to gain any clear sense of that reality without bending it towards one’s own perception of reality. Thus is our experience. And of experience, nothing is perhaps so unquantifiable and at the same so profound as our emotions. The profundity is matched only by the equally powerful absurdity that we assume that our emotions do not affect us nearly as much as the next person.

For instance, it has been said that the greatest pain in the world is yours. That is, no matter what your experience or your objective view of the facts is, no one will truly understand that pain that resides within you. They cannot, it is the defining limitation of our sentience that we cannot experience, no matter how empathic we believe ourselves to be, something that occurs in another’s life. Even if the same event is experienced, it is shaped and formed in us differently as the experience violently interacts with our perceptions and emotions and is thus brought into line. We reject out of hand those things that do not fit immediately into our preconceived notions, and then assimilate that which occurred in order not to gain any sense of the objective reality and truth of the thing, but rather in order that we may glean from it what is necessary to continue on in much the same vein as we were already within, but now with more certainty.

And thus are our emotions.

My emotions are colourful. They are dynamic. They are, profound. My emotions detonate into my experience, wreaking a special kind of havoc that does not allow me to ignore them for even a second. They are a cacophony of colour, a veritable tapestry of experience. They are as scarlet, bleeding and raging across the canvas of my life. They are a verdant, lush, natural jungle, blooming and growing and taking root, at once barbaric and compelling. They are a shining, golden, mess, lighter where they need to be, stronger where their beauty takes form as the dieing sun on an old building. They are navy, the depths of which are impossible to truly plumb, with currents and storms, a calmness and a strength and a mystery, and I float over them like unto the abyss. They are black. Not a cessation of light, not a departure from colour, but the deepest of all colour. It is this colour that invades and is unsuccessfully invaded. It is this that drives the entropy within.

But I wonder, are my emotions stronger than those of another? In the sense of my perceptions, of course they are, something that I cannot personally feel or experience cannot be as strong as something that I can. But if there were such a thing as an objective measure for emotion, how many units of measurement would be my joy? My rage? My despair? My love?

I wonder. I belong to a rich tradition. My God interacts with me and serves me often, in Word and Sacrament. But the divine drama that I watch unfold with trepidation and trembling others find boring. Others who claim to be of my same confession of faith, even those who should have the education and experience to know that such a thing as what occurs in the Divine Service is so magnificent, so glorious, and so awe-inspiring that those in the know should be breaking the door down to experience it for themselves, find it irrelevant, useless, and even…..boring. Why?

Are their emotions so pale? Are my emotions scarlet, verdant, navy, golden, and black, only to be compared to their pastel pink, mint, chalk-blue, straw, and grey? It is the height of arrogance to think so, but I cannot help myself. Is this train of thought just one more symptom of the truly depraved nature of the sinner?

If this were thus the case, then one might need a more ecstatic experience of worship than the next. Perhaps that is the dividing line. But upon reflection, one cannot deny that certain emotional stimuli act differently upon different persons. In one that has no or negligible emotional reaction to the Divine Service as done liturgically, there might be a great motional reaction to another form of service.

Further, emotional response and the actual feeling of emotions is, to my mind, a separate issue. One cannot say with certainty that an external emotional response to experiential stimuli is the means by which we divine the internal “emotional level.” For example, two persons experience a movie, one cries during said movie. Did that one feel more? I think not. It may be so, but it may just as easily be not. Perhaps it is under the calmest of surfaces that the greatest currents flow. Then again, perhaps not.

The example that brought this to mind is CS Lewis. He is the primary saint and theologian of respect for modern Protestant Neo-Evangelicalism. But, he was an academic, a thorough logician, and by all accounts, a fairly cold person. He loved, spoke of, and worshipped using, the liturgy. But it is clear that in the window to emotion that is his writings, we see passion. We see joy and sorrow, love and hate, exultation and despair. And thus there is a conundrum.

We are currently enamoured with a common piety that says that those who do not experience an ecstatic worship experience are “dead Christians.” Call it dead orthodoxy, call it the head faith over and against the heart faith, call it what you will. But this is the popular perception. We must prove our faith through these particular worship experiences. But the same types of people that are so enamoured with Lewis, would have an ill view of the man had they never read anything he had written. He would be too cold, too bookish, and even have a “dead faith.”

And if Lewis has no or little faith, then what hope have I?

A Bright Future for Wildrose?

A Wildrose Implosion

Please Don’t Vote

A Bright Future for Wildrose?

A Wildrose Implosion

Please Don’t Vote

An Open Letter to David Dorward and the PCs

Are We Homphobic?

Explain Redford to Me – Please

Christian Vocation and Calling in Sick for Work

BREAKING! Gary Mar Ethics Probe?!

How Can You Vote for Harper?!

CS Lewis, Liturgy, and Emotions

About Me

Search This Site

Recent Posts

Latest Tweets