~

…It’s true. I am way too cool for all of this.

Finding…

“The wilderness asks us how much we can give up and do without. But it’s great gift is the solitude that invites us to be ourselves. The chance to be alone before God. Solitude and emptiness are our greatest fears. In the desert we embrace them with complete trust and find God. And in finding God we find ourselves.”

-Sr. Margaret M. McKenna

I began work on the farm this week. Mostly doing odd jobs, walking fields cutting weeds, weed-eating huge patches of thistles, helping to cut up a mountain of scrap metal.

I value this time of the year greatly.

I get to be mostly alone, and when I’m not, the work overcomes me so that I feel quieter. I get to go to bed at night and actually be tired –emptied. I get to savor the smell of the grass, the gusts of wind, the beauty of the foxes running through the grass, the strength that I have in my body and know they are mercies.

Farm work gives me the chance to be without. Because of the long days I rarely have time to be with my friends and family. I get to be quiet. I get to listen.

It is a mercy

*by the way those are wild oats in the picture… they are weeds. I kill them.

Old Bros

Point A) I’ve been reading a collection of essays by author Wendell Berry.

Point B) He’s messing with my worldview.

Point C) Getting my worldview messed is a guilty pleasure of mine.

Point D) Old Bros (and Bettys) rock… you should listen to what they have to say more often.

Immunity

“When I lived in other places I looked on their evils with the curious eye of a traveler; I was not responsible for them; it cost me nothing to be a critic, for I had not been there long, and I did not feel that I would stay. But here, now that I am both native and citizen, there is no immunity to what is wrong. It is impossible to escape the sense that I am involved in history.”

-Wendell Berry

Cha- Cha- Cha- Changes

I’ve decided that I will not be going back to Multnomah Bible College next year, or the year after that. In fact, I don’t plan to go back to Multnomah for an undergrad degree ever again. It’s not that I have anything against the College, I just don’t feel that it’s where I need to be. Multnomah is fantastic for gaining Biblical knowledge, and if someone was planning to become a career minister then I couldn’t say enough about how valuable Multnomah would be for them.

But I don’t want to be a career minister. And it’s hard for me to spend 80,000+ on a specific education I could gain elsewhere (like maybe by reading my Bible and talking with my Elders). Also, I would like to have a degree that would give me a job skill, so that I could pay off debt & provide for my future family.

So I will be going to the local community college next fall, looking to pursue a degree in Horticulture. What a change huh?

It’s been a little challenging “validating” my decision to some folks. A couple weeks ago I spoke to a certain Career Missionary whom I greatly respect, who after hearing about my new plans remarked “Well good! Make lots of money, give it to missions! I’ll talk to you later.”

I don’t think this Brother of mine meant anything negative by that remark. Being around him even for a short time I saw how great his passion of missions is and how that has shaped his life, his great passion gives context for his remark. But what he said reminded me of something that I’ve struggled with for a long while.

The only “secular school” I ever attended as a child was a elementary charter school which i stayed at for about two years. Besides that, growing up I was always in Christian Education. Growing up in that environment I, and it seems a lot of my peers gained the view that either you grew up, got a job, a house, a white picket fence and made lots of money being bored OR you went out on the mission field where all the action was (all the cool kids wanted to be missionaries (Jim Elliot was like Michael Jordan etc.))

About junior year of high school that started to make no sense. What if I don’t want to live in the African Bush feeding my kids cow blood to stay alive? What if I’m not missionary material? Can’t my life be somehow just as meaningful in the eyes of God being a farmer or a mill worker?

And so now that I’ve decided not to be a career missionary for sure, a few people have asked me if I’m “settling for less” or if I just want to be “an average joe” now. I find that the main aspect of my life that I need to heed the most is my relationship with my Messiah, and a huge part of that relationship is my sense of wonder at the things I see in my life, the gratefulness I have towards him, and the way I see him working. Wonder is really all I could ask for, and I feel that a life, no matter the vocation, that righteously pursues that wonder out of gratefulness and with vision is no less valuable than that of a missionary in africa, even if they are a blue collar worker.

I just want to live a righteous life full of wonder, that’s all. I feel closer to Him when I am in awe at Him and His works, and what more could I ask for? These posts don’t to justice to my thoughts.

As I Sit With My Iced Coffee…

“The message to the poor and discontented is that they must not impatiently upset or kill the goose that will assuredly, in due course, lay golden eggs also for them. And the message to the rich is that they must be intelligent enough from time to time to help the poor, because this is the way by which they will become richer still… Why ask for virtues, which man may never acquire, when scientific rationality and technical competence are all that is needed?”

- E.F. Schumacher.

School’s Out!

And I feel great!

Grace and Peace Portland! I’ll see you when I see you!

Narrating Worth

I have been struck recently with the the beauty of stories. I was driving home a couple weeks ago, and while listening to NPR I heard an interview with an 62-year-old Black woman and her 61-year-old sister about the hardships in their lives. Specifically how the small suburb of Detroit they’d lived in was divided and how they themselves and other people of their race were separated, sectioned off and denied the new housing promised them. Thankfully the City recently saw what it had done made things right, at least for these two ladies.

As I listed to the words of this old soul, who sounded so kind and sweet, who had faced so much injustice, I could not help but think that this woman’s story, her trials and her joys (in general, the worth of her existence) was not lost to my Messiah -that the mass of her experiences are worth something in the end.

Recently in my General Psychology Class we the students were asked to break up into groups and give a presentation on what we thought about human dignity.  It was a pretty open assignment, which at first really bugged me. But when the different groups came together we all brought a different point of view to the topic, we were each able to display what we thought the dignity of humanity was within the freedom of the assignment.

One group did a survey of what people thought dignity was, another used a camera to interview people on the street. There were a couple others, but my favorite by far consisted of a couple of audio clips from people found on the sidewalk set to pictures of the Streets of Portland. The clips were simple, my friend Chris when around with a recorder and simply asked people to tell him a story or what was on their mind, stuff like that.

The interviews were really interesting. One consisted of a young lesbian speaking about her issues with what media told her what femininity was. Another was a young dude talking about how he met his girlfriend on myspace. Yet another was the story of a man who had just found himself homeless spoken in his own words. The last, was an older lady recounting the hilarity of living in a van with her husband and kids during the 60’s. These people’s stories were heavily salted with profanity, and at first seemed like just a collection of trivial sections of people’s lives. In reality I was listened to these people’s struggles, joys, and pains and slowly realized that these few stories where what dignity was about. Dignity is greater than a lofty idea or a metaphysical state, a persons worth isn’t defined by the lines we draw around them. The stories where real people’s experiences and because of it, this one presentation gave me a greater appreciation of human worth than all the other well phrased, lofty, theological statements on the issue combined.

I was reading J. Mark Bertrand’s book (Re)thinking Worldview this evening for my Philosophy class and was struck by this sentence, talking about how Christians should understand and do art especially through story, Bertrand says, “…storytelling lets them (the audience) experience truth, specifically the truth of real life and the way ideas and actions operate within it. We don’t tell stories to change people’s minds. We don’t tell stories to educate them. We tell stories so that they can picture reality as it is or how it ought to be.” Bertrand went on to say that art is best when it displays reality, and loses something when in singularly holds agenda.

I’m glad that story means something, that the art of telling it works best when tied to reality, that the happenings in reality mean something, and that throughout the narrative of reality we can see such things as joy, hardships, laughter, love and pain that together work to the Messiah’s glory.

Even pain? Even Hardships?

I think that the do in some way. Bertrand, talking about including evil in story said this:

“… Christian doctrine teaches that man is created in God’s image but fallen- indeed, that the world itself is corrupt as a result of this fall. There  are no good guys, no white hats or horses. Everyone is tainted by evil and no one can be accurately represented without it’s inclusion (which is why the innocence of some Christian attempts at fiction ring so false). It is in this context of corruption that the gospel is offered- without the fall, there is no call for redemption. Evil is, in this sense, a necessary aspect of human existence and a necessary component in any representation of reality. Evil is a necessary part of the Christian story.”

*

On Top
by Gary Snyder

All this new stuff goes on top
turn it over, turn it over
wait and water down
from the dark bottom
turn it inside out
let it spread through, sift down
even.
Watch it sprout.

A mind like compost.

++

I found this poem in Gary Snyder’s collection titled Axe Handles.

When my friend Amanda saw me reading it she exclaimed “DAVE BESS you’re such a HERMIT! you’re reading a book about how to make axe handles!”

Exactly.

… I’ve had an awful lot of school work lately. And not just school work but life work, mind work. It’s interesting business thinking is.

Now I Am Become Death

This is a paper I just wrote for my Western Civ Class on J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project. It’s far from the best paper I’ve written, I wish I would have had more time to work on it since it was actually enjoyable to write, that’s why I’m posting it. I make no promises on how enjoyable it is to read.

On July 16th, 1945, at 5:39:45 Mountain Time the first Nuclear Bomb was detonated at the White Sands Missile Base, near Alamogordo, New Mexico. Brighter than the day, the bomb release a light that until then we had only seen in stars. When the Light filled the sky, Chemist James Conant, standing twenty miles away from the epicenter of the blast Though “something had gone wrong” and that the “Whole world has gone up in flames.” (Bird & Sherwin 307) As the infamous mushroom shaped cloud rose 30,000 feet into the air, changing colors from red to orange then green and finally black with radioactive soot and white with water vapor, J. Robert Oppenheimer the father of the bomb simply stated “it worked” and later “Lots of boys not entirely grown up yet will owe their life to it.” (Bird & Sherwin 309) An interesting contrast with his famous words said Twenty years later on national television:

“We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few cried. Most people silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the prince to that he should do his duty, and to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says ‘Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.’ I suppose we all thought that one way or another.” (Bird & Sherwin309)

The film of Oppenheimer as he said those words is almost haunting. Then 61 years old, he looks pale, emaciated and has he speaks displays a reserved yet grieving demeanor, he never looks at the camera and even seems, at one point, to wipe a tear off of his cheek. (Pontin)

Without J. Robert Oppenheimer America’s history with nuclear weapons would be much different. Without his drive, genius and beliefs The Manhattan Project might not have been actualized, and because of those qualities he became the figurehead of Nuclear Proliferation in the years to come.

Oppenheimer was born on April 22nd, 1904 to Julius Oppenheimer and Ella Friedman. Both parents were German-Jewish Immigrants who’s families had made it to America by the late 1880’s. Julius was a very like-able New York business man who had made his wealth in the fabrics industry. A lover of art, Julius spent most of his free time in galleries and showings, possibly where he met his wife Ella, an accomplished artist herself. (Bird & Sherwin 11)

From these two prodigies Robert gained a like-able, introspective nature. Incredibly brilliant, Robert excelled in both the arts and sciences and was invited to lecture before the New York Mineralogical Club at the age of Twelve. (Cathcart) Oppenheimer’s love of both poetry and the sciences along with his noble character, leadership skills and leftist thinking made him very well loved by his peers. He was,

“A man who wrote scientific papers with Max Born and argued with Niels Bohr, but who also translated Hindu scripture from the Sanskrit… He mixed the best cocktails and cooked the best steak dinners; no one could chair a committee as successfully as he could.” (Cathcart)

When made the director of the secret town of Los Alamos, the home of the Manhattan Project, Oppeheimer’s skills as a leader came to fruition as he “seemed to galvanize people to greater efforts” (Bird & Sherwin) One of Oppenheimer’s colleges, physicist Victor Weisskopf remembers the man’s skills this way;

“He was present in the laboratory or in the seminar rooms when a new effect was measured, when a new idea was conceived. It was not that he contributed so many ideas or suggestions; he did so sometimes, but his main influence came from something else. It was his continuous and intense presence, which produced a sense of direct participation in all of us.” (Bird & Sherwin)

Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin’s article Building the Bomb (Smithsonian 2005) says in reference to Oppenheimer that,

“Everyone at Los Alamos in a position to have an informed opinion agreed that without Oppenheimer’s extraordinary leadership, atomic bombs would not have been completed in time to be used during the war. That was both a matter of pride and a heavy burden for “the father of the atomic bomb.” (Bird & Sherwin)

The catalyst to so much of Oppenheimer’s Heavy Burden laid in his beliefs about technology and ethics. Oppenheimer’s education as a child came from an Ethical Culture School, a branch of the Ethical Culture Society movement started by a Jewish American named Felix Alder. Alder was the son of Rabbi Samuel Adler who came to America from Germany in 1857. Coming from a progressive flavor of Judaism, Adler was moved by Marx’s Das Kapital, and other liberal writings to form a society of Jews that renounced the divine inspiration of the scriptures and zionism and sought to make the name “Jew” synonymous with social progressivism and justice. This congregation sought to make the world a better place on the basis of a naturalistic progressive morality. From these roots Oppenheimer grew into a man very concerned with philosophy and ethics especially when considering science and technology. (Bird & Sherwin 19)

From a man so eclectic and balanced in his appreciation of both literature and the sciences, it is ridiculous to think that the implications of this device, nick-named “The Gadget” at Los Alamos, were lost to him. It can, in fact be easily seen how his beliefs about technology and society pushed him to see the development and use of the bomb, even on civilians, so that good might come about in the end. (Pontin)

When Niels Bohr, who was then considered the best physicist in Europe, was brought to Los Alamos after being smuggled out of Nazi occupied Copenhagen, he not only helped Oppenheimer’s team in the construction of the device but spoke at length to Oppenheimer himself about it’s implications. (Bird & Sherwin 268 ) Bohr and Oppenheimer both came to hope that when the Atomic Bomb’s power was unleashed and revealed to the world, when such a weapon of destruction was shown to the nations, that reason would blossom in the hearts of the international leaders and that, in essence wars would cease. (Pontin) In a speech given in 1963, Oppenheimer when speaking about Bohr recalls that,

“He made the enterprise, which often looked so macabre seem hopeful… [he spoke of] his own high hope that the outcome would be good, and that in this the role of objectivity, friendliness, cooperation, incarnate in science, would play a helpful part: all this was something we wished very much to believe.” (smith 271)

This belief was loosely based on Immanuel Kant’s “Era of Perpetual Peace”. Oppenheimer and Bohr both hoped that this weapon would force the world, through it’s destruction, to abhor all violence and seek rational ends to conflicts. (Pontin) It was through this “sin” that Oppenheimer hoped to save humanity from it’s self.

Oppenheimer also thought that because of the progression of science, whatever technology can be developed eventually will be developed. Looking at the Atom Bomb, Oppenheimer decided that the United States Of America, although far form perfect would use Bomb in a better way that the Nazi’s or the Soviets. (Pontin) This “Fatalism” Oppenheimer worked upon gives deeper meaning to his words on national television in 1965. Jason Pontin, editor of Technology Review states that Oppenheimer had a

…attraction to the deeply fatalistic Gita. Consistent with Vishnu’s teaching to Prince Arajuna, Oppenheimer thought it is our duty to perform, as best we can, the jobs that our historical moment allots us… He looked to humanity’s most progressive institutions to restrain the malignant use of technology. Oppenheimer was asked build a nuclear bomb, and he hoped reason would dictate that it be used twice, in a just war, and then never again. (Pontin)

And yet despite Oppenheimer’s hope in the aftermath of the bomb, after it’s use on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, he certainly felt the weight of guilt, commenting to Harry Truman “Mr. President I feel I have blood on my hands.” (Pontin) When it became clear the horrors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima were not enough to force governments to reason, when Oppenheimer’s faith proved fruitless, except to have invented a way to rout more bloodshed on the earth, the man’s intellect turned to seek out a way to insure that his infamous child, the destroyer of worlds would never be used again. Beginning with his refusal to work on the Hydrogen Bomb, the next technological step in the Cold War, Oppenheimer was slowly excommunicated from government circles and suspected by the FBI to be a communist spy. (Pontin)

Oppenheimer’s plight with the government came at the height of McCarthyism and only served as more more fuel for the anti-Republican flames. Oppenheimer became a hero to the left, a kind of martyr of science and progressive thought. (Bird & Sherwin)

It was Oppenheimer’s own character and convictions, along the technological wealth of America that gave us the Atomic Bomb. Without this enigmatic character history would be much different; America might have had to Invade Japan in WWII causing horrendous casualties, other nations might have discovered the secret of Nuclear Arms before the U.S., The stalemate of the Cold War might never had happened without the “trump card” of thermonuclear warfare. Through Oppenheimer’s courage, charisma and intellect we live in this high stakes nuclear world.