Essential--And Unasked--Healthcare Questions

Despite all the talk about the Affordable Care Act, two questions essential to the debate go largely unasked and ignored.  They are the following:

• Who pays for the cost of healthcare?  For example, if someone obtains an emergency hospital service but doesn't pay for it, who covers the cost?  Moreover, when people declare bankruptcy in order to avoid accumulated medical expenses, who pays for that?  Do hospitals eat the difference?  Not really.  The costs become components of the overhead hospitals pass on to paying consumers.  For county-owned hospitals that offer below-cost services, taxpayers cover deficiencies.  In other words, paying consumers not only foot their own healthcare bills, but they cover the costs of non-paying patients, too.  This is an example of what is called the "freeloader" problem in economics and it's a cost that is borne by society, because when it comes to emergency medical services, our morality informs us that we must help first and ask for payment later.  Quite often, however, the freeloaders described here are people who simply couldn't get insurance or lost the coverage they once had.  These situations occur due to job loss or development of pre-existing conditions, which leads me to my second question.
• Do we want everyone who desires coverage to be able to obtain health insurance, including people with pre-existing conditions?  If that's what you believe, you have no option but to support an individual mandate requiring everyone to be insured.  Do you see why?  The fact is in a situation where everyone can choose if and when they obtain health insurance, rational consumers--and most of us are rational when it comes to money--won't get covered until after being diagnosed with a serious illness!  In other words, we'll avoid the need to make premium payments until we're sick and have reason to file for benefits.  In the insurance world this is known as an extreme case of adverse selection and it's terribly problematic.  In fact, insurance wouldn't work in the situation just described.  That's because premiums would be prohibitively expensive since only high-risk individuals would seek coverage.  

So let me summarize what I've just said: If you want everyone to have access to health insurance, you must support the necessity that everyone be required to obtain coverage.  The alternative is to say it's too bad, but people with pre-existing conditions shouldn't expect the benefit of health insurance.  While heartless, it's a legitimate position, but as I've said above, to the extent that our morality informs us that we must provide emergency treatment to the uninsured, the associated costs are borne by society--namely taxpayers or those who pay for their own healthcare--anyway.  Withholding care and letting people die is also an alternative, but tell that to a baby born with a life-threatening, but reparable, heart condition.  

So what's my point?

If you're opposed to the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act, you're supporting an environment in which only the healthy get insured.  In such a case, we either let people with pre-existing conditions flounder, or we help them and cover their costs of care by paying higher hospital bills.  Doesn't it make more sense to ask everyone to obtain coverage up front and ask everyone to pay a portion of the cost of care?  It not only makes sense from a societal benefit perspective,  but the law of large numbers allows us to better mange risks as well.

Faith Waits

Life isn't fair, which is arguably an implication of believing in a God who defines what is fair, is powerful enough to destroy all that’s unfair, but allows the most virulent incarnations of unfairness to flourish anyway.

Ah, you say, but that’s just the problem of pain, a conundrum of faith you’ve already contemplated to your satisfaction. Some people—perhaps you included—resolve the paradox by saying God is infinitely wise and knows that goodness is possible only in the presence of its opposite. How can anyone, for instance, be judged righteous, who hasn’t recognized and overcome evil? To this you might add another, supremely comforting, idea: While mortality is pain-filled and subject to corruption, it’s but a blink of an eye compared to the eternal reward that awaits the just. Fairness will come in the hereafter.

But do you see the problem with that notion? I’m not referring to the inexplicable narrative of how God creates a world and populates it with children He loves, only to watch them kill and brutalize each other. Rather, I speak of the license it gives the living to do likewise, to simply witness the evil and say: “Thank God, for the pain is only for a moment and He will right these wrongs.” This shining article of faith serves as a salve on the conscience and a boast to all who hear it, but it’s also an excuse to do nothing. The living could mitigate life’s unfairness, but too many abide by a tainted premise: While shit rains, I can wait for God’s will to manifest itself, there’s no need for an umbrella.

And so faith waits.

We pray for peace—just like we pray for the hungry, the naked and the sick—but rarely do we become the miracles we seek. Help for the displaced pales beside the wars, pogroms, class boundaries and other weapons of alienation that displace even more. All the while our faith waits for the end times, or a miracle, or some other divine response to prayer’s equivalent of kicking the ball into God’s court.  I would rather we had no faith in a hereafter at all and worked to bring heaven here.  Maybe our world would be more caring and sharing then.

The Essential Question of Trayvon Martin

Here is what I see as the essential question we must answer in the wake of the Trayvon Martin decision. 

Let's say the NAACP decides to respond to the trial's outcome by encouraging all law-abiding adults of color living in states where "stand your ground" laws are in effect to arm themselves.  They say the message isn't meant to foment violence, but to enable individuals to protect themselves from the kind of aggressive actions that led George Zimmerman to kill a teenage boy.  It's a message that is consistent with the nation's interpretation of what we refer to as the right to bear arms and understandable in light of what happened.

Are you uncomfortable with such a position?  If so, why?  In particular, if you're a Tea Party advocate, do you see the Second Amendment as applying only to white Americans?  Do you see your right to bear arms as the means by which you protect yourself from ice tea-guzzling and Skittles-eating black teenagers who wear hoodies?  Would you limit the ability of people of color to take advantage of the same right you cherish to protect themselves against a wayward system that promotes discriminating violence?  If that's the way you feel, I would suggest you might be a racist.

Some people, however, will say they're not racist, but that encouraging minority groups to arm themselves will only give rise to civil disorder and violence.  Yet, that's exactly how I feel about the self-righteous on the far right, who believe they will need arms to support a constitution they don't understand and have never read.  I fully expect them to wage an armed war against liberals, a possibility that frightens me terribly.  When people have free access to weapons and suffer no consequences for bone-headed decisions that result in the loss of property and life, we have a volatile and dangerous situation.  Stand your ground laws encourage both preconditions.  

The Farce of Tea Party Patriotism

The other day I was driving down the road and saw a car ahead that sported an array of bumper stickers and two miniature American flags where the dry cleaning is sometimes hung.  One of the bumper stickers advertized the call letters of the Bay Area radio station that features Rush Limbaugh.  Others addressed conservative causes: Defense of Marriage and gun rights to name two.  It was, however, the message placed in the center of the rear windshield that really got my goat.  It said quite simply, “I’m a Patriot.”

It bothers me that conservatives believe they are the only patriots in the country.  It also upsets me that many Christian fundamentalists believe conservatism is consistent with their faith.  Patriotism has nothing to do with such principals.  Here are a few of its aspects that I believe are worth mentioning:

• A truly patriotic American will choose the education of the nation’s children as a higher priority than the amassing of weapons sufficient to destroy the world.
• Patriotism means negotiating in good faith to fix the problems of the nation instead of filibustering away any real chance to solve them.
• A patriot would rather see fellow citizens rehabilitated than demand a warped justice that is no more than institutionalized vengeance that fills prisons.
• Patriots will regulate equal access to economic opportunity instead of prescribed behavior in bed.
• The most patriotic of acts protect the young, old, weak and impoverished and insist that those blessed with good fortune contribute to the cause.
• A patriotic America will accept good advice in order to leave to future generations an un-blighted world. 
• Christian patriots will follow the teachings of Jesus—especially the injunction to love one another—rather than the Mosaic Law that speaks of stoning, condones slavery and depicts women as chattel.

What happened to the patriotism of the Civil Rights Movement and social programs, like the GI Bill, that led to greater access to opportunities and national prosperity?  Ditto Heads don’t have a monopoly on patriotism.  In fact, by their protection of corporate interests and the 1%, they don’t have much of a claim to it, at all.

A Heavenly Reward

Decades ago I persuaded a high school friend of mine to investigate the Mormon Church and for several months she studied with missionaries, only to decide the teachings weren’t to her liking.  Then years later she visited me after we’d gone separate ways to college.  With a weekend of activities planned, I asked if she would mind a brief stop at a Kinko’s to get copies of a document that I needed for the next day.  It would only take a minute.


When we stepped into the copy shop, however, we noticed that there was only one worker behind the counter and two customers ahead of us.  The other customers—an elderly lady and her granddaughter—had the Kinko’s lady copying what I recognized to be a Book of Remembrance.  A Book of Remembrance is, for active members of the Mormon Church, a family history that has been painstakingly gathered and recorded by the person who possesses it and generally includes a detailed genealogy.  In the case of the elderly woman and her granddaughter, the copy-in-progress was meant as a gift and tender reminder of the importance of family.  However, because the pages were of odd size, the young women behind the counter was copying an impressive stack of paper by hand, one at a time.


The worker looked at me and asked what I needed.  I answered that I wanted twenty copies of a one-page document, all on standard paper.  She then turned to the grandmother and suggested that my job go first, since it would only take a few seconds to complete.  The older woman responded that the next person through the door would then get similar treatment and she would never get her print job done.  I understood the point and told the worker that I could leave my document and come back for copies later.


Once we left the store my friend said something that bothered me.  She said we’d just witnessed the primary reason she could never consider joining a church.  When I pressed her on the point, she answered, “You guys are so focused on personal salvation that you don’t give a shit (her words) about being kind to each other.”


Now, I know the criticism is unfair and exaggerated, but it serves to substantiate a point Jon Meachem recently made in a Time article entitled Rethinking Heaven.  The gist of his point is that the idea of heaven as a place where the righteous earn an eternal reward gives people license to not give a shit (my words now) about the people around them who might need help.  In my mind there are two unfortunate results of a traditional view of heaven:

1. We can justify our lack of assistance to—and empathy for—those who suffer from adverse circumstances because we can say they will have a lasting reward someday if they’re only good enough to deserve it. 
2. In justifying our inaction, we ignore the fact that we serve God best when are in the service of our brothers and sisters here in this life.  In essence, we leave it to God to bless others.  It becomes His responsibility, rather than our own.

As an alternative view to this, Meacham writes:

The scholarly redefinition of heaven as a manifestation of God’s love on earth has been illuminating, for it at once puts believers in closer proximity to the intent of the New Testament authors and should inspire the religious to open their arms more often then they point fingers.  Heaven thus becomes, for now, the reality one creates in the service of the poor, the sick, the enslaved, the oppressed.  It is not paradise in the sky but acts of selflessness and love that bring God’s sacred space and grace to a broken world suffused with tragedy.

To me, it’s no coincidence that the secular governments of Western Europe have stronger social safety nets than that of Middle Eastern countries and yes, the good ole US of A.  Where people believe poverty is just a temporary condition that can be resolved with good behavior and God’s blessing, there is a temptation to devote less attention to the matter.  But therein lies the rub.  In short, if we’re not working to bring a bit of heaven to the unfortunate souls around us, we don’t deserve the heavenly rewards we seek.  

When Saw We Thee?

Jesus once said that there would come a day when He would condemn us for not feeding Him when He was hungry, not clothing Him when He was naked and not ministering to Him when He was sick.  With hearts pierced by guilt, we would reply by asking when we ever saw Him hungry, or naked, or sick.  And He would answer: "Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me."

Christ could very well answer our question the following way: When you supported policies that further enriched the wealthy to the detriment of the poor, when you chose to fund the production of bombs while children died from hunger, when you fought against the one chance the nation had to bring healthcare to each of its citizens, you did it contrary to the gospel's directive to love all your neighbors.

In a recent Newsweek article, Andrew Sullivan tells us to, "forget the church, follow Jesus."  Seeing how Christian fundamentalists fight against the most basic aspects of Christ's teachings, Sullivan's admonition is arguably good advice.  In speaking of those teachings, he says:

What were those doctrines? Not the supernatural claims that, fused with politics and power, gave successive generations wars, inquisitions, pogroms, reformations, and counterreformations. Jesus’ doctrines were the practical commandments, the truly radical ideas that immediately leap out in the simple stories he told and which he exemplified in everything he did. Not simply love one another, but love your enemy and forgive those who harm you; give up all material wealth; love the ineffable Being behind all things, and know that this Being is actually your truest Father, in whose image you were made. Above all: give up power over others, because power, if it is to be effective, ultimately requires the threat of violence, and violence is incompatible with the total acceptance and love of all other human beings that is at the sacred heart of Jesus’ teaching. 

 To this I add, Amen.

Repatriation of Offshore Corporate Profits

Yesterday Mitt Romney made a statement about the repatriation of corporate profits that got me hopping mad.  It angered me, in part, because Romney certainly understands the issue better than most people, but obfuscated the truth in order to score political points with an unknowing public.  He said that as president he would encourage the return of a trillion dollars currently held by foreign subsidiaries of US corporations so the funds could be invested in jobs here, rather than in outside markets.  Presumably he would do this by reducing, or eliminating, the income tax on repatriated dollars.  According to him, these dollars arise when a US corporation establishes an offshore presence—his example was an auto plant in China—from which it generates profits.  These profits, he said, will be invested in foreign markets if not brought back to the US.

This analysis is disingenuous on so many levels.  The first is related to how the profits are derived.  Romney is right when he says they’re generated by the foreign operations of US corporations, but what he failed to say is that in most cases the profits arise through something called transfer pricing associated with interactions with shell companies.  Transfer pricing is an important aspect of the tax and treasury operations of many global businesses.  In fact, it’s so important that people who understand its ins-and-outs are paid as if they were professional athletes.

The way transfer pricing works is by first establishing a shell company in a tax haven—the Cayman Islands, for example.  The shell company is then caused to purchase important licenses or other rights that are central to the corporation’s operation.  High tech companies are especially fond of selling software licenses to their offshore entities.  Since the shell companies have no assets, they must raise cash to purchase the licenses, but this is generally accomplished through intercompany loans.  These transactions—the selling of licenses and the borrowings—are, of course, transactions only on paper. 

Here is what a corporation is then able to do.  Every time a product is sold, it owes its foreign shell company a licensing fee, which appears as an expense on the corporation’s income statement and thereby reduces its taxable income.  In other words, this is essentially a means to avoid the payment of tax.  The shell company, on the other hand, is located in a tax haven, and though it receives revenue, it incurs no tax liability.  It can use a portion of the fees it receives to make interest and principal payments on the intercompany loan.  Over time, however, the shell company records substantial excess cash balances that in a real sense represents the parent company's deferred tax obligation. 

If the corporation wishes to repatriate the balances, it can do so through a dividend payment, but that would be a taxable event.  However, teams of tax accountants and lawyers work to come up with other ingenious ways to move cash around, including intercompany lending from the shell company to the parent.  I mention this for several reasons.  First, the repatriation of corporate cash is an issue that arises primarily because global companies have found creative ways to AVOID their tax obligations.  Second, allowing the repatriation to occur in a tax-advantaged manner, as Romney suggests, only gives corporations more reason to continue with the practice.  Third, corporations can find creative ways to return cash to their home operations, but they won't do so until domestic demand increases and requires expansion.  The tax-free repatriation of cash is another example of how conservatives are only interested in supporting corporate and other well-heeled interests and should be flatly rejected.  


Finally, Romney and other conservatives say repatriated dollars will be invested in such a way that it will result in job creation here.  If that's the case, why haven't corporations used the over $2 trillion contained in domestic corporate bank accounts to grow manufacturing?  US corporations are generating tremendous profits due to efficiencies gained through massive layoffs.  They're sitting on those profits and will continue to do so until Americans begin to consume again.  The key to overcoming our economic malaise is not to allow corporations to withhold contributions into the community pot that benefits us all, but to put more cash in the pockets of the middleclass.  It's time corporations pay their fair share. 

Penn State: Winning Shouldn't Be Everything

I'm going to make a broad assertion that may anger people.  While I was at Drexel Burnham Lambert's Tokyo office, I was often asked to accompany clients on visits with Japanese institutional investors.  In that context, I associated with both billionaires and millionaires and I discovered that there is a startling difference between the two. Millionaires can be lucky and stumble onto substantial net worth and income.  A billionaire, however, can only achieve that kind of wealth by thinking of nothing else but the accumulation of financial assets. Billionaires don't make the Forbe's list by accident.  They get there because it's an all-encompassing need.

That's one of the reasons why I could never buy the argument that Ross Perot, for example, would have made a good president.  People who acquire incredible wealth do so by suppressing the occasional inclination to be a good neighbor.  Exercising compassion requires a detour on the way to achieving financial goals, so no matter how well a person might manage an organization, if he lacks the desire to raise people--all people--above the human condition, he isn't qualified to lead anything that doesn't possess a profit motive.

A corollary can be said, in my opinion, about people who will win at all costs.  The adage that "winning isn't everything, it's the only thing," is possibly the worst lie that evil professes.  Winning isn't the only thing.  In fact, it can be the worst thing when it requires turning a blind eye to pain inflicted on the innocent.  That's what apparently happened at Penn State.  It might be said, therefore, that a decent man sometimes loses--and he does it gladly--in order to uphold standards of morality and to be a good neighbor.  He might not earn any medals or make a ton of money, but he is the real winner.

The Banality of Evil

I have a book that’s in perfect condition, which is to say it’s tattered and dog eared with many notes in the margins and underlined passages.  Its title is Eichmann in Jerusalem and aside from the New Testament, it has influenced me more than any other book.

It covers, however, the grim topic of the holocaust and is therefore not an easy read.  The author, Hannah Arendt, was a brilliant thinker who tried to answer in its 300, or so, pages the question: How did a relatively well educated and informed German public allow six million of its neighbors to be murdered?  I won’t try to summarize her conclusions, but they are at once insightful and frightening.

The book, of course, is about Adolf Eichmann, who was the man in charge of transporting Jews to their deaths during World War II.  After his kidnapping by Israeli commandos, Eichmann was taken from his hiding place in Argentina and put on trial in Jerusalem.  The hearing was meant to showcase to the world the sufferings of the Jews and the demonic nature of the people who’d caused it.  In the end, however, Eichmann was seen as a pathetic figure, who was only trying to do his job.  In short, he performed a heinous work without ever considering its underlying immorality.  This led Arendt to coin the phrase the banality of evil, as if evil could be so commonplace that it’s unremarkable.  She writes: 

The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal.  From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together, for it implied—as had been said at Nuremberg over and over again by the defendants and their counsels—that this new type of criminal, who is in actual fact hostis generis humani, commits his crimes under circumstances that make it well-nigh impossible for him to know or to feel that he is doing wrong.

One of the implications of Arendt’s conclusions is that when people are made to think they’re alone in their beliefs, they will adopt what appears to be the prevailing worldview.  People will, in the sad but accurate parlance of today’s youth, go with the flow.  But this can also work in the reverse.  In a few countries—Denmark, for instance—Nazis who were sent to fulfill the terms of the Final Solution changed their views in the face of majority opposition.  In other words, they not only defied orders, but recognized and admitted to the depravity of their goal. 

It’s essential, therefore, that we refuse to go with the flow and hold dear to personal philosophies that are consistent with moral axioms, but let’s not take the Bible in its entirety as a safe standard.  Quite the contrary, the Bible is unreliable as a definition of moral behavior, because it contains both Mosaic and Christian values that are inconsistent in their descriptions of what is Godly.  In some cases the Bible tells us that Godliness incorporates vengeance and anger.  In other passages it requires unconditional forgiveness.  My suggestion, therefore, is to hold Christ’s great commandments as inviolate—no matter what the Bible might say otherwise—and above all else love our neigbors. 

How Christians can do so and still fight against universal healthcare is beyond any logic that I can understand.  Similarly, I don’t see how we can love our neighbors and not support gay men and women in their efforts to express fidelity in marriage.  In this way, by refusing to hold Christ’s great commandments as inviolate, we are as shifting as the tide.  After all, there is nothing more frightening than a human being with evil intent, unless it’s the mass of humanity with no intent at all. 

Our Culture of Acquisition

The influence of Judaism on Christianity is so complete that followers of the two religions have more in common with each other than with anything Jesus taught.  It doesn’t occur to most mainstream Christians that the Savior’s ministry was meant to override much of the Mosaic Law and the behaviors it engendered.  Rather, they embrace the Levitical standard as an absolute, and that—as I’ve said elsewhere in this blog—causes them to profess a faith that is far more Judeo than Christian.  The impact is particularly evident in their views about material wealth. 

Before I go on, I want to acknowledge my own personal fault in this regard.  While I see a broad gulf between the ways the Old and the New Testaments view acquisitiveness, that’s not to say I live Christ’s teachings.  At best, I’m a hypocrite, who has neither the courage nor the fortitude to live the gospel as Jesus intended.  I can only wish I was good enough to do so.  Nevertheless, there is such a clear difference between Christ’s teachings and the way most of His followers live that even a sinner like me can see it. 

How do Jesus and Moses part ways on the topic of wealth?

Let’s take the Old Testament first.  Genesis begins with the creation of the world, after which God gives Adam and Eve—and by extension, their posterity—dominion over all the earth.  That’s quite a haul!  And all they have to do is refrain from eating the fruit of a specific tree.  Later God promises Abraham that his seed will number as the stars and that he’ll inherit a Promised Land “flowing with milk and honey.”  It’s a promise that Abraham is so desperate to receive that he attempts to sacrifice his own son, Isaac, to insure its fulfillment.  God subsequently commands the children of Abraham to take the Promised Land from a people who were already living there, and no one sees any impropriety in it.  When Jehovah and Satan wager on the result of tempting a good man, Job’s righteousness is rewarded with flocks of sheep, children and other material rewards.  These are just a few of the morality tales contained in the Old Testament that influence a culture and worldview in ways that recognize the acquisition of wealth as blessings from God. 

Contrast this with the gospel.  Christ said, for example, that it was nearly impossible for a rich man to enter into heaven.  He encouraged His followers to sell what they had and give to the poor—to “take no thought of the morrow,” but to “seek first the kingdom of God.”  In this way He asked His followers to pursue spiritual, rather than earthly, rewards and to share in each other’s burdens.  His gospel—until it was corrupted by a politically ambitious orthodoxy—encouraged believers to share all things in common. 

Now, I ask you: Which of these two worldviews is consistent with Christian culture today?

The Tea Party and the Voice of the People

I understand what the Tea Party wants.  I grew up in a place (the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska) that was populated by self-reliant homesteaders and commercial fishermen, who moved clear the hell that far north because they wanted to get away from rules and regulations.  I’m a creature of that upbringing.  The idea that big government needs to stay out of my business resonates with me, too. 

But I’ve seen what happens when people are left without regulatory boundaries.  There’s a place on the Kenai River that was once one of the prettiest spots on a waterway that defies superlatives for beauty.  Then a homesteader said to hell with Big Brother and filled in the wetlands bordering one side of it, built up the bank and put in a dock, all of which led to the destruction of a salmon spawning bed and erosion problems that continue to this day.  Despite what libertarians think, government is the best way to monitor and police societies for the public good.  It’s also the best way to pool collective resources for the benefit of all people. 

Regarding this latter point, the Tea Party is clearly working against public opinion and the voice of the majority.  In poll after poll, it’s been shown that Americans want tax loopholes closed, so that corporations and the rich will be made to pay their fair share into the community chest we all dip into.  That collective pool of capital benefits all of us when we go to school, mail a package, drink a cup of clean water, drive a car, and engage in a lot of other activities that we conduct safely and take completely for granted. 

Here are just a few of the poll results I mentioned.

USA Today/Gallup—August 4-7

·    66% favor increasing income tax rates for upper-income Americans

·    60% favor increasing tax revenues by making major changes to the current federal tax code

CNN/ORC—August 5-7

·    63% say we should increase taxes on businesses and higher-income Americans

·    62% believe the terms of the budget ceiling agreement benefits the rich at the expense of the poor and middle class

CBS News/New York Times—August 2-3

·    63% say taxes should be increased for households earning $250,000 a year or more

·    On the question of who do you blame more for the difficulties in reaching an agreement on the debt ceiling, 47% blamed Republicans and 29% blamed Democrats

Clearly, the Tea Party is working against public opinion and catering to a fringe element that doesn’t respect the social contracts that government is meant to maintain.  The bigger shame is that a majority of that fringe considers itself to be conservative Christian.  They might be conservative, but they cannot claim to be followers of Jesus, who during His earthly sojourn, asked us to put our neighbors’ interests on an equal footing to our own.  The economics of His gospel is that we share each others’ burdens and rejoice together.  The Tea Party would rather we were left to our own devices. 

What Is Godliness?

I was recently asked to speak in church and this was the result.  I realize it's a repeat of many of the ideas I've expressed in this blog, but it's an attempt to put many of them together into a cogent argument.

________________________

Some of the finest people I’ve ever met were dogs, and that’s especially true of Jesse, the sleek and long-legged black lab that Lori and I had in our home for many years.  One day Jesse and I were walking on a favorite trail in Briones, when we noticed a strange plant obscured by shadows on a hill.  It was shaped like a paddle and stood tall above the grass with a bushy black fringe and a white stripe down its middle.  As Jesse bounded ahead to investigate, I scratched my head, wondering what kind of plant it could be. 

That’s when it did the inexplicable: That plant took a step or two back.  Now, I might be a nuggat short of a nut cluster, but I’m smart enough to know a couple of things: 1) plants shouldn’t oughta do that and 2) the description of a “black fringe with a white stripe down the middle,” could apply to something that wasn’t a plant at all.  Regarding the events of that day, I later wrote a poem that goes like his:

I commanded, “No!”

But still he leaped,

Then whirled in midair,

Blinded and sneezing,

Frothing from the mouth.

As for the skunk,

It wandered off,

Unbothered,

Just another day

For a being possessed with power

Worthy of a comic book character.

It was a bad morning to be without a long leash.

Hand to collar,

We stumbled to the nearest pond,

Barely able to breathe,

Rubbing the stink and the sting

From our tear-filled eyes.

Oh, I dunked him—

Rest assured I dunked him good—

Muttering all along,

“You darn dog.”

On the way home—

He in back,

Muzzle on paws,

Sad eyes only now opening

To the possibility of new

And disquieting hazards—

I lowered all the windows

And laughed into the passing breeze.

So what if the Jeep will never be the same?

Will I condemn the penitent

For his most endearing

Instincts and preoccupations:

Childlike enthusiasm

And boundless curiosity?

Perfection is unwarranted.

Give me quirkiness instead,

And other sweet foibles

In their glorious variety.

If so blessed,

Laughter and affection will accompany me

Everywhere I go.

I entitled the poem, Brushing Up to Godliness, to convey the idea that in Heavenly Father’s intercession with humanity, we see clues to how our mortal obligations might be fulfilled.  The trouble is that even when following Nephi’s admonition by “likening all scriptures unto us,” we can justify disparate behavior in ways resulting in moral ambiguity.  In response to Jesse’s disobedience, for example, I could have smote him as a sinner or reassured him with a hug.  The options are as different as chalk is to cheese, but still supported by scripture. 

That brings me to the subject of my talk: What’s God’s true nature and what did our Savior say about Godliness?  The answers are critical, because to understand what God stands for is to know what to emulate.  

I once thought of our Father in Heaven as a kind of exalted venture capitalist.  Sure, His rewards were great, but when dealing with His creations, He was tough and demanding, willing to fire those who didn’t produce and cut His losses when displeased with results.  That notion of Godliness translated into a premise that ruled my existence.  I believed there was only one excuse in life and it was this: I didn’t want it badly enough.

I truly believed that a lack of desire and hard work was all that kept anybody from any achievement.  That worldview made me awfully intolerant.  (Actually, Lori had a better word for me, but we won’t go into that).  I had no patience for the castoffs of the world, because where I saw privation, I could write it off as an example of people who didn’t want the alternative—a good life—badly enough.  

There is, however, a gentler version of Godliness—one expressed in Christ’s declaration to a fallen Israel:

How often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings…

This form of Godliness considers the interests of others as equal to its own and was practiced by Christ’s followers prior to the convening of the First Council of Nicaea.  As described in Acts 4:32-35: 

…the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul…  Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, And laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.

Elaine Pagels, a Pulitzer-winning author and historian of the early church, describes a remarkable people who fully deserved the title of saint.  While Rome entertained itself with the public slaughter of Christians, the surviving faithful sustained each other in communal enclaves.  They gave the indigent and homeless—especially abandoned children who were numerous—a place of unquestioned welcome and belonging.  When plagues struck and cities were abandoned, Christians were the few who remained behind to practice literally the Savior’s admonition to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and administer to the sick. 

While such sacrifices are inspiring, they can still be viewed in one of two ways: either as 1) noble, but unnecessary, or 2) the fulfillment of the true intent of Christ’s gospel.  If you believe in the Apostasy, however, there’s not much of a leap in logic to assume that the early Christians had it right, until something went terribly wrong.  What went wrong is beyond the scope of my talk, but Pagels, as well as other historians, have written extensively on the topic.  It’s enough to know that many early Christian traditions were violently crushed by a powerful orthodoxy and one tragedy of that history is that a central message in Christ’s Sermon on the Mount was misinterpreted for political gain.  That message, found in Matthew 5:17, reads:

Think not that I have come to destroy the law and the prophets, I come not to destroy but to fulfil.

Now, the first part of the verse isn’t subject to debate.  In it Christ claims He has no intention of destroying the Mosaic Law, which on this and other occasions He refers to as, “the law and the prophets.”  What’s less clear, however, is the final clause.  How did Christ intend to fulfill the Law of Moses? 

Many fundamentalists believe that Jesus affirmed the Mosaic Law as His gospel and in doing so they practice a faith that is far more Levitical than Christian.  Yet, if we read what follows Matthew 5:17, we can clearly see that Christ had no such intention.  To understand what He did mean, it’s helpful to refer to the original Greek text of Matthew, from which the word pleroo was later translated into that elusive term fulfill. 

Pleroo is a word that conveys multiple nuanced meanings, but it’s generally translated as: to fill to the top, to cram down, or to make complete.  Knowing how Christ fills or completes the Mosaic Law is critical, so I’ll summarize what I understand about the subtlety of the term.  If I have a bottle that’s nearly full of water, which I then fill to the rim, stopper and set aside, I’ve pleroo-ed the bottle.  Notice that while I’ve filled it, I’ve also rendered the bottle useless as a vessel that can store more water.  And that’s an essential sense of the word.  In fact, it’s sometimes translated as meaning to render obsolete. 

The correct view of Matthew 5:17, therefore, is that Christ didn’t destroy Leviticus, but He nevertheless rendered it obsolete.  Just like we can still use typewriters in a computerized world, we can follow the Law of Moses—if we choose—but Christ wants us to be better than that and graduate to a standard more powerful and grand.  He describes that better way in five telling passages in Matthew 5, the first of which is found in verses 21 and 22:

Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill…But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment…

By these verses, Christ asks us to do more than simply refrain from murder, but to exact discipline over our passions.  In the same way, He invites us in four subsequent passages to: 1) Do more than abstain from adultery, but bridle our appetites, 2) Do more than just honor our contracts, but be true to our word, 3) Refrain from vengeance and instead forgive and 4) Do more than love those who love us back, love all of God’s children.

We could spend hours discussing each one of these critical passages, but let me say a few words about one of them.  Verses 38 and 39 say:

Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you…whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

The notion that we must demand an eye for an eye was never meant as a requirement even in Moses’ day.  Think of where his people had been.  They’d suffered through 400 years of bondage, during which the capricious whips of their Egyptian masters had been their only measures of justice.  To them, the penalty for a stolen crust of bread might have been the loss of a hand, but Moses told his people not to be like that—to allow no punishment to exceed its crime.  The reason for the law was to establish a maximum penalty, not to require one.  In contrast, the gospel standard is more explicit.  Christ wants us to forgo retribution altogether.  

You might very well ask what this has to do with God’s true nature, and I will answer:  Everything.  Can you imagine Heavenly Father demanding from us one thing and doing another?  Neither does our Savior, since He says in the final verse of the chapter:

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

We gloss over this verse or read it without context, but it's a scripture that begs for context.  Why?  Because it includes the conjunction “therefore,” which is a word used to connect a premise to a conclusion, as in the relationship: A therefore B.  The premise here is Christ’s description of His gospel found in the passages I've just cited.  It leads us to the conclusion, found in the latter part of the verse, that Christ’s perfect gospel is what God not only honors, but practices.  In other words, Heavenly Father is in control of His passions and appetites—He isn’t vengeful, or jealous.  He’s forgiving and true to His promises—He doesn’t abandon His children.  His love knows no bounds—He doesn’t play favorites.  And we should do the same.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: Why is Alan, who isn’t even an active member of the ward, talking about Godliness?  You have a point.  There’s no question that I’m an awful human being.  I realized decades ago that I had neither the courage nor the fortitude to live Christ’s gospel—at least, not the way He’d intended.  If there’s a Celestial Kingdom, I won’t be there.  Visit me, please.  But even though I’m a goat among the Shepherd’s flock, that doesn’t mean I don’t love the Shepherd.  He’s taught me too much—including many tough lessons that He had to nurse me through—not to love Him dearly.   

Now, here’s a note about those tough lessons.  A funny thing happened to me on the way to thinking I was in complete control.  First, I noticed how the difference between success and failure could be measured by a moment of hesitation, a step in the wrong direction, or an accident of geography.  Then my smug and self-assured worldview was crushed in a deeply personal way when my oldest son tried to take his life.  If I’d wanted anything more urgently than the need to breathe, it was for him to be happy, but I couldn’t will it so. 

I won’t explain what it’s like to raise a depressed child who self-medicates as an escape.  I won’t tell you what goes through a father’s mind as his son spends a night behind bars, or is institutionalized on suicide watch.  What I will say, however, is that Lori and I never—not once—ever considered cutting our losses or walking away from that beautiful boy we’d helped bring into the world.  We’d loved him before he could walk.  We’d loved him before he could speak.  We could do no less, even though he was blind to the seed of divinity inside him.  Could Heavenly Father do any differently?

Despite our chest-thumping demonstrations of toughness, we humans are terribly fragile creatures and many of our brothers and sisters don’t deserve and cannot prevent their unfortunate circumstances.  They could also benefit from our better attempts at Godliness.  In closing, I’ll read an excerpt from a letter I once wrote to a friend who was going through a though time.  In it, you’ll hear what life experience and Jesus have taught me about God’s true nature. 

Why do we love our children?  Is it because they spring from the womb with Olympic medals on their chests, Harvard diplomas in their hands, and the chiseled good looks of Venus or Adonis?  Obviously not.  Children are born plain and without any means of survival beyond an instinct for growth.  So we love our children despite their weaknesses.  Or do we?

Let me tell you a secret.  When Matthew was born, Lori and I looked at each other and in one spontaneous voice whispered, “He looks like Jabba the Hut!”  With his pressed face, frog-like legs, and catfish-skin belly, he really looked like a Star Wars’ character, but this endeared him to us all the more.

During the inexplicable moments when I feel God’s presence most vividly, a picture enters my head.  I see a smiling Father kneeling on the floor along one side of a spacious room.  His arms are spread wide and He entreats me to take awkward, first steps toward Him.  And when I stumble (as I am prone to do) gaining His forgiveness always seems easier than forgiving myself.  Sometimes I’d rather remain on the floor to pout and be punished with thoughts of my enormous stupidity.  But He tells me to put away the excess baggage, to rise up and attempt again, to take a few more steps—as awkward as they may be—toward Him, toward Godliness.

May we understand and emulate God’s great love for His children, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ.  Amen.

What Would Jesus Take?

Did you hear what Rush Limbaugh said today?  I suppose he was attempting to be appropriate to the occasion and spoke of Jesus on the day after Easter.  At one point he played a tape of Christiane Amanpour saying:

"As Christians around the world celebrate Easter, we ask some of America's most influential pastors.  In these turbulent times, has America lost its way?  Taxes and budget cuts.  What would Jesus do?":

Here is Limbaugh’s response:

"You know what the real question is, Ms. Amanpour and the rest of you who seek to co-opt Jesus Christ as simply another prop in your march toward the decline of America, the question is not what would Jesus do, the question is not what would Jesus cut, the question is what would Jesus take?  That's the question you never want to answer."

A little later he continues:

"Taxes and budget cuts, what would Jesus do?  Well, what would Jesus take?  That's the question people need to ask to put this in perspective.  Of course the answer is, nothing.  You want to start equating yourselves and your policies to Jesus Christ, you better first start asking, what did Jesus take, from whom, and how did he go about it?  What was his plan for redistribution?" 

Well, Mr. Limbaugh, you asked about Christ’s plan for redistribution.  Fortunately we don't have to speculate, because He answered the question during His sojourn in life and it’s written in Mark 10:21.  When a young man asked what he could do to gain eternal life, Christ’s answer was this:

Go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.

A Couple of Poems

Here are a couple of poems I recently wrote that depict what I believe to be completely justifiable ways to relate to whatever we call God.  Acknowledging that faith is not a perfect knowledge and admitting that we are riddled with doubt is a good first step.  Rejecting the view that God is jealous and vengeful is a good second.  To do so would help render us more honest and forgiving.

Only Human

By my electric

Involuntary word,

Unseen legions rally

To battle the clandestine intruders

And renegade factions

That would destroy this vessel.

Making possible a storybook universe,

Embedded in dreams

And impenetrable longing,

Peopled by the captured and constructed,

Who cry for attention,

Then whisper in equal measure:

Truth and lies.

They have sentience

And also free will,

Capable of posing

That most disconcerting of questions:

Why should you be any different?

Maybe God, too, is an impulse

In the synapse of a greater consciousness.

Brushing Up to Godliness

I commanded, “No,”

But still he leaped,

Then whirled in midair,

Blinded and sneezing,

Frothing from the mouth.

The skunk wandered off,

Unbothered,

Just another day

For a being possessed with power

Worthy of a comic book character.

It was a bad morning to be without a leash.

Hand to collar,

We staggered to the nearest pond,

Barely able to breathe,

Rubbing the stink and the sting

From our tear-filled eyes.

Oh, I dunked him—

Be assured that I dunked him good—

Muttering all along,

“You damn dog.”

On the way home—

He in back,

Muzzle on paws,

Sad eyes only now opening

To the possibility of new

And disquieting hazards—

I lowered the window

And laughed into the passing breeze.

So what if the Jeep will never be the same?

Will I condemn the penitent

For his most endearing

Instincts and preoccupations:

Childlike enthusiasm

And boundless curiosity?

Perfection is unwarranted.

Give me quirkiness instead,

And other sweet foibles,

In all their glorious variety.

If so blessed,

Laughter will accompany me

Everywhere I go.