@Kairyssdal and the twittertocracy: the sound of some hands clapping

First: a caveat.

I love Kai Ryssdal.  He's the host of NPR's "Marketplace," the show tailored for those of us who hate those little scrolling numbers in CNBC. 

I like listening to him so much that when I told a pal that he has the same casual, clever, quirky persona going on when he preaches, it was a compliment of a very high order.

I like his interview style, slightly goofy without being at all unprofessional.

Even though I roll my eyes a bit when he says: " Good, as always, to have you with us" and I know it's partly a shtick, I still believe he means it. Wherever I am, whether it's in the car, hiking the hills around my exurban community, or occasionally listening at home,  he draws me in.

And also, he's a Yankees fan. Hated by the rest of the country, even when we are out of the playoffs and other teams get all the glory,  we have to stick together. It's a persecution thang. 

But when I saw this tweet from Ryssdal's online persona,  @KaiRyssdal,  I did a little brood.

For those of you who don't need or want to be part of the Twitter pecking order, Ryssdal is responding to a tweet from @TheStalwart: 

"Good q tho. What's the response/follower threshold? “@TheStalwart: I almost responded to an inane tweet from someone with no followers.” "

Really? I thought. Really? I can understand not answering someone spouting nonsense -- but does it matter that much if he or she has followers?

I watch some of the people I respect to see how they treat their followers.

Do folk with famous names only respond to other famous names? Do they only retweet or respond to the witticisms of their media buddies? 

Is Twitter becoming a larger, bi-coastal version of "This Town" with a little West Coast street cred?

I'm a small fish in a tiny pond.

I write about religion. That usually only draws notice from the rest of the media when something goes really awry or kinky.  

I'm not even a famous religion writer, someone with a presence in a large media outlet.

I'm not young and well-known, drawing thousands of followers.

I'm not even OLD and famous. Just another middle-aged writer, with a penchant for the bon mot and the wrong mot.

I'll admit straight up that I only have 300 followers and change. For a long time, I didn't bother to cultivate my Twitter connections. I don't have much interest in rituals like Follow Friday, and I don't always follow someone who follows me.  

 Some happen to be pretty well-known.
  
Many are colleagues, some are friends, others are media contacts in other fields. Then there is a sizable group of clergy and laypeople interested in spirituality and in religions.

I don't know most of them -- but I often (though not always) profit by paying attention to what they tweet.

Oh yes, there are morons and trolls out there. But the vast majority of my followers, and certainly the people I choose to follow, have something to add to the threads, the memes, and the more-than-occasional frivolity of the Twitterverse.

I hope that Kai Ryssdal, and others of his media class, choose to respond to tweets because they make a relevant point, or are logical, or clever: (even better, of course is the "holy grail tweet" : logical, topical and clever, all at the same time).

After all, he works in public radio: if it's not quite vox populi, you can tell that many of those who work there are making a good-faith, whole-hearted attempt to present other points of view.

There's no obligation on the part of well-known media figures to pay any attention to the hoi polloi. Most of us will continue to observe their behavior whether they reciprocate, or not. But I'd like to think that a civil society is based, at least in part, on mutual respect -- and attention.

Some Twitter personalities seem consistently gracious and engaged.

I'm always impressed, for example,  by how much Jim Roberts, late of the New York Times and now of Reuters, engages with his Twitter readers. Of  course, he is, in many ways, a digital media pioneer. Frankly, that's part of his work.

As I said at the start of this post, I'm not slamming Kai Ryssdal -- after all, he didn't pose an answer to his own question.  So I really have no idea if he thinks there is a threshold below which someone is not worthy of a response.

Of course, many of these media folk work under grinding pressure, and don't have much time to be Twitter personalities.  

 More important:  Ryssdal is a darned good journalist/anchor, with a keen nose for the funny and sometimes seamy underbelly of business news and American culture.

But I'd hate to see Twitter become like, well, high school. 

Remember how awful it could be if you weren't the jock, the cheerleader or the AP student? 

When we graduated, we promised that we would.never.act.like.that.again.

So don't. 

Speaking truth to power

 Can a religious leader play a constructive role when politicians can't get the job done?

I have to admit that I was skeptical about how useful or even proper it is for elected leaders to have a chaplain.

 I've never been a fan of civil religion.  In fact, from my perspective, the way God gets dragged into our disputes can do more harm than good.

But I'm rethinking that.  Not just because it seems as though Admiral and Reverend Barry Black speaks for we the people with a clear and convincing voice in the Senate chamber.

History itself leaves a more equivocal witness (would Lincoln's words at Gettysburg have as much power without his divine invocation (that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom ) )?

An atheist would undoubtedly answer differently. But in times when the very nature of democracy itself seems under assault, I find it not only inspiring but also appropriate to hear the voice of divine presence and tradition echo through the halls of a once-revered institution.

Thank you, Chaplain Black.  When our leaders have failed us, you are not only God's representative, but ours.


http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/905094_Column--Ministering-to-our-split-leadership.html

Godbeat shifts: the state of the state

As someone who has written for the secular press as a freelancer for most of my ADHD career, I've always admired my fulltime colleagues and their immersion and dedication to the religion beat. I've never made that much money from the work I do, but I also feel passionate about it.

I still do admire them, perhaps even more so now, when they have embraced an uncertain future with grace and grit. Perhaps we all need to go back and read our George Eliot, Austen and Dickens, who so vividly evoke what it's like to watch a way of life disappear.

New generations will expect change and perhaps turmoil.  Mine has to adjust -- or get out of the way.

 Take a read. And let me know if you agree.




http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/899540_Column--The-changing-face-of-Pennsylvania-s-Godbeat.html

The ghosts of Antietam

Like many of you,  much of what I know about the Civil War is taken from the PBS series produced by Ken Burns more than two decades ago. It was, in fact, the most-watched series on American public television - ever.

Ignorance reigned.  I could tell you more about the Civil War in seventeenth-century England than I could about the conflict that divided our whole country. 

I'm not huge on tactics, and my son is much better, at 16, at recalling the names of the battles and the generals than I ever will be.

But I do remember what it was like to see the pictures taken by Matthew Brady and his employees.

You have probably seen them, but if you haven't,  see if you can find some online.  Once you have, you won't forget them.

Bodies lying against stone walls, on hills, in fields.  Dead horses and guns everywhere beneath the trees.

This was the first time, I believe that photographs had been taken of battlefields, particularly before the men were interred.

As this article from the New York Times documents, we now believe that around 750,000 men died during the Civil War, the highest toll in any war we've ever fought in (we used to think that the number was around 620,000).

I can't conceptualize 23,000, the number estimated to have died in a few days at Antietam.

Harper's Ferry has a bloody history, in part because of the capture and death of the abolitionist John Brown by Lee's forces (Lee, at that point, was working for the Feds).

But Harper's Ferry, which is a lovely, quiet town, is tranquil contrasted to Antietam.

I'd been to Gettysburg with the same friend a few years ago. They say that the battlefields are haunted. Although we went on a "ghost tour" of Gettysburg, we saw no spectres, thank goodness.

But I'm not sure about Antietam.

First we saw the movie, that described with terrible gravity the way that Confederates and Union soldiers cut each other down in the fields, across a bridges, over the ledges.

Then we walked through the cornfield, where thousands of men met their death in hand to hand combat.

A year later, we learned,  when Lee took roughly the same route on the way to Gettysburg, one soldier wrote of stepping on the skeletons of his unburied friends.

On that warm day, the sun glinting above the shorn corn stalks, walking on the ground where so much human blood had been spilled, we were, in a way, witnesses to the insanity of September 17, 1862.

The bloodiest single day in our history.

There is nothing pretty, nothing romantic about war. And if I could, I would douse those embers that glow in men's souls (particularly men).

Dolce est decorum est pro patria mori?

Bull.

Tell that to the woman who waited in the South for her husband or son to come back to plow the fields and take back the farm.

Tell it to the war widow in the North whose husband, an African-American, had fought side by side with white men to free his brothers and sisters from the damnable yoke of slavery.

Tell it to the spouse who has to tell his or her kids that dad or mom has killed himself because he or she could not bear the ghosts of Iraq or Afghanistan.

It is an honor to live in a society where we do not have to be master and slave.  We honor the sacrifice of the men (and women) who died to take that grim burden away from our brothers and sisters, and to lift the curse upon our country.

But there was nothing sweet about it.

My friend and I stood for a few minutes in the national cemetery in Antietam. It is quiet, and was totally empty that afternoon -- except for the rows of graves.  Some were marked, simply, with a name and a date. Some stones, smaller, did not have names.

Is Antietam haunted?

No one has told me of ghosts.

But I wish we were all more haunted.  For if we were, perhaps we would be less blithe with other people's lives.

Poly on the prowl

Those of you who have followed my blog for a long time know that I have occasionally written about the polyamorous lifestyle.  That's because, in part,  there was a point at which I was seriously considering writing a feature article about it for a local newspaper. I'm always looking for the eclectic, the unconventional and the unpredictable.

Trust me, if you had written about religion in a fairly small town for seven or so years, you would do the same.

I have also written about polyamory because I have developed respect for some of its practitioners.  In the process of researching my article, I spoke with a number of people who publicly represent polyamory. One thing they emphasized, over and over again, is that integrity is crucial to "the lifestyle." 

From my conversations, I have deduced that one big difference between polyamorists and married folk on the low down is that they are candid about their other relationships, and work to enable communication between all the parties in the relationships.

To all my friends whose blood pressure rises when they hear the descriptor: I want to be clear here.  I'm not endorsing a poly lifestyle. I'm not opposing it, either. As a journalist, my job is to write about it, and let you make up your own minds.

And just in case you are wondering,  I'm not inclined to polyamory.  Trust me, there's a reason I'm telling you this.

I do, however, have my profile on a dating site that lets cheetahs, polys, and others into more alternative lifestyle post profiles.

Some are straight up about their status: "married."

Others call themselves "alternative."

I don't usually converse with guys who reach out to me from the "alternative" side of the dating cosmos.

Once in a blue moon, however, my curiosity gets me very close to hot water.

Let's call the hot water in this case "Bob" (as in Bob, Carol, Ted & Alice).

To all appearances,  Mid-Atlantic Bob works in the health care industry for, let's say, big pharma, (just an educated guess).  

He identified himself to me as a fellow writer.  Quoting from my own profile, he said "Looking forward to the 'dignity and interest' treatment if you care to chat. You're very attractive."

I responded: "Forgive me for being so bold, but are you married, living with your wife?"

Within moments, he came back at me: "I am "seeing" somebody, but a long way from being convinced that we're good for the long haul."

"But I shouldn't lead you on", I said. Then I noted that not only was I geographically limited, but I was also an ordained minister (this often scares guys away, and, as you can imagine, I sometimes wait until an actual conversation to mention it).

I was already wondering  why my  virtual pal hadn't talked to his girlfriend about his issues. Besides, it was late at night, and honestly, I rarely come across smart men online.  

Teach me to avoid the smart ones.

Turns out (he says) he's got a pal who is an Episcopal minister -- and a doctor, would ya believe it? "But yes, the moral dilemmas are legion" he wrote, and getting involved with me would probably confront you with some of them, although I wouldn't be able to predict which ones."

Me neither.

After a few comments about how, as I grow older, I have come to appreciate transparency and openness, I shared my blog URL, and advised him not to settle for 'good enough."

"I hope I treated with you dignity and respect" I concluded, thinking we were done.

The next morning, he wrote back: "Have you ever considered the concept of polyamory"?

Here's where I made a mistake. I will talk to almost anyone about anything -- I figure I might learn something new.  I asked him if he was considering it -- and shared my own take, which is that it takes a lot of emotional maturity, can often work to the advantage of the male (if there is a male), and can bring with it a fair amount of drama.

We went back and forth on this topic throughout the day, on and off.  I asked him if he was considering adding a partner to his own relationship. He wrote back: "The short answer is that I'm not totally satisfied, and I don't want to dump her, either. She's a good person and doesn't deserve to be dumped just because my heart wanders and she can't be everything to me. Maybe somebody could, but I'm increasingly skeptical about that."

I asked him if he'd be candid with his partner about his wishes.

"Yes, I've told her I've been exploring the concept. She's nervous about it, and says she might want to connect with an old boyfriend if I do, but says she doesn't want to dump me either. So far it's all talk for both of us.'

Throughout this dialogue, I never gave him any reason to suppose that I had more than an intellectual curiosity about polyamory. But I did, perhaps, give him enough feedback to continue the dialogue. In retrospect, perhaps that was an error. But in retrospect, perhaps, he was trying to lay a trap for me.

That might account for what happened next.

Short story: I reiterated that I wasn't poly material. He asked to meet me as a friend,  "offline." First I suggested that perhaps we talk on the phone, because I didn't have enough information. Later that night, I told him that I was growing increasingly uneasy  -- perhaps it was because I wondered why he would WANT to meet someone who would be merely a friend.

"Hurting some other woman? I can't imagine doing that," I wrote him. I was a hundred percent certain that I didn't want to be other than a friend.

"No problem" wrote my "friend " the next morning. "Too bad, though, because your fears of the worst are what my "Carol" says are, in her words, "OTT." She had already agreed to meet you for lunch/dinner to answer your questions about polyamory and our relationship." 

Not only are Bob and Carol polyamorous, but they also have a "hot bi babe". Pretty much nothing of what he'd told me about the practicalities of his life were true.  

Then he did a "je t'accuse." "Literally nobody on... even the most intellectually adventurous such as yourself, seem to have the courage to accept and engage with me on the basis that it's possible to be successful in polyamory -- as we have for five years now."

Seriously -- you accuse ME of lack of courage?

For about ten minutes, I was stunned. Frankly, I imagined showing up for a "friendly" lunch, and meeting Bob and his partner.  

Would I have tipped a glass of water down his pants? Or would I have taken out a notebook? 

That's one story that won't get written, gentle reader.

Bob had commented on my "congenial, compatible mind." Perhaps his Carol was not as educated as he is. He's looking for more -- and more.  "He's not a polyamorist, he's a glutton:" commented a friend when I shared this story.

I'm a journalist, I warned him. I like stories. 

I tell stories. And actually, this is a pretty good one.

And beneath my initial astonishment is a less naive perspective. 

I had put polyamorists on a bit of a pedestal, because they seem so much more honest than the reams of cheaters out there. 

Now I know better. Every group has its cads. 

And lots of them hang out online. 

Words you might want to think about before you say them

I have a friend who is an all round good man.  He's intelligent, a great family guy, funny, and really good at what he does.

But he's got a habit that drives me crazy.  When I ask him how thing are going are home, he'll tell me: "We've really been blessed."

At that point, I have to do some quick mental gymnastics --  after all, that's a term of common use among Christians, particularly evangelical Christians.

Perhaps you also are "blessed."  You have elderly parents in good health.  Or your kids are all doing well in school.  You have babies on your schedule, not on someone else's. You met the love of your life in college, and things have been going just great ever since.

Of course, if you are a person of faith, you would ascribe this to God's good favor working in your family, your business, your love life, and even your, forgive me fertility cycle.

The only problem with this term?

The man next to you in church might be watching his sixty something mom die painfully of cancer.  The person three pews down could have a teenage boy who is hostile, distant and down most of the time -- every night she goes home from work afraid of what she's going to find.

The pastor preaching that upbeat sermon might be struggling with an alcohol addiction that threatens to take over his life -- it's a genetic thing in his family.

Wait... you mean that they aren't blessed? Well, what are they then? Cursed?

This isn't easy stuff.  At various times in my life, which has had some struggles and some frank tragedy, I have wondered why some people's lives seem to go without incident, and others are laced with horror.

People in Colorado: blessed or cursed?

People in Syria?

 Lottery-winners?

Bestselling authors? Brilliant writers whose manuscripts never get published?

I do believe that God works in this world.  But I admit that I'm not sure how, though I have experienced times of  feeling blessed in so many ways.

 I don't believe that God picks and chooses who will be given "normal" lives, and who will have to wrest meaning from them with tears and sadness and doubt.

Many of us have times of  normalcy, happiness and grief.

I have heard people who are terribly ill, or those who have lost someone they love say those words -- and been thankful that they can find grace and character and beauty in the twilight.

So I don't honestly have a theologically correct, nicely packaged answer to this dilemma.  My concern is mostly pastoral.

The next time you are exuberant, and those words are about to flow from your lips, please think at least once. Take a look at the person or people who will hear or read them.

And take care, my brothers and sisters, that your "blessing"  cannot be heard as their condemnation.

Faith Fridays: "The Happy Atheist" A Review

There's a certain piquant, perhaps even slightly lurid quality about a woman of the cloth reviewing a tome by an atheist professor of biology (with a prize-winning science blog, yet!) 

In the old days, perhaps one might have even packed this reflection between brown-paper and sold it under cover of night at your local newsstand.  After all, weren't women clergy an impossibility?

But in an age in which aspiring politicians sext young women on Twitter and butlers steal documents from the Vatican bedchambers, alas, nothing seems astonishing. 

As long as there have been theists (going back at least as far as the epics of the ancient world), there have been atheists. History is threaded with the writings and lives of famous non-believers. 

But the explosion of electronic communication, the secularization of Western Europe, and the surging number of Americans who don't identify with an institutional religious practice has amplified the voice and perhaps the influence of the no-God party. 

Atheism (as much as a non-believer with a polemical edge like Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins would dislike this way of putting it) part of the dialogue about faith in the public square.

And if P Z Myers had his druthers, human beings would root out past errors, and give God, described as a "useless old fart"  and a "cranky old geezer" (metaphorically, of course, for God doesn't exist in Myersworld), his "pink slip."

In this series of sketches on such topics as "The Top Ten Reasons Religion Is Like Pornography"  Myers sets out to mock, rend, and generally deride the beliefs of any and every person of faith (except, of course, for those who have faith in science).

"Science and religion," he writes, "are two different ways of looking at the universe, and changing the world, and I believe that you must set one aside to follow the other. One works; the other doesn't."

Sometimes, however, Myers has sympathy for believers -- believers like Florida pastor (unlikely to be considered more than a huge nuisance, embarrassment or fraud by many Christians) Terry Jones, who has several times attempted to burn copies of the Koran.  After all, to Myers, the Koran and the Bible are only  books of superstitions and those who believe they are sacred texts ignorant dupes.

Myers writes scathingly of the misogynistic and patriarchal qualities of a faith born amidst ancient sheepherders and a God who is leader, master, commander.

In decimating this unreal, metaphorical God, those with no faith will realize that while they are alone in the universe, "we're all alone together."  That realization, and acceptance of the basics of evolution, will allow humans to be able to become free actors, able to choose to collaborate, and shoulder responsibilities far more weighty than that of fealty to a "trail boss."

There is much in this book that will outrage, and infuriate, many people of faith.  That's not a good reason to stay away from it, however.  If your beliefs cannot contend in the marketplace of ideas, are they really yours?

But it's hard to believe that this volume reveals Myers at his most convincing (here he sings to the choir).  Instead of "The Happy Atheist," this volume might more appropriately be called "The Snarky Atheist."

A bigger issue? We live in an age in which many have unlimited faith in both science and reason -- two disciplines that have let us down again and again. 

There are, as well, many scientists who see no contradiction between faith and science (it is difficult to think, for example,  of Dr. Francis Collins as a dupe or an idiot).

Far safe for Myers to dwell in the realm of parody than engage the messy realities that lie behind the puppet show he has set up.

For real exposure to a rigorous and nuanced atheism, turn to neuroscientist Sam Harris, or the late Christopher Hitchens. Hell, turn to Myers himself -- his blog, which explores all manner of topics scientific and (anti) religious, fascinates.

But unless you can take being annoyed, and only sporadically  enlightened, don't turn to him here.