| a high place of darkness and light |

---

I came to a high place of darkness and light.
The dividing line ran through the center of town.
- Bob Dylan, Isis, off the Desire LP, 1976

a number of different thoughts swirling in the melee that is mike’s mind this morning – all unique in their own ways, i suppose, yet somehow all related, too.

i guess hearing the news on npr as i drove rebecca to school about ted kennedy’s condition is, perhaps, at the center of it all.

and, not so ironically, center is probably a perfect word to sum it all up.

what’s weird about ted kennedy is that his name is almost always brought up when someone wants to say something disparaging about democrats or liberals – “you’re even left of ted kennedy!”, or “what – do you want us to elect another ted kennedy?”, or “my opponent’s voting record isn’t really much different than ted kennedy’s“, etc.

but guess who one of ted kennedy’s closest friends in the senate is … a man with whom he has time and again worked to craft and move significant legislation into law.

go ahead – guess.

orrin hatch.

orrin hatch?!?

he’s a republican!

he’s the guy who basically walked clarence thomas up and down anita hill … uh, i mean, capitol hill , into the supreme court.

he’s from (gasp) Utah, for God’s sake!

and if a state exists where we can be pretty confident that white-bread conservative Republican ideals will remain the status quo until pigs fly, hell freezes over, or we elect an honest politician, it’s Utah.

in fact, Utah represents the far right end of the spectrum in politics.

how far right is it? well, let’s put it into perspective this way: right-wing and Utah go together like left-wing liberalism and … Massachusetts.

which, oddly enough, is ted kennedy’s home.

orrin hatch and ted kennedy – a mixed marriage almost as incredible as if the national enquirer reported the secret las vegas wedding of archie bunker and whoopi goldberg…

but it just goes to show that people can be card-carrying members of polar extremes and still work together and reach compromises in order to get things accomplished.

something that, sadly, we seem to be less and less capable of doing with each passing day, both in our country and in the church.

one of the (few) good things that i believe has come out of my not-all-that private wrestling with faith has been an ability to see that each pressure point results in extremes where each side, when fairly looked at, has some merit – where it makes good points and has a voice worth hearing. i’ve settled upon a weird desire to step “into the gap” in between all the principled principals in these nerve-fraying frays, to help each side see the strengths and weaknesses in its own positions, and to try to initiate dialogue on a level a little bit higher than the says-you-says-me arguments that have been played out for years and will never, ever be resolved.

never, at least, if resolution only means the successful conversion of one side’s adherents to the other’s…

consequently, i’ve been wrestling with whether or not i want to step back into the discussion over at justin’s blog, or resume frank’s proposed ‘debate,’ or if i just want to move on and stop banging my head against the wall. yes, i’ve peeked back through the holes in the fence to see some of the comments made after i bade them adieu (read about it here and here). one guy at BTW said i “bailed out” which, of course, is exactly not what happened – in fact, if anything, my history shows a persistent insistence to overstay my welcome more often than to leave any engagement early.

the parting words i usually hear aren’t, “hurry back!” but, rather, “…and stay out!”

and so i ask myself, what is my motivation for going back and resuming the discussion? is it about ‘clearing my name’? or is it that i believe there is good that can come out of the objective, rational, polite sharing of thoughts and ideas?

obviously, it’s all about clearing my name.

what – you thought i was one of those principled principals i spoke of earlier? please. you obviously haven’t read enough posts here… read a few and it will become quite obvious that my favorite subject is …

… me.

i mean, after all, they say the first step is admitting you have a problem, right?…

but in all seriousness (at least, all that i can muster anyway), i’m motivated more by keeping the discussions going than i am about coming out the ‘winner’ in any of them.

or of any need to be told, ‘you know what, mike? you’re exactly right.’

or of any selfish desire to have someone – anyone – simply take the time to say, ‘i’m just not sure everyone knows how lucky we really are that you came along with your incredibly huge heart, superior intellect, tireless negotiation skills, and – how could we have overlooked it? – your wear-it-on-your-sleeve humility to find a solution we never would have found on our own.’

nope, none of that. i’m motivated entirely by what might – no, can – no, will be obtained by continuing the sharing of ideas.

yup, entirely.

anyway, so there are two pieces of fruit that need to be picked at the moment. one is to venture back over and resume the discussion with frank. the second is to respond to some comments centered on creation and evolution underneath a post on the Jesus Creed blog. of course, the creation / evolution battle is another one of those areas of debate where people get quite defensive and refuse to concede any ground in fear that any inch given means a mile gets taken.

a guy named brad cooper and i swapped a couple of comments yesterday. my position, as i’ve posted here before, is that the plain reading of genesis 1 and 2 does not a science book make, nor does even a consistent, harmonized, easy-to-see-and-understand story make. brad made a comment which essentially said, hey – i’ve read everything there is to read, and i’ve come to the conclusion that everyone who does not have my opinion is wrong – the creation account in genesis is how it happened, and evolution is a satanic plot hatched purely to debunk the bible and let us all get back to having sex in the streets and letting our cities burn while we eat, drink, and blaspheme Mary.

in so many words, of course … after all, this is my blog, where i retain full editorial license.

anyway, i stated my position, and he responded with three – three! – posts in which he took some not-too-subtle swipes at me, i suppose trying to minimize the effect of the blows he thought might be coming in my subsequent arguments. i see now (peeking again through the hole in the fence) that he’s actually added yet another – a fourth! – either late last night or this morning.

i can empathize with brad – and, in spite of my sarcasm and cute asides – i do feel his pain. when you start seeing a few small cracks in the apparent ‘absolute truths’ upon which you’ve built the full foundation of your life, it’s kind of frightening. the fear is that the whole house will collapse, so you rush in to try to reinforce every little crack, not realizing that sometimes the only solution is to bulldoze what’s there and rebuild. it’s painful, it’s a slow process, and you really don’t know what the house will look like when you get done. or even if it will be inhabitable.

or even if it will be finished in your lifetime.

in the end, though, like martin luther said, you reach the point where you simply throw caution to the wind, nail your feces to the door (after all, everyone’s poop smells, right?), and admit that you ‘can do no other thing.’

brad isn’t completely wrong.

but brad isn’t completely right.

and he will say yes, but mike, you think you’re completely right.

and, he’s right – i do.

but it’s because i’ve come to see that right means humility. and right means remaining teachable. and right means a healthy understanding that working towards the best solution – really, the only solution – means you have to give up insisting that it be your solution.

issues and positions don’t reduce any more to ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. in the arab-israeli conflict, it may have reduced five thousand years ago to one side being right, the other side being wrong. but that’s all moot now. and we’re left to decide whether or not we’re going to work for peace with what we have, or let the war go on for 5,000 more years. each side will have its fearmongers that claim any concession puts them on a slippery, downhill slope that will only end when everything has been given up.

and, granted, that’s certainly one possibility.

but another is that the ‘downhill sliding’ only last until the two sides meet in the middle. in a workable compromise.

kind of like what orrin hatch and ted kennedy have somehow managed to do for years in the senate, despite each being the poster boy for everything that was … well … take your pick, either ‘making america again the shining light on the hill for the rest of the world to see,’ or, ‘threatening to destory everything great that america has ever stood for.’

i suspect the truth is, as always, somewhere in the middle.

~ by mikerucker on May 21, 2008.