The Book of Esther, The Game of Telephone, and the Palaces on My Street

In the book of Esther there's this interesting situation in the fourth chapter that's driving my writing this week. Esther has entered into the King of Persia's harem as his queen. As a part of this group, her world is restricted to the palace and she's unable to go out of it. Her cousin, Mordecai, hears about a plot to kill all the Jews and puts on sackcloth so he can mourn publicly with all the Jews who also hear of this plot. By mourning, Mordecai is unable to go into the courts of the king and so he's cut off from Esther. Esther hears that Mordecai is mourning, but since she cannot leave the palace she is cut off from understand what he needs. The book goes on to tell of a game of telephone that Mordecai and Esther play through one of the king's servants. They pass messages back and forth to one another through this servant and Esther learns of the plot to kill all the Jews and is encouraged by Mordecai to try and speak with the king about it. 

When I think about this story,  I think about my street. I live in a house next to the church where I work. I have a neighbour on one side of me, and there are a few dozen houses within walking distances of me, but each one reminds me of the King of Persia's palace because I know that people are in them, but I don't feel able to approach them. I'm cut off from others by the distance from the sidewalk to the front door. 

I also think about the many neighbourhoods with many homes further afield. Each one feels equally like a palace to me because they feel distant and inaccessible. The people inside are part of their own world and I am a part of mine and we rarely intersect with one another. If I connect this to the story of Esther, I wonder what keeps us like this and I also wonder who could becomes the "king's servant" in my own story. How can I bridge the divide between myself and others to connect with one another and understand one another? 

There are some simple answers to this. I could just break the space and walk up to the front door and knock on it, but that doesn't seem like the right approach. Then it's an invasion and not an attempt to connect. I wouldn't like it if someone did that to me. I could try and catch them when they're outside or in some kind of third space, but there aren't many of those in my neighbourhood. The library isn't open anymore, there's no store or gas station, and the local park remains empty most of the time because people have more than enough room in their own yard to play. This week as I'm reading Esther, I'm praying for a "servant of the king." Some way to pass messages back and forth to connect with people who are close by.

One Polarized Decision

People like to thing about things simply. The reality is there just isn't time to sit down and reflect on your position on an issue or situation that's encountered you. We are going to make assumptions about that thing that make reflection easier. In most cases that leads to making one polarized decision.

My favourite example of "one polarized decision" is the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She said "When I'm sometimes asked 'When will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court]?' and I say 'When there are nine,' people are shocked. But there'd been nine men, and nobody's ever raised a question about that." 

If you want to fix years where women have been excluded from this important decision making body, then the first place to start is to suggest doing the opposite. The goal of getting nine women on the supreme court feels nearly impossible, but to overcome the incredible amount of institutional prejudice that exists at this present moment, you need a "shoot for the moon" type goal to maintain momentum and avoid rebounding back to the status quo. 

I get the sense that some people (particularly ones who were comfortable with nine men on the supreme court) are uncomfortable with that because it doesn't look like equality, but we never reach the idealized pictures that we present of the future we want. We can decide on a direction to move in, and maybe at some point we'll arrive at a more comfortable place but we need the momentum of a polarized decision in order to get momentum and get things rolling.

That's not to say that the future is about replacing one group with another. Personally speaking I don't think that helps anyone. But right now the entrenchment of individual groups of people in positions of power is so strong that giving nuanced opinions about what should happen in the future doesn't lead to meaningful change. People don't hear or listen to nuanced opinions very well. It's the loud brash clear opinions that we tend to go for. It's like we're moving a golf ball with a sledge hammer. Yes we're smashing it way too hard, but it gets things going in the right direction and we can always come back in later and correct things.

Maybe in the future we can argue that we need to move more towards an equal sharing of things, but for now I'm comfortable with the sledge hammer approach on some of these issues. I'm comfortable with a polarized decision. Let's get things moving and then later on we can come back and correct things later on.

Exactly as They Are

 A lot of crazy stuff has happened in the last year. COVID is the most obvious one, but there's also been a move, a job change, some health stuff with Amanda, and the ongoing journey I have with my mental health. Events have occurred over the course of this year which I might have otherwise chosen to avoid. I tend not to think in those terms though. There are lots of things I would like to be different in my life, but I don't have control over most of them. I can't make the whole world change to suit the way I'd like it to be, so I always look at situations as I can control them. If I obey the rules, if I live within the boundaries of where I find myself then what can I do in that space.

In the present situation, I find myself trying to make use of all of this isolated time and figuring out what some ways to connect with other people are. Part of that has been learning to use the phone and call people more readily without such hesitation, but part of that has also been thinking about what it means to connect with people. When you can visit someone in person, a card seems like a pretty small thing but when you experience so much isolation a card starts to feel like a pretty incredible gesture. "Someone wrote my name on a piece of paper." I've actually been reflecting a lot on my experiences working in California and how even just a few lines from friends back home via email meant so much to me when I was so starved for connection with others. 

I think being realistic helps me to draw my attention towards problem solving instead of towards anger or some kind of political action. It actually reminds me of exercises that people use in different fields to help spur creative thought. In music it would be like forcing yourself to use only three chords in a composition or arranging a piece for piano and drums with nothing else. In writing people often use writing prompts as a tool to practice writing in ways you might not normally. Being realistic with life situations feels like the same kind of exercise. I'm expressing creativity as I live my life in response to all these things that are dealt to me.

Saturday: Loving Others

Let me bring it back to something serious for a little bit. It's Saturday which means I've been taking catastrophe leave for about six days now. I'm over the initial rest that came from taking some time off of work and well into the "What do I do now?" phase of things. Yesterday in addition to my war on the basement I learned a few things on the sewing machine as an ongoing project. Oh also the fence in our backyard fell down without anyone noticing and so I had to go outside and craft a replacement so the dog didn't escape from the yard. However none of these things have really taken a ton of work. They've instead just been minor diversions.

One of the big things I've been thinking about is when I'm at home and not supposed to see anyone, what's the best way to go about loving others? This is a central point of Christianity (along with public worship which definitely isn't happening at the moment and has instead moved online), and so there is a challenge here about what to do in this situation so that I still answer the call to love others in a way that reflects what God commands.

I don't really have an answer right now. I have a few ideas that I may try today and I will probably take some suggestions from others but I think this will remain a central challenge for myself and many others in this time.

Thursday: Optimizing

One of the projects I've undertaken while being at home for at least the next ten days is to reorganize our basement. I would say clean out our basement but with the number of services that are closed and the limited amount of garbage I can dispose of each week, it's not going to be clean at the end of this process. Instead what I hope is that everything down there has a purpose. The purpose of some of those things will be to be thrown away, but at least it will all have its appropriate place instead of right now where all of the things down there live in some kind of limbo where they are neither useful or junk and instead await my judgement on whether they will be useful or not.

I can only put in about an hour or two of basement sorting in per day. We live in an older house and I can only stand up straight in a few parts of the basement so if I'm down there for long enough it starts to strain my neck which isn't really good for me right now. In the rest of the day I fill time with video games, attempts at reading, and bouts of optimization. What do I mean by optimization?

Think about the place where you live. Imagine yourself walking through it. Is there one part of your house that you know is sort of left a certain way because you don't have the time to go back and fix it? Are there a million coats in your front closet? Does your kitchen sink have three dozen cleaners that you'll never use underneath it? Is there a junk drawer somewhere in your house that's been accumulating contents for years? These are parts of your living-space that are sub-optimal. And you know what? 99% of the time that is totally fine. It's really not worth the effort to resolve these issues as these things work fine enough or don't impede our normal progress in life with the way they are.

But here we are in the 1% of time where I happen to have a lot of free time and only so much attention and effort to fill it with. So that means that all of those spaces in my life that have been functioning poorly up until now are suddenly ripe for optimization. Since taking catastrophe leave I have reorganized our living room, sorted out the landscaping in our backyard, and today I reconnected all the cables behind my desk so that I'd stop kicking off the power bar when I stretch out my legs. I didn't really need to do any of these things. On a regular day there would be no point. But in this moment when I can't really leave the house and I don't always have an abundance of attention, optimizing bits of the house that need some work is something that's been happening a lot.

Wednesday: Why I Will Probably Never Finish a Final Fantasy

A Note: I'm going to try to write more over the time of the pandemic. That probably means that I'm going to write about things that I'm watching or reading or playing. I don't know if I will write about Scripture in these but it might come up. We'll see.

Earlier this year I made a commitment to play through some of the games that I had started but never completed. I like many PC gamers have collected a lot of video games at low cost through Steam sales. I have also collected many games in other formats through gifts from others and through impulse purchase. Offhand I can think of about twelve games that I have started and gotten some distance through before putting them aside to return to something else (usually Destiny). My commitment was to try and finish some of the "low hanging fruit" in my library.

I started off really strong. I finished Rise of the Tomb Raider and Resident Evil 2 Remake within the first two months of this year. It was a strong start. Then I decided to tackle Final Fantasy VI which is sitting on my SNES Classic. It's been a game that I've heard good things about, but I hadn't gotten deep into yet. I started off strong and really enjoyed the first chunk of it. But then something bad happened. I got stuck.

The Final Fantasy games have this unique characteristic in which many of the battles are based around making use of certain skills or abilities that your characters have. You need to use certain skills in the right combination in order to successfully dispatch your opponents. This is kind of interesting and leads to a lot of experimentation but there's a catch. You can only change your party members and by extension the skills you have access to at certain times. Because of this there are cases in which you can start out with a party that seems capable of taking on things, but then suddenly discover that you are unable to progress past a certain boss with your current party. I have reached this point.

I'm ten hours into the game and at the final boss in the Magitech Factory but my party choice means that I only have two members in my current party and with no hope of actually beating this boss. The way that my saves have been set up means that there's no going back. I'm stuck. The only way to get around this problem is to start the entire game over again. I'm feeling pretty deflated about the whole thing at this point.

This has happened to me before in Final Fantasy VII. I have played FFVII for a total of 45 hours, but I have never progressed past Rocket Town. This is because every time I get past a certain point, the PC port deletes my save files and I have to start the entire game over again. I'm pretty good at the first ten hours now having done them four times but I am almost positive I will never go back and finish the game.

So I think I might just never finish a Final Fantasy game. I still have at least three others that I could play. FFVIII - FFX are just sitting in my Steam library, but I'm not sure I ever will. I'll get back to you if I ever manage it.

Update: Immediately after writing this I completed the fight I thought I was stuck on and am now unstuck. ONWARD!

Daily Reading Reflection: Deuteronomy 15

If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them. Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need. Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought: “The seventh year, the year for canceling debts, is near,” so that you do not show ill will toward the needy among your fellow Israelites and give them nothing. They may then appeal to the LORD against you, and you will be found guilty of sin.- (Deuteronomy 15:7-9)

One of the really interesting things about trying to shape your life around following God is the way that we receive teaching about what God wants. A lot of what we learn about God's will comes from the things that we read in scripture. For whatever reason, God has chosen to use this method to give us our clearest teaching about himself. However something funny happens in this process because the things that are written in scripture are bound to their time and their place in many ways. This passage from Deuteronomy is talking about how the Israelites should conduct themselves in the country which God will establish them in and watch over them in.

One trap which you might fall in to is to read this passage and then think "I should behave in exactly the way that is outlined in this passage". This is a problem because there are things assumed in these passages which are not true for us today. We do not live in Israel. We do not have a national Sabbath day. We do not have an understanding that God expects this kind of seven year cycle of the forgiveness of debts. So we have to go back and look at this passage and think how can we apply what we learn from this passage to our modern pluralistic country with its capitalist economy and its democratic politics.

This passage deals with the needy in Israel. What they are instructed to do here is to be generous with those who are in need in the land and lend to others if they have needs. In this context lending means giving money or things with the expectation of repayment. That's why there's the qualifier about not being wicked and thinking "the year of the jubilee when I have to forgive all my debts is soon so therefore I won't give". What God expects is that the people will loan money to people when they are in need, that there will be a period for them to try and repay the debt, but at the end of the seven year cycle the debt is forgiven and the person can move on.

If we try and abstract this a little more or make it more general than it is here, what we see is God making a commandment to the people to give resources to those who need it and give them a chance to repay what they are given. However, if they can't repay it by the seven year deadline then you simply forgive what is owed and move on. Ultimately debt is a form of idolatry and if people become trapped or enslaved in perpetuity to someone because they had a need, they are no longer free to belong only to God.

If we try and apply this in modern terms I think we can say this. When we see someone around us who is in need, we should try and help them by lending them what they need freely. This offers them a chance to repay us and feel a sense of dignity and control over what is going on in life. However, these kinds of debts shouldn't be held in perpetuitiy. If it seems someone will not be able to repay what they owe us then we should forgive the debt, count what they owed as a gift.

If things change there may be other ways to apply this passage to our lives or other ways to interpret what God is asking us to do, but we always try to do our best to apply the way that God has revealed himself in history to our lives and practice today in the hopes that we can work our way more into a way of living that God desires.

Daily Reading Reflection: Psalm 78

They forgot what he had done, the wonders he had shown them. He did miracles in the sight of their ancestors in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan. He divided the sea and led them through; he made the water stand up like a wall. (Psalm 78:11-13)

People have short memories. Sometimes it is easy to forget something that happened in the past either because the present reality seems to different or because we've just become distracted. Every month I think about this when I think about my financial situation. I think "what if things don't come together this month?" which is a stupid thing to think because for every month of my life things have come together but it's still a challenge to remember.

This Psalm is all about remembering. It's a whole Psalm of reflection on the great things that Israel has done for God in their relationship. It's important to remember what God has done for us precisely because it casts out the worry that sometimes overcomes us and reminds us that we are in a continual relationship with God where he has shown in the past how he can be trusted and remains in trust with us.

I hear someone explain a concept in religious philosophy where every religious system or every approach to following God can be described as either obeying God because he is divine, or obeying God because he tells you to do things that are good. I think remembering falls into some kind of middle ground. We sort of follow God because he is divine, but really God is constantly reminding us of all that he has done for us. When he asks us to do something, it's in the context of his history with us and with our people. We obey God because we trust God. We obey God because of what he has done for us.

I think that's really important. It's easy to forget that God lives with us, that Jesus lived among us. There's a history there that can help us to combat this amnesia that leads us to be so afraid. So there's the thought for today. Remember what God has done.

Daily Reading Reflection: 1 Timothy 5

Do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses. But those elders who are sinning you are to reprove before everyone, so that the others may take warning. I charge you, in the sight of God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels, to keep these instructions without partiality, and to do nothing out of favoritism. (1 Timothy 5:19-21)

When I am at work, I speak to customers gently so that they have a good experience. I carefully explain our products and the way things are made and avoid being patronizing so that they have a good experience and hopefully come back. When I am away from customers and speaking only to coworkers, I can share my frustrations or concerns that I might not normally. I can say that a customer took an excessively long time to order and because I am talking to co-workers I know that that information will remain in confidence. When I go home and talk to my wife about work, I can speak even more freely because we have an intimate relationship and because she is outside of the sphere of where I work. Maybe you can identify this kind of pattern in your life as well. There are circles of trust where if someone isn't part of that circle normally, hearing what goes on there might be confusing.

This whole book is like that. It's Paul speaking to Timothy about instructions for how the church should be governed. There's a high degree of trust and the things that they talk about are different in content and tone than some of Paul's other letters. It makes it a challenge to interpret because almost everything in here flies against the face of our modern sensibilities, especially when it comes to how women are treated.

Though I'm working from what I remember, I believe Paul's concern as he was establishing churches was that they might be free from scandal so that the Jesus movement (what would eventually become the Christian Religion) might not get stamped out because someone got involved in something so taboo that it turned everyone off of it. When we read Paul's instructions to Timothy about how to handle sins or scandals among elders, we are looking into a world where the success of each individual congregation had a huge impact on how the Church itself was perceived.

I believe things two things are different now. First I believe that no individual congregation is important enough that a single scandal would sink the entire practice of following Jesus. Second, I believe the appearance of a cover up or the decision to hide faults and sins is more of a risk to congregations than those sins themselves.When you hear about the discussion around the Roman Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandals, the focus is mainly on the fact that these sins were covered up for the sake of saving the face of both the Church itself, and the individuals in leadership who committed these crimes.

It is so strange to me that Christians who freely admit that they are sinful creatures in need of a saviour are so quick to point to leadership that is "above reproach". At this point in my life I am deeply suspicious of anyone who appears to be above reproach only because I hear of so many stories of secret depravity which later came out to sink the church. Do we need to have high standards of behaviour for our leaders? Yes, but we also need to hold them to a high standard of honesty and accountability so that when they do stumble we can have an open and honest conversation about how to move forward instead of allowing problems to secretly fester.

I think Paul is right to protect the reputation of the Congregations he works with, but I think that means something a bit different now than it did then.

Daily Reading Reflection: John 6

Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.” (John 6:26-27)

What is faith in Jesus for? Is it for right now or is for a future time that is still to come? Does this faith make us a people who want to live a life of justice now where we follow God's laws and work to build a world that looks more like what he wants or is it a faith which leads us to sigh at the state of the world and desire to move on?

In this passage Jesus starts by performing a miracle and feeding five thousand with five loaves and two fishes. Then he finishes the passage by speaking about himself as the Bread of Life and refusing to repeat his miracle. He begins by meeting the immediate material needs of the people but at the end he insists that there is a deeper reality which is more important than the bread that fed them.

So is faith for right now or is it for what is to come? The answer is both. When we enter into a life of Faith, when we follow what Jesus says it has an impact on what we experience right now. The Father provides for us, Jesus walks alongside us through our day, we are filled with the Spirit. We also become a part of the Church and are enfolded into a group of people who care for us in a way that most people don't. Your entry into a life of faith will change how you live right now.

But we also live in a world which is not yet as it should be. There are still places where injustice and brokenness occur. We experience disease and famine and heartbreak. Things are not perfect. Those moments of imperfection remind us of the second part of what Jesus says. If we eat bread, we will be hungry again, but the food which he provides is for a life which is everlasting and where we will never go hungry again. He gives us the gift of life everlasting.

So what is faith in Jesus for? It's for right now as God enters into our lives in all kinds of ways. But it's also for what's to come when Jesus returns to make all things right.