Being Joined to Depravity

I am posting this letter because I think we need to look long and hard at the messages our popular culture sells us:

An Open Letter to the Makers of The Wolf of Wall Street, and the Wolf Himself

How much of our 'entertainment' celebrates the very diseased thinking that we must end up fighting in the process of recovery?  This movie exalts a morally depraved man, and minimizes the horrors he committed against his own family.

When people think of a 'party,' the media shows us disgusting scenes of excess.  Then we send young adults off to college with their heads packed with these messages and wonder why get into trouble.

Sure, popular entertainment has always been about exotic animals and gladiators.  But, not until now, have we had the technology that could close the gap between reality and fantasy so tightly.  At a deep level, our minds to not distinguish between the two.

This is why we go to a movie and are 'drawn in.'  The images shakes, and we feel shaken.  The hero dies (not in American films) and we cry.  Our brains may be able to differentiate at some later point, but in the moment our lower brain takes in the image and makes it 'real.'

So, we end up 'joining' ourselves to these images.  When we see some singer gyrating on a stage, the image delivered in HD with surround sound, our lust is experiencing her as 'real' even when the event is thousands of miles away.

The images themselves do not tell the whole story.  What ends up happening is that the performer offers himself/herself to be 'dehumanized,' to be objectified for us to use.  And yet, we then must objectify ourselves by being used.  Yes, we are used when marketeers design all of this stuff to get us to go to their movies or by their recordings.

Movie and music executives don't care about making the audience better... they just want to push our buttons to make money.  They know the lure of depravity and its powerful pull on the human psyche.  And, they are more than willing to tempt us into joining ourselves into the same depraved path they themselves are on.

So, what to do?  First, seek happiness based on reality.  Find what is good and real.  Very often, that is about serving others to the extent that we can.

Sure there are some types of service we are not ready for or circumstances prevent, but we can at least pray for others and ask God to help them when we know we cannot.  Never blow yourself up trying to help someone when you know you can't.

Second, be aware of the messages around you.  To do that, you may have to slow down on the number of messages you receive per day.  Turn off the TV and radio and computer, then get inside your own head.

Third, do not reward the depravity-mongers with their business.  Research what you buy, and then only buy what is good.  This may mean giving up some guilty pleasures... but just remember that what is a guilty pleasure for you could be a destructive force in many other lives.

Do not let yourself fall into the devil's oarboat.  He will make you row until you wear out, and then he will throw you overboard.  We all can find happiness that does not mean joining ourselves to the depraved.

Hanging Out With Happy People

So, yesterday after liturgy, I went with some friends to the Timkat celebration of the local Ethiopian Orthodox community.  This feast is their Epiphany/Theophany commemoration, and they have a giant party for several days that rival even our typical Pascha celebrations.

Normally, I hate crowds and noise (my head provides enough internal clatter), but once I arrived it was a completely different feeling.  Sure, being one of the very few white people in attendance, I got more than a few stares.  All it took was eye contact and a smile, and all was well.  When an Ethiopian priest then came up and greeted me, suddenly everyone wanted pictures with us.

It was a joyful event.  Everyone was happy and chatting (Ethiopians are not loud, and I found this crowd quieter than a typical American crowd of the same size, even though everyone was talking and singing).  There were hymns accompanied by drums, and then a solemn blessing of the water.  Then they started to dowse the crowd.

Those who are in recovery need to be careful of the people they hang around.  Addicts are often very sensitive and pick up quickly on their environments.  They tend to mirror the emotions and attitudes of those around them, because it is the 'safest bet' when you are insecure.  'Follow the crowd' is the motto.

That's why addicts tend to stay sober when they are around other sober people, and relapse quickly when they hang around users.  It is a type of mirroring, hidden deep within the subconscious.

So, it is important to hang out with happy people if you want to be happy (and sober).  Even though I came there tired and sore from a long morning in church, I soon forgot my exhaustion because of the joy and love that flooded the fairground.  I was not particularly unhappy that morning, but I noticed that I felt much better after a few minutes of wading into waters of kindness and peace that permeated the crowd.

With so much negativity these days, even our attempts to be happy are often negativity wrapped in a smile.  Look at how comedians make us laugh at the expense of others.  Timkat had none of that.  People were just happy on their own without having to bring anyone else down or impose their 'superiority' on the world.

We may gather with friends, but how often do our conversations turn to criticizing others or bemoaning some injustice.  Yes, we do feel a bit better with companionship, but we must be careful in seeing whether our friends are inadvertently pulling us down even while trying to lift us up.

Liturgy and worship are supposed to be events of unqualified joy.  As well they should, because true joy is a divine experience.  At the core of this feast is the worship of God, and to that the people respond with gratitude.

Now, there may be someone who who will say, "But aren't they monophysite heretics?  How can you go there?"  I can go there because I appreciate their love for God and devotion to Christ.  These are people who have struggled with war, persecution, and poverty... yet they always come up smiling.  I don't have to have 100% agreement with someone's theology in order to love them, or receive their love in return.  I wasn't going to jump up on their altar.  I just came to be with them and soak up a bit of their happiness.

It would be stupid to deny the presence of God in their midst, just as it is stupid to assume that God only visits those of us who 'have' all of the right theology.  It is not our theology, it is God's.  And, don't forget, God gave correct theology to Israel, and they still chose to abandon Him.  Correct theology does not make you 'right' in the way that love and mercy and compassion does.

When you go to a 12 Step meeting, God is there.  It is not the same as in an Orthodox church, but it is not intended to be.  Many new addicts can't handle more than a small glimpse of God, otherwise it is so overpowering they would run.  But, even heresy and misguided beliefs are not enough to keep God away.  Remember Balaam and his donkey.  God can penetrate even paganism to reach those who are perishing in strange beliefs.

Timkat is about as far from paganism as one can get.  It is an ancient rite going back to the foundation of Christianity and the Church.  God was there, and it was joyful.  I was glad they shared their happiness with me, and lifted my spirits.  They gave me a dose of love that will help me through the challenges ahead.

All of us need that kind of buoyancy, and so we all need to find those happy places, inside and outside the church walls, where we can be influenced in the right way.

Chinese Re-Education Camps... for addicts?

I'm back in town now after a conference, and am trying to get caught up on all of my communications.  If you are waiting for a response from me and have not gotten it, please be patient.  If I don't respond, then please remind me.  The box is rather full.

This article caught my eye, since I have been working my way through a book about Chinese re-education camps and their effects on Western inmates caught in China's revolution.

Inside the secret Chinese camps curing internet addiction

I think the headline is rather overblown: 'secret' means nobody knows.  The fact that a crew filmed this means that the Chinese government definitely knows about this.  No secrets here.

The question becomes whether forcing a person into a treatment regime that is largely about forced abstinence will work.  The answer is 'no.'  Unless someone decides to stop and seeks help on his own, enforced abstinence will only lead to a temporary end to the addicted behavior.  Once released, the obsession will continue.

That's the 'disease' of addiction: the benefits of sobriety mean little to the addict compared with the self-destructive 'high' of the obsession.  The addict has to 'choose' between the two, and getting someone to choose on his own is often very difficult.  Just ask the Chinese.

They invested huge amounts of valuable resources into re-education programs.  They have propagandized, imprisoned, counseled, tortured, medicated, educated... and they still have lots of problems with people not cooperating with government policies, from One-Child to Tibet.  The human will is not only hard to tame, it is extremely resilient.

Reprogramming and forced re-education has never worked.  That's why totalitarian regimes (by definition those that require complete political obedience) try it and end up opting for mass murder.  Getting people to change their minds, even when they are the supposed beneficiaries, is very hard.  The question we must always ask ourselves is this, "Am I willing to kill or imprison another person over my political beliefs?"  The same could be asked about our religious beliefs as well, especially right now.

The studies from China confirmed that the only lasting effects of re-education were some phobias.  Those who resisted, even when broken to the point where they 'believed' in the message, quickly reverted to their previous beliefs after pressure was abated.

You see this in the treatment industry, where so many addicts go in and out of treatment after 'successfully' completing the program.  That's because the program is about getting people to fit into it, and not the other way around.  We like 'widget treatment,' and we also don't like saying that someone cannot be forced into sobriety.

It is our own discomfort with the world that we have created with all of its 'hypnotic' features, from media technology to 'Living Better Through Chemistry'®, that drives our passion to 'fix' people that we feel at least partly responsible for breaking.  I do think that we, as a people, need to reexamine how we use and live with technology.

But, I also don't think camps are the cure.

The Addiction Industry and Greed

I'm really grateful for the comments on the previous post, because that story was disgusting.  To see how the gambling magnates and their chums in politics have teemed up should trouble all of us.

Politicians have always been a troubled lot.  Power and money attract 'flies.'  In the case of the US, our system has gradually put more and more people under the power of fewer and fewer leaders.

This concentrates money and power, and so creates an environment where men with money can have an easier time accessing the power they need to make more money.  This happens under 'Capitalism' just as Party leaders did the same thing under Communism.

It is not the direct result of a political system, because all political systems run on people.  Corrupt people go in, corruption comes out.  Greed is one of the biggest forms of corruption around, and it has been with us from the beginning of man's fall.

The gambling industry runs on greed, and so greedy people thrive in it, and the byproduct is, well, greed.  Of course, greed is also part of the temptation that leads to gambling addiction.  We all want to be 'big winners' with little effort, and gambling draws our attention because it seems to offer this.

Now, read this:

If any one teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching which accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit, he knows nothing; he has a morbid craving for controversy and for disputes about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, base suspicions, and wrangling among men who are depraved in mind and bereft of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.

There is great gain in godliness with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world; but if we have food and clothing, with these we shall be content.  But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and hurtful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction.

For the love of money is the root of all evils; it is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced their hearts with many pangs.  But as for you, man of God, shun all this; aim at righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.

Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. In the presence of God who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ; and this will be made manifest at the proper time by the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

As for the rich in this world, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on uncertain riches but on God who richly furnishes us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good deeds, liberal and generous, thus laying up for themselves a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life which is life indeed. (1 Ti 6:3-19)

We can see the greed of both the gambling industry members as well as the gamblers, and how their mutual love of money brings them to ruin.  There is nothing wrong with being rich, but there are wrong ways of doing it, and greed is, above all, a destructive force.

This 'love of money' is ϕιλαργυρία, the 'love of silver.'  The Scriptures more frequently use πλεονεξία or 'covetousness/greed.'  Notice how this greed love of money leads to apostasy.  It all comes from a lack of contentment.  Sound familiar?

Yes, this lack of contentment is what drives us to sin and addiction.  Our inability to be grateful and to offer thanks to God for what He has given us becomes hunger that sends us into dark places, where we end up destroying ourselves while we destroy others.

Although Steve Wynne and the other gambling industrialists look down on gamblers and abstain from gambling themselves, what makes them different from the dope dealer who says, "Sorry, I don't smoke"?  To be honest, nothing really.  I can understand why people are outraged that the guy on the street corner selling baggies of highly-cut narcotics goes to jail while Steve Wynne gets a police escort.  It is one of those things that we have to leave to Divine Justice I suppose.

Unless we wake up and decide to change.  We must renounce our own greed and, I think more appropriately, our own envy of those who are greedy and successful at it.  Yes, those who often scream the loudest are ignored because most people sense when our outrage is secretly driven by our own deep desires to be rich and powerful, and we are acting out of resentment that someone else got that and not us.

Society will not change unless we change first.  We must first purge ourselves of envy and malice, through the healing of gratitude to God.  Then, we can stop feeding this beast of Greed which has its tentacles everywhere these days.

Play to Extinction

One of our fellow readers sent me this link a while back, and it is really an interesting article about gambling as an 'industry':

Wanna Bet? by David Blankenhorn

This article covers a lot of territory, from government sponsorship of addiction to the 'play to extinction' design of the modern gambling apotheosis, the Slot machine.  It is actually rather frightening when you look at how the who world of gambling has been 'repackaged' with terminology designed to keep us from seeing the reality.

Here's some of that reality, as composed by the author:

• No other form of “entertainment” causes significant harm to people who “enjoy” it frequently, including the loss of thousands of dollars per hour.
• No other form of “entertainment” depends on profits generated by those who suffer from problems of addiction linked to the entertainment.
• No other form of “entertainment” is often urged (and typically refuses) to provide information to those being entertained about its risks.
• No other form of “entertainment” provides free alcohol to those being entertained with the express purpose of encouraging impulsivity, faulty cognition and reckless behavior. 
• No other purported form of “entertainment” requires such high levels of taxation, regulation and government oversight when it constitutes a business as opposed to a private, small-scale activity and, most regrettable of all:
• No other form of “entertainment”, in recent times, is heavily promoted by government.

Yes, our governments do sponsor gambling.  From legal casinos to state-run lotteries, our politicians use gambling as a means of revenue raising.  There's a lot of tax money involved, and so long as the bureaucrats get their share, most are perfectly will to let citizens get fleeced.  After all, it is all voluntary.

Sure, you could try to make an argument that there is no difference between taxing gambling and taxing alcohol.  But, that does not work for several reasons:

1. States don't run breweries or distilleries, whereas states do run lotteries.
2. The vast majority of alcohol consumed in the US is not consumed alcoholically (i.e. part of addictive behavior), whereas a large chunk of gambling revenues are from gambling addicts.
3. Governments hold various controls over alcohol sales and consumption (i.e. public intoxication laws, extremely high tax rates, etc.) that it does not do for gambling, particularly lotteries.

The point here is that our states often profit from what is vice.  The government knows that this stuff is bad, but it lets it continue.

Sure, you can make the argument that people are going to gamble.  However, by totally caving and allowing an industry of purposefully designed hypnosis machines to to set up shop right under everyone's noses... what are we agreeing to?  These machines are designed to get people to lose... and lose big-time.

Government regulators know that these machines really pay out very little, and that people become hypnotized by them, but allows them to continue on.

I'm not calling for 'prohibition,' because I know there is no way to ban all forms of gambling.  However, I do think that our government does not need to get into bed with these crooks who take advantage of addicts.

"God Made Me This Way" and Other Excuses

One of our readers sent me a short story about a situation in his community.  Without getting into details, I'll just say that the person around whom the story revolves decides to excuse him/her-self by saying, "God made me this way."

Yes, this is the modern excuse for exercising absolutely no self-control or personal responsibility.  It is also stupid.

Every day, children are born with horrible diseases.  God made them that way.  We should just leave them alone.

Every day, children are born in poverty and broken homes.  God made them that way.  We should just leave them alone.

Every day, adults discover that they have developed, through no action of their own, disorders and illnesses that are simply 'not fair.'  God made them that way.  We should just leave them alone.

Christ is born with a broken and fallen humanity, and confronted the fact that He had to die on the Cross to destroy it in His own Person so as to offer mankind His Resurrection.  God made Him that way.  He should not have died.  See the problem?

We are born broken and thrown into a world that is unjust and unfair.  If you accept it, then that is it.  It is yours.  What you certainly cannot do is run around saying, "I don't have to change... God made me this way!" and then demand that absolutely everyone around you change how they think and what they do... we call that hypocrisy.

The moment you excuse yourself from change, to be fair, you must excuse everyone else.  Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, the old saying goes.  Of course, we like to think that we don't have to change if what we are doing has no effect on anyone else.  

Really?  Is that so?  What about the billionaire that dwells in the midst of the poor?  He's not hurting anyone of his gains are legally obtained.  It is amazing how that argument can be made one minute and then dropped the next because we notice that we, in fact, want a lot from other people who are doing nothing except minding their own business.

If you want to make demands of others, then they have the right to make demands of you.

And they will.  Children make demands of their mothers and fathers, and we do not begrudge them.  In fact, we know it is healthy.  Society makes demands of its citizens, and we call them laws and taxes.

All of us need to get down off the foolish pedestal of 'private sin' and understand that who we are naturally effects all those around us.  Even our deepest secrets are at play in the world, because we are part of the world.

And this world is broken.  It needs fixing.  God made us broken, but not so that we would remain so.  God allows us to be born into this broken world because God wants us to fix it... with Him.  God is calling us to be healed and then heal others as co-healers with Him.

"God made me this way" blows up this paradigm when it is used to excuse any effort to be transformed, because anyone can use it to excuse anything and then exempt himself from this healing process.  So, God made us this way so that we would change.  If He made us perfect, there would be no change.  

Yes, God make us 'perfect' in the sense that the brokenness we have is not enough to over come the Image and Likeness in which we are made, nor it our brokenness somehow insurmountable.

Let's not forget the Gospel of John (9:1-12)-

As He walked along, He saw a man blind from birth.  His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”  Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.  We must work the works of him who sent Me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.  As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”  When He had said this, He spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes,  saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.  The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?”  Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.”  But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?”  He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.”  They said to him, “Where is He?” He said, “I do not know.”

We are all born blind.  We cannot see.  We are broken.  If we say, "God made me this way" and refuse to fight the darkness, then we are prisoners to fate.

God does not want us to argue about who sinned or how we ended up in the mess we are in.  He wants us to understand that if God made us blind, then He can also make us to see.  And, He wants not only to heal us, but to have us be part of this process.  In a way, God wants us to work with Him as we are perfected.  We become co-creators of the very world we are born into.

Yes, we must first accept that we are blind.  In this way, we must be honest and admit that God made us as who we are.  Sometimes that is really annoying, because we think we would be happier if we were perfect, and that is not an unreasonable conclusion.  But, the perfection we seek is not ours by nature.

We must grow towards it.  And so, God made us to grow beyond where we are.  We accept the brokenness in light of the healing that God promises will come.

Some may say, "But, you say that addiction is incurable... where's the healing in that?"  We believe that the fullness of human healing is not in this life.  None of us are 'safe' here.  We are called to continually grow and be healed until our physical death, because the final healing of this life is the Resurrection of All.

This is when we confront that truth that God even made us to die.  But, He did so that we might live in the fullness of Him.

So, "God made me this way" really should mean, "I am a mess right now, but I believe it gets better than this."

The Impossibility of Selfishness

I say that selfishness is impossible because selfishness always defeats itself... the self.

When we are selfish, we destroy the very fabric of the world in which we live.  We destroy the 'environment,' both in terms of the physical world but also the many invisible bonds of relationship that encircle and permeate our lives.

Selfishness attacks and drains the very surroundings that, if properly cultivated, would bring forth a bounty that would even exceed our greatest desires.  Selfishness cuts us off from the very things we seek and desire most.

What we must have is Respect.  Respect is honoring all things in accordance with how God has made them.  When we talk about self-respect, this is not Pride or Vanity, but the honest appraisal of who we are and how God has made us.  We know our strengths and weaknesses.  It is self-knowledge.

Knowing ourselves, we can then look to the outside world and see those around us for who they really are.  We know that they are capable of and what they are not.  We can see whether someone will give us what we desire, but also whether we are able to give them something in return that they value.  Lop-sided relationships don't work, but become parasitic.  They lack the 'symbiosis' that true relationships have.

Selfishness is not about symbiosis and harmony, but is entirely parasitic.  This is why it drains and destroys.

God shows us what this symbiosis looks like by becoming one of us.  Christ is incarnate and points out that He is the one in who's image we are made, and then He shows us how to give.  He gives Himself, and the Father resurrects Him.  We must then do likewise.

For God to do this, with no self-interest on the line, means it is a perfect gift.  What we do is always 'tainted' with self-interest, because we are always beneficiaries of good.  But, this is what we are designed to do.  None of us is God.  We all have needs.

The blessing is that God has given us a way to have self-interest, yet not the self-obsession that is selfishness.  We can use our self-interest to help others.  This is what service means... we get as much out of it as servants as do those whom we serve.

Selfishness cannot do this.  It takes without giving.  It plunders and leaves nothing to grow back.  It starves itself while trying to consume the world.