Letting It Be

A quote from Calvin DeWitt, a professor at the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, from his essay “Let It Be” about what he has learned from living on a marshland (click here for an online version of the essay):

“What have I learned as a denizen of the marsh? Many things... but perhaps none more important than to respect the ‘wisdom’ of the marsh. A dramatic disturbance or change may call for restoration — but then again it may not, and it may be better at times just to leave the marsh alone. It may seem necessary to exercise my own ‘wisdom’ to set things right. Yet, accompanying such an urge, is an increasingly prevalent refrain: ‘Let it be... wait and see!’”

For an interview of DeWitt on Krista Tippett’s radio program Speaking of Faith, click here.

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What Bears Know

I am reading Paul Schullery’s delightful book Mountain Time: Man Meets Wilderness in Yellowstone, a wonderfully written and often funny insider’s view of the Yellowstone experience. One particularly puzzling quote caught my eye:

“I don’t know as much as bears don’t know” (page 38).

I guess I don’t know what bears don’t know, but I know that I sure don’t know a lot more than I know. How about you?

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Detecting Meanings in the Humanities

Two weeks ago I heard John Churchill, the national Secretary of Phi Beta Kappa (click here for his message on the PBK web site) speak at a conference on undergraduate research in the humanities at small liberal arts colleges. He emphasized that research for students in the humanities cannot rely on models developed in the natural sciences, in large part because the goals of humanities investigations are different from those in the sciences. The humanities, according to Churchill, are less about knowledge and more about understanding. In the humanities, our work involves “reflecting on the detection of meaning.” Moreover, clear endpoints to our inquiries are rare—we simply “take in what has come before and take it forward.” Consequently, the models we develop for student research must allow them to experience meaning and then reflect critically on that experience.

The humanities, it seems, has become a vast hermeneutical enterprise. And those who think of religions as systems and strategies for discerning ultimate meanings might regard all of the various humanities disciplines as different ways of being religious. There may be justification for such a view. Scholars detect meanings in human experiences, just as religious people do (in fact, as all people do); they reflect critically on the experience of meaning, ask critical questions of the experience and the meanings discerned in that experience, and generate new perspectives on meanings and meaningful experiences. The difference, however, lies in how we regard the answers to our inquiries. Unlike most religious reflections on meaningful experience, scholars (at least some of us) do not think of their conclusions as ultimate. We are not seeking the final answer that gives meaning to human existence. Instead, scholarly research in the humanities involves the more modest venture of pondering why and how humans make life meaningful. And given the endless ways that people go about the task of meaningfulness, we are assured of never finding an end to our work.

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A Cross in the Desert

Kurt Repanshek reports on the National Parks Traveler site that “a federal judge has ruled that a cross can no longer stand atop Sunrise Rock” in Mojave National Preserve in California (click here for his posting). According to a news item in the San Bernardino Sun, a former National Park Service assistant superintendent at the preserve filed the lawsuit with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union to have the cross removed (click here for the article).

As expected, numerous National Parks Traveler commentators have posted their thoughts, many of them not very thoughtful, about this story. Interestingly, no one seems to have read the court’s ruling (click here for the opinion). In fact, a quick reading of the opinion reveals that no one in the court case disputes whether the Christian cross is allowable on federal land; parties on both sides readily agree that it is a clear violation of the U. S. Constitution.

But the conflict began when an individual requested permission to build a Buddhist stupa, a dome-shaped shrine, near the cross. The National Park Service denied the request, adding that “[c]urrently there is a cross on [a] rock outcrop located on National Park Service lands. . . . It is our intention to have the cross removed.” Apparently no one on either side of the lawsuit disagreed with the government’s acknowledgement that a Christian cross on federal land is a problem (and clearly a violation of the U.S. Constitution) precisely because allowing one religious symbol means allowing any and all; they cannot allow the cross and deny the Buddhist stupa.

The dispute, however, is about whether the U. S. Congress can allow the cross to stay by legislating, in the words of the Appeals Court’s opinion, “that the land on which the cross is situated be transferred to a private organization in exchange for a parcel of privately-owned land located elsewhere in the Preserve,” in effect enacting a land exchange that “would leave a little donut hole of land with a cross in the midst of a vast federal preserve.” A lower court said no, they cannot, and in the current ruling the three-judge federal appeals court affirms the lower court’s decision.

The responses of commentators on the National Parks Traveler site (virtually all uninformed, including my own initial comments) raise some very good issues, which the courts have considered in various ways but certainly have not resolved entirely. The commentators, however, ignore a more crucial issue that this case raises regarding privatization of park lands. Are we to allow private special interest groups to cut out donut-hole zones in the parks to avoid federal regulation? What if a concessioner wished to build an amusement park in the Yosemite Valley? Would it be acceptable for Congress to allow it just by trading a few acres of the Valley for some additional land elsewhere? The federal judges have said no, and anyone who values our parks and opposes the growing tide of privatization should applaud this ruling.

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Trusting Jesus and Elvis

Labor Day weekend means the Memphis Music and Heritage Festival, a marvelous two-day event filled with outstanding performances by artists ranging from blues to rockabilly, jazz to gospel, plus storytellers, southern cuisine, crafts, and other vendors (click here for a photo album of a few of the acts). This free festival is put on by The Center for Southern Folklore (click here for their web site).

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One highlight of this year’s festival was the appearance of Kate Campbell on the final night (click here for her web site). Her engaging songs, her beautiful voice accompanied only by herself on guitar, her superb talent as storyteller and entertainer, had the audience enthralled for nearly two hours. Campbell offers a gripping portrait of the American south in all its greasy messiness, celebrating southern culture without dodging its harsh cruelties. In tribute to her long history with the city, she played for her Memphis fans an entire set of songs with Memphis connections and references.

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The writer Flannery O’Connor once observed that "while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted." Kate Campbell updates this observation by suggesting that today the south is haunted by both Jesus and Elvis. References to religion and portraits of Elvis find their way into many of her songs, especially those with Memphis connections.

In a poignant new song she shared with the festival crowd, Campbell points out that everyone knows Jesus, everyone knows Elvis, but they really don’t. Likewise, everyone knows the south, but in the end we really don’t. The most anyone can hope for, in the words of a hastily scribbled message on a light pole in downtown Memphis, is simply to “Trust Jesus & Elvis, Trust Elvis & Jesus.”

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Getting a Laugh Religiously

I just saw an interview of Bill Maher on Larry King Live (click here for the interview on YouTube) about his upcoming documentary, tentatively titled “Religulous,” where he makes religion out to be ridiculous. Maher tells Mr. King, “The topic of religion is just so inherently funny.”

I would agree—making it funny is always an option for dealing with something that you have no understanding of and few resources to make sense of. Other options include condemnation; pretending it doesn't exist; or engaging in an edifying dialogue for mutual understanding. All these approaches have their adherents. Maher is betting that getting a laugh at the expense of religious people will be especially profitable. He is probably right, but I’m betting that he won’t make religion any more understandable.

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Playing Violin

Josiah Strong’s popular nineteenth-century book Our Country (click here for an online copy) presents a racially charged argument of white superiority that justifies the inevitable civilizing of the American west, what we might view as a white supremacist articulation of the imperialist doctrine of Manifest Destiny. Strong himself was an evangelical Congregationalist minister; in fact, it was The American Home Missionary Society that published Our Country in 1885. He is most remembered, however, as an early proponent of the Social Gospel movement, but his insistence on caring for the poor and bringing relief to the suffering masses had a decidedly paternalistic ring to it.

Despite his paternalistic and racist assumptions about the destiny of the American nation, Strong does raise an important moral question about enjoyment of aesthetic delights. He declares, “God loves the beautiful. Each flower would yield its seed and perpetuate its kind as surely if each blossom were not a smile of its Creator. The stars would swing on in their silent, solemn march as true to gravitation, if they did not glow like mighty rubies and emeralds and sapphires. The clouds would be as faithful carriers of the bounty of the sea, if God did not paint their morning and evening glory from the rainbow of his palette. Yes; God loves the beautiful, and intended we should love it.” But, Strong asks, should our love of art take precedence over our duty “to feed ten thousand starving souls”? He concludes, “It is well to play the violin, but not when Rome is burning.”

Josiah Strong’s message came at a moment when Yellowstone National Park and other western wonders were gaining in popularity as destinations for the privileged class of wealthy travelers to enjoy the great beauty of God’s handiwork. He clearly condemns such indulgent pleasures when so many of the nation’s citizens continue to suffer unspeakable hardships.

As we contemplate today the future of our parks, recalling Strong’s message injects a moral perspective into the debate. Can anyone enjoy our national parks or any other aesthetic pleasure knowing that children die every day right here in America from malnourishment, from preventable and curable diseases, from neglect, abuse, and rampant violence? What does it say about national priorities when we propose ten billion dollars for national parks while refusing to consider adequate health care for all who need it? Are we playing the violin as Rome burns?

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Virtual Visitors in Wild Places

I have just finished reading a wonderful history of bears and people in Yellowstone National Park, Do (Not) Feed the Bears: The Fitful History of Wildlife and Tourists in Yellowstone by Alice Wondrak Biel (click here for the publisher’s description of her book). Biel’s recounting of the story of Yellowstone’s bears “traces the evolution of their complex relationship with humans—from the creation of the first staged wildlife viewing areas to the present—and situates that relationship within the broader context of American cultural history.”

In the conclusion of her book, Biel raises an intriguing question about how new technologies, especially the Internet, might impact the future of American ideas about wilderness and nature in general. She notes that “Yellowstone National Park now counts many times more ‘virtual visitors’ via the Internet each year than visitors who actually set foot within its borders. The question remains whether, with the rise of these virtual environments, in which everything we see and experience is filtered through a technological medium, seeing the world with one’s own eyes will become more or less important, and whether people’s desires to see the natural world for themselves, and have the natural world look back, will increase or simply dissipate. Are we truly ‘of the wilderness,’ or are we not?” (page 150).

What does it mean to be “of the wilderness”? If “wilderness” means areas that are entirely free of human impact, then is it not better to visit such places only as “virtual visitors,” never actually setting foot inside wilderness borders but instead respecting its sovereignty? Yet, what lessons are lost if we never see the world with our own eyes, if we never venture out as vulnerable creatures to experience the natural world for ourselves and have the natural world look back, and perhaps strike back, at us? Can virtual visitors even begin to know the rich possibilities of experiencing natural worlds?

On the other hand, humans are thoroughly technologized beings. Our “actual experiences” of nature include layers of technology to get us there, to make our experiences possible and safe and even comfortable, to record our experiences and make them meaningful for posterity, to share and circulate and widely broadcast our interpretations of the meanings and importance of our experiences. In other words, are we ever anything more than virtual visitors?

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Can Religion Make Sense?

“Is there such a thing, as journalist Mark Pinsky argues, as ‘Disney Religion?’” inquires John Fea on the Religion in American History blog (click here for his posting). He continues his bewildered musings on the popularity of the Disney Channel’s surprise hit show “High School Musical” and its sequels by asking, “Can traditional religion ever compete with Disney for the hearts of American kids or has the faithful already been blinded by Tinkerbell’s pixie dust?” Fea finishes by pleading for readers to “help this critic, parent, and historian make sense of all of this.”

Setting aside for a moment the question of Disney, Inc. as religion (or maybe putting it to rest for good), what might we make of the historian’s befuddlement?—especially one who fancies himself an “observer of American religious culture,” a public scholar who speaks out on religion and politics in America (click here for an interview of Fea as a “professor from a religious college talking about Democrats and faith”). Fea’s inability to “make sense” of Disney’s ascendancy over what he blithely tosses off as “traditional religion” stems in part from a common shortcoming that plagues much of scholarship on American religions. He avoids asking “what is religion?” Consequently, Fea’s analysis remains silent on how it construes “religion” as a heuristic category of analysis. It follows the inclination of most scholarship on religions that assumes a self-evident “religion,” without engaging in critical reflection on what this means.

Consequently, we get “traditional religion” competing with Disney, without explaining what is meant by “traditional religion.” And if we can’t say what a traditional religion is, how can we presume to ask whether there is such a thing as “Disney religion”? More importantly, why is the difference between “traditional” and “Disney” important or even interesting when it comes to religions?

But Fea skips these preliminary questions and instead abandons his academic persona for the voice of an unselfconscious consumer. In short, Fea asks a consumer question, one that resists contemplating religion’s status as a commodity that must “compete” with other commodities in the marketplace, specifically those proffered by the intense machinations of the Disney marketing complex. He wants to “make sense” of his (or rather, his daughters’) choice of Disney commodity over traditional religion commodity.

On the other hand, a scholarly approach to juxtaposing Disney and phenomena regarded as “traditional religion” might begin by asking what sort of sense do we want to make of it? Consumer sense? Philosophical sense? Psychological sense? Social sense? Political sense? Economic sense? Spiritual sense?

I am prepared to take a stab at making “religiological sense” of it, but that will have to wait for another time and a more formal venue.

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Catching Our Breath in Yellowstone

One of the great nineteenth-century defenders of Yellowstone National Park as a refuge from modern industrial society was United States Senator George Graham Vest of Missouri. In the 1880s, Senator Vest denounced the materialism of American culture as he argued on the Senate floor against a proposed sale of Yellowstone lands: “The great curse of this age and of the American people is its materialistic tendencies. Money, money, l’argent, l’argent, is the cry everywhere until our people are held up already to the world as noted for nothing except the acquisition of money at the expense of all esthetic taste and of all love of nature and its great mysteries and wonders. I am not ashamed to say that I shall vote to perpetuate this Park for the American people. I am not ashamed to say that I think its existence answers a great purpose in our national life…. There should be to a nation that will have a hundred million or a hundred and fifty million people a park like this as a great breathing place for the national lungs.” (quoted in Yellowstone: The Creation and Selling of an American Landscape, 1870-1903 by Chris J. Magoc, 1999, p. 63)

Is this the great national purpose that parks serve: “a great breathing place for the national lungs”? How long can such places stand our collective exhalations?