Magnolias Over Ballrooms

I’d rather have a magnolia or most any vegetal kin over a ballroom to honor my memory, but that’s just me…

Trump Rips Out Presidents’ Historic Trees for New Ballroom:

Satellite imagery shows that six trees, including southern magnolias commemorating presidents Warren G. Harding and Franklin D. Roosevelt, were axed or removed from the White House grounds this week as Trump abruptly demolished the East Wing.

Renewables Pass Coal’s Share in Global Electricity Generation

China is leading the way here in solar… It’s time for our leaders and economy here in the US to start waking up to reality. That won’t happen in the current scenario of our political landscape, obviously, but there needs to be intentional focusing on reducing consolidated power grid structures in favor of local (and flexible) sources of electricity and fuel (as well as our food supplies). 

Global Electricity Mid-Year Insights 2025 | Ember:

Solar and wind outpaced demand growth in the first half of 2025, as renewables overtook coal’s share in the global electricity mix…

Solar grew by a record 306 TWh (31%) in the first half of 2025. This increased solar’s share in the global electricity mix from 6.9% to 8.8%. China accounted for 55% of global solar generation growth, followed by the US (14%), the EU (12%), India (5.6%) and Brazil (3.2%), while the rest of the world contributed just 9%. Four countries generated over 25% of their electricity from solar, and at least 29 countries surpassed 10%, up from 22 countries in the same period last year and only 11 countries in H1-2021…

PDF Report availalbe here

Inside the Fight Against Trump’s Alaska LNG Pipeline

Beautiful (but also depressing if you’re frustrated and anxious about such things like me) article here regarding the need to stop using extractive fossil fuels (that are now based on antiquated technologies and inefficient methods in order to prop up megaglobal corporations that pay our elected officials to keep the old narrative of “energy independence”) with voices from Alaskan Indigenous communities resisting the latest push from our backwards administration.

Don’t be misled about the energy issue by media manipulation. We can and should move to decentralized and community-focused solutions. It’s being done and done well and will save us all money, karma, and our children’s health.

Must read…

Inside the Fight Against Trump’s Alaska LNG Pipeline:

“We’re on the bust side of an oil and gas economy,” Native Movement’s Begaye tells me. She points to the relative youth of the industry — just 50 years — “and the jobs are already going away, the money is going away,” she says. Today, revenue from oil and gas accounts for less than 14 percent of the state’s annual budget.

Instead of investing in “fossil fuel distractions, we could be actively pursuing more local renewable energy, and Alaskans already know how,” Begaye and her colleagues wrote in their op-ed for the Anchorage Daily News. They cite Kodiak, which runs on nearly 100 percent renewable energy, and Galena, where a tribally owned and operated biomass system accounts for 75 percent of the community’s heating needs, with another 1.5 megawatts of solar power on the way.

Pope Leo’s Ice Blessing

We need to hear this in our Protestant churches in the United States every Sunday (and Wednesday and Sunday night and Tuesday during gatherings, etc.). Glad to see Leo taking on the ecological mantle from Francis.

Emphasis mine in the quote here…

Pope Leo XIV blesses glacier ice urging global leaders to act on climate change – India Today:

Citing Francis’s text, Leo recalled that some leaders had chosen to “deride the evident signs of climate change, to ridicule those who speak of global warming and even to blame the poor for the very thing that affects them most.”

He called for a change of heart to truly embrace the environmental cause and said any Christian should be onboard.

“We cannot love God, whom we cannot see, while despising his creatures. Nor can we call ourselves disciples of Jesus Christ without participating in his outlook on creation and his care for all that is fragile and wounded,” he said, presiding on a stage that featured a large chunk of a melting glacier from Greenland and tropical ferns.

Navigating Our Climate Crisis Without U.S. Leadership

Important piece here that gives voice to leaders from areas that aren’t usually covered by the mainstream press here in the USA when discussing climate issues and our ecological crisis in general… let those with ears to listen, hear…

Six World Leaders on Navigating Climate Change, Without the U.S. – The New York Times (Gift Article):

Debates around climate change often focus on the world’s largest economies and biggest emitters. But much of the hard work of figuring out how to adapt — both to a hotter planet and to a new geopolitical landscape — is happening in countries that have contributed relatively little to the problem yet are still navigating complex climate-related issues. Hoping to better understand how global warming and the changing world order are affecting some of these often-overlooked places, I spoke with six world leaders from different geographic regions. I heard some common themes: the ravages of extreme weather, the difficulties posed by the Trump administration’s retreat. But these conversations also illustrated the intensely varied predicaments facing world leaders right now.

Oceans Rise, Empires Fall

We’ve been listening to a lot of Hamilton lately. Our children have been playing (and memorizing and singing) the soundtrack on repeat this summer. Merianna has a great post about our Hamilton-era here:

“The World Turned Upside Down” – by Merianna Harrelson:

We might be a little late to the game, but we are definitely in our Hamilton-era. Maybe it was the trip to Washington, DC this summer or the Revolutionary War studies last year, but once we found the Hamilton soundtrack it is the only thing that can play in the car (besides the occasional Wheels on the Bus).

 As we head into the cooler mornings of the Fall here in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Merianna and I thought it might be time to actually have them watch the full production… so this morning, I pulled up the show on Disney+ and hit play. I’m no stranger to shedding a few tears in front of our kids, but I was moved at the opening song as I sat there with our family. 

A great deal has happened to us personally and in our global community of humans and more-than-humans in this last decade. It struck me that I don’t think Hamilton could be made, or at least received well, today in 2025 in this “post-woke” era of defining good jeans and AI slop. Hamilton captured something real and imaginative and visceral in 2015-2016 that we seemed to have already lost, forgotten, or glossed over (and are intent on erasing). 

People of color portraying our “Founding Fathers” who shed blood to carve out a nascent republic with higher ideals than the established order sparks different emotions in a country of complexity-erasure and intentional forgetting. Take the outrage of Google’s AI depicting Washington, etc. as black a few years ago or the recent hand-wringing and outcry from some of our fellow citizens (no doubt due to the constancy of manipulative coverage by certain 24-7 “news” corporations and social media actors that feed into and from outrage engines) over a corporate hedge-fund controlled restaurant changing its logo. 

I also shed tears when I first watched Hamilton with our older girls a decade ago… the imagination, the pointing to and away from and towards, the use of caricutre and spittle to prove points… and now those tears come from a different place in my consciousness that I feel we are all carrying… disappointment, loss, even despair… at where this country has been led, not from the whims of “a king on a spending spree” but from oligarchs who know that the time is short and the center cannot hold:

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst  
Are full of passionate intensity.

More tears ahead, but I hope I can continue to show our children glimpses of what can be while I rage against this machine. Lack of imagination got us “adults” into this, but imagination will get us out. Mark gives us the prescription to enter the Kingdom through the narrow Way, and as much as I stumble, I hope that we can see through this scanner even darkly and realize that we need eyes to see and ears to hear the imaginative call of grace in new ways and what can be…

People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.’ And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.

Not throwing away my shot and all that jazz.

Remembering

Merianna says what a whole lot of us (myself included) have been thinking and feeling and anxious about (particularly about our young ones after our summer travels to D.C. and NYC)…

“The World Turned Upside Down” – by Merianna Harrelson:

As we watched the barricades go up and the monuments close so that a parade route could be established, I wondered what our kids would remember about our trip to Washington, DC. I hope they will remember the stories of those who fought for the silenced and the oppressed. I hope they will remember the leaders who rose up and spoke against injustice and capitalizing on the labor of others. I hope they will remember the beauty of the art and the curiosity that led to innovation.

Environmental Laws are also Laws

☀️ Bit of sunshine…

EVERGLADES WIN: We stopped “Alligator Alcatraz” — for now – Friends of the Everglades:

“This decision sends a clear message that environmental laws must be respected by leaders at the highest levels of our government — and there are consequences for ignoring them,” said Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades.

You can’t have it both ways

I’m afraid the barn door is already flung very open for this sort of Solomon’s Dilemma thinking.

I’m also not sure what the point of this entire opinion piece is beyond making unrealistic statements like this…

Opinion | Allowing Churches to Endorse Politicians Can Be Perfectly Liberal – The New York Times (Gift Article):

For example, a pastor should be able to endorse a political candidate in a sermon, but not if that sermon is posted on a church website. Nor should the pastor’s church be allowed to publicly campaign for a candidate.

This is a Horrible Idea

I don’t understand how anyone (besides tech execs who haven’t been all that great at info-security over the years…and sharing personal health data with AI companies?? no thanks) would think that this is a good idea.

Sharing health data can be a nightmare, but we have questions about this US govt plan – Android Authority:

Donald Trump yesterday announced a new system that will store the medical history of all citizens in electronic formats that will be easy to share with various medical facilities, such as hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, as well as with mediclaim providers. The government is also working towards creating a consolidated medical ID, akin to your social security number, to allow quicker access to medical history.

The project will be developed with the involvement of over 60 leading technology companies, such as Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, etc.

China’s AI Path

Some fascinating points here regarding AI development in the US compared to China… in short, China is taking more of an “open” (not really but it’s a good metaphor) approach based on its market principles with open weights while the US companies are focused on restricting access to the weights (don’t lose the proprietary “moat” that might end up changing the world and all)…

🔮 China’s on a different AI path – Exponential View:

China’s approach is more pragmatic. Its origins are shaped by its hyper‑competitive consumer internet, which prizes deployment‑led productivity. Neither WeChat nor Douyin had a clear monetization strategy when they first launched. It is the mentality of Chinese internet players to capture market share first. By releasing model weights early, Chinese labs attract more developers and distributors, and if consumers become hooked, switching later becomes more costly.

Tech Fiefdoms (for real)

I’ve been saying this for a while now… Ursula Le Guin tries to warn us still:

Tech Billionaires Accused of Quietly Working to Implement “Corporate Dictatorship”:

“It sees a post-United States world where, instead of democracy, we will have basically tech feudalism — fiefdoms run by tech corporations. They’re pretty explicit about this point.”

Mullins in the Political Spotlight

Have to say, I did not have Newsom touring my beloved and small rural hometown of Mullins, SC on the BINGO card for 2025… but glad to see Mullins and the Pee Dee getting some attention from national candidates!

I wasn’t sold on Obama in 2007 until I heard his stump speech in Columbia that year and he rolled out the famous “YES WE CAN” call and response (along with “Fired up” at the same speech…. it was pretty electric and inspiring when he said we can do a better job teaching children how to read in Dillon County)…

Column: Newsom needs to stop kidding around. He’s running for president – Los Angeles Times…

California Gov. Gavin Newsom tours downtown Mullins, S.C., with Mayor Miko Pickett on July 8.

Dalai Lama’s Succession Plans

Religion and politics aren’t only enmeshed here in the West… fascinating situation unplaying here…

The Dalai Lama announces plans for a successor : NPR:

The English translation published on his website said the search for his successor will be carried out by The Gaden Phodrang Trust, a religious body of Buddhist monks who are part of the office of the Dalai Lama in India.

In what appears to be a nod to China, the statement adds that “no one else has any such authority to interfere in the matter.” China has stated that it alone has the authority to appoint the next leader of Tibetan Buddhism. Tibet is an autonomous region controlled by China…

… The Tibetan spiritual leader had previously speculated that his successor might be an adult, could be an “attractive” woman, or there might not be one at all. In his recently released book Voice for the Voiceless, he said that the new Dalai Lama will be born “in the free world” and outside of China.

Lincoln Memorial and Mall Barriers

Lily was cracking everyone up with her “device” and saying “CHEESE!” to fellow tourists (and ducks in the Reflecting Pool)

We made it to the Lincoln Memorial as well as the Vietnam and Korean War Memorials last night for our first evening here in the D.C. area.

I was particularly struck by the number of barriers and fencing that has been “deployed” all over the National Mall (I’m guessing in preparation for the “parade” on June 14). I’m sad that even getting a glimpse of our White House is buried behind rows of police and security lines like something out of a dystopian future-movie (compared to just a decade ago).

We’re heading off to the Smithsonian Museums and then the Capitol this morning. I’m hoping that I the barriers we’ve erected don’t just strike me as something that we should strive to have no need for in our Nation’s capitol in the very near future, but something we resolve to do in our collective consciousness.

Camp Croft Picnic with Little One

We spent a good deal of “Pandemic Time” camping around South Carolina’s State Parks once they reopened. I think back fondly on those times, even as uncertain as they were. We’ve been pass holders to our incredible State Park system ever since. With the move back to Spartanburg last year, I think this might be the summer we get a lot more usage out of the pass!

Camp Croft is just a few miles from our home now, so Lily and I decided to enjoy a picnic by Lake Craig there this morning to celebrate the end of her school year as well as mine (first year of PhD studies is in the books!). She was excited about the baby geese and the Pop-Tarts she had smuggled in. I was excited to see her enjoying such a beautiful place.

Let’s hope our current government leaders don’t do anything as misguided as wrecking state park systems, as they’ve managed to do with our federal parks and Forest Service. 

Croft | South Carolina Parks Official Site:

Once an army training base, Croft State Park covers more than 7,000 acres of rolling, wooded terrain just a few miles from downtown Spartanburg. The park offers over 20 miles of biking and hiking trails, a playground, picnicking and camping, as well as fishing and boating in one of two lakes.

Beyond Technocracy: Embracing an Ecological Metaphysics of Communion

Republican Budget Bill Aims to End I.R.A. Clean Energy Boom – The New York Times:

Over the past three years, companies have made plans to invest more than $843 billion across the United States in projects aimed at reducing planet-warming emissions, driven by lucrative tax credits for clean energy provided by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.

But only about $321 billion of that money has actually been spent, with many projects still on the drawing board, according to data made public on Tuesday by the Clean Investment Monitor, a joint project of the Rhodium Group and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Now, much of the rest, about $522 billion, will depend on action playing out on Capitol Hill. Starting on Tuesday, Republicans in Congress will begin a contentious debate over proposals to roll back tax credits for low-carbon energy as they search for ways to pay for a roughly $4 trillion tax cut package favored by President Trump.

Recent political debates, such as those surrounding the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), highlight a troubling reliance on technocratic solutions to address the climate crisis. While investments in clean energy are essential, they are insufficient without a deeper transformation in our collective consciousness and ethical frameworks.

The IRA represents a substantial federal investment in clean energy, aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote the development of renewable energy sources. However, as political dynamics shift, the stability and longevity of such initiatives come into question.

For instance, recent legislative proposals have sought to roll back key provisions of the IRA, including clean energy tax credits. These political maneuvers highlight the fragility of technocratic solutions that rely on shifting political will.

Addressing the climate crisis requires more than policy changes; it demands a fundamental shift in how we perceive our relationship with the natural world. Philosophers like Catherine Pickstock and William Desmond advocate for a return to liturgical language and metaphysical frameworks that emphasize communion and participation with the environment.

Pickstock argues that true language is inherently liturgical, fostering a participatory relationship with reality. Desmond’s concept of the “metaxological” emphasizes the importance of the “between”—the relational space that enables genuine connection and ethical engagement with others, including the non-human world.

By embracing liturgical practices and ecological ethics, we can cultivate a sense of reverence and responsibility toward the environment. This approach moves beyond viewing nature as a resource to be managed and instead recognizes it as a sacred community to which we belong.

Such a transformation encourages practices that are sustainable not only environmentally but also spiritually and culturally. It fosters communities that are attuned to the rhythms of nature and committed to the well-being of all life forms.

While technocratic solutions like the IRA play a role in mitigating climate change, they are insufficient on their own. Lasting change arises from a profound transformation in consciousness, one that reestablishes our connection to the natural world through liturgy, language, and ethical living. Only by addressing the metaphysical and psychological roots of our ecological crisis can we hope to create a sustainable and harmonious future.

“Maybe we need more middle-brow in our culture mix today.”

Amen…

How I Learned About Great Literature from Comic Books:

Opinion leaders nowadays would scorn these graphic novels. They would justifiably point out the narrowness of canon enshrined in their garish pages (even though, as the recurring presence of Afro-French author Dumas indicates, there was more range here than you might assume).

They would deride the corny images, loaded with anachronisms and stereotypes. And they would probably mock the middle-class aspirations of parents who bought these ten-cent classics for their children. It’s all so embarrassingly middle-brow.

But maybe we need more middle-brow in our culture mix today.

Disparities of Urban Heat Islands Over Time

Fascinating study here that moves beyond the normal mode of similar studies that focus on a fixed point in time (say mid-Summer) and look at long term data across a wider region. This is important work for our future.

A new study by Yale School of the Environment researchers found that communities of color in the U.S. face more heat exposure and have fewer cooling options than predominantly white communities and those disparities are increasing.

Source: People of Color Exposed to More Extremely Hot Days

Basecamp’s New Politics Policy

Basecamp (and Jason) has been a bellwether for how companies operate for almost 20 years now. Here’s an interesting memo for the company that I can only imagine more organizations will be implementing in the coming months / years…

With that, we wanted to put these directional changes on the public record. Historically we’ve tried to share as much as we can — for us, and for you — so this transmission continues the tradition.

1. No more societal and political discussions on our company Basecamp account. Today’s social and political waters are especially choppy. Sensitivities are at 11, and every discussion remotely related to politics, advocacy, or society at large quickly spins away from pleasant. You shouldn’t have to wonder if staying out of it means you’re complicit, or wading into it means you’re a target. These are difficult enough waters to navigate in life, but significantly more so at work. It’s become too much. It’s a major distraction. It saps our energy, and redirects our dialog towards dark places. It’s not healthy, it hasn’t served us well. And we’re done with it on our company Basecamp account where the work happens. People can take the conversations with willing co-workers to Signal, Whatsapp, or even a personal Basecamp account, but it can’t happen where the work happens anymore.

Source: Changes at Basecamp

American Allegory and The Middle

If that’s what you took from it, you’re reading too much into it.”

Then the chief cupbearer said to Pharaoh, ‘I remember my faults today. Once Pharaoh was angry with his servants, and put me and the chief baker in custody in the house of the captain of the guard. We dreamed on the same night, he and I, each having a dream with its own meaning. A young Hebrew was there with us, a servant of the captain of the guard. When we told him, he interpreted our dreams to us, giving an interpretation to each according to his dream.”

Genesis 41:9-12 (NRSV)

My Master’s Degree is in the field of “Religion and Literature.” It’s a rather quixotic (and troubled) field of study these days with a cumbersome history. In many ways, Religion and Lit is a direct 20th century response to the growing importance of historical critical methods of studying religious texts, such as the Bible. In a nutshell, instead of focusing on the “historical” contexts of texts or traditions, there are other paths available through the rigors of “literature.”

I won’t get into the technical definitions of such terms as Canonical Criticism, Rhetorical Criticism, Structural (and Post-Structural) Criticism(s), Narrative Criticism, Reader-Response Criticism, Ideological Criticisms and so on… but know that theological and academic thinkers love to carve out new climbing paths on the way up to the Summits of Meanings (and in most cases that’s completely needed and appropriate). So when I refer to Religion and Literature as a ontological thing unto itself here, that’s my own approach path.

But one lesson that reading and interpreting gifts us with is the notion of meaning. Like Janus, this two faced divinity of realization tempts us towards “either or” conclusions. Whether or not Noah was an actual person who set about to collect 2 (or 7) of every organism on earth (or just the clean ones) and then build a rather large sailing vessel after hearing instructions straight from God doesn’t really interest me (though, no… he wasn’t and didn’t).

However, it’s an amazing text to interact with as it resides in the Christian Old Testament. It’s fascinating to put that version up against the others found throughout the ancient world from Mesopotamia to the Americas. Truly, the flood motif is one that echoes in the very proteins of our human DNA. But no, I don’t enjoy reducing it to a historical event. That does the text (and I would argue meanings of the text) no justice and offers no participation.

So often in my early faith journey I heard “If you don’t believe that Noah was a historical person and the Ark event really happened, you are not saved!” or something along those lines. The same is true for Adam and Eve, of course. Though I was always puzzled by whether I was supposed to “believe” Genesis 1 – 2:4a or Genesis 2:4b – 3 since there are two very different telling of creation at the very beginning. It took me years to discover the beauty of the Bible through reading it through the lens of participatory literature. And it “means” more to me as a result.

One of the reasons I still enjoy reading the Bible as literature (as well as studying historical contexts etc) is that these paths outside historical time charts and archaeological strata allows for approaches that impart reception. There’s a real sense of immediacy when reading along with a parable or a lament or a psalm or levitical code that takes us out of time and place. To me, the same is true Flannery O’Connor or Toni Morrison or Margaret Atwood.

This does not imply that “truth” is absent or completely subjective. To the contrary, immediacy and participation requires much more finesse and fluidity than is normally implied when a debate turns into a “subjective vs objective” argument. Reading scripture or texts or phone books or Super Bowl commercials as literature can be a fascinating exercise that removes us from the need for concrete meaning and instead projects a wide spectrum of relationships with both our own senses and the thing we are studying. Just as in physics, the person doing the experiment impacts the outcome of the experiment whether knowingly or not.

It’s easy to cling onto notions of objectivity and “real” meaning while building up an edifice of understanding, only to come to an inevitable point when there’s a large crack in the wall that demands either reinforcing and applying more mortar to our conclusion instead of realizing the building ground was shaky and suspect to begin with and maybe the materials weren’t as strong and resilient as we first through the, so we might need to reexamine our previous work and even start over.

Simply put, participating with a text instead of simply ingesting or reading a text to decipher an author’s or editor’s intent (“intentional fallacy” of making assumptions related to the author(s) of ancient or modern texts that we can never really know or recover) doesn’t discourage search for meaning or truth. In my own experience, the best example I can give are lyrics to Beatles’ songs. I fell madly and deeply in love with the Beatles around the time of my senior year in high school and that carried over into my college years. I spent uncountable hours filling up notebooks with possible references and meanings behind the lyrics of “Hey Jude” or “I Am the Walrus” (that was fun) or “Baby’s in Black” or “Norwegian Wood” and would subject my patient but suffering friends to my extrapolations. This search for meaning into not just “what” John and Paul (and sometimes George) were writing and singing, but why. This led into me discovering the power of the internet in the mid-90’s as I stumbled upon bulletin boards of fellow seekers of Beatles writ and knowledge as well as The Grateful Dead and Nirvana. As I began my faith journey, I poured the same zeal into my own studies of the Bible and trying to understand the why and the intent of the authors and editors.

As I grew in the faith and my music tastes and my academic life, I learned of other approaches and some of the fallacies involved with authorial intent (especially with unreliable narrators such as Dylan and Hemingway). That slow boiling realization finally came to a head after I learned enough Greek to poke around the world of New Testament studies and found myself at Yale Divinity School at a time when reading the Bible through the lens of literature-approaches and post-construct (or post-modern) means was in bloom (and thanks to Prof. Bloom with whom I was able to study the great work through those lenses).

I realized that it meant less to me that Hey Jude really was written as a one-off by Paul about John’s son Julian and sentiments such as “the movement you need is on your shoulder” were lines meant to be replaced later until John insisted on their importance and instead it meant more to me how I was able to lovingly participate with not just the lyrics but also the chord progressions and climbing scales.

The same is true with something like the Bible… the words are important, but don’t miss the sound of the voice coming through the music, as The Grateful Dead would sing based on Robert Hunter’s lyrics.

In turn, the same can be thought when approaching Bruce Springsteen’s Super Bowl commercial for an automobile company. It was certainly well produced and visually calls out to our human need for toughness and purpose in the midst of uncertainty and cold dark winters. I was amazed that it was shot on location just a few days before the actual game and required some work to even make the show. Great art is frequently associated with constraints.

But is this great art? On one level, it speaks to a generation of Americans who look fondly at the rugged individualism of a hardened person surviving the winter clad in denim and boots and a trusty recreational vehicle (and a mug of hot coffee). The wrinkles are as much a part of the messaging as the old Jeep belonging to Springsteen or the cinematic shots of rushing water through a frozen landscape. The marriage of Springsteen’s iconic voice narration on top of this barren imagery with the score he composed for the ad spot is superb.

But like all marriages, there are points of contention.

As a baptist, one of the philosophical and theological epistemologies I cling to is the notion of religious liberty in the sense that the relationship between the Divine and a person is up to that individual. That’s not necessarily true for many of fellow Baptists these days, but as someone who likes to participate with the historical notion of being baptist, it is there in my matrix along with priesthood of all believers. A person has absolute liberty of conscience regarding their faith or choice to not pursue it, and my responsibility is to protect that liberty for all.

When I first saw the Springsteen ad and the image of the “lower 48” of the US with an American Flag draped theme superimposed by a Cross, I cringed.

The marketing message of the ad is clear… this is a chapel directly in the center of the contiguous United States and represents a call to “re-uniting” around themes that make America great after a period of divisiveness and “identity politics” that has scarred the country over the last decade. The Boss represents the Übermensch of American identity. It’s been a long and cold winter, but there will be a Spring ahead. A New Day for America.

But is that really unity? Is what this commercialization of American Civic Religion in the form of a Jeep commercial superimposed on the very center of America what we should aspire to at this time of darkness, death, pestilence, division, hunger, and ultimately a reshaping of modern life.

What about voices that aren’t the hegemonic conception of “America” in the sense of a middle-of-the-country white male? When Springsteen sifts his hands through the soil, I wonder if there’s a conception of the lives of Native People who were stripped of that land? Of course, I’m reading into the ad and adding my own value judgements about the composition of the “heart of America” that is tacitly inferred.

“Either you are with us or you’re against us!”

Take mask-wearing, for example. Large portions of our country still wrestle with the call to wear face coverings and maintain social distancing, citing preferred articles and hot takes on social media or the latest cable news bait designed to increase blood pressures and dopamine levels to sell more ads from automotive companies. Perhaps that is the cynical take here. We are discussing and ourselves wrestling with concepts of Christian Nationalism or MAGA or just a needed return to what made our country great that we’ve “read into” a car commercial. The medium subverts the message and in turn causes us to participate with commercial advertisements meant to convince our minds of an intended thought to move us further down the sales funnel at a rate of 1/1000 viewers.

But I don’t think we need to dismiss the Springsteen ad as “just” a commercial or elevate it as a “call to our consciousness.”

Clearly, it struck a nerve. I awoke this morning to a number of passionate social media friends from fellow baptists and religious thinkers and political ideologues all espousing a variety of seemingly nuanced opinions about the ad.

I would urge viewers and readers here to think of the advertisement and our participation in its messaging in a way that social media and cable news (and most preachers) don’t encourage. Despite the quick takes we’re encouraged to use based on our emotional responses, participating more deeply with a thought technology or, in this case, a framework or identity can be done so in new ways.

So I propose an allegorical approach.

Allegory may dream of presenting the thing itself… but its deeper purpose and its actual effect is to acknowledge the darkness, the arbitrariness, and the void that underlie, and paradoxically make possible, all representation of realms of light, order, and presence… Allegory arises… from the painful absence of that which it claims to recover.”

— Stephen Greenblatt

In this context of allegory, I think of Galatians 4:21-31 when Paul invokes the use of allegory to make a point about the notion of being “slave” or “free.” His use of the Hagar passage from Genesis has always been problematic for me and also caused me to cringe. “That’s not my identity!” I would think in my head as I studied this passage or came across the verses in my own journeys with the New Testament. Often, I would skip over it and leave it behind like a thing I didn’t want to deal with or acknowledge without acknowledging my privilege to do so.

Tell me, you who desire to be subject to the law, will you not listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and the other by a free woman. One, the child of the slave, was born according to the flesh; the other, the child of the free woman, was born through the promise. Now this is an allegory: these women are two covenants. One woman, in fact, is Hagar, from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the other woman corresponds to the Jerusalem above; she is free, and she is our mother. For it is written, “Rejoice, you childless one, you who bear no children, burst into song and shout, you who endure no birthpangs; for the children of the desolate woman are more numerous than the children of the one who is married.” Now you, my friends, are children of the promise, like Isaac. But just as at that time the child who was born according to the flesh persecuted the child who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also. But what does the scripture say? “Drive out the slave and her child; for the child of the slave will not share the inheritance with the child of the free woman.” So then, friends, we are children, not of the slave but of the free woman.

— Galatians 4:21-31

I eventually read an article by Prof. Elizabeth A. Castelli titled “Allegories of Hagar: Reading Galatians 4:21-31 with Postmodern Feminist Eyes’” in the collection The New Literary Criticism and the New Testament (Trinity Press International, eds Edgar V. McKnight and Elizabeth Struthers Malbon… caveat that I studied with Prof. McKnight while at Gardner-Webb Divinity School and he introduced me to Castelli’s article here). It came to me at a time when I was reconsidering allegory as a lens of understanding and reading, and caught me off-guard in the best of ways. It’s a fantastic piece in an excellent collection of articles by new criticism thinkers.

Here is the piece of Castelli’s work that resonates with me when thinking about identity and performative assumptions in the context of allegory building…

The passage of Sarah and Hagar from their traditional narrative into Paul’s allegory is a process of smoothing over and eliding complexities, eliminating potential contradictions, and reducing them to fixed and absolute opposites. In the course of this transformation, the meanings that accrue to them are, in one sense, inverted. that is, while the traditional interpretation holds that the offspring of Sarah is the nation of Israel, Paul has argued that the rightful heirs to God’s promise are himself and the other believers in Christ. In doing, Paul has deposed the reigning interpretation and has set his own up in its place. As suggested earlier, a successful allegory displaces its antecedent, remakes its subjects, and constitutes its own independent authority. Claiming a new and independent meaning, the allegory supersedes the antecedent and replaces it. By analogy, Paul’s allegory of Sarah and Hagar enacts this process not simply on tradition of the two women but on the tradition as a whole. In superseding the claims of the traditional interpretation of their story, Paul also constructs his own new and authoritative version. Once again, the structure, form, and content of his argument intersect and reinforce one another.”

Castelli goes on to posit that Paul’s use of allegory here actually inverts his purpose of imposing an authoritative version and creates points of intersectionality and meaning for new voices participating in the story thousands of years later.

Springsteen does the same with this commercial that he evidently had a very heavy hand in conceptualizing and producing (again, it’s not dependent on his intent in my approach here). Remaking the heart of America into a place of peak-Winter introspection and then hopeful upbeat violin instrumentals at the conclusion with the iconography of the flag, the Cross, and a candle lighting to bring warmth and light to a quiet place of inner desolation and perhaps desperation (much like a cup of coffee in the morning on a freezing day), deposed the prevailing notion of unity and being “in the center” into a message of hope and determination.

Only, here in the Springsteen ad we are self-limited to a certain conception of “America” in a politico-religious sense of the idea. It’s seemingly not available to all who fall outside the manufactured marketing demographic identified as potential Jeep buyers by market research specialists working with tables and data and social media inputs that determine such things.

All are more than welcome to come meet here in the middle,” the “Thunder Road” singer says in a voiceover. “It’s no secret the middle has been a hard place to get to lately, between red and blue, between servant and citizen, between our freedom and our fear.

“Now fear has never been the best of who we are, and as for freedom, it’s not the property of just the fortunate few, it belongs to us all. Whoever you are, wherever you’re from, it’s what connects us, and we need that connection. We need the middle,” he says.

So where are the allegorical opportunities to subvert this hegemony if one prefers to do so?

I propose we turn to Amanda Gorman’s preceding verse from the Super Bowl that points to a similar, but different, invocation to move ahead:

Let us walk with these warriors, charge on with these champions, and carry forth the call of our captains,” Gorman said. “We celebrate them by acting with courage and compassion, by doing what is right and just, for while we honor them today, it is they who every day honor us.”

Amanda Gorman

It’s in the allegory of the champions and captains that we truly do find the courage and compassion to not push towards “the middle” but honor those who have bravely stood up and pushed us towards justice as our country continues to reckon with ourselves.

Biden on Running for President in 2015

Eventually, Colbert got around to asking about the campaign, recalling that Biden had said recently that he wasn’t sure if he is “emotionally prepared” to run for President. Biden looked up at the klieg lights and gave a jut of the chin. “Look, I don’t think any man or woman should run for President unless, No. 1, they know exactly why they would want to be President. And, No. 2, they can look at folks out there and say, ‘I promise you have my whole heart, my whole soul, my energy, and my passion to do this.’ And, and, I’d be lying if I said that I knew I was there. I’m being completely honest. But nobody has a right in my view to seek that office unless they are willing to give it a hundred and ten per cent of who they are.”

Source: Biden, Alone in a Crowd | The New Yorker