Vol. 02: Holly jolly heck yeah
It is October, which means that Michael Bublé is defrosting as we speak. Can I get a holly jolly "heck yeah"?
01 | It is with ~enormous fanfare~ that I announce my completion of 100 books year to date. I sometimes wonder if my work-life balance is a little too good since I seem to have way more free time than my friends do. Some notable reads since my last newsletter update:
A. Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire (A 500 Year History) | Kurt Andersen
I’ve described this as, imagine an atheist history major whose worldview has become increasingly haggard and cynical for entirely legitimate reasons. Imagine that he is as explosively angry as the rest of us, but far more articulate about its depths and origins. This is his book. (Fact check: Not sure if he was indeed a history major, but he was editor of the Harvard Lampoon if that means anything to you). He is so obviously contemptuous of people of faith, but given their/our disproportionately poor contributions to humanity and propensity for flagrant hypocrisy, who could blame him?
“You know the story of the ant and the grasshopper? The ant is disciplined, the grasshopper parties as if the good times will last forever—but then winter descends; the ant was correct. Americans were always energetic grasshoppers as well as energetic ants, a sui generis crossbreed, which is why we have been so successful as a nation. Our moxie always came in the two basic types. We possessed the unexciting virtues embodied by the Puritans and their secular descendants like Ben Franklin: steady hard work, frugality, sobriety, and common sense. And then there’s our wilder, faster, and looser side, that packet of attributes that also makes us American: impatient, overexcited gamblers with a weakness for stories too good to be true. Ant mode consistently tempered grasshopper mode. A propensity to dream impossible dreams is like other powerful tendencies, okay when kept in check by common sense, at least in the aggregate and over the long run. For most of its history, America had exactly such a dynamic equilibrium between fantasists and realists, mania and moderation, credulity and skepticism. But as much as we wish for a natural and inevitable balance between those competing forces, like the laws in physics, there’s no such mechanism governing civilizations. Societies and cultures can lurch out of balance. As ours eventually would do.” (Fantasyland, Kurt Andersen)
I haven’t seen Netflix’s The Social Dilemma, but I imagine it would be a suitable preamble for this book. The alt-right world, as it festers online, is a strange and fuddled one, and overall just a bit sad. I felt a similar sense of despair earlier in the summer, when a Taiwanese-born friend refused to believe that the Black Lives Matter protests were legitimate because the injustices denounced were so severe they couldn’t possibly exist in 2020. As in, he believed his wishful thinking to be more logical than our current reality. The alt-right formation follows that kind of shattering disillusionment, bastardized:
“At no point did I start to find Nazi propaganda cute or funny. I did not succumb to the misconception that a journalist must present both sides of every story, or that all interview subjects are owed equal sympathy. I am not of the opinion that we owe Nazis anything. I do believe, however, that if we want to understand what is happening to our country, we can’t rely on wishful thinking. We have to look at the problem—at how our national vocabulary, and thus our national character, are in the process of being shattered.” (Anti-Social, Andrew Marantz)
Related podcast:
(1) Reply All: Country of Liars
This week, PJ looks into a theory circling the internet about who might be behind QAnon. The investigation takes him back to the beginning of the QAnon scam, and to the message board trolls who started it.
I am not fond of the outdoors, but I am *super* fond of Taiwan, and I’m grateful that was enough to get me into this book, because it’s gorgeous, well-researched, and so full of tender wisdom. In Taiwan’s natural landscape, Lee finds lush grounds upon which to discuss history, tradition, colonization, allegiance, and language:
Literature has since become a means of asserting the island’s distinct cultural identity, in direct contention with its difficult colonial past. Rejecting the notion of Taiwanese literature as mere “frontier” writing, authors in a new tradition pursued their autonomy as part of their writing. (Two Trees Make a Forest, Jessica J. Lee)
A lot of this newsletter will respond to some pretty terrible stuff, so here’s a brief interlude into “holly jolly heck yeah” territory:
Pumpkin spice is canonical, but kabocha squash, guys. Did you know it could be made into *banana bread* and *spice cake*? Holly jolly heck yeah!
I’m trying to get my friend groups into the habit of sharing casual flexes! Let me love on your wondrous lives and accomplishments! I’ll start: In 2014, I wasn’t accepted into one of my dream schools (a prestigious liberal arts college), but my little baby Book of Cord will be taught there this semester! Holly jolly heck yeah!
My sweet, talented sister was recently on the news for spearheading a video campaign advocating for Taiwanese inclusion into the United Nations (this may be the hill we all die on, but I remain… optimistic). Holly jolly heck yeah! (This refrain is becoming very Midwestern mom-like, and I love to see it).
02 | The Mid-Autumn Festival collided with Global Day of Action this year, so recycling my heavily-workshopped Instagram caption:
As a Taiwanese American, I’m conscious that recent anti-Chinese/anti-Asian rhetoric might be incorrectly conflated with legitimate calls for CCP accountability, so to be clear, we can stand against an authoritarian party while working for the full liberation of its people - and those it wrongly claims. We can practice nuance and critical consideration, with a bias for justice. And as always, we can engage from a place of concern for the most vulnerable, not solely fear of the most aggressive.
Nearly every revolution is an heirloom - first inherited, then stewarded. Be water, as the Hongkongers are, be ignited, be anything but still.
03 | My litmus test for “good” theology is whether its view of divine love motions towards restorative justice (yes!!) or individual prosperity (yikes!!). Most other things seem, frankly, secondary. (Is it awful to venture that they can be whittled down to branding preferences? I ask this as a Methodist churchgoer for whom the “potlucks and committees” stereotype resonates most deeply. Also, I know literal wars have been waged over this so *sorry* do not mean to poke fun but can we at least admit that argumentative discipleship is absurd?)
But anyways, I’ve been perplexed and fascinated (see Vol. 01) by the exclusionary instincts of proclaimed Christ followers, mostly because a scarcity calculation of grace seems downright heretical (then again, nobody asked me and I am from the potlucking tradition of abundance) but I found Fr Richard Rohr’s The Universal Christ to be a gracious respite. Plus, in it he quotes poet Mary Oliver, patron saint and evangelist of ordinary, splendid goodness. I’m cautious of “feel-good” religious literature, but this one struck an appropriate balance between encouraging increased personal devotion and acknowledging the church’s (every church’s?) own need for repentance:
If our postmodern world seems highly subject to cynicism, skepticism, and what it does not believe in, if we now live in a post-truth America, then we “believers” must take at least partial responsibility for aiming our culture in this sad direction. The best criticism of the bad is still the practice of the better.
We can also release my therapy transcripts (not serious) to reveal why I am *super down* to subscribe to an interpretation of Christ that is ceaselessly forgiving, not punitive, but I think it’s sufficient to say that I’m invested in the joyful (not comfortable!) fullness of life that this promises, something only possible in a relationship not defined by fear:
We do not need to be afraid of the depths and breadths of our own lives, of what this world offers us or asks of us. We are given permission to become intimate with our own experiences, learn from them, and allow ourselves to descend to the depth of things, even our mistakes, before we try too quickly to transcend it all in the name of some idealized purity or superiority. God hides in the depths and is not seen as long as we stay on the surface of anything—even the depths of our sins.
And, *related* because we suck and others suck (the LWC translation of Romans 3:23), if you missed my passionate endorsement of Leslie Leyland Fields’ Forgiving our Fathers and Mothers, fear not! I am literally always prepared to launch into an unsolicited monologue about the redemptive power of literature. (But will defer to my already-polished review of the book here). I come back to this again and again and it only gets better, and its prescription is interchangeable for anybody in your life who has wronged you (or ghosted you, or been a little too frank with you, or…):
I have found what others have found before me. Choosing to forgive does not relieve all burdens. It does not free us from attachment and obligation. Instead, it brings a burden, but it is a worthy burden. And we will not know how light this yoke of love and forgiveness, how fitting the habit of mercy, until we step into it, wrapping it around our shoulders. We will feel then the full force of forgiveness, its power to lift and strengthen and move us from a land of bondage out into a full, spacious country with open gates, our hands open to all.
The rest of the book is more textured, so don’t let the loftiness of this excerpt discourage you! Truly a practical read.
04 | For reasons I’m afraid to explore, I follow a lot of white Evangelical mommy bloggers on Instagram. It’s perplexing and pointless, I know! And I’m working on it! But I think something about their manicured, curated piety (to what sort of idol, I’m not sure) and inclination towards high-end homemaking (organic celery juice in a gazillion-dollar cold presser! Farm-to-table except the table was “sourced” by *their* interior designer) is so fascinating. I’m also just a sucker for the foils of the ultra-wealthy.
But it means I’ve had a lot of secondhand exposure to their well-intentioned, albeit often misinformed, rebranded QAnon nonsense: tirades against rampant pedophilia, their tearful pro-life advocacy, their astonishing pleas for peace with zero commitment to the hard work of reconciliation.
But somewhere in the rubble, I unearthed this wonderfully phrased statement by Methodist pastor Dave Barnhart:
"The unborn" are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don't resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don't ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don't need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don't bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. It's almost as if, by being born, they have died to you. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus but actually dislike people who breathe.
Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.
He has a separate post, linked here, about the evidence-based tools that reduce abortion rates: comprehensive, medically accurate sex education in schools. (But why stop there! What about better maternity leave policies! Addressing poverty! Improving access to contraception!) I’m pretty sure I’m basically preaching to the choir at this point, but I cannot shake the memory of this smug, smirking Instagrammer who filmed herself suggesting that women undergoing abortions should be “made to watch… since [you think it’s] no big deal,” sandwiched in between lofty declarations of love and peace from her church. How blatantly cruel. How fundamentally uncaring and uncritical. It makes me want to cry.
For final emphasis, from Katherine Stewart’s “The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism,” one of my favorite reads to date:
“Do we not owe people more than simply reducing ‘pro-life’ to one issue?” he says. “I mean, no one wants babies to die. No one is ‘pro-abortion.’ That is a false dichotomy. Do we not owe more to people than to force them into one box or another? As much as abortion is a pro-life issue, so is affordable health care, access to contraceptives, and real, comprehensive sex education. Minimum wage. Fighting poverty. These should all be part of the ‘pro-life’ conversation.” Chris falls into silence for a few minutes, then speaks again. “And shouldn’t we show compassion to people regardless of how they identify? They, too, are made in God’s image. We find in Scripture the imperative to love our neighbors and care for the least of these. That is by far one of the clearest messages we receive.”
You’re probably like, um, Leona, *we know.* The key takeaway here is probably that you need to unfollow some people on Instagram.
I said I was working on it! Related, I think it’s *extra egregious* when beautiful people turn out to be bigots. It makes me feel like I’ve been scammed.
05 | I’m currently obsessed with daydreaming about my far-off future in fine art collection. I don’t have the money to purchase original art at the moment (cries in Bay Area cost of living), but I have a very specific idea of where I’d like to start. Jamie Beck is an American photographer who built her career in New York, but now resides in the South of France, where she focuses on her personal photography work. Her Isolation Creation series is breathtaking, ever more so because she shares the behind-the-scenes of each piece in her Instagram stories (literally moving pollen around with a brush! Burning the stems of freshly cut flowers!).
My favorites: Day 7 (“The flowers on the mantel have begun to wilt and to be quite honest, so have I.”) | Day 49 (“How long will this last, and how long can we live without it?”) | Day 8 (“Today felt more hopeful than the past few…”)
06 | After the publicized COVID diagnoses of the Trump family and their adjacents, I grieved over feeling backed into a corner of cynicism and fear and unkindness. These are discouraging emotions, no matter how well-patterned. Without reiterating the much-discussed chains of possible consequences (all of which lead to some profound disaster or other), I found it so intrusive that our instincts felt politicized. Performative piety weaponized as virtue signaling among the privileged. The sick and poor mocked for the limits to which they could accept being sick and poor. The violence enacted on marginalized people to be “better” and “kinder” than their oppressors. The exhaustion of needing to be logical, compassionate, and articulate about a tragedy borne from bewildering corruption and malice.
All of which to ask, simply: how should I feel about the suffering of someone who has shown no remorse for the suffering he has willingly inflicted on countless others?
This may be a naïve platitude I deride with time, but despite everything this administration has done, I will not let them distract me from the ultimate pursuit of restorative over retributive justice. “An eye for an eye,” which is weirdly Trump's favorite biblical reference, in its stark insufficiency cannot possibly balance any scale; in fact, the enormity of his offenses might shatter it.
I also don’t believe the call to prayer for our enemies is as black-and-white as “I hope they die...” vs “I hope they don’t.” Nor are we asked to conflate “erasing their debts” with “self-administered amnesia.” Forgiveness would not be powerful if it were foolish in this way.
Let me be clear because all of that sounded a little too soft: skepticism, derision, and numbed apathy are legitimate reactions. Triumph at the fall of your oppressor is a reasonable, legitimate reaction. And righteous anger is so much more useful, dynamic, and life-giving than mere niceness (as if “white lady niceness” weren’t counterproductive enough! Let me introduce you to self-sacrificial “Taiwanese niceness!”). It would be moral gaslighting to suggest otherwise.
But fine. Let’s assume that my pedestrian theology and moral compass have completely missed the mark, and there is no basis - scriptural or otherwise - that will definitively prescribe the “good” reaction here.
Then I will choose to protect myself, and that means stewarding my anger in a way that is sustainable (so… not hate-scrolling my IG feed, I guess), never falling for a counterfeit grace at the cost of my dignity, always pursuing the long-term good of justice over the short-term relief of niceness.
So to myself, to my poor little sentimental soul:
You may wrestle with the burden of forgiveness, but you are always allowed to crave faith in the world as it should be, and not fully resign yourself to the disarray it is, no matter how well-read and how well-informed you become. No matter how humanity’s trajectory appears. The arc of the moral universe is not guaranteed to bend towards justice, but it will bend as we bend it, so no matter how improbable human decency seems, do not let it feel impossible.
Do not let hope feel like a delusion, or hopeful work feel fruitless.
07 | And finally, a profoundly sweet little benediction from Here for It; Or, How to Save Your Soul in America: Essays by R. Eric Thomas:
“Anything good in this country has had to be wrestled free. Some say that’s the beauty of the nation; that’s the American dream, as if we are all Jacob pummeling the biblical angel for a new name. But the tribulations that tinge every victory in pursuit of simply being American—and all that that supposedly entails—are the worst of us. They are a national shackle, a dark mark across the soil. And so it is a shock when the crisp, bright, free voice of a black woman elevates our national anthem from the dirge-like bottom of rote recitation to something otherworldly, something spiritual, something that dares to hope. The fact that it’s possible is a miracle. It lifts me up; it transforms the song; it builds the country from ash.”
Let there be more light. Let us each be a part of it.
LWC