A Response

I have finally received some real criticism for my essay “The war and the War” and I desire now to respond to these arguments. Here is the response from the anonymous person:

Good points....but I have 2 remarks:

1) how do you respond to the statement, "if we try to negotiate with madmen, we will eventually have the bomb dropped on us, eventually killing us all."

2) People in America aren't necessarily against the doctrines of Christianity, but rather the institution of organized religion. In history, we have seen much corruption and evil committed by a Church-sponsored nation cloaked under the auspices of "We believe in Jesus Christ". What do you care if someone's gay? Why is it your job to control the sexual orientation of someone, even if it's completely caused through environment? The problem people have with the church is its elitist power trip that it feels the need to inform anyone outside of their own of what to do.

I’m glad the first argument raised was in the form of a question. I guess my primary concern with the question, however, is the statement itself. The statement presupposes a lot of things, and I will each of these that I noticed.

1) “if we try to negotiate…” This statement first argues that we have not tried to negotiate with madmen. It was my argument from the beginning that part of our problem is that we not only negotiated with madmen, but that we had decided to trust certain madmen with weapons and economic benefits. It would seem obvious to me that we ought to stop providing madmen with these materials and benefits, whether we “trust” them or not. As of now, no madman has proved capable of dropping “the bomb” on us, outside arguably North Korea.
2) The arguer seems to see negotiation as mere nit-picking and not an actual active process that could possibly have a positive outcome. To me, the statement seems to paraphrase as “If we complain to madmen about their madness, they will, in fact, go mad on us.” This is naturally a possibility, but it is not always the case. If you approach a sinner about his sinfulness, he could certainly repent.
3) Both of our arguments hinge on the assumption that we are in the right and the madmen are wrong. While we are far from perfect, I think we can agree that the madmen we are (or have not yet) confronting are much further than we.

In short, I am not sure how to reply to this response when I am not sure the point at which it is attempting to get. If it is trying to force me to abandon my position due to the threat of “the bomb,” it has failed. God is in control of his-story, so I do not fear anything of which He is in control.

The second argument is interesting. I would probably have to agree with most of the reader’s argument. I might even go a step further. Not only are people outside Christianity disappointed with the established church, but people inside are equally (if not more) disappointed. I will leave the discussion of the history of the church throughout history to someone who is much better prepared to offer historical examples (and I might suggest the reader to do the same). However, I will agree that the church throughout time has messed up. I’m sure if Christ were to speak to us directly today, he would express his disappointment with the church as a whole. As I see it, the church as too much interest in doctrine rather than attempting to “act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with [its] God.” (Micah 6:8)

However, to say that the church ought to keep out of the world’s business is slightly ludicrous. The reader asks, “What do you care if someone’s gay?” I care because that person has allowed his perverse desires to lead him into bondage with sin. It is not, however, my job to correct this behavior. It is not even my obligation. It is my job to love, to love my neighbor as myself; to dislike the behavior but not the man. I will say that homosexuality is wrong, but so is a man looking lustfully at a woman, or a boy coveting his friend’s new bike, or a man allowing his love of sports to control his life and in essence become his god. But my duty is to try to live as close a life to Christ as I can. To fear God and keep his commandments. To shun evil and love good.

The church at times has been overly judgmental. It has seen itself as self-righteous even, likening itself to the Pharisee praising God for not being as lowly as the tax collector. The church has a lot of work to do, I agree, but the God whom Christians profess is very real.

Thank you for responding!!

as personable as mold in an expired container of cottage cheese

Welcome everyone to Cooks Forest State Park! I am currently nestled into bed in the heart of Western PA “roughing it” with my family for the week. Now when I say “roughing it,” images of lean-to’s and cooking eggs on rocks come to my mind; but to the Constable family, “roughing it” is far from archetypal. For example, we are in a pop-up camper, complete with three beds, running water, electricity, and a refrigerator. There is a bathhouse roughly 50 yards away from our location and the nearest child molester is quite possibly merely a stone’s throw away. As part of this journey (and further subtracting from our “roughing it” score), I have brought my computer to catalogue the action daily to give my take on the trip, and quite possibly larger issues upon which I will have much time to ponder.

As you can tell, the Constable Family Vacation 2006 is not a glamorous cruise or a jaunt along a shoreline before sunset or even a thrilling mechanical ride that flings our bodies at mind-numbing speeds. We are in Cooks Forest State Park, home of trees, squirrels, rivers, sunshine and tornadoes. My mom says we’re “pathetic” for coming here. My sister is horrified to spend more than fourteen hours without seeing her beloved boyfriend. My dad is really just looking for some time off work. And I’m mixed in my motives for coming. Practically, I’m here to rest, read some books, and write. Beneath the surface, I’m hoping I’ll find tons of time to spend with God and loving family. This is as much a spiritual retreat as a physical getaway. So frankly, Cooks Forest State Park, offers very few distractions from my intended goals.

Today wasn’t too eventful. We packed up and were able to leave by 1pm and took the relatively short two-hour drive to the campground. After settling in and eating a generous portion of my mom’s famous sloppy joes, we had some family come up and visit. I was most thrilled by the little Frisbee I was able to play with my seventh-grade cousin. One of the things I miss about GCC is the ability to find someone to throw a Frisbee with you anytime and anywhere. That alone is worth the tuition. After they left, my family played some cards. My dad won, and once I started on the sorry trail towards defeat, I started to become a little sour. My competitive streak gets the best of me sometimes. It never really comes out in friendly games at school, but when I’m home, I guess I feel like I deserve to beat everyone. Unfortunately that everyone included my family today, and though it was annoying, we were able to laugh it off later.

Perhaps the best moment today was when a man in a golf cart approached our campsite with a question. Now previous to all of this, we discovered that our electricity was out. My mom brought a TV so she could watch Big Brother (admittedly, a great show, but I could live without it for a week), and she became upset during the process of locating the channel with the antenna when the TV’s power cut out. Minutes later, we discovered the problem was not our camper, but the campground. Back to the moment, we were all playing cards outside when the man in the cart asked, “Do you folks have power?” Not even waiting for the nice plump gentleman to complete his quaint sentence, everyone but myself shouted back, “NO!” in a somewhat bitter tone. The man took the hint and scootered off into the sunset while my parents shouted an apology for their obvious unintentional rudeness.

Tonight’s entry will end here since it is 1 am and my eyes are getting a bit droopy. I can’t believe I’m following a sweet essay on war with a nonsense summary of my family’s vacation. But I guess that’s the beauty of a blog: Anyone can publish anything – there doesn’t have to be a theme. So for those of you eagerly awaiting some startling new philosophy on life, look to the Bible, not me. That’s where you will find wisdom, precious precious wisdom, more valuable than the riches of the world…

Hugs and handpounds

~Break~

Vacations never last as long as expected. Five days off of work and time to spend reading the Word and spending time with family and resting seems like a really long time, especially since a single day off work in itself is incredibly relaxing. But this vacation, though half complete now, seems like it’s almost over. Well, enough trying to attract pity, on with the show.

Day two started like every other vacation day in Constable history: late. I am merely guessing, but I assume that most families on vacation are out and about by 10 am. Psht, if you came to our camper at 10 am with all the intentions off immediately rushing off into town we would wearily ask you who in our family has been rushed to the hospital or if the campground has suddenly has caught fire. We greet the morning sun at 10:30 am and are usually not ready to do anything of real structure until noon. A despicable time, I realize, but a reality.

So yesterday we woke up at our usual late time, had our usual breakfast, and decided to go for a nice scenic horseback ride through the forest. Alright, easy enough. Well what we projected to be a one-and-a-half-hour jaunt turned into an outrageous three-hour adventure. Most of our extended family lives in the region we are staying in this week, so we thought it hospitable to invite my grandfather out to spend a day with us. Unfortunately, we had not made plans as to when he would visit us and told him that we would call him with the arrangements. Cooks Forest State Park is a cellular black hole. We tried as hard as we could to get a signal as we drove down the road towards the horse stable to call my grandfather, but not one of our four cell phones picked up enough signal to dial. What was most frustrating was my mom giving us an update every time the amount of bars she possessed changed. Here I transcribe a snippet of conversation during this too real car ride:

Dad: Alright, anyone have anything yet?
Breanna: Nope, no service.
Mom: I got one bar!
Tyler: Nah, I keep going in and out of serv…
Mom: Oh, no service…wait, two bars!
Dad: Should we stop?
Mom: Wait, no service again…
Tyler: Maybe we should just wait until we get to Brookville to call (it’s only eight miles away)
Breanna: How come we don’t turn around where we had two bars?
Tyler: It doesn’t work like that around here. Signal changes like the wind.
Mom: Yeah, one bar.
Dad: There’s the horse place there
Breanna: Why didn’t we stop?!
Mom: We have to call grandpa!
Dad: Brookville is right next to I-80, we’ll have signal there...
Mom: Ooo! Three bars!
Dad: You want to…
Mom: Oh wait, no service
Breanna: Go back to the place we had signal!
Tyler: Mom, why don’t you call as soon as you see you have signal?
Dad: We’ll be in Brookeville soon…
Breanna: Just go back! It’ll rain before we get to ride horses!
Tyler: Why don’t you…
Dad: I’M NOT TURNING BACK!
Tyler: I’m not talking to you! MOM, call when you get any signal!
Breanna: Why don’t we turn back!
Dad: Here…we’re in Brookville
(Everyone exits and makes phone calls, then gets back into car)
Dad: Who’s up for ice cream?
Tyler and Breanna: ME!

The horseback ride itself was interesting. The man running the stable made about nine too many sexually-charged statements and seemed to have a hobby in collecting jokes directed against women. For example, what’s the difference between a woman and a Pit-bull? A Pit-bull doesn’t wear lipstick. Yeah. So anyway, our guide was about as personable as mold in an expired container of cottage cheese, which made the trip slightly less exciting. My horse’s saddle had the name Onyx upon it (coincidentally the 66-point Scrabble word that clinched my victory over Erica last week), but was later told that his name was Junkyard, and I couldn’t have had a better horse. My thesis on horses is as follows: They are tremendously majestic creatures that are incredibly beautiful and strong (and probably trustworthy); however, they remain animals, and by that I mean that they are not humans and not as predictable. I realize that a well-trained horse will act however the trainer wants it to 99.9% of the time, but every time I mount one of these amazing animals, I can’t help but notice how inferior physically I am to it. That man has been able to subdue the horse is enough of a miracle in my book. In short, I mean to say that I find horses terrifying because of their brute strength, but so amazingly crafted by God that I cannot help but be attracted to them. Anyone who makes a living off caring for these magnificent beasts has my utmost respect. The trip in itself was pretty cool. My horse kept running into the horse in front of me (probably my fault, but can’t they see!?). It was also the only horse not to shamelessly relieve itself or attempt to snatch a snack off the nearest tree. When I nudged him right, he went right, and when I pulled back, he stopped. Junkyard was a gem, and I thanked him kindly afterwards for the scenic adventure (and for not pulverizing me).

Day Three was slightly more and slightly less eventful. First the slightly more… We planned on taking a canoe trip down the Clarion River on Tuesday. I use the word “planned” loosely, for we merely penciled it into our schedule of things to do that day. Planning would have meant research. But we did things our way, and that meant waking up at our usual time and eating our usual breakfast and meandering about getting ready to depart before eventually making it The Pale Whale Canoe Fleet at 1 pm. My dad exited the car to get some preliminary details and returned quite enraged. The only trips offered after noon were four miles long, only a 90 minute journey. Needless to say, our plan for the entire day was destroyed. We were pretty disappointed (some of us more than others), but immediately tried to do something else on what turned out to be the most pleasant day of the week (in regards to the weather). So instead of asking our grandfather to come out Wednesday as “planned,” we called him to request that he come out that evening. He couldn’t, so we spent the day lounging around camp relaxing. I didn’t complain; in fact, going into the vacation, I figured that we would have free time most of the time, so I was able do some reading. We went out to eat that night, and I got sick from the meal, and I won the nightly card game (Texas Hold’em), and all in all, it was a great day.

Day Four started out much differently. We were determined not to sleep away our final opportunity to go on a decently-sized canoe trip, so we woke up at the unheard of time of 7:30 am and ate a quick breakfast. We were at the Pale Whale by 8:45; it opened at 9:00. After some awkward small-talk with an unfortunate nearby staffer, we gathered our rented paddles and PFDs and piled into the van and trucked up the river. Our driver tried his best to chat with us, but eventually we ran out of questions to ask complete strangers that you have no intention of seeing again. I do, however, remember that he attends PSU-Behrend, a member of the PAC, Grove City’s athletic conference. Why Behrend does not call itself PSU-Erie is beyond me. Before the name change, Erie was probably the best branch campus option; after the change, I’d have to lean towards Altoona or DuBois, just because they’re fun to say.
Anyway, the canoe trip was great. My mom and I manned the first canoe while my dad, lovingly nicknamed the Pale Whale due to his choice to be shirtless and shamelessly pale, and my sister paddled along in the other canoe. The Clarion River has an average depth of three feet, which is actually the deepest it has been in a while. If there were a canoe trip designed for people afraid of water, this was it because one could see the bottom of the river wherever one traveled. Things were frustrating at the start since few of us ever had paddling experience (especially with my canoe since my mom and I seemed to always be undoing what the other would do), but once we got a few miles in the trip, we were able to relax more and take in the scenery. We finished the trip faster than the average time, which surprised us, and left the Pale Whale (the canoe fleet, that is) feeling much better than we had Tuesday.

My grandfather came up that night, which was good. We spent the last part of the night relaxing and reminiscing before we had a huge chicken fajita feast that night. I forgot to mention before that we had brought along a TV. My relationship with the television has deteriorated since going to college. I have done some reading, and some thinking, and some more reading, and while I do not feel like outlining an entire position against the overindulgence in TV, I mean to say that TV is definitely something I can live without. My mom, on the other hand, loves the TV. I can’t blame her, nor do I judge her, for I, too, waste my time on various other things. So we brought the TV with the slim hope that we could pick up the signal to watch our favorite primetime shows. It just so happens that our campsite had full cable hookup capabilities! While I may have went a little overboard with my comments on how watching TV wasn’t really camping, I eventually gave in and watched Big Brother (such a good (yet trashy) show). That night, we also played 500 Rummy. I’ve played a few games of Rummy in my day, but this was not only the greatest game I’ve ever played, but quite possibly the greatest game in the history of the game. Every player led at one point and everyone had had their highs and lows (except me. I was slow and steady picking up about 50 points a hand and being the one who goes out before everyone else). Nevertheless, we came to the final hand with everyone within striking distance of the necessary 500 point goal. In the final hand, every single card, every single one of the possible 500 points, was played. The result was that every player scored over 500 points, my sister hitting 500 exactly, and my dad scoring 545 points. It was amazing. I’m sure you’re sharing in the excitement.

As I write, I am home participating in a free online poker tournament. There were 16500 entrants and I am now one of 9035 remaining in the tournament. That may explain why my style has been shoddy throughout the latter part of this entry. I hope to write a wittier, lengthier entry soon. I pray that you all are making the most of every day. We ought to be using every precious God-given breath for His glory.