2013-06-19T13:51:17-04:00 Kristin M. Swenson, Ph.D. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=kristin-m-swenson-phd Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Kristin M. Swenson, Ph.D. Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.3428665 2013-06-12T12:57:52-04:00 2013-06-12T17:04:02-04:00

Kristin M. Swenson, Ph.D. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-m-swenson-phd/
Baez's passion for the same good things that she championed long ago and the enthusiasm with which the audience embraced her brought to mind the prophet Ezekiel. The prophetic parallels are obvious, of course -- the unapologetic railing against wrongdoing, taking to task the rich and powerful who misdirect their authority, injustices that mess with the order of the world.

But what really got me was this: in the biblical book of Ezekiel, the prophet is a lyrical poet to whom people listen with great pleasure. "So beautifully he speaks," you can imagine them saying to one another -- an audience of educated Judeans in exile in Babylon. Indeed, the literature is amazing, exquisite, especially evident in the Hebrew and with some knowledge of the bzillion of cross-references and wordplays that he uses. But the message?Devastating. Really. And some of it is cringe-worthy sadistic-sounding pornography.

So with Baez. The songs: gorgeous! The message: Oh, my God. My God. "People say to each other, 'let's go hear Ezekiel,'" God tells the prophet, "And they will come to you in crowds, whole throngs of them to listen. But finally to them you are just a singer of silly songs with a sweet voice who plays skillfully. They hear your words but will not change" (Ezek 33:30-32).

Here we are well in to the 21st century, still facing the inhumanity of deportation, the persistence of sexual abuse, the misapplication of power or downright lies masquerading as justice that we did decades ago. Baez sang those songs many years ago. We smiled and sang along. She sang them last night, and we smiled and sang along. "Such a lovely tone, really beautiful," I said to my husband over the ballad of a woman who gives her body to the judge to free her father whom she discovers was hung nonetheless.

A question that's been nagging away at me lately is how it is that people who have striven mightily against the wrongs of the world endure? How do they keep needling for rightness, for wisdom, sustainability, moderation in material things and humility? How, when we the rest of us persist in abuse and destruction? I'd really like to ask. And what of Ezekiel? We don't for certain what happened to the prickly priest-prophet. He probably died in Babylon. We do know that he continued to prophesy after the destruction that he had so vigorously warned was coming -- the defeat of Judah, fall of Jerusalem and destruction of the temple there.

Ezekiel's message changed after that event, after Ezekiel learned that Jerusalem had fallen (Ezekiel 33:21). It became softer, more hopeful. It included more restoration and less judgment language. But not entirely, and not because the people were suddenly transformed into righteous individuals. Rather, Ezekiel tells that what restoration they might experience is the product of a God with a reputation to maintain -- a reputation for justice, yes, but also with the power and goodness to make well. The book of Ezekiel concludes with details for a restored people, land, and temple. Much as it sounds like a solid blueprint for practical application, the details transcend the ordinary. From the temple itself, the text tells, water will flow in four rivers from the temple, water that grows as it runs. Not only that, but the water will refresh what was foul so that it is filled with flashing fish. It will be full of life itself. Along the banks, trees will grow heavy with fruit for food, and their leaves, the text tells, will be for healing (Ezekiel 47:1-12).

Baez concluded the concert with "Gracias a la Vida." Thanks to Life.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.3194919 2013-05-01T16:30:59-04:00 2013-05-02T16:47:53-04:00

Kristin M. Swenson, Ph.D. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-m-swenson-phd/ Cyrus Cylinder symposium at D.C.'s Freer Sackler Gallery, the artifact's first stop on a U.S. tour. It was a sunny Saturday morning, yet the hall was packed, and no one was snoozing. Rightly so, as the presenters are among the world's "A team" scholars of ancient Persia.

But from the start, things did not go as many had hoped. For the scholarship presented complicates our widely accepted and most popular images of Cyrus the Great as a uniquely benevolent ruler who instituted policies of peace and tolerance such as the world had never seen before.

As it turns out, Cyrus' declaration as articulated in the famous Cyrus Cylinder was not itself revolutionary. It conformed to the speech and vision expected from Mesopotamia's conquering rulers. Cyrus was not the first to express religious tolerance or to claim to have liberated his subjects from the wrong-headed and oppressive rule of his predecessor. Such statements, the scholarship shows, were par for the course, the expected norm from a conquering king.

What do we do with such knowledge? For it would seem to sever a golden filament of hope for common ground between modern Iranians and Americans, a position from which to express mutual respect and even goals toward which we could strive together. At a time when Iranians feel misunderstood, victims of ignorant prejudices and hateful associations, at a time when we yearn for something on which to agree, along comes the Cyrus Cylinder, an object that would seem to show that justice and human rights has been the desire of the Iranian people from their inception, and the acceptance of religious diversity, too. Along comes Cyrus, "the author of the first declaration of human rights," called messiah in the Bible, the benevolent ruler of a huge and prosperous empire.

It was no surprise, then, that faced with competing evidence, some people at the symposium felt betrayed. One man actually said to the panel that they seemed a well-orchestrated congress of anti-Iranian sentiment. Many attendees expected customary laud but heard something else. For some, the foundation on which they had built an image of Cyrus that informed exciting and admirable ideas about Iran had been shaken.

I am one who was first attracted to studying Cyrus and the ancient Persian empire for all the wonderful qualities that I listed above. But as I began to dig deeper, to read the available scholarship including the work of those who spoke at the Freer Sackler, to examine the sources for myself, and to compare what I learned in one place with what I heard in another, my image of Cyrus grew more troubled and then more complex. In short, he became human.

I am reminded of the effect that biblical scholarship can have. When people learn that the Bible developed over a long period of time, that we do not have an original version but only copies of copies and those don't all agree, when people learn that Paul didn't write all the letters attributed to him, or that the final author of Daniel lived during a time of Greek (not Persian) rule, some people think they must reject it entirely.

The logic goes, how can the Bible be God's Word if it has such a checkered history? But who says that God's Word had to come in one great chunk out of nowhere, make perfect sense, and endure as that original autograph? Why can't it be dynamic and earthy, complicated, contradictory and as challenging as it is comforting?

Once I allowed for Cyrus' humanity, he became extraordinary again. For Cyrus did indeed grow an empire larger than the world had ever seen before in which native leaders continued to wield power and diverse peoples enjoyed autonomy in worship. Cyrus wisely conformed to expectations that were themselves enlightened, that ensured the least chaotic and least bloody transfer of power, and that honored the traditions he inherited. What's more, the memory of Cyrus that we have inherited today is a profound legacy of leadership, justice and peace -- no matter who exactly he was or how exactly he ruled. That such a legacy is embraced by Iranians and Americans as well as many others is reason to celebrate indeed.

Finally, I am confident that it is better to adopt whatever knowledge an open-minded investigation of the past may yield than to turn our backs on it. If our hopes and expectations must adjust in light of new knowledge, then let them adjust. The onus is on us to find ways to bring any such knowledge to bear on our common quest for justice, for human rights and for peace.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article pointed to Joel Osteen's purported loss of faith as an example. It appears now that that was a hoax. The author apologizes for her error.

]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2784887 2013-03-01T13:35:55-05:00 2013-05-01T05:12:01-04:00

Kristin M. Swenson, Ph.D. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-m-swenson-phd/
The self-defining "mids" -- middle class, mid-life -- are no longer so clear as they were when my parents were my age. Whether what I'm in and doing is mid-life or not (as for middle-class, who knows?!), I find that I'm redefining my self -- again. There's nothing mid about it. I'm back at pre-. At least there's comfort in knowing it's the norm among my peers. Shoot, even the pope is starting over.

Sometimes I think about the lifespans of people not so long ago -- most died around my age. And women, child-birthing and all, would be lucky to have made it this far. Yet by today's medical reckoning, I've got decades yet to go. So when depression hits at news of yet another individual with spectacular achievements by her mid-forties, I remember that I've got basically another lifetime to go. It perks me right up.

Still. Starting over ain't easy. I worked my tail off for the Ph.D. that finally landed a tenure-track job in which, after amounts of work inverse to pay, I seized the plum of tenure only to toss its sweet satisfaction away. And so I am starting again. I'm lucky, though. I wanted this, and I'm doing things I love.

The trick, the Zen masters say, is hanging on to beginner's mind, no matter one's circumstances, experience or expertise. For in that state everything is possible. One is radically open, eager and alive. Sounds delicious and oh, so easy. The difficulty is in its maintenance. Like that writing project right around the corner or gardening when it's still mid-winter. Everything is possible until you put a word on the page or a seed in the ground. Then and in what follows, the expert novices say, is when beginner's mind really counts.

See, the sky's the limit -- until you actually start. Writing descends to drivel, aphids hit the eggplant, and your lover leaves the cap off the proverbial toothpaste -- again. That's when beginner's mind, if I understand correctly, is especially important: to recognize the present and see even within it, bloom-less rose and all, the boundless and wonderful possibilities it contains.

I AM, God said to Moses, when pressed for a name. Or is it "I will be what I will be"? The Hebrew allows both.

Starting again. Starting over. Paradox and surprise. Starting presumes it's a first. Yet "again"? Or perhaps it is to begin from the "over," the opposite, the flip-side. Paradox and surprise. So it is that beginner's mind is an expert's business. And according to Suzuki, "the real secret to the arts." Always to be a beginner. From that mind of empty openness comes deepest, boundless compassion.

Not so bad then, maybe, to begin again. Now if only I can find the mind to go with it.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2415129 2013-01-07T14:24:08-05:00 2013-03-09T05:12:01-05:00

Kristin M. Swenson, Ph.D. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-m-swenson-phd/
Toward the end of the last year, which I will nostalgically refer to as 2012, I was humming along. Finished a rough draft of Novel #1, and... OK, that's about it. But then, like some backcountry alpine skier who snags an errant boulder, I flipped. Now I'm filing my nails, reordering the cupboards, and walking in circles. Literally.

I know what this is. Steven Pressfield calls it "Resistance." Although that words seems too benign, I don't have a better one. I do agree with him that it's evil. That may seem strong language, too overblown and dramatic (and now coming from a long-time religion professor, no less). But hey. This negative energy however it's generated and whatever form it takes, if it gets in the way of a person's digging into herself and dragging out for the world something to offer, then it's evil.

Whatever interferes with a person's expression of his whole and unique humanity is evil. Consider the opposite: the act of creating what is "good," what is "very good," is nothing short of divine (so sayeth Genesis 1, anyway). Yet somehow, despite the glorious power of creative expression, that badness gets inside -- a bug in the brain, so to speak, a poison in the blood -- and warps our drive, diverts our purpose, and precludes productivity. Excuses abound.

How to slay it? First, I don't think we ever do. It's a peculiar part of our wonderfully messed-up make-up. So maybe we borrow from the rulebook of eastern martial arts: divert its energy away or even back against it. If this sounds too woo-woo philosophical, I'll put it to you in the spirit of Garrison Keillor's Evelyn Lundberg Counseling Agency (ELCA): Get to work.

It works. No excuses, just get to it. It's only taken me four days to compose this blog (*only* hah!). But Novel #2 is back on track. It ain't pretty, and it ain't perfect. But it sure is fun. And for the time being, at least, I've gotten the Uglies off my back. Now you. Back to work.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2358824 2012-12-27T16:13:28-05:00 2013-02-26T05:12:01-05:00

Kristin M. Swenson, Ph.D. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-m-swenson-phd/
As I've lost my grip on all the other Christmas traditions still dear to me -- the weekly advent services leading up; making pepparkakor, rum balls, and sweet rye bread; practicing my piano part for the "Jesu Bambino" trio with my sisters; the pickled herring and cold duck; singing carols to myself while skiing through Lester/Amity's quiet woods of birch and pine; even the iconic tree itself -- even as I've let these slip away in the context of new relationships and warmer climes (differently rich and delightful), there is one, sparkling mystery of the season that will not let me go.

It is this: the notion that the Creator of all that is, the One who endures before and beyond, the Master Storyteller of life and the midwife of our deaths has chosen also to be a tiny thing of flesh and blood cast as helpless as any manatee pup, fledgling warbler, or leatherback hatchling on the mercy of the world.

And each year, within every cycle of time, even as the times change and our lives too, it comes round again: the radical vulnerability of God, willingly chosen out of desire for intimacy with a complicated, hard-headed and desperately tender world.

For isn't that the Christmas story? That God chose in this moment not to strong-arm or control but to issue the gentlest of invitations to the world, to each person who inhabits our blue-green planet the opportunity for caretaking nothing less than the embodiment of all that is divine.

I wish for you the miracle of embracing a vulnerable sacredness with all of a new parent's life-changing terror and love.

Peace and Joy to you and yours.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2171476 2012-11-21T14:00:52-05:00 2013-01-21T05:12:01-05:00

Kristin M. Swenson, Ph.D. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-m-swenson-phd/
Thanksgiving is the most American of holidays and not only because it's specific to our nation. It's also the one that everybody, no matter what else they believe, can get on board with. We even, for a brief moment, acknowledge the extraordinary people who called this land home before European settlers came along.

Last year, President Obama caught a lot of flak for not mentioning God in his Thanksgiving address to the nation. I understand -- "God bless America," and all that. Yet even as this nation may be "one ... under God," exactly who defines God and how is not clear. Nor should it be. This is a nation of diversity and strong because of that.

I come out of a Protestant Christian tradition, so my faith is informed by biblical traditions. Of late, I've been preoccupied by the thought that even as God is grandly other and "out there," God is dynamic with life and deeply interested in a relationship with the world. Not just a relationship, but in a desire for the world's well-being -- not grossly manipulative but allowing for the radical freedom of people to think and choose. So, this God is interested in relationships (plural), too, which leads me back to Thanksgiving.

There is something sacred in the business of giving thanks: it honors relationships, admits some humility and brings joy. Sweet, holy joy to the thank-er most of all. And the objects of our thanks -- friends, family, the good earth, health, wildness, a gentle dog -- are they not somehow, by means of some bright mystery, also the matter of an incarnate God? So how necessary, how accurate, is the word itself?

I offer this, a kind of riff. You might catch some favorite Thanksgiving Psalms (30, 95, 100) as well as allusion to Obama's 2011 address. And you'll find that "God" is absent; but not really.

For the goodness that is greater than any one of us, that each of us nevertheless can bring: For you who turn sadness to dancing, who make grievous rags into garments of joy. For you who serve in soup kitchens and classrooms, who wear the sober uniforms of arms, the lab coats of discovery, and the dirty denim of wise husbandry. That in all things you would work for Good, for Right, for Beauty, Kindness, and Truth. Thanks be!

Inhabit this great gushy land with leaping gratitude and whoops of wondering joy. Give thanks! Thank the pulsing mystery of life, shooting stars and spinning atoms, for love everlasting that cannot be bound but stains each one of us with a power divine.

Come, let us sing for what is strong and brave, for the courage to be weak, to kneel and to need. Give thanks and thanks. Amen.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2039459 2012-10-29T14:14:27-04:00 2012-12-29T05:12:02-05:00

Kristin M. Swenson, Ph.D. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-m-swenson-phd/
For a god to be a god, it has always been crucial that she or he control water, if not actually be the water. From the Nile to the Ganges, from Flood to Galilee. Water.

So, is it an act of impious arrogance or (God forbid) secularization that leads us to conclude that human decisions and human actions can affect the seas, the rivers, lakes and dew? Or more: that it is imperative that human beings seek sustainable management of natural resources? No. It is as an act of the most universally religious sort to care. I'm not talking about care as just a mushy feeling, but an active mustering of all the tools that make us human -- of rigorous learning, wisdom and compassion -- to get past our egos and individual self-interest to promote the deepest well-being of all.

I don't know if Sandy's devastating strength is a direct result of human choices; but to imagine that changing our world as we do doesn't, well, change our world is just plain silly. I paddle sometimes on the reservoir near our house. Every so often it crosses my mind that I'm paddling over former fields -- pasture, woodlands. I've seen an aerial photo of the region before Charlottesville dammed the Rivanna River. Big green hills now make for good fishing.

Along the river's banks, with eagles, turtles and herons, live an amazing couple, deeply committed to caring for this waterway and more. They hosted a gathering of the Rivanna Conservation Society, where I met others actively working to help the region's residents appreciate the river and protect its health. Just yesterday, I received a flyer from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and I know that my most constant childhood companion, the great Gitchee Gummee, has its own Save Lake Superior Association.

Some weeks ago, I met an incredible group of people, mobilized by an Iraqi engineer, who grew up in the marshlands of southern Iraq, a unique region struggling to recover from Saddam Hussein's efforts to oust the people by draining their homeland. Nature Iraq is the product of a team of Americans and Iraqis joined in work along the Tigris river, reinvigorating its ecosystems from the mountains of Kurdistan to the Persian Gulf. It is accredited to the United Nations Environment programme (UNEP), Iraq's first and only affiliate to Birdlife International, and the only Middle Eastern affiliate to the waterkeeper.org/.

Thank goodness there are such people doing such work. It's hard always to know the right way. Such leaders help us to act. Yet even knowing, it's a discipline (no less than one traditionally religious) to choose the most sustainable way. I for one fail regularly. Sure there's grace -- grace in the earth, grace in the heavens -- however you define it; but that doesn't change the charge we bear as intelligent, thumb-wielding creatures to care.

The Japanese poet Basho wrote, "Patiently fishing in the lake, the crane's long legs have shortened since the rains." The heron on the pond behind my office just lifted off, its broad wings clearing power lines and the limbs of an old silver maple. They say the winds are coming.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1547720 2012-06-04T08:10:17-04:00 2012-08-04T05:12:12-04:00

Kristin M. Swenson, Ph.D. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-m-swenson-phd/
Now, I've seen Chagall's stained glass windows in Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem -- a visual representation of biblical poetry describing the 12 tribes of Israel (Genesis 49 and Deuteronomy 33). I'm a fan of his sketches and paintings, too. But there's something particularly moving about this space flooded with a cool and calming blue.

Blue dominates the windows and thus the chapel illuminated by them. The biggest windows, those that flank the sanctuary have no figures in them at all but wave and swirl in shades of blues. These were not actually made by Chagall but by Charles Marq, a friend and sometimes collaborator with Chagall. The men's names have a graceful symmetry -- Marc Chagall, Charles Marq -- that suits the manner in which Marq picked up without strictly imitating Chagall's colors and style after the master's death and carried them forward in this place.

But it is the windows that Chagall created that are the transporting art of St. Stephan's Mainz. The celebration of creation, the wonder of a God in relation to ordinary human beings, the partnership of male and female, and the power of sacred text, these are not specifically Jewish or Christian ideas but transcend religious lines. That said, Chagall included also the Christian-specific images of Mary's annunciation and the crucifixion of Christ. I have never seen Christ in flight on the cross, and I'm not sure that Chagall had that in mind when he created this image. Yet there is a lift to Jesus' arms and hands, a weightlessness down through his legs that suggests flight and escapes the usual dolor of the scene. Or maybe the angels and birds that all around simply worked on my subconscious in ways that made me see Chagall's Christ as already transformed and transforming.

Chagall was a mystic. He called his art "supranatural." Anyone familiar with the biblical narratives in Genesis or with Moses and David will recognize them in these images, but Chagall took license, too. In the bottom panel of one of the side windows a great big red rooster with a smaller woman figure is called "Polarity of the Creation." David plays his harp in heaven near the top of another panel.

That Chagall made these windows when he was in his 90s is inspiration in itself. Add to that that the images, cast in Chagall's seemingly effortless style, are by all accounts imperfect. The candles lean a bit, there's a floating donkey with no real feet but a sweet, sweet smile, and one of the angels has two faces. But who cares? It works. It so works.

I walked out of the church into a warm and breezy afternoon feeling lighter. The experience reminded me that reconciliation and healing between peoples is possible. What is imperfect can be invaluably great. A single lifetime is never enough, so never quit. And there is much, much, so much more than any one of us is or sees or can even imagine.

So let the fiddlers float, rainbows serve as rooster perch and Jerusalem come down from heaven. Oh, and please, don't anyone bomb Mainz again.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1516054 2012-05-16T12:39:23-04:00 2012-07-16T05:12:04-04:00

Kristin M. Swenson, Ph.D. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-m-swenson-phd/ psalmoi, "songs." Their music, the tunes supposed to accompany them, has been lost to us. Melodies such as "The Lilies," "Doe of the Morning" and "Do Not Destroy," denoted in the introduction of individual psalms, are mysteries to us. We have no idea how they go -- what key, what tempo, how loud or soft. Are they "happy" or "sad," lilting or ponderous? We don't even know how to translate some of the terms that likely refer to original tunes. Mahalath, for example, or gittith.

I got thinking about this because yesterday I had the rare opportunity to feast like some drunken bacchanal on live music performed by five amazing singer-songwriters. This was not a music festival but simply a day that coincidentally offered a house concert on a country afternoon and then a show in the evening at the renovated Jefferson Theater downtown. En route to each, on winding roads decorated by horses and green spring yielding to summer, the iPod on shuffle filled the car until finally I had to call "sensory overload." We let final notes float out the window somewhere between Palmyra and Charlottesville.

Music is ultimately indefinable, but isn't that the way? After all, words endure but a tune exists only while it can persuade invisible waves of sound to dance around our heads just so. My favorite music is tunes with words -- songs. This is poetry taken to a whole new level. Then again, that's not quite right because, unlike pure poetry, the lyrics of songs are an empty carapace without the tune that animates them.

They may be interesting, they may be stirring, but lyrics mean best when strung onto notes by a living, breathing singer, who hangs them like ornaments on simple respiration in a dazzlingly complex biological process. Add instruments, and wow, no limits. A song is radically impermanent. Yet it can be recreated over and over again when a set of lyrics meets its key: a tune to pump its heart, plied by those uncommon magicians, the alchemists of sound.

I suspect that each of the musicians who shifted the air of my yesterday would cringe to be called by such lofty names. But they know what they do. Danny Schmidt, with his quiet ways, has composed some of the most courageously thoughtful songs and performs them with grace. Carrie Elkin will blow you away. That girl's got chops as big as her heart and she puts all of both into each song she sings... then with the applause, shrugs and grins like she just dropped a cake. The Milk Carton Kids (Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan) transport with heartbreaking understatement. Extraordinary musical facility, both vocal and on vintage guitars, meets humor, smarts and style on an otherwise ordinary stage. Finally (just because she was the last act we heard), Dar Williams. "The Mercy of the Fallen," need I say more? OK, then "The Christians and the Pagans."

So, I feel bad for the biblical psalms. In Hebrew, their home language, the collection is called tehillim -- "songs of praise." This ups the mystery ante. After all, the book is dominated by complaint. Evocative expressions of pain and suffering -- all kinds and on all levels are far more common than happier sentiments. Yet somehow, all together, they are "Praise Songs." And how poignant that the book's Greek title, Psalms, comes from a word that may refer as much to a stringed instrument as the "songs" it accompanied.

Now, you may call me sacrilegious, but as much as I wish we knew the full music of those biblical texts, I do not believe that they alone possess sanctifying power. I do not believe that the sacred is bound by text or that the divine is circumscribed by religion. Holiness happens in the oddest places and may be carried along by something as profound, as singular and transitory, as a song.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1452266 2012-04-28T10:28:46-04:00 2012-06-28T05:12:03-04:00

Kristin M. Swenson, Ph.D. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-m-swenson-phd/
But what is that name? The short (but incomplete) answer is that it's the four-letter word that God introduced to Moses -- a Hebrew word that played on the verb "to be": "I am who I am." Transliterating those four Hebrew letters yields some variation of YHWH or JHVH.

In an effort not to mess with the name, early biblical texts showed its presence with four simple dots. Some people today will use Ha-Shem ("the name" in Hebrew) or Adonai ("lord" in Hebrew) rather than risk tampering with the real thing. "Jehovah" is a hybrid composed of the consonants of the Hebrew four-letter name plus the vowels of the Hebrew title "lord." Many English translations represent the four-letter name with "LORD" (not to be confused with "Lord," a translation of the Hebrew adonai or of the Greek kurios.) It's the four-letter Hebrew name that's behind the commandment quoted above.

Efforts not to take the Name in vain have extended also to the description-word "God." So we get the charming "gosh darn," "good golly," even "for goodness sakes." "Sheesh," of course falls into the same category, this time to avoid "Jesus," along with "criminy" and my personal favorite "jiminy cricket."

A new translation of the Bible just came out: "The Voice." It's wildly unconventional insofar as it attempts to realize a profound theological belief: that God's Word can be loosed from the constraints of traditional translation AND that its version is neither the only nor the last word. By employing different creative writers to render individual books (and scholars to vet the results), "The Voice" models the Bible's diversity of voices, a quality that most translations flatten. But its departure from strict translation supposes the value of other, more traditional ones, too.

Among the plethora of new Bible translations, "The Voice" stands out for its courageous effort to make biblical texts sensible to today's readers in new ways. Predictable styles, vocabulary and idioms are absent. In their place: interpretation that illuminates and clarifies terminology that can be misleading or opaque to modern readers. In some cases, that traditional terminology may be so familiar that we don't even know what we're missing.

Such efforts are bound to be misunderstood. For example, the book's release elicited this sensational headline: "Christ Missing From New Bible." Ah, the beauty of punctuation: Christ is not missing from the new translation; "Christ" is. Few people know that the word "Christ" is actually a transliteration of a translation of a word with an ancient meaning that itself is multivalent. Its use today, however, is monotone at best and sometimes dead wrong. (Christ is not Jesus' name, first or last, but a descriptive title). "The Voice" reaches out to draw back the curtain on such terms, providing poetic interpretation and fresh description.

Despite the liberty "The Voice" editors gave to the creative writers who worked on the different biblical books, they standardized monikers for God. I don't agree with every choice they made, but I applaud the effort. They sought to render the various names and descriptions for God that appear in the Bible in ways that get at the theological implications of those Greek and Hebrew terms.

In a stroke of theological brilliance, Leonard Cohen sings in "Hallelujah," "You say I took the name in vain./ I don't even know the name./ But if I did, well, really what's it to ya?/ There's a blaze of light in every word./ It doesn't matter which you heard/ the holy or the broken hallelujah."

"The Name" as it functions in the Bible is in some mysterious way an aspect of a dynamic and living God. It suggests that in some powerful and mysterious way, God's Name makes the presence and being of that God somehow accessible, somehow know-able to human beings. In other words, by revealing the Name, God made Godself vulnerable. Human beings have the capacity to misuse the Name, and that goes far beyond any expletive. It extends to our treatment of others, of the planet, of anything or anyone that falls within the purview of God.

Now, I'm not sure how to reconcile the freedom of God with the accessibility of the Name, but I am pretty sure that "the Name of God" is far more dynamic and multifaceted than any single word. Maybe, as Cohen's song suggests, every single word can carry something of the divine within it or otherwise evoke the holy and make it real. Think logos, Holy Writ and all that.

Biblical theology suggests both that human beings cannot fully possess the Name of God with all that it implies and at the same time that we nevertheless bear responsibility for how we wield the Word. The sum of those prescribes humility in the face of profound knowledge, openness to what my challenge and even change us, and unceasing restraint.

Full disclosure: I translated three books for 'The Voice' and consulted on a couple of others. I was paid for my work but will receive no royalties.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1403962 2012-04-11T13:49:42-04:00 2012-06-11T05:12:02-04:00

Kristin M. Swenson, Ph.D. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-m-swenson-phd/
We human beings get, for the most part, to determine the quality of our lives. But the animals who live with us are, as we say, "at our mercy." Yet what a strange expression. For "mercy" presumes guilt. To be merciful is to choose not to punish when punishment is due. At least that's the definition that makes sense in the religious language where the term is most at home. Mercy is the prerogative of the one who dispenses justice. And if it is given at all, it is given to the guilty.

Of what moral blunders or ethical infractions could a dog, a horse, a bird, a cat, a guinea pig be guilty? It's silly to contemplate. Failures to obey our commands hardly count. Even "vicious" behavior, when we account for its origins in the likes of fear, abuse, or pain, doesn't qualify as criminal in the cases of the animals whose lives we so define.

It is precisely because of an animal's innate innocence human beings have for millennia used animals for sacrifice, as the vicarious repositories for our guilt. We are now in the season of Passover and Easter, when Jews and Christians recall how the blood of a lamb won the life of human beings. Yet this is not the place for a discourse on sacrifice.

What I mean rather to write about is the privilege and responsibility we have for the animals in our keeping. Not only that, but also how that relationship shapes us. It is not, after all, one-sided. Who we are is partly who our animals help us to be, simply by being themselves. Right now, for me, that is learning to treasure the memory of an old hound and the gifts of present moments as they happen.

Animals do not agonize over their deaths, worrying in advance, or living for what may or may not come after. They simply live while they live. The present is all there is, and it is full. What it is full of, in the case of those animals who live with us, is largely defined by us. We kid ourselves if we think that it is not.

This, I think, is part of what it means "to have dominion," in the biblical language of Genesis. It is to accept and exercise the power we have to determine the quality of lives other than our own and to do so in ways that promote the best for all. In the case of animals, such dominion is paradoxically strengthened by our willingness to be weak, to be open to what the animals themselves may teach us about goodness and what is right.

I don't propose that we should live exactly like the beasts, nor that we should imagine animals to be just like human beings. But what a gift to be reminded that food in the belly, fresh water, and the loving company of a friend can make for a rich life. Not, I should add, that such was the sum of my dog's longing. In the case of my dear departed, the dog was no saint. Sneaking the dessert cheese off an unattended platter while we said goodbye to guests, passing gas sufficiently potent to drop an elephant or at least drive my husband from our bed, straining at the leash enough to put my neck and shoulders out for a week, and so on. But I'd have it no other way.

And I'd have him back, if I could. But my dog was sick. He was old, with a congenital heart defect that worsened with age. He got sicker. We tried to keep him comfortable and succeeded for a time with various medications and lots of attention. Then he got even sicker, quit eating, couldn't walk very well, and drew breath only with great difficulty. So, on Tuesday afternoon I lied with him in the warming sun and stroked his soft speckled ears. Then with the help of our kind veterinarian, he died.

"Merciful"? There are some who would call me a killer, I suppose, in hastening death. But there's that pesky "dominion" thing, again - to decide with intelligence, compassion, and wisdom. So we do the best we can to care for those within our charge, love without reservation, and let them shape and teach us. Then, when we have done our best, we might still hope for our own kind of mercy.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1031833 2011-10-28T13:12:59-04:00 2011-12-28T05:12:01-05:00

Kristin M. Swenson, Ph.D. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-m-swenson-phd/
There is one day each year when it could happen, when a civil conversation between our countries, and even the factions within them, could take place: Oct. 29, a day commemorating the founder of the Persian Empire.

Cyrus II is a hero to many Iranians still today, 2,500 years later, beloved in part for his policies of religious freedom and human rights. Ahmadinejad praised such policies when Tehran received, on loan from the British Museum, the ancient clay document attributed to Cyrus and recognized as the first declaration of human rights. International Cyrus the Great Day affords an opportunity for parties as disparate as Republicans and Democrats, Americans and Iranians to come together for the common good. Cyrus II wrote the first declaration of human rights and established a para daeza, "paradise" in what is now southern Iran. Without him, we may never have had a Bible. The biblical prophet Isaiah calls him a messiah, which means "anointed" in Hebrew, chosen by God for a special purpose of salvation.

On Oct. 29, in 539 B.C., Cyrus II rode into Babylon (about 50 miles south of modern Baghdad), and ancient sources say that its conquered masses threw palm fronds at his feet. Among the people who witnessed his arrival were those who had been taken captive some 50 years earlier when the Babylonian empire swept through the Middle East, destroying nations and dragging captives back to Babylon. They included people from ancient Israel who had witnessed the destruction not only of their nation, Judah, but also of its temple in Jerusalem. "By the rivers of Babylon," a biblical psalm laments, "we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion."

Cyrus allowed those exiles to return home, to rebuild their communities and to reestablish their religious practices. In a document inscribed on a clay cylinder, Cyrus recalled the purpose for which he would be king: relief from oppression and the restoration of exiled peoples to their lands and to their gods. Last year, Ahmadinejad proudly greeted the original's return to Iran (on loan from the British Museum) saying, "the Cylinder reads that everyone is entitled to freedom of thought and choice and all individuals should pay respect to one another." A copy of Cyrus' document is on permanent display in the U.N. building in New York City.

Babylon was not Cyrus' last stop. The vast territory of his empire ultimately included today's Israel, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Cyrus pushed to the edges of India when a sheltered Hindu by the name of Siddartha Gautama threw himself into investigating the roots of human suffering. As the Buddha, he realized a mechanism for relief. In China, Confucius promoted social harmony through the ethical action of individuals, and Lao-tzu drew from ancient ideals and nature to find peace in the dynamic balance of opposites characteristic of Taoism. Judaism took shape as a religion, and Iran's own Zoroastrianism developed, with its emphasis on individual freedom to choose what is right and good, influencing biblical literature and later Christianity, too.

How much each of these religious ideas may have influenced the others is a question with intriguing potential. In Cyrus' Persia, scribes and theologians could travel as well as armed military. The Silk Road ran through the empire, and Cyrus established a transportation system so sophisticated that messengers were able to deliver news with unprecedented speed. "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from their appointed rounds," the ancient Greek historian Herodotus said of the Persian roads (The Histories 8.98).

Many biblical scholars think that the Bible's beginnings were in Babylon. Without nation or temple, the exiles turned to stories old and new. The first part of the Bible accepted as religiously authoritative, its first five books, probably did so thanks to the exiles' determination to remember (and to shape) who they were and what they believed. Yet without Cyrus' patronage, those texts may never have survived much less developed into the remarkable collection that is the Bible.

Though populated by diverse peoples, free to exercise their distinct identities and religious beliefs, Cyrus' empire was a dynamic unity. Only later would the world become bifurcated into the Greek West and the Oriental East and be bloodied by competing monotheisms. Our modern relationship with Iran has hardly been comfortable, even before the latest bizarre-ities, so to suggest that we might find common ground on Saturday would seem absurd. Yet on October 29, an Iranian king who predates the quarrels between Islam, Christianity and Judaism and the rift between East and West, whose legacy is defined by the timeless ideals of personal freedom and human dignity gives us a place from which to begin again a conversation for the common good. ]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.874242 2011-06-09T14:17:15-04:00 2011-08-09T05:12:01-04:00

Kristin M. Swenson, Ph.D. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-m-swenson-phd/ against reading the Bible. Not exactly, anyway. Thing is, the Bible doesn't lend itself to reading straight through for understanding in the ways that modern books do. It is a wildly unusual book, and there is a big difference between simply reading it and knowing about it.

Simply reading the Bible (really reading it, in any of its three main forms, all the way through) without any background information results more often than not in bewilderment and confusion, leaving readers at the mercy of others to interpret for them. Why is there so much concern about dermatological conditions, so little about homosexuality, and nothing explicitly about abortion? How many animals did Noah take into the ark -- two of every kind, or seven pairs of some kinds? Where is Zion in relation to Jerusalem? Was the Last Supper on Passover or not? Why does Isaiah prophesy, "they shall beat their swords into ploughshares" and Joel prophesy, "they shall beat their ploughshares into swords"? Does God disapprove of, or demand divorce? Why would Paul praise Phoebe as a deacon and also say that women shouldn't teach or have any authority? And what's with the "whore of Babylon"?

Without any background information, simply reading the Bible is not only really hard (Leviticus, anyone?), but also it can lead to all sorts of problems. Some are innocuous misunderstandings, such as today's Ezekiel 4:9 breads and cereals -- cheerfully confident that the recipe is biblical and their preparation mandated by God. Trouble is, God did not urge people to make the bread out of righteousness or anything healthful and good. Rather, God forced the prophet-priest to make it by mixing things that were supposed to be kept distinct in order to show how bad things would be for the sinful people in Babylonian exile. Made by breaking the biblical commandments that respect God's ordered universe, the original bread was meant to communicate uncleanness and disgust. (The modern versions are delicious nonetheless.)

Other uninformed readings can have terrible effects. Take, for example, the Bible's assumption of slavery as an acceptable, normal human institution. A quick review of the challenges facing abolitionists in antebellum America reveals how many God-fearing Christians appealed to the Bible to justify keeping slaves. Then again, there is Jesus' command to pluck out your eye or cut off your hand if said anatomy leads to sin; and there's the mandate for Israelites to kill all the people who lived in the land they understood to be promised to them. Most people today have seen the ways that flatly reading Bible can lead to supercessionism, misogyny, and a devastating environmental ethic.

Sure, there's some overlap between reading and knowing -- just by reading, you'd observe that the Bible includes both a seven-day creation story and a Garden of Eden creation story, for example. But just by reading, you also might think that "LORD" is emphatic for "Lord," or that Jesus was at odds with the Jews. Knowing about the Bible, though, you'd understand why there are two different creation stories, that "LORD" is a convention in English translations for the Hebrew four-letter name for God (and not the translation of a word meaning "lord"), and that Jesus himself lived and died as a Jew.

Knowing something about the Bible -- its historical backgrounds and development, its languages of origin and the process of translation, and its use within religious communities as well as secular contexts -- enables readers to make sense of biblical texts and references for themselves. For religious people, such knowledge can enrich their faith; and nonreligious people may appreciate better why the Bible has endured with such power and influence.

Now, I know that many Christians, relying on biblical texts, maintain that the Holy Spirit will make the meaning of biblical texts clear to believers. And I don't deny it, but maybe you know this story: The Church decided to establish a monastery in a wild, rural area. Some time later, the bishop paid a visit, to see how things were going. After reviewing the buildings and activities, the bishop wandered admiringly in its lovely gardens. To the monk toiling there, he said, "My, my! The good Lord and you have made a beautiful place." The gardener monk replied, "You should see how it looked when the good Lord was taking care of it by himself."

One of the things that I love about the Bible is its resistance to reduction. By way of a few examples, there are several stories of creation and four different narratives of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. Consider the coexistence of explanations of suffering as punishment and the book of Job. Yet declarative and absolutist statements beginning, "the Bible says," and bumper stickers such as "God said it. I believe it. That settles it" are commonplace.

When people urge others first to read the Bible, it's usually because the recommender assumes that they'll come away sharing the same beliefs as the recommender's. Knowing some background information (the more, the better) about the Bible is bound to lead instead to fruitful discussion. Maybe it's there, in the spaces of informed conversation about a multi-faceted Word of God, in the dynamism of humble learning and listening, that the Holy Spirit pulls up a chair and the Bible reveals its richest meanings.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.839760 2011-03-26T21:19:25-04:00 2011-05-26T05:12:02-04:00

Kristin M. Swenson, Ph.D. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-m-swenson-phd/
This is a big year for the King James Version (KJV, for short). Blow out the candles before the house goes up in smoke, the KJV is 400 years old. Ironically, especially in light of the young woman's misunderstanding, the story of the translation's development is not so very different from the Bible's earliest beginnings: it evolved over time (though a much shorter period); a lot of people were involved; and those people had a variety of texts "to hand," some of which they included, others they rejected and all of which required repackaging.

But who cares about the old KJV, except for a few Bible nerds such as ? Well, for one thing (venture capitalists, take note) the business of translating the Bible into English really got humming with the KJV. Now a multimillion dollar industry, people are snapping up any number of versions from the eco-minded Green Bible (for the college bound vegetarian daughter), the graphic novel Manga Bible (for her comic book crazy brother), The Teen Study Bible (from well-meaning god-parents lost in the world of Xbox, Lady Gaga and Wii), variations on the ever-beloved Children's Bible, and the Good News Bible (for the baby boomer sibling's shelf of hippie nostalgia). For the buyer, inclined toward the most popular modern English translation, a dilemma: go with the new, gender-inclusive NIV or stick with the man-means-everybody-dammit version. The Bible is a perennial best-seller and not in the Hebrew and Greek of its origins.

Second, the King James Version shows up at least as often as any other in pop culture references to the Bible, despite its thees and thous and sometimes impenetrably antique vocabulary and syntax ("peradventure," anyone?). From its beginning, the KJV has been the gold standard of Bible-sounding language. Why? Not only is it lyrical with a cadence beautiful to our ears, but its very strangeness makes it sound the most Bible-y of all translations, and that has been a self-perpetuating condition. Some of its turns of phrase and word choices were out of date even in its own time. The original translators themselves chose archaic language, intending a version that evoked the endurance and wisdom of age and that transcended the vulgar and ordinary to sound dignified, yea, even divine.

Third, its development makes a mighty fine story. It began in 1604, when King James I convened a conference for theological debate whose agenda did not include what would become its most famous item -- an authorized version of the Bible endorsed by the king himself. Several predecessor English versions (the anti-monarchy notes of the popular Geneva Bible contributed to James' endorsement of a new translation), three committees (at three English centers of learning), and a few printing missteps later ("thou shalt commit adultery" being perhaps the most unfortunate ... or fortunate, depending on whom you asked), we finally had "a still small voice," "the root of the matter" and "to every thing there is a season."

In the end, knowing these things about the KJV reminds us that translating the Bible has never been simple (there's no single original Bible from which to work, for one thing); can always be dangerous (God help the person suspected of tampering with God's Word); and is ultimately doomed (our own language is constantly changing, regularly requiring new translations). Miles Smith declared in his preface to the King James Version, "Translation it is that openeth the window, to let in the light." The light that shines through the KJV has been refracted by the centuries, yet it streams through a whole new opening in what had been for ordinary folks an impenetrable wall of foreignness.

Kristin Swenson is the author of 'Bible Babel: Making Sense of the Most Talked About Book of All Time' (Harper, 2010), now in paperback (Harper Perennial, 2011), and Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.835721 2011-03-15T23:00:13-04:00 2011-05-25T18:40:24-04:00

Kristin M. Swenson, Ph.D. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-m-swenson-phd/
1. Every Bible is actually a collection of books. The word itself means something like "little library." Many of the Bible's books developed over a long period of time and include the input of a lot of people (ancient Israelites, Babylonian Jews and Greek pastors, to name a few), reflecting particular places (urban Jerusalem, the northern Galilee, rural Judah and ancient Persia, for example) and times (spanning as much as 1,000 years for the Old Testament and a couple of centuries for the New Testament). Plus, the collection as a whole developed over centuries. This helps to explain the tremendous variety of theological perspectives, literary style, and sometimes perplexing preoccupations (which animal parts go to which parties in which categories of sacrifices, e.g.), as well as why some texts disagree with others.

2. Not everyone who believes in it has the same Bible. There are actually different bibles, though they all started with Jews (but before Judaism, per se). The Christian bible includes and depends upon the Jewish bible -- the Protestant Christian Old Testament is composed of the same books as the Jewish Hebrew Bible, arranged in a different order; and non-Protestant Christians include a few more books and parts of books (which also originated in Jewish circles) in their Old Testaments. The books of the Christian New Testament reflect the process of Jesus' followers gradually distinguishing themselves from his religion, Judaism.

3. The Bible came after the literature it comprises. In other words, the material that became biblical wasn't written in order to be part of a Bible. This helps to explain the existence of a book of erotic love poetry (Song of Songs), one that doesn't mention God (Esther), another of intimate personal correspondence (Paul's letter to Philemon) and maybe why none of it was written by Jesus. The biblical texts are not disinterested reporting of objective facts but come from people of faith informed by particular beliefs.

4. If you're reading the Bible in English, you're reading a translation. With the exception of a small minority of Aramaic texts, the books of the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible were all written in Hebrew. The books of the New Testament were written in Greek. Every translation is by nature interpretation. If you've ever studied a foreign language, you know that it's impossible to convert exactly and for all time the literature or speech of any given language into another. A translator has to make choices. There are often several ways to render the original text, and changes in English affect the meaning we read as well.

5. Finally, this information about the Bible is compatible with belief in it. A person can simultaneously accept these truths about the Bible and the Bible as the Word of God. Doing so may require recalibrating assumptions, though, to allow for the possibility that God patiently works through people and time, enjoys a good debate and prefers inviting conversation over issuing absolutes. (Even the Ten Commandments, which would seem to be as absolute as anything, show up in two places in the Bible -- and with some differences.)

The Bible's endurance is astonishing. It continues to instruct and to inspire (in all sorts of interpretations and ways) the millions of people for whom it is their sacred and authoritative text. And it continues to ignite the imagination and enrich the speech, literature and art of people outside of the biblical faiths, too. Knowing the few bits of information provided here, as plain and pedantic as they may seem, makes it possible to make sense of the Bible -- its uses and abuses -- for yourself. It's like having the kind of friend who you know will keep you straight, surprise and delight you and encourage you to keep becoming exactly you. This information is more than a starting point. It's also a companion along the way, enabling new insights, providing correctives, and allowing space for the dynamism of your own ideas and learning.

Kristin Swenson is the author of Bible Babel: Making Sense of the Most Talked About Book of All Time (Harper, 2010; Harper Perennial, 2011) now available in paperback! She is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University.
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