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PCG Thoughts

Monday 01 January 2001 | 0 Comments

I was skimming Malachi’s Message this morning and I came upon an interesting paradox in the Armstrongian worldview. It was when I read Flurry’s condemnation of the WCG’s contribution to flood victims:

Dr. Ward explained how the WCG is changing its views about giving to hurricane and other disaster funds. This goes deeper than just giving to disaster victims — who do need help. This is a changing of the Church’s commission established by Christ — through Mr. Armstrong. Instead of spending money to warn the people why disasters are happening, the WCG helps them financially. Soon the world is going to be literally flooded with disasters! God is going to bring it to pass as punishment. Tithes and offerings are going to be spent in vain if they continue this approach.1

Of course such an attitude is not a surprise when one creates such an alterative universe as the PCG as done — they “nihiliate” all concerns outside their own world. But this points to something a little more interesting: the “commission” of God’s church is such that humanitarian aid is less important than warning the world. Warning the world of what, though? It’s fairly simple. Unless the United States and Britain repent and basically start following Armstrong’s philosophy and twisted theology, God destroy them in a nuclear holocaust that only God’s elect (read, “PCG members”) will escape. However, if they do repent, then God will spare them. However, it’s “prophesied” that all this will take place: the white Anglo-Saxons will eventually get their asses kicked by the whiter German Aryans.

So what’s the point of “warning the world” if it’s doomed to failure? I suppose the PCG answer is that God wants to call out a few people for training so that they can help God enforce his petty dietary laws and make sure racial segregation is the global norm. All of this creates an interesting paradox: Armstrongites are “desperately crying out” — “a voice cried out!” reeks of this last-minute, frenzied anxiety — wanting anyone who’ll listen to do so, and then change their ways. Yet they almost revel in the coming delight they’ll have in showing everyone that they were right: Armstrong’s Gnosticism was bang-on and everyone else will be groveling for forgiveness. I think deep down inside, Flurry and his minions (and all the other Armstrongites) are just dying for all hell to break loose, literally.

This leads to another interesting point: it’s amazing the amount of help Armstrong’s God needs. He needed help finishing up the creation of Earth — “putting the icing on the cake,” to use a favorite, worn-out Armstrong metaphor — and so he created angels. He will need help ruling over all these resurrected peoples in the World Tomorrow, so he’s calling out a few people now for training.

Finally, I noticed how Flurry almost always refers to HWA as “Mr. Armstrong.” I think in other theological writings people simply follow the scholarly standard and refer to people by their last name: “Armstrong taught . . .” and so on. But this doesn’t show the respect that Flurry and others always want to show Armstrong. He was not just a minister but also an Apostle, and the capital “A” is important. To refer to him simply as Armstrong would be wrong because a) it follows the worldly standard, and b) it separates him from his divine role. “Armstrong” is just a man; “Mr. Armstrong” is God’s Apostle.

1 Flurry, Gerald. Malachi’s Message to God’s Church Today. South Africa: Philadelphia Church of God, 1995. Page 95.

Work and More

Friday 22 December 2000 | 0 Comments

Home alone. Chhavi left for Tennessee Monday, and I’ve basically been alone since then. It’s been strangely nice, strangely empty. As I told her last night, I don’t really miss her during the day because I never really see her during the day. But at night, it’s a little different. I really don’t find I miss her, though, until it’s time to go to bed. I guess that’s just indicative of the lifestyle we’ve been living for several months now: we come home and then basically do our own things, alone, until it’s time for dinner, then again until it’s time for bed.

So the big DLI news this week: Tuesday we went out for lunch with Kali — Sweet Chili’s in Arligton — and as we were sitting down, Beth said something to me under her breath: “Did you know Val’s leaving?” I thought she was joking at first, but she had known well enough about Kali, so I took it as being probably true. Then Kali told us all. “Val’s leaving. Today is his last day.” So we went to Carberry’s and got a cake for him, then to Buck-a-Book and bought a card for him.

This means that the whole production-side mid/upper level management is now gone. Well, that’s not quite true since Natalie has her new position. Still, a whole level of the hierarchy has been taken out (i.e., vice president of production). Natalie will report straight to Layne now, as will Adam I suppose. I don’t honestly see that this will be much of a problem. If Val was incompetent as Peter always said, then it will actually be a good thing.

It’s interesting — six months after Rob quit and about three months after Peter quit, everyone they had problems with quit as well: Celina, Val, and Kali. Of course Rob would figure out someone else to have issues with. He seemed to latch onto hating Dale for the hell of it, so maybe someone else would get his dander up. And of course not everyone who annoyed him has left — Ron Smith (who, I admit, is fairly annoying) is still there. What the hell he’s doing, I’ve no idea.

How many people does that leave that were at DLI when I arrived? Bob, of course, and maybe a handful of others. I think Ellen Dixon was there before me, as were a few of the graphics folks and Kiki. Otherwise, I’m probably in the top ten as far as longevity goes.

Now for the big news. Yesterday I was talking to Natalie to see if there was anything she needed me to do, and she said, “No, but I wanted to talk to you.” Off we went to her cube, where she explained that Layne (!?) had asked her whether she would be willing to give me up to tech. Basically, the COO has noticed my work on the tech side of things and talked to my superior about getting me to change departments. Of course I said I was interested, and we then went over to meet with Kevin, the new CTO.

He’s a fairly mellow guy, I think, at least as far as his personality goes. I foresee him being a good guy to work with, though. I think he’ll expect a hell of a lot out of the people under him, but at the same time I think he’ll provide all the support we would need to get the job done.

We talked about the Big Dig that’s coming for the DLI site. Basically, we’re going to reconstruct the site while keeping the existing site going — hence the Big Dig metaphor. I’ve been thinking for a while that we could reduce the whole site down to ASP and SQL and have each page dynamically generated for each user. “That would entail creating a new linking tool,” I thought, “As well as completely re-doing the site. And that’s a huge expense that I don’t think DLI is interested in incurring.” Well, guess what we’re doing — something very similar. No ASP, though. Instead, it’ll all be XML with a Unix base and an Oracle DB. Three things I know nothing about. When Kevin explained the use of Unix and Oracle, I said, “There’s two things I know absolutely nothing about.” His response was quite encouraging: “So that’s two things you’ll have to learn.” Or something along those lines.

One of the things he mentioned was something else I’d never head of — digital dashboards. It turns out that we’re only using a small percentage of the Exchange server and Outlook’s capabilities. These two things can be used to provide massive amounts of information to in-house (and probably outside) employees, but we simply haven’t made the most of it. That’s one thing that Kevin wants us to do, and that makes me, in turn, very excited. I love the idea of being able to make stuff that directly impacts others’ lives and makes their work easier.

Speaking of that, one thing I haven’t written about but that I’m very happy about is the impact my silly macros (I must admit, I’m really sick of that word.) have had on others. Stephen Cebik told me that my macros have cut a process that used to take him upwards of five days down to a day and a half. That’s a major time savings. And of course part of me wants to say, “Hey, why don’t you tell Layne and Jay that. Maybe they’ll send a bit of those hundreds of dollars I’ve saved the company back my way.”

Back to my meeting with Kevin. He told me that I should think during the Christmas break about what kinds of things I’d like to do, then added with a laugh, “And then I’ll have you doing something entirely different.” I think that’s what I’ll do now — a list of things I’d love to do at DLI.

I’d like to be able to work with people a lot. That’s why this digital dashboard stuff seems so exciting to me. It would be like making macros in that I would be creating things that helped people in the here and now. So I think that would be a great thing to get started on — creating these dashboards, working with people to find out what then want/need in such a tool, teaching people how to use the tools (both the old and the new tools), and so on.

I think I could be most useful as something of a liaison between the editors and the software developers as it comes time to begin planning and coding the new tools necessitated by the site’s renovation. I know how editors work; I know how editors use the tools they already have; I know the problems editors have with the existing software. Who better to help plan the production-side tools?

I finally got a letter from someone in Poland — Halina sent me a letter with a Christmas gift — a tape called Śpiewają Gwiazdy Polskiej Estrady Najpięniejsze Kolędy, which I haven’t listened to. She told me about how things at school are going. Recently the liceum celebrated its fifth anniversary — I don’t really wish I could have been there for that, though. A bunch of speeches? No thanks. Of course there would have been some student recitals and singing, which was always nice. Anyway, it was nice to hear from her, though I wish she’d written sooner.

I found recently a new site dealing with the WCG and it’s spliters — including some I’d never heard of. It’s at: http://www.apollo.spaceports.com/~truth/index.html. Anyway, here’s something fascinating:

William F. Dankenbring now believes that the Israelites ignored Moses' instruction to stay in their houses all night and that the Passover was on the fifteenth day of the first month, rather than on the fourteenth as taught by Herbert W. Armstrong (HWA). John D. Keyser, one of William's associates for the past ten years, has gone even further, breaking away from Triumph Prophetic Ministries to start his own splinter group called Hope of Israel Ministries. Ignoring the Genesis account, John Keyser has now started to teach that the week has a pagan origin, and that the weekly Sabbath changes each month due to the new moon and can fall on any day of the week.

I just found the website, so I’m going to explore for a while now.

Speech

Wednesday 15 November 2000 | 0 Comments

Last night I went to hear Elie Wiesel’s third and final lecture in the 2000 BU lecture series, and as seems to be the tradition, he spoke about contemporary times. I arrived late (I waited for about 25 minutes for a B train — about five D trains, three or four E trains, and a couple of C trains went by in the meantime.) and had to sit in the back section. Two rows ahead of me and to my right sat a black couple — I would say “African American” in some stupid effort to be PC, but I don’t know that they were Americans. They could have been “African French” or even simply “African” — for what any of those labels are worth. Anyway, an interesting thing happened during the lecture, and it happened not once but twice. When Wiesel began talking about the troubles in the Middle East, he said essentially that these events showed the world what kind of man Arafat truly is, namely as someone who can’t be trusted. “When you see the generosity of Barak’s offered concessions . . . “ he began, and the black woman in front of me began shaking her head in disagreement, her brow wrinkled to show her disapproval. She sat slightly to the right of me and was watching Wiesel on the monitor to the left of me, so I could also see her eyes, which she rolled several times as if she couldn’t believe what Wiesel was saying, as if he were saying something as ridiculous as, “All the world’s troubles are due to Arafat.”

This reaction really didn’t shock me. “Perhaps she’s just a person with extreme leftist views, one of those who really feel that Israel as no right to exist as a state,” I thought. I didn’t really think any more of it for a few moments.

Wiesel continued by condemning the violence in the Middle Ease, and then violence in general. “Where words leave off, violence begins,” he said, continuing by essentially saying, “There is never an excuse for violence.” — surely, I would have thought everyone in the room would have agreed with that. Yet I glanced at the black woman and once again she was shaking her head, as if to say, “What a fucking idiot — of course there’s a time for violence. Sometimes that’s the only course left for someone to take.”

I was tempted — though I did not act on this temptation — to catch up to her and the individual she was with and ask them what they found so offensive in what Wiesel was saying, particularly about violence. Maybe they were Muslims who support the Intafada. Who knows. Who cares, in the end.

Monday I met Chhavi downtown to watch a film (You Can Count on Me — I give it a 7 or 7.5 out of 10, with its realism being its greatest strength.) and so I rode the Orange Line down to Back Bay and Mary accompanied me. For some reason she mentioned that she heard we were getting raises — everyone. She even said that Kali herself had said something about it. The figure she’d heard? A huge one percent pay increase. Wow. That’s a whole $350 a year. Shit — I don’t know what I’d do with that kind of money. Surely she must have heard wrong, for that amounts to less than $30 a month. Anyway, I mentioned to her that Chhavi had been encouraging me to ask for a raise, and then she said it — the bombshell — “Yeah, you should. I mean if Michael Lacoy asks for a raise every week, why shouldn’t you?” Now if what she said earlier was true, specifically, that the new editors are getting offered $40,000 to attract “more qualified” individuals, then he’s already making something like twelve percent more than I make. And he’s only been working there for a few weeks — less than three months, I think. That’s fairly ridiculous. If it’s true, of course, and I can’t assume it is.

I can “assume” (to continue with parallel grammatical structure) that I haven’t gotten a raise since I started working there, and that I’ve been working there for almost a year now. Marlon told me he got a $5,000 raise at one point, and that everyone in the tech team has gotten a raise. But the other side of production? I guess we’re just a cliché dime-a-dozen. Or perhaps $480,000 a dozen.

On to another topic — Edyta. I haven’t written to her since I left Poland, and that was almost six months ago. At first I purposely didn’t write to her because I didn’t know what to say. Now I want to write to her, but I’ve no idea what to say. What I need to say is, “Sorry. That shouldn’t have happened, and I’m afraid that the fact that it did has ruined our relationship.” I guess in the end, it’s just not that important to me. I hesitate to write to her because I don’t want all the work that would be required to try to get things back to normal between us.

Other news — I got a message from Kamil Sunday (though I didn’t actually read it or even know about it until I got to work Monday morning) and he told me that Jasiu has agreed to re-employ him. His plans are to finish out the school year, then look for a job in Kraków. Barring that, he wants to try to come to the States for a while. So it’s now conceivable that I could go back to Lipnica (provided Jasiu gives me a job) and neither Kamil nor Janusz would be there — just as Chhavi predicted. And of course Kinga would be off at university most of the time, leaving me fairly alone. Does that disturb me? A little, to be honest. But more than anything it makes me think, “I need to get cracking so that I can tell everyone of my intentions.”

Election 2000

Tuesday 07 November 2000 | 0 Comments

Today is Election Day. Today America chooses its next president. And to be honest, I couldn’t care less. No matter who wins, nothing essential is going to change in America. While Clinton likes to take credit for the current economic prosperity, there’s much more to it than his presidency that made it possible. It’s like Regan and Bush taking credit for the fall of communism, as if they accomplished what six or seven presidents before had all tried but failed.

I honestly hate to hear what F is going to be saying today. “I’ll kill myself if Bush wins.” Unless

  1. Bush gets to appoint two or three Supreme Court Justices in the next year;
  2. someone gets a case challenging Roe vs. Wade before the Supreme Court within the next year or so after that;
  3. they decide to overturn Roe vs. Wade; and,
  4. F gets pregnant at that point or later and wants an abortion,

then nothing is really going to change in her life. We’re all solidly middle class folks and we’re not really going to feel anything.

Yesterday at work was hellish — especially in the beginning. I had the disgusting realization that my job consists of sitting in front of a computer all day long. That’s one of the main reasons I try to write in here in the morning now — otherwise, I won’t do it. I don’t really want to come home and flip on the computer when that’s what I’ve been doing for the last nine or ten hours. Anyway, I got in and my password wasn’t working, so I spent the first thirty-five minutes of my day waiting for someone from IT to show up and re-set my password so I could get something done. Add to it the fact that in general I hate my job and it’s not difficult to see why my day got off to such a shitty start.

I had a thought yesterday about going to Lipnica. I remember trying to figure out whether I should break up with K or not and it suddenly occurred to me — the desire to break up with K is enough.1 I was trying to justify it, trying to legitimate it, when it had all the legitimation it needed. Now I’m experiencing the same thing with this desire to go to Lipnica. I keep trying to think of some way to “sell” it to C, to convince her that it’s for the best and all that nonsense. Yet I’m just doing the same thing — I’m just trying to make it sound plausible, trying to make sure that I have a response to every objection she has. In other words, to make it seem as logical to her as it seems to me, to make her say, “Oh, I see. Well, in that case, you should go. Absolutely — no question whatsoever.”

Last night we went to see Wonder Boys then stopped for sushi at Gyuama’s on Boylston afterward. The movie itself was okay — it seemed to lack direction at some points and I found that to be a little tiring, but overall I liked it. Dinner was good — I was surprised at how filling the sushi was. But that was about the extent of our evening — fairly boring in many ways, I guess. There’s a lot we could talk about, but I just don’t have the guts to bring it up.

Things like what M and S said when they came over to dinner Sunday don’t help: it’s a great place — you have to stay here for as long as you can. True enough, but I don’t want not to go to Lipnica just because I don’t want to give up a nice apartment. That’s the heart of the problem — I hate living in a place where nice yet affordable apartments are so hard to come by. I’m sick of living in a place that has such an inflated opinion of itself that a two bedroom place can cost $1,000 a month and leave me thinking, “Wow, that’s a good deal.

Time to get ready to go.

With 15% reporting, here’s the results:

Electoral Vote
Bush185
Gore193
Popular Vote
Bush52% (10,193,077)
Gore46% (9,085,897)

It seems that there’s a real possibility that the seemingly unthinkable will happen: the candidate more people want as president will lose. Is that true democracy? If Gore wins on electoral votes but not on popular votes, F, B and others will be thrilled — but if the opposite were to happen . . .

The electoral college is nonsense anyway.

Literally, moments later:

Electoral Vote
Bush186
Gore197
Popular Vote
Bush51% (15,041,768)
Gore47% (13,850,417)

And Nader seems to be getting the support he needed:

1 That was six years ago. I find that difficult to believe now. It seemed like it took six years to make it through the first year. Now I’ve no idea where K is, and I don’t really care to be honest. I finally realize that you can’t hold on to every single relationship in your life. It’s only natural that you drift apart after some time.

Election Thoughts

Thursday 02 November 2000 | 0 Comments

I really get tired of the notion some like to express that life will not be worth living if Bush wins the election. F said something about being “very scared for my life” if Bush wins, then made a joke about people having to “stop me from killing myself if Bush wins.” She’s solidly middle class living a fairly typical American life — her life will probably won’t be even slightly different if Bush wins. The most that will happen is she will have to pay more or less taxes — depending on whether you buy Bush’s “plan.” But it won’t result in drastic curbing of personal freedom; even though he opposes gun control, I doubt that his presidency would result in lots of people running around with guns “legally.” In fact, I bet if I asked her, “Just how exactly will your life deteriorate if Bush wins — give me three concrete examples,” that she might not be able to provide any real reason why she’s saying this except that she’s liberal and doesn’t like the idea of a Republican — any Republican — running the country. She’s playing the role of a liberal, middle class, liberal-arts educated, white, pro-choice, Democratic woman.

Changes at Work

Thursday 26 October 2000 | 0 Comments

A new temp — Scott — began working for us Monday as a temporary editor to help out with the plagiarism re-write project. Yesterday Kali moved him off that project and essentially gave him to Stephen for the Shakespeare textbook. The reason was simply that Kali wasn’t satisfied with Scott’s work. And for good reason — the poor guy has never even copyedited! Kali asked for someone with editing experience (I overheard her phone conversation — as did a lot of other people I would imagine, especially Matt, sitting right across from her) and they sent someone without even any copyediting experience. That put everyone in an awkward situation, and I felt most sorry for Scott. I’d feel like such a boob if something like that happened to me. Being a temp is demeaning enough — having something like that happen to you must be horrid. Of course Kali tried to explain that it’s simply that he doesn’t have the skills we need, but I’m sure it’s difficult not to take that as an indictment of one’s general skill level.

I looked at some of his work, though — and it was, quite honestly, awful. I think he might have been more than a little nervous being given a job doing something he’d never done before, and he might have thought that just changing some words around might do the trick. It seems to make sense. The bad thing is, they were worse after he was done with them. It made me realize how much my editing skills have improved since I began working there. At least that’s one way of looking at it. Another way is to say that my ability to conform to Kali’s editorial preferences, which, no matter what she says, are somewhat subjective.

All this makes me wonder about temp agencies. Some of them claim to specialize in “technical” placement, or in this kind or that kind of placement, but I wonder how many of them really do. Certainly someone who places computer programmers (as if there are any of those who are out of work and have to scrounge around for work through a temp agency) or nurses doesn’t just send anyone to any assignment, but others — Professional Staffing Group, for example. I don’t know. I would say there is a lot of pressure inside those places to get new accounts and to send people to those jobs. And as such, I would imagine that a lot of unqualified people get sent to various places. Yet most of the time an intelligent person can probably bluff her way through a lack of particular experience. I, for example, had never worked reception, but I managed. On the other hand, there’s a world of difference between reception and editing, and I guess most of the placements for temps are lower-level things like that.

Another interesting office development — Kali called me on getting Luis to help out with my personal computer. She said it was inappropriate, but didn’t give me too much flack about it. I defended myself as best I could, but I forgot one minor thing — something I realized only last night. I never asked him to help me. I simply described to him my problem at home and asked if he had any ideas as to what happened. He’s the one who offered to look at it; he’s the one who suggested I bring it in. So it’s not like I said, “Hey, I’m having problems with my computer. I’ll bring it in tomorrow and I’d like you to look at it.” I would never do something like that. Anyway, I was left wondering what exactly I’d done wrong. Was it that I brought it to the office? Or was it that he did anything at all for me? Am I supposed to separate completely my personal and professional lives? DLI employees socialize in a non-work setting; why can’t we ask for each other’s help in a non-work setting? Or rather, offer to help each other? I’m a little confused about that. Was it wrong of me to ask Marlon to help me move? Certainly they wouldn’t say that. So what’s the difference between Marlon helping me and Luis helping? There are two that I can see. First, Luis used his professional knowledge to help with a personal problem, and that was certainly not the case with Marlon, who applied brute strength and patience alone. Second, the physical location of the assistance was the office. Given those to differences, the only one that could have been meaningful was the non-personal location. Hence if he’d come to my house and looked at the computer then they would have no room to talk. So I guess I learned something new about office politics/protocol. (Mary asked him to look at her laptop as well — I wonder if she got a bullocking. I would ask her about it, but it might lead to more trouble — after all, if you can get fired for asking fellow employees about their salary you could certainly at least get talked to for asking whether they got in trouble with a supervisor . . . and I’m only being half jocular here.)

Today my parents arrive. They’re only staying through Monday, though — four days, essentially. I thought they’d be staying longer, but I guess not. They were only going to stay through Sunday! Over twenty-eight hours of driving for three days! That’s twenty-eight hours of driving for seventy-two hours of time her, with at least twenty-four of it being spent sleeping! Chhavi called them back and talked them into staying one more day. I tried, but I couldn’t. I didn’t really try too hard, though. Why? I just felt a little awkward pushing for something that might cause them a bit of discomfort because of the cats — they’re reluctant to ask anyone to come over and feed them. Anyway, Chhav got an extra day out of them, so they’ll have a little more time here. Now the question is, what do we do?

Parents’ Visit

Tuesday 24 October 2000 | 0 Comments

In a couple of days my parents arrive. I haven’t seen them since last Christmas. It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long, in reality. By the time they get here it will have been ten months, but it feels only like half that. I guess despite the horror of it, this last year has gone by fairly quickly.

In the middle of my parents’ arrival Thursday and the last time I saw them lies my trip to Lipnica. Five months ago. It doesn’t see that long, either. I guess that’s what happens when you spend every day obsessing over something. I have to admit, though, it’s gotten a whole lot better. In fact, when I think of going back to Lipnica, I’m not filled with this sickening surity that I must go back or I’ll go insane. I guess saying it’s getting “better” is a relative thing because there’s still a large part of me that wants to go back, and another portion of me — God, how many parts have I divided myself into? — wants to cling desparately to that bit of desire to return, to encourage it to grow somehow.

Truth is, I’m not that terribly unhappy at work. The job is, indeed, somewhat boring when I’m stuck doing editing, but I’m doing that less and less these days. And working with people I like is a vast improvement over my job in Lipnica where I could barely stand the sight of the other teachers. And yet at the weekends, it hits me — I’m terribly lonely and I feel awfully empty when I don’t have anything to do. I guess the trick is keeping my mind busy.

Anyway, my parents are coming, but they’re not bringing the cats. I feel awful about that, but I don’t really know what we’re doing next year and I think it will be better if we just find the Puck and Lily a new home. The trouble, though, is that it is not I who will be doing it, but my parents. I feel like I’ve asked so much of them regarding those two. I guess it really is unfair to them in a lot of ways, but what can I do?

When they get here, hopefully we’ll have a chance to have dinner together just the three of us. Well, I guess we’ll be spending a lot of time together in the afternoons without Chhavi so that won’t be necessary. At any rate, I guess what I meant was that I’d like to have the chance to talk to them alone. I’d like to see what they think about all this returning-to-Poland/not-having-kids/lack-of-fulfillment/lack-of-happiness situation.

Religion Thoughts

Monday 23 October 2000 | 0 Comments

I never quite got around to writing anything in here yesterday. I was more interested in reading, I guess. Saturday afternoon we went to the Malden public library’s book sale and got a few things — about 15 books for something like 8 dollars. Not a bad deal, I guess. One of the books I got was by Martin Marty entitled, The Glory and the Power and it’s about fundamentalism in the world, specifically in the three monotheistic religions. I’ve finished the sections on Christian fundamentalism and on Jewish fundamentalism, and now I’m reading about Islamic fundamentalism, which I find to be a little slower going and less interesting simply because I know less about Islam that I do about Christianity and Judaism.

One interesting thing I found was the distinction between traditionalism/orthodoxy and fundamentalism. While the two might share a similar, conservative theology, the fundamentalists differ because they fight back. They see modernity encroaching on their world and taking away some aspect of it, and they fight back.

This brings up another interesting point: fundamentalism, while it stresses certain “fundamentals” and traditions, is a strictly modern phenomenon. Granted, they feel that they’re returning to a pre-modern, pure theology, but modernity is the stimulant that gets it all going. Without modernity we can have no fundamentalism.

Reading about Christian fundamentalism, though, I found some striking parallels with the theology of the Armstrongian Worldwide Church of God. To begin with, fundamentalists tend to be premillenial dispensationalists, and although for a while I really got tired of Dad throwing that word around, “dispensationalism” is the perfect description of Armstrongian theology. It is nothing but — it is, in many ways, at the very core of his worldview.

Another similarity is in the “chosenness” of fundamentalists:

It only takes a little imagination to see how powerful premillenial ideas were and can be in fundamentalism. Do you seek a distinctive idenity? Here is a teaching that separates you from other Christians, Protestants, and even evangelical conseratives. Do you need the feeling of being inside? With dispensationalism, you can read the newspapers with a knowledge and perception denied other believers who have no guide to apparently plotless or contradictory events. . . .1

That seems the perfect description of the WCG of old — and the current PCG, GCG, CGI, LCG, etc.

And it also explains why Armstrong was so afraid of people reading material he hadn’t written, or at least approved. The “weak-minded” WCG member might read this and think, “Hum, here’s someone saying the exact same thing as Mr. Armstrong. Here’s someone claiming exclusive knowledge and [more frightening for the believer], here’s someone explaining this whole process. And if this explanation can be made of fundamentalists, then what happens if this Martin Marty turns his keen eye toward the WCG?” Of course I did point out and want to stress that only the “weak-minded” WCGer would think this. Someone thorougly “converted” (or indoctrinated, or socialized) will simply put this off as another satanic deception.

1 Martin Marty. The Glory and the Power: The Fundamentalist Challenge to the Modern World. 51, 52.

Still Considering

Saturday 21 October 2000 | 0 Comments

Despite my claim at the top of this document, I have not written every day for at least twenty minutes. I suppose I had something I could have written about yesterday, but I simply didn’t feel like it. And that’s not quite the point, anyway. I don’t want to write in here only when I have “something to write about” but I want to force myself to write in here daily. That’s the only way I’ll ever get back to the journal-keeper that I once was — and I think I was a much healthier person when I was keeping my journal more regularly.

I had a thought yesterday about Lipnica and going back. I realized that what I’m more scared of is going back for a year and realizing there’s nothing there for me at all. I think that’s what Chhavi thinks will happen. And that is certainly the last thing I want, for if I go back and discover that what I’m looking for is not there, then I’ll be worse than “back to square one.” I think part of my frustration yesterday had to do with the fact that part of my life has recently splintered into millions of pieces and I've lost some things and it will take some time to pull everything back together — I’m speaking of my computer, of course, and its recent Windows 2000-induced nose-dive. That’s a relatively minor thing, and it’s simply an irritation that must be overcome. Yet last night I remember thinking, “I could work on some VB stuff, but I have to re-load Visual Studio, and I’ve lost all that source code I downloaded, and all my programs are now history.” So it’s not that I was thrown into some kind of depression over this — I was simply annoyed. Anyway, I imagine such a scenario multiplied many times in intensity and importance and I can only shudder as I imagine how difficult that would be to deal with: realizing that Lipnica has nothing for me; realizing that Chhavi might be back in India by that time; realizing that I threw away a seemingly “sure thing” for something that just didn’t work out.

Yet I did consciously use the word “seemingly” because of all these thoughts roaring through my head about having children. I’ll return to that later.

One thing I wanted to elaborate on from the previous paragraph is this: if I go back and discover that what I’m looking for is not there, then I’ll be worse than “back to square one.” I’m not even quite sure what it is I’m looking for. And that makes me somewhat hesitant to go back if I don’t know exactly what it is I’m seeking — there or anywhere for that matter. I just know that I’m not terribly happy here. And yet I think, “That’s exactly how you felt when you left Lipnica. That’s why you left Lipnica — you thought you’d find what you were looking for in the philosophy of religion program at BU. And that certainly didn’t happen.” This whole notion of being happy where you are and being content with what you have keeps haunting me. That is most definitely not what I’m doing now, though in the back of my head I have these stupid thoughts: “Once I get to Lipnica, then I’ll start living that way.” What a stupid thing to think —living an oxymoron.

So back to this “seemingly.” I’ve come to realize that I’ve have certain unconscious expectations about my life that have definite implications for what happens with Chhavi and me. I’m almost twenty-eight years old — and I thought that by now, certainly, I’d be married, and that within a year or so would be having at least one child. In other words, I thought that before I reached thirty I’d have a family. Well that’s certainly not going to be the case no matter what I do — and to be honest, I’m not ready for a family now. Not until I figure out what I want to do with my life. But Chhavi’s lack of interest in ever having kids, it doesn’t look like that’ll ever come to fruition. And so while a relatively minor assumption is being challenged at the moment (i.e., that I’d have a family before age thirty) is eclipsed by a larger, more significant one (i.e., that I’d have a family, period). So what I’ve got to do is decide whether I really want to have a child or not, and whether or not I’m willing to give that up in order to stay with Chhav. What are my alternatives? Break up and go out on the prowl again, so to speak. That’s not something I really want to do, to be honest — either break up or be out “looking” again. (I wasn’t “looking” when I found Chhav, and that’s why I found her, in part — so I’ve always told myself.) And once “freed” from monogamy, I’d want to explore that freedom a little. Sleep around a bit, in other words. It’s something I’ve always kind of wanted to do but never did — and then I’d have my chance. So I’d sleep around, maybe have a couple of years of fun. Then what?

One more thing I was thinking about yesterday, then I’ll stop. If I were to go back to Lipnica, it would certainly be nice to be able to have a place of my own (three possibilities occur to me: the old apartment, above Magda’s shop, and above the pharmacy, if they’ve built the house they’d mentioned they wanted to build), but in a way it might be better if I stayed with the Mastelas. The problem is money — I would want to pay them for room and board, but I’ve a feeling Mamo would not want me to. Perhaps I could make it that the school pays her directly and I could act as if I were completely ignorant. Who knows. Anyway, the reason this would be a good idea is in fact two-fold (or more). For one thing, I’d have someone to talk to and someone to help me with my Polish. Secondly, and in some ways more importantly, it would force me to focus on the work aspect of my life during the week because I couldn’t have people coming over all the time. It would be safe in another sense, too: less chance of me fucking around with someone in my own apartment. Screwing around would not be a bad thing, necessarily, but I wouldn’t want anything to happen with anyone from Lipnica unless I was sure I wanted to pursue it farther than a casual fuck.

Enough of that. I’m going to go read something now.

Declared God

Tuesday 10 October 2000 | 0 Comments

“Octavian was declared a god shortly after his death.” This is from the profile for Octavian that I just edited for the Western Civ I book. Being declared a “god” in this case seems something like beatification in the Roman church. Thinking of this, the obvious occurred to me: it’s called the Roman church because it grew out of the Roman Empire and was/is centered in Rome. Surely after Edict of Milan all notions of Roman reality didn’t get subsumed under the Christian worldview. In fact, the Christian worldview grew out of this Roman world, so it stands to reason that certain habits/notions from Roman religion persisted in Christianity. Hence it seems logical that this ritual of declaring this person or that person a god might carry over into the Roman church in the form of beatification. The differences, I’m sure, are enormous, and I’m not so naïve as to suggest that it’s a one-to-one relationship. However, the basic notion is the same.

That being said, even if it were empirical, historical fact that the idea of beatification grew out of the Roman deification of its rulers (which is, to be sure, not strictly a Roman notion and probably exists in cultures around the world — Japan and ancient Egypt come immediately to mind), that would not change Roman Catholic practice. Once it’s been so entrenched, how could anyone change it? Even if Pope John Paul II said, “Look, we’ve come to the realization that this beatification thing is nothing but a carry-over from pagan Roman religion,” no-one would buy it. They’d want to chalk it up to senility. Of course if the Pope said this as a holy pronouncement, then papal infallibility would kick in and then we’d have all kinds of cognitive dissonance.