Polygamy, the law, and brain-washing

Earlier this month, a federal judge declared Utah laws criminalizing polygamy (note: not the same as bigamy--they're still only allowed to legally marry one person, but people can cohabit in "spiritual marriages"). Yesterday, I was listening to NPR's On Point program from a week ago discussing this, and one of the guests was Kristyn Decker, a former wife in a polygamous family and the author of the recent book Fifty Years in Polygamy: Big Secrets and Little White Lies. She took a passionate stand against polygamy, even among consenting adults. Her essential point was that the women involved in plural marriages have been brain-washed to believe that they have to participate in and defend the institution in order to go to heaven.

Boy, that's a tough argument to make.

Not because they haven't been "brain-washed." It's probably fair to say that they have, though the word is obviously prejudicial. The problem is, where do we draw the line? In a sense, we could all be said to have been "brain-washed," in that our parents raised us to believe certain things which may or may not be true. While we do tend to pass ideas from one generation to the next, it's also pretty common for children to reject at least some ideas of their parents, and in some cases a whole lot of what they were raised to believe. We can't necessarily say that one is right and the other wrong: each is doing what he or she believes is right. Decker is basically saying, from her vantage point as someone who "got out," that anyone still inside this system of belief that includes plural marriage is not competent to make a decision because they haven't seen the light the way that she has.

By the same logic, a former Christian who has become an atheist could argue that Christians, because they are deluded by their belief in God and everything that goes with it, are not competent to make political decisions about what's right and wrong, what should be legal or illegal. Or believers might turn that around on atheists: if you have been led astray into disbelieving in God, you have clearly had your mind twisted in such a way that everything you believe is suspect. To be fair, there are almost certainly believers and disbelievers who feel this way, at least to the extent of distrusting their opponents' beliefs, but most of us take a more tolerant viewpoint, allowing people to do and believe things that we think are wrong or stupid. We can argue against them, trying to convince them of the error of their beliefs, we can campaign against their politics, but that's about as far as we take it.

I think there's an argument to be made that decriminalizing polygamy could be a good thing for women who are "trapped" in these relationships: by bringing them out of hiding, abuses of wives or children might be easier to detect and for law enforcement and other groups to step in and help those who are harmed by polygamous marriages. And at the same time, consenting adults would be free to make their own choices, deluded by stupid ideas though they may be.

New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve hasn't been a huge blowout holiday for me over the years. On the Y2K changeover, I got to celebrate in Hawaii with a couple college friends, the traditional Hawaiian fireworks, and the sure knowledge that if civilization collapsed because our computers thought it was 1900 that at least the hellscape in which I'd be struggling to survive would be, well, Waikiki. A couple other years, I got together with college friends in Chicago or DC and had a great time--not so much because it was New Year's Eve as because I was hanging out with great friends. I've had two New Year's Eves that were colored by the fact that I was breaking up with a girlfriend on January 31st, one in college and one in my early 20s.

My wife and I can't remember any of the New Year's Eves before we had kids, except the last one, where Lauren was due any moment--we were kind of hoping to make a run to the hospital to either pop out a little tax exemption before the new year came or have the first baby of the new year, but mostly we just celebrated together with some noise makers, party hats, and video games.

Since we've had first one and then another child, we've established a different pattern (which, granted, we haven't upheld every year, but whatever): we've gotten together with other parents of small children to celebrate "New Year's in ______."  That way, we can ring in the new year with the kids and still get them to bed at a reasonable time. The menu has tended to run toward fondue.

This year, we're aiming for 9:00, which means that we will be celebrating with the residents of King Edward Point, the capital of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. That is to say, us, our guests, and the 30 or so residents of the government offices and research facility in this inhospitable corner of the southern Atlantic Ocean.

This may not sound like the most exciting New Year's Eve to some, but I can say definitively that it's a far better way to spend the last day of the year than being broke up with. And my wife will probably tell you that it beats being overdue to deliver a baby.

Late December Sunday

A day like this, I feel too scattered to pull together a decent blog entry, so it's just going to be a bit of this and that. I indicated yesterday that I was going to write a follow-up entry, but that's not happening right now.

I woke up this morning in the Cleveland area, and I type this at the end of the day back home in Indiana. I woke up this morning with my wife and daughters (including our canine daughter), but I'll be going to sleep with just my 4-legged girl. I traveled in a car loaded down and packed full of all the Christmas loot; I'll pick up the rest of the family tomorrow morning as they head west by train.

After getting things packed up, I went to watch "my" NFL team win its final game of the season as Cincinnati beat Baltimore. This is the first time in a long time that they've gone into the playoffs with a win, but it was an ugly win. There was some hope that they could snag the second seed and get a first-round bye, but it wasn't to be as the Patriots won their game. We do at least get one home game, and the Bengals have been devastating at home this season (undefeated, with the offense really showing up--the defense pretty much always shows up this season).

I've been listening to the audiobook of Dune, which I've read at least once or twice before, though not in many years. There's going to be a bookclub discussion of the book, so I wanted to refamiliarize myself with it. I remembered a lot... and I forgot a lot. Plus I'm just at a very different place in my life (I first read it in my early 20s, almost 15 years ago).

On the way home, I stopped at the Walmart in Mishawaka to pick up a Christmas present that my mom gave--or tried to give--us: a mobile internet hotspot. We bought one near my mom's house, but as we were driving home and Lauren tried to activate it, there was some kind of problem. Apparently, someone else had already registered our number. Which I guess either means that someone put in the wrong number or it was returned improperly, or something. Since it didn't seem convenient to go back to that same store, we went to another... which didn't carry the mobile hotspot. So we tried again in the Cleveland area, where they took our return and indicated they had it... but didn't. So we did return it and get a refund for my Mom, but we didn't come away with a mobile hotspot. So we looked at ordering on-line, and the price appeared to be $30 less than what we'd paid. But it wasn't available at the Walmart that's local to us. Oooh! But it was at the South Bend Walmart. We ordered... and a half hour later got notification that they did not, in fact, have it. So we went back to the drawing board, tried to get it through the Mishawaka store... and it worked. So there we go--except that I haven't actually activated it yet, so it's still possible that we're not going to have a working hotspot, but here's hoping.

Being Right, Being Wrong

"The Place Where We Are Right"

From the place where we are right
Flowers will never grow
In the spring.

The place where we are right
Is hard and trampled
Like a yard.

But doubts and loves
Dig up the world
Like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
Where the ruined
House once stood.

Yehuda Amichai

****

Source: http://xkcd.com/386/

****

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,

there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase each other

doesn’t make any sense.

Jelaluddin Rumi, trans Coleman Barks

***
I'm thinking I'll write something myself on this topic, but for now I just present a few different ideas (you should really watch the video--it's good). Feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think about being right and being wrong.

Local Music Scene: Cleveland Edition

Last night, an old friend of mine invited me out to see some bands at a place called The Grog Shop over on the east side of Cleveland. It's the first time I've been to a concert in (I think) 4+ years, and I wasn't familiar with any of the bands playing. Fortunately, my friend Elliot has good taste in music.  If I'm not mistaken, all three bands are from the Cleveland area.

It was a small venue, but we got there early enough that we not only weren't part of the crowd who didn't get in because the place was full but also managed to snag a space to stand right to the side of the stage. We were about as close as we could be, and being off to the side, it almost felt like members of the bands were looking at us when they were looking at bandmates--in other words, it was like being part of the band, without any of the pressure of playing the right notes or looking cool.

Tom Evanchuck (and the Old Money--I think--they weren't announced that way, but I think from his website that that's who he was playing with) was good. It was a show full of covers, but they did them well. Tom plays guitar well and sells a song; I think I picked up that his drummer is his brother, and I absolutely loved watching him on drums: good drummer, clearly having fun.

The second band was The Moxies, which my friend described as "Rockabilly Punk." And that pretty much summed it up: they'd be grooving along with this rockabilly feel and then they'd burst out into this punk explosion. Their show was a ton of fun. The crowd--which I swear seemed like it was about 83% high schoolers--seemed to know all the songs and were singing along and rocking out, which helped make it a fun show.

As good as Tom Evanchuck was, The Moxies brought something even more polished, but still with a wild energy to it.

Elliot picked up an EP and gave it to me s a souvenir, and I was just a bit disappointed: it felt like the studio recording captured the rockabilly feel but not the punk side so well.I'm still listening to it, though, still trying getting into it. The vocals live were as good or better than the studio recording.

The final band of the night was The Modern Electric. To the polish and energy of The Moxies, The Modern Electric also added a bit more... show. The stage was set with a TV that looked like something we had in our living room in the 80s, which had A Christmas Story playing throughout, and along with that there were some old lamps and furniture set up around the stage.

The music was solid--a lot of fun, a nice sound, and the singer, Garrett Komyati, has an intensity that really takes it to another level; there was a real sincerity there, like he was putting his heart out there on every song.

The bass player and drummer switched back and forth between bass and drums, and I suspect that the musical flexibility these guys have (the lead singer was also bopping around between piano and guitar) is one of the things that makes the band distinctive.

Once again, the crowd knew all the songs, so they were rocking it like this concert was their job, too. Elliot picked up a 2-song EP for me, and their sound holds up really well in the studio, it seems to me. I played it for Lauren, and "David Bowie Save Us All" is now lodged firmly in both our minds.

The Church in the Wildwood

There’s a church in the valley by the wildwood,
No lovelier place in the dale,
No spot is so dear to my childhood
As the little brown church in the vale.
-- William S. Pitts

 Okay, the church that we went to Sunday was surrounded by corn-stubble fields made recently into impromptu lakes by two days of continuous rains, not woods—wild or otherwise—and here in northern Ohio, valleys are distant rumors. But still, it’s fair to say that few spots from my childhood are as dear as Zion U.C.C., in Fireside (a spot you probably won’t find on a map). 

Going there at least once a week for the first eighteen plus years of my life, there’s probably nowhere other than my childhood home that I spent more time. Walking into the sanctuary yesterday, much was familiar—the same Christmas banners were hung along the sides (they could easily be 40+ years old, but they look the same as I remember them), the same hymnals are in the same pews (they were upholstered while I was growing up, so I also remember them as bare wood), the same altar, the same lectern and pulpit, the same carpet and the same stain-glass windows.

And quite a few of the same people—familiar old faces lit up when they saw me with my mother and my oldest daughter. There was no one from my generation there, just the parents and grandparents of our generation. Of course, those were some of the adults I most respected as a child and young man. Some from that generation are no longer with us, but it was a delight to see the ones I did.

There were also changes--they've been through a few ministers since I left, there was a new organ down by the lectern where a piano used to be, instead of above the back of the sanctuary, and a grand piano on the other side, by the pulpit, and there were large screens at the front and back of the sanctuary (though there wasn't much of import up there).

I was there to hear your borning cry,
I’ll be there when you are old.
I was there the day you were baptized,
To see your life unfold.
--John C. Ylvisaker

The minister asserted--against all the obvious evidence to the contrary--that “I was there to hear your borning cry” is one of the most beautiful hymns ever written, as she prepared to baptize a father and daughter yesterday. As it happens, the father was a classmate of mine in school, though he just recently started going to my childhood church. His daughter is not quite four months old.

But it was perhaps all the more striking to me that all the people who graduated from high school with me--there were more than a half dozen of us just in my class--and those who graduated in the years before and after mine--my generation is otherwise completely absent.

I realized recently that my family's ties to this church are deep--I'm relatively confident that I've understood the historical record to say that one of my ancestors back in the 1800s played a big role in building the church (or, anyway, the church that became this church--it burned down sometime in the mid-20th Century). Something like five generations--that's a guess, I'm too lazy to look it up this morning. But I don't go there any more. From what I could see, a lot of the older people in the church were people that have known me all their life and been more or less life-long members, and there are some younger families there too, but by and large the younger and middle-aged folks there all seem to be new. Which is great for the congregation--with so many people of my generation leaving our small town, they have to bring in new members to survive, but there's also something that sees it as unfortunate that families that have been part of the church's history for generations have left and been replaced with entirely new people.

Maybe that song, "I was there to hear your borning cry" played into those thoughts, as it speaks to the continuity in one's life and from generation to generation that God, theoretically, provides.  I shouldn't be surprised if it generations some nostalgic feelings in me, some vague desires for a past that's gone--after all, it's the greatest hymn ever written.

Christmas 2013 Recap

Earlier, I recapped of the set-up for Christmas day and told about the start of the day. Here, we pick up the story from when the girls started opening their presents.

Our youngest doesn't quite know what to do with the Jumpolene. Or the beanbag chair, apparently. She did figure out the former before the day was done.

Our oldest knew exactly what the new purse is for.

My wife didn't want me in this picture, but I inserted myself. And my coffee mug inserted itself, too.

See? She's just stinkin' cute!

And she's already to start conducting the family Christmas carol sing...

Here, she gets her first good look at her new cousin. How will she react?

About like this, apparently.

I just liked the way this picture got both of our girls and (a glimpse of) their cousin.  And the Aunt Emmy they all share.

Lauren wasn't going to be denied her time with the wee babe, and our older girl gets to know her a bit better too.

After 11 straight hours of Christmas, at 5:45, our younger appeared to give up the ghost. Sadly, she got her second wind a couple hours later and is still going strong as I type.

Her sister, on the other hand, lost the battle with sleep right in the middle of a delicious, delicious brownie. Sweet dreams, sweetpea!