Note: Marcus Borg's writings can be found online at Beliefnet; the Lewis story mentioned is "The Great Divorce." Obviously, neither are mine.
Chapter 3
The third character in my small story came into our lives in the late autumn, a redhead named Camilla. She and Jeff became friends first, seeking out a church that fit them, and she often came into our room to talk. In a way, they became each other's fellowship -- they had found a Sunday church,, requiring a train ride into the city, and Camilla also offered a Taise service at a local church they had found too blah, somehow, for Sundays. Taise, as I understand, is a service of chanting created by monks in France. No sermon -- just an hour of singing and thinking about the words. I went to a few of those services -- they were tagged as "healing" services (Camilla is chronically ill; we don't speak of it much, but sometimes I think it's central to who she is. In the brilliant mystery novel "The Daughter of Time" by Josephine Tey, a doctor, looking at a portrait of poor libeled Richard III, remarks on a unique expression victims of childhood illness or injury acquire -- the affect of suffering at too young an age. Having read this, I can't help but see this in Camilla -- a certain refinement of her brow and eyes, and a bit of distance in her smile), and I enjoyed the experience. Partly because I wasn't being demanded to act, just to sing, and there were no words that seemed meant to root me out. The idea of God is still so vague to me, but I felt that a little piece if God might be in those most simple strains, and especially, that God came through Jeff and maybe Camilla, who gently squeezed my hand. In the quiet, with Camilla on my right and Jeff on my left, I felt safe, and yet unsure as to what would happen next. Was this the night of evangelism, now?
No, it was the night of 1000 debates and critiques of the world as Camilla and Jeff worked out their Christianity in front of each other, testing each other out. Together, they were fiery, witty, incredibly fast-paced. Walking around campus was hard on my leg, and I was usually exhausted by nightfall. Most people gain weight their first semester; I lost weight because some nights I was just too exhausted to go to dinner, and even though Jeff faithfully brought food back, living on Cheerios does slim a person down. So often at first I was on the fringes of the flying birdies back and forth between Camilla and Jeff. I would lie on my bed, a blanket over my legs and just listen to them.
And frankly, I found Camilla somewhat intimidating at first. So passionate, so well-read, with an unflagging memory and an equally unfailing series of retorts, responses and anecdotes. Those first few weeks she usually sat on the floor, or in Jeff's chair, or on his bed, giving me the space she sensed I needed. One night, when Jeff was (as is his wont) writing a paper by sitting in the exact center of eight opened books and six sheets of notes, Camilla came by and he started to clear a space.
"It's okay," I said. "You can sit there," pointing to the end of the bed. I wasn't completely confident -- Jeff is a fairly physical person, he hugs or touches your hand or shoulder or back for reassurance, whereas Camilla and I were more physically reserved. Other than that moment of hand-holding, Camilla had not touched me at that poitn. I wasn't completely sure why -- squeamishness about my injury, or what had led to it, possibly. But I was beginning to trust her, and I needed to try, if only not to lose Jeff to her.
"Are you sure?" she asked cautiously. I nodded.
"Okay," she said and carefully eased herself onto the end of the bed, hugging one of the spare pillows. "You will tell me if I hurt you though? I mean, jostle your leg?"
"Oh," I said. That was all. "No, it's fine."
She smiled sheepishly. "I just wanted to be sure."
And from that moment on, I could not fear her. She still held me in thrall sometimes, but it was only out of respect and admiration and shock at being so close to such a person.
Camilla was, I learned quickly, fervently political, and unlike many Americans, had no shame about being so. In fact, this was central to her spiritual life. For her, Christianity was inextricably linked with concern about social justice, a passionate desire to shield and aid. Whatever her views on the next world, her work in this world was plain, and an unambiguous duty to the God she clearly loved.
She could recite the UN Declaration of Human Rights by heart, a product of years of devoted work for Amnesty International. She regularly wrote her senators and representative urging them which way to vote on legislation. She worked with a group lobbying for better health care for the underprivileged, especially prenatal care, and often lamented the fact that American health care was so reduced to money, "as if my father's law degree makes me more worthy of medical treatment than the daughter of a drug dealer. Neither of us have anything to do with it." To her, it seemed like an unforgivable travesty of Americans that, despite our riches, we had only the 26th (or so) lowest infant mortality rate in the world, meaning mothers in far poorer counties were less likely to lost their infants to death. Likewise, she was unwilling to ignore the fact that the "evil island" of Cuba had higher literacy and immunization rates than America. She wasn't a "real" socialist (although she had Fabian sympathies) but she had no moral pretensions regarding capitalism, either. "Neither works in isolation. Sure, Marxism has never been put into complete practice, and we certainly don't practice Adam Smith capitalism now. Invisible hand, indeed."
She also worked feverishly on a campaign to abolish the death penalty, for both pragmatic and religious reasons. "Vengeance isn't morality. Having greater compassion than our criminals -- should that be so hard? So much violence brought into a blood-soaked world." And then she would fling out the statistics of overturned convictions, racist trials, incompetent legal aid, giving it the momentum of a thriller where the case will be solved at the last possible minute, but never allowing the dramatic flair of her language to overshadow the idea that real lives were at stake.
And that flair was real. Camilla could say things that sound stilted and affected when I record them, but in her voice and presence they were poetry. In another era she might have been a storyteller and even now she was a singer -- a rich mezzo-soprano, who used her songs as arguments and pleas. She was partial to folk and neo-folk music -- songs that, in her words, "opened up worlds of empathy." It was a constant irritation and mystery to her that the idea of the "protest song" had almost disappeared in America. To their mutual delight, she and Jeff had both been raised on Harry Chapin, a singer I had never heard of -- a tireless worker against world hunger, performing hundreds of concerts for free and posthumously receiving a Congressional Medal for his efforts, after a too-young death in a car crash. You may know him as the author of "Cat's in the Cradle," but Jeff and Camilla were far more moved by his songs about America in the 1970s -- he shared their conflicts about this nation, with so many idealistic promises and so many (as they saw them) social and moral failures. Jeff was partial to a song called "A Quiet Little Love Affair," which dealt with the moral struggle of continuing to love a country (or an idea) despite recognition of its flaws -- for Jeff, the struggle between loyalty and love was always complicated. Too intelligent to love without question, yet too merciful not to want to yield to an ideal of unconditional love and forgiveness.
" Oh, time went by and I forgot,
Why I fell in love,
Though I still pledge my allegiance,
And soon I would wave the flag above,
Didn't know why what we'd done,
Didn't know where it flowed,
Well I never knew if we had lost,
If we had grown,
It was the last of a little love affair,
Between my country and me,
(back ground: Oh say can you see, my country tis of thee)
Oh, oh, my country tis of thee."
For Camilla, an even more stirring song (from the same album, "The Last Protest Singer," which Jeff teased Camilla about being) was "Sounds Like America to Me."
"Insecurity can beat me darling
but sometimes that's where I'm at
so I hope that you can keep me darling
so at least I can count on that
you see some things stir me deeply
though I try to hide from pain
but wide awake or sleepy
some questions still remain
sometimes these days it's hard to choose
the one right road to go
but this then is all I'm sure I know...
I know when a child is hurting
that the silence can be wrong
I know when old folks are helpless
I can't just pass along
and I know when someone's hungry
I can't just sing this song
and when I hear somebody crying
I can't just wonder who that it could be
well I hear somebody crying now
and it sure sounds like America to me. . ."
The chorus described her so perfectly -- for Camilla, to know of the evil in the world meant one was obligated to fight it, every day, every way, replace it in every form with love, charity or hope. Furthermore, as a person living on the planet, one had an obligation to acknowledge that evil, regardless of how far away it might seem. Ignorance, willful ignorance -- whether manifested in lies, or a refusal to learn -- was in her mind, perhaps the greatest sin. If God's love was infinite, so was humanity's responsibility.
Even worse for her was the knowledge -- and her unflinching acceptance -- of evil done under the auspices of good. Evil was omnipresent, in crimes of omission and inaction as well as complicit choice, and to be silent was to be part of the evil. Camilla may not have agreed with Dante's concept of hell and who goes there, but the idea that "the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality" rang true for her, and seemed particularly damning to Christians content to rest on their laurels, or more precisely, Christ's laurels.
Camilla, like Jeff, was torn between too many courses of study, struggling to determine her calling, settling finally on comparative literature and history, learning Greek and eventually Arabic on the side. They both read constantly out of class and were full of news and new ideas, which alternately thrilled them and devastated them. Camilla in particular could suffer from world events. As Jeff once said, "She never learned that anyone wasn't her neighbor," and she loved them all, with a recklessness my reserve couldn't quite understand. No one's suffering was unimportant to her; she seemed to be missing some ability to detach herself, protect herself. She entered the pain willingly, if there seemed to be anything she could do Particularly in the next year of our acquaintance, I would learn this by heart as well as by rote -- from the day of September 11th on, she could not stop worrying about the people who were supposed to be her "enemies" as well as her neighbors; was she not commanded to love them both? She read international news, and learned about many things that were not discussed in America, and her heart ached for Taliban soldiers reported slaughtered in reckless violation of international law; she could not be contented with reports of "minor" casualties knowing that only meant Americans. This is not to imply, as certain foolish people with a limited capacity for love seem to think, that she did not ache for the victims here as well.
But at this point in the story we were all more innocent, and there was more joy and idealism, and less angst in their dialogues than in the next year. They both felt an obligation as Christians to be politically aware, passionately active and responsible citizens of the world. They also felt, I discovered, as unwelcome as I sometimes did. "I'm always being told I'm not a "real" Christian," Camilla said sadly. "Because of the other things I believe."
"Are they in, er, conflict?" I asked, confused.
She shook her head. "I don't think so. I feel like Jesus would want me to help feed the hungry, or protect innocents on death row (or really, anyone -- I think it's incredibly arrogant to impose permanent judgment, and that humanity is just too flawed), or to try to help prisoners of conscience -- political, religious, and everything. But now, what I do is wrong, or if it's right it doesn't matter, because I consider the Bible a human and flawed document, or believe in gay marriage, or because I'm pro-choice. Not pro-abortion, but pro-choice." She smiled, thinly. "It's hard to say, especially without talking about Heaven and Hell, but more and more, and the more "real" Christians I meet, I think I'll take my chances on this earth, and try everyday to do right, and to make my faith lively and evolving, not flat and still, And if I still miss the cut-off, then at least I'll have gotten this life.
"And I try to avoid getting into the debate about "real Christians." Personally, I think it's reprehensible for someone to say that no Christian ever does anything bad -- the Crusades, the Inquistion, the massacres in Rwanda, the near obliteration of Native Americans, witchcraft trials -- by our affiliation, we need to take responsibility. Lots of those people believed that what they were doing was good and holy. How cheap for us now to say "the Devil made them do it!" But I try not to say who is a real Christian or not, because I can't know what's in their hearts. I do believe that Christianity is flawed anytime it allows hate and it still allows hate. Look at the main preachers in the Religious Right -- Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell constantly preach hatred and difference. But I don't know if they're false Christians, or just confused. And that isn't a judgment I can make. All I can do is try to own my beliefs, and show as well as say that Christianity can be something else."
"However, I did completely lose it when I saw footage of Christians picketing at Matthew Shepard's funeral and later his trial," Jeff said more harshly than usual. "To me that was just so abhorrent, to intrude on a family in their grief in order to shame and attack their son whose voice was gone. No mention that murder is wrong, either. It was so horrible, I thought I might throw up. And I said, "Those are not Christians. They are not demonstrating love or compassion to their neighbors. They are selfish and arrogant, and I am ashamed to share my name with them."
Camilla grinned. "You know I don't really believe in an interventionist God, who reaches down and gives some people cancer and cures it in others, or makes sure one team wins the Super Bowl, or punishes and rewards people, because if so, He's doing really sloppy work, and I prefer a competent God." I laughed and she continued. "But sometimes I do think that just about nineteen years ago, God looked down and saw that humanity was having a tough day, and got around to sending us Jeff."
We talked about Heaven and Hell then, too. Camilla wasn't convinced she believed in hell -- "it just defies a loving God too much. Defies him, or makes him less than all-powerful and all-seeing. It's one thing for God to allow suffering on Earth -- I believe in free will, and I guess a Pattern -- if you go against the Pattern, you change the entire Pattern. Nothing is fixed and linear. And we are given that choice, and we have to choose over and over again, every day. We are charged with recreating the world, and I think it's part of God, for us to share in it like that. But to be complicit to that kind of suffering for all eternity -- I guess if it's true, I want no part of him." She paused. "There's a lovely Marcus Borg story about a Hindu professor in a seminary considering the passage about "the way, the truth and the light," and he says that yes, it's absolutely true -- the only way is to give yourself up unto death and a new spiritual birth. Jesus' story is universal."
Jeff believed in hell only to the extent of hell being permanent separation from God, not fire and darkness and demons. "What's the point?" he asked briskly. "I think some Christians get off on it, practically -- chortling about hell and the people who go there. And I don't say "get off on it" likely; there's a definite satisfaction there. You don't get that kind of righteousness without that. It's no better than pornography in some ways -- this reckless joy in lurid detail. It either makes God look, well, petty and vengeful and capricious, or it makes him subservient to Satan, or Evil, or what you will. To have an omnipotent God, you would have to believe that He chooses to send people to hell. And I don't."
"There's a remarkable C.S. Lewis story about a busload of people who travel between Heaven and Hell and most of the people in Hell want to stay there. It sort of opposes duality." Camilla remarked. "The separation idea does make sense, though. It's just the eternal punishment -- torture really -- that I can't accept. I don't want to be part of that."
I was surprised to hear them argue about heaven, though. "I really don't like the idea of heaven as a perpetual cocktail party," Camilla said. "The answers in the back of the book, running around to meet people -- eh. It's so human."
"I always liked the Virgil heaven," Jeff replied, having had to take Latin in high school. "Heaven is an extent of earthly joy."
They asked me what I thought and I shrugged. I wasn't going there, right? But then I recalled an idea that had followed me. "The Madeleine L'Engle model. In Heaven we gain some new intelligence, as essential as sight. Before here, we lived someplace with no sight, and you can't explain vision to a tribe of blind people. I like that idea. Progress."
"I do, too," said Camilla. "I always thought reincarnation made more sense than hell, in terms of Christianity."
"God grant us time, that we may become better fitted for the next step," Jeff agreed. "I think it must take more than one life to learn to "forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."
Camilla agreed. "It always seemed like a tricky promise to me. I try, but I have to believe God is more gracious than I am."
And I thought to myself how strange it was how some people made God so less virtuous, more jealous and angry than flesh and blood people like these among them.
"Love thy neighbor" was a literal creed they struggled with everyday. Jeff actually tithed his income from his on-campus jobs to different charities; Camilla was stretched thin running organizations and educationals on campus. She was a card-carrying member of Amnesty International and the ACLU; Jeff, I learned, turned in his Eagle Scout badge in protest of the Boy Scouts continued and concerted policy of excluding gays. They were both highly attuned to propoganda, and were not unable or unwilling to inflict their scorn on certain objects, especially faulty arguments.
These included a rapid and varied assortment, much to my amusement at times. Nor were they always deadly serious, Camilla and Jeff insisting that no ideology or faith could survive if people lacked a sense of humor about themselves, as humor and perspective went hand in hand. And so the list was formed.
The so-called "family values" show "7th Heaven.
"Oh," Jeff cried, "but that's why I want to be a minister -- to stalk people, illegally obtain personal information about them and give empty advice with no follow through."
Camilla added, "And don't forget to spy on your children and encourage your daughters to be vapid and boy-crazy and your sons to be arrogant and patriarchal."
Jeff nodded and looked back at his reading, and then up again. "No, what's really worse about that show is that people just say "family values." A mom and a dad in the same house, so everything is perfect. Except that they lie and steal and stalk each other. I mean, in my family, trust was a "family value," and it's not like we all became drugged-out sex whores because my parents didn't drive around to make sure we did not have condoms."
"Speaking of which, it irritates me when men on TV carry condoms in their wallets," said Camilla. "It's not really safe -- heat and friction, you run the risk of the rubber thinning and then you get holes. All right, PSA over."
"Taken under advisement, Camilla."
"And we musn't forget how it actually and legally crossed the line into abuse when Menopause-mad Annie sent the kids to live in the unfinished garage. Um, sorry, legally you have to provide for minor children. That was just scary."
"And this season's ending is very gross," Jeff said. "The fake wedding -- all the lying -- yuck. If I were dumb enough to get married on a first date, I'd fess up so as not to drag my parents through all the rigamorale."
"Or filing the wrong papers. I mean, it's fine to have a second ceremony, but be honest about it. And the conversion question -- the way it was shown -- was offensive, I thought. First off, converting to Judaism is hard, takes a long time and a lot of commitment. And lots of rabbis won't cooperate unless they feel someone is converting out of a true desire to do so. Which is kind of tangentially related is the idea that it is a really big thing for a lot of Jews to stay inside the faith, just because they were so close to being eliminated. My friend Eli says that he really does have to marry a Jewish woman, or at least one who would convert, because his family feels so strongly about it. They lost so many people -- in his grandad's generation, there were about 19 siblings, cousins, and so on between the ages of 10 and 22. And only two of them survived. There's still a lot of pressure to try to rebuild Judaism."
"Wow," Jeff said with a sigh. "I just mean I hadn't thought about it like that -- that the pressure from the camps is still there and so present."
Camilla nodded. "'The past isn't dead -- it's not even past.' William Faulkner. And one of the truest things I've ever read. That's why the past matters, and that's why we need to try to make peace with it.
"Anyway, I forgot to say before about the "family values" thing -- what insults me is that it's such a narrow view of family values. I think that "Gilmore Girls" has great family values -- it's a family that really loves each other, despite generational differences and conflicts. But the way Rory is always happy to hang out with her grandparents, and talk to her grandfather about books -- I think that's a great value for teenage girls, that you can get encouragment and sustenance from your family for things other people might not value, especially for your intelligence. And at the same time, Lorelai the mom is still trying to make peace with her mother, even though a lot of people might just give up. I mean, why isn't that a "family values" show? Close, loving, trusting relationships, intergenerational relationships, a really good role model in Rory and by conduit, in Lorelai, who has parented a spectacular child under difficult circumstances, and who would do anything for her daughter. But no, because once Lorelai had evil unmarried sex. And nothing good ever comes of that."
Jeff shrugged. "I still get annoyed when people slam "The Simpsons." Aside from being one of the smartest shows on TV, it tackles moral and religious themes all the time, episode where Krusty is reuinited with his father is just a study of Jewish culture, and the one where Homer becomes a "heretic" challenges traditional worship in a really American way. And then, in my favorite decision ever, the judge says that "science and religion must remain 500 feet apart at all times" in the "Angel-bones" episode."
"Ah! With a Stephen Jay Gould cameo!"
"Very good, Camilla -- I taped it, just for him."
Camilla laughed. "Some of the Bible retellings are my favorites. Well, besides "Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others," and "No child has ever tangled with the Republican party and lived to tell about it." Homer eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge and blaming Marge, Lisa as the power behind Moses -- I liked that one. Almost as much as when Lisa creates Lutherans."
Jeff chuckled as well. "And the thing is, even aside from all the religious motifs, it's an incredibly moral show, No, really!" he insisted (I must have looked skeptical). "Other than the language it uses sometimes (and that's a whole other argument, why we make a moral issue of language outside of context), there's a very sharp dichotomy between right and wrong, and usually that gets made really clear. There's three different episodes where Marge or Homer could be unfaithful, and they are tempted, but they stay true. Someone always comes to the aid of a suffering family member, and there's real love there. But just like everything else, people get hung up on one word or joke and they miss the whole message."
Another target was conservative pundit Ann Coulter ("She flat out lies, and then tosses her long hair around. I have great hair, but you don't see me using it as an argument." "Camilla, you have much better hair than she does.") and the representatives of the Religious Right, who offended Jeff and Camilla far more than I would have imagined. "I feel so dirty -- the dirt's not coming off!" Jeff yelled, joking in tone but serious in sentiment after watching an interview with Jerry Falwell (not the infamous post 9/11 one; I forget the topic, other than homosexuality being evil. Isn't that always the topic?).
The doctrine of "hate the sin, love the sinner," and the similar doctrine that Christians ("real" Christians) had no responsibility for the Crusades, or the Spanish Inquisition, or the Holocaust, or killing doctors who performed abortions, or hate crimes, were other idea they found particularly noxious.
"The first is cheap sophistry, " Jeff said, "and merely away to avoid the question of when hate became doctrine, and the second is just shameless denial. We were there. We failed. Let us at least acknowledge that, so that we may do better in the future."
To which Camilla (her voice nearly rubbed out with a cold) rather glumly said, "There has been more persecution in this century than any other in recorded history. At the height of the Islamic empire in Spain, in the eighth and ninth century, cities of Muslims, Christians and Jews flourished and poetry, art and science thrived. And then we beat it back and replaced it with the Crusades, and deny all responsibility today. Beautiful, lost al-Andalus!"
Then she smiled, albeit weakly and said "Other Christians always seem to like to say they would die for their faith, Good for them. I want to live for my faith, protect it, enhance it, embrace it. But to do that, you have to take responsibility. I don't understand why a religion with so much humility in the text becomes so defensive in real life. Is it that Jesus died for our sins, so we don't have to do anything else? Somehow, I don't think that "faith by grace" meant that. It's just," she paused, "I'm sleepy and sick, so I hope this makes sense. I'm out of doctrine and just talking." We nodded for her to go on.
"Okay, so Christians are willing to die for their religion. But it's easy to die for something, Living for a cause, keeping it wrapped round your heart, that's what's hard. And it floors me that Christians don't feel a need to examine our past. We did collaborate in a way with Hitler. Our faith was what started the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition. We destroyed local culture in the Americas because it wasn't Christian. And, oh, so many things. People killed in Rwanda, in churches where the Pastors promised they would be safe. Refusing to take a stance on the murder of Matthew Shepard." She sighed. "That's one of my moments of failing, though, when I watched the protestors on TV" -- Jeff sharply drew in his breath; this had hit him as well, as I knew.
"Failing?" I asked.
She nods, eyes down. "I mean in that I sputtered and wept and said 'Those are not true Christians!' Like Jeff. It's just that I try really hard not to say that. People tell me I'm not a Christian all the time, because I don't take the Bible as literal truth, or because I'm a feminist, or because I oppose the death penalty or the ACLU and I oppose school prayer and -- eh. I try not to let it get to me -- after all, I know my relationship with God and with Jesus, they don't. It's here." She touched her heart.
"Like a secret garden and the walls were very high," I said, misquoting "The Princess Bride."
She smiled. "Not high enough, sometimes. But because of that, I try not to say this IS Christianity and you're doing it WRONG."
"Yeah, well, there's absolutely no Christian defense for protesting at a funeral," muttered Jeff. "That just offended me -- I wanted to cry, That was so callous, so unfeeling, so anti-love, so arrogant. . ."
"I guess what I'm saying is I don't want to judge people's souls. But I want to be able to say -- this, what I'm saying, is as Christian as what you say, And if Jesus really died for us on the cross, than I feel obligated to take responsibility for my faith. It's just a lie to say that Christians didn't do anything bad. I've read the journals kept by Inquisitors, and a lot of them sincerely believed that they were doing God's work. Whether Christians were directly involved, or just did nothing to stop it (like the Holocaust -- although the ordinary Germans running the camps were Christian, weren't they?). It's just, how can anyone take us seriously when we say "oh, that wasn't us." For whatever reason, Christians do bad things. It's a lie and a disservice to suggest otherwise. And then, back to Jesus -- he died, he sacrificed himself because he was innocent. Right? And now, when we aren't innocent, we deny, back away, dissemble. I think that to emulate Christ we do need to have a sense of responsibility. Not always guilt, not always complete abjectness, but still. We are the ones left to carry out the ministry. In love or in hate, in dialogue or in monologue, in exploration or in stasis."
Chapter 3
The third character in my small story came into our lives in the late autumn, a redhead named Camilla. She and Jeff became friends first, seeking out a church that fit them, and she often came into our room to talk. In a way, they became each other's fellowship -- they had found a Sunday church,, requiring a train ride into the city, and Camilla also offered a Taise service at a local church they had found too blah, somehow, for Sundays. Taise, as I understand, is a service of chanting created by monks in France. No sermon -- just an hour of singing and thinking about the words. I went to a few of those services -- they were tagged as "healing" services (Camilla is chronically ill; we don't speak of it much, but sometimes I think it's central to who she is. In the brilliant mystery novel "The Daughter of Time" by Josephine Tey, a doctor, looking at a portrait of poor libeled Richard III, remarks on a unique expression victims of childhood illness or injury acquire -- the affect of suffering at too young an age. Having read this, I can't help but see this in Camilla -- a certain refinement of her brow and eyes, and a bit of distance in her smile), and I enjoyed the experience. Partly because I wasn't being demanded to act, just to sing, and there were no words that seemed meant to root me out. The idea of God is still so vague to me, but I felt that a little piece if God might be in those most simple strains, and especially, that God came through Jeff and maybe Camilla, who gently squeezed my hand. In the quiet, with Camilla on my right and Jeff on my left, I felt safe, and yet unsure as to what would happen next. Was this the night of evangelism, now?
No, it was the night of 1000 debates and critiques of the world as Camilla and Jeff worked out their Christianity in front of each other, testing each other out. Together, they were fiery, witty, incredibly fast-paced. Walking around campus was hard on my leg, and I was usually exhausted by nightfall. Most people gain weight their first semester; I lost weight because some nights I was just too exhausted to go to dinner, and even though Jeff faithfully brought food back, living on Cheerios does slim a person down. So often at first I was on the fringes of the flying birdies back and forth between Camilla and Jeff. I would lie on my bed, a blanket over my legs and just listen to them.
And frankly, I found Camilla somewhat intimidating at first. So passionate, so well-read, with an unflagging memory and an equally unfailing series of retorts, responses and anecdotes. Those first few weeks she usually sat on the floor, or in Jeff's chair, or on his bed, giving me the space she sensed I needed. One night, when Jeff was (as is his wont) writing a paper by sitting in the exact center of eight opened books and six sheets of notes, Camilla came by and he started to clear a space.
"It's okay," I said. "You can sit there," pointing to the end of the bed. I wasn't completely confident -- Jeff is a fairly physical person, he hugs or touches your hand or shoulder or back for reassurance, whereas Camilla and I were more physically reserved. Other than that moment of hand-holding, Camilla had not touched me at that poitn. I wasn't completely sure why -- squeamishness about my injury, or what had led to it, possibly. But I was beginning to trust her, and I needed to try, if only not to lose Jeff to her.
"Are you sure?" she asked cautiously. I nodded.
"Okay," she said and carefully eased herself onto the end of the bed, hugging one of the spare pillows. "You will tell me if I hurt you though? I mean, jostle your leg?"
"Oh," I said. That was all. "No, it's fine."
She smiled sheepishly. "I just wanted to be sure."
And from that moment on, I could not fear her. She still held me in thrall sometimes, but it was only out of respect and admiration and shock at being so close to such a person.
Camilla was, I learned quickly, fervently political, and unlike many Americans, had no shame about being so. In fact, this was central to her spiritual life. For her, Christianity was inextricably linked with concern about social justice, a passionate desire to shield and aid. Whatever her views on the next world, her work in this world was plain, and an unambiguous duty to the God she clearly loved.
She could recite the UN Declaration of Human Rights by heart, a product of years of devoted work for Amnesty International. She regularly wrote her senators and representative urging them which way to vote on legislation. She worked with a group lobbying for better health care for the underprivileged, especially prenatal care, and often lamented the fact that American health care was so reduced to money, "as if my father's law degree makes me more worthy of medical treatment than the daughter of a drug dealer. Neither of us have anything to do with it." To her, it seemed like an unforgivable travesty of Americans that, despite our riches, we had only the 26th (or so) lowest infant mortality rate in the world, meaning mothers in far poorer counties were less likely to lost their infants to death. Likewise, she was unwilling to ignore the fact that the "evil island" of Cuba had higher literacy and immunization rates than America. She wasn't a "real" socialist (although she had Fabian sympathies) but she had no moral pretensions regarding capitalism, either. "Neither works in isolation. Sure, Marxism has never been put into complete practice, and we certainly don't practice Adam Smith capitalism now. Invisible hand, indeed."
She also worked feverishly on a campaign to abolish the death penalty, for both pragmatic and religious reasons. "Vengeance isn't morality. Having greater compassion than our criminals -- should that be so hard? So much violence brought into a blood-soaked world." And then she would fling out the statistics of overturned convictions, racist trials, incompetent legal aid, giving it the momentum of a thriller where the case will be solved at the last possible minute, but never allowing the dramatic flair of her language to overshadow the idea that real lives were at stake.
And that flair was real. Camilla could say things that sound stilted and affected when I record them, but in her voice and presence they were poetry. In another era she might have been a storyteller and even now she was a singer -- a rich mezzo-soprano, who used her songs as arguments and pleas. She was partial to folk and neo-folk music -- songs that, in her words, "opened up worlds of empathy." It was a constant irritation and mystery to her that the idea of the "protest song" had almost disappeared in America. To their mutual delight, she and Jeff had both been raised on Harry Chapin, a singer I had never heard of -- a tireless worker against world hunger, performing hundreds of concerts for free and posthumously receiving a Congressional Medal for his efforts, after a too-young death in a car crash. You may know him as the author of "Cat's in the Cradle," but Jeff and Camilla were far more moved by his songs about America in the 1970s -- he shared their conflicts about this nation, with so many idealistic promises and so many (as they saw them) social and moral failures. Jeff was partial to a song called "A Quiet Little Love Affair," which dealt with the moral struggle of continuing to love a country (or an idea) despite recognition of its flaws -- for Jeff, the struggle between loyalty and love was always complicated. Too intelligent to love without question, yet too merciful not to want to yield to an ideal of unconditional love and forgiveness.
" Oh, time went by and I forgot,
Why I fell in love,
Though I still pledge my allegiance,
And soon I would wave the flag above,
Didn't know why what we'd done,
Didn't know where it flowed,
Well I never knew if we had lost,
If we had grown,
It was the last of a little love affair,
Between my country and me,
(back ground: Oh say can you see, my country tis of thee)
Oh, oh, my country tis of thee."
For Camilla, an even more stirring song (from the same album, "The Last Protest Singer," which Jeff teased Camilla about being) was "Sounds Like America to Me."
"Insecurity can beat me darling
but sometimes that's where I'm at
so I hope that you can keep me darling
so at least I can count on that
you see some things stir me deeply
though I try to hide from pain
but wide awake or sleepy
some questions still remain
sometimes these days it's hard to choose
the one right road to go
but this then is all I'm sure I know...
I know when a child is hurting
that the silence can be wrong
I know when old folks are helpless
I can't just pass along
and I know when someone's hungry
I can't just sing this song
and when I hear somebody crying
I can't just wonder who that it could be
well I hear somebody crying now
and it sure sounds like America to me. . ."
The chorus described her so perfectly -- for Camilla, to know of the evil in the world meant one was obligated to fight it, every day, every way, replace it in every form with love, charity or hope. Furthermore, as a person living on the planet, one had an obligation to acknowledge that evil, regardless of how far away it might seem. Ignorance, willful ignorance -- whether manifested in lies, or a refusal to learn -- was in her mind, perhaps the greatest sin. If God's love was infinite, so was humanity's responsibility.
Even worse for her was the knowledge -- and her unflinching acceptance -- of evil done under the auspices of good. Evil was omnipresent, in crimes of omission and inaction as well as complicit choice, and to be silent was to be part of the evil. Camilla may not have agreed with Dante's concept of hell and who goes there, but the idea that "the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality" rang true for her, and seemed particularly damning to Christians content to rest on their laurels, or more precisely, Christ's laurels.
Camilla, like Jeff, was torn between too many courses of study, struggling to determine her calling, settling finally on comparative literature and history, learning Greek and eventually Arabic on the side. They both read constantly out of class and were full of news and new ideas, which alternately thrilled them and devastated them. Camilla in particular could suffer from world events. As Jeff once said, "She never learned that anyone wasn't her neighbor," and she loved them all, with a recklessness my reserve couldn't quite understand. No one's suffering was unimportant to her; she seemed to be missing some ability to detach herself, protect herself. She entered the pain willingly, if there seemed to be anything she could do Particularly in the next year of our acquaintance, I would learn this by heart as well as by rote -- from the day of September 11th on, she could not stop worrying about the people who were supposed to be her "enemies" as well as her neighbors; was she not commanded to love them both? She read international news, and learned about many things that were not discussed in America, and her heart ached for Taliban soldiers reported slaughtered in reckless violation of international law; she could not be contented with reports of "minor" casualties knowing that only meant Americans. This is not to imply, as certain foolish people with a limited capacity for love seem to think, that she did not ache for the victims here as well.
But at this point in the story we were all more innocent, and there was more joy and idealism, and less angst in their dialogues than in the next year. They both felt an obligation as Christians to be politically aware, passionately active and responsible citizens of the world. They also felt, I discovered, as unwelcome as I sometimes did. "I'm always being told I'm not a "real" Christian," Camilla said sadly. "Because of the other things I believe."
"Are they in, er, conflict?" I asked, confused.
She shook her head. "I don't think so. I feel like Jesus would want me to help feed the hungry, or protect innocents on death row (or really, anyone -- I think it's incredibly arrogant to impose permanent judgment, and that humanity is just too flawed), or to try to help prisoners of conscience -- political, religious, and everything. But now, what I do is wrong, or if it's right it doesn't matter, because I consider the Bible a human and flawed document, or believe in gay marriage, or because I'm pro-choice. Not pro-abortion, but pro-choice." She smiled, thinly. "It's hard to say, especially without talking about Heaven and Hell, but more and more, and the more "real" Christians I meet, I think I'll take my chances on this earth, and try everyday to do right, and to make my faith lively and evolving, not flat and still, And if I still miss the cut-off, then at least I'll have gotten this life.
"And I try to avoid getting into the debate about "real Christians." Personally, I think it's reprehensible for someone to say that no Christian ever does anything bad -- the Crusades, the Inquistion, the massacres in Rwanda, the near obliteration of Native Americans, witchcraft trials -- by our affiliation, we need to take responsibility. Lots of those people believed that what they were doing was good and holy. How cheap for us now to say "the Devil made them do it!" But I try not to say who is a real Christian or not, because I can't know what's in their hearts. I do believe that Christianity is flawed anytime it allows hate and it still allows hate. Look at the main preachers in the Religious Right -- Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell constantly preach hatred and difference. But I don't know if they're false Christians, or just confused. And that isn't a judgment I can make. All I can do is try to own my beliefs, and show as well as say that Christianity can be something else."
"However, I did completely lose it when I saw footage of Christians picketing at Matthew Shepard's funeral and later his trial," Jeff said more harshly than usual. "To me that was just so abhorrent, to intrude on a family in their grief in order to shame and attack their son whose voice was gone. No mention that murder is wrong, either. It was so horrible, I thought I might throw up. And I said, "Those are not Christians. They are not demonstrating love or compassion to their neighbors. They are selfish and arrogant, and I am ashamed to share my name with them."
Camilla grinned. "You know I don't really believe in an interventionist God, who reaches down and gives some people cancer and cures it in others, or makes sure one team wins the Super Bowl, or punishes and rewards people, because if so, He's doing really sloppy work, and I prefer a competent God." I laughed and she continued. "But sometimes I do think that just about nineteen years ago, God looked down and saw that humanity was having a tough day, and got around to sending us Jeff."
We talked about Heaven and Hell then, too. Camilla wasn't convinced she believed in hell -- "it just defies a loving God too much. Defies him, or makes him less than all-powerful and all-seeing. It's one thing for God to allow suffering on Earth -- I believe in free will, and I guess a Pattern -- if you go against the Pattern, you change the entire Pattern. Nothing is fixed and linear. And we are given that choice, and we have to choose over and over again, every day. We are charged with recreating the world, and I think it's part of God, for us to share in it like that. But to be complicit to that kind of suffering for all eternity -- I guess if it's true, I want no part of him." She paused. "There's a lovely Marcus Borg story about a Hindu professor in a seminary considering the passage about "the way, the truth and the light," and he says that yes, it's absolutely true -- the only way is to give yourself up unto death and a new spiritual birth. Jesus' story is universal."
Jeff believed in hell only to the extent of hell being permanent separation from God, not fire and darkness and demons. "What's the point?" he asked briskly. "I think some Christians get off on it, practically -- chortling about hell and the people who go there. And I don't say "get off on it" likely; there's a definite satisfaction there. You don't get that kind of righteousness without that. It's no better than pornography in some ways -- this reckless joy in lurid detail. It either makes God look, well, petty and vengeful and capricious, or it makes him subservient to Satan, or Evil, or what you will. To have an omnipotent God, you would have to believe that He chooses to send people to hell. And I don't."
"There's a remarkable C.S. Lewis story about a busload of people who travel between Heaven and Hell and most of the people in Hell want to stay there. It sort of opposes duality." Camilla remarked. "The separation idea does make sense, though. It's just the eternal punishment -- torture really -- that I can't accept. I don't want to be part of that."
I was surprised to hear them argue about heaven, though. "I really don't like the idea of heaven as a perpetual cocktail party," Camilla said. "The answers in the back of the book, running around to meet people -- eh. It's so human."
"I always liked the Virgil heaven," Jeff replied, having had to take Latin in high school. "Heaven is an extent of earthly joy."
They asked me what I thought and I shrugged. I wasn't going there, right? But then I recalled an idea that had followed me. "The Madeleine L'Engle model. In Heaven we gain some new intelligence, as essential as sight. Before here, we lived someplace with no sight, and you can't explain vision to a tribe of blind people. I like that idea. Progress."
"I do, too," said Camilla. "I always thought reincarnation made more sense than hell, in terms of Christianity."
"God grant us time, that we may become better fitted for the next step," Jeff agreed. "I think it must take more than one life to learn to "forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."
Camilla agreed. "It always seemed like a tricky promise to me. I try, but I have to believe God is more gracious than I am."
And I thought to myself how strange it was how some people made God so less virtuous, more jealous and angry than flesh and blood people like these among them.
"Love thy neighbor" was a literal creed they struggled with everyday. Jeff actually tithed his income from his on-campus jobs to different charities; Camilla was stretched thin running organizations and educationals on campus. She was a card-carrying member of Amnesty International and the ACLU; Jeff, I learned, turned in his Eagle Scout badge in protest of the Boy Scouts continued and concerted policy of excluding gays. They were both highly attuned to propoganda, and were not unable or unwilling to inflict their scorn on certain objects, especially faulty arguments.
These included a rapid and varied assortment, much to my amusement at times. Nor were they always deadly serious, Camilla and Jeff insisting that no ideology or faith could survive if people lacked a sense of humor about themselves, as humor and perspective went hand in hand. And so the list was formed.
The so-called "family values" show "7th Heaven.
"Oh," Jeff cried, "but that's why I want to be a minister -- to stalk people, illegally obtain personal information about them and give empty advice with no follow through."
Camilla added, "And don't forget to spy on your children and encourage your daughters to be vapid and boy-crazy and your sons to be arrogant and patriarchal."
Jeff nodded and looked back at his reading, and then up again. "No, what's really worse about that show is that people just say "family values." A mom and a dad in the same house, so everything is perfect. Except that they lie and steal and stalk each other. I mean, in my family, trust was a "family value," and it's not like we all became drugged-out sex whores because my parents didn't drive around to make sure we did not have condoms."
"Speaking of which, it irritates me when men on TV carry condoms in their wallets," said Camilla. "It's not really safe -- heat and friction, you run the risk of the rubber thinning and then you get holes. All right, PSA over."
"Taken under advisement, Camilla."
"And we musn't forget how it actually and legally crossed the line into abuse when Menopause-mad Annie sent the kids to live in the unfinished garage. Um, sorry, legally you have to provide for minor children. That was just scary."
"And this season's ending is very gross," Jeff said. "The fake wedding -- all the lying -- yuck. If I were dumb enough to get married on a first date, I'd fess up so as not to drag my parents through all the rigamorale."
"Or filing the wrong papers. I mean, it's fine to have a second ceremony, but be honest about it. And the conversion question -- the way it was shown -- was offensive, I thought. First off, converting to Judaism is hard, takes a long time and a lot of commitment. And lots of rabbis won't cooperate unless they feel someone is converting out of a true desire to do so. Which is kind of tangentially related is the idea that it is a really big thing for a lot of Jews to stay inside the faith, just because they were so close to being eliminated. My friend Eli says that he really does have to marry a Jewish woman, or at least one who would convert, because his family feels so strongly about it. They lost so many people -- in his grandad's generation, there were about 19 siblings, cousins, and so on between the ages of 10 and 22. And only two of them survived. There's still a lot of pressure to try to rebuild Judaism."
"Wow," Jeff said with a sigh. "I just mean I hadn't thought about it like that -- that the pressure from the camps is still there and so present."
Camilla nodded. "'The past isn't dead -- it's not even past.' William Faulkner. And one of the truest things I've ever read. That's why the past matters, and that's why we need to try to make peace with it.
"Anyway, I forgot to say before about the "family values" thing -- what insults me is that it's such a narrow view of family values. I think that "Gilmore Girls" has great family values -- it's a family that really loves each other, despite generational differences and conflicts. But the way Rory is always happy to hang out with her grandparents, and talk to her grandfather about books -- I think that's a great value for teenage girls, that you can get encouragment and sustenance from your family for things other people might not value, especially for your intelligence. And at the same time, Lorelai the mom is still trying to make peace with her mother, even though a lot of people might just give up. I mean, why isn't that a "family values" show? Close, loving, trusting relationships, intergenerational relationships, a really good role model in Rory and by conduit, in Lorelai, who has parented a spectacular child under difficult circumstances, and who would do anything for her daughter. But no, because once Lorelai had evil unmarried sex. And nothing good ever comes of that."
Jeff shrugged. "I still get annoyed when people slam "The Simpsons." Aside from being one of the smartest shows on TV, it tackles moral and religious themes all the time, episode where Krusty is reuinited with his father is just a study of Jewish culture, and the one where Homer becomes a "heretic" challenges traditional worship in a really American way. And then, in my favorite decision ever, the judge says that "science and religion must remain 500 feet apart at all times" in the "Angel-bones" episode."
"Ah! With a Stephen Jay Gould cameo!"
"Very good, Camilla -- I taped it, just for him."
Camilla laughed. "Some of the Bible retellings are my favorites. Well, besides "Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others," and "No child has ever tangled with the Republican party and lived to tell about it." Homer eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge and blaming Marge, Lisa as the power behind Moses -- I liked that one. Almost as much as when Lisa creates Lutherans."
Jeff chuckled as well. "And the thing is, even aside from all the religious motifs, it's an incredibly moral show, No, really!" he insisted (I must have looked skeptical). "Other than the language it uses sometimes (and that's a whole other argument, why we make a moral issue of language outside of context), there's a very sharp dichotomy between right and wrong, and usually that gets made really clear. There's three different episodes where Marge or Homer could be unfaithful, and they are tempted, but they stay true. Someone always comes to the aid of a suffering family member, and there's real love there. But just like everything else, people get hung up on one word or joke and they miss the whole message."
Another target was conservative pundit Ann Coulter ("She flat out lies, and then tosses her long hair around. I have great hair, but you don't see me using it as an argument." "Camilla, you have much better hair than she does.") and the representatives of the Religious Right, who offended Jeff and Camilla far more than I would have imagined. "I feel so dirty -- the dirt's not coming off!" Jeff yelled, joking in tone but serious in sentiment after watching an interview with Jerry Falwell (not the infamous post 9/11 one; I forget the topic, other than homosexuality being evil. Isn't that always the topic?).
The doctrine of "hate the sin, love the sinner," and the similar doctrine that Christians ("real" Christians) had no responsibility for the Crusades, or the Spanish Inquisition, or the Holocaust, or killing doctors who performed abortions, or hate crimes, were other idea they found particularly noxious.
"The first is cheap sophistry, " Jeff said, "and merely away to avoid the question of when hate became doctrine, and the second is just shameless denial. We were there. We failed. Let us at least acknowledge that, so that we may do better in the future."
To which Camilla (her voice nearly rubbed out with a cold) rather glumly said, "There has been more persecution in this century than any other in recorded history. At the height of the Islamic empire in Spain, in the eighth and ninth century, cities of Muslims, Christians and Jews flourished and poetry, art and science thrived. And then we beat it back and replaced it with the Crusades, and deny all responsibility today. Beautiful, lost al-Andalus!"
Then she smiled, albeit weakly and said "Other Christians always seem to like to say they would die for their faith, Good for them. I want to live for my faith, protect it, enhance it, embrace it. But to do that, you have to take responsibility. I don't understand why a religion with so much humility in the text becomes so defensive in real life. Is it that Jesus died for our sins, so we don't have to do anything else? Somehow, I don't think that "faith by grace" meant that. It's just," she paused, "I'm sleepy and sick, so I hope this makes sense. I'm out of doctrine and just talking." We nodded for her to go on.
"Okay, so Christians are willing to die for their religion. But it's easy to die for something, Living for a cause, keeping it wrapped round your heart, that's what's hard. And it floors me that Christians don't feel a need to examine our past. We did collaborate in a way with Hitler. Our faith was what started the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition. We destroyed local culture in the Americas because it wasn't Christian. And, oh, so many things. People killed in Rwanda, in churches where the Pastors promised they would be safe. Refusing to take a stance on the murder of Matthew Shepard." She sighed. "That's one of my moments of failing, though, when I watched the protestors on TV" -- Jeff sharply drew in his breath; this had hit him as well, as I knew.
"Failing?" I asked.
She nods, eyes down. "I mean in that I sputtered and wept and said 'Those are not true Christians!' Like Jeff. It's just that I try really hard not to say that. People tell me I'm not a Christian all the time, because I don't take the Bible as literal truth, or because I'm a feminist, or because I oppose the death penalty or the ACLU and I oppose school prayer and -- eh. I try not to let it get to me -- after all, I know my relationship with God and with Jesus, they don't. It's here." She touched her heart.
"Like a secret garden and the walls were very high," I said, misquoting "The Princess Bride."
She smiled. "Not high enough, sometimes. But because of that, I try not to say this IS Christianity and you're doing it WRONG."
"Yeah, well, there's absolutely no Christian defense for protesting at a funeral," muttered Jeff. "That just offended me -- I wanted to cry, That was so callous, so unfeeling, so anti-love, so arrogant. . ."
"I guess what I'm saying is I don't want to judge people's souls. But I want to be able to say -- this, what I'm saying, is as Christian as what you say, And if Jesus really died for us on the cross, than I feel obligated to take responsibility for my faith. It's just a lie to say that Christians didn't do anything bad. I've read the journals kept by Inquisitors, and a lot of them sincerely believed that they were doing God's work. Whether Christians were directly involved, or just did nothing to stop it (like the Holocaust -- although the ordinary Germans running the camps were Christian, weren't they?). It's just, how can anyone take us seriously when we say "oh, that wasn't us." For whatever reason, Christians do bad things. It's a lie and a disservice to suggest otherwise. And then, back to Jesus -- he died, he sacrificed himself because he was innocent. Right? And now, when we aren't innocent, we deny, back away, dissemble. I think that to emulate Christ we do need to have a sense of responsibility. Not always guilt, not always complete abjectness, but still. We are the ones left to carry out the ministry. In love or in hate, in dialogue or in monologue, in exploration or in stasis."