IVP - Strangely Dim

What’s in a Name

By David A. Zimmerman

I think I signed something I shouldn’t have signed. Or maybe I should have signed it. I’m all “engh” about it.

I was sitting at my desk, minding my own business, when a coworker “invited” me to sign a petition to amend the Illinois constitution. And I signed it, mostly because I was still waking up and not in the mood for a fight.

But as soon as he left I remembered that I don’t support such an amendment. It’s not that I was unsympathetic to the thought behind the petition; it’s that I don’t think such an amendment is a responsible use of a constitution. Constitutions govern how a government is to be run and ought to deal with issues such as term limits for members of Congress or definitions of voting rights. Constitutions do not typically dictate how people are to conduct themselves on a day to day basis. If we amend the constitution to prohibit, for example, the sale and distribution of alcohol, then we really ought to amend it to forbid murder, theft and any number of violations of natural law.

But I digress. The real issue is that I don’t support the amendment, yet I signed the petition. I signed the petition because I hate conflict, but the petition will likely generate more conflict, which—as I mentioned—I hate.

It’s not as though I expect this particular petition to sway the will of the Illinois state government or the state’s dozens of living voters. I don’t think this issue will hold the attention of the American people for very long, and the amendment process takes a long time.

But now my name is on a petition that I don’t agree with, and that means that my words do not correspond with my actions. It’s one thing to say “I believe this”; it’s quite another to take steps to do something about that belief. And when I take steps to do something that I have said I don’t support, I am not—as former president of the Czech Republic, Václav Havel, might put it—living in the truth.

All this just to avoid an uncomfortable conversation about what I believe about, of all things, the telos of the Illinois constitution. As if anyone in the known universe cares about the Illinois constitution. But it points to larger issues: what am I willing to sacrifice to maintain peace, and what am I willing to sacrifice in order to be myself.

So I’m ashamed to say that I let a moment of discomfort color my identity. I’ll never be Václav Havel, apparently. And unless I get some gumption, I may never be myself either.

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Read about my forthcoming book, if you have any remaining respect for me.

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Your Time Was Then

By David A. Zimmerman

I suppose I wouldn’t mind aging so much if we all did it together—or at least if the word generation actually meant something. I mean, really: I’m Generation X, but so is the little weasel who works down the hall from me and keeps stealing all my office supplies. So are those jerks down the block who keep blowing up sticks of dynamite on the street as acts of patriotism. And then there’s Generation Y or the Millennials or whatever, and they’re starting to take entry level positions in my field and write the theses I wish I’d written and move into my neighborhood—my neighborhood. Two generations breathing down my neck, and the older I get, the more of them there seem to be.

I’m much more comfortable with the age difference between me and my oldest niece: thirty-one years. She’s cute; I’m funny. She climbs on my back and sprays me with water; I carry her around and wipe the food off her face. I don’t have to worry about my niece taking my job from me, at least till I’m comfortably close to retirement. I don’t have to worry about her kids tromping on my grass and picking all my flowers. We’re free to enjoy one another without feeling threatened by one another.

Not so with these yuppie interlopers. They’re breathing my air, touching my stuff, stealing my thunder. That may be how King Saul felt about up-and-comer David. If Saul was anything like me, he had already developed a pretty clear idea of how the rest of his life would unfold—more eating, more drinking, more merriment, more glory. Here was Israel’s first king ever, the glory boy of the people of God, and suddenly all the girls were swooning over some punk kid instead of him. David burst on the scene and started stealing Saul’s press.

It didn’t help that David was so likeable. Nothing is more perplexing than liking someone you hate—or, perhaps more appropriately, someone you wish would just go away and let you enjoy yourself in peace. And that’s my problem: I really like all these folks who are the age I wish I were, but just being around them reminds me that my time was then, and what’s left for me now? Their present is familiar to me, and I get all nostalgic about it. Meanwhile, my future is an open question. I hate open questions.

Maybe I could take some small comfort in knowing that I’ve prompted a similar perplexity for the people who went before me; I’ve been a thief of their own youth, and they’ve been the same to their own antecedents. Maybe some comfort, but not much, because I’m still aging at an alarming rate, and I’m watching myself move from the center of the universe to its periphery, which in reality is where I’ve always been and where my usurpers are too.

Time is, after all, simply a construct, and the true Center and Source of it all exists outside of it. At some point even my niece will be looking over her shoulder as another generation breathes down her neck, at which point I’ll be happily sipping prune juice through a straw, watching Wheel of Fortune and laughing at the absurdity of it all.

But that will be then. For now, I hate prune juice and want the universe to revolve around me. Is that too much to ask?

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Listen to the June 28, 2004, installment of Lin’s Bin, an audio-essay by Chicago DJ Lin Braehmer, for another perspective on aging.

Check out my last lunge at adolescence in my forthcoming book, Comic Book Character.

Read about my secret identity at www.ivpress.com.

Older Than a Boulder

By David A. Zimmerman

I turned thirty-four this summer, which means, among other things, that next year I’ll be eligible to be president of the United States. Which means, among other things, that I am old.

Oh, I’m not oooooolllllllddddd. I still have my teeth and all my original ball joints. But I’m entrenched in my mid-thirties, which is far and away not young. In fact, by some calculations I’m one year from middle-age, which is funny, because by some calculations I’ve just left my extended adolescence.

Your thirties are kind of like aging hors d’oeuvres—not in the sense that you really would be better off in a refrigerator, but more like you’re getting your aging feet wet. It’s like you’ve turned eighteen but still have four years of school to get used to the idea that you have to work for a living. I still listen to the rock ’n’ roll music, I still leave my shirt untucked whenever possible, and I haven’t started leaving my dress socks on while I mow the yard.

But though I’m not quite old enough to have fathered some of my coworkers—at least within the bonds of holy matrimony—I am certainly old enough to have babysat a growing percentage of them. I’m old enough that I need to have my pop-culture references checked for coolness. I’m old enough that no major industries care much about my purchasing power.

Aging traditionally has frightened me just about as much as death. I haven’t been able to decide whether I hope I get old before I die, or whether I hope I die before I get old. Some nights I wonder about death; other nights I wonder about how I’ll handle life when I’m in my sixties, or when I’m in my eighties. I have experiences with older friends that make me more or less confident in my ability to live life to the full when I am well-advanced in years: The eighty-year-old elder from my church, who is twice-widowed but fondly recalls two silver wedding anniversaries and is still an active member of his community, inspires me to face my future boldly. The eighty-year-old man at the barbershop, whom no one ever visits and who has a hard time getting his groceries and who has aches and pains all over his body, fills me with dread. What if I end up like the one, and not the other? What if I die tomorrow?

Of course, being a Christian I ought not be frightened by death; I should wait in joyful hope, confident in the promise of the resurrection. But I don’t like the unknown, and we’ve been told just enough about the afterlife to make it sound fanciful but ambiguous. Am I going to spend eternity singing? walking around in forest glens, stopping to smell the roses? Will I be put to work? Will I be healthy in heaven, or will I carry my own aches and pains with me? Is it better for me to enter heaven while I’m young or when I’m old?

Maybe I’m overthinking this. I’m still only thirty-four, for Pete’s sake. I can’t even be president yet.

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Check out the June 28, 2004, installment of Lin’s Bin, an audio-essay by Chicago DJ Lin Braehmer, for another perspective on aging.

Punisher 1, Spider-Man 2

By David A. Zimmerman

Spider-Man and the Punisher could not be more different. They actually regard each other as part of their city’s problem: to Spider-Man, the Punisher’s violent vigilantism aggravates an already violent citywide crime culture; the Punisher sees Spider-Man as a weak-willed gadfly on the tail of a beast that needs to be led to slaughter. Regular readers know that when these two meet, they will not likely be glad to see each other.

To those unfamiliar with these characters, however—both innocent bystanders in the comic book storylines and the nonreaders visiting theaters this summer—Spider-Man and the Punisher are two of a kind: big strong tough guys who like to wear tights and take out the bad guys. Without the context of each other, either hero defines the other. That’s unfortunate, since each has a radically different vision for what an ideal world would look like, and each has a distinct method toward bringing about that vision. Their goals and their tactics are irreconcilable, to the point that when Spider-Man and the Punisher meet, they inevitably fight.

Spider-Man, you might say, plays defense. His goal is something approaching shalom, the Old Testament concept of peace and well-being that ought to characterize a redemptive community. He doesn’t kill criminals; he wraps them up and delivers them to the local authorities. He intervenes when someone needs help and whisks away when his help is no longer needed. He is a hero only insofar as his community needs a hero; the rest of the time he is just Peter Parker—himself.

The Punisher, by contrast, is motivated by revenge first and justice second, and his sense of justice has been tainted by his lust for revenge. In a sense, who could blame him? He was widowed in an act of criminal violence, and only another victim can truly identify with how a person might process such an experience.

And yet, the community the Punisher is building by his ongoing actions is as foreboding as his skull-bearing costume. His task is the systematic dismantling of criminal networks, but every time he removes one source of power he creates a void that will undoubtedly be filled by more crime. He offers no positive agenda for his city—no way out of the forest of trouble that he’s helped to plant, no way into a place of rest.

The Punisher, when we think about him, ought to trouble us. He has observed a true problem in the chronic crime facing his city, but his solution is clearly inadequate—if you think about it. He and we would benefit from reflecting on the ethics of power embraced by Spider-Man in the aftermath of his Uncle Ben’s death: “With great power comes great responsibility.” That one sentence has for forty years now effectively restrained Spider-Man from using his enormous power to wreak devastation, and has instead consistently directed him toward the redemption of his city. It is not surprising that Marvel Comics used Spider-Man to narrate the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. Here our hero had been helpless to stop the devastation that took place, but he vowed to help in the restoration of his city’s hope. Restoring hope—not punishing or pursuing revenge—is the type of work that ought to characterize our heroes, that ought to characterize us.

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This Strangely Dim is adapted with permission from “A Tale of Two Vigilantes,” which originally ran on the website Busted Halo.

Check out my secret identity at ivpress.com.

Because We Can-Can

By David A. Zimmerman

Recently, President Clinton released his memoirs and reflected on his affair with a White House intern: “I think I did something for the worst possible reason, just because I could. I think that's just about the most morally indefensible reason anybody could have for doing anything, when do you something just because you could.”

He’s right, I think. “Because I can” is a miserable justification for anything, particularly anything morally wrong. Even the Bible makes apparent concession for some sin based on the spirit behind the act: King David and his cohorts ate bread already devoted to the Lord because they were hungry and desperate, and a man will steal bread to feed his family. The circumstances mitigated the offense.

Not so with the near-unpardonable sin of “because we can.” The same King David committed adultery and murder because he could, and it stained his legacy throughout history. St. Augustine stole pears from a private orchard even though wild pears were growing right down the road; he stole them because he could, and only years later would he recognize the gravity of that decision.

There’s a corollary to this sin of commission which is a sin of omission: “Because I don’t have to.” Not to belittle the concept, but another president declared this sentiment toward the end of his presidency about, of all things, broccoli. “I don’t like it, and I don’t have to eat it!” whined President George H. W. Bush, in what may be the only words people born between 1985 and 1989 remember from him.

I recently heard a pastor say that in our culture, having more than we need is considered admirable; by extension, having less than you need is considered shameful. We are encouraged to keep more than we need on hand at all times, “because we can,” without reflecting on the fact that countless people the world over have less than they need at all times, “because we don’t have to.” The sad state of our culture is that we have made admirable what is shameful, and shameful what is admirable. God help us all.

No one can make us do what we don’t want to do, and no one can keep us from doing what we want to do. And yet many things we don’t want to do need doing, and why shouldn’t we lend our hand? Many things we want to do are hurtful and shameful; why shouldn’t we be kept from doing them? Such a change of mindset is almost beyond the capacity of mere humans to make, which makes our future seem pretty dim. God help us all, indeed.

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