Meals From The Marketplace

            If Rob Bell’s thesis on Hell has made the cover of Time Magazine, as it has this week (just in time for Easter), then it is certainly worthy of comment here.

            As regular readers know, I am not one who professes to any belief system that includes recognition of a place called Hell.  I don’t view Heaven as any more probable, and, just to make sure I am completely understood, I don’t see a strong argument for the existence of God, not at least in what would qualify as a religious belief.

            But Rob Bell is not a non-believer (a category I fall into most readily).  He is a Christian minister of one of those mega-churches that typically feature evangelical preachers for whom the Bible is absolute gospel – scripture from on High, as it were.

            And so, when someone of his stature writes that Hell is not necessarily the place of eternal damnation that the Bible suggests, folks who have a lot invested in that view are bound to be just a little upset.

            Bell makes his position relatively clear on the point in his book, “Love Wins,” which, in addition to getting the attention of evangelicals, is all the buzz on cable news networks and talk radio.  In his book, Bell says that Hell is irrelevant to a truly Christian life, which instead should be seeking to live ethically above all else.

            As would be expected, Bell is being attacked as a heretic by some and as a provocateur by others.  He seems unperturbed, speaking of the need to live in the here and now and to work on what he regards as Christ’s primary teaching: the power of love.

            Be that as it may, with Easter week at hand and the masses (Donald Trump apparently included) about to make their annual pilgrimages to their local churches, the opportunity to explore the likelihood that Hell exists cannot be ignored (at least not by one who professes proudly to unadulterated agnosticism on the subject).

            Here, then, for those who care to indulge in a little spiritual cogitation, is what makes sense to me.

            The vast universe is too immense to make any real sense to mere mortals.  Scientists who study it endlessly are constantly finding new ways to understand it.  We seem to have passed beyond the view that life cannot possibly exist anywhere but on this little planet in this relatively tiny solar system in this otherwise insignificant galaxy.

            The current scientific thought seems to be that intelligent life may well exist elsewhere in the universe, albeit we are unlikely to ever encounter it, the spatial distances being too great to ever transcend.

            But accepting that we may not be unique and that the universe is immense neither confirms nor denies the existence of a master creator who put it all in motion and who even controls how it all plays out. 

            God, in other words, at least in a deistic sense, is no more improbable than probable.  In fact, if we expand our inquiry to include how it all started (“it” here being the universe itself), we are left with a giant question mark that seems only capable of being answered with something akin to God, even if that concept is a mere acknowledgement of the laws of physics that seem to control everything.

            And so, as an agnostic, I acknowledge the very real possibility that a master force, call it God, not only exists, but may well be in control.  Saying so, doesn’t reject the only slightly less plausible notion that the laws of physics just are what they are and that the universe just is what it is, intellectually vacuous though that statement will appear.

            In any event, whether there be a God or not, the likelihood of a Hell that is eternal damnation for all souls not deemed worthy of salvation seems outside the realm of intellectual calculation.  It presupposes, among other things, the existence of something that “survives” the end of the physical life and that is somehow capable of experiencing pain and anguish even without the central nervous system that provides a living being with those sensations.

            Moreover, it supposes a means of calculating the worthiness of every living being at the point of that being’s demise and of being unmerciful in assigning such “souls” to that eternally damnable place.  And if such assignments are made by this same God that we hypothecate may well exist, what does that say of Its (His is so sexist; Hers is so condescending) creation?

            Of course, the foregoing is a discussion devoid of faith, but faith does not provide much solace if it results in a God who deliberately created a universe without regard for how Its subjects would be treated once they were born into it.

            And the same God that presumably assigns “souls” to Hell is also supposed to be merciful and loving, at least in the Christian version of the deity, since He (now I must be sexist) claimed to have embodied Himself in living form as Jesus Christ some 2,000 years ago.

            Similar inconsistencies can be found throughout the Bible and in the theologies that have embraced it.  The fact that so many views of God exist in the organized religions of the world should provide more than ample evidence of the view that the Biblical God is a human creation (which is not to deny the view of God I previously acknowledged as being intellectually plausible).  The two conclusions, if you follow my drift, are not irreconcilable.

            At some point, however, the entire subject becomes absurd, which is why, as the thinking person that I believe It intended me to be, I cannot make sense of the puzzle. 

            And so, I applaud Rob Bell for his forthrightness and his courage.  While I will probably never attend his church, I certainly might read his book.  Any Christian theologian who acknowledges the likelihood that Hell is a human construct and, more importantly, who stresses the need to live an ethical life in pursuit of true Christian salvation, has my vote.

            Happy Easter everyone.

            It happens every year, of course, although this year it has taken its sweet time getting here.  Still, the arrival of that glorious season (and the lovely weather that accompanies it) known as spring never ceases to rekindle feelings of sanguinity for anyone who is old enough to understand the vagaries of life. 

            This year, with many parts of Sacramento still soaked to the point of super-saturation from the seemingly non-stop rainfall we endured for much of March, the spring that is finally showing its face for real is most welcome indeed.

            Each season has its purpose and provides its lessons, to be sure. 

            Winter, like much of life, is hard.  It brings the flu and other maladies that fester and pester our psyches, causing as much psychological disquiet as physical discomfort.  The days are cold; the evenings are frigid.  One dares not linger far from shelter for long.  Less activity seems the wisest course in winter.

            Summer is active, providing the opportunity to play, and work, in the fullness of the day.  We are at our best in summer, or so we hope.  But summer is also real, with stifling heat often forcing us to forego the dreams we had and the plans we made.  Summer is the time of our excesses, when our indulgent nature often brings us more pain than pleasure.  It is a time of broken promises, when expectancies become disappointments.

            Autumn is peaceful, but it is a false peace: the calm before the storm.  It is a time for saving up for the cold days ahead, and it is a time for recovering from the excesses of summer.  Autumn is the reality of failure and defeat.  It pretends to give us a second chance, but it hides its true intent, which is to usher us back to the bitter hostility of winter.

            And then there is that most wondrous of seasons, the time of spiritual rebirth and unbridled optimism, of renewed energy and re-found enthusiasm, when dreams are made and hope “springs eternal.”

            Spring is all about expectancy, reflecting the idealism of youth.  It is a time when everything seems new and often is. 

            For those species that spend the harshest parts of winter in the almost semi-comatose state of hibernation, the world must seem ripe for rediscovery when the morning frost softens to glistening dew and the slumbers of the recent past give way to a need to forage again for sustenance.

            Of course, there are reasons for the sense of rebirth that spring creates.  First of all, nature calls attention to it in the re-greening of the land.  Blossoms appear, a few at first, tentatively, on barren limbs, soon to be joined by countless others.  Buds develop where lifeless stems had been only days before.  In short order they will bloom into the most resplendent of floral displays.

            It is the warmer weather and the concomitant longer days that waken the flora of the land, of course.  So, too, do they waken the spirits of the fauna, most notably the human variety.  What is it about spring that rekindles the energy to do so much more?  Certainly those longer days and warmer mornings help. 

            No one, it seems, has energy for much of anything when we must drive to work in near darkness and return in much the same circumstance.  Short days suggest early bedtimes, or at least little activity.  But longer days, with the sun awakening us from our slumbers and awaiting our return from a day of labor, hint at greater possibilities than a dreary evening watching drearier sit-coms.

            And once daylight savings time kicks in (as it now has), with the sun beckoning us to get out, to stay out, to DO something, it is hard to imagine how we let ourselves become so lethargic.  And so we look for things to do, or rather, we find things that always needed doing, but somehow had escaped our attention.  Spring cleaning is not just a cliché.  It is a real phenomenon, brought on by a need, in some a compulsion, to clear out the cobwebs from our lives.  Spring does have that effect.

            Spring brings baseball, which, in America, is still youth personified.  What other sport simply exalts in the turn of the season?  Basketball and hockey are really indoor sports, meant to be played when it is too nasty to be outside.  Football is a sport for rain and snow and mud and sludge, conditions that match the animalistic ferocity of its participants. 

            But baseball is as lush as a meadow in full bloom, with long stretches of inactivity for many of its players, the better to appreciate the wonders of the season.  Baseball is the sport for those who dream, alternately, of lazy afternoons and magnificent feats of physical prowess.

            Poets and others with a creative bent are inclined to discover new themes on life that lead to new artistic endeavors in the spring.  Could Shakespeare have written “Romeo and Juliet” at any other time of the year?  He may have, but it hardly seems possible.

            Love comes more naturally in the spring.  Certainly there is a need to couple and procreate that is inherent in all living beings.  But the ardor and passion that accompany coupling by our particular species seems most intense in the spring.  Romances blossom during these months, and, if they maintain their intensity to a second spring, they not uncommonly consummate in May or June weddings.

            In part, I surmise, this happy occurrence is occasioned by the fact that we all feel more attractive at this time of the year.  And, feeling so, we are naturally seen in this light by others, who, also feeling just a little more special, become all the more appealing to us.  The rest, as they say, just seems to come naturally. 

            Ah, spring!  Welcome back, my friend.

            Fans of sports teams naturally love the players on their teams and dislike those on opposing teams.  It isn’t personal.  It’s just the way human emotion works.  Thus, a specific player can be a hated monster when playing for a dreaded rival and then suddenly become a hometown hero when traded to one’s own team.

            As a long-time Dodger fan, I can definitely attest to this phenomenon, although I must confess that I did not change my feelings about Juan Marichal when he briefly wore a Dodger uniform at the end of his career.  (Marichal had assaulted the Dodgers’ catcher, Johnny Roseboro, with his bat years earlier when he wore a Giants uni.)

            This same phenomenon exists in politics, although the circumstances differ.  Politicians don’t normally switch sides in terms of party identification.  Instead, policies are the stock in trade. 

            Thus, Republicans can claim to hate government spending, but applaud the Republican senator who supports a decision to award a big government contract in their state.  Democrats can hate corporate welfare but suddenly support a Democratic president who bails out a failing corporation in their state.

            In these instances, it is often the brand identification that controls.  In sports the brand is the team.  In politics, it’s the political party.

            But some trades are much harder to accept than others.  When the Dodgers traded Mike Piazza in perhaps the worst trade in the team’s history, I continued to follow his accomplishments even though he stayed in the National League and often single-handedly beat the team I love.

            And so it is in politics.  Some presidential decisions are much harder to accept than others.  Many Republicans continued to feign loyalty to Richard Nixon, even when he imposed wage and price controls (an absolute treasonous act to a true conservative if attempted by a Democrat) in an attempt to fight the inflation of the early 1970s.  So, too, did many Democrats continue to support Bill Clinton when he championed welfare reform (an absolute anathema to a true liberal, especially if pushed by a Republican).  Party loyalty in both instances trumped what would otherwise be offensive policy.

            A similar pattern is emerging among Democrats in the decision of President Obama to engage militarily in Libya.  A vast majority of these same Democrats could be expected to rail strenuously against such a decision if a Republican president had made it. 

            But because Obama is a Democrat (in name, at least), he is getting widespread support from within his own party, with only the likes of Dennis Kucinich and his small band of sympathizers objecting to it.

            (The decision has created a fair amount of discord among Obama haters in the Republican ranks as well.  Many are unwilling to give him any credit for doing what they would have praised as brilliant leadership from a President John McCain, or, as they did initially for President George W. Bush when he started two wars in the space of 16 months.)

            I am beyond the point of blind allegiance or unquestioning fealty.  Obama lost that level of loyalty in me some time ago (as I have documented fully in previous columns).  At this point in his presidency, even without the Libya decision, I am a likely Obama voter in 2012 only by default, as in no one else is even as attractive as he will be. 

            In this respect, I feel a little like the fan of a team that signs a completely mediocre player because he’s the best the GM can find.  I’m not happy, and I certainly don’t expect the new player to turn the team’s fortunes around, but he’s better than anyone else who was available, and so I’ll cheer for him (albeit with decidedly muted cheers).

            The decision to initiate military action against the Qaddafi regime was wrong for all the right reasons.  No, that isn’t a misprint.  Obama’s motivation (at least as publicly stated – I’m not ready to probe his inner-thoughts or to suggest he is wholly duplicitous) was noble.  Qaddafi is a madman who may have been on the verge of a mass extermination of large numbers of his citizens.  Genocide in any guise is an offense to humanity, and it should be thwarted by the collective might and will of all the civilized peoples of the world.

            But war is also an offense to humanity, especially war that is not necessitated by the most primal of human instincts – self-defense.  Moreover, war creates its own progression of horrors, some intended, many not desired, if even contemplated. 

            Because of these unintended consequences, and those abhorrent ones that are intended, the initiation of deadly military force should only be undertaken after a careful calculation of all factors at play.

            And, in the instance of Libya, Obama did not calculate well.

            For openers, he did not consider how the decision would play out.  Yes, an imminent genocide might have been averted, assuming that Qaddafi was going to proceed with that threat.  But averting the immediate threat hardly removed the equally plausible threat that Qaddafi would bide his time and wreak his vengeance when the NATO forces ultimately withdrew.

            And even if, as seems to be the unstated but likely goal, Qaddafi is overthrown, what will replace him?  Is the United States going to be engaged in yet another nation-building enterprise in yet another hostile foreign country where the mere presence of America is viewed skeptically at best, and with hostility at worst?

            And who are the people Obama would have in control of the country if Qaddafi is overthrown?  Are they really pro-West democrats, yearning to establish a Jeffersonian republic where nothing but dictatorial rule and local war lords have been the only form of government they have known?

            And, finally, what of that Nobel Peace Prize Mr. Obama humbly accepted a while back?  If he ever really intended to be a champion of change, couldn’t he have used this opportunity to turn away from military force when the standard response was “bombs away”? 

            Will we never overcome the resort to force to solve problems? 

            I’m still waiting for the “change president” to take charge.

            Sacramento is finally showing those of us who live here some real spring-like weather this week.  And it’s about time. 

            Talk about a long, cold, wet winter, we have definitely had one, with rain totals now well above the average for a full year as April settles in.  Not that we had it any worse than the rest of the country.  Every time I looked, they were digging out of another blizzard back east.  It was just nasty everywhere in the continental forty-eight.  At one point, only Florida did not have freezing temperatures on a given day.

            But last week, we got real sunshine and warming temperatures, and the timing couldn’t be more perfect, with little league games now in full swing and the big leaguers having now taken their first official swings of the new season as well.

            Yes, I’m talking baseball, as I do every year at just about this time.  Of all the sports, it’s the one that comes closest to being a real elixir for what ails us.  For openers, it brings back memories (the good ones) of our youth, when being carefree was the norm and being worried meant, at worst, that you had a test the next day. 

            And in baseball, we lived out all our fantasies.  We got to be the next Mickey Mantle, or, in my case, the next Duke Snider (who just died last month, for those who may have missed the news).  The start of the baseball season also meant that summer vacation would not be far behind, and summer vacations were the ultimate carefree experience.  Or, at least, that’s what we remember.

            In any event, for me, baseball is still the most perfect of all the games of a sporting variety that people play.  It may also be the most unique.  It requires a team, but not a clock.  It is measured in runs, instead of points.  You score with your body, not with the ball.  And within the big game of the nine players on each team, there is, with every pitch, the little game of a pitcher against a batter.

            Baseball is also the only game where every player has stats, because every player is responsible for doing something that can be (and is) measured mathematically. 

            Batters have batting averages; pitchers have earned run averages, fielders have fielding percentages, and the lists of statistics for each player can literally fill the back of a baseball card, thus to be studied into the deep hours of the night after Mom and Dad have ordered you to turn out your lights and go to sleep.

            Baseball fostered my love of numbers.  I could project how many home runs Gil Hodges would hit if I could learn how to work with fractions, and so I learned.  I could figure out Ted Williams’ batting average without waiting for the Sunday paper (when all the averages were listed in the sports section) if I could learn my long division, and so I learned. 

            It also fostered my love of reading.  The games were all reported in great detail in the morning and evening newspapers, and every writer had a different thing to say about them.  And so I read the words of great writers like Red Smith, Jimmy Cannon, Dick Young, Roger Kahn and Leonard Koppett.  And I learned how using certain words in certain ways made the writing more interesting and more enjoyable to read.

            And so, through baseball, I learned to write, or at least learned that writing could be fun. 

            And if baseball does remind us of the things we want to remember about our youth, it also gives us a feeling of the potential for things to get better.  Unlike the other sports, there’s always another game tomorrow in baseball.  In the big leagues, they play just about every day for six months, so if your team loses today, just wait until tomorrow.  And every game presents its own opportunity for greatness, be it the great at bat, the great fielding play, the great stolen base, the great strikeout. 

            People who find baseball boring are boring people.  Baseball fans are fascinating people. 

            Am I getting a little carried away, waxing a little too poetic?

            Okay.  Let me tell you some things about baseball I don’t like. 

            I don’t like the designated hitter.  I don’t like expanded playoffs.  I don’t like interleague play.  I don’t like free agency.  I don’t like the low strike zone.  I don’t like instant replay.  I don’t like umps with short tempers.  I don’t like players with big egos.  I don’t like the Yankees.  I don’t like World Series games at night in frigid weather in late October.  I don’t like paying $150 for a field level seat at a game.  I don’t like fat cat owners.  I don’t like Bud Selig.

            But even with all those things I don’t like, I still look forward to the start of the new season.  It’s the little boy in me.  I can’t help but get excited at the thought of another great pennant race, of another record breaking individual performance, of another great defensive play, of another game-winning home run, of another terrific pitching duel, of another pivotal decision by a manager to pinch hit for a pitcher (or not to pinch hit for him), to play the infield in with the tying run on third (or play back for a double play and risk the tying run will score if they don’t make it), to call for a pitch out and have the runner thrown out trying to steal as a result (or not call for the pitch out and have him steal and then score the winning run on a base hit).

            These are the things that keep me young.  They remind me that life is full of mystery and enchantment, and that even with wars and tsunamis and radiation-leaking nuclear reactors and with bills to pay and health concerns and fights with the kids and arguments with the wife, life is good.

            And it’s really good when they start playing baseball every spring.