Envying Ezra

Spoiler alert: this blog reveals plot details from "The Fault In Our Stars" and also includes frequent use of a vulgar term.

"These books are not condoning or encouraging sex and vulgarity -- they are providing a voice and context for a particular experience of the characters."

That is the reply that almost haunts me most. (More on that shortly.)

These words came in response to a blog which I posted to a local "Patch" community website. (We used to gather at the soda bar, I suppose, or the post office. Now you post a blog to Patch.)

Heaven knows the link will go stale eventually. In anticipation of that day, I'll note here that in the blog I lamented the fact that an extremely popular book among middle-school children these days is available in our local public middle-school library.

I allowed this book to enter my house and even began to read it aloud to my daughter — but abandoned the project after I realized that there was no good ending to this book. We plowed a furrow through a lot of profanity and dubious material before I realized that things were getting worse, not better. This book was not taking me or my daughter anywhere I wanted either of us to go.

That's not to say I avoid all of life's ugliness. No, what I'm saying is that I need to know it's worth the effort. I don't engage with dark themes for kicks. I do so for the sake of the good. Where is God in this story? What's the redemptive thread in this?

Speaking of that word, a favorite line of mine from the memorable movie The Shawshank Redemption is that the main character "crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side."

This book and that movie have shit in common. The movie portrays a redemption of sorts, however. The book just portrays young teens behaving badly.

Notably, in this book young teens...
• have sex,
• engage in lewd, profane and bawdy conversation,
• engage in a celebrated act of revenge vandalism, and
• joke about exchanging porn without parents noticing.

That's rough stuff any day of the week, but I might (maybe) put up with it if we came out clean on the other end.

But we don't. We just come out smelling like the shit we just read. Strong words, but have a look...

Is this appropriate for a sixth-grader?

Or how about this eulogy given in a church sanctuary:

The fact that the church was empty except for the three kids doesn't change the stunning lack of respect for holy space.

Good stuff for a sixth grader?

There are no adverse consequences to any of these deplorable scenes: they are just part of the story. Never lamented. Sometimes celebrated. The characters just keep plowing, behaving badly right up through the end of the book. Nobody grows. No epiphany moments. Perhaps the fact that they have cancer is supposed to somehow make me overlook their lamentable antics, but if that was the plan, it didn't work for me.

The book has nothing - I repeat, nothing - redemptive about it.... Unless dying of cancer is redemptive all by itself. (But it isn't.) Unless romance in and of itself is redemptive in every flavor under the sun. (Including the variety where two young teens have sex together within two months of their first meeting.)

So I blogged about how this stuff is totally inappropriate reading for eleven year old kids and subjected myself to a community response that, in terms of comments, came down on the side of condemnation. Condemnation of me, that is.

The reply at the top of this reflection captured the sentiment.

Fans of the book's presence in a children's library would have us believe that it does not actually encourage bad behaviors. It's just an opportunity to experience life from a different set of eyes.

My short response is to say: Our children? Through these eyes?

My longer response is to say that the American public (large swathes of it self-proclaimed church-attending Christians) can be aptly compared to a smoothly functioning toilet. It has been discovered that our wide American mouths swallow a lot of shit. So people with shit to sell keep dropping by to put more in.

And we defend the fact that we eat the shit we're sold, protesting that it doesn't always taste good. "We don't celebrate the taste," the line goes. "We experience it."

I prefere St. Paul's approach to the matter:

Ephesians 5:3-12 (excerpted)
But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving....
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light...
Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.

(There's admittedly a bit of irony here. I am freely using the word shit here and describing what disobedient kids are doing in secret. Hmmm. but Paul did say we should expose them, and he did use the Greek equivalent of shit once in holy scriptures. A strong word at the right moment can be usefully employed to wake up dozing readers.)

The most haunting part of this experience for me, however, was not the response from my community, which was predictable, if tragic.

No, what haunts me most is the feedback from church acquaintances:
• The college kid who told my daughter that she really liked the book
• The woman who told my wife she very much enjoyed the book
• Others who disparage the book privately, but say nothing publicly

The blog did get forwarded on Facebook quite a bit (more than 50 times) but that takes only a second, and only your friends see it.

Replying to the blog publicly takes time and involves public exposure. It was largely only my detractors who had time for that kind of effort.

I've been reading my way through the Old Testament slowly over the past few years, and I happen (if anything in life is a coincidence) to be reading through Ezra and Nehemiah right now. Thus the blog title.

I envy Ezra. And Nehemiah. They saw that the Israelites were assimilating with local pagan culture, called attention to the situation, and the Israelites responded. Quickly. Repentance and change.

Such has not been my experience.

I live in an area some refer to as "the Christian Mecca". On this topic, at least, I believe more could be expected from a city on a hill.

Jesus asked at one point what happens when salt loses its flavoring.

We're finding out.

Finding out right now.