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Saturday, June 6, 2015 is a red letter day, and not just because it’s been 71 years since the best-known D-Day.  (Though that’s certainly enough…)   It also has special significance based on the timely and instructive Daily Office Readings for today.

Those readings include Psalm 55, 138, and 139:1-17(18-23).  The Old Testament reading is Deuteronomy 29:2-15, the New Testament reading is 2d Corinthians 9:1-15, and the Gospel is Luke 18:15-30.   We’ll look at the three psalms for today further below.

Deuteronomy 29:2-15 is part of “concluding discourse” of Moses, on renewing the covenant between God and the Hebrews.  See Deuteronomy – Wikipedia, which said the book has “three sermons or speeches delivered to the Israelites by Moses on the plains of Moab, shortly before they enter the Promised Land.”  (It included the image at left, “Moses viewing the Promised Land.”)    Deuteronomy 29 is also known for commemorating the ancient Hebrews’ years of wandering in the wilderness:

I have led you for forty years in the wilderness.  The clothes on your back have not worn out, and the sandals on your feet have not worn out; you have not eaten bread, and you have not drunk wine or strong drink…

In other words you could say these Children of Israel went through a kind of “boot camp” or recruit training.  (Designed to toughen them up and make them worthy of the high honor bestowed on them.  See also Spiritual boot camp, from April 2014.)

That in turn could remind us to expect some of the same “toughening up” in our lives.

The New Testament reading – 2d Corinthians 9:1-15 – was part of Paul’s “instructions for the collection for the poor in the Jerusalem church.”  (See Second Epistle to the Corinthians.)  Or as the IBC put it, “Paul was organizing a collection from his Gentile churches for the poor in Jerusalem.”  As part of the discussion, Paul set out “the principles of Christian giving.” (1403)   Specifically, 2d Corinthians 9 included this, from verses 6 and 7:

The point is this:  the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.  Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

Which is just common sense.  If you are “miserly” in sowing your seed, the resulting “crop” that you get will be nothing to write home about.

But the point in turn is this:  Every Sunday at my church, the priest includes 2d Corinthians 9:6-7 in what he calls the “interactive portion” of the service.  (At “half-time,” after the exchange of the peace and announcements, and before the Liturgy of the Table.  See also The Holy Eucharist:  Rite Two, at the end of page 360.)   At the end of the verse 7 part the Good Father says “for God loves…”  At that point the congregation responds en masse, “…a cheerful giver!”

The Gospel – Luke 18:15-30 – began with people bringing children for Jesus to bless.  The disciples tried to stop it, but:

 Jesus called for them and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.  Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”

The point of this Gospel passage is that children never stop asking questions!  In fact, they can be quite a pain about it.  See for example Children’s questions: a mechanism for cognitive development, and also Why do kids ask so many questions—and why do they stop?

As to why our kids stop asking questions, the second post above said this:

In school, we’re rewarded for having the answer, not for asking a good question…   Which may explain why kids – who start off asking endless “why” and “what if” questions – gradually ask fewer and fewer of them…   Preschool kids ask their parents an average of 100 questions a day.  By middle school, they’ve basically stopped [and at] this time … student motivation and engagement plummets.

Thus the question:  Do kids stop asking questions because they’ve lost interest?  Or “because the rote answers-driven school system doesn’t allow them to ask enough questions?”

Personally I think it’s the “rote answer.”

More than that, I think the same thing applies to the Bible-approach that emphasizes literalism or fundamentalism.  It seems to me that such an approach can comfort some people, like those “creatively challenged.”  But more often it just stifles the very creativity that is such a big part of interacting with God.  (See humanlifematters.org/the-quest-to-express – the source of the image at left – and also Holy Spirit as God’s Creative Power.)

All of which brings us back to why we were able to win World War II.  In large part it was based on the creativity – the individual initiative – shown by American fighters:

During World War II, German generals often complained that U.S. forces were unpredictable…  After the Normandy invasion in 1944, American troops found that their movements were constrained by the thick hedgerows…   In response, “Army soldiers invented a mechanism on the fly that they welded onto the front of a tank to cut through hedgerows…”   American troops are famous for this kind of individual initiative.  It’s a point of pride among officers that the American way of war emphasizes independent judgment in the fog and friction of battle, rather than obedience and rules.  (E.A.)

See Why Our Best Officers Are Leaving, which noted that – sadly – the current military establishment is “creating a command structure that rewards conformism and ignores merit.  As a result, it’s losing its vaunted ability to cultivate entrepreneurs in uniform.”

Which means it’s not just “Bible-thumpers” who are now trying to create a culture that rewards conformism and stifles creativity.  It’s happening in other walks of American life as well.

But  finally, this is a day to remember when “independent judgment” – not rigid obedience to a pre-formed set of “rules” – was the order of the day, and not the exception.

In other words, this June 6th calls for us to remember the sacrifices of those brave members of the armed services 71 years ago, as part of the Allied invasion of Normandy.

For one such remembrance, see On D-Day and confession.  That post talked about World War II, when up to and beyond D-Day, “our fathers, uncles and other relatives flew in bombers” from England, “with targets in Germany and other European countries.”  It talked about the importance of debriefing after those missions; basically a process of asking really aggravating questions.  (Not unlike the way children do, as noted above.)   The post then noted:

Maybe that’s what the … concepts of sin and confession are all about.  (Or should be about.)  When we “sin” we simply fall short of our goals; we “miss the target.” When we “confess,” we simply admit to ourselves how far short of the target we were.  And maybe the purpose of all this is not to make people feel guilty all the time…

In turn it said the concepts of sin, repentance and confession should be viewed as “tools to help us get closer to the target.”  In other words, they help us grow and develop, and are not to be used as a means of social control, as it sometimes seems.

Note also that the “Biblical Greek term for sin [amartia], means ‘missing the mark,'” and implies that “one’s aim is out and that one has not reached the goal, one’s fullest potential.”

So in the end, hitting the mark is what it’s all about.  And that’s true whether you’re reading the Bible, trying to liberate a people from tyranny, or just trying to “be all that you can be.”  In turn, to “be all you can be” you need to explore “the mystical side of Bible reading.”

And that is just another way of saying that by reading the Bible with an open mind, you’ll be on your way to the creative judgment that overcomes “the fog and friction” of everyday life.

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The upper image – borrowed from On D-Day and confession – is courtesy of the Denver Post “Plog,” D-Day in Color, Photographs from the Normandy Invasion.   The caption reads:  “Planes from the 344th Bomb Group, which led the IX Bomber Command formations on D-Day on June 6, 2014. Operations started in March 1944 with attacks on targets in German-occupied France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. After the beginning of the Normandy invasion, the Group was active at Cotentin Peninsula, Caen, Saint-Lo and the Falaise Gap. (Photo by Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty Images) #.”

The Churchill quote is courtesy of The Bombing Offensive | History.co.uk.

The “D-Day” image is courtesy of Normandy landings – Wikipedia.  The full caption: “US Army troops wade ashore on Omaha Beach on the morning of 6 June 1944.”

Other notes from the original post:

The painting of Jesus blessing the children is courtesy of Christ Blessing the Children by MAES, Nicolaes, which noted it was “loosely based on Rembrandt’s famous Hundred Guilder Print.”

Re: “nothing to write home about.”  I was originally going to say “If you are niggardly in your ‘sowing…'”  But there is some controversy about that word – see controversies about the word “niggardly” – which might lead some to say there’s no such thing as too much education.  But that in turn would have required a citation to “Another brick in the wall,” and for me to eventually write, “We digress greatly!”   As the saying goes, “discretion is the better part of valor.”

Re: “sin.”  See Eastern Orthodox view of sin – Wikipedia.

Re: “D-Day.”  As I worked on this post, Mi Dulce emailed one of those aggravating questions.  (You know, the kind kids ask, as noted above?)   The question: “What does the ‘D’ in ‘D-Day’ stand for?”

As it turns out, this is a “most frequently asked question” and one on which “disagreements abound.”  See What does the “D” in D-Day mean – The National WWII Museum.  The article noted that in the simplest sense, “the D in D-Day merely stands for Day.”  In a second sense it is “simply an alliteration, as in H-Hour.”   Other explanations: The D means disembarkation, or debarkation, while “the more poetic insist D-Day is short for ‘day of decision.’”  In 1964 someone asked General Eisenhower – who by then was a retired President of the United States – and his assistant wrote back:  “Be advised that any amphibious operation has a ‘departed date’; therefore the shortened term ‘D-Day’ is used.” 

The most logical answer came from What Does the “D” in “D-Day” Stand For? – Today I Found Out:

[T]he “D” is just a placeholder or variable for the actual date, and probably originally was meant to stand for “date” or “day” (if anything), if the associated “H-hour” is any indication. The use of D-day allows military personnel to easily plan for a combat mission ahead of time without knowing the exact date that it will occur.  (E.A.)

In other words, “D-Day” was short for “the day when we invade this particular place or beach, but at a date and time we don’t know for sure yet.”  The latter site noted the term was first used in September 1918 – 26 years before the best-known “D-Day” – in an Army Field Order:  “The order stated that ‘The First Army will attack at H hour on D day with the object of forcing the evacuation of the St. Mihiel Salient.'”  And finally, the National WWII site also noted that the “invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944 was not the only D-Day of World War II.  Every amphibious assault – including those in the Pacific, in North Africa, and in Sicily and Italy – had its own D-Day.”

Re: the rest of the June 6 Gospel-reading, Luke 18:15-30.  It recites the lesson of the eye of a needle, to wit:  that it is “easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”  (The image at left is courtesy of genius.com/2320019/Shad-remember-to-remember/This-camel.)

And finally, a note about the psalms for this June 6th.  Psalm 55:24 reads – in the Book of Common Prayer –  “Cast your burden upon the Lord, and he will sustain you.”  And Psalm 138:9 reads – in the BCP – “The Lord will make good his purpose for me.”  That in turn is also pretty much what this blog is all about:  Helping us both figure out what precise purpose God has for us.

(Note that psalm-passages in the Prayer Book are occasionally different from those given in other translations.  See Psalm 55:22, “Give your burdens to the LORD, and he will take care of you.  He will not permit the godly to slip and fall.”  And see also Psalm 138:8.)

A 19th-century example of vigilante justice… 

Welcome to DORScribe, a blog about reading the Bible with an open mind.

In other words, this blog is different.   (For one thing it includes movie reviews like this to see how “old-timey” Biblical principles can apply to modern culture…)

But mostly this blog says you can get more out of the Bible by reading it with an open mind, and that it was written to liberate people, not shackle them in some kind of “spiritual straitjacket.”

Such ideas run contrary to some common perceptions these days.  For example:

I don’t have a problem with God.  I have a problem with religion.  I’ve chosen to live my life without the certainties of religious faith.

See 10 Questions for Sting – TIME.  (But here’s a news flash:  “If your religion makes you ‘certain,’ you’re missing the point!”  See for example, On a dame and a mystic.)

Sting’s comment gives one example of some common perceptions of Christians today:   1) that too many are close-minded; 2) that too many are way too negative; or 3) that too many Christians think The Faith of the Bible is all about getting you to follow their set of rules, on pain of you “going to hell.”  (See my way or the highway – Wiktionary.)

For more on such thoughts see About this Blog, which talks instead about the Three Great Promises of Jesus, to all people, and about how through those promises we can live full, rich lives of spiritual abundance and do greater miracles than Jesus, if only we open our minds…

In the meantime:

 We were talking about vigilante justice, as examined in the movie Gone Girl, and in the Biblical example of the Apostle Paul being nearly “lynched” by a group of rioters in Jerusalem.  (See On “Gone Girl” and Lazy Cusses – Part I.)

As noted, the Daily Office Readings for Saturday, October 11, included Acts 25:13-27, where Paul made his defense before the Roman governor Festus, along with “Agrippa the king” (who ruled as a puppet of Rome).  Again, this all started back when Paul arrived in Jerusalem after this third missionary journey, and got in trouble at the hands of certain “agitatators.”

That is – and as told back in Acts 21:27-32 – some members of the “powers that be” in Jerusalem saw Paul in the Temple accompanied by “infidels,” and totally misconstrued the situation:

They stirred up the whole crowd and seized him, shouting, “Fellow Israelites, help us!  This is the man who … has brought Greeks into the temple and defiled this holy place…”  The whole city was aroused, and the people came running from all directions.  Seizing Paul, they dragged him from the temple…  While they were trying to kill him, news reached the commander of the Roman troops that the whole city of Jerusalem was in an uproar.  He at once took some officers and soldiers and ran down to the crowd.  When the rioters saw the commander and his soldiers, they stopped beating Paul.

Sound familiar?  (I mean, except for the part about soldiers rescuing a person accused of a heinous crime from an angry mob?)   And aside from that, there’s a BTW:  Paul had followed the law and purified both himself and his “guests” before entering the holy Temple.  So “the crowd” got it all wrong but didn’t let a trifling thing like the actual facts get in the way of a good riot.

The upshot was that Paul was arrested and made his defense in several tribunals, including the Sanhedrin, but when the Roman authorities learned that some of the rioters had hatched a plan to kill Paul, they had him taken to Caesarea, where – as noted – he eventually made his defense before Festus and King Agrippa, as told in Acts 25:13-2.

This was after Festus went to Jerusalem to consult Paul’s accusers, but as noted in Acts 25:3, “They requested Festus, as a favor to them, to have Paul transferred to Jerusalem, for they were preparing an ambush to kill him along the way.”  But Festus – in a justified abundance of caution – had them come to Caesarea, where he (Festus) brought King Agrippa up to speed:

Festus discussed Paul’s case with the king.  He said: “There is a man here whom [former Roman governor] Felix left as a prisoner.  When I went to Jerusalem, the chief priests and the elders of the Jews brought charges against him and asked that he be condemned.   I told them that it is not the Roman custom to hand over anyone before they have faced their accusers and have had an opportunity to defend themselves against the charges.”

(Acts 25:14-16, emphasis added)   What a concept!  Having a person accused of a heinous crime being able to actually face the person accusing him, and be able to present a defense.  What will they think of next?   (See Sarcasm – Wikipedia, and/or Irony – Wikipedia.)

But seriously, there is cause for concern these days, as explored by the movie Gone Girl.   (And yes – in case I’m being too subtle – I am saying that such media frenzies and/or circuses are indeed a form of modern-day vigilantism…)

There’s a reason why we have things like the Sixth Amendment, which is supposed to guarantee that a person accused of a crime can only be convicted after a public trial “by an impartial jury … and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.”  See Bill of Rights Institute: Bill of Rights.

And by the way, these aren’t “new-fangled pointy-headed liberal” legal protections.  They go back to the Bible times of Paul and beyond.  And there’s one big reason for this Biblical protection:  In way too many cases “the crowd” – or in today’s case the media – simply gets it all wrong, as shown in the image below.  But there’s another big lesson here:  the Bible was designed in large part to protect idiots from their own stupidity! 

That is, in Matthew’s Gospel Jesus said, “Judge not lest ye be judged.”   But more importantly, He added this, in Matthew 7:2 (NIV):  “For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

So, if you’re prone to make snap judgments based on incomplete information from sources that aren’t always reliable – like today’s mass media – the chances are good that that’s the same method God will use in judging you.  (See also Karma – Wikipedia.)

Now, getting back to the movie being reviewed, Gone Girl:

I don’t want to give away the ironic plot twist or the ending, but here’s a hint:

The upper image is courtesy of Vigilante – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, with the full caption, “A lynching carried out by the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance of 1856.”  The article added:

“Vigilante justice” is rationalized by the idea that adequate legal mechanisms for criminal punishment are either nonexistent or insufficient.  Vigilantes typically see the government as ineffective in enforcing the law; such individuals often claim to justify their actions as a fulfillment of the wishes of the community…   In a number of cases, vigilantism has involved targets with mistaken identities.

The lower image is courtesy Dewey Defeats Truman – Wikipedia: “‘Dewey Defeats Truman’ was a famously incorrect banner headline on the front page of the Chicago Tribune on November 3, 1948, the day after incumbent United States President Harry S. Truman won an upset victory over Republican challenger and Governor of New York Thomas E. Dewey in the 1948 presidential election.”   The full caption:  “President-elect Truman holding the infamous issue of the Chicago Tribune, telling the press, ‘That ain’t the way I heard it!’”

As to the subtle difference between a media frenzy and a media circus, see also Media Frenzy Global, a company that apparently specializes in “frenzy manipulation:”

Whether you’re trying to pique interest, incite sales, stir the market, or fan the flames of controversy, one thing is certain – you need to cause a commotion.  Of course, you want to remain cool and composed in the midst of the excitement…   In other words, you want to harness the media frenzy…    We harness the media frenzy by controlling, managing and exploiting the media platforms…

All of which provides an interesting commentary on modern life.

See also Court of public opinion – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; “It has been said that the prosecutor in the Duke lacrosse case attempted to try the case in the court of public opinion by making unsupported allegations to the media. In the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case, it was alleged that parties were using court pleadings as press releases.”

A still from Gone Girl.   (Note the “askew”camera angle, symbolizing “media frenzy…”)

The movie Gone Girl explores the modern-day phenomenon of media frenzies, and how they can be manipulated by those apparently being manipulated…

As noted in On “Gone Girl” and Lazy Cusses – Part II, this blog is different for reasons including that it has movie reviews like this one, to see how “old-timey” Biblical principles can apply to modern culture.  There’s more on that below, but first let’s begin with this note:

Harry Truman didn’t have much use for the reporters of his day.

“Newspapermen, and they’re all a bunch of lazy cusses, once one of them writes something, the others rewrite it and rewrite it, and they keep right on doing it without ever stopping to find out if the first fellow was telling the truth or not.”

Truman also spoke of plowing a field with a mule as being the “most peaceful thing in the world,” an activity that gave old-time farmers plenty of time for thought.  (Guys like Thomas Jefferson…)   But – Truman added – “there’s some danger that you may, like the fella said, get kicked in the head by a mule and end up believing everything you read in the papers.”

Some 20 years later the president’s feelings were mirrored by a brash young “AFL” quarterback named Joe Namath.   Shortly after Joe signed with the Jets (for a record salary), a wise-guy New York reporter asked what he had majored in, down south at the University of Alabama; “Basket-weaving?”   Joe answered, “No man, I majored in journalism.  It was easier.”

Then in 2014 along came Gone Girl, a film that expresses pretty much the same feelings about “media frenzies” as Harry Truman and Joe Namath, only more so.

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Which brings up the point that I – the Scribe – did movie reviews for the student newspaper, back in mid-1970s  when I was getting a Bachelor’s degree in Mass Communications.  It seemed like a good way to go on and make a living, doing two things that I loved; watching movies and writing about them.  But alas, God had other plans for me (that’s my story anyway), and you could say my life that followed had enough twists, turns and betrayals to be made into a movie like Gone Girl.   But my point – if I’m being too subtle – is that in the fullness of time, here I am again, writing in a venue (the blog) that didn’t exist back then.  Somehow it’s like “coming home.”

(Oh, and did I mention that I went on to get a Master’s degree in Journalism?)

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So anyway, Wikipedia said that the film Gone Girl “examines dishonesty, the media, the economy’s effects on marriage, and appearances:”

On the day of his fifth wedding anniversary, Nick Dunne (Affleck) returns home to find that his wife Amy (Pike), is missing.  In the ensuing media frenzy, suspicions arise that Nick murdered her, and his awkward behavior is interpreted as characteristic of a sociopath.

See Gone Girl (film) – Wikipedia (emphasis added).   In other words, the character Nick Dunne was tried in and by the media, who found him guilty, as so often happens these days.  But as it turned out, the process by which he was tried and convicted was “infected by the politicized, media-enabled ‘cult of victimhood.'”  (See the Rothman note below.)

Which in turn brings up the topic of the modern-day media frenzy or media circus:

Media circus is a colloquial metaphor, or idiom, describing a news event where the media coverage is perceived to be out of proportion to the event being covered, such as the number of reporters at the scene, the amount of news media published or broadcast, and the level of media hype.  The term is meant to critique the media, usually negatively, by comparing it to a circus, and is considered an idiom as opposed to a literal observation.  Usage of the term in this sense became common in the 1970s.

See Media circus – Wikipedia.  All of which brings up the New Testament reading in the Daily Office for Saturday, October 11, Acts 25:13-27.  To bring you up to speed, after Paul arrived in Jerusalem after his third missionary journey, he suffered a “media circus” of his own, as shown below in the work by Gustave Dore.  He was arrested and later tried, first in Jerusalem and later in Caesarea, all of which makes for some interesting “compare and contrast.”

For more on that, see “On ‘Gone Girl’ and the Lazy Cusses – Part II.”

The upper image is courtesy of What “Gone Girl” Is Really About, a review in The New Yorker, dated October 8, by Joshua Rothman, which includes this telling tidbit:

[W]e’re fascinated with stories of victimhood – and … especially in tabloid, cable-news culture, we endow victims with specialness, sanctity, and celebrity.   “Gone Girl” asks whether genuine expressions of sympathy or solidarity with victims can ever happen without being infected by the politicized, media-enabled “cult of victimhood.”

Rothman’s review compared the movie with “what I heard” about the book version, and concluded that what’s best about the movie is that it “gets at what is unsettling about coupledom [i.e., marriage or “serious relationships”] : our suspicion that, in some fundamental sense, it necessarily entails victimization.”  See also Gone Girl (film) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  But as noted herein, Yours Truly thinks that the movie is really about the modern media and its role in contemporary “lynchings,” which to this point have generally been metaphoric.

For other reviews of the movie, see Gone Girl – Rotten Tomatoes.

The lower image is courtesy of Wikimedia and/or http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Paul_Addresses_the_Crowd_After_His_Arrest_by_Gustave_Dor%C3%A9.jpg.  See also Gustave Doré – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The first quote on reporters is courtesy of Plain Speaking[:]  An oral biography of Harry S. Truman, by Merle Miller, Berkley Publishing NY (1973), at page 251.   The “field-mule” quote is at page 258.

The Namath quote is courtesy of famous alabama football quotes – Angelfire.  See also Joe Namath – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, which noted that when Namath signed with the Jets, the NFL and AFL were separate leagues, engaged in a “bidding war” for college players.