The M.H. Bryant Cheney InterWeblog

Alfie the Atheist

2010-08-09T22:20:00.008-04:00

Thanks to Jen Smith for helping me think through these thoughts.....

Like some over-dramatic teen drama, I find myself looking at my senior yearbook from time to time. It’s been 6 years since I graduated High School, and it has been 6 years since I spoke to one Alfie Fox...in person, at least. In the Farragut High School 2004 yearbook, under the superlatives, you will find a picture of an eighteen-year-old kid in front of a brick wall wearing dark cargo pants, a wide collared grey plain cotton long-sleeved shirt, brown curlish hair, and his arms outstretched like Kanye after Taylor Swift won the VMA for best video. That’s Alfie; his superlative reads, “Most Likely to Argue with a Brick Wall.” That’s about right.

I’m not exactly sure when Alfie came into my life, but my first memories of him involve Junior English with Ms. Arapakos. At Farragut, and I think other Knox County Schools, Junior English was when one began to study the relatively brief yet controversial literature of America, beginning, of course, with the babbling narratives of the kidnapped Mary Rowlandson and moving on through the Puritans, Transcendentalist Romantics, Poe (wherever the Hell he fits in things), Civil War literature, Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck, A Streetcar Named Desire...you get the picture. What made that class so profound for me, a Christian youth burdened with the personal salvation of, well, everyone, was that in endeavoring to explore the various and sundry hopes, dreams, and fears offered by the voices of America’s past, I was faced with the challenges and arguments presented therein in a very personal way. These people, both America’s literary giants and my classmates, were there to argue everything from the value of individual life versus that of collective society, think Of Mice and Men or Huck Finn, to the merits and demerits of Calvinism, think Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” or Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.

This made for a fantastic class dynamic. Our teacher, Ms. Arapakos, was also dubbed “Arapacolypse” in the hallway due to the fact that in her class was near-impossible to achieve an A, and there were murmurs that she was, in fact....read this in a whisper, gay. There was me, sort of an awkward but lovable church kid that liked to give his opinions before he thought about them...brash at times. There were the more main-line protestants, PCA Presbyterians and Episcopalians, there with just as much fervor as I, but they also showed more tact. There were the popular kids who went to church for the fun trips and agreed with what we all heard there in public, but when faced with these heated debates in class, often showed either their apathy or their oft-guarded liberal sentiments. And then there was Alfie, sort of a mixture of Plato and Bart Simpson, ready to flourish his impatient, but often playful, rhetoric: an Atheist with the vigor and sincerity for his belief unparalleled by any I’ve ever met...and I hang with several atheists. This truly was a cacophony of the semi-affluent Southern suburb ethos....if such a thing exists.

It was in this class that I first encountered the notion of predestination, pacifism, pantheism: not to mention, the first class I ever read Poe in the dark by candlelight. It was the first time I had ever been allowed to hear the other side make their argument without having the opportunity to proof-text my Bible and see nods across the room. Arapakos was a master of the devil’s advocate approach. If the class was leaning toward euthanasia, again Of Mice and Men, she would sway us to the other side. If Alfie was trying to talk about equality or the myth of a Christian nation (which I heard him say before I read Sam Harris or Greg Boyd) when we read the Declaration of Independence, she would become an eloquent bigot, riding the slippery slope of ignorant fear all the way from homophobia (amazing) to racism. Perhaps the most profound first in this class was whenArapakos, after being tyrannical the previous week, apologized the class, boldly saying, “The truth is, guys, that I’ve just been a real bitch, and I’m very sorry.” She then proceeded to take valuable class-time to meet with each of us individually in the class, most of whom carrying a B- or worse, and talk about what we were thinking about the class: how we were getting along. Until this point, I had no idea a gay person could be so sincere and empathetic...not just sex-crazed and wanting to take over the world like I’d been indirectly lead to believe in other circles.

After that semester was over, I saw Alfie around quite a bit and, having decidedly tagged him as “lost,” ended-up chatting about everything from the presence of Christ figures in other religions to why I thought he was going to Hell. Seriously, we had some of the most frank conversations about things, but, somehow, he had the grace and patience with me to keep it light-hearted even when, at the time, I saw this situation literally as my saving him from an already burning building. I even gave him a copy of Strobel’s The Case for Christ to see if it would convince him...I’m not sure he ever read it, but he was nice about the situation.

I don’t mean to say that Alfie was always this budding Hare Krishna type, ready to love whoever didn’t agree with him...he wasn’t. He was actually kind of a dick...he wouldn’t back-down from any argument we ever had, and we had many. Perhaps the most important of these was the argument about whether pancakes or waffles was the true king of the breakfast carb-fest world...this was on-going until we graduated. However, underneath the Tyler Durden exterior, Alfie also cared about people...some people, anway...in his own way. Even though I had quit percussion (I was a chorus kid all the way) after Middle School, Alfie and I would talk about drums...he being the more technically strong (huge huge understatement...anyone who has EVER heard him play would back me up on this...he ran drumline at West Point for Christ’s sake...oh, sorry Alfie) and me being the more improvisational Jazzy & bluesy type (with some Wednesday night Chris Tomlin/Caedmon’s Call thrown-in somewhere). Him and I had this idea that we would start a STOMP troop at Farragut someday, but we never got around to it.

I guess why Alfie was so important to me is that I couldn’t convince him that he was wrong in his atheism. He was so damn un-reasonable, but, somehow, we got passed those lofty conversations and found the humanity in one-another. I became less of a fundamentalist to him and he became less of a loveless robot of an atheist to me...he was no robot. He taught me that goodness exists outside of the church...and it does.

In church, I had learned so many lines of rhetoric for how to witness to an atheist...how to convince them that they were short-sighted, self-defeating, and paradoxical. When Alfie and I would cross eachother in the hallway (usually the band hallway on my way to chorus or football...that’s right, I did both!), he would just yell, “Waffles!” Of course, I would reply, “Pancakes, man! When are you gonna admit you’re wrong?” But, and this sounds kinda cheesy (this is a blog, right, not a Joyce novel?), Alfie and I were waffles and pancakes...made of the same amazing and wonderful stuff...that’s all. We were the same at conception, but drifted apart, one toward the waffle iron and the other to the griddle, at application. They don’t serve pancakes at the Waffle House...they’re purists.

vs.

I’m asking whoever reads this to honor the memory of this guy I only sort of knew in High School, we never hung-out outside of school...he probably had no idea what an impact he had on my formation as a person. Make friends with at least one person who is nothing like you (save the good looks, perhaps). You can still have those difficult conversations if you want, but don’t miss that good stuff...that waffle stuff. Take the risk of caring for that person right where they are...not where they may or may not be in the future. I was taught that the endgame with any argument with any atheist is that they think they are God, but the truth is that I found God in at least one atheist, Alfie Fox. He would be so pissed if he read that.

Music Jam & Workday this Saturday at Narrow Ridge!

2010-06-18T11:38:00.005-04:00

Will you be bored this Saturday?

Do you care about Earth but can't find a place to start?

Do you love good Appalachian music?

Well, this Saturday (6/19) at NARROW RIDGE EARTH LITERACY CENTER, we are hosting both a Narrow Ridge Workday and a Music Jam.

For more information on the Workday, where we will enjoy community with one another, work hard, and learn more about the work of sustainability, click here!

For more information on the Music Jam, where we will share songs with folks from the Washburn Community and you will be welcome to share songs yourself, click here!

Worried about sojourning into the possibly strange land that is North Grainger County, TN? For more "turn left at the barn" type directions, click here.

If you want to link your address to a Google Map, click here.

25 Random Facts Exercise

2009-02-04T21:51:00.003-05:00

I did this exercise in memory and sharing on Facebook recently and I thought it made sense to put on the blog.

1. Most of the time, If walk in front of a water fountain, I must take a drink.
2. I once neglected to feed our apartment’s pet rat “Razzamataz” because I did not like him…he died when we returned from Christmas Break.
3. My only C in college was in Environmental Science.
4. When I was in the seventh grade, I told my class mates that I was ranked 4th in the nation as a wakeboarder.
5. One time when I was in China, a prostitute came to my hotel door, I answered thinking she had come to replace the towels, negotiated a price for the towels, then invited her into my room where she began to caress my arm and I proceeded to push her into the hallway with her towels and I slammed the door.
6. I once lied to my Dad about lighting a match in our car and my mom made me light roughly 50 books of matches and burn them down to my fingertips one afternoon.
7. In High School, I worked for 3 years as a Subway Sandwich Artist.
8. 1 week before my wife and I started dating, I told her I thought I would end-up marrying a close friend from High School (also named Ashley).
9. When I was in college, I used to find boxes of pizza in the trash can on our dorm hall and eat leftover pizza inside.
10. When I was a child, I had aspirations of being a cartoon artist until the 5th grade when friends told me I “sucked.”
11. I read and speak Middle English, as in, Geoffrey Chaucer.
12. When I was a kid, my dad worked at Wendy’s and we often ate those Spicy Chicken Sandwiches for lunch during the Summer.
13. Growing-up, my mom, sister, and I would have water gun fights sometimes during the summer that would last for hours.
14. My first drumset consisted of two Tupperware cake holders, a pot lid, a snare drum practice pad, and the chair from my childhood desk.
15. My first car was a white 1987 Pontiac Bonneville I bought from my grandmother for a dollar. We called it “the tank.”
16. For the past few years, I have had an obsession with the Chicago Cubs, but didn’t really care about them until college…although Ryne Sandberg was my favorite player when I was growing-up.
17. My favorite movie is Good Will Hunting starring Matt Damon, Minnie Driver, Ben Affleck, and the fabulous Robin Williams.
18. My favorite song is “Georgia on my Mind” by Ray Charles
19. I once played drums in a concert for over 20,000 people at a Reebok sweatshop in Southern China.
20. Horror movies usually give me nightmares
21. Someday, I would like to be a contestant on Jeopardy!
22. My roommates and I once accidentally killed our two pet sharks, Thelma and Louise, by feeding them too much food.
23. My parents bought me contact lenses for the first time after I lost my glasses on the “Great American Scream Machine” roller coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia.
24. I voted for Barack Obama.
25. I suck at the ukulele.

Selective Focus and the Art of Spoken Word

2009-02-04T21:15:00.007-05:00

Growing-up, I would often fall asleep listening to the soothing sound of Garrison Keillor's voice as he read "The News from Lake Wobegon" on cassette tapes my grandmother had sent me which corresponded with the seasons. At the time, I had no knowledge of neither Mr. Keillor nor NPR; for me, he was a soothing story teller who, whether he meant to or not, rocked me to sleep after about 10 minutes.

Now, it wasn't until my Junior year of college of that I rediscovered "The News from Lake Wobegon" and I have been hooked on A Prairie Home Companion ever since. I also discovered NPR as a news source and began to find ways to drive every afternoon during All Things Considered so I could listen to these people read me the news and talk about things I cared about, like American culture, current events, politics, and comedy. Well, this grew into an even bigger obsession when I discovered my ipod had this special place for "podcasts" where I could download my favorite shows every week and listen to them whenever the hell I felt like it (official list of my favorite podcasts is forthcoming). This has now led to different types of podcasts and things, but it has also taken me away from a world of solely visual stimulation where I must process with both my eyes and ears.

Focus, as far back as I remember, has always been a problem for me. When I was younger (and even sometimes now) my mother would hold out her hand and make me put my hand on hers and lock eyes and then she would offer her instructions as to what I should be doing at that particular point in time. I'm not sure I have ADD or anything (although my mom often tells me that I was borderline and she would've taken the drugs if the doctors had let her). I feel that at the core of my focus issues has generally been something a bit more broad and introspective, selfishness. Let us call it "Selective Focus." This is my beautiful way of narrowing my attentions to whatever it is I care about and decidedly ignore whatever it is you care about. Unfortunately, this nasty little habit has followed me to work and my marriage and it is a constant battle to calm my mind, open my ears, and focus on the person right in front of me.

I often describe my theology as solely the quest to achieve what Jesus outlined in his Greatest Commandment: love God and love your neighbor as yourself. I think a life spent trying to achieve those two things is a life worth living and focus is key in that quest. So, I'm not exactly sure how, but podcasts have helped me learn to focus on the words I am hearing and process them in a healthy way. Listening to these invisible people speak into my ear has, in turn, helped me learn things I couldn't while trapped in the obsessions of my own thoughts.

The Week After Thankfulness

2008-12-03T09:44:00.013-05:00

This weekend, I finished reading Milan Kundera’s wonderful novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being and have spent some time thinking about the work’s profound beauty. We also celebrated Thanksgiving, watched Stephen Colbert’s Christmas Special (Ashley gave me the soundtrack as an early birthday present), played an ungodly amount of Mario Kart Wii (on loan from Troy), went back to work at the college, and washed quite a few dishes.

Undoubtedly, this will be posted sometime

tomorrow (Wednesday), but I sit here at 9:37PM in my home in Jefferson City, TN. My wife is sitting on the couch listening to a modern rendition of “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” while she writes her final paper for one of her grad courses. She’s wearing my Alumni Residence Hall sweatshirt with stripy socks and surrounded by Bible commentaries and various books having to do with how the Bible relates to poor people. She’s on this week long paper writing frenzy in which she has three 15-page papers due this week and will finish her semester next Wednesday (in time for my birthday and the blissful 3.5 weeks of Winter Holiday).

Earlier, we found this passage from The Apocrypha in the book of Sirach chapter 4 verses 1-10. Here’s what is says:

"My child, do not cheat the poor of their living, and do not keep needy eyes waiting. Do not grieve the hungry, or anger one in need. Do not add to the troubles of the desperate, or delay giving to the needy. Do not reject a suppliant in distress, or turn your face away from the poor. Do not avert your eye from the needy, and give no one reason to curse you; for if bitterness of soul some should curse you, their Creator will hear their prayer."

I know the early church fathers probably had a decent reason for the Apocrypha staying out of our final “Christian” scriptures, but this is a darn good word from the writer of this warning specially directed to scholars and academics. I know Jesus warns in Matthew 25 that the way we treat poor people=the way we treat Him, but the writer of Sirach goes another step and says that God will hear whatever “curse” the poor direct at academics and scholars who have “bittered” the souls of the needy. Dang!

So, this really hits at the core of thoughts I have been having recently about the kind of work I would like to spend my life doing. It would be fairly simple for me to study Literature in graduate school, possibly pursue my doctorate eventually, find a job at some college, and proceed to slip slowly into suburbia with a modest but very sufficient salary and float from day to day and purchase to purchase while I enjoy my work. Basically, that seems kind of flat to me and I’m exploring exactly how my work can be a responsible use of my gifts while living a life that helps creation more than it hurts it. I feel good about the future and hopeful, so this is more of an exciting search than an anxious one. Of course, like a friend of mine in New York said to me recently, “Oh, man. I tell ya. So many things in life are so much rich and amazing when you have a great marriage setting the foundation.” I am so thankful (and almost a week after Thanksgiving!) for my wife and the fact that Ashley is really into the whole “let’s do something about opinions” thing which counteracts my whole “I’d rather just talk about my opinions and then maybe play some Mario Kart and listen to my ipod.”

The Golden Ass

My last semester in college, I decided I would audit “Classical Mythology” at 9AM MWF. I went several times and read several of the assigned readings, my favorite of which being Lysistrata where a whole country of women refuse to have sex with their husbands until the men stop fighting a violent war...it works. However, it is safe to say that I was not in class quite a bit more often than I was in class. As a result of my mythological negligence, I now have a decent collection of the classics on my bookshelf including Apuleius’s The Golden Ass which I have yet to finish. I have read bits here and there, but not enough to claim much knowledge on the book. Essentially, the book is about a young

man who is turned into a donkey via a magical ointment and has all kinds of crazy adventures (yup, it seems The Emperor’s New Groove was not a “new” concept). I have very high expectations for the work and am really looking forward to it. Dr. Wheeler, my academic advisor in college and gracious teacher, claims The Golden Ass as his favorite classical work, and I have yet to read a recommendation of his that didn’t make me laugh my ass off. BTW, it’s available for free on Google Books if you just search “The Golden Ass.” Have at it!

Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community

I have also been slowly working my way through Wendell Berry’s collection of essays Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community. So far, I have been very challenged by what I have read and certainly thought more about local sustainability and how it is essential to world’s survival (that’s right, ESSENTIAL!). It’s perfect for reading when I find myself at the Taco Bell for lunch by myself every now and again, so this book will be read after a number of solo lunch adventures in the future.

Deal or No Deal, Mumbai, and Sports Scores

2008-11-26T21:35:00.008-05:00

In preparation for tomorrow's Thanksgiving gathering with my family, Ashley and I are here in Farragut sitting around the TV with my family watching Deal or No Deal (aka profoundly frustrating game show where Americans turndown obscene amounts of money so they can possibly find...you guessed it...more money). I just saw a woman turn down $146,000 to keep playing the game.

It's a bizarre scene. This woman is morbidly afraid of birds so they've brought out a cage of live turkeys to watch her go for the 2 million. The woman, a Minnesota native, keeps saying, "I'm so freekin oot!" Those women on the stairs (you know the ones I'm talking about) are wearing shiny cocktail dresses and uncovering dollar amounts written on black cards leaning against plump plastic turkeys underneath golden platter tops. She is now trying to decide whether or not she wants $260,000....DEAL! Thank God! But wait...now they will spend some time revealing the different amounts she "could have" had if she had kept playing. Turns out she had $2,000,000 in her tray; she would have won that much money if she had continued. Darn.

Okay, so maybe I do not want to be that person who looks at these silly things then points out how freaking screwed-up our world is today when you good folks probably realize it. Today, according to BBC News, in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India at least 80 people have been killed and 250 injured in terrorist attacks beginning late last night our time. Facts are still being gathered, accusations made, and fear is reeking havoc on the minds of

everyone who has read the details of this story. My dad made the following comment:

"Huh. There have been some terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India. Well, I'll be. They are still running the sports scores at the bottom of this page while they talk about these people who have been killed in India. That sure is ironic."

I guess I'm trying to formulate my response to this whole thing. I feel a little guilty that I'm about to have a delicious turkey dinner/lunch (linner?dunch?) tomorrow and there are people dying in India and supposedly it's because some folks are so dedicated to their faith that they will kill innocent people in the attempt to make the world more just (not the first time this sort of thing has happened and certainly not limited historically to one faith group).

Tomorrow, I will hangout with my family, eat some amazing turkey, play with my nieces, try to discuss football in lieu of Mumbai, and possibly kick some serious tail in Mario Kart Wii. But, more than anything, I want to let the blessing of my family's love enfold me and warm my soul. With that warmth and love, I must continue to contemplate exactly what I am going to do about the violence in our world and my community. Perhaps I will write about this sometime, but yesterday I was speaking with Shane Claiborne on his visit to the college where I work and he quoted a teacher of his who often says,

"The best critique of what's wrong is the practice of something better."

I could sit here on my laptop and accuse from the comfort of my own home, but i think it may be better to look at what I see happening in the world around me and practice something better.

The Obligatory and Hopeful First Post

2008-11-26T21:04:00.000-05:00

Okay, so this is the 3rd or 4th Blog I have tried to start and to be honest....I don't want to get everyone's hopes up. I mean, I know that everyone really wants to know my thoughts on everything from Jesus to Smart Wool Socks and my title is intriguing and everyone is like "oh my goodness, I'm so glad M.H. (catchy new pen name, eh?) is writing a blog and it's going to be the best blog ever and blog blog wiki wiki blog blog YES!"

Essentially, I need some place where I can write and vent and think about things....so, yes, a journal would probably be a good idea as well, but blogging is just so damn cool. I mean....there's my picture and I can imbed quotes and have my own web address. So, folks, just bear with me and hopefully we'll all get through this alright. Hopefully we can share thoughts and discuss things that need to be discussed and learn from one another and talk about some things. If this is the only post I ever put on this blog and you have graciously visited...thank you for coming and please do not steal my title. (See paragraph 1 for expression of my low and achievable expectations).