This Just Read: Rocket Ship Galileo

I decided to take a trip down memory lane this week. I re-read Robert Heinein's classic: Rocket Ship Galileo (just recently available on Kindle). This was Heinlein's first published novel and the first of his series of juvenalia: novels written for teens, including Space Cadet, Have Space Suit - Will Travel, Red Planet, and others. All feature plucky kids (unfailingly young men) with a scientific bent thrown into perilous sci-fi circumstances and forced to become men. Classic bildungsroman.

Rocket Ship Galileo is about a group of three midwestern teens who--under the guidance of an atomic-scientist uncle--build and pilot a rocket ship to the moon. What's not to love?! I read it when I was a teen myself, and every time I re-read it I'm transported back.

As it was published almost seventy years ago (1947), I don't feel bad about spoiling the plot twist. When our heroes safely land on the moon, they discover that they're not the first ones there! The Nazis have established a moon base and are planning to threaten the world with nuclear annihilation. SPOILER: Our plucky boys save humanity!

This mid-story plot twist is a device Heinlein uses in other novels, sometimes well, sometimes not so well. In Rocket Ship Galileo it's clever and drives the story further. In Farnham's Freehold, for example, it turns what may be one of the best first halves of a Heinlein novel into a disaster by the end.

Of course, Heinlein's strong streaks of American exceptionalism and libertarianism are evident here at the very beginning of his career--they'll be with him to the end. I don't mind them, and can even get swept up by them. I love Heinlein's future vision of American education--his teens usually have done lots of calculus and physics by the time they graduate high school. I wish I'd been as ambitious when I was their age.

There's also a hopefulness and a naivete in the juvenalia, both things I encourage and think necessary for a bright future for humanity. I love many of Heinlein's more mature writings (e.g. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress and Stranger in a Strange Land), but my heart belongs to his young adult fiction. He was John Green before John Green was John Green!

This Just Read: The Killer of Pilgrims

I just finished Susannah Gregory's The Killer of Pilgrims on my Kindle. It's the sixteenth book in her series featuring Matthew Bartholomew, a physician in 14th century Cambridge. I've only read one other of the series, the one immediately preceding this one.

I'm a fan of several historical mystery series,especially the Joliffe series by Margaret Frazer and the Templar Knight Mysteries by Maureen Ash. I read them as an antidote to the other, serious reading I like to (and sometimes have to) do. Currently I'm a quarter-way into Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August--a very serious read. I needed a break and decided to try a second book in this series.

I like the historical mystery settings. I generally find them well written with a good bit of historical flavor. Having lived in England, I can connect with some of the settings (e.g. Lincoln or Canterbury).

The main characters in these series usually have a few modern quirks--anachronisms that set them apart from the other characters and make them more like us. Matthew Bartholomew, for example, is an unusual physician. He looks for actual organic causes of illness, rather than consulting horoscopes to treat his patients, like the other (more respectable) physicians in town.

So, I just finished The Killer of Pilgrims and found it pretty exhausting. It depicts a series of thefts and murders set against the backdrop of inter-college rivalries in 14th-century Cambridge. I have no doubt the historical details are accurate; these books stand or fall on their historicity. That said, in the wake of last week's shooting spree at UC Santa Barbara, my heart just wasn't ready for a tale filled with such callous indifference to human life. The major and minor characters in The Killer of Pilgrims seem ready to run each other through for the slightest insult. Maybe it's accurate, I didn't care.

I finished it, and may well try another one some day. But not today.

An Open Letter to Bishop Mark Webb

Thursday, May 29, 2014

An Open Letter To Bishop Mark Webb

Dear Bishop Webb,

Today was the first day of the 2014 Upper New York Annual Conference. It’s been a long one, but some of the things I've seen and heard today have prompted me to write you.

From the very beginning of conference today, we've heard about the divisive times in which we live. You have encouraged us to love one another first and foremost, even as we tackle difficult issues and navigate entrenched positions. I agree whole-heartedly.

I'm a member of our conference’s Board of Ordained Ministry and have been since I was ordained in 2011. I was honored to be invited to serve and am strongly committed to the work of the Board. It takes a lot of time and energy, but I look forward to the time I get to spend with my Board colleagues.

Our Board is diverse, made up of people with different theologies, ideologies, and ecclesiologies. We have diversity in age, gender, race, years in ministry, and background. We have elders, deacons, lay members, local pastors, active and retired... even the rare deaconess!

With such a broad palette of difference, you might think we don’t get along. With so much emphasis on what divides us, you might imagine we struggle to agree on anything. But my experience has been just the opposite. I've not found the Board to be divided over ideology or anything else. In fact, I count my fellow Board members as some of my closest colleagues. In them I find retreat.

I've been thinking about why that is. Certainly, our Board's leadership models respectful and loving relationship, but I think there's more. The work we do is hard. The work we do is important. We are all committed to it. We do it together—we speak with one voice. When we make hard decisions—such as deliberating over candidates' futures—we are filled with mighty and terrible purpose. These are emotional times; more than once we've been brought to tears. Most of all, we do this work with great care for one another.

I treasure my Board colleagues precisely because we have done hard, important work together. Like soldiers in a foxhole, we are bound by the intensity of our shared experience, which transcends ideology.

Thinking of our larger connexion—the bond we share as clergy—I've been trying to apply the same logic. As clergy we do hard work. We do important work. We know things only other clergy can understand. All this might lead to the kind of loving relationships I share with my Board colleagues, but one thing is lacking, we don't work together.

We are, by the very nature of our work, balkanized. Each of us operates in his or her own discrete jurisdiction, seldom working alongside fellow clergy in any meaningful way. Without that shared experience, it may be harder for us to form the kind of bonds our connexion demands and deserves.

I don't have any magic solutions. I just wanted to share with you some of my thoughts of the day, my love for my colleagues and the connexion we share, and my hope for the future of our conference and church.

May God continue to bless you and your leadership,

Rev. Michael A. Smith

Mohawk Valley Trinity UMC, Whitesboro, New York

This Just Read: The Ghost Map

I just finished Steven Johnson's The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World. It's the second time I read it and I got more out of it this time. Back in 2008-2009 I was a chaplaincy intern at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rechester, New York. I was reading a lot of medical writing and found John Barry's The Great Influenza, the account of the 1918 influenza pandemic. After that, I read The Ghost Map for the first time. On the surface it's a medical detective story. A cholera outbreak in 1854 London killed hundreds in a matter of days. Two men, working independently, began to investigate the causes of the outbreak.
The prevailing theory of disease at the time was that it was caused by bad air, or miasma. London was a swelling metropolis of two million, with all the horrible stench and filth that comes with that many people, their animals and industry.
Dr. John Snow lived near the outbreak and decided to look into it to test a pet theory--that cholera was spread through contaminated water. He began going door to door, seeking out those who succumbed and those who mysteriously were left untouched.
At the same time the local vicar, Henry Whitehead, was going door to door in the same neighborhood, offering pastoral care to the people he knew so well. At last, a story where the vicar is the hero!
These two men collected the pieces of this puzzle and eventually joined forces and put together a compelling picture of the spread of this particular outbreak. Dr. Snow compiled their results on several maps that correlated the disease with proximity to one source of water: the Broad Street pump. Rev. Whitehead, through his knowledge of the people, managed to track down Patient Zero--the case that started this particular outbreak. Together, they showed the world (though it would take decades before their arguments were universally accepted) that cholera was spread through contaminated water.
At it's heart, this is a story of how we see that which is invisible. The cholera bacteria had only just been observed in Italy, and were unknown in England. How can one see what cannot be seen? Snow and Whitehead mapped the visible and in so doing were able to show an image of the entity that is cholera.
That's the main thrust of the book, but the story of Snow, Whitehead, and the 1854 cholera outbreak are also used by Johnson to get it a larger story: the story of human urbanization. We are city dwellers, more and more. The 1854 outbreak was made possible by bringing so many people together into such a small space without adequate technology to handle their waste. It's a logistical problem. Technology has enabled us to solve many of these logistical problems, making the urban landscape the norm for human living.
Johnson argues that this is a good thing, as out population swells, it makes sense to gather where we have the lowest impact on the environment. The most efficient places on earth for that are cities. New York City, for example, is the most energy-efficient place on earth! But mass urbanization is not inevitable. Fears of pandemic disease, terrorist attack, nuclear war, make gathering into huge cities problematic.
Overall, a well-written take on two interesting stories, one in the past and one in our present and future.

This Just Read: The Transforming Principle

I've been doing some book penance this week, and enjoying it, too! I've just finished Maclyn McCarty's The Transforming Principle: Discovering that Genes Are Made of DNA. I got this book when it was first published in 1985 and I've been carrying it around ever since. It was assigned reading for a biology preceptorial at St. John's College led by Barbara Leonard back in 1985 or '86.

Confession: I didn't read it then. I just read it now.

Overall it's a good read. Written by one of the three principle biochemists working on the puzzle of the "transforming principle" in the 1930s and '40s. Researchers discovered that cells of pneumococcus (the bacteria that cause pneumonia) could be transformed from one strain to another by the introduction of a small amount of cells of the new strain "killed" by heat or chemical action. The resultant cells are of the new type and reproduce true to that type. They are, quite literally, remade as something else.

Nobody knew how it happened or what agents were responsible. Over years of painstaking lab work Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty carefully isolated the factors and deduced that DNA--something that had been discovered fifty years earlier but nobody thought very much about--must be the sole agent of transformation.

The book was written by McCarty in the 1980s, after Oswald and MacLeod had died. McCarty combed through lab notes and correspondence (and his own memory) to piece together the story. It's a great account of the real work of science: methodical, ordered, occasionally requiring intuitive leaps.

I love book and movies about creativity and discovery. I love the "Aha!" moment when all the pieces fall into place. I enjoy it in books about science, art, mystery, any human endeavor that requires innovative thinking. Favorites of mine along these lines include Thomas Harris' Red Dragon, the movie Enigma, James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Watson's The Double Helix, Randy Shilts' And the Band Played On, John Barry's The Great Influenza, and so on.

It took James Watson and Francis Crick in the 1950s to take the next step in DNA research, which Oswald, McCarty, and McCarty hint at in the 1940s:

It remains one of the challenging problems for future research to determine what sort of configurational or structural differences can be demonstrated between desoxyribonucleates of separate specificities.

This would be the work of Crick and Watson, who moved from pure biochemistry to spectography to unlock the secrets of the double helix (read The Double Helix for the account of this discovery. I did read that one, Ms. Leonard).

So, after almost thirty years I've finished my reading for that preceptorial. Whew!

This Just Read: The Alchemyst

I read a lot of books. I re-read a lot of books. I start some books and don't finish them. I've decided to try to post about the books I do finish, as I finish them. Not full-on reviews, but a few words about what I thought. So here goes.

I just finished The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicolas Flamel by Michael Scott. It's the first volume in a series of books. I'd seen them in bookstores for a few years and though about eventually giving them a go.

Let me start out by saying that I love good young-adult fiction, emphasis on the good. I re-read The Hobbit constantly. This winter I re-read Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy and think it might be my favorite YA fiction ever. I love me some Harry Potter.

The Alchemyst isn't really on the same plane. It's not bad. I found it to be a pretty predictable normal-kids-discover-magick story. It didn't have the depth or quality of writing that could really engage me as an adult reader. I haven't read any of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians books, but I've seen the first movie. The Alchemyst has the same sort of feel.

The Alchemyst starts the reader off on a large story arc. You have to get the next volume to find out what happens next. This is different than the Happy Potter books, for example, which have an overarching plot, but each book has a self-contained story and can be read alone.

So, I don't feel I wasted my time or my money. I'd recommend The Alchemyst to an interested teen, but I'll not be getting the next volume.

Stop the Hurting: Why I’m Not Marrying Anybody

“Injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates.” ~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “Letter from Birmingham Jail”

The United Methodist Church struggles with human sexuality. At this time, much attention in my denomination is focused on the issues of homosexuality and same-sex marriage. Battle lines are drawn and we grow more contentious every day. Recently, several United Methodist pastors have been charged with defying the Book of Discipline—the rule book of the United Methodist Church—which explicitly forbids pastors from performing same-sex weddings. Our dialogue and debate has become a season of crime and punishment. The trials have begun.

In recent months we have witnessed the trial of Rev. Frank Schaefer, whose ministry credentials were stripped because he presided over a same-sex wedding and has refused to promise never to do it again. In March the trial begins for Rev. Thomas Ogletree. In my own corner of the United Methodist Church, the Upper New York Annual Conference, we are awaiting a trial date for Rev. Steve Heiss, who was brought up on charges last summer.

In this midst of this difficult issue, both sides have become more hardened, more absolute. Pastors who are performing same-sex marriages claim that they are being obedient to their calling to share the love of God with all people, regardless of their sexual orientation or identity. They see God’s activity in inclusiveness, in erasing the lines that separate us, acknowledging that we have drawn many of those lines ourselves.

Those who are opposed to these marriages cry for biblical obedience and hold up our Book of Discipline, claiming that these actions harm the covenant that clergy enter into when they are ordained. We have obligations not just to God, they rightly claim, but to one another. We are part of something larger than ourselves.

Every pastor and church member is a part of this struggle, no matter where they stand on the issues. I personally believe that our church’s historic stance on homosexuality is wrong and I support same-sex marriage and the ordination of homosexuals. But I also take seriously my church’s tradition (even when I disagree with it), the vows I made at my ordination, and the clergy covenant of which I’m part.

What solutions may come—from full inclusion to church schism—are not coming any time soon. There is much hard work to be done by men and women of good faith, clergy and laity. How can we proceed in this atmosphere of fear and distrust? How can me move forward together?

The United Methodist Church has historically expected its members to live by three simple rules:

First, do no harm. Second, do good. Third, stay in love with God.

As I go forward on this issue I must first do no harm. It’s very telling that the rule against harm comes first, before any other. No real, lasting good can be done through harming another. The kingdom of God cannot be built upon a foundation of pain.

Those who oppose same-sex marriages, and who would see pastors who perform them punished, argue that great harm is being done through these acts of disobedience, harm to the Church, the world, and to our fellow clergy with whom we covenant. Putting a stop to these marriages would bring an end to that harm.

Yet I am not blind to the harm that has been done—and continues to be done—by our denomination’s traditional stance on homosexuality. Generation upon generation have been grievously harmed by our intolerance. Our church is paying a toll in vitality, integrity, and human lives. Simply putting a stop to same-sex marriages does not return us to a time of wholeness and freedom from harm. I find disingenuous those who make such arguments.

I’ve been grappling with this issue for a long time, seeking a way to live into this struggle with faith and conviction. My heart—like Jesus’ own heart—leans toward the disenfranchised and powerless. Yet, as an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church, I take my vows, my tradition, and my covenant with my clergy sisters and brothers seriously.

After much prayerful consideration, I know that path I must walk during these difficulties. I will honor my vows and will not perform same-sex weddings. But I will also honor my calling to serve all people and until such time as I can share God’s love in marriage as I feel called, I will share it with none, gay or straight. Neither will I allow weddings to be performed by others in the church where I have been appointed to lead.

This is not fair. This is not just. This grieves me greatly. But this is the only principled way forward that I see as I navigate the troubled waters of this issue. What I am doing is not a solution, but a posture I must adopt in the midst of this struggle. I invite my fellow clergy to join me. Whatever their beliefs on this issue, this seems to me the only faithful way to engage one another and move forward. Let’s stop the hurting.

Rev. Michael A. Smith is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church. He serves Trinity United Methodist Church, in Whitesboro, New York.