Renewed violence in Chicago...and the violence of a nihilist culture

This recent sobering report from PBS on gun violence in Chicago, I think, points rightly to several of the phenomenon's culprits: separation from opportunities and long-term hopelessness rooted in racism.

But more is at play, I believe in the increase in Chicago shootings. It's a factor in world culture today evidenced in different ways among affluent whites, young males in different countries, dishonest people on the make, indifferent sexual partners, and others.

It's what I call nihilism, a belief that nothing matters but being more, having more, conquering more.

As the report points out, the gang members killing each other in Chicago aren't motivated, as members were in the past, to protect their turf, a stupid reason to shoot someone anyway. Now, they're just shooting when someone insults them, crosses them, or gets in their way.

When nothing but you and your survival are threatened, life becomes expendable, cheap. Especially other people's lives. The answer to the question posed by the world's first murderer to God--"Am I my brother's keeper?"--should be obvious to everyone. Of course, we are all our brothers' and our sisters' keepers. Our lives are undeserved gifts from God; caring for each other is one way we express our gratitude for the gift.

Nihilism drives terrorism, dirty business dealings, and cavalier attitudes about sex and family, among other things.

Our penchant for it is inborn. But much in today's culture says it's getting the upper hand.

I believe that the solutions to these issues are many and varied--economic, cultural, social.

But I also believe strongly that every effort to subdue nihilism and promote community and justice will fail unless there is also a transformation of people's hearts and minds.

And that, I believe, can only come from the God we know in Christ.

Christ is the essential factor and the linchpin for any good to come out of any evil. He won't make any of us nor any society on this planet perfect if we turn from evil--evils like racism, indifference, and nihilism.

But when we surrender to Him daily, He begins to change the way we look at others and ourselves. He starts to transform us from the inside out.

Let's pray for an end to violence and pray for our neighbors whoever they are.

Let's pray for an end to institutionalized racism.

Let's do our own bit to contribute to justice and mercy in this world.

Let's love God and our neighbors practically every day.

Let's ask God to renew and revive us through the saving work He's done through Jesus.

Let's trust in Christ and ask Him to make us over in His image.

To find out more about this new life Christ can give to us, keep reading this blog. I write about it all the time. I even try to live it.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Dialogue Part 1 and 11 by Chicago

This song is as relevant today as when it was first released on the phenomenal Chicago V LP back in 1972.

No matter how we close our eyes to injustice, it still exists. And our chosen blindness doesn't impress the God we know in Jesus Christ.

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” (Matthew 25:41-46)

'A Hit by Varese'

This old tune by Chicago has been in my brain all day long.

Only super-talented musicians could perform this tune with its widely varying time signatures. Written and with a lead vocal by Robert Lamm, composer and singer on several of the band's earliest hits, A Hit by Varese, gives all of the original members of Chicago a chance to show their chops.

A band that included both formally trained and more instinctive musicians, Chicago's early work, including this song, presented a brilliant fusion of jazz and rock.

This is not one of their better known pieces. But it is definitely one of my favorites.

Feeling Stronger Every Day!

Another nap and a longer walk today. Took a nice walk yesterday evening and then we were surprised by good friends (you know who you are), who took us for a ride in their jeep. Fun! Lots of reading and praying, too.  Feeling stronger every day!

Weird (and Wonderful) Public Art

Should all art look like something? That is, should it represent something? I don't think so. Whether it's visual art, music, poetry, or statuary, I think that there's enough room in the world for all kinds of art, from the representational variety to "art for art's sake." (I write a bit about that here. Also see here.)

Triggering these thoughts is a post by Ann Althouse, who published her own photograph of the big--untitled--Picasso statue that adorns--and defines--Daley Plaza in Chicago. It roused these thoughts and memories from me:

I remember the controversy that surrounded the installation of the Picasso sculpture in 1967. I went to Chicago for a visit with my aunt, uncle, and cousins, who lived in nearby DuPage County, just two years later. It was the weirdest and, to my fifteen year old mind, most wonderful piece of public art I'd ever seen.

Nine years after the Picasso was installed in Daley Plaza, we had a similar controversy over a piece of public sculpture in my hometown of Columbus. A group of local patrons made it possible for the Columbus Museum of Art to purchase what I believe was then one of two renderings of Henry Moore's 'Large Oval with Points.' (A perfunctory search of the web indicates that there are a few more of them around today.) The site chosen was a parcel of land, once the location of the old Franklin County Court House, then being developed into a small urban green space.

I remember that everybody seemed to have an opinion of the piece. My wife and I loved it, for example. Friends of ours, people I would have expected to have been enthusiastic about the sculpture, hated it. (But on their honeymoon trip to Paris, they sent us a postcard to say that there they had seen a piece that bore a "pointed" resemblance to something in Columbus.)

Today, the Moore sculpture seems nondescript and invisible. Not so the Picasso piece and not just because it's much larger. It's just a great piece of art. Why, I don't know, except that like all exceptional art, it captures you...

What do you think, does art always have to represent something? Or is it enough that it either reflects an artist's passion or engenders passion in us?

Leave your comments.

(By the way, it may be that those Columbus patrons also had a sense of humor. One of the most identifiable landmarks in the city is the Oval, the central campus green at Ohio State.)

[On passion, see here.]