Excerpt: An Exposition on the life of King David

Research papers are not the kind of writing that people yearn to do.  Normally, I do not yearn to write research papers either.

I’m in a 100-level History class this summer at Front Range Community College here in Fort Collins trying to cheat CSU out of a few overpriced classes they require of me for my degree.  We were assigned this paper to increase our knowledge of a specific person in ancient history, and I was so excited to write it because I picked David.  It was selfish.  You see, just from growing up in church I know more about David than I know about most other ancient rulers.  Choosing him immediately makes this paper way easier.  So it was selfish to pick him, but not only because I really didn’t want to start my information from scratch, but also because it gave me the opportunity to claim a little more of my schedule for bible reading time.  1st Samuel, 2nd Samuel, and Psalms are the best primary sources on the life of David.  Bingo.  Bible-time-as-research-time.  These biblical narratives and psalms are certainly not enough research material for a secular school, and probably shouldn’t be enough at a Christian school either,  so In addition to these books I used some other historian’s writings, both secular and Christian.

If you want to read approximately 14 double-spaced pages about the life of David, email me and I’ll gladly send you the whole piece of writing.  If you only want to read the “fun” part, the part where I rant on his songwriting and the romance with Yahweh it betrays, that part of the paper has been copy/pasted below.  Much Love.

Although we know David as this legendary warrior and political figurehead, many people outside of a religious interest in David will forget what an artesian the man was.  We’re told in 1 Samuel 16:18 that David is a skillful harp player.  So skillful, in fact, that he is asked to play before Saul.  The biblical narrative does not mention until much later that, like his son Solomon would be with wisdom, David was unmatched in songwriting and musicianship.  In order to get past the historical bullet points of his life’s events and see into the person he was, you have got to read these works of his.  The Old Testament book of Psalms is a well-preserved collection of these pieces of religious rhetoric. One Psalm in particular illustrates well his faith and his artistry.  Amongst the most memorized passages in the bible is Psalm 23; it is probably also the best-known passage in the Old Testament ¹.  It begins, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside still waters, He restores my soul.”  David writes from his early-childhood work experience as a shepherd, beautifully placing himself instead in the position of the sheep, with God as his guidance.  The religions of ancient people all speak of a collection of gods that were to be feared, that were not to be crossed, that were looking for opportunities to punish their followers.  David’s understanding of his God is drastically different, a picture of a soft-handed, loving shepherd that protects him.  Later in the Psalm, David writes, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me,” and later, “You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies.”  Thousands have, throughout the cracked and blemished history of the church, ran to these verses in their similar understanding of God as protector, keeping them whole even in the “shadow of death.”¹ What other king did more than to take his turn on the throne of his nation until death removed him to be only another name in a textbook? The faith of David has, through his writings, left an incredibly transcendental mark on the world of faith.  Look for this poem of David on the walls of every nursery, on the walls of every army chapel, and tattooed on the arms of many young Christians.  What did Nebuchadnezzar write that remains today?  What is left of Cyrus the Great that is so remembered, so memorized?  Did Caesar pen a poem of even comparable worth?  Perhaps I’ve made my point.

David passed away around 961 BC, penning his last psalm on his deathbed, and eventually the kingdom came into the hands of Solomon, the second son of Bathsheba, the iniquitous wife David took by murderous inquisition.  Solomon would rule the kingdom “better” than his father in a lot of ways, because the rule was uneventful and mostly characterized by peace. Solomon led the Israelites into a period of such wealth that “Silver was made as common as stones” (1 Kings 10:27) ¹.  Many historians, secular and faith-claiming alike, attribute Solomon’s excellent economic and political rule to the model his father.  King David of Israel is a fascinating and historically transcendent character because of his nontraditional rise to power, his political and militaristic rule, and his steadfast commitment to music, poetry, and the God to which he gave credit for everything.  The life of David has been a fascination to me since I was old enough to find his shepherd-boy picture in my giant illustrated Bible, and I strongly believe that studying his life reveals a great deal about that time period, a great deal about the people of Israel, and furthermore, a great deal about who this “Yahweh” is.

Fur Lined

Occasionally a new band will come to my attention and have me excited for a little while.  Right now that band is an electronic outfit called “How To Destroy Angels.”   Right away you might think, based on the name, that they have some anti-God agenda and/or worship the devil.  The truth is, maybe they do, I really don’t know.  Instead I thought maybe the “angels” could be people who still have innocence, maybe kids?  The lyrics could be some kind of defense of little kids, explaining to them the dangers of things that can “destroy” them, like drugs, alcohol, or reading too much Twilight.  This speculation led me to Wikipedia, which put the puzzle together for me.  In 1984 a band called Coil released an EP called “How to Destroy Angels” and apparently it was a favorite of the band’s?  Either way I got over their band name pretty quick.

The band features Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Reznor, his wife Mariqueen Maandig and a guy named Atticus Ross, who produced Nine Inch Nails, Jane’s Addiction, and other similar bands.  The influence of NIN on their sound is pretty obvious, but the electronic nature of their music makes them separate and unique, so don’t expect more NIN.  Mostly what I like about this band is the way everything sounds so thick and heavy, yet not suffocatingly digital.  They use a lot of really neat organic-sounding analogue synths and drum machines right beside very-Trent-Reznor-sounding guitars and bass.  Lots of fuzz, but tastefully employed with a lot of well-placed delay work to make everything sound huge.

Instead of Reznor singing, his wife does it.  This is an interesting thing.  Mariqueen Maandig formerly sang in a group called “West Indian Girl.”  Their music sounds totally different than this stuff though.  It’s like charming Mariqueen married Mr. Reznor and then fell into some deep dark songwriting mood and learned how to operate an Ondes Martenot.  If you’re wondering what that is, it’s a really cool analogue instrument operated with a string.  You should look it up if you’re a music nerd, Johnny Greenwood from Radiohead is a master of it.

My only complaint so far about the project is that the lyrics don’t say anything at all.  There isn’t a ton of singing, but when she does sing it’s usually so covered in fuzz and studio nonsense that although it sounds pretty good as a sort of melodic instrument, it doesn’t serve the songwriter’s purpose of communicating a message.  Either way the lyrics are tasteless, intentionally dark , and harmless.

So yea.  I just thought I would mention this band that I’ve been enjoying lately.  It’s a different sound of electronica for me.  The group has a free six-song EP that you can download at howtodestroyangels.com and it’s definitely worth downloading because it’s free and if you don’t dig it you can just delete it.  The first song, “The Space in Between,” has some really neat guitar work in it, and the third track, “Fur Lined,” is all around a great song, the synth stuff at the end especially.  You can just listen through the whole record though from start to finish.  It only takes like 28 minutes.  I’ll do it once for you.

Dentist-Turned-Cult-Leader.

Tonight, some two hours after midnight, I’m just getting settled at Alley Cat, the 24-hour coffee shop that gives the whole of collegiate Fort Collins the ability to procrastinate right up to the hour the assignment is due.  I’m here studying for a summer school exam, and just finished a brief short-essay response to a historical reading we had to do.

Right after World War I ended, America saw an influx of immigrants into our freshly-wealthy nation.  Surely if Martin Luther King Jr.’s ”I Have a Dream” speech had been given 40 years earlier, the Klu Klux Klan of the mid 20′s would have been so moved they would have surrendered and traded their pointy hats and white robes for tie-dye and W.W.J.D. bracelets.  However in 1926, two years before MLK was even born, a dentist named Hiram W. Evans took control of the Klu Klux Klan and gave a rousing speech on their plan to rebuild and restore America to its roots of white supremacy.

Anyway, I had to read that speech and respond to it.  I had such a marvelous time tearing it apart that I thought I would post it here.  I have no idea why anyone would want to hear me  rant about the foolishness that is the Klan.  But if you do, Hiram W. Evan’s KKK speech can be read here, and my response can be read below.  I would love to hear any comments on it!  Kthnxbye.

In his 1926 speech, Hiram Evans vomits forth some laughably ignorant rhetoric about what it means for the Klan to battle, “The fetters of the false ideals and philanthropy which put aliens ahead of their own children and their own race…” ¹ It is indeed “Americanism” that Evans speaks of fighting for, for what is more American than blind ethnocentricity?  This Texas dentist-turned-cult-leader first establishes, in this excerpt of his speech, the superior race in view, the Nordic race that, “Has given the world almost the whole of modern civilization.”¹ He then goes on to describe the downfall of America’s most ethically embarrassing cult, and the consequential “moral breakdown” that happened in its absence. Hiram Evans speaks of an America darkened by its foolish tolerance and civil progress.  Some of the things affected by this crumbling of hegemonic, oppressive racial ideology, were, believe it or not, things like these people’s homes, their school systems, their “Protestant” Sabbaths, and even somehow their chastity.  The post World War I influx of immigrants was causing “The mass of old-stock Americans” to lose even their ability to restrict sexual relationships to marriage!  It should be a relief to hear that this great Texan did not leave his audience with a cloud of hopelessness hanging over their heads.  Instead, he shines a light of promise into the situation by defining the Klu Klux Klan’s plan for returning the power to white, “Protestant” men.  He says the purpose of the Klan is to be an organization that, “Gives expression, direction and purpose to the most vital instincts, hopes, and resentments of the old-stock Americans, provides them with leadership, and is enlisting and preparing them for militant, constructive action toward fulfilling their racial and national destiny.”¹ If somehow the burning churches left any doubt that Hiram W. Evans and his KKK forefathers did not understand what it meant to be “Constructive” with social activism, the above is a selection of the man’s very words.  It would be nice if we could say that we’ve laid to rest such bigoted ideals and taken hold of true inclusiveness and tolerance, but the truth is that our white-supremacy ideology may run deeper than the somehow still-existent KKK in America.  Our creative means of othering and exoticism with other races is evidence that racism is not so easy to beat.

So we gawk.

“Lord, What is man that Thou takest knowledge of him! Or the son of man, that Thou makest account of him! Man is like to vanity; his days are a shadow that passeth away.”
Psalm 144: 3 & 4

What is the great distance between man and God? What is the distance between us that so separates us, making us His subjects, causing us to fall down and worship?

Is it that He is unspeakably larger than we? That with little effort He fashioned a universe we can hardly fathom, like an ant might try to understand the whole of America, crawling on some tree to get a better view of it? Like to a shrimp a cubic foot of ocean might be a spacious home, though he knows of a vast ocean around him. Like God formed for us this magnificent planet of beauty and season and diverse geology and topology, yet we have some idea of the cosmos, and have even ventured a few thousand miles into it’s emptiness on rare historical occasion. Yet, we can barely understand it, only being delightfully mystified by it, making our computer desktops satellite images of galaxies we will only ever see removed out of actual place by million’s of light years, by millions of years. So we gawk. With dust-mite size in endless spatiality, with little eyes squinting at stars, cleverly inventing horoscope fortunes by connecting the dots as we see them make animal shapes. Oh what do we know of the universe? How big then is our God, that it was His hand, and the words of His lips, that made so many worlds? What is the distance between man and God that so separates us, making us His subjects?

Is it that God is so much more knowledgeable than we? That we, after a decade of higher education, can hold a document, a PhD, that says we are masters of one topic and can now teach it on a collegiate level. Who is our God that He is the author of knowledge? That he knows not only the intricacies of topics so deep that we shall not at any time discover them, but that He knows comprehensively every aspect of our individual lives, that he knows us in a way so similarly deep that we ourselves will not at any time understand them. That beyond us and our planet, again into the unsearchable depths of space, He knows every square inch and every surface of that place. He made them each uniquely and each with some purpose we cannot discover, for what thing has He made without a reason to exist? Does what we know of His character suggest that He made the planets just to be attractive to the lens of a telescope? There is certainly some purpose for them that He knows of, even if we cannot describe it. Similarly he knows of our purpose, because we are also beings created of Him, who does nothing without good reason to. Like with the planets, we try to understand our existence, still only speculating and assuming. We pick careers and win degrees in pursuit of those estimated purposes, whereas God has surely calculated every second of our time to no fault. Oh what do we know of knowledge? What is the distance between man and God that so separates us, making us His subjects?

Is it that His power is so much greater? What do we know of power? We study history and we study politics to understand the power of man, but to study the power of God, we study physics. His power is over our lives, and over our comings and goings, but His power is over our molecules. Man can, with great lifelong effort, come to rule a country for a season, if enough money and publicity can be accumulated. God can, with little effort, out of some discursive, atomically compounding, spark-of-life giving love, breathe into a hand full of dust and make a wide-eyed image of Himself, fearfully and obsessively fixated on its Maker for the duration of its days. An autonomous but desperately dependent being, trembling at even a hint of His voice, and gladly dying with little hesitation to see His face, if even for a mere second. Oh what is man that You are mindful! What do we know of creative power? What is the distance between man and God that so separates us, making us His subjects?

And so I would ask again, what is the distance between man and God that so separates us, making us His subjects? It is the great size of God, the great knowledge of God, the great power of God, and the great love of God, to name a few things. We can have only whispers of these attributes, even after long lives of ardently seeking Him, and so this is why the Psalmist would shake his head and say, “Lord, What is man that Thou takest knowledge of him!”