Not too long ago we visited the Frank Lloyd Wright house in Buffalo. FLW is regarded as an artist who brooked no interference from his clients. In one bedroom, the built-in bed was 4 feet long. When the clients complained, he told them it was their own fault. They had insisted upon a closet, so he put it at the head of the bed. Couldn’t he have extended the tail end another two feet? he was asked. There was room. No, he could not, he said, that would mess up the lines of the house.

He also had a phrase of “client-proofing” the house, building in furniture in such a way that it would be impractical for clients to bring in their own. And lastly, this particular client had a lot of books, but FLW wanted them tucked away for appearance sake. He concealed a bookshelf area around the chimney/heat grate which was also concealed. “Wouldn’t that harm the books?” my wife asked. “Not his problem,” the guide answered.

Few clients wanted to see Wright ever again after his work was finished. However, Darwin Martin, the Buffalo client, was an exception. A self-made man, he was in awe of Wright’s talent. When he died, Wright said he had lost a great friend, “and I think he was a better friend to me than I was to him.” This is because, after an initial creative spurt, Wright’s personal life fell into scandal, so that people crossed the street when they saw him coming. Martin saw him through, continually lending him money (which was never repaid), and thus made possible the second half of Wright’s career in which he designed even more ambitious things.

At the guide’s mention of scandal—it involved ditching his family to take up with another woman, a most peculiar one—something clicked. Yet, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it and wracked my brains trying. It seemed as though it didn’t involve Wright directly, only someone who was taken in a defrauding by his new weird wife. Wright was taken in by this cultish woman, also, and they prevailed over their own utopian community. The guide was no help to me. She kept track only of Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural life, not his private life which got strange.

At last it dawned upon me the next day. It was Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva. She had defected to the West in the late 60s. The Indian embassy where she requested asylum, then the Italian embassy where she was quickly transferred, didn’t even know that Stalin had a daughter. A manuscript she had smuggled of life under her father’s Soviet Union made her wealthy. But, raised communist, she knew nothing of money nor how to manage it. unscrupulous ones managed to syphon it all away, the greatest of whom was Wright’s strange wife and the society she ran. She died, if not in poverty, then at least in very modest circumstances. I’ll tell the tour guide about it, should I see her again.

Frank Lloyd Wright buildings are a nightmare to maintain. The architect designed them beyond the technical capacities of the time. Martin’s company, the Larkin Soap company, where he served as right-hand man, at one time the highest paid employee in all America, went out of business during the Great Depression. In time, the house fell into disrepair. It surely would have met the wrecking ball had not another architect bought it just for the sake of preservation. The back quarters—the conservatory and carriage house—actually was demolished, leaving only the home proper. Later, these items were rebuilt to true specifications so that the visitor cannot tell they are not original.

You can’t take pictures inside, however you can stroll the grounds at any time. Had I been permitted to take pictures, I might have shown how Wright liked to “hide the corners” of a room. Take a 15 foot wall, for instance, and build twelve feet of it up front, protruding. It has the effect of concealing the end pieces not protruding. Wright grumbled that Americans “lived in boxes.” He didn’t want his designs to reflect that.

I might, had pictures been permitted, documented how Wright brought the outdoors in via the use of outdoor materials extended inside. And, I probably would have shown the compressed (lowered) ceilings in places where Lloyd didn’t want people to linger—the front porch, for example, where people were either to leave or enter, but not remain. Figuring a man’s home was his castle, Wright worked to conceal the front doors, conveying that you don’t come to visit without an invitation. The ceilings of hallways were compressed, too. People were not to remain there. They were to pass through quickly to join the life in one room or the other.

And yes, The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand is inspired by Wright’s career, our guide confirmed. This conflicts with the view of another architect I knew who said it wasn’t. However, he probably meant to convey that it was not a biography of the man. It clearly is inspired by him. Wright’s radical breakaway from Louis Sullivan, his former employer, to form his own unique American architecture free from Roman or Greek influence, parallels exactly Howard Roark’s rejection of his day’s traditional architecture. Now that I think of it, Roark was used to channel Ayn Rand’s own peculiar ‘objectivism’ philosophy, and the latter Wright also was attracted to offbeat things and a strong woman who championed them. Maybe there are more parallels than I first thought. Ah, well—a project for another time.

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You have to have a high tolerance for profanity if you are going to listen to Ani Difranco. Fortunately, I do. In a world in which the f-bomb has become the new “um," one either gets used to it or resigns oneself to not coming out of the Kingdom Hall. I even opined once about Ani that she might be the next Bob Dylan, with the footnote that she is a lot cruder than Bob, but then, it is a cruder age, isn’t it?

So, I was not unduly put off by her song lyrics to a friend that he should “just give up and admit you’re an asshole.” I liked the forthrightness of it. (It may be that the “he” is a “she,” for the singer was lesbian in her early years before going straight and thus infuriating many of her fans.)

And if that one did just give up and admit to being an asshole, what consequences might ensue? Not so bad as one might think: First, “You would be in some good company." Next, the line that his friends would probably forgive him. or maybe she is "just thinking of me." And then she says that she takes the person "as is."

Um—isn’t this setting the bar a bit low? I could be wrong and I freely admit I don’t pick up on every nuance of contemporary song. I was easily the oldest person at that concert the kids brought me to. Not to be dogmatic. Since people can be so much worse, maybe simply admitting you’re an asshole is the new sainthood. Maybe it’s just me who recalls a time when you actually had to do good things to be christened a saint. It does seem to be though, at least to me, one more evidence that that crazy long list of negatives (19 adjectives!) at 2 Timothy 3:1-5 does indeed have special relevance in our time; It's not just the way people have always been.

It is one of her favorite songs, she says. It represents the beauty of forgiveness.

That is a beautiful quality. Trouble is, it tends not to work with an asshole who remains an asshole and who thinks that just admitting he is an asshole is enough. There is something evocative in the lyrics of a generation that demands to be loved but does not attend to what might make them lovable. Forgiveness is a central theme of the Bible, too, but it works best when the basis for forgiveness is understood and the one who is forgiven does not take that forgiveness for granted but makes changes.

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Jehovah’s Witnesses think the first century congregation represents a major unfolding of God’s purpose toward humankind. It represents just how “Abraham’s seed” is to bring blessings to “all the nations.” (Genesis 12:3, 18:18) Galatians 3:8 ties that seed to the early congregation. It is a new page in God’s handbook, that some from humankind would rule with Christ to bring blessings to the earth, the “twelve tribes.”

Jesus makes with the twelve, who have stuck with him through all his tribulations, the new covenant to be part of this kingdom. (Luke 22:30) It is “reserved in the heavens for you.” (1 Peter 1:4) The focus of the New Testament is on this new development, that some are called to heaven, to rule over the earth. “Have you begun ruling as kings without us?” Paul addresses the unruly Corinthians. “I really wish that you had begun ruling as kings, so that we also might rule with you as kings.” Plainly, not everyone can be a king. Plainly, there needs be ones to be kings over. Enter Revelation 21:

Revelation 21:3-5 picks up on how the seed will fulfill that promise to Abraham of bringing earthly blessings by means of his seed. There, that heavenly arrangement, called “New Jerusalem” (‘old ‘Jerusalem was the seat of government for God’s ancient people) descends from heaven to benefit “mankind” and “peoples.” Those “peoples” and “mankind” don’t go up to the New Jerusalem; rather, the New Jerusalem descends to them.

Paul does refer to a gathering of the “things of the heaven” and “things on the earth” at Ephesians 1:10.

1 Corinthians 15:24-26 relates how, once the kingdom has succeeded in bringing death to nothing, that kingdom itself will be handed over to Christ’s “God and Father.”

Revelation 7:9 tells of a “great crowd” gathered who will survive the great tribulation.) Witnesses associate this group with the “other sheep” of John 10:16.) No sense in gathering them when the great tribulation is yet centuries off. So most of the NT focuses on those with the heavenly hope.

This either resonates with a person or it doesn’t. Jehovah’s Witnesses appreciate that God put humans on earth, which he told them to fill and multiply, because he wanted them there, not because he wanted them somewhere else. The “covenant for a kingdom” is a major revelation in just how he will succeed in that, undoing the negative effects of Adam and Eve’s rebellion. The New Testament is primarily messaging to and from those with and about that heavenly hope.

Jehovah’s Witnesses love the earth, appreciate it as the gift he gives to mankind. (Psalm 115:16) They don’t hope to leave it. They hope to live forever on it once it is restored to God’s original purpose. They appreciate Jesus promise (of the “Lord’s prayer”) that once God’s kingdom comes, his will is to take place “on earth, as it is in heaven.’ (Matthew 6:9) Blessed a the meek, he says. Why? Because they will inherit the earth. (Matthew 5:5)

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There is a speaker who uses his own children to illustrate the verse. He doesn’t use them specifically, but he has several of them, and the application would not likely have occurred to him otherwise.

‘Say your child approaches mom for an ice cream bar at 4PM, clearly not ice cream time,’ he says. ‘Mom says no. Unperturbed; the child then approaches dad with the same question. Dad says no.’

Searching for someone to tickle her ears—tell her what she wants to hear—but so far, her search is unrewarded. 

He continues: ‘But, if she can find a grandparent . . . ‘

Ah yes, in that case her search will pay off in spades. 

The illustration is a favorite with his children and whenever he travels to give a public talk, they want to know if it is the one where he talks about the ice cream.

As for me, I many times used to explain that if they were to "not put up with the wholesome teaching, but according to their own desires, they will surround themselves with teachers to have their ears tickled” and the verse was written long ago, perhaps it also was fulfilled long ago. If so, that would account for how most church teachings are not found in the Bible, at least not straightforwardly. It is the attempt to read them in that causes people to tear out their hair in frustration.

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"When reparations are made—only after Job has carried out the above instructions and interceded for his former tormentors—there is no question that Job has won his case. He went from everything to nothing and he goes back to everything. His lawyer got him twice what the insurance company said, not to mention (42:13) seven additional sons and three additional daughters.

"Here, [Harold] Kushner chokes. Most today at least would do a double-take. Just how *replaceable* are children? Kushner’s Job-like time-of-trial came when he and his wife lost their son to prolonged and painful illness. Though they subsequently had other children, it’s not as though these were *replacements*. Even the suggestion of replacements in Job’s case strikes him as repugnant.

"How to work this one out? It may be as when, decades ago, an African Branch representative of my faith visited the States and repeatedly made the observation that back home, “life was cheap.” Not that he wished it that way; it was just an unpleasant fact that people adjusted to because they had no choice. Maybe that reality also defined the ancient time of Job.

"This is the same Branch representative who gave a few talks in large assembly and teased his American audience about being “so spoiled.” He marveled how each family here had their own “washing up machine.” He marveled at how each adult not only had his or her own car, but also a garage in which to put that car. “In Africa, four families would live in that garage,” he said.

"Maybe his words supply the answer. The backdrop of Job surely was closer to the backdrop of then-Africa than to America. Maybe to people not spoiled by washing up machines and garages in which to put their cars, maybe to people who have adjusted to life being “cheap,” maybe such people are less inclined to rail at God for deceased children; having long-ago adjusted to the reality that such things happen. Maybe such people thank God for the new children but do not blame him for the ones departed."

From the book: 'A Workman's Theodicy: Why Bad Things Happen'--available at Amazon

Did they tell Charles Darwin that God was picking flowers?

Charles Darwin’s favorite child, Annie, contracted scarlet fever at age 10. She agonized for 6 weeks before dying. Also a casualty was Darwin’s faith in a beneficent Creator. The book Evolution: Triumph of an Idea, by Carl Zimmer, tells us that Darwin “lost faith in angels.” That’s an odd expression. Why would it be used?

Did they tell him that God was picking flowers?

Is there any analogy more slanderous to God than the one in which God is picking flowers? Up there in heaven He has the most beautiful garden imaginable. But it is not enough! He is always on the watch for pretty flowers, the very best, and if He spots one in your garden, He helps himself, even though it may be your only one. Yes, He needs more angels, and if your child is the most pure, the most beautiful, happy, innocent child that can be, well….watch out! He or she may become next new angel. Sappy preachers give this illustration all the time, apparently thinking helps.

The picking flowers analogy is nowhere found in the Bible. However, there is a parable parallel in all respects EXCEPT THE MORAL AT THE END. It is the one Nathan told to David after he had taken Bathsheba as a wife and killed her husband.

“The LORD sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, "There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor.  The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle,  but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.
"Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him."
David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, "As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die!  He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity."
Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man!”             (2 Samuel 12:1-7)

This analogy appeals to us. It is just. The man is not expected to take comfort that the king stole his wife. No, he deserves execution! So how is it that preachers have God doing the same, expecting it will comfort? Of course it will not! The man who stole the sole lamb deserves to die! Preachers make a horrific mess trying to extract themselves from the moral corners their doctrines unfailingly paint them into.

How different history might have been had Darwin known the truth about death. Not just Darwin, but every one of his time, as well as before and after. Instead, fed a diet of phony pieties….junk food, really…..he and others of inquisitive minds searched elsewhere in an attempt to make sense of life.

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“In the absence of a workable theodicy, when people have no clue as to why a God of love would permit evil and suffering, God takes many shots. He took one in an episode of the TV whodunnit series, Dr. Blake. An elderly priest had been murdered. Upon solving the crime in his customary way: with unusual insight, unusual empathy, and unusual flare for getting under his superiors’ skin, Doc Blake finds occasion to enter the church alone at the end of the episode. Is he there because the idealistic younger priest exhorted him not to let his wartime experiences destroy his relationship with God? Nope. Though one anticipates that outcome for a moment, he is not there to make peace with God. He is there to tell God off.

“Yes, I know. It’s been a long time since I was last here,” he begins, after a long introspective silence, during which one imagines repentance. “A funeral, in case you’ve forgotten.” [Uh oh. God—forgets?] “It’s all right. I didn’t come expecting an answer this time [either]. Though I imagine Father Morton [the murdered priest] did. Did he know he was losing his mind [which caused him to reveal confidential confessions in public sermons, which in turn caused a not-too-penitent church member to kill him, lest he be compromised next]?”

“Did he kneel right here and ask you for your help? I’m sure he did. And what did you give him? A sign? Or nothing? All these children—your children—begging you for help. What father ignores his children?” The episode is entitled, “The Sky is Empty.” It is a title that has nothing to do with the plot itself but appears selected only to drive home the “lesson” at the end: there is no God.

“Thing is, it’s not a bad question, that final one. It should be answered. In the absence of a satisfying theodicy, it cannot be. That is why it borders on criminal to withhold that theodicy. With it, the question would not even have had to be asked. The good doctor would have known what can and does happen in a world whose forebears have deliberately severed themselves from God.”

From ‘A Workman’s Theodicy: Why Bad Things Happen’

I don’t think I’ve ever seen movie or TV treatment of Jehovah’s Witnesses that didn’t editorialize over the ‘life-saving’ nature of blood transfusions should the subject come up. As a rough guess, the drama over blood transfusion accounts for as much as half of all Witness mentions in movie or television. Almost always, the Witnesses get shellacked. For example, in one breathtakingly stupid episode of ‘Designated Survivor,’ an entire pack of them holed up in a cabin up there in the woods, refusing orders to evacuate as a forest fire approached, because they wanted to force the hands of doctors trying force blood on a newborn, as though they thought all the country would be captivated by their suicidal plight—and in the dopey world of TV, it was! Seemingly, the president of the United States had nothing else to do with his time that, with the eyes of the entire nation fixated on this determined bunch of crazies, this became his crisis of the week to solve. It was among the last of the Survivors my wife and I saw, a show that started out promisingly with the destruction of the U.S Capitol Building and held the suspense for a time, only to steadily deteriorate into today’s banal politics injected into an contrived setting.

So, when Dr. Blake, an Australian show set in the 1950s, plunked a Jehovah’s Witness character in the midst of a murder drama (initially as the chief suspect!), I said, “Okay, they’d better not screw this up. If they do, I’m out of here.” This would be a great shame because it is one of my top shows ever. My worries were for naught. They didn’t screw it up. That’s not to say I might not tweak a few lines here and there, but overall it was accurate—all the more impressive because it was not a portrayal of Witnesses today, but of 70 years ago.

There were such persons as the Witness lad’s mom, a fantastically overbearing woman, from whom even the police chief did not escape a thorough witness, as he relates to his fellows with the air of reliving a war story. But, when Dr. Blake is queried by his Catholic sort-of fiance, ‘Be honest. Don’t you find them weird?’ he responds that he doesn’t really think so; after all, don’t Catholics have such a thing as a Crusade in their past? Then, there was the insight as to how mom became a Witness, after her husband died and she could find no answers in the Church. There were, and continue to be, people like that. Too, the Witness lad’s faith, while making him odd, has undeniably made him honest and successful in putting a lawbreaking past behind him.

The fellow who was murdered—and the Witness lad was suspected because he had been the first to come upon him—was exactly the sort of curmudgeonly outlier person a Witness might have been drawn to. His illiteracy, which he kept secret from most persons, would not put the Witnesses off at all, as they do not judge people that way. Instead, he makes repeated visits to help him out with literacy, with witnessing demoted to a co-concern. ‘I actually liked him a lot,’ he tells the police chief. And even though he is about the only person who did in the storyline, it is instantly believable. He would.

But, the corker lies in when the kid suffers an attempt on his life and bleeds heavily, requiring a blood transfusion. Doc Blake, a forensic doctor who can, in a pinch, work on live people, is about to operate but then he checks himself. ‘Wait! This boy is a Jehovah’s Witness. We can’t use blood.’ He uses saline solution instead—without any carrying on at all about his hands being ‘tied.’ He just does it. Afterward, though the boy doesn’t enter the storyline again, he is said to be doing well and will make a full recovery. Better still, the overbearing mom grows more overbearing still, hearing only “transfusion,” and not “saline transfusion,” flying off the handle but she later apologizes to the doctor when she realizes her mistake.

I mean, you can tell when the writers have an idea of what they are talking about, unlike the Designator Surviver bozos. Somewhere, the Dr. Blake scriptwriters have found such a person. It may even be reflected in the episode’s title, “Measure Twice,” “measure” being a word used meaningfully in Witness literature. But I never thought I’d see the day when blood transfusions were mentioned in connection with Jehovah’s Witnesses without endless carrying on about how “life-saving” they are and how only a fanatic would ever not welcome one.

Few Witnesses will enjoy their portrayal, for the show makes them look like loons. However, it is in the greater context that all religion is suspected for lunacy. The episode leaves it completely to the audience to reflect upon whether standing apart from a dominant religious world, with its contradictions and harshness that causes sporadic grief to the mainline characters, is such a bad thing after all. I sort of liked the episode and was not unduly put off that it didn’t explain the Witnesses’ Kingdom hope for them. Of course, it helped that the kid didn’t end up in the hoosegow, and was cleared of all wrongdoing.

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You are free from slavery. Don’t go back to it. Or if you do, you’d better not miss a single one of those ‘I’s or ‘T’s. (5:1-6)

You were doing so well. Who tripped you up? Who made you think you need circumcision? It ain’t me, babe. Those Jews would give me a free pass if they thought I was turning Christianity into just one of their outposts. “Just you wait, enry iggins”—they’ll get theirs. (7-11)

In fact, I have half a mind to come and kick them in the nuts so hard that they won’t qualify to serve in the temple that they want to drag you into! (12)

No, brothers, don’t go there. Just don’t. You don’t need their picayune Law. It all boils down to love anyway—that is the greatest part of it—so if you get you head around that, you’ll do just fine. You start nitpicking at each other over every pissy little thing and you’ll tear each other apart! (13-18)

Don’t do bad things. Do good things. What do you mean, ‘What bad things?’ “No back-biting, no ass-grabbing, you know exactly what I mean!” \[thank you, Randy Neuman\] It shouldn’t be hard, if you really are following the Christ. Do the best you can, and don’t go thinking that you are better than the other guy. (19-26)

Chapter 6

Okay, let’s wrap this up. Don’t be babies—man up, but pull each other out of the crud when you have to (be sure you don’t fall in yourself). (6:1-5)

Don’t try to Play around with God. You can’t. Keep on keeping on—it will all pay off. Lend a hand where needed. (6-10)

See the large letters I make, all by myself with my own hand? Why? Because I am blind as a bat—that’s why. I dunno—it comes and goes. That’s why I insulted that pompous character before I knew he was the high priest. I asked God to take it away, but he said, “Nah, it keeps you humble.” And it has. It’s not an altogether bad thing to have a thorn in the flesh. (11)

Now, remember—they are pinheaded louts trying to lay their Law on you. And why? They’re just chicken themselves—like Peter might have been, but he saw where he was heading and corrected himself. They don’t want to stand out among their cronies, and they want to find strength in numbers by having you do what they do—it will hide their cowardice. What! You think they do the Law themselves? No way! They just want to do some back-stabbing and ass-grabbing themselves and then throw in a gerbil or something for sacrifice to make it all good again. Come on! Please—you are too smart not to see through them. (12-16)

I’ve suffered for carrying the good news of the Christ. So have you. Don’t turn back to be a law nerd again. Press on ahead. God will back you. So will Christ. (17-18)

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What on earth is wrong with you? How can you be so dumb? You break free but then turn around and go back because you forgot your leg irons? Are you kidding me? (3:1-5)

Don’t pull this Abraham stuff on me. Wait, no. If you want to talk Abraham, let’s talk Abraham. You think he earned anything? No! He “put faith in Jehovah, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” THAT’S what you want to take away from Abraham—his faith, and how he pointed the way for other people to have faith. Not the later Law—that Law did nothing but show you up for the basket cases that you were! Did you manage to keep it? No! All you did was screw up. That’s why when Christ comes along, you are supposed to say, “Exactly what we need! Thank you, thank you, thank you. (6-11)

You don’t go back to the Law again—what’s wrong with you? The Law has nothing to do with faith. Christ pulled us out of that—THAT’S what Abraham was pointing to, and you want to dive back in again? (12-14)

Okay, now look—let’s take this real slow. Take notes if it will help. So Abraham gets a promise that means the Christ will come through his lineup, but how does the Law figure in? It comes 430 years later. Does it change his promise? I don’t think so. (15-18)

Why the Law? It’s because you guys kept messing up, that’s why. And it was supposed to dawn on you that you DID keep messing up and that you’re never (and yes—me, too) going to come out like the champion of Jeopardy. You weren’t supposed to think that dotting all the ‘I’s and crossing all the ‘T’s would get you there—besides, you missed lots of them. (19-22)

Yes, it gave you something to do and kept you off the streets. But now that the real thing has arrived, you can set down your slates. Class is over. You can join in with that promise to Abraham. (23-29)

Chapter 4: 

It took a long time for you to get to where you are. A lot of work went into it. Don’t mess it up. (4:1-8)

You had real freedom. I mean, real freedom in Christ. And now you want to become law nerds again and focus on dotting ‘I’s and crossing ‘T’s? Really? What! Do I have a death wish or something? What am I doing this for? (9-11)

Remember the good times we used to have? Remember how you used to loan me your specs? You didn’t then stick out your foot to trip me up. What’s gotten into you? (12-16)

Do you think that these controlling louts are your friends? They just want to be your bosses. “Meet the new boss—same as the old boss.” (17-20)

Go back to Abraham, you law nerds, and take a point. Two women, remember? One a concubine, one a wife. Hagar gave birth first because Sarah thought she was too old to have a child. No mystery about how Hagar conceived. You see it all the time on TV. But Sarah! THAT’S where God’s promise came in, and she didn’t even believe herself it could happen until it did!

The two women stand for two groups of people. Hagar, the one of ordinary birth, is mother to the ones of Law (that you want go back to!) Sarah, the one of the promise, is mother to the ones putting their faith in Christ. (21-28)

The Hagar kid made trouble for the Sarah kid back then. It’s the same today with these characters trying to force their Law on you. But what does the verse say? “Take this Law and shove it! I ain’t workin here no more!” Keep it that way! (29-31)

Next: Chapter 5

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