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Losing Moses on the Freeway: The 10 Commandments in America

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I purchased my copy of this abominably titled book in Borders, in the "Christianity, Practical Living" section. I am not a Christian and sought it out solely because of my familiarity with Hedges' earlier work.

This is not a "Christian" book, any more than Krzysztof Kieslowski's "The Decalogue" (its model) is a "Christian" television series. Kieslowski and his writing partner, Krzysztof Piesiewicz, a lawyer from whose experiences several of the episodes were taken, focused "The Decalogue" on the fictionalized lives of people entangled in ancient moral dilemmas in bleak 1980s Warsaw. Hedges takes the same tack with ten non-fictional vignettes from life in 21st century post-industrial America.

I find Hedges' writing almost unbearably intense; his moral authority clearly hard won. Even when I disagree with him, I have nothing but respect for his courage in refusing to look away. Here is a man who has obviously been deeply affected by what he has witnessed and experienced in life and is determined to learn---and teach---from it. That the teachings are very, very old only makes this book all the more worth reading, absorbing and passing on---whether you are a Christian or not.

After seeing the title on the shelf, I picked up the book thinking to be a book in line with the typical religious fare. A friend had read War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, so I thought this would be an interesting take on religion. I was surprised.

The book is religious in that Hedges does have a religious background and that the book is discussing the Ten Commandments. However, this book is in a word, gritty. It takes some of the everyday things we see and puts them into context. We understand how these things have a bigger impact on us, but more importantly, we see how these transgressions have a huge impact on society.

The book is not a quick and easy read. It requires some focus and some reflection, but it is time well spent. The author urges us from the self to selflessness, so that we as a society can better get along in this ever increasingly complex world we live in.

I would highly recommend this book. Even if you find yourself feeling frustrated with the writer (which I was at times because I didn't follow or disagreed), this book will make you think about the world around us and our part in it.

"Losing Moses on the Freeway" is a searing experience: emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. The simplest things in life are the most profound, yet so often people do not see the profound precisely because it is simple. People tune out platitudes about love because they've heard them all their lives, and their eyes skim off the surface without realizing the extraordinary nature and power of this emotion. But Hedges pierces through to the dual awareness of the simple, which is, at the same time, the profound.

The stories here are unadorned and close to the bone: among them, a Vietnam veteran who became an Episcopal priest, haunted for the rest of his life by "You shall not kill"; Hedges' own decision not to be ordained when he realized that his dreams of becoming a minister were "the idolatry of self, the worship not of God but of my virtue"; a deeply moving tribute to his father and parenthood: "We all carry...our link with the past, wanted or unwanted. We cannot wash it away. It is rather a matter of what we do with it, how we honor it, how we redeem the experience to protect and create life."

Interwoven is also a luminous reflection on the ruthless progress of time - past and future existing at once in the present - and the unbearable ache of life: for the more deeply we love, the more vulnerable we become to loss, but it is only in love and giving life to others that we find meaning.

This book is filled with tremendous compassion but also with unflinching and often disturbing insight into human nature. To read it honestly requires a kind of self-confrontation.

I suspect that for many people in our post-modern culture, the 10 Commandments evoke thoughts of moralizing television evangelists, perhaps disbelief that anyone would devote themselves to such archaic strictures, or, more commonly, sheer ignorance. In any case, that would be to our great peril, argues Chris Hedges, author of War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning (2002).

Hedges brings a remarkable life story and degree of passion to his story-telling about these most famous Ten Words--mystery, idols, lying, sabbath, family, murder, adultery, theft, envy, greed and, in an epilogue, love. As a pastor's kid, he grew up in rural upstate New York, where his father was a Presbyterian pastor. Five years at an elite boarding school, the loneliness of his childhood, left him with "a deep hostility to authority and a visceral distaste for the snobbery of the 'well-born.'" Six days after graduating from Colgate University he began a two year stint as a pastor in the violent ghetto of Roxbury in metro Boston, an experience so unsettling that it provoked him to leave the church and seminary. After a year in South America he completed his divinity degree at Harvard, though not without caustic opinions about liberal professors who romanticized the poor whom they had never met, and the lectures which he experienced as "intellectual shell games." In a prescient understatement his father remarked to him that he was "ordained to write," and so he did, as an award-winning war correspondent in some 50 countries over 20 years.

Hedges has not written an exegetical or even theological treatise about the 10 Commandments, but rather existential reflections on them rooted in first person life experiences. He is at his best as an unvarnished prophet who unmasks the idolatries we so readily worship--the state, nation, especially in its glorification of war and legitimation (even sacralization) of violence, race, religion, ethnicity, gender, and class. At a graduation speech that he delivered at Rockford College in May 2003 the audience booed him from the stage for his critical remarks about the Iraq war. Such is the prophet's welcome. His chapter on murder recounts the tortured conscience of an Episcopal priest who estimates that he killed 300 people as a soldier in the Vietnam War. For theft he explores the breadth and depth of corporate greed through the experience of R. Foster Winans, a writer for the Wall Street Journal.

All of us struggle for moral integrity and personal authenticity, and Hedges by no means excludes himself. "The darkness I discovered in Roxbury was my darkness." No one is immune from corrosive impulses. But to flaunt the moral grammar of the universe is to court spiritual, emotional and psychological death. Hedges has experienced enough to know when and how that happens, whether in a bar in Sarajevo or a gleaming skyscraper office in Manhattan. The commandments save us from false covenants and idols that promise so much and deliver so little. In honoring the commandments, we honor the sanctity of life, the power of love, and their function to bind us together in life-affirming community.

I would highly recommend Hedges' book on the Ten Commandments. It is far more than your typical study guide. Rather, it provides a deep understanding of the ripple effect that our moral and ethical lapses have on those around us. In a world that is consumed with the end justifying the means, Hedges addresses in this decalogue the means that all might do well to consider.

Many Americans want to reduce the Ten Commandments to an idol to be worshipped in a public place. This book lives up to the original intent of the Ten Commandments - a guide to meditation on what really makes an ethical life. Read Jesus's Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapters 5-8 after reading this book. Together they will change your life and help you see how many who simply want to display the Ten Commandments do not come close to living them.

"Losing Moses on the Freeway" is a searing experience: emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. The simplest things in life are the most profound, yet so often people do not see the profound precisely because it is simple. People tune out platitudes about love because they've heard them all their lives, and their eyes skim off the surface without realizing the extraordinary nature and power of this emotion. But Hedges pierces through to the dual awareness of the simple, which is, at the same time, the profound.

The stories here are unadorned and close to the bone: among them, a Vietnam veteran who became an Episcopal priest, haunted for the rest of his life by "You shall not kill"; Hedges' own decision not to be ordained when he realized that his dreams of becoming a minister were "the idolatry of self, the worship not of God but of my virtue"; a deeply moving tribute to his father and parenthood: "We all carry...our link with the past, wanted or unwanted. We cannot wash it away. It is rather a matter of what we do with it, how we honor it, how we redeem the experience to protect and create life."

Interwoven is also a luminous reflection on the ruthless progress of time - past and future existing at once in the present - and the unbearable ache of life: for the more deeply we love, the more vulnerable we become to loss, but it is only in love and giving life to others that we find meaning.

This book is filled with tremendous compassion but also with unflinching and often disturbing insight into human nature. To read it honestly requires a kind of self-confrontation.

One need not look too hard to find lots of evidence all around us that America has lost its way. Take a look at the ads promoting the new fall lineups on the major television networks and cable. Listen to the never-ending drumbeat of hucksters and quacks selling us all kinds of goods and services to make us richer, thinner, healthier or happier. Listen to the politicians of all political persuasions telling us just what we want to hear. Note the lack of leadership and moral courage that infiltrates our society. Chris Hedges certainly noticed all of these things. "Losing Moses On The Freeway" really is a fascinating idea for a book. Hedges takes each of the 10 Commandments and points out how so many of us ignore them or twist them around to suit our own purposes. He speaks from the heart when discussing his own foibles and failures and relates the experiences of others whom he interviewed for this book. There is a common thread among all of this. When we choose to defy the commandments we all lose a little something. And when we honor false idols or give into our basest instincts we are destroying not only ourselves but also our community. In contrast when we champion the virtues of 10 commandments we are not only helping ourselves but we are also strengthening our families, our neighborhoods and our nation as well. "Losing Moses On The Freeway" is a unique opportunity to immerse yourself in these fascinating issues. It is one of the more thought-provoking books you are likely to come across. I am happy to recommend it.

Chris Hedges' book is a highly readable reminder of what this Judeo Christian society that is in the press so much these days is really supposed to be. Without preaching. Mr Hedges manages to make the commandments a stinging commentary on life's real priorities in America while pointing out how far we have strayed from the true meaning of the decalogue handed down to us. Hedges points out that we have have traded faith for jingoism and wisdom for righteousness to suit our cultures fascination with power, wealth and individuality. It should be required reading for all of us.

This book is really deep, but easy to understand. It lays out an argument that we should all value the ten commandments not for religious reasons, but just to make the world a better place. He di-sects each commandment and cross referances it to modern American life in such a way that you realize some things that you might not think are breaking those commandments really is. It forces you to really look at your political, social, and personal morals in an honest way. I think this book will inspire people to be more true to these ten values.