The Touch of God

A rather lengthy excerpt from In Our Poverty the book, which waits patiently until I get around to get it published:

I WAS staring at an advertisement taped to a coffee shop window. I was looking at its words, but I wasn't really reading them. They were about some kind of presentation being given in town, on the subject of writing and getting published. I was thinking something about the idea that if I was serious about writing I needed to start living more like a writer but I didn't really have the time, and I was wondering what it means to be true to oneself and true to others and what, if anything, is the difference between the two. From the coffee shop emerged a college student I knew by casual acquaintance. The advertisement led us to a discussion of writing, and she wanted to know what I write about. I said that I try to write about the spiritual reality of life, that God's Love is all there is, that what we each need is to find God, to experience him in his reality, and so forth. I am used to people being less than comfortable with topics like these, so when she said nothing for several seconds, I assumed that she was going to change the subject or continue on her way.

Instead, she looked over her shoulder as if someone might be listening, and with a subdued voice began to tell me a story. Almost in a whisper, she told me that once while she was praying she felt as though she were lifted up into the air, with a presence of love all over and around and through her—a love incomparable to anything she had ever experienced. Her story brought chill bumps to my skin, and with her voice still hushed as though I might be wearing a hidden microphone she asked, "Is that what you're talking about?" I smiled seriously and nodded my head. "You know," she said, "If people could feel that just once, all they would ever want is God."

She was absolutely right, of course; it is a beautiful thing to truly feel the Love of God. It can be so overwhelmingly powerful and blissful that a person can spend the rest of her life wanting nothing else but to relive the experience in every waking moment. But her final comment to me betrayed something of what she had already realized about her moment of being touched by God: She said that she had never told her story to anybody in her church, because they would think she was crazy.

The experience of God, for all of its splendor, is also a kind of curse: The totality of life seems very much different afterwards. Life becomes different in a way that is joyous yes, but also in a way that brings a profound and unavoidable sorrow. It is a sorrow over the sufferings of life, a sorrow over those who are lost in the middle of everything, and a sorrow over religion that does very little to help. It is a sorrow caused by the realization that not everyone knows its beauty. But most of all, it is a sorrow so noble that it is heavenly. It is a knowing that you have been found by God, and so now you belong to everyone who has not. In a word, it is a sorrow we call compassion.

WE KNOW very little about Jesus, but we can know enough to begin to be like him. We can know that the message of his life was one of utmost simplicity and tremendous depth, and we can know that he called people to love—to love God, to love our neighbors, and to love our selves.

But to understand this fully, to love well and to love well in all circumstances, our love cannot be something we do because we feel like doing it at the moment, or because we decide it is a good idea, or because philosophically it seems like a good way to live. And certainly, necessarily being a true and universal love, it cannot be merely what you or I define love to be. Therefore, more importantly, more essentially, and more finally we are called to become the love that is God. We are called to become this love and, since by its nature it is boundless, we are called to a path of endless becoming that never ceases to deliver us further and further into the limitless depth of the reality of life.

The love we are called to manifest and become, become and manifest, is a love so numbingly profound and so far beyond all other things in beauty, that on behalf of people the world ignores, we may well die as innocent persons, in poverty and ridicule and pain, at the hands of hate-filled, prideful, ignorant men. This is what the formula knows can happen, and this is what the message proved does happen.

ALL ROADS to God merge in the end, joining the singular path of true compassion. Any road that does not lead to this compassion does not lead to God. Until we come close enough to God that we feel compassion within us the way Jesus felt compassion within himself, we will never really understand the Jesus story. We will never really understand why Jesus lived the way he lived, and we will never really understand why he died the way he died. We will never have the focus that serves to keep our lives out of the darkness.

Until we come into meaningful contact with the compassion of Jesus, and welcome it for what it is, we will forever live our lives thinking in terms of what is wrong—what is ugly and contemptible and shameful and evil—with other people and with ourselves. We will never learn to live our lives thinking in terms of everything that is made right—beautiful and noble and honorable and good—in the purifying love of God.

True compassion requires and nurtures a depth within us, a profound unearthly depth that comes from God and God alone, but it also requires a simplicity that allows compassion alone to be enough for us, and that stops our intellect from questioning the decency of everyone and everything around us. Compassion is the determinant of all that is truly moral and selfless, but a prideful human morality and the selfishness of man strive every moment of every day to hold compassion in contempt—to belittle and control and limit it. Therefore, if we want to be compassionate people, if we want to have the heart of God, at some point in our lives we have to draw a line in the sand, surrender many things, make a stand, and say with all our resolve, This is where I will live and die. We have to make up our minds that our own lives do not matter at all, that we will be satisfied with a strange and foreign depth of being that most people will never comprehend, and that we will never care nor notice if everyone around us thinks we are foolish, stupid, idealistic or demented. We have to deeply believe, and will eventually come to know, that what the world and our friends call living is nothing of the sort, and that we live a different kind of life that is hidden from the world behind the shadows of everyday living.

THE THING man needs most is certainly not what the world offers him in foolish philosophies, childish physical distractions and cheap entertainment. Those things are little more than lies, and certainly man does not any more of those than he already has. But neither does man need to sit in a chair and study himself blind concerning himself with insignificant details of religion or think about what he can do to make himself more approved by other men. Least of all what he needs is to go through his day wondering if he appears holy enough to everybody else that God is sufficiently pleased with him. There are ten thousand things in the world and probably that many more in religion that man does not need and is therefore better off without. What man needs most is the touch of God, and a heart that is open and pure enough to feel it when it comes.

Deconstruction, pre-K Style

I was sitting around musing tonight and this ran through my mind (didn't take long; it's a short trip) as the simplest way I can think of to relate modern thinking to postmodern thinking. This is not deconstruction 101. It's not even K-12. But, it's a start.

Most of us have been raised to think along the following analytical lines. If I say:

1a. Mike has worn every single shirt he has ever owned, and

2a. Every shirt Mike has ever worn was red, then

A correct conclusion would be:

3a. Mike has only owned red shirts.

While if I say:

1b. Mike has worn every single shirt he has ever owned, and

2b. Mike has only owned red shirts, then

It would be incorrect to conclude:

3b. Every shirt Mike has ever worn was red.

I'm not well versed in formal logic, so somebody may email me and tell me I'm a moron, but I think I have created the above cases correctly.

This is pretty classical thought that persisted into modernity and became embedded into our mindset. Nearly all of us would see the above two sets, as presented, as simply common sense. They are intuitive and right. A pure exercise of how the human brain naturally works. But deconstruction would unsettle our discussion by walking us down a rather uncomfortable path that asks us to do the impossible: to define the symbols "red" and "shirt." For a discussion of the two above sets to have any point, all stakeholders would have to agree upon what "red" is, and upon what a "shirt" is. Deconstruction demonstrates, quite handily, that this is not possible. In fact, the most psychologically unsettling aspect of deconstruction is that it incessantly pursues this challenge and drills down layer, after layer, after layer, after layer, after layer… (in my opinion it eventually collapses inward upon itself, but that's another story).

What I'm doing here is conveying the essence behind a mental image I get when I read threads composed of opposing viewpoints concerning certain tenants of the Christian life. I've come to conclude that I seem to have had an existentialist view of life since I was a little kid, and studying deconstruction has only amplified things. And what I'm left with at the moment is this image of people arguing and they think they are throwing intellectual rocks at one another, believing that the right sized rock of the proper density thrown at the correct speed and striking the necessary vital area of the opponent will win the fight and settle something with no questions left. But what I see is simply people picking up fistfuls of dry sand and creating a dust cloud of blindness.

The most direct way I can think of that this matters to the church is that much of our doctrinal debate that purports to be so important is, actually, hopelessly behind of where it needs to be. Take, for example, a thread I was reading this weekend over at the internet monk regarding homosexuality. We argue over men with men and women with women, versus men with women and women with men. I understand that the argument is presently necessary. But what many of us utterly fail to recognize are the questions that make the argument rather pointless, and which the church will someday have to answer. The first is, what is the definition of "men" and "women?" And someday a second, something like this, will follow: what is the definition of "human?"

But for now we argue over whether 3b is correct or not. We never question "red." The sand sifts through our fingers, and we believe we hold rocks in our hands.

A Simple Impossibility

There are times when I sit for a while and become awestruck, as if I never have before, at the simplicity of Jesus' message. Awestruck, too, at the incomprehensible magnitude and depth of the Love God pours out upon us. Awestruck by how glorious and joyous and liberating that Love is and awestruck, too, at the unsettling depths to which I, in turn, am called to live. And it all rests right here, right in the mystery of God's Love. The very mystery of life and living is always and all at once surrounding us and attempting to infuse us with its Glory. And yet it is also always and all at once transcendent, and beyond us.

It is in these times I see God in all things, and my great Seeing is also a grand Not-Seeing. It is the realization that what I see in other people is God; that what connects me to them is nothing other than God himself—for all I can truly see of another is, after all, only what I can see of God within him or her. And yet within these people God is also the Great Mystery; the mysterious, unknowable essence of those people to which I cannot ascend. We are all utterly knowable to one another in God, and yet we are each utterly unknowable to one another in God. In God we all live together, hidden from one another. This paradox, it seems, is as basic and pure as Being itself.

It is in these times that I feel deep within me that all our talk of religion is fully poor and pitiable, at least to the extent wherein we sit and pompously believe for even an instant that we can clarify this great mystery—as if others could learn from us some fool's take on a Truth infinitely beyond us.

It is in these times I am reminded of the simple impossibility of all my thinking and writing: I spend my days trying to speak of what cannot be spoken.

Someday, perhaps, the Love of God will fully overtake me—and all my trying will cease.

And This is Why I am no Fun at Parties

I've been on vacation for the past two weeks; a ship, a bus, a rental car, and a couple of taxis to get my family and me to various parts of Oregon, British Columbia, and California. The kids had great fun at Disneyland, and certainly it was great to see their excitement and laugh with them. But I have to admit, what I keep thinking about in regard to Disneyland is this:

On night one, as we waited in line for the Indiana Jones ride, all the folks with "fastpass" tickets walked right by us on their way somewhere close to the front of the line. My kids said that wasn't fair and wanted to know how to get a fastpass. I assumed that it cost extra. That's not fair, the girls said again. Just because they have money, they don't have to wait with the rest of us? So I suggested to the girls that they look at it another way: here we are at Disneyland because we have money, and lots of people will never go to Disneyland because they don't have money. So, is that fair? (And yes, I sometimes ask myself if it's a good thing for me to inject such existential problems into the minds of young children). My question certainly stopped their questions, but I spent the next few hours mulling over the fastpass thing. I got into a big discussion in my head about privilege, it's relation to power, money as power, power as violence, the Disney franchise, and the whole nine yards. I was still thinking about it long after we had returned to our hotel and the kids were asleep. I was writing a blog post in my head, and I was fixated upon power and privilege as violence; even to the point of Jesus' non-violent manifestation of power still being violent from certain people's reference frame (e.g., the religious leaders of the day). And I questioned the whole idea of non-violence and pacifism, and was wondering about framing things, instead, in terms of violence directed and modulated. Sometime around there I fell asleep myself.

On day two, I learned that the fastpass did not cost extra, and was available to anyone who stuck his or her ticket into the proper slot at a proper kiosk and was willing to ride a ride during an assigned range of times. My disdain for the Disney franchise subsided and I had to eat a bunch of crow inside my skull, but it didn't lessen the basic questions. And the questions got even better, because as I was waiting in line to put my ticket into the proper slot at a proper kiosk for Space Mountain, ahead of me was a man and his son. The boy was a late pre-teen or early teen. This is stupid, he said to his dad. You should have to pay for a fastpass. It doesn't make any sense to have a fastpass if anyone can get one.

The kid's logic was perfect, and I cannot get myself to let go of the whole fastpass metaphor and the competing views of: my kids when they thought the fastpass was about money (which is to say, power and privilege), and this kid when he realized the fastpass was not about money (which is to say, power and privilege [and yes, this also becomes an issue of privilege being associated with the power that comes from knowledge; in this case knowing about the fastpass kiosks]). This is deeper than it seems, and causes a person—a person like me who is obviously no fun at parties—to puzzle over the very nature of privilege and its association with power. I have to say, it seems to me that at the heart of the fastpass is the set of issues that have fueled religion, politics, economics and the like since the dawn of time.

Practically? Well, at the very least, we should ask ourselves what unique powers we have acquired in life, what privileges we are wielding each day, if we are committing acts of violence in the process, and if so then what are we to do about it?

The Bible as god

This recent blog post notes yet another example of a not uncommon story. It reminded me of something I wrote some years back, and have likely posted at least in part before…

To many people the Bible is more important than God. They consider the Bible to be the only validation of anything man can possibly have to do with God. They believe there is no point in believing there is a God unless you believe in the Bible. To them there is no useful God apart from the Bible, and there would be no point to God's existence without the Bible. Reduced to its pure practicality, their view is that without the Bible there is no God.

If this is what I believe, then I will tend to defend the literal factuality of the Bible to the last crossed tee, dotted I, semicolon and comma. I will think that by this I am defending my faith, and in a sense I am doing so because my faith will not stand if a legitimate question is left in my mind concerning the absolute incorruptibility and historical accuracy of these little printed symbols. I may even come to defend this faith so adamantly I will convince myself that if the millennia have seen the least stroke of a pen altered in this book then my entire faith is meaningless. It will become essential that I believe such a thing could never have happened, and if need be I will devote my life to proving so. I will create an entire system of thought and an almost endless catalog of arguments and apologies to prove to myself my faith is valid because each and every printed word is unquestionable, and then I will be happy that I have a faith I can consider to be deep and strong.

On the other hand, sooner or later the book may fail me in some way, and if I have made the book my god, I will end up thinking God himself has failed me.

Or, maybe someday I will be holding my new baby in my arms and as she awakens and squints her eyes and wrinkles her nose and twists her mouth as if to cry, she notices the familiar contours of my face and instead she kicks her feet and wriggles her arms and coos and smiles as her eyes look up at mine. And I will carry her down the quiet street of my neighborhood in all of the joy and humility that only a parent knows, and I will sit with her on a park bench and watch all the children there laugh and play and I will think that if there is a God then children are reason enough for him to create man, and I will know something I have not known before. I will know that the word of God is in this tiny bundle in my arms and in the innocent gaiety of those children and in the moist Fall air I breath into my body and the exquisite beauty of the little gray birds who hop amongst the fallen leaves beneath the trees. I will know that what I am witnessing is God speaking to me like a hundred harmonized voices telling me at once a hundred truths I cannot deny and need not defend. I will know that if the truth and holiness of this moment were in any way dependent upon indubitable logical perfection in a particular book, then most certainly there is no real truth at all. I will know that if I require such a defense to have faith in what I see before me then I have no faith at all and I have no faith at all because I am absolutely blind. And the next time I pick up my book in which I thought I had such great faith I will forget all about my childish clinging based in human fear and instead I will see within the book a movement and current of God's spirit revealing itself in images deep and profound. I will know it is not a book of millions of inarguable strokes of pens but rather it is one part of a painting whose subject is truth orchestrated upon the canvas of all creation. When I come to believe in this painting with my heart, rather than believing in its paint with my mind, I will know true faith in the word of God.

I sympathize with the fellow who stood amazed that he once believed the Bible in the way that he had. I hope that eventually the break that occurred within him will not be an end, and will instead be a beginning. I hope he will come to see that the Word of God is not paint, but a painting, and that he will come to find himself on God's canvas.

When Salvation is not Enough

An extrapolation of my previous post eventually places me in a position that many may find strange; a point I freely admit. In fact, I feel compelled to say that I may be way, way wrong here. And in the back of my head is the voiceover of an announcer saying, "Don't try this at home." And actually, this present post predates the previous post as far as my own spiritual journey has gone. I wouldn't have been able to write the last post honestly unless I had already reached the point this present post is going to share: simply, I don't think my personal salvation is the important part of my spiritual journey. I'm not even convinced it's the biggest part of the Jesus Story.

I don't remember the day it dawned on me, but there must have been a moment when my heart recognized something and my brain interpreted it kind of like this: "I am so in love with God, I am so convinced that my life is so much about God, that I can't even say I care what happens to me in the end. I only care that while I'm here, I love God above all things." And I remember thinking that if the metaphor plays out where I actually stand, so to speak, in front of God on a judgment day, I don't care what God does with me. All I want is to kneel in front of God, and look upon God's face, and weep, and say, "My Lord and my God. Oh how I have longed to look upon your face." And I remember thinking that such a moment would be so grand and glorious that nothing else would ever, ever matter. That is how much I love God. I love God more than my own soul.

Now, I realize that sounds crazy. I know some people would talk about how horrible God would appear to the one God was about to condemn. I know some would say that that moment would make condemnation worse, because I would truly know the glory from which I was to be eternally separated. I know. I can intellectualize that. I know.

But on the other hand, doesn't it in some way seem that this is right? That this strange and backwards view seems to align so very well with the way of Christ? When Jesus said that the one who wants to save his life will lose it, but he who loses it for Jesus' sake will find it, I'm sure he was talking about things more down to earth. But could it be that far of a stretch to imagine that if we step beyond the bounds of human finitude, it might also be true that to fully find ourselves in God we must let go even of the concern for salvation?

It seems to me that the part of the Jesus Story that does focus upon salvation is somehow wrapped up in the idea that we needn't worry about it anymore. And by this I don't mean that as long as we do everything basically right, and as long as we follow in just the right way, and if God doesn't surprise us in the end with a rule we never heard about or got right, then we'll be saved because Jesus made it "possible." No. I don't mean that at all. What I mean is that Jesus said "it is finished," and it was done. Over. Complete. Grand problem of cosmic proportions signed and sealed. One last sacrifice. One last shedding of blood. Done deal. Am I a good enough? Am I faithful enough? Do I trust enough? Get over it. It is done, and it no longer matters. All that matters is that I love as God loves. Could it be that the gift of Jesus was this complete?

From a certain perspective, I can see no other answer that makes any sense, but simply, "yes."

Come to think of it, if I simply say that for me the point of Christianity is not to get myself to Heaven, but to love God and to bring God's love to other people, well… like I say, maybe I'm wrong, but this version of the Story makes much more sense to me. And more than that, it feels right—way down deep inside of me.

Here on my desk is an old photo of myself kneeling down in the snow with two of my daughters when they were very young. I am smiling and I am happy in that moment. The thing is, when I look at that photo I don't think, "There is a man who is saved." Rather, I think, "There's a dude that really loves God." And to be honest, I tend to think that the latter is what the former truly means.

Finite Faith, Finite Community

This blog entry by my friend Kirk got me to thinking…

I haven't read the rest of Scot's series of posts and he may have covered all this, but as I see it, the root mistake has not been to make Christianity self-centric, but to make it salvation-centric, with salvation placed in the context Scot notes. The problem is not so much that the context makes Christianity too individualistic, but that it makes it too finite. As I wrote my view some years ago:

[…] What we must do is discover the vision to see this love, and find the courage to submerge ourselves and drown within it. This is the great challenge of the Jesus story, and it is the sheer depth of this challenge, rather than any intellectual debate, that has caused serious emphasis upon Jesus' story to often be viewed with great skepticism. Jesus called us to accept more than we are willing to accept, to reject more than we are willing to reject, to love more than we are willing to love, and to give more than we are willing to give. Jesus called us to live within the reign and rule of God, and we are typically unwilling to do so. This is why people like you and me killed him.

Yet while most of Christianity focuses upon Jesus' death, I believe we must choose to think instead of his life. I fully understand that as far as Christian doctrine is concerned, the death and resurrection of Jesus are of paramount importance. But I can never escape the feeling that to focus upon them to the exclusion of everything else is a way to cheat at believing the story. It seems to me all too convenient to say that Jesus died for us, and that is the end of that—than to say Jesus called us to live like he did, and that this is the beginning of everything.

By making Christianity finite, as if it's all done once the problem of salvation for the individual is solved, is what leads a person to not need church anymore. If, on the other hand, we viewed Christianity as unbounded, notably in terms of the depth of personal relationship with God, I think we'd find a return to community. I say this because my experience of God has been, basically, that (1) it is indeed true that my life is indeed entirely about God and myself, but (2) as I live with and belong to God more and more deeply, I cannot help but live with and belong to all people more and more deeply. As I become more intimately involved with God, I naturally become more involved in the lives of those whom God loves. I have found that this is not intellectual on my part, but is rather something that "happens" to me as I become more devoted to the relationship I have with God.

In a sense, then, where the church has failed, where it has hoisted itself by its own petard, is in failing to adequately lead people to devoted relationship with God. This is one of those ironies that is in the same league as "he who wishes to save his life must lose it," in that the church as community can truly remain only if its focus is to develop the personal relationships of its individual members with God.

What community has often done instead is to rely upon this finite view of Christianity (and the incumbent selfish view of salvation) to attempt to keep people in community; for example by quoting the standard "let us not give up meting together as some are in the habit of doing" and by attempting to equate absence from assembly with a loss of faith—as if staying home on Sunday mornings is nothing less than a dog returning to its vomit. In other words, community has said, "if you do not remain in community you will go to Hell," which again is a problem of making theology finite.

Another shortcoming of community is that Christian community is also finite and selfish in itself. For example, note that I say that the more intimately I am involved with God and belong to God, the more I belong to those God loves. God's love does not stop at the church door; God loves all of creation and all of us who inhabit it. I belong to those who are in Christian community, but I belong equally—in fact perhaps more so—to those who are not in Christian community. And so in some cases we malign the Christian individual who is too self-centered to be bothered with a community of believers, while at the same time being too church-centered to be bothered with the rest of God's children. And here I am not talking simple evangelism designed to get people into Christian community, nor am I talking simple acts of kindness or service to the secular community. Both of these, too, are finite and eventually fail to achieve community in any true sense.

What I am talking about is a complete spiritual awakening and constant presence in the heart of God as an individual Beloved creature of God; an awakening and presence in which I become the Love of God manifest on earth. Only in this way does my faith, my theology, my very life become infinite—and I truly enter communion with all of humanity. This is a tremendous, glorious mystery beyond human ability to articulate. And yet, it can and does happen. The potential value of Christian community rests in the idea that this is what Christian community should be hoping for, praying for, teaching, fostering, and making real in individual lives.

Discourse, Consistency and Identity

I haven't offered up a good disjointed ramble in a while, so here comes one…

I typically talk about Discourse and consistency in terms of building bridges between Discourses, as though building the bridges is the main goal. I'd like to open up the question of consistency more broadly for a moment, to help note that the question is more far reaching than one might initially think. The can opener works something like this:

It has been claimed, by Dr. James Paul Gee, that Discourses are "identity kits" that we put on and wear. I have no problem with this concept, and it seems perfectly reasonable to view it as Gee says. In each distinct context of our lives, we're a bit different. We have different language, with different meanings, nuances and history in its lexicon, depending upon the social context of our speech. We have different attitudes and ways of being, depending upon the social context of where we are, when, with whom. Placing all the contexts side by side would reveal at least slightly different versions of a single person's identity, or we might even say it would reveal several different identities. This is not rocket science to consider, and everyone who has found themselves speaking and acting differently in different contexts is familiar with what I'm saying. The obvious questions are, which identity if any is the (more) real one, or more generally, are all of the identities simply parts of an overall monolithic identity an individual possesses? There are many reasons such questions are consequential, but to me there is a particular area that rises to the top in importance:

According to the heights of traditional spiritual views, we each indeed possess (or, at least, potentially possess) a singular and ultimate identity, and an ultimate goal rests in discovering and living from this singular identity—exclusively. But at this point, the worms begin to crawl out of the can. Here are a few of them:

First and perhaps most obvious of all, "spirituality" is a Discourse in its own right, and it must first be privileged above all others if we are to take seriously the very basis of this discussion. Further, spirituality is not so much a single Discourse as it is a conversation made up of many related Discourses. What do we do with those, and how do we group them and apply privilege to them? What meta-language, itself a Discourse, would we use to accomplish such assignment of privilege?

Second, the consistency problem. Gee notes that many of the multiple Discourses we each inhabit are in tension one with another, and some are downright contradictory. Gee would say that people act consistently in a given Discourse, but are not always consistent across Discourses. Gee would say people are consistent locally but not globally. Gee would also say the people tend to believe, however, that they are consistent globally as well. People like to believe that everything in their skull fits together consistently, even though it doesn't. To me, this is a huge point; as I've noted in previous posts.

Third, we must ask why people tend to believe they are consistent globally. Gee would talk to me at this point about theories of the mind and the incredibly understated ability of humans to be self deceptive and believe they are globally consistent. But my point rests in a question: Given all that, why is it even important to us, in the first place, to believe we are consistent? What is the magical, be all and end all, importance we place on being consistent creatures? Why do we believe we must be consistent? Why should that be the end goal of our self deception? My theory is that all this goes on because we believe: (1) that if we are consistent, then we obviously possess the truth, (2) that if we possess the truth we are therefore right, and (3) if we are right, we are validated as a (good, decent, proper, correct, even saved) human being.

Fourth, but what if consistency is a fallacy? What if it is a red herring? What if, in truth, it doesn't exist? Where, then, are we left in the middle of the human condition? What if our entire conscious, as well as self-deceptive, quest for consistency is of no point at all? What if the very foundation of what we believe validates us is a crock? If identity is bound up in Discourse, and if Discourse is founded in consistency, and if consistency is a contestable notion, what are we left to do with the idea of identity? The problem of "who am I?" is not simply anymore the rather complex quest for a stable and ultimately consistent being, but is now the problem of considering who I am in the absence of a foundational concept (i.e., consistency) granting stability itself. The problem of defining myself is now a problem of finding a way to define myself.

Fifth, why do I say, how can we say, that consistency is a contestable notion? For one, it doesn't appear to exist, either empirically or theoretically. In short, what Gee claims about local versus global is similar to academic philosophical critiques of the coherence theory of truth, which is pretty much the idea that consistency and truth go hand in hand. These critiques grant that the coherence theory holds up in local systems, but nothing else. Additionally, and this work has seen a renewed interest in the past few years, minds like that of the mathematician Godel have pointed out quite handily that even within very precise local systems, consistency eventually breaks down somewhere. It seems clear to me that while consistency is a useful concept and even a worthy goal, it isn't a litmus test for… well, much of anything.

Staring at the worms, I've lost my momentum and am asking myself, what's my point so far? I think it's something like this:

In the realm of being concerned with things spiritual, we need to reconsider the long-presumed value of "consistency." It seems to me to be a bit too scientific and mechanical. It seems to carry far too much weight, while at the same time being inadequate to the task of considering the weightier matters of human existence. It seems that in this way it folds inward on itself and nears collapse; it is unable to accomplish what it implies is essential. It seems to me that consistency is little more than a measuring stick, and a rather dubious one that is very relative but assumed absolute, for judging the presence or absence of truth in another. In this way, consistency is akin to moral legalism, with all of its incumbent pitfalls, snares and fallacies. It seems to me that we need to think differently.

Just what "differently" may be, I'm not sure yet. But I'm pretty much convinced that consistency as any measure of a person is quickly moving out of my thinking. It's quite liberating, I am finding, to let go of yet another method within which I have been expecting people to live according to my own questionable standards. It is also quite liberating, I am finding, to let go of yet another method within which I pathologically expect too much from myself.

Where Lashes Go in the End

Daddy, where do they put the lashes?

Where do they put what?

The lashes. Sarah's lashes. Where do they put them?

You mean the ashes? Sarah's ashes?

Yeah. The ashes. How do they get them and where do they put them?

Well, after they put Sarah to sleep, they put her body with the bodies of other dogs and kitties who had to be put to sleep too. Then they uh, they burn them, with fire, to get the ashes. And they take the ashes and put them somewhere, so they can go back into the ground.

Why back into the ground?

Mmwell, so they can help the earth grow new things, I think.

Like what? Like flowers?

Yes, I think so. Like flowers.

And so went a serious and kind conversation with my six year old, before our bedtime prayers. I like the mental image of the flowers. I like it quite a lot.

I only cried for about an hour and a half when all was said and done today, when the gentle old dog Sarah and I had spent our final time on earth together, and she went to sleep for the very last time. And she went to sleep gently, with not so much as a jerk from the needle or even a whimper. She died in my arms, and it seemed right and it seemed complete. But it seemed oh so very odd, at the moment my mind played grainy images of a young dog running and playing with life abundant, to feel that life come to an end, and all go away. I understand very well that the magnificent beauty of life is inseparable from its final act; the act of dying. I even understand that in this way death is meaningful. But I do not like it. I do not like it at all.

The form of killing that is contextualized and assigned the symbol "euthanasia" is uniquely problematic; not that it is clearly wrong or right, but in that it involves an intimate foreknowledge I am unconvinced mortal creatures are intended to possess. Last night I sat outside on the grass with Sarah and I talked to her and I petted her, knowing she would never see another night. Today I held her tight and I talked to her knowing that in an hour she would never see day again. Is it not so very odd, so beyond being a contingent being, that I should know such a grave and final thing that she could not? That the moon and the sun would never shine down their light upon her coat again? That while I watched her sleep last night that she would never dream again? It may well be that I am supposed to learn something in that foreknowledge, and it may well be that I will think about it in the days to come, but I did not like it and I questioned it with an aching somewhere deep inside of me, in a place deeper than my heart. It seemed wrong to me; wrong in an ontological sense of cosmic proportions. I did not like it. I did not like it at all.

I am troubled tonight by the idea that it may be true that every sentient being deserves every possible day of life; that there is value in breath and blood and warmth and it should never be ended on purpose. I can see where this may well be true, and if so I ask solemnly for the forgiveness of a kind old dog and the God who created her. But I do believe it was time that good days were to end very soon for her, and I am comforted that she did not have a day of suffering. She would have suffered in patient silence, for it was her way. And today, while I was still trying to decide for certain, she refused her old favorite bits of meet with gravy and peas, and would not so much as take a drink of water. That meant enough to me. I think we cut the line as close as we could, my old friend. I love you, and I will miss you, and I will thank the Heavens for you. I promise you that I will remember you, until my line, too, is someday drawn and cut.

Sarah, may your great and gentle spirit mix joyously with the four winds of the Earth, forever and ever. I will pause more often now, old girl, to gaze upon the beauty of flowers.

Saying Goodbye

Somewhere around fifteen years ago, I picked up a bouncy, clumsy little puppy with her tail all a wag, carried her out of an animal shelter and into my home, and named her Sarah. The life ahead of her was to be a good and long life for a dog, and she has deserved every game of fetch, every pat on the head and rub of the tummy, and every tasty little treat she's received in those fifteen years. I must admit that I cannot reconcile certain feelings of mine with my Christian faith—at least not in a way that most of my Christian friends would accept. Sometimes it seems like there are very old souls who roam this earth, and sometimes it seems as though they are not all in human form. I guess I just love this old dog, for her intrinsic gentleness and patience and simplicity. I love her because I admire and respect her, I guess, for the kind and loving creature that she is and always has been. I love her, I suppose, because she's been more human in this life than a lot of people I've met. I know I'm supposed to be grown up about all of this, because she is, after all, just a dog. But for the life of me, I can't seem to bring myself to make that step. She's a dog, I know. But she's Sarah, and I love her very much with a very real part of my very human heart. And tomorrow, unless I decide I simply cannot do it myself, I will pick her up as now an old and tired dog, and I will carry her from my home to a little room where a doctor for dogs will meet us for a particularly unhappy occasion, and I will feel her gentle heart beat in my arms for the very last time. My only hope is that she feels no pain, and my only question is how long I will weep.

 

The Weak and the Strong, Part… Whatever

Well I haven't been able to get myself in the mood to blog over the past few months. Life is busy and there's a lot going on, but a lot of the reason is wrapped up in the following…

Some time back I posted a series of thoughts on the Weak and the Strong, from Romans 14. I'm not sure how much good all my prior thinking on the subject actually did once it came time to put it into practice. This year—yes, all year— I've been involved in a controversy resulting over decisions made about direction and forms of worship, and leadership approaches, at the congregation I've attended for over twenty-five years. I started out, with the best of intentions, by agreeing to jump into what I thought was the middle of the controversy and trying to bring factions together in a mutually workable solution. That ideal fell apart and turned into a grand mess pretty fast, and I remain saddened over the improper thoughts, words and deeds attributable to many people, myself included. It's going to take me quite a while to finish processing everything in my own heart and mind and get myself reoriented as far as how I view… well, lots of things about religion, faith, community and people. There's a whole book that could be written about what we've gone through, how and why.

I've done my best to apologize to those people who were hurt or disappointed by anything I did or said, but I've come to realize that apologies don't simply fix everything and make it new. Again, though, for any who may read this blog and who still feel injuries inflicted by my hand, I am deeply sorry. Any harm I caused to people, to a congregation, or to the name of God was not done in malice—naiveté, ignorance and foolishness, yes, but not malice. I made mistakes, and I'm sorry. If saying what you need to say will bring you healing, then I continue to extend an ear, and a hand of friendship.

I've learned several things anew and to a greater depth of conviction. Paul was right when he implied that the weak judge the strong, and that the strong hold the weak in contempt. Jesus was right when he said everything hangs on loving God and loving others. Paul was right when he said love is more important than faith. I was right whenever in life I first realized that the central problem of Man is pride. And I won't even try to list the dozens of other things.

The latest irony is that I've been asked to speak at a summer seminar in another city regarding what I've learned through all of this in terms of the Will of God and unity amongst Christians. At the moment I'm thinking that such a speech would take about one minute: what I've learned with deeper conviction is that we are all united in the basic fact that we are broken, frail and poor, and that God's Will is for us to love one another freely and deeply in the midst of all our brokenness. And, I suppose I could add that I've learned from all empirical evidence that actually doing this is much more difficult for us than I once thought.

Not much of a post for all this silent time, but it's a start. God's Love remains True, though it be carried on earth in vessels of clay.

I’m Still Here…

Yes, I am still here. No, I'm not writing much these days. But, I am doing a lot of thinking.

Please be patient, and hopefully some worthwhile posts will result from the hiatus.

Blessings to you and yours…

Merton Monday 38

In the long run, no one can show another the error that is within him, unless the other is convinced that his critic first sees and loves the good that is within him. So while we are perfectly willing to tell our adversary he is wrong, we will never be able to do so effectively until we can ourselves appreciate where he is right. And we can never accept his judgment on our errors until he gives evidence that he really appreciates our own particular truth. Love, love only, love of our deluded fellow man as he actually is, in his delusion and in his sin: this alone can open the door to truth. As long as we do not have this love… we have no real access to the truth. — Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, p 69

Oh. And Happy New Year.

Geez I almost forgot.

To my friends, to my family, to all those with whom I am acquainted, to those I am yet to be, and to those I will never be:

This year, may God richly bless our lives, our homes, our nations and our world.

May we all come closer to God, and become more practiced in loving one another.

In the end, only this can save us.

Discourse and (In)consistency

With due respect to my post immediately preceding this one:

My seminar paper for this past semester was a brief study of a small part of James Paul Gee's Discourse theory, applied to an online debate concerning a particular Christian doctrine. In a related sense, while reading some news today I was reminded that I'm pathetically, morbidly fascinated by the profound polarization of opinion expressed by folks who supply online comments to political stories.

One of the most popular attacks in these polarized situations, including the debate I was studying, is the claim that people from the "other side" are hypocritical. This is a pretty interesting phenomenon once you start to pull it apart. It's worth mentioning that "hypocrite" gets thrown around quite a lot, but I think the words "inconsistent" and "self-contradictory," which are also thrown around a lot, are closer to covering the majority of the cases. So let's stick with the idea of consistency for the rest of the post.

Gee (1989: Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction. Journal of Education , 171 (1)) notes that when we speak (or write, which is first speaking in our heads, I would say), the words we use are accompanied by values, beliefs, gestures, postures, and a myriad of other things, and are part of "saying (writing)-doing-being-valuing-believing combinations," he calls Discourses. You can name these combinations anything you want; in my work I call them "meme complexes," but you can make up your own name if you like. The point is, to be a credible, accepted, card-carrying member of a Discourse, you have to get all the talking, doing, being, valuing, and believing worked out just right. Mess one of them up, come up short in one area, and members of that Discourse will spot in short order that you don't belong. You're not a member of their Discourse. You don't fit in. You're an outsider. Gee claims that we each acquire at least one Discourse for free; it's our primary Discourse that we acquire early in our human development. After this one, most of us pick up additional "secondary" Discourses as we are exposed to various groups and institutions. There are Discourses associated with government and politics, work and careers and professions and crafts, various educational fields, religion, hobbies, and et cetera. Gee notes also that the Discourses which we acquire or attempt to acquire don't always fit together perfectly, and they cause tensions within us. For example, the beliefs of a woman's religious Discourse might conflict with her academic Discourse of Women's Studies. Somehow she has to manage the tension between the two, and she may well figure out how to do so, or if not then one of the Discourses will suffer and possibly be abandoned. So, oftentimes whenever two or more Discourses are competing for our action and demanding that we inhabit them, there's a problem. How do we act consistently in our living? The easy answer would be to avoid being part of a Discourse that creates this tension, but this is not easily done. To do so, really, one would have to remain a child, with only a primary Discourse, for his or her entire life. Long story short, in regard to this reality Gee makes the following statement, which seems fairly innocuous at first: "…humans are not consistent and well integrated from a cognitive or social viewpoint, although most Discourses assume that they are." As I was proofing my paper this past week, it struck me just how vital this passing point (a few sentences in the referenced work of Gee) really is. People are not consistent, but most Discourses assume that they are. This just strikes me, in its brutally simplistic observation, as vitally important in regard to how we try to communicate with one another. Here are the thoughts that have occurred to me so far:

When I am acting from within a Discourse (which I cannot avoid doing), it is assumed by the Discourse (and myself at the moment) that I am being consistent.

Discourses, also, assume that they themselves are consistent—or are made consistent by nature of their being held within a (presumed) consistent individual.

If I, with my repertoire of Discourses, cannot make a "logical" connection between two points for which another person claims that such a connection exists, I assume that person is being inconsistent.

There is a grand narrative, underlying most of our Discourses, that equates consistency with truth.

I assume, therefore, that what I say, value, believe is based in truth. I assume my actions are based in truth.

I assume, then, the other person's are not.

Given my assumption and because the other person defends his position, I assume he is ignorant, stupid, foolish, evil, etc.

Discourses contain lattices of beliefs that arise either: (1) for the sole purpose of making a Discourse appear consistent, or (2) because the Discourse is already assumed to be consistent.

A major portion of our belief systems is composed of these lattices.

We consider the links which compose these lattices to be fundamental elements, fundamental truths, which are on par with the major claims of the Discourse; that is, with the Discourse nodes which the links connect.

Your inconsistency is readily apparent to me because (1) your are inconsistent, and (2) I lack the lattice(s) that makes you appear consistent to yourself.

Notice that this is all based upon nothing more than the mere assumption of consistency.

This assumption is likely nothing more than a link in a latticework of a governing Grand Discourse.

While consistency of systems should remain something we value at a certain level, we must realize that absolute consistency does not exist and should not be the litmus test of "true" views.

If we could get past the idea that truth necessitates something referred to as "logical consistency," a whole bunch of interpersonal and intellectual overhead would cease to exist.

Wow. Gosh. You Must be Really Smart.

One of the things, perhaps the only thing, I find difficult about being in school is the requirement to write in analytical terms. To be brutally honest, I don't personally gain much of anything by doing so. I don't mind reading analytical work that other people put on paper and certainly I learn a great deal from doing so, but for myself it all seems like a lot of work for something that is not much of an accomplishment. I write that way sometimes (including in this blog), and I think it is necessary sometimes, but it always leave me flat. I know as I begin to write it, I know while I'm writing it, and I know after I've written it that many other counter arguments exist and are at least as convincing as my own, so, what's the point?

I suppose this is why I like the contemplative writings of Merton, the work of Khalil Gibran, and the personal essays of Loren Eiseley. I see great truths in these works, but the works aren't intended to convince the reader of anything he or she can't intuit; of something he or she has to construct from if-then and therefore. They don't stand or fall by the impeccable use of logic. They say what they say. The words resonate with the reader, or they don't. I guess I'm saying, I like reading and writing from the "heart" more than the head. [At this point, I should note that when I say heart, I'm not being terribly explicit about what I mean by it. In general, I mean the part of your chest that gets heavy, the part of your gut that turns inside out, the very deep part of your reasoning that beyond words—almost beyond intellect itself—cannot deny you've read something that to you, is absolutely true.]

I mention this because in recent years I've been thinking about it quite a bit in terms of faith vis-à-vis religious doctrine. There is a strong parallel present wherein faith is a matter of the heart and religious doctrine is more like intellectual argument. [This is not to say that faith is not, in large part, a function of human reason. I would not claim faith is independent of reason, and indeed I would say that faith relies upon reason to a large extent. However, I would say that the reasoning that faith relies upon is, itself, based upon a framework determined by the heart.] I'm thinking of a pretty random example at the moment:

Take Aquinas when he's talking about the interpretation of scripture:

The author of Holy Writ is God, in whose power it is to signify His meaning, not by words only (as man also can do), but also by things themselves. So, whereas in every other science things are signified by words, this science has the property, that the things signified by the words have themselves also a signification. Therefore that first signification whereby words signify things belongs to the first sense, the historical or literal. That signification whereby things signified by words have themselves also a signification is called the spiritual sense, which is based on the literal, and presupposes it. Now this spiritual sense has a threefold division. For as the Apostle says (Hebrews 10:1) the Old Law is a figure of the New Law, and Dionysius says (Coel. Hier. i) "the New Law itself is a figure of future glory." Again, in the New Law, whatever our Head has done is a type of what we ought to do. Therefore, so far as the things of the Old Law signify the things of the New Law, there is the allegorical sense; so far as the things done in Christ, or so far as the things which signify Christ, are types of what we ought to do, there is the moral sense. But so far as they signify what relates to eternal glory, there is the anagogical sense. — Summa Theologica 1.1.10

For one thing, I don't think a person needs an article like this to feel and to therefore reason that, say, the word "battle" signifies a conflict, and that the conflict signifies things moral and/or allegorical and/or anagogical. Furthermore, establishing an article such as this (although Aquinas didn't originate it) causes two main problems: (a) that people feel the need to stick to it, as if it is now a requirement as well as the only way to interpret scripture "correctly" and (b) other people will analyze the article and explain why it's a load of garbage, thereby making their own articles, which strictly prohibit any interpretation that smacks of Aquinas' article. It seems to me much more straightforward to intuit that sometimes scripture means something quite literally, sometimes it doesn't, and well, sometimes it's anybody's guess as to which is which. This seems to be a much more honest, reasoned, heart-felt view and, to me, results in a deeper, stronger faith.

There are probably thousands of examples of this in faith vis-à-vis religion, from the sublime to the ridiculous, and at times like this I wonder why I ever, ever venture into the world of talking beyond what seems right to me, daring to trod into the land of if-then-therefore; as if such things can convince somebody of something. And now I'm getting closer to the intended points of this whole post…

First, I've posted two Merton quotes dealing with seeing Christ in others. I may be speaking a bit from ignorance here, but it seems to me that there is a rift in thought between the evangelical ideal of being Christ to the stranger, and the Catholic ideal of seeing Christ in the stranger. Growing up in an evangelical framework (well, at least officially), I am no stranger to the ideal of being Christ to other people. This should be a natural result of following Christ; if you follow him, you become like him. I have no intellectual problem accepting this. Additionally, there is an ideal based upon corollary, so to speak, that we see Christ in the lives of our Christian brothers and sisters. I have no intellectual problem with this, either. But there is very little talk, in the traditional evangelical circles I've trod, about seeing Christ in every stranger you meet. So I have found myself over the years captivated by what I consider to be a Catholic ideal of welcoming the stranger as if he or she is Christ himself. One of the surface-level intrigues about this idea is that to me it is not explicitly biblical as far as our biblical texts go, yet I find it impossible to deny with my reason that within my heart this idea is profoundly and lucidly Christian in character. And I think, in general, it is essentially the pure spiritual lucidity of some of Catholicism's contemplative tradition that I find to be so compelling about Catholicism in principle. It has nothing to do with theological, doctrinal or dogmatic debate in my own mind. It is simply that in the core of my being, it seems absolutely "right" to view others in this way.

Second, a great deal of evangelical Christianity has traditionally been about convincing other people of the correctness of particular "facts," about the indubitable nature of certain doctrines, and the absolute nature of certain moral adherences. I find this far too much like the if-then-therefore approach and far too fragile. It is little—if anything—more than one set of arguments amongst many. And if Christianity is to be real, if it is to be anything at all that it claims, it cannot afford to rely on anything so imperfect. It must exist at a level far deeper than the intellect. It must be at the very center of the human heart; the part of the heart that was birthed by God and within which the light of God still shines—even if hidden from the outside.

My point is that I'm moving farther and farther away from doctrinal systems in my life. I'm finding them more and more the root of problems all the way around. In fact, I think it's fair to say that I'm growing quite sick and tired of them. I have said this many times, but I will say it again: My role as a Christian is to love people. To love them deeply, to love them profoundly, and to love them no matter what. My role has nothing to do with anything else, except the working out within my heart of what I must become, why, when, where and by what mysterious mechanisms, in order to love like this Naturally, as the Spirit of God assumes more and more control over my being.

Finally and quite honestly, if you know me and you feel you really must argue doctrinal specifics with me, well, then come on; roll up your sleeves and show me what ya got. But I must say beforehand that I seriously doubt God cares much about our intellectual opinions, though I am rather certain God cares a great deal whether or not we are willing to lay down our egos and simply Love one another. And we should think about this before we open our mouths and try to pretend how smart we are.

Merton Monday 37

[one must] choose life, and the things that favor life. This means respect for every living thing, but especially for every man, made in the image of God. Respect for man even in his blindness and in his confusion, even when he may do evil. For we must see that the meaning of man has been totally changed by the crucifixion: every man is Christ on the Cross, whether he realizes it or not. But we, if we are Christians, must learn to realize it. That is what it means to be a Christian: not simply one who believes certain reports about Christ, but one who lives in a conscious confrontation with Christ in himself and in other men. — Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, p 219

Christmas Wishes

An extract from my annual holiday letter to family and friends…

While I type this letter, I am reminded that the Christmas season brings with it imagery of love's simplicity, of humility, and of peace on Earth. Hanging on the wall beside my computer is a small crucifix [L and S] bought for me while on their summer trip. I cannot articulate what and how much it means to me that my wife and daughter, when selecting souvenirs for me, would pick this particular item. But to put it simply, it means that apparently, in spite of all my weaknesses and shortcomings, people who know me understand that I believe in certain things, that my interior life is about certain things, and that I trust in certain things. As I sit here and stare at the crucifix, I can't avoid seeing significance in the fact that it was cut from an olive branch and handcrafted somewhere in the West Bank; that from a hot-bed of strife, contention, hatred and violence comes this ultimate image of the one who said love one another, pray for your enemies, forgive them, and blessed are the peacemakers. Think about that for a second.

I would like, in this holiday letter of 2008, to bring this image into the forefront of our thinking, with the rampant polarizations within our current culture forming a contrasting background. I would like to ask all of us, we who believe and trust in the message of the cross and of he who was hanged upon it, to deeply and profoundly internalize the call of that message. I would like to suggest that we ask ourselves what, at the end of our lives, will matter. Will it be that for a moment we once held a particular set of intellectual opinions in an ever-changing world, or will it be that we chose above all things the timeless call to love other people no matter what the cost? I would like to suggest that whether we are engaging friends, family, neighbors or enemies, our calling is obscenely and scandalously simple: to love deeply, to love profoundly, and above all to love humbly. I would like to suggest that if this crucifix means anything at all, that we must begin with it, anew, today. I would like to suggest that if we believe in peacemaking, we must allow peace to begin now, in this very moment. And I would like to suggest that for peace to begin, it must begin in your heart and mine. It is not our calling to change those who are different from us. It is, rather, our calling to be different, to be changed—to be transformed by God's love, poured out upon us through a little child born long ago, in a land we call the West Bank.

Merton Monday 36

The Truth man needs is not a philosopher's abstraction, but God Himself. The paradox of contemplation is that God is never really known unless He is also loved. And we cannot love Him unless we do His will. This explains why modern man, who knows so much, is nevertheless ignorant. Because he is without love, modern man fails to see the only Truth that matters and on which all else depends. — The Ascent to Truth, prologue

Merton Monday 35

We must know the truth, and we must love the truth we know, and we must act according to the measure of our love. — The Ascent to Truth, prologue

Merton Monday 34

With the last two Merton Mondays, I left seven or eight months of New Seeds at a pretty good place. I now need to decide from which book I should start taking the next Merton Monday series. In the meantime, here are a few little thoughts which hang out in my brain, in the little shoebox labeled "Merton."

As I sit here working on the close of the semester, which means I am struggling as always to write a final paper, I'm thinking about the tension between taking my interest area seriously enough and taking myself too seriously. For example, I find this semester that I've started to cite my own work when writing papers. I've always found this uncomfortable when I read other people's work and they cite themselves. I'm not sure why I find it that way, but I do. It seems… ostentatious. But then again, isn't this what I'm supposed to be doing, if I take my interests seriously and believe in the idea of bringing about something new?

I think I'm taking myself too seriously just by nature of the fact that I'm worried about such things. I should just do what I do, because it's what I do. And so be it.

Merton didn't take himself too seriously. He took his subject matter extremely seriously, but not himself. I was thinking tonight about a discussion I had at the Abbey, with an old monk who knew Merton. The old monk made a remark about Merton once saying of himself that he belonged to the world. Then the old monk, in a statement that left me amazed, said something like this: "I've heard that his writings have become quite popular; that there are even little groups of people who read his books and sit and talk about them. I hear he's sort of famous. I guess, in the end, he was right. He does belong to the world."

I was left with the distinct impression that this old monk never had, and never would, learn of just how famous Merton became. And that impression left me… I don't know… emotionally and intellectually moved in a very positive, but very strange, way.

If I remember correctly, that old monk said he stood outside in the snow and waited for Thomas' casket to arrive at the Abbey one day in December of 1968. It was planted in the ground beside those of all the monks who had previously committed their lives to that place—simply, humbly, and away from the world to which they each belonged.

Sad Little Discussions…

I understand this is part of being human, and therefore not really sad, but usually I wish I was beyond such things. I offer it as an example of the human creature. Submitted for your approval, in the twilight zone.

A recent discussion, entirely within my own skull, while browsing this web site:

Voice 1 (Creative, Passionate, Carnal): Oh. My...

Voice 2 (Reason): What? That?

Voice 3 (Spiritual, Higher Reasoning): Awwww man… things were so quiet here in the moment. Here he goes again…

Voice 1:     Yes. That. The one on the right. Oh my…

Voice 2:     You don't need that. You…

Voice 1:     I know. I don't care. Geez. That's. So. Cool.

Voice 2:     You do not need that. You don't even...

Voice 1:     I know. But that's, just, cool. Don't you think?

Voice 2:     Well, yes, but, do you have any idea how much that must cost?

Voice 1:     Does it matter?

Voice 2:     Hah! Uh-yeah… Let's see… Uhhh-yep. As I expected. This is four or five grand. Four or five thousand dollars…

Voice 3     Good Lord!! You shouldn't even be thinking about this. You should be way beyond…

Voice 1+2:     We know.

Voice 3:     It's humanly criminal for you to think about that. You don't even…

Voice 1+2:    WE KNOW!

Voice 2:     But yes, one. Three's right. And look… Seriously... Come on. You don't even play.

Voice 1:     I know. (That hurts, by the way) But that's… that's not the point. If I did play, I'd play that. This. Just like David Gilm…

Voice 3:     This is sad. Just, really, really sad.

Voice 2:     I know. Very.

Voice 3:    Is this humbling you, two? It should be. I mean, one's completely out of the question, but you...

Voice 2:    I know. Yes. Yes it is. Well, I hope it is…

Voice 1:    I am going to learn. I want to. I really do. And I am. Soon. I'm not getting any younger, you know.

Voice 2:     Aw geez. Blah, blah, blah. Why are you always in a hurry? Why do you have to do things now, instead of…

Voice 1:     I see. I desire. I feel. I imagine. I create. It's what I do. You know this.

Voice 2:     Yes. (sigh) Yes, yes I do. Fine. I can give and take. So do it, but do it later, after…

Voice 1:     Helloooo! There may not be a laterrrr…

Voice 3:     Well, that's true. There really is no later; there is only an eternal now, and…

Voice 2:     Stow it, three.
Helloooo yourself, two: if there isn't a later, do you really want to spend now on this trivial crap, instead of, oh, I don't know… Your family? Writing?

Voice 1:     Well I…

Voice 2:     Has it ever occurred to you that maybe later is the proper time for frivolity?

Voice 3:     (Excellent point, two. Excellent, excellent point.)

Voice 1:     Well I… But I…

Voice 2:     And for Pete's sake: did you even notice that this thing doesn't come in a lefty?

Voice 1:     Huh? It… what? Oh. (Damn!) Right. Of course it doesn't.

Voice 3:     I think I see an easy resolution to the moment coming…

Voice 2:     Um-hmmm… me too...

Voice 1:     That's… that's good, I guess. That's a good thing. Yes. That's… that solves a lot…

Voice 2+3:     Yes. Yes it does…

Voice 1:     Well, sure, and better, I mean, I can be sensible. I can give and take. We'll just get an American Standard lefty for a quarter of that, you know, replace the pick guard, change the electronics…

Voice 2:     Oh gawd… We're losing him…

Voice 3:    (Charging…) CLEAR!!

Merton Monday 33

And now for the second part of last week's Merton Monday:

Yet we must not deal in too negative a fashion even with the "external self." This self is not by nature evil, and the fact that it is unsubstantial is not to be imputed to it as some kind of crime. It is afflicted with metaphysical poverty: but all that is poor deserves mercy. So too our outward self: as long as it does not isolate itself in a lie, it is blessed by the mercy and the love of Christ. Appearances are to be accepted for what they are. The accidents of a poor and transient existence have, nevertheless, an ineffable value. They can be transparent media in which we apprehend the presence of God in the world. It is possible to speak of the exterior self as a mask: to do so is not necessarily to reprove it. The mask that each man wears may well be a disguise not only for that man's inner self but for God, wondering as a pilgrim and exile in His own creation.— New Seeds, chapter 39

These words of Merton are very near the end of New Seeds, and although he goes on immediately to echo St. Benedict by making a statement about seeing Christ in every person, I chose to end the quote where I did. I find the last sentence in the above to be one of the most lovely statements I have ever read concerning Christian spirituality and doctrine, and quite ingenious for everything that is wrapped up, neat and tidy, within it. Seriously. It's brilliantly insightful. I am also very much taken by the simplest of statements: all that is poor deserves mercy. I am not far from being willing to claim, at the moment, that these two statements could, on their own, comprise a wholly sufficient personal Christian faith.

Witherington on the Shortcomings of Intellectual Coherency

I haven't made the time to watch the embedded video, but Ben Witherington's comments in this article track quite well with my own views on the risk of placing much stock in "intellectually coherent" theology.

Offering Thanks for Nonlinear Functions

As I was doing my best to get some grocery shopping done quickly this past weekend, I found it interesting how embedded we can become in the vocabulary of given discourses; not always happily. I was doing my time-and-a-half shuffle, pushing my cart, looking at my shopping list. The last thing left was a few twelve-packs of Coke products, according to the provisions of an advertisement. So, to myself, half out-loud, I said determinedly as I slid around an end-cap, "Okay, all I've gotta do is converge upon an acceptable soda solution…" To which, I immediately thought, "…converge upon an acceptable soda solution? What the heck is that? Who says stuff like that? Why can't I just say, 'All I gotta do is grab some coke?'"

But then again, sometimes embedded vocabulary works out to be quite cool. Back in the day, during freshman physics lab, one of my lab partners was spilling her guts about something to the rest of us around the black-topped tables, talking about how life was difficult and challenging and asking why it couldn't be more predictable. To which, a clever partner replied dryly (and perhaps a bit unsympathetically) after a moment's thought, "Well, life's not linear."

I'm pretty sure I've heard that phrase several times since, maybe because I hang out in professional circles where converging upon an acceptable soda solution would seem normal, but I still like the phrase very much and for some reason it seems more profound and insightful coming from an adolescent in a science lab.

Life is not linear, and it's so far from being so that one wonders why anybody would expect it to be. And, in fact, it's actually a good thing that it's not. If it were, we would never learn the hard—and most important—lessons. We would never be awestruck by beauty. We would never be swept off our feet by romantic gestures. We would never cry, in sorrow or in joy. We would miss most of what it means to be human at the deepest, most meaningful levels.

Today is Thanksgiving, and so I offer my thanks for the nonlinear nature of my life:

I make many mistakes. I am thankful to have learned the value of forgiveness.

I am imperfect. I am thankful to have learned the beauty of Grace.

I am ignorant and unwise. I am thankful for humility.

I have known the pain of sorrow. I am grateful for compassion.

I fear not being loved. I am thankful for wanting to be loved.

Love hurts. I am thankful for something worth far more than pain.

Death comes unexpectedly. I am thankful for today in all its fullness.

I am not the father I would like to be. I am not the spouse I would like to be. I am thankful for wanting to be.

Life is difficult and comes at great costs in many currencies. I am thankful that life is not cheap.

As I sit and think about it, the list could go on and on, but the point is simple enough. All that is great and meaningful in life is purchased at a great price, but life would not be worth living otherwise. I am frail and I am broken. Truth be known, if I were not, I would have no need for the love of others, and no ability to love them in return. And that life, simply, I could not bear. On this Thanksgiving Day, I give thanks for imperfection, and all that heals it.

Merton Monday 32

At the end of New Seeds, Merton closes with a thought I find particularly wise, peaceful, and therefore comforting. It is, at the same time, greatly challenging. This is the first part of it, and I plan to offer the second part (which I find to be quite lovely) next week, with a couple of additional comments.

The presence of God in His world as its Creator depends on no one but Him. His presence in the world as Man depends, in some measure, upon men. Not that we can do anything to change the mystery of the Incarnation in itself: but we are able to decide whether we ourselves, and that portion of the world which is ours, shall become aware of His presence, consecrated by it, and transfigured in its light.

We have the choice of two identities: the external mask which seems to be real and which lives by a shadowy autonomy for the brief moment of earthly existence, and the hidden, inner person who seems to us to be nothing, but who can give himself eternally to the truth in whom he subsists. It is this inner self that is taken up into the mystery of Christ, by His Love, by the Holy Spirit, so that in secret we live "in Christ." — New Seeds, chapter 39

What Changes, and Does Anything Not?

I'm taking a break at the moment, to do some mental garbage collection and a bit of a flush. As an exercise, because I was just reading about Baby Boomers and Millennials, let's take the ideas, tossed about during the recent political campaign, that America isn't what it used to be, that there are "types" of America, that there's a "real" America, and so forth.

Immediately as I type this, I succumb to the imposing theoreticals of deconstructionism. Echoing rather brutally in my mind are questions, allegations and half-formed sentences like, "But really, was America ever America? Isn't America just an ideological model that has persisted but yet never truly existed in the form the model represents…" or, "Which America would we be speaking of? Is it the America of established white male privilege, is it the America of the young neo-capitalist, is it the America of the African-American community circa 1964, or is it …" and things like that. At this point I close my eyes tightly, rub my temples, and sigh heavily.

On the other hand, my current school project has me reading a debate involving a Christian fundamentalist (all the way down to six literal days of creation and an earth that is no more than about 8,000 years old), who can't write for very long before slinging some epitaph at "postmodernists" without ever saying what he thinks a "postmodernist" is, and knows only that every single word of the Bible is literal truth and can be interpreted (by the proper faithful person like, well, him) without error. He likes to consider himself and a fairly small group of others as contemporary Noah's, with only a few saved from the flood while everyone else on Earth "bubbles" their way into an Eternity of torment. Again, I close my eyes tightly, rub my temples, and sigh heavily.

In the midst of the usual end-of-semester mini-panic and micro-depression, I find myself thinking critical theory and deconstruction are being pushed to the point of absurdity, and concurrently musing that people who know nothing about them yet complacently condemn them are sad, ignorant little people who… well, whatever. I get irritated all around, standing right in the middle. (And by the way, it's the complacency and smugness, not the ignorance, that bothers me.)

Life is dynamic from day to day, and as sure as the sun n the sky, it is dynamic across decades and millennia. Life is lived by us largely based upon things which have no absolute basis in fact and are, simply, social constructions we accept as Ultimate Reality. I agree with this totally, and yes I am stupefied by those who think otherwise. But, I am frustrated and confused by those who go to extreme lengths of argument to demonstrate this while leaving little as far as pieces to put together into something… human. (And, again, I am plagued by half-formed sentences concerning the meaning of the word "human.")

What presently intrigues me about deconstruction and critical theory is that the latter is based in the former and uses its ideas, ostensibly, to better the lives of the marginalized by changing institutions. The grand question is: why?

This is a grand question for two main reasons: One, the irony that left to run amok, deconstruction itself will remove all possible motives for a why; and two, any motivation for bettering the lives of the marginalized is born of a motivation originating long, long, long ago—it's not like critical theory in terms of feeling compelled to solve institutional ills is postmodern in this sense. It's pre-modern, ancient, actually, and it is at this thought that I'd like to make my point for today. I began this post, inside my head, with a question of whether there are any long-standing, decidedly human, truths that exist across the millennia. Is there something that doesn't change? Is it all dynamic or is there something at the core of us that is relatively static? (AGAIN, I'm fighting half-formed sentences; now about meta-narratives and their seeming but not actual stasis being due to their relative longevity in human history…) So what I'm wondering is this: why do critical theorists not more often come to question the motive behind their work? Why do they not more often deconstruct that? Are there, perchance, any implicit assumptions that to "better" the lives of the marginalized is unquestionably, absolutely, forever and always right and proper? If so, from whence do such assumptions originate?

For now I'm clinging to whatever it is that might form the basis of those assumptions. (And by the way, I find the pure biological model to come up wanting…)

Against all odds

A couple of weeks ago, in "Faith and Respect," I posted about a classmate of mine who is a young Muslim woman. During class one evening a week or two before that post, she appeared very upset, on the verge of tears and possibly ill. She left class briefly, and as I recall another young woman in class followed her, to make sure she was okay. I hadn't thought much of it until this week, when another classmate told me what had happened that evening. The Muslim woman had been walking to class, and a passerby walked up to her and spat on her. Actually, "spat" seems too refined; the passerby spit on her.

I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that in addition to the insult of being spat upon, in addition to the assault, in addition to the concern for disease, there are probably some serious issues of religion and faith involved here. Although certainly I don't know the issues possibly raised by this incident, I can imagine that it was quite possibly deeply serious for this young woman.

As for the person who did this to her? Who knows what provokes such things. Fear. Ignorance. Anger. Vengeance. Hatred. But if religion had anything to do with it, I will answer this: Jesus would never, ever, have spat upon this woman. To the contrary, he would have comforted her and defended her in the face of the one who did.

In my Swiss-cheese, worm-holed mind, this makes me think of the Beatitudes. To my thinking, the assembly of the beatitudes into the order they appear in the book of Matthew is fairly ingenious spiritually:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are you when you are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, blessed are those who are reviled on account of Jesus.

The reason these are so ingenious (although it's possible this is merely a modern analysis applied backward in time) goes like this: In a spiritual sense, there is a path a human takes. It begins with being broken in your spirit. This leads to spiritual mourning. This leads to a hunger for righteousness; not just in your own life, but in all of creation. This leads you to become merciful. This leads you to be a peacemaker. Some people will persecute you for trying to make peace. The place to which the path ends up taking you, along the path of Jesus, will make you hated by some.

That's the little hazelnut version, and how does it tie into this woman being spat upon? Lots of ways, but here's the one foremost in my mind. I don't get angry often, and I'm not a physically violent person. I'm not a physical fighter, and I've been blessed to avoid violence in my life. But it wouldn't surprise me if someday I get the living crap beat out of me for defending a kind, humble and marginalized person. Someday I just may be in a crowd, and somebody is going to pick on somebody else, for no other reason than the latter is of a particular religion, or color, or ethnicity, or orientation, or gender, or physical appearance, or whatever. And I'm going to step in, and I'm going to get seriously clocked. But that's not the kicker. The kicker rests in the fact that there will be people, some of them devotedly religious and considered quite moral, who will believe I had no business defending the person I did, and that I got what I deserved.

I'm seriously not wishing for this to happen, but intellectually I recognize it as essentially unavoidable. It is a core part of understanding and accepting the implications of Jesus as the logos. Part of the Message—the Message that was Jesus—is that the path to God is met with violent opposition from those who claim to be God's chosen. This is, plain and simple, the Way things go down. The Jesus Story is fascinating as it unfolds, as Jesus comes to fully grasp the Message of his own Selfhood. Think about it the next time you see a crucifix, and try to imagine the courage it must have taken—the courage to love people without boundaries, without limits, and against all odds.

My Money, My Body

That's a dangerous title for a post, huh?

Presently, I will likely infuriate both ends of the political spectrum. This post is not really about politics; it's just that the recent election provided such a great example, I can't resist. Some setup is required, but I'll keep it brief, so some assembly is required by the reader.

I've talked a lot about money and wealth in this blog, always making sure I note that I'm preaching to myself as much as anybody else. I think about this have-and-have-not thing quite a lot, so it's no surprise that I was thinking about it when I worked on the Habitat house. That brief experience helped to support my fairly constant view that it's okay (in fact, a good thing) to make money, but the only good reason to make money is to use it to help others.

This eventually risks bringing up the idea that "some" folks "deserve" to have money, because "their" money gets used in the "proper" ways to help "other" people. Lots of quotes there, but this in turn brings up the idea that how a person uses the money he or she has, is a personal ethical/moral choice. In such a view, a person would make as much money as they possibly could, and then spend as much as they possibly could in the ways they choose to help benefit those without so much. And I must admit, with the exception of the first sentence of this paragraph, this is fairly close to the way I believe things should be. I've been given the opportunity in life to make a pretty decent wage. Therefore, I should share that wage. End of setup part 1.

I got an email the other day, and it featured a list of ways the "Democrats," from FDR to present, have worked with respect to Social Security to take money from those who have it. Beside the fact that this email is not terribly factual, what was intriguing to me about it was (1) the list of addressees and (2) its title. The majority of the addressees were self-professing Christians, and the title was, "Who keeps taking my money?" Upon receipt, I was a bit perplexed. Even if the email had been factual, the glaring thing to me is that I'm pretty much left at a loss when people refer to the money that is presently held in their name as being their money. Most especially when the list of addressees is predominately Christian, I would have presumed that the foundational understanding would be there's no such thing as "my" money. I thought it was God's money, and therefore existed for the sake of all of God's children. End of setup part 2.

Putting together parts one and two, I think that if I sat down with most Christians who have money, they would say that technically the money is God's money, and that they should use it to help others. But I also tend to think they would say that how this is done, when, and for whom, is their choice as stewards of the money. And, furthermore, I tend to think this would be their faith-based view of why the government should keep its hands off of "their" money. (The implication being, I tend to think, the first sentence of paragraph three). Having thought about it this way is about as close as I can come to understanding why a faith-based worldview would have such a hard time with the government "redistributing" wealth. And I don't think, actually, that such a faith-based view is that bad. I mean, if you really believe everything you earn should be "yours," that you should have control over it so that you can make the personal moral choice on how to use it best, in your best faith-based estimation, for God's Kingdom, then I can't fault that. I might even go so far as to say you're quite right; that the government has no business trying to legislate the moral issues of my wealth and how it's used. That's why I'm a moral person after all; to take this responsibility and make my choices sincerely, humbly, and with fear and trembling before God. That's my place. Not the government's. Fair enough. Let's go with that, for a moment.

But here's the tough part about blogging in the middle; there's a flip-side that, to me, is a bit interesting. Sit down, and hold on to your hats while I open a giant can of worms: Isn't this the same type of point that certain folks are trying to make regarding abortion rights? This is a provocative question, sure, but I think it has quite a bit of merit in opening up some interesting ideas.

[I realize that "abortion rights" is a bit of a questionable phrasing, according to some people. I realize that the general populace prefers to place discussions in the "pro-choice" versus "pro-life" framework, and that those who talk about the fundamental right of reproductive choice are talking about more than abortion; but they are talking about abortion in the mix and for me this needs to be addressed. I also realize that the "pro-life" group, who has adopted a name not so cleverly implying that the "other side" is "anti-life (read: pro-death)," largely ignores those other issues involved in reproductive choice, going so far in some cases as to (with a gross failure in internal consistency) oppose birth control. In a politically negative view, what "pro-choice" really means is the right to have an abortion regardless of how and why someone became pregnant, and therefore it is, in part, a call for the "right to terminate a problem" after one has already made a free choice resulting in the problem. In the other politically negative view, what "pro-life" really means is that all people should be legally forced to have only the choices certain other people are willing to afford them. As with most political claims, each of these has some truth and each of them is conveniently incomplete. As I note in the rhrn.net faq, both labels are trouble. I, for one, am both pro-life and pro-choice, unless those terms are seen as cultural labels representing pre-packaged platforms, in which case I am neither. I have digressed…]

Anyway, are the two points, about keeping one's money and keeping one's reproductive rights, the same? Well if they were identical they wouldn't be two points, but they are very similar. Both sides can argue that their cause is a matter not of morality per se, but of freedom and rights, with morality only coming into play if you consider freedom and rights to be moral issues per se. Both sides can argue that their cause is indeed a moral issue, and that morality concerning their particular cause should not be legislated. Both sides can argue that the other side is the more potent biblical issue; the Bible is not too keen on the murder of innocents, and it is no less keen on greed and social injustice (which are, essentially, the murder of innocents). Both sides can argue, on the other hand, that their cause is not explicitly condemned in the Bible. Both sides can argue that their cause honors personal responsibility, and both sides can argue that the other side's cause allows and promotes selfish irresponsibility. Both sides can be either right or wrong on any of these points, depending upon their personal, heartfelt motives.

What astounds me, all things considered, is that the two issues are seen as separately as they are, and how successfully they are separated by those who play politics. Do you believe that the government has the right to tell you what to do with those things you consider most private and personal, most yours, or do you not? If not, then they shouldn't be telling you about reproductive rights, nor should they be sticking their fingers into your wallet. If yes, then let them decide who should have your hard-earned money, and when you should or should not be allowed to have an abortion. Take your pick; but don't let people fool you into thinking the issues are all that different from one another.

I think maybe there is an alternative view, and it goes something like this: Let's give to Caesar what is Caesar's—which in practicality means Caesar is going to do whatever Caesar wants to do anyway—and to God what is God's. Maybe we should stop looking to institutions to solve our problems, and stop looking at them as if they are the cause of our problems. Maybe we should each look instead inside of our self, deeply and profoundly, and choose. Choose to rise above political rhetoric, and cease to be a victim of it and of those who succumb to it. Choose to see that "they" and "it" are not the problem. Choose to see that the selfishness inside of you and me is the problem. Choose to see that ultimately the solution rests gracefully in the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom of and for all people who choose to enter into it, and so each choose not for the sake of our own lives, but for the sake of all of us together; the poor, the sick, the marginalized, and the unborn.

My money? My body? No, they aren't.

Merton Monday 31

To find love I must enter into the sanctuary where it is hidden, which is the mystery of God. And to enter into His sanctity I must become holy as He is holy, perfect as He is perfect.

How can I even dare to entertain such a thought? Is it not madness? It is certainly madness if I think I know what the holiness and perfection of God really are in themselves and if I think that there is some way in which I can apply myself to imitating them. I must begin, then, by realizing that the holiness of God is something that is to me, and to all men, utterly mysterious, inscrutable, beyond the highest notion of any kind of perfection, beyond any relevant human statement whatever.

If I am to be "holy" I must therefore be something that I do not understand… — New Seeds, chapter 9

Aircraft Report

I'm considering this to be cathartic:

Aircraft flown this month, starting with the least pleasant:

Airbus 319. This series makes me nervous because of initial flight control problems (to name one, pilot says to plane, "take off," and plane says to pilot, "No, sorry, landing...") I'm sure they've fixed them by now, but I know way too much about software systems to feel super-comfy on one of these. And the one I flew rattled and shuddered pretty badly. I'd prefer not to fly one again.

Boeing 737-300. I flew three of these, of various ages. The newer ones are much more spiffy than the older ones. Typically I don't worry too much about a 737 now that they got that horribly terrifying jackscrew thing worked out. Well, *cough* I presume they did...

Bombardier CRJ700. A coworker traveling with me joked that the way this plane was designed was that they took a "real" jet in AutoCAD, set the scale to 7/8, and were done. The one we flew was pretty new and tight. It was a nice ride. I'm learning that an axiom in my paranoid mind is that smaller planes are safer than bigger ones. I'm sure there's a lower limit, but...

Bombardier Dash 8. I'm not sure which variant I flew, but, I think it was the -100 series. I have to say, it was almost (almost, okay?) fun. I was in the very last row, in the only middle seat on the plane, and I probably stood a good chance of being able to hit the cockpit door with a spitball. I couldn't escape the feeling that at some point during the flight we were all supposed to function-check our weapons and wait for the green "go" light to indicate our jump zone. The thing I liked about this plane was that it felt like half of it could fall off and the rest would still fly. I was charmed enough that I had to post a pic. Here's one I grabbed from the web, copyright included:

Words Are a Small Portion of Meaning

Well, I have four more airplane flights behind me and I'm presently doing my best to relax now that I'm home again. My notebook that I purchased early this year supports Dolby five channel surround, and I finally got around to digging out my speakers and trying it out tonight. Me like.

So the testing out of the sound involved playing a whole bunch of stuff, which included a favorite pair of videos. I've probably mentioned this before on this blog, but these two covers of U2's "One" are a not-so-subtle example of how words are truly the smaller portion of meaning in a text. It's a story about a man and a woman… no… wait… it's a song about a race relations in America…

The effect works best if you watch them in the order I list them.

Wings, and Water

I don't like flying, and I don't like water. Well, a glass of water is fine. Bottled water is fine. Taking a shower is fine. Deep water is a problem. I was not created as a creature of the air, nor one of the sea. I have hands and I have feet. I have no wings, and I have no flippers nor fins.

Flying out of LA, you always get to depart over the pacific. That's just great. Perfect.

I'll be glad to be home. In my house. It's on land.

Faith and Respect

Ben Stein is an interesting fellow. Speech writer for Nixon. Hilarious teacher of Ferris Bueller. I re-received an email recently and just got around to reading it; one which originated back in December of 2005 shortly after Mr. Stein offered a commentary on… what was it… CBS Sunday Morning. There are a few versions of the email, but I think the original commentary was pretty close to this:

Herewith at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart:

I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I am buying my dog biscuits and kitty litter. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores. They never know who Nick and Jessica are either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have broken up? Why are they so important? I don't know who Lindsay Lohan is, either, and I do not care at all about Tom Cruise's wife.

Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am a subversive? Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. Is this what it means to be no longer young. It's not so bad.

Next confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him?

I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to.

I was reading this and thinking about a couple of people I've met this semester. In class is a Muslim woman from Jordan. Upon meeting her I made the reckless (reckless, because if I had really thought about it I might have realized this) mistake of holding out my hand to shake. She introduced herself and added, "…but I don't shake hands." This week I was in meetings with a guy from back east who is (I presume) an orthodox Jew. He wore his kippah and drank his kosher fruit juice in the midst of all the rest of us, and left early for his fly-back so he wouldn't be travelling on the Sabbath. My simple point is that in watching both of these individuals, I've felt a deep level of respect for the way they shape and conform their lives to their faith. I have no problem at all feeling that the three of us are connected through a committed devotion to God. I guess I simply liked reading Mr. Stein's words this evening. I am a Christian, and I am not at all offended by head coverings, kippahs, Ramadan, or being kosher. Quite to the contrary, I am drawn to simple, humble submission to our Creator—in its various forms.

Traffic. No, not that kind...

And while I'm at it, here's another of my favorites. For those who are a little younger than me, yes, that's Steve Winwood. And for those younger still, who know not who Steve Winwood is, well... You might find Wikipedia's article on John Barleycorn to be rather interesting. Or, not...

Still...

I'm going to purposefully, blatantly sound like a fuddy-duddy, but this is a good excuse to revisit my occasional compelling need to post a music video. Remember when pop stars were pop stars because they could. just. sing?

Results 2008

Well, I try really hard to avoid talking about politics, but I don't see how anyone can say nothing about this year's presidential race; especially now.

The most important thing I can say about Obama's victory, for myself, is that I realize it is deeply meaningful in profound ways, ways that many of us cannot possibly fully appreciate. Watching news coverage of people weeping, screaming, running and dancing in the streets and—I could be imaging it, but—the general excitement and pride I believe I've encountered in LA this week, is precious. I am very, very, very happy for this meaning in Obama's victory. I am grateful to be able to say that I've been a witness to it. And for those who smirk at the idea of this being the "most important" thing I can say, well, my response is that in my opinion you truly underestimate its meaning.

Other than that, during the campaigns I found myself more frustrated and saddened than ever; largely because I paid more attention to this campaign than any other, partly because I'm getting older, and partly because I pay more attention to rhetorical strategies nowadays. All of the candidates bent the truth (I'm being kind) with impunity, both potential presidents made promises they cannot possibly keep, and both said they will do things they cannot possibly do. My biggest frustration and sadness in this campaign was simply the further maturing realization that as a consumer of political propaganda, punditry and "analysis," I am assumed to be a gross moron fueled by fear, raw emotion and selfish motives. To whatever level, in actuality, that I rise above that, I have been deeply offended by the whole mess of it all. I almost, very closely, refused to vote. But as I've noted previously in this blog, I hold, in faith, to the importance of voting. So I voted. For the dude I knew was going to lose anyway. I cast a vote not for a person, nor for a party's ideology, but for my own ideology, and in a manner that would not be a part of anyone being put into the white house. My vote was one of supporting an idea while rejecting its methodologies; of supporting the process in principal while not being a part of it in effect.

And this may well mean, after all, that I am a gross moron fueled only by fear, raw emotion and selfish motives. The strange loops of being human are seemingly unavoidable.

Love You Girls

To my girls. I know you're too young to be reading this blog, but I'll miss you this week. I'll think about you constantly. Remember what I've said all of the time, all of your life?

 

I love you.

I Love you very day.

I love you all the way to the moon and back.

And I'll never stop.

 

You bring my life joy, girls. Thank you.

I love you,

Daddy

Merton Monday 30

we all become doors and windows through which God shines back into His own house. — New Seeds, chapter 9

Worthwhile Work

Next week work will be taking me to LA. The week after that I'll be heading to… well, someplace else. Geez. I hate flying. I have a phobia. It terrifies me. Think "Rain Man." Anyway…

This week I've met a few well-travelled folks, people who are retired and spend their time travelling about the country building homes with Habitat for Humanity. My boss has extended me the luxury of working on a Habitat house in the day, and working my real job at night. I think I'm not wise for assuming this schedule, but I am thoroughly, thoroughly enjoying helping build the house. I get to do physical labor, I meet generous folks, I do something good for another family, and I feel like I'm living like I'm supposed to. And, you know, it's a good thing for one's humility to do something you know little about. I have no idea how many times this week I've been shown what I've done wrong. But there are some really fine, practical, hands-on educators doing this stuff. I've been working with a guy and I'll ask him, "So, how do I do this? What am I doing wrong here? How do I fix this?" He'll show me how to do it, and then have me do it myself. Then he'll say, "Do you want me to tell me you why?" and if you answer in the affirmative, he'll explain the reasoning behind the action. I am always fascinated that there's a reason behind pretty much everything, and that a zillion little things are discovered throughout history, preserved and passed down and taught, becoming common knowledge in a particular community. Anyway, I like this approach to teaching. Tell somebody how to do something. If they're happy with that, so be it. But then offer to explain why that's how it's done. If they want to know, tell them. Either way: easy, efficient, done.

One of my kids asked me why I'm doing this. So I explained, again, that everything we have, and everything we can do, has been given to us for a reason: to help other people. Hopefully, one of these days it will stick. And hopefully, one of these days I'll do a better job of living up to it myself.

Here's the interesting theoretical aspect to the experience: you've got the two poles of American socioeconomic political theory coming together in a way that works very well. The company sponsoring this house is a big-business capitalistic enterprise which just so happens to have invested one and a half million dollars into Habitat, and on this gig is pitching in big time. On the other hand, there's an element going on concerning the haves and the have-nots, about socioeconomics and about what's fair and what's not, and about people who aren't worried about getting their hands dirty and their knuckles busted. It's a really interesting mix of various ideologies coming together both in theory and in individual people. The frameworks battling it out silently and far behind the scenes are enormously complex. But, I like my version: everything we have, and everything we can do, is to help other people.

This basic understanding and agreement is part of what I'm preaching in life.

Merton Monday 29

It is useless and even laughable to base political thought on the faint hope of a purely contingent and subjective moral illumination in the hearts of the world's leaders. But outside of political thought and action, in the religious sphere, it is not only permissible to hope for such a mysterious consummation, but it is necessary to pray for it. We can and must believe not so much that the mysterious light of God can "convert" the ones who are mostly responsible for the world's peace, but at least that they may, in spite of their obstinacy and their prejudices, be guarded against fatal error. — New Seeds, chapter 16

Merton Monday 28

If I am to be "holy" I must [be] something that I do not understand, something mysterious and hidden, something apparently self-contradictory; for God, in Christ, "emptied Himself." He became a man, and dwelt among sinners. He was considered a sinner. He was put to death as a blasphemer, as one who at least implicitly denied God, as one who revolted against the holiness of God. Indeed, the great question in the trial and condemnation of Christ was precisely the denial of God and the denial of His holiness. So God Himself was put to death on a cross because He did not measure up to man's conception of His Holiness. … He was not holy enough, He was not holy in the right way, He was not holy in the way they had been led to expect. Therefore he was not God at all. […But] in reality this manifestation was the complete denial and rejection of all human ideas of holiness and perfection. — New Seeds, chapter 8

Faith, Humility, and Plato’s Dilemma

As noted previously, when I was typing my post on Plato's Dilemma, I got to the two words "be humble" and was suddenly struck by the idea of my religious faith being a metaphor for the issues surrounding Plato's Dilemma. The parallel runs something like this:

God exists. God is truth. God is knowable, but only as something unknowable; what we ultimately come to know of God is God's ultimate un-knowable-ness. So, we acknowledge that there is Truth, we acknowledge that somehow it can/should/does guide our lives, but we also acknowledge we cannot fully ascertain nor articulate it. We must address the idea of God, of relationship with God. We must decide notions of faith for ourselves. But doing so involves making claims. It involves abiding in an ideology. We cannot/should not/must not make absolute claims. We cannot say our faith is superior to another person's faith without claiming to be God ourselves, which we most certainly are not. We must not judge another. In the face of this, we form a faith of our own (as Paul said, we work our salvation "with fear and trembling") and we hold it in the utmost of humility. We know it is frail because we have worked it out. We know it is precious because God has made it so. The key comes down to holding our faith in deep, profound humility before God and other human beings.

In other words, faith involves living according to a personal ideology concerning Truth, one that we must value, therefore live by, and therefore in some way espouse for it to be a faith worth having. Yet, we cannot universally verify or validate a given faith in human terms. And, since we cannot verify or validate it, we understand that each person's humble faith is just as valid as our own. Yet from a particular point of view, to say that every faith is valid is to negate the idea of Truth, and therefore the value of faith. Plato's Dilemma.

However, after years of wrestling with this issue in terms of faiths, I have resolved it to my satisfaction with this idea of humility; with this idea that it is not the intellectual particulars of faith which make it faith. Rather, it is the heart, the spirit, the humility of the faithful which is the key. The view needs to be elaborated upon to explain well, but it is a workable solution. I like to say in metaphorical terms that we religious folks spend a lot of time arguing over what kind of clothes (causal, dress, business) we are supposed to wear in the sight of God, but God only cares about the fabric; not the style or cut of the garments. Likewise, God cares about our heart, our humility, our submission and devotion to him at a deeply personal level. I don't think God is interested in doctrine and dogma.

And so. Reading Gee's work on Plato's Dilemma, when I understood Gee's point intuitively, as if it were a long lost friend suddenly formally introduced, and when I recognized that (contrary to Gee's claim) a solution exists, and it rests in intellectual humility, I was thunderstruck by the parallel to my personal view of faith. And I had to ask myself, which is the chicken, and which is the egg? As a born existentialist, have I worked out my faith as a response to a pre-existing intuition of Plato's Dilemma, or is my intuitive grasp of Plato's Dilemma, and the solution to it that I see as perfectly natural, born of my pre-work performed in working out my faith?

An interesting question, and one that could be asked more directly by asking if my view of God, Man and faith is based largely (merely?) in my existentialist mind. At present, I would wager that both my faith, and my grasp of Plato's Dilemma, are based in my existentialist nature. Which gets back to my posts of this year regarding belief, reality, and faith. We truly believe only what are minds of capable of truly believing; we can do nothing else.

A closing point? A takeaway? I left it sitting on a doorstep in my previous post: be humble. To read, to hear, to interpret, to speak is to take a stand. Our stand may not be superior to any other. Or perhaps it may be. We may never know. This doesn't make our stand unimportant. But it does mean that we should stand humbly in a humility that recognizes it may be wrong, and in an even greater humility that recognizes it may be right.

Plato’s Dilemma

AH HAH! So now I understand my hand-wringing and vacillation about posting my opinions on debatable matters. Now I understand in a simply-stated way what for years I've been fussing with and dancing around. Now I know that this middle ground has a name. Now I've seen it in print. In an academic work. And everybody knows that makes it official: Plato's Dilemma. Yep. Plato's Dilemma.

Literacy scholar Dr. James Paul Gee briefly describes what he terms Plato's Dilemma, and my summary of his brief description follows presently. Plato's argument against the written word was that it could not answer back to a questioning reader. A reader could not ask the text itself, "What do you mean?" and receive a newly phrased answer, as could be done in oral dialogue. Furthermore, a text could make no decision as to whom it presented itself; crudely meaning, somebody too ignorant to have any business reading it. On the other hand, if one simply presented texts with an official interpretation that was unquestionably authoritative, this was no better than the history of oral myth (which is to say, Homeric myth) which blindly guided the society of Plato's time and place. The dilemma in short is this: (1) To force an interpretation upon a text is to exercise mind control, authority, etc. over the people and dupe them as fits your needs rather than theirs, but (2) to allow every reading of a text to be considered legitimate is to at once say no reading of the text is legitimate, and therefore have no need of the text.

I realized immediately as I read Gee's presentation that this paradox plagues us on many levels. Consider that "text" is not necessarily a written sheet of paper, but can be any discourse. One can see that if we look at religion, the same point arises. If "anything goes" as far as views of Man and God, then there is not much point in talking about Man and God, for there is no Truth. On the other hand, to claim a view as "correct" or "incorrect" or more or less one or the other is to align oneself with an ideology and claim its supremacy over others. It is to privilege oneself implicitly; and who has this right, to claim to know the Truth?

And so we must do what we should not do. In my terms, this is the dilemma restated. Where does a person place her or himself vis-à-vis this situation? Is there no truth to be rightly claimed anywhere, or do we risk the arrogance to claim that we, few or one among many, possess it? Gee states there is no way out of this dilemma; to "read" a "text" is to instantly form an opinion and align with an ideology. Certainly, as Gee points out, Plato was not innocent. His solution, offered in The Republic, was that texts should be limited in distribution and always "correctly" interpreted by philosopher-kings; people like… Plato, of course. The issue comes down to how we deal with this; what do we do in facing the fact that our choice is either nihilism or privileging ourselves above others?

In two words: Be humble.

… … …

[*cough.* It just struck me that my faith-based, existentialist thinking views (uses?) religion as a giant metaphor built upon this basic problem of human existence. *cough. * ]

Merton Monday 27

Every one of us forms an idea of Christ that is limited and incomplete. It is cut according to our own measure. We tend to create for ourselves a Christ in our own image, a projection of our own aspirations, desires and ideals. We find in Him what we want to find. We make Him not only the incarnation of God but also the incarnation of the things we and our society and our part of society happen to live for.

Therefore, although it is true that perfection consists in imitating Christ and reproducing Him in our own lives, it is not enough merely to imitate the Christ we have in our imaginations.

[…] Therefore if you want to have in your heart the affections and dispositions that were those of Christ on earth, consult not your own imagination but faith. Enter into the darkness of interior renunciation, strip your soul of images and let Christ form Himself in you by His Cross. — New Seeds, chapter 21

A Brief Re-Visit With “Judge Not”

I'm a little tired, and I skimmed it pretty quickly, but this seems like a pretty useful presentation of Jesus' injunction to not judge others.

Heads or Tails?

Clichés, almost by definition, are oversimplifications: "There are two sides to every coin," or "There's good and bad in everything." But, for the purposes of this post, I will make use of such an oversimplification.

This week I was reading a news article about creativity and mental disorders. According to whatever the latest studies are, there seems to be some sort of link between the two. Really? Wow. I never would have guessed that. What I found interesting in this article was that it claimed not that one causes the other, but rather that the two are linked by sharing one or more precursors in one's brain/mind. I take that to mean that one or more traits in a person results in some particular type(s) of creativity and some particular type(s) of mental disorder. A small distinction, but one I find interesting.

If a shrink asked me the classic, "Are you troubled by persistent, nagging thoughts?" I would answer with something like, "Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah I am. Definitely. I am. I'm troubled by persistent and nagging thoughts. It's like they're stuck, in my brain. I can feel them, right here (*pointing to some place on my skull, and pressing my finger down hard*). What's up with that? What does that mean? Should I be troubled by the fact that I'm troubled?" And, fifteen minutes later, "Can I ask a question about the persistent and nagging thoughts again…" and, days/weeks/months later, "I was wondering if we can talk about persistent nagging thoughts. I've been thinking about them constantly, and, uh, is there like a persistent meta-nagging meta-thought about persistent nagging thoughts, 'cause I've been thinking constantly about it since the moment you mentioned it…" Yeah. And of course there's worry. Anxiety. Guilt. All that stuff. I like the official word for it: Rumination. Having thoughts go over and over in your mind, never being settled. It's like your brain isn't satisfied, refuses to be satisfied, unless it's grinding its gears on something it knows it shouldn't be worried about. It's a very hungry monster who serves no purpose but to produce fuel and then consume it in a tight and never-ending cycle that produces nothing but pollution. It's not very fun. I often wish I wasn't this way. But then again, how else would I be? If I were different, what would I gain, and what would I lose?

I remember writing once many years ago in a journal something to the effect of: "My mind has never been empty. Not once has it been without thought. Perhaps this is my strength. Perhaps this is my weakness." So, it's not like I haven't thought of this stuff before (and yes, that statement is both ironic and unsurprising). The core of the issue, for me, is that not all of the activity in my mind is an endless loop of fear/worry/anxiety/guilt. A lot of it is composed of those things, but on the other hand a lot of my mind's behavior results in outside-the-box, inspiring, emotionally moving, compassionate, extremely positive perceptions of the world. So one has to ask, if me, would getting rid of the former result in losing the latter? If so, would the loss be worth it? Would getting rid of mental "disorder" be worth giving up the way one sees and dwells upon beauty? I tend to think, over and over and over and over and over again, not. Which leads, because I say so, to part two of this post.

What is a mental "disorder?" As I understand it, a "disorder" is something that affects the quality of life of a person or those around him or her. In other words, a person is disordered if he or she feels disordered, and/or a majority of people close to him or her feel it to be the case. So, if a guy firmly believes he's a parakeet, eats grain all day, sits on a perch instead of a couch, and chirps a lot, but neither he nor anybody in his life is bothered by it, he doesn't have a disorder. He has aberrant behavior traits, but not a "disorder." (I should say at this point that I am not legally nor professionally—nor educationally—qualified to make any of these statements, in case one of you readers might have inferred something other than the obvious. I'm just stating my personal take on the issues.) Conversely, if a gal is pretty much "normal," but is somehow so displeased with herself that she can't function, then she has a disorder. She may even appear to others to be the most well adjusted person in the world, but still be disordered. So there is a whole lot of grey wiggle room here. My point? I think we call a lot of people "disordered" who aren't. We don't like their behavior traits, or they themselves think they are disordered because people tell them they are, but they aren't disordered in actuality; we just decide they are. We take our personal feelings and opinions, and reify them by claiming, as if it's concrete, "That dude over there has a serious problem." Maybe we shouldn't be so harsh and arrogant. Maybe the breadth of what is "normal" is much, much wider than we think. Maybe there is a large continuum of human psychology, and the continuum itself is what is normal; not just a narrow, boring band in the middle of it. And on the other hand, maybe some of the folks we consider normal are actually quite disordered.

And finally, there is good and bad in everything. There are two sides to every coin. Perhaps nearly all of us are normal and judged too harshly. Perhaps we are all disordered in some sense—all of us broken in some way or another. But I prefer this view: that both are true. That being broken, being disordered, being in some way impoverished, is normal. Heads or tails? You get both when you hold a coin. I suggest we pray to understand and see that the two are inseparable, and that this is what makes us human—worthy of being, and able to be, loved. "Normal", "well adjusted", and "perfect" are in no need of Love and Grace—but disorder, brokenness and poverty are. In this way, the latter are greater than the former. This is a Grand Mystery the Kingdom, and I choose to live within its walls. That's my view. And I think about it all the time.

Merton Monday 26

Here are some observations from Thomas, which I borrow in the moment to comment on the upcoming election, with no more nor less cynicism directed at either candidate:

A revolution is supposed to be a change that turns everything completely around. But the ideology of political revolution will never change anything except appearances. There will be violence, and power will pass from one party to another, but when the smoke clears and the bodies of all the dead men are underground, the situation will be essentially the same as it was before: there will be a minority of strong men in power exploiting all the others for their own ends. There will be the same greed and cruelty and lust and ambition and avarice and hypocrisy as before. — New Seeds, chapter 20

Slight of Hand

I caught most of the Biden/Palin debate. Or, if you prefer, Palin/Biden debate.

The most useful thing for me in the debate was that it touched on one of my favorite examples of politics in action. When asked about rights for homosexuals, Biden of course was quick to make it clear that his team supports the same rights for couples, regardless of orientation. Palin was of course quick to make it clear that marriage in her opinion is between a man and woman. Fair enough. But notice that when pressed, Palin's team admittedly supports the rights and Biden's team admittedly doesn't support redefining the word marriage. None of this should come as a surprise, since rights are rights and (I tend to think) nobody at the federal level is in any way interested in redefining marriage since it would be a serious legal nightmare. And as far as I can tell, the same was true for Bush and Kerry; two candidates with the same stand on each side of the issue—when pressed to say so.

This is the concise, clear example of one way politics functions. Imagine a rock held in each hand. One rock gets held behind the back, while the rock which appeals most to the emotions of one's base is waved around as if it were a diamond in the rough, possessed by only one party. Slight of hand, smoke and mirrors. Something from nothing. And it works. With respect to a great many issues, this trickery works. And for that reason and that reason alone, that it works, politicians employ it.

This slight of hand is so unsophisticated that there is only one general reason it works, which is that the voters are already biased and willing to believe that the rocks brandished by their respective candidates really are diamonds. This step is accomplished by convincing the voters that the other candidates are liars, the implication being that they lied once, so they're lying now, but (by gawd!) there must be truth somewhere, so by elimination it must belong to us (or, at least, we're the only shot you've got). To put it a little more brutally, you know the other side has no diamonds. They don't even have rocks. They have fistfuls of turds. So, hey, even if I don't have a diamond, at least I've got a rock. You don't want to vote for some party that deals poop, do you? Of course not. Rocks are better than poop. So, uh, check out this nice shiny rock. Could be a diamond, don't you think? Maybe? No? Well, just forget that. Instead, just think about how bad poop smells.

Slight of hand, smoke and mirrors. Something from nothing. And it works.

Amazing.

Merton Mondays ?

Geez. I've missed two in a row now?

They aren't going away; I'm just busy/distracted/tired. Here's hoping for next week.