Only Yes

Moved!

2011-07-05T14:54:00.001-04:00

Blog moved to Wordpress - July 2011.

God's simple will

2011-07-05T13:50:00.002-04:00

I am not so sure why it needs to be difficult: God's will is Reality, and God is none other than His Will. So God can only be found in reality.

In reality (hah!) this is harder than it should be. But the difficulty in accessing reality is what I would call Original Sin. These are the thoughts which drag us back into history with condemnations or vainglory, and push us forward into a lotus-eater cloud of poppy-induced stupor of fear or...vainglory...see the pattern? I do, I sure do. And I see myself repeating either the fear or the vanity subroutines over and over.

God is the most plainly obvious being that exists, if we but look. God speaks in the most plainly obvious ways, if we listen. Perhaps listen with the ears of our heart, as St. B. recommends.

Quite as obviously Reality does not speak using language, as Psalm 19 put it: They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them./ Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. At the same time it is not diffcult to understand at all. When I want to know someone's name I ask "What is your name?" When I want to know directions to a place I ask (sometimes my phone, sometimes the internet, but I ask!): "Where is such-and-such place?" I ask/type and I hear/read the answer. There is no reason to suppose it would ever be otherwise in a plain-and-simple world. And this is where we live. The world is very flat, and a brazen miracle. Yet we have penchant for the obscurities of pride.

And in this infection lies the very road to healing. It is through the fog and fever of vainglory that we must convalesce. It is so much easier to label difficulties as obstacles, as demons to be vanquished and exorcised. How much more interesting to develop a path of embrace and peacemaking. Why all this shouting of war? Why not embrace the demon which torments us?

I do not mean indulge the demon. But embrace the demon. It is just a mirage, a fantasy, a phantasm. How do we embrace a demon? You know you are facing a demon if you fear "it" (whatever it is). You know you are facing a demon if the mere thought of embracing "it" revolts you. You know you are facing a demon if despite the fear and the loathing you are aroused by its presence. You know you are facing a demon if there is a family curse. You know you are facing a demon if you feel weakened in will at the mere thought of it. You know you are facing a demon if you crave the shame of indulgence. You know you are facing a demon if you discover inhuman strength, supernatural cunning to feed it.

You are very well aware of all of the above (and more), but you anchor yourself in prayer, "Help me! God help me! Jesus help me!" The Jerusalem Community Rule of Life (JCRL) states: "To bring your prayer right into the city and to receive the city into your prayer. To live the link between action and contemplation, work and contemplation, the street and contemplation" (JCRL 2:14).

So, true prayer happens in the context of the reality of life. It is the LIVING of action AND contemplation. As the psalmist puts it "Among the dead no one proclaims your name. Who praises you from the grave?" (Psalm 6. See also 88, 115, etc). Praying is an action of living. True contemplation is just as possible in the car with your spouse as it is on retreat in a monastery or on top of a remote mountain.

In fact, the work which God has offered me as I sat idle in the marketplace, in the eleventh hour hour, the work which I have willingly accepted, is the very work of contemplation of God in the heart of Jesus Christ in the middle of this moment.

And it is a simple job, very simple.

A field guide to bullshit

2011-07-04T01:01:00.001-04:00

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028160.200-a-field-guide-to-bullshit.html?full=true

Quote: When someone is cornered in an argument, they may decide to get sceptical about reason. They might say: "Ah, but reason is just another faith position." I call this "going nuclear" because it lays waste to every position. It brings every belief - that milk can make you fly or that George Bush was Elvis Presley in disguise - down to the same level so they all appear equally "reasonable" or "unreasonable". Of course, you can be sure that the moment this person has left the room, they will continue to use reason to support their case if they can, and will even trust their life to reason: trusting that the brakes on their car will work or that a particular drug is going to cure them.

Scientists predict future actions based on brain activity

2011-06-30T16:38:00.000-04:00

http://scienceblog.com/45995/scientists-predict-future-actions-based-on-brain-activity/

QUOTE: The team found that by using the signals from many brain regions, they could predict, better than chance, which of the actions the volunteer was merely intending to do, seconds later.

Evangelism

2011-06-30T14:00:00.000-04:00

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/28/us-religion-conduct-idUSTRE75R36N20110628

Reuters says: A coalition of major Christian churches including the Vatican launched a rule book on Tuesday for spreading their faith that aims to reduce hostility from Islam and other religions to efforts to convert their followers.

http://www.oikoumene.org/en/news/news-management/eng/a/article/1634/christians-reach-broad-co.html

The World Council of Churches says: Christians reach broad consensus on appropriate missionary conduct.

The second sounds both more plausible and less aggressive - but that's journalism for you!

Here's the actual recommendations (.pdf)

The word that first jumps out is "respect" - self, mutual and solidarity. Also respect for the process of conversion (which can be lengthy and complex). Now a bad list of suggestions.

Bible code redux

2011-06-30T11:02:00.001-04:00

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2011-06-30-bible-tech_30_ST_N.htm

Imago relationship therapy

2011-06-28T16:02:00.001-04:00

http://blogs.psychcentral.com/therapist-within/2011/06/getting-the-love-you-want-interview-with-harville-hendrix-part-1/

Quote: we are born in relationship, we are hurt in relationship, we area healed through relationship.

Prayer is

2011-06-27T16:48:00.001-04:00

An effective connection
to intimate assitance
with retroactive consequences

Is male libido the ultimate cause of war?

2011-06-27T09:02:00.000-04:00

QUOTE: Across four experiments Lei Chang and his team showed that pictures of attractive women or women's legs had a raft of war-relevant effects on heterosexual male participants, including: biasing their judgments to be more bellicose towards hostile countries; speeding their ability to locate an armed soldier on a computer screen; and speeding their ability to recognise and locate war-related words on a computer screen. Equivalent effects after looking at pictures of attractive men were not found for female participants.

Tale of a Slave

2011-06-24T11:39:00.002-04:00

From Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, pp. 290-292: "Consider the following sequence of cases, which we shall call the Tale of the Slave, and imagine it is about you."

Worth chewing on this one! At which point is it no longer slavery? From my perspective as long as there was no consensual relationship than it is slavery. No matter how "free" (or democratic) - if I cannot choose, and do not have the power to or the means to, end the relationship, then it is slavery, no?

There is much we are slaves to. Some quite willingly we enter into contract, and as long as it gives us benefits (pleasure, security, etc) then we will continue enthralled. But the moment the requirements of a contract are distasteful (or even detestable) to us, then we will look for ways to break the contract.

Where does that leave us?

Experimental Theology: "Jesus Stopped": On Interruptibility

2011-06-21T10:10:00.000-04:00

Experimental Theology: "Jesus Stopped": On Interruptibility

Interruptibility, the idea that you are more important than me, is a critical component of Desert Father wisdom. Over and over again they practice hospitality. It is also, of course, a cardinal virtue for Benedictine spirituality.

Of the many many stories of hospitality in the desert tradition there is this one, which I strive to make my own: "A Brother came to a hermit. As he was taking his leave he said, 'Forgive me, abba, for preventing you from keeping your rule.' The hermit answered, 'My rule is to welcome you with hospitality, and to send you on your way in peace.'" (in "Desert Fathers" by Benedicta Ward)

In doing that you fulfill all the law and the prophets, as it were.

The Art of Narcissism

2011-06-21T09:34:00.000-04:00

http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2011/06/wolfram-hahn/

QUOTE: "In the self-portraits, you can find a lot of stereotypes and icons from movies, advertising and the music industry. Somehow, this network of self-portraits is a mirror of society."

I do not get it, not fully. Of course I understand that we are infinitely interesting to ourselves. How could we not be? We are the primary source of pleasure and pain in our lives. We are the source of cravings and source of satisfaction. We are for ourselves like we cannot be for anything or anyone else.

I know this insight sounds profoundly idiotic. My point precisely. It is as idiotic as narcissism.

Why do we love ourselves so much? Why would we turn the camera at ourselves, over and over?

First a confession: I have not ever, to the best of my recollection, done a self-portrait. At least not for the pleasure of it. I have had my picture taken for various official documents and other means of identification. But I fail to see the need of capturing a self-portrait. A collolary confession: I do not find self-portraits of other people particularly interesting. Portraits I really do like. It is self portraiture which is uninteresting to me.

Still, like everyone else, once shown a group picture, my eyes first scan it looking for myself. And only then will I look for others.

Do I not remember the event which is being pictured? Was I not there? It must be something about having a chance to see me through another's eyes which is interestinng, perhaps. So this is how I look to you!

Because it is very very hard to break out of myself and see me as an "other." I would not say it is impossible, but it is a difficult trick. I live in this bubble of "me" which filters, tints and taints all that I am and do.

Self-portraiture might be either a way to increase the strentgh of this "me-field," reinforcing my self-esteem (a la the Twitter revelations of (in)famous celebreties and politicians), or it could be a way to help my egocentricity to lose its hold, to allow me to see myself as other, and thus weaken the grasp of the ego in defining my self-importance.

Perhaps.

Why I Am Not a Conservative - Hayek

2011-06-20T15:38:00.000-04:00

http://www.fahayek.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=46

The only Old Viennese that is worth reading at all times...obviously not (ever) Sigmund, but rather Friedrich. Together with his cognate from Prussia they form a great vaccine against most of what passes for thinking.

QUOTE: "What the liberal must ask, first of all, is not how fast or how far we should move, but where we should move. In fact, he differs much more from the collectivist radical of today than does the conservative. While the last generally holds merely a mild and moderate version of the prejudices of his time, the liberal today must more positively oppose some of the basic conceptions which most conservatives share with the socialists."

And, a little earlier, this zinger that explains more than is possible to ask: "Let me now state what seems to me the decisive objection to any conservatism which deserves to be called such. It is that by its very nature it cannot offer an alternative to the direction in which we are moving. It may succeed by its resistance to current tendencies in slowing down undesirable developments, but, since it does not indicate another direction, it cannot prevent their continuance. It has, for this reason, invariably been the fate of conservatism to be dragged along a path not of its own choosing. The tug of war between conservatives and progressives can only affect the speed, not the direction, of contemporary developments."

Bingo! "Conservatism" is the breaks, not the steering wheel or the engine of any area of knowledge. it's sole function is to "delay gratification" (or change). This is an important function, but let us not ask for direction from a conservative.

http://www.fahayek.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=46

Brain's Hot Mess Center Discovered

2011-06-15T14:03:00.000-04:00

http://mindhacks.com/2011/06/15/brains-hot-mess-centre-discovered/

So THAT's what goes on when I am asleep....

There Is No Evil | 360 Degrees of Mindful Living

2011-06-15T10:00:00.001-04:00

http://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindful-living/2011/06/there-is-no-evil/

The Power of Theory in Science

2011-06-15T09:19:00.001-04:00

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=the-power-of-theory-in-science-2011-06-15&WT.mc_id=SA_Twitter_sciam

Cross-check: Cool Science Classics for Summer Reading

2011-06-14T16:21:00.001-04:00

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=cool-science-classics-for-summer-re-2011-06-13&WT.mc_id=SA_Twitter_sciam

Everyone is a disciple. What is Your Discipline? | elephant journal

2011-06-14T14:53:00.001-04:00

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/06/everyone-is-a-disciple-what-is-your-discipline/

What colour is your breast-stroke? Or why synaesthesia is more about ideas than crossed-senses

2011-06-13T08:45:00.000-04:00

The interesting thing is how my oldest son has started a "campaign" (among friends and family members) to label "traingles" a color. One of his (less synesthetic) friends tut-tuts the idea saying "traingles are a shape." Since I am always looking for creative versions of things, I wondered out loud if triangle wasn't secretly a scent, which meant it was a taste...something on the more acidic side of things, perhaps lime?

Alan Watts: You Are Not A Noun. | elephant journal

2011-06-11T18:01:00.001-04:00

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/06/alan-watts-you-are-not-a-noun/

The Thin Membrane of Now | Guideposts to Happiness

2011-06-10T13:12:00.001-04:00

http://blogs.psychcentral.com/happiness/2011/06/the-thin-membrane-of-now/

3 Steps to Cultivate Hope, Compassion and Healing

2011-06-08T15:15:00.001-04:00

http://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindfulness/2011/06/3-steps-to-cultivate-hope-compassion-and-healing/

The Two Faces of Envy (And Which One Trumps Admiration)

2011-06-08T10:28:00.001-04:00

http://blogs.psychcentral.com/research/2011/the-two-faces-of-envy-and-which-one-trumps-admiration/

Running easy

2011-06-07T09:06:00.000-04:00

I hate running injuries. To be more precise I hate anything which does not include the words "donuts" or "recliner". For someone who hates injuries you would think that the wise decision would be to avoid running completely. In fact stay away from all forms of sports and any activity which involves heavy breathing.

My least favorite of all injuries is pulling a calf muscle. It is a really annoying injury. As far as injuries go it is a bottom-feeder. It really is. If you get a major trauma or even something which will give you scars you have something to brag about, and a fail-safe excuse to avoid mowing the lawn for a while. But a pulled muscle? As far as injuries go it is right down there with hang nails and paper cuts.

Last time I pulled a calf muscle I eneded up going to the doctor. The way it works is that I limp in and am asked by the receptionist what is my problem. I am pretty certain she meant my medical issue nto the fact that I was disturbing her magazine reading. So I say "Pulled my calf muscle" as she types away into her computer. I could not make out exactly what she wrote but I think I saw "Whinny middle-aged man needs his Mommy."

After waiting for the required hour I am ushered in. The nurse pulls my file in the computer and reads it with a smirk. She turns to me and asks "How are you doing today?" Well gee let's see, I am at a doctor's office, so I would say on a scale of 1 to 10 this day started as a solid 3. After having to sit in your germ-infested waiting room with teh TV blaring so loud that you might as well check me for a concussion it has shrunk to a 2. But it is still early, you can make me wear one of those hospital gowns and sit here for another 30 minutes waiting for the doctor...Without really waiting for my answer she says "Please put this gown on." Oh yeah, better and better.

After that she types some more on the computer. I am conviced the computer is simply a glorified instant message machine between the disgruntled receptionist and the under-paid nurse. The nurse probably types "Whinny - oh yeah! And you should see him in his gown!" I know she typed that for sure because of the loud laughter I heard from the reception area as soon as as pressed enter.

Eventually the doctor comes in. I can tell she is a pro because she has that look that says "I have spent more than you will earn in 20 years, and the best years of my life learning all 10 major bones in the body, so you better be here to amaze me!" I am convinced that my doctor had her fingers crossed when she took the Hyppocratic Oath because when she does a check up she wears a HazMat suit. She asks "What seems to be the problem?"

Well the problem is that I have already spent 2 hours here and no one seems to know or care what the problem is. The second problem is pain. Pain is always a problem, especially chronic pain. No one wakes up and says "I will get me a cup o' pain this morning with my donuts!" Well I am sure some people do, but they tend to be successful talk radio hosts, and not likely to be invited into my house any time soon.

The doctor looks at me that way my cat does before proceeding to give herself a tongue bath. The docotor, though half-feral and with a look of someone who wishes she had joined a circus, does not proceed to give herself a tongue bath. She instead systematically prods the ten major bone structures (see? going to school is worth something!) in the hopes that there must be something which hurts. When I wince I can see the Aha! in her eyes. A very brief spark of interest. "So, Mr. campos. Your leg hurts?" Uh yes. She presses a few more times, by the third time I am certain she is just playing with it the way a toddler will press buttons and giggle every time a light goes one.

The spark of interest disappears quickly as she realizes that the leg is still (a) firmly attached to my body and (b) is not green or brown or oozing with fluids. Oh well. She shrugs "Take it easy and keep off that leg." Brilliant! Medical school is wonderfuL!

She scribbles something into a pad and hands it to me saying it will help me "manage my pain." I am sure that over the countless aeons of Campos family history, my ancestors developed this fine capacity to huh AVOID PAIN?! They also developed a strange capacity to ENJOY PLEASURE...go figure.

I look at the scrawled piece of paper that looks like one of my youngest kid's doodles. I am not sure it will help anything...perhaps there is a secret formula here for how to recover the lost 3 hours?

Mitochondria

2011-06-07T07:08:00.000-04:00

http://www.herondance.org/reflections-wild-artist/

And one more thing: mitochondria come from the maternal line. We are all sons and daughters of Eve. There is a Buddhist Sutra which talks about our indebtedness to our mothers. Turns out to be truer than we think...

Stuff, Starve or Savor? Your Relationship to Food (and Life) | The Therapist Within

2011-06-06T16:37:00.001-04:00

http://blogs.psychcentral.com/therapist-within/2011/06/stuff-starve-or-savor-your-relationship-to-food-and-life/

Good stuff! The web is full of "savories" today!

Gozer the Gozerian

2011-06-06T15:38:00.001-04:00

http://genealogyreligion.net/ghostbusting-with-gozer

Oh this is very good. Both a good summary and a great study. Between studying Gozer and the Flying Spaghetti Monster we should, if we are able to be charitable enough, be able to identify common traits of religions which are anchored on rock versus ones which are houses built on sand...seriously! What is the loss if we find that all religions share three common concepts:

(1) religion as embedded into the social and cultural life of a society

(2) mythmaking, creative myth-ing(?!) as religion's primary "product"

(3) religion as the litmus test for insider versus outsider

QUOTE: In other words, people's ideas about the divine powers of the universe began to reflect the new configuration of human political powers in society. It is no surprise, therefore, to learn that about the time the human institution of kingship was created so too was the notion of the kingship of the gods.

Bingo!

DSM 5: PDD-NOS

2011-06-06T15:27:00.001-04:00

This disorder is supposed to be subsumed by a broader category of "Autism Spectrum Disorder". And, I kid you not, is called "Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified" - are you kidding me? How many of you would fail the test for PDD-NOS: do you or you child exhibit symptoms of some difficulty socializing with others? Check. How about repetitive behaviors wher eyou can get upset if disrupted - hmm I get cranky if you interrupt my morning cup of coffee... Check. How about heightened sensitivities to certain stimuli - wow! Let's see - video games? Sugar? Check!

I feel more than a little irritated at this kind of stuff.

We three

2011-06-02T15:05:00.002-04:00

Those were the days, I tell you! After spending an afternoon removing all the accessories from my new beach cruiser bike with counter pedaling brakes, things like fenders, chainguards, and the rear carrier which allowed you to, supposedly, carry groceries or school books.

My two best friends Chico and Edson and I, would go riding for hours on what some say is one of the longest gardens in the world (over 3 miles of gardens) with its endless curving pathways, statues and monuments. The equally long beach on one side and the busy main avenue on the other .

We would also go up and down the canals which are lined with jambolão trees (a type of plum, also known as jambolan or jamun in English) which were over 100 years old. The city has 19 canals, though the only ones that "really matter" were the 7 which empty on the beach and the serve as a reference for any place you want to go in town.

Navigation was always in reference to the canals, as in "Take Canal 3 and turn on Mario Carpenter, then take a right at Ana Costa and we will meet you at Brunella (a confectioner's shop with delicious treats)."

We would ride up and down the gardens for hours on end. And during those rides we would discuss all the important issues of the day. We would discuss our bikes and small improvements made and which was the best lubricant: oil or grease. Soccer was always a mandatory discussion. Amazingly all three of us supported different teams which frequently led to heated debates. We would discuss music, with profound topics such as whether or not Madonna or Cindy Lauper were the real deal - most of us thought Lauper was and Madonna would just fade away after one or two hits.

And then we would discuss women. Well it was not really a discussion. It was more of a liturgy. Edson was the older (by a year) and therefore wiser of us, having snuck a peak or two at his older brother's Playboy collection would regale us with forbidden knowledge.

The conversations would frequently begin with him intoning in a near whisper: "I read on Playboy that girls like that." At which point he would proceed to explain to us what "that" was. Chico and I would nod and agree without any hesitation, and without the faintest clue as to what he was referring to. Chico was the resident skeptic since he had 2 older sisters, and would frequently question Edson’s wisdom. Eventually we all agreed that sisters were not girls, as such, and therefore were not to be included in generalities about girl behavior. Edson would intone his 'misa est' by proclaiming "Girls are strange."

So much misinformation and sheer urban legends! But somehow a couple of things survived from all of these talks: one, women were to be handled very very carefully since they were highly flammable; two, the great danger made them have great value. Women to us three boys biking around a huge garden, were the most precious and desirable and scary things in the world. Second only to our bikes and soccer, or course.

Revised Bibles strive for balance - JSOnline.mobi

2011-06-02T13:48:00.001-04:00

http://www.jsonline.mobi/features/religion/122782179.html?ua=android&dc=smart&c=y

Religious Experiences Shrink Part of the Brain: Scientific American

2011-06-01T22:21:00.003-04:00

Quote: "It is also somewhat problematic that stress itself did not correlate with hippocampal volumes since this was one of the potential hypotheses proposed by the authors and thus, appears to undercut the conclusions."

I should say it is "somewhat problematic"!! Nevertheless, it is critical to see how whatever we are immersed in, immerses our brains, and therefore changes us. Or perhaps it is the other way around?

You are what you think, but not in a The Secret sort of way. Not even in a "name it and claim it" Osteen way. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say "You are how you think"?

Nynphomania and the brain (Slate Magazine)

2011-05-26T13:40:00.000-04:00

http://www.slate.com/id/2287146/

QUOTE: If you are a materialist holding the logical belief that the human brain, with all of its buzzing neural intricacies, its pulpy, electrified, arabesque chambers and labyrinthine coves, has been carved out over countless eons by the slow-and-steady hand of natural selection, then you will grant that specific brain regions evolved because they generated behaviors that were beneficial to our ancestors.

But not everything is so easily explained....

Protozoa Could Be Controlling Your Brain: Scientific American

2011-05-24T16:31:00.000-04:00

So much for free will...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fatal-attraction&WT.mc_id=SA_WR_20110520

The Hidden Message in Pixar’s Films

2011-05-23T16:07:00.000-04:00

A very interesting article.

QUOTE: The message hidden inside Pixar's magnificent films is this: humanity does not have a monopoly on personhood. In whatever form non- or super-human intelligence takes, it will need brave souls on both sides to defend what is right. If we can live up to this burden, humanity and the world we live in will be better for it.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/sciencenotfiction/2011/05/14/the-hidden-message-in-pixars-films/

Judge my running

2011-05-23T15:55:00.001-04:00

Judgement as a form of asceticism. To judge between good/bad, profitable/unprofitable ("all things are lawful") is a way ot leading a holy life. Always discern, always choose the better and the best. Be strategic, which is the same as being efficient - pick a goal, identify the path, and do things which will take you closer to that goal. That is strategic living. Let's say you want to run a marathon. If you spend all your time on the couch or pumping weights you will never get there. Both results are equally worthless in light of your goal. Your goal determines the value (good/bad) of all you do.

One more thing - know your enemies so you can forgive them. Any goal will have its allies and its enemies (or a tleast detractors). This includes people you know as well as forces beyond your control, or even beyond your ken. The "enemies" of running are: distance, time, conditioning, mental strength. There is not a lot of strength required in running long distance, but a lot of mental strength. So get to know your enemies and forgive them. Forgive distance and make it your friend. Look at the space between star and finish lines as opportunities to explore, as blank pieces of paper to doodle your life energy on, the opportunity to be creative, to express being, aliveness, joy. It always amazes me when I see runners who are scowling and tense as they run. It looks painful!

Forgive, also, time. You will not always get your PR. You will not always have the time to run all you wanted. Embrace finitude. Use the opportunity to bring more value to each second. Use time to encourage you (or spook you into running faster). Play with time against distance, and distance against time. Can you reach that next mailbox (distance) before you hit 45 minutesw (time)? Can you run up this hill (distance) in less than 1 minute (time)?

Forgive conditioning. This means your body. The body is often an ass and refuses anything to do with consuming energy. But sometimes it is also Balaam's ass and you should listen when it speaks. You have a certain body, and while you are able to remove some excess fat and increase some strength and aerobic conditioning there is a limit. You can only rise to the highest level you are capable of given your genetic-social history. When I was running my first half-marathon I realized that I could only run with my body. Now this sounds trivial and downright stupid, but to me it was a revelation. I was running with my hopes and dreams and running from my fears and humiliations (what if I pull a muscle? What if I bonk? What if I have to go pee?). But suddenly I realized that none of those things were running for me, if anything they were distracting me from the one thing that was runnign - my body. It was an incarnational moment. I ran with my body [note: by "body" I also mean mind, but mind-focused-on-activity, not mind-unfocused-daydreaming]! It was freeing, and somewhat humbling. This poor old thing! It was a moment of fragility, of recognizing mortality. And then a moment of triumph as I crossed the finish line, limping a little from a slight pull of my calf muscle, tired but elated. I did it! "We" (body and I) did it!

"We": body, time, distance. We did it. It felt like a jubilee. All debts between these parties were forgiven.

So what is your goal? What should be your goal? What are you doing now to get you closer to your goal? What should you be doing now? What will you do soon?

Faith in America: Get ready for change

2011-05-16T07:44:00.001-04:00

Read this today on USA Today. The author claims 3 main patterns: less creedal, less hierarchical, and more countercultural, or at least less Western-centric with emphasis on professional clergy, certifications and appropriate programs. Instead, the majority in the goobal South are trending towards lay-led charismatic expressions.

Compline prayer

2011-04-13T17:21:00.000-04:00

Holy Mary Mother of God and all you angels and saints
Please help me to pray to Our Lord.

I invite you into this moment, Jesus.
I surrender to you as my Lord, God and Savior.

Lord Jesus, let me be before you just as I am.
Let me know you just as you are.
Let us meet here and now.
Maranatha! Cover me with Your precious blood, and fill me with your Holy
Spirit.

Bring into my mind my sins of today.
Give me a spirit of contrition to repent even as those sins are consumed
by your forgiveness.
In your Name I forgive all others for the offenses that I took.
Especially...

In the Name of Jesus I renounce Satan, the evil spirits and all their
works.
Especially...

Heal me, change me, strengthen me in body, soul, and spirit.
Especially...

I Love You, Lord Jesus.
I Praise You, Jesus.
I Thank You, Jesus.
By your grace I shall follow you every day of my life.

"You awake? Guess you could call it that, my eyes are open." (Thelma and Lousie)

2011-04-09T10:04:00.002-04:00

In 80s my step-dad, mom and myself (my sister bailed out and went to Rio instead) went on a road trip from Sao Paulo to Argentina. This is a 1000 mile journey (though down there it is 1647 kilometers, it feels longer). My stepfather was Argentinian and he wanted to show us his hometown of Mendoza at the foot of the Andes (which, BTW is another 1000 miles form Buenos Aires).

On one particularly boring stretch of road, in the middle of the night, as we were trying to reach the next town on time, the car tire exploded. And I mean exploded, not just a whispering flat. no. BAM! Luckily my dad was able to steer us into safety, change the tire and find a truck stop in the middle of nowhere (somehow there are theses oases in the middle of nowhere quite often in Brazil). As they were repairing the tire it was found that a horse's tooth was what caused the fantastic explosion. A horse's tooth? Have you ever seen a horse's tooth. They are HUGE.

At any rate, the mechanic gave me the tooth. My mom was standing by the side, pointing a horrified finger at the thing screaming "unclean, unclean". But the man-folk prevailed, and I got to keep my treasure. In fact I had it for many many years. Of all the things I did and saw and bought during that month long trip, this was by far the most memorable.

I have come to believe that in every person, every family there this near-mythical thing called The Trip. Depending on the family you grew up with you may have traveled a lot. In that case there were many wonderful trips, but there is always one trip which stands out for you. Something changed then. If you have siblings then their trip may be a different one. But frequently there is one family trip which changes everything for everyone.

Hollywood, perspicacious peddlers of dreams and desires that they are, has often capitalized on that theme. You think of travel movies and it reads like a Who's Who of Hollywood: "It Happened One Night" and "The Wizard of Oz" (in the 30s); "Easy Rider", "Two-Lane Blacktop" and "Smokey and the Bandit" (Seventies); "National Lampoon's Vacation", "Planes, Trains and Automobiles", "The Sure Thing", "Cannonball Run" (all in the 80s); "Thelma and Louise" (90s); "Little Miss Sunshine" (00s). Phew! I watch too many movies. And I skipped so many!

But this is a much older theme. The earliest recorded story that we have is the Epic of Gilgamesh from Babylonia circa 2500BC. It is an epic tale of gods and goddesses and man and death and life. It involves, unsurprisingly the biggest, baddest road trip anyone can think of. Forget Vegas, baby, we are going down to the underworld!

Fast forward a thousand years or so (to 1100BC) and you get Homer writing the first blockbuster, the Odyssey, a great road trip basically about a boy and a girl. Really! Isn't it always about love?

Over and over we have traveled, and continue to travel.

Think of Abram who had to go almost 1,000 miles just to buy an "H". Think of the Jewish Patriarchs, of Jacob and Joseph (and wives and kids). Think of Moses and the exodus, and their search for the perfect felafel - eventually God gives them the heavenly kind!

Think of Jesus' own perambulations. Think of Saul having to drive to Damascus to get a name change, and then he went on another road trip to "Arabia" (no one knows exactly where, some suggest Sinai). And then he comes back only to go off again on a bunch of road trips. The latest of which is your own church - think about it - you go to church because God went on a road trip with a murderous zealot Pharisee named Saul about 2,000 years ago.

Name change! There is something deep there. Think of the disciples and how they got nicknames from traveling around in the Jesus van. Personally I believe it was Peter who nicknamed the brothers James and John the "sons of thunder", and I believe it had more to do with their insistence in having bean burritos when they hit the road...but I digress.

Do you not think that the disciples got together and told each other road trip stories? Peter would say, "Remember that time when we drove up to the mountain and it was foggy and there were those lights?" and John would chime in, "Remember that time we took the ferry across the Sea of Galilee and then Peter forgot where we were and decided to step out and go chat with Jesus?" And so on...

So what is your "road trip"? What is your National Lampoon's Vacation? What is your road to Damascus? Hopefully you do not have a "Thelma and Louise" story, but hey, all's good!

Think on these things! Think from where God has called you, and to where God is calling you. Make each day a step towards your Jerusalem, your Promised Land, your Exodus story, your Damascus.

And if you need some renewing of your mind, then try going on a trip - if possible a literal one. And if in your peregrinations you run across a horse's tooth, avoid running over it - they get mad. And you don't want to get a horse's tooth mad...

Blogging From a Babylonian Fiery Furnace

2011-03-29T19:46:00.001-04:00

It was a normal afternoon. I had finished my homework and was playing around the house. when I say house I mean a ninth floor 3.5 bedroom apartment in a poetically named Peace Street in the just off-cool suburbs of my home town. This apartment complex had trash chutes in each apartment, usually next to the kitchen (natch). You would throw your bagged (mostly) trash in there, it would crash down to the ground floor into very large bins which would then be collected by the garbage disposal people. Occasionally the trash would get stuck in a floor or between floors, and would need someone, usually the caretaker, to come around and prod it down with long brooms. At any rate, this afternoon as I was playing around the house I went by the chute and caught a whiff of some pungent smells. I opened the chute and could see a bunch of trash stuck just past our opening. Being that my parents had taught me the civic virtues, I thought I would do my part to help the trash down. That is the good part. the bad part is my pyromania. Combine the two...and well. My thought process was simple: Trash is stuck here. I have a box of matches in my pocket (doesn't everyone?). If I burn the trash to ashes it will go down faster.

With such brilliance that would have astounded a young Plato, I struck a match and threw it into the pile of trash....WHOOSH!

I might not have been very bright (or too bright my grandmother would say) but I was also not stupid. I immediately slammed the chute closed, picked up my toys and went to my room to play, as far away from the mess as possible. I did wonder what happened, though. It did not take me long to find out. Apparently the huge fireball inched its combustible way slowly down, floor by floor, spewing smoke and toxic fumes in every apartment. Eventually it landed on the ground floor where it proceeded to double-WHOOSH if that's possible, as it touched even more combustible material. The fire engines arrived, the police arrived. Not much after that they arrived at my door. I am still not sure how they could trace it to, ahem, me, perhaps it had something to do with previous accidents (incidents?). The worse part of my punishment was having to surrendered my prized box of matches and my 18 oz. bottle of starter fluid.

I hope you are all on fire this week as you work through our attempts at taming our minds. I did not emphasize this last time, because frankly I thought it obvious, but here is how I see it. We are all running around with our hair on fire. At least that's how our minds see the world and life in general. Hair on fire is not a good thing. It usually makes you a little more hurried than usual, and less prone to want to sit down for a while, have a cup of tea, visit with a good friend and discuss the formula for converting temperatures from Fahrenheit to Celsius.

Now, usually this is a bad thing. So why on earth would God say this: "When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them." (Acts 2:1-6)

All of us have fire in our hair, but this is (or should be) Holy Fire. The trick is to stop long enough to recognize it as such. So, pay attention this week to how crazy your mind is, how it makes you think you are on fire, and rushes you about.

You ARE on fire, but this is the kind of fire that does not consume bushes or hair! You can stay in it and not get burned. But you cannot stay in it without being changed...

Look over your Christ-likeness list and pay attention to all those flames! Let it rekindle you. Let the fire transform your minds. You can blow on the flames by working on the quality of your thinking.

Quality of your thinking

2011-03-22T08:05:00.001-04:00

The first stage of any spiritual exercise is to spend time looking for any traces of Christ inside. Being generous with myself as I can be with others I will be able to find quite a few. I am generous, loyal, encouraging. Of course, my mind always add a "but" - as in, generous yes, but how about that time when I wasn't? How about loyal? Sure, loyal when it suits you....and so on.

"As he thinketh in his heart, so is he." (Prov 23:7) Why is that? The version in the NIV reads: "For he is the kind of person who is always thinking about the cost."

In 1902 James Allen published an influential essay called "As a Man Thinketh":

Mind is the Master power that moulds and makes,
And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes
The tool of Thought, and, shaping what he wills,
Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills: —
He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass:
Environment is but his looking-glass.

In 2006 the best-selling self-help book The Secret written by Rhonda Byrne states:

Whatever is going on in your mind is what you are attracting. We are like magnets - like attract like. You become and attract what you think.

My grandfather always used to say that the world was a mirror, reflecting back to me who I really was. I have no proof, but I do not doubt that my grandfather, a voracious reader of obscure writings, probably read Allen.

But, there is something that has always bothered me, there is something dangerous about this way of thinking. The focus is how I think, how I feel, how I, how I...it is all about me! So there is a quality of thinking which is not always good. If I spend all my time staring at the mirror I might just forget to look beyond it, at my neighbor.

Everyone knows the myth of Narcissus: Narcissus was a hunter from who was renowned for his beauty. He was exceptionally proud of his own beauty to the point that he disdained those who loved him. The goddess Nemesis (who was the spirit of divine retribution against those who succumb to hubris and arrogance before the gods) saw his arrogance and attracted Narcissus to a pool where he saw his own reflection in the waters and fell in love with it, not realizing it was merely an image. Unable to leave the beauty of his reflection, Narcissus died slowly, without ever being able to look away.

At this point I think of one of my favorite passages from Paul: Philippians 4:1-9. Without a doubt if Narcissus had read Paul he would have avoided a slow, debilitating death entranced by his own beauty...There are other small "exercises" which can be done on a daily basis, on an hourly basis, anywhere, anytime, simple exercises to orient my thinking to God and God's will:

* I will focus my thinking upon heavenly, not earthly, things (Col.3:2; Phil.3:19-20; 4:8).
* I will think humble thoughts, not proud ones (Rm.12:2-3).
* I will set my thoughts upon things that unite me with my fellow believers, rather than separating me from them (Rom.12:16; 15:5; 2Cor.13:11; 1Pet.3:8).
* I will think like the Son, and not like the self-interested (Phil.2:2-4).
* I will think like the Spirit, not like the flesh (Rm.8:6).
* I will think maturely not childishly (1Cor.13:11; Phil.3:15).

It all your fault!

2011-03-14T14:09:00.000-04:00

The tsunami disaster that struck Japan has brought devastation at an
unbelievable scale. Looking at the pictures and videos the sheer
monstrosity of the thing looks like something from a Godzilla movie. I
am pretty certain that I will never watch Godzilla v. Mothra in quite
the same way ever again. Some may wonder why even watch it in the first
place...but that's another conversation.

Almost immediately following the first news reports disaster relief
organizations started appealing for donations. I do not want to be
callous about this so let me say that we should help, that our hearts
should be softened by devastation. But...

...a recent study ("Donating to disaster victims: Responses to natural
and humanly caused events" by Hanna Zagefka, et al) looked into why
people give more money to natural disasters like the a tsunami than
human ones like the crisis of Darfur. The bottom line: we judge!

If you are a victim of a natural disaster, then, the study shows, others
will have compassion and help you, since it was not your fault. But in a
civil war, it is less likely that people will sympathize, since wars are
(obviously) man-made "disasters."

For me this applies even in the micro level. I remember conversations
around the long dark cherry dinner table at my house when I was younger.
My father, it seems, was a firm believer in the Ben Franklin motto of
"God helps those who help themselves", going so far as to label
"communist" (a strong word in those days) anyone who suggested the need
for any social action. My grandmother, whose Scottish blood simply would
not allow her to agree with anyone, would hold on firmly to the Hilel
camp of "If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am
only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?"

So over rice and beans, delicious fried pastries called "pasteis",
toasted manioc flour with bananas, and copious amounts of passion fruit
juice, the debate between the Franklinites and the Hilelists would go on
and on...Oh how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell
together in unity! (Ps. 133).

But, it seems to me now, that both sides miss the crucial point, which I
hope we are all trying to work on: judgment. Not only judgment of
others, but judgment of ourselves. As you look in the mirror, and peel
back the layers of self judgment (wrinkles, resentment, vanity) and
search for Christ, until you see the face of Christ in the mirror. And
then knowing that you, with all your failures, can do the same for your
neighbor. Ah! Now we are getting somewhere!

Days to forget, impossible

2011-03-04T22:33:00.002-05:00

So what would a panic attack look like? I think I experienced one a couple of days ago. For an introvert to be forced to handle more than 2 hours of extroverted activities without a chance to recharge is very hard. To have to do it overnight for a period of 24+ hours total is lunacy!

My blood pressure was probably through the roof, and my heart rate was so accelerated I could feel my heart trying to jump out of my chest. And this I when I was sitting alone in my room. It took me about 4 hours to slow down enough to be able to actually sleep. I could not read or watch TV. I had enough common sense to stop at 3 beers, I am pretty sure that drinking would only have made it worse.

So add my terror with the constant, or near constant, questioning by others about whether I was OK. If you do not feel ok and do not feel like talking about it, the only way to get around it is to fake it. It is a lot of pressure to seem like I was ok, but it did stop the nagging.

On top of it all, there is my disrespect for 90% of the people there, my ever increasing lack of respect for the institution I work for. It is not that I think I am superior to the people there, it is a fact that I am better than they are. Not in an existential sense, of course. But in an educational and intellectual level. Is this hubris? Most likely. But it is also true. I simply had absolutely no desire to interact with any of the events and activities and people.

If only there was some dancing! With dancing I can just move and interact, in a sense, with others. Dancing (and music) are universal languages, and a great equalizer. To what use is my education if I cannot move to the beat? The best "conversations" I have ever had were done hip-to-hip on a dance floor.

What do I take from this? The importance of routine for me seems to border on the autistic. The same things on a daily basis: my time for reading and study and meditation, my evening runs. It is obviously important to have the capacity to control and organize my surroundings to suit my preferences - I do not think i am special in that sense, but rather this is a natural human need to terraform their environment.

Whenever I move into a new office or new space, I immediately go about "making it mine" - adding pictures to the walls, changing the lighting, rearranging the furniture. At home I change all the furniture around at least two or three times a year, much to my family's chagrin.

Oh I could go on.

The two days were horrible. I had to go through it alone. That was possibly the worse part, but also (possibly) the best thing. I know some things about myself much better now. I might just be able to be a little more real in my relationships, my interactions with others.

After about an hour punching a heavy bag this afternoon I feel like I have cleared all the poisons from my body. I am tired now, ready to go to bed. I hope to sleep well.

The royal road of all-giving creative love

2011-02-14T14:16:00.000-05:00

Found this quote on the Eighth Day Books blog: “Whatever may happen in the future, I know that I have learned three things which will remain forever convictions of my heart as well as my mind. Life, even the hardest life, is the most beautiful, wonderful, and miraculous treasure in the world. Fulfillment of duty is another marvelous thing making life happy. This is my second conviction. And my third is that cruelty, hatred, violence, and injustice never can and never will be able to create a mental, moral, or material millennium. The only way toward it is the royal road of all-giving creative love, not only preached but consistently practiced.” (Pitirim A. Sorokin, from The Ways and Power of Love)

My Review of PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE WATCH

2011-02-08T14:30:00.001-05:00

Originally submitted at UncommonGoods

Sometimes we need to be reminded to live in the present, and not be worried by what is in the past and what lies ahead in the future. Through its clever design, the Past, Present and Future watch by Daniel Will-Harris only displays the present time thus forcing you to only focus on what is happen...

Great watch

By spaceloom from Richmond, VA on 2/8/2011

Pros: Stylish, Unique, Comfortable, Quality Construction, Accurate

Cons: Strap is complicated

Best Uses: Work, Daily Use

Describe Yourself: Practical, Stylish, Athletic

This watch has received more comments than any other watch I have ever owned - and all of them good! People notice the red line in the middle and look closer. Once they understand the watch's "message" they usually add "Oh cool!"

(legalese)

Thoughts from the ditch

2010-12-17T10:14:00.002-05:00

Last night I was one of the cars you see on the local news which spun out of the road. Being stuck for 2 hours in a ditch by a highway, facing oncoming traffic, in a snow storm (even a puny, Richmond one) gives you time to reflect a little.

First the positives - I made much headway into Gulliver's Travels. I have it on my Kindle and so I had some good reading material. It was nice to be able to just sit and read - what else was I to do?

It says something that the only way I get to sit still for a couple of hours to read in peace and quiet is when I am stuck in a ditch.

Now for the more bizarre parts. The police was very prompt, and even prompter issuing me a ticket (court summons really) for "reckless driving"...what?

After about an hour (and countless cars, including many of my co-workers) a guy stopped with his pick-up truck, and said that for $30 dollars he would tow me out. That's the spirit! Spirit of something, but perhaps not Christmas.

After that another half an hour and a lady stops to make sure I am ok. Very nice. After her another pickup truck - also wanting money. Then a towing service. I had called AAA and was waiting for tow, so for a moment there I had a glimmer of hope, but no. The gentleman came out and proceeded to tell me how late AAA was running and how cold it would get in my car. So if I needed any help he would be glad to help me...for a fee.

Finally finally the AAA tow truck shows up (2.5 hours later). he then proceeds to tell me how he woke up feeling really sick and was throwing up all night but that his boss made him come to work anyways. Great! A disgruntled tow truck man. I confess that it did make me a little nervous.

After half an hour of tugging and pulling I was finally set free. Of course with the small glitch that I was now facing incoming traffic, and had to somehow do a 180 in slippery conditions in the middle of a freeway.

But all's well that ends well. Apart from about $1000 of damage to the door of my car, there really was nothing but a lot of sitting and reading, and this small slice of humanity.

What is missing?

2010-12-08T10:48:00.001-05:00

A colleague sent me today a link to the story of the sale of the original manuscript of Audubon’s Birds of America.

The book apparently sold for more than $10 million to an anonymous buyer.

What got me going is the sheer size of the thing! Look at it! Huge!

This brought back memories of oversized books. The first books which I remember being oversized were my Dad's collection of Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon comics. They were large books, and it was an incredible pleasure to (almost literally) fall into them.

As an avid Kindle fan, and a general cheerleader for e-books, I got to say that I do not miss print books at all...until I am faced with an object of such obvious beauty on its own, such as Audubon’s book. The experience of flipping pages of a well-bound book is, in my mind, a form of performance art, of perhaps one of those sculptures which require you to interact with them.

If you have ever held a book which is printed in the finest grade paper and bound with the finest leather you will understand what I mean.

But here's a point: this kinesthetic, sensual experience of flipping pages, smelling the leather, and what-not, has absolutely nothing to do with the content of the work! In fact, while it may bring its own pleasures (and it does) those pleasures are completely external to the experience of the novel - though I can imagine some works where the turning of the page be made into a necessary part of the plot, for example the Choose Your Own Adventure books which I loved as a child. But even then, it is not the issue of the turning of the pages, per se, that matters, but the reader's choice of actions - which can be easily emulated (and even improved) in an electronic format.

So I am left with this vague nostalgic feeling of "something lost" by the transition to e-books, but when I look actively for what exact element is lost, I find nothing.

All that is lost is a physical habit, which can be replaced by another - the stories will go on forever.

The dough takes care of itself

2010-12-07T16:23:00.001-05:00

"Ye gods! But you're not standing around holding it by the hand all this time. No. (...) [T]he dough takes care of itself. (...) While you cannot speed up the process, you can slow it down at any point by setting the dough in a cooler place (...) then continue where you left off, when you are ready to do so. In other words, you are the boss of that dough." (Julia Child)

Here we are, well into Advent, and in my house this means the most disruptive smells of my wife's baking: cookies, breads, cakes, and various other delectables. It is impossible not to be carried away with their smells, and the mind goes off in many a gustatory reverie.

I remember trying to read a theology book ("For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy" by Alexander Schmemann) which began by saying "You are what you eat." And then went on to talk about the Eucharist. I could not go much further as the impact of that thought arrested me. We all know the saying about being what we eat, but I had never thought about its implications for the Communion bread. If I am eating God (in a sense) then...

But let us go a little further. You not only are what you eat, but you function on what you eat as well. We all have heard about the positive (or detrimental) effects of diet on mental as well as physical performance. Could there be, I wonder, I connection between spiritual performance and diet?

Taking this to another level, very few of us eat what is unappetizing. Yes, some of us had to learn to like this or that food - mostly because of parental enforcement or medical enforcement (I am yet to meet someone who actively enjoys Metamucil for example). Eating is one of the earliest forms of socialization. I remember my shock and horror the first time I tried Bovril on toast...if you do not know what Bovril on toast is like I would recommend you contact Br. Bede and Sr. Therese who I am certain will be able to regale you with culinary tales to fire your imagination (you can also go to the Bovril Shrine here: http://www.medianet.ca/bovril/bovril.htm).

On our last trip to visit my family in Brasil I introduced my wife to a culinary treat of ours called "farofa." She pithily described it as "eating sand"...it is toasted manioc flour - and that's pretty much it, though there are regional variations where things like bacon are added to it. Usually the kids bread a banana on the flour and eat it! Yum! She was not so impressed.
Of course, the most perfect food for our spiritual bodies has to be Eucharist. Whether you are a Tridentine Catholic, serious Oxford Movement Anglican, a no-candles-on-the-altar Calvinist or something in between, the sharing of a meal together as Christians in remembrance of Christ's sacrifice is the most nutritious aliment known to humankind.

So for these last couple of weeks as our heads swim in Christmas cookies, puddings, turkey or ham, candy canes and other such wonderful things, take some time to (re)watch Babette's Feast.

Also pause and consider: could all this pleasurable eating be a kind of thinking? Or, conversely, what kind of thinking is fueled by all this good eating? Nowadays we talk a lot about different types of intelligence - things like musical intelligence and kinesthetic intelligence and, of course, the old emotional intelligence. Is there such a thing as "foodie intelligence"? Can pleasure be a form of thinking? Further, should you seek/expect pleasure from sacraments?

The Romance languages, like French and Portuguese, have different words for pleasure ("plaisir" and "jouissance" in French, "prazer" and "gozo" in Portuguese) - and it makes me wonder - can we re-discover the levels and differences in pleasure (not all are good of course)? It would bring me much pleasure if someone were to write a book which would tease out these differences theologically, similar to what C. S. Lewis did in The Four Loves. Can we write The Four (or Five or Seven) Pleasures? What is contemplative pleasure anyway? I believe the answer to this last one is encompassed by the Julia Child quote above!

Pride, self-deprecation and humility

2010-11-19T20:50:00.004-05:00

Those who are indifferent to praise or blame have great tranquility of heart. (Thomas a Kempis)

Truly, I say to you, unless you repent and become like a child, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like a child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:3-4)

Self-deprecation in any for whatsoever is a cancer. You must fight it with all your strength. How do you know if you are doing it? This is where pride comes in. Self-deprecation is usually generously peppered with feelings of shame, guilt and anxiety when we are faced with calls to "curb out pride".

This behavior has nothing to do with humility! My definition of humility is someone who has no pride and thus feels no shame, guilt.

Humility has to do with realism. To be truly humble is to have a clear view of our reality. If you are a good pianist, for example, and have been gifted with musical talents, it would be a grave fault to deny those talents with a self-deprecatory remark (this would be hiding your talent in a hole in the ground). If the reality is that you are a talented musician, then give God the glory and say "I am a good musician, thanks be to God!" that is not arrogance, that is humility.

But, if you have acknowledged your sin (and don't we all do so daily, at least at Compline? If not more often!?); if you have committed yourself to pursuing holiness (and all Christians have done so), then do not fall into the trap of shame and guilt (and therefore pride) when your sin is revealed (either privately in your prayers, or publicly).

No one is called a Christian because they are holy (well maybe one or two of you). We are Christians because Christ has opened a way for us to be truly holy and perfect, and we have heeded his call, dropped our nets and followed him.

Here's the question in my meditations: since Christ did all the work, how can we be concerned with our worth? The prideful are slaves to their audience, but we are slaves of Christ. Who is your audience? The prideful are shamed when they do not live up to their audience's expectation, we want only to hear the Master say "You good and faithful servant." Who do you live up to? The prideful need others to see them in an idealized way, and go to many lengths to make sure their public image is spotless, we repeat constantly to ourselves: "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you." (Matt 5.11-12) How polished is your public image?

Humility heals our broken selves, and releases tremendous amounts of energy. I mean physical energy. The humble is like it says in the psalms:

It is God who arms me with strength and keeps my way secure.
He makes my feet like the feet of a deer;
he causes me to stand on the heights.
He trains my hands for battle;
my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
You make your saving help my shield, and your right hand sustains me;
your help has made me great.
You provide a broad path for my feet,
so that my ankles do not give way. (Psalm 18:32-36)

Praise the LORD, my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the LORD, my soul, and forget not all his benefits.
Who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,
Who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion,
Who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (Ps. 103: 1-5)

It is palpable to anyone you meet. The way of humility is the way of liberation. The humble is the only person capable of helping their neighbor remove the speck from their eyes.

So if you feel guilty, if you are denying your gifts from a sense of false modesty, remember this is pride. Throw yourself at the mercy of the Love of God. Confess your pride, "repent and become like a child", and enter the kingdom of heaven!

Sit

2010-11-18T10:36:00.001-05:00

This chair is all chairs
This is the Throne of Heaven
This, the throne of Hell
Sitting here, sitting at the heavenly choir
Sitting on the bus, on the toilet,
Sitting still as I drive, sitting
As I work away

My life is one, punctuated by
Getting up to sit somewhere else,
Moving to sit, hurrying to sit

All the leather chairs will fade away
All the hard wooden benches will
Break, all folding chairs, all
Church pews, fade and fail

When I an dead
I will sit on the earth
It too will fade away
Only my sitting will remain

Having a real enemy

2010-11-05T10:19:00.001-04:00

Without a doubt this is one of the more controversial aspects of spiritual life. I would say, though, that for the contemplative solitary having an enemy is a, well, god-send. At a fundamental level enemies keep us real, keep us in reality - rather like a wall keeps you in reality when you drive straight into it.

When I think about "enemy" I tend to think of those (people, things) that make me fearful of suffering (digest this for a moment). If I feel particularly archetypal I may think of my enemies things like disease and death. But Benedict says that we should always have our death in the forefront of our thinking. So either this is a case of "keep your enemies closer" or Benedict wants the monk to get over their fear of death. My guess is that Benedict wants us to think of death not as an enemy, but rather a wise advisor. Wise because death is not swayed by the petty ego, and thus is able to provide us with a perspective - a final perspective as it were.

But how about people? I have met too many Christians who take Jesus' injunction to turn the other cheek, as a way to refuse to accept the existence of personal enemies. "I love everyone" is their motto. I am sorry to say but this is frequently an anemic form of faith, closer to a moldy dark abandoned basement than a virile and ensolared power which brings light to the world.

My own self-analysis (for what is worth) leads me to believe that this is a particularly pernicious form of egotism. No one loves everyone that way. Jesus did not love everyone that way. He is LOVE, and so was quite capable of calling people "vipers", and Peter "satan"...

Benedict suggests that the purpose of the cenobitic life is to prepare someone (heal the petty ego, strengthen the good ego) to become a solitary and go out to do battle with the devil by themselves. The devil is everyone's real and final enemy, but there are other things to hold as enemies: the prophets did battle with the injustices of society, and they frequently called the king to the carpet, by name! (In this vein, have you ever wondered why the Bible frequently calls nations by personal names, like Ham for Egypt or Israel for the Hebrew people?)

Idea: instead of blaming an amorphous conglomerate like BP for the spill, we should pray at the CEO. Yes, "pray at"! : )

I propose to you that if you are not able to concretely identify at least one real enemy (yes a person, even if he or she is a figurehead), then you are not doing your job of solitary very well.

My challenge to us is this: how aware are you of your enemies? How many enemies can you list? Are there any real people in your enemy list? Can you change the list so that you have actual names (and perhaps even faces - Google them)? How are you doing battle with your enemy? What concrete steps are you taking? Daily? Weekly?

As you walk up to your prie-dieu realize that you are marching up to the front lines. As you pick up your breviary or settle into your prayer word, you are firing a shot at all that keeps people starving, afraid, suffering. All those headlines you see on TV, the newspapers and the internet. Be angry at it. Then look at your enemies and pray at them. Pray with all your might. Do not falter, not for one moment - you are redeeming the world one name at a time, one prayer at a time.

If it helps, think of this exercise as the shadow version of "love your neighbor". If you cannot name three or four of your actual neighbors, then I would say you are simply loving (and living) a fantasy.

2010-10-23T08:00:00.007-04:00

At some point attraction stops being a choice.

Those who are attractive are the people who spend time, regularly spend time figuring out who they are and where they are. Not so much plotting the future, but rather deepening their stance in the present. Making sure their presence is a present for others by, strangely, being deeply present to them.

When you stand before a beautiful work of art - the beauty makes you speechless, perhaps for a second perhaps for days.

When I stood before Monet's Water Lillies in the museum in London, or Rodin's the Lovers, eternally kissing and embracing in marble, oh I was lost. There was never enough to look at! I can close my eyes and see it, in detail, it is not as if there are new brushstrokes or chisel cuts, but it is so profoundly itself that it is mesmerizing. Or when I read:

Every Angel is terror. And yet,
ah, knowing you, I invoke you, almost deadly
birds of the soul.

What would I not give to write those lines!? Or when I was in a very stressful job, riding the commuter train into London on one of those dark and cold and damp days which only the English know how to create. And around me were other malcontented commuters all dressed in their proper greys and blacks and browns. And then I read:

I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you,
And you must not be abased to the other.

I was not the same. As when I heard for the first time:

And if the elevator tries to bring you down
Go crazy - punch a higher floor

And I got it, I truly got it! I got it why rock and roll is so dangerous and why every dictator in the world wants to ban it! And probably why Plato banished poets from his Republic. And why the arts get little funding, or funding with strings attached from presidents and kings. And when I try to explain it all these half-asleep people nod benignly at me. They do not hear my roar, my bellowing roar deep in the pit of my heart, that furnace! Do you hear it?

And that moment comes, those moments come, you come to a standstill and can stop pretending, attempting, reaching. You can just be yourself because the beautiful presence before you is just being.

All of this is even more electrifying when it is another person, and not an object. Oh, objects can stare back, and when we notice the object looking at us it is a scary thing. Nietzsche said "When you stare at the abyss, the abyss stares back at you." He was right that old, crazy fraud.

But when someone stares back it is at that point that attraction stops being a choice.

And by stare I do not mean the hard-and-frowny stare, unblinking until tears roll down your face. It is not a game of chicken. Rather it is an encounter, subtle and gentle. More like the slow removal of a veil from the virgin's face - where she is expecting, trembling her first ever kiss.

Ever been in that place? Can you feel it now, as (perhaps) a warmth in your heart? How things which seem difficult and things which seem painful, don't quite disappear, but are transformed into scenery, into backdrop. Sometimes these moments when, soul-to-soul, you surrender (in spite of yourself) into an intimacy which a lifetime together may never ever reveal. And we seek it, oh how we seek it! We are all born to be known. To be revealed to each other in a nakedness of heart which is simultaneously intoxicating and devastating. Because we are fundamentally known at our deepest center.

And so I have no choice. I simply have no choice. Before you.

Leaves

2010-10-20T20:19:00.000-04:00

Leaves (for N.) by Leo Campos (10/20/10)

Autumn rain scribbles at my window
"Write this to her"

Dry yellow leaves
Across the parking lot
Scratching their way to winter

Better to finish as ashes of a fire
Than dust. Even when dead
The memory of the desire
(Which burned) can become the next flame's bed

The leaf whispers of love
To a sun-loving tree
As the wind takes it away

What are bodies for?

2010-09-22T11:06:00.001-04:00

A good blog (if you don’t read it). Today’s post is especially good: http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2010/09/nfl-players-porn-stars-and-body-of.html

But we don’t even need to go as far as these extremes. Last night I was talking with a friend about the mistrust/fear/paranoia involved in sex. I went off in my usual attack on Americans and their very unhealthy relationship to their own sexuality, implying all along (of course) that the Brazilian approach is healthier and better.

But today’s post brings “body” to a higher level. How about sports? How about fashion? How about diet? How about medicine? All things that directly affect (or use) a body will both influence and be influenced by it. A large person may wish to be thin but it may be simply genetically impossible. A highly strung person may wish to be calm, but their body fidgets. And so on.

We have a certain amount of plasticity in our bodies. There is much we can add or remove from it without necessarily destroying its basic functions. In fact we can destroy many of its basic functions without dying. With advancements in technology we can change size, shape and gender. It is not unfeasible to think that we will be soon enough able to modify ourselves down to the genetic level.

With all this freedom to manipulate our own bodies the question posed in the article are very pertinent: “Aren't the bodies of porn stars similar to the bodies of NFL players, and even the bodies of high school football players? That might sound extreme, but I'm throwing it out there for reflection. How are bodies sacrificed for our entertainment? And do we even care as long as we get our orgasm or that state championship? Two thousand years ago humans brutalized the body of God. And one wonders, has anything changed?”

The answer is that nothing has changed because we are still the same race. Perhaps in the future we will become more hospitable to bodies, our own and others, and also more generous and charitable.

For now I would be ecstatic to meet someone who could simply stand and be right there where they are standing.

Being present

2010-09-07T14:59:00.000-04:00

When you sit to pray make sure you are sitting there! Make sure you are actually present. "Be sober" means to not be delusional, to not be asleep or intoxicated. Full intoxication is not an issue with me. The danger is the partial intoxication(s). they come from many sources but I trying to narrow it down to the issues that pertain to prayer.

Main issues:

Faith in the wrong thing, or in a thing, full stop. Instead of a Person, The Person.
Focus, or lack thereof.
Patience, or lack thereof
Hospitality, especially to myself by inviting myself to the prayer time

Wrong faith: in this case what do I trust? Do I trust my feelings - and so I respond to them with such priority? Do I trust my thoughts, and follow them around in many many circles? Do I trust my nervous system and spent a long time worrying about pain or discomfort? Do I trust my memories? Do I trust my knowledge of the "right" way of doing things? And so on?

I spend most of my time dealing with issues of faith in everything but God and Jesus Christ.

Wrong focus: I tend to focus on what I trust, and ignore what is untrustworthy. This is natural and probably healthy. If a caveman knows for a fact that a rustling in the bush is a saber-tooth tiger and take appropriate evasive action, they more likely survived and eventually these survivors begat me!

On the opposite end, if I am certain that these sounds in the back pew of the church are NOT ghostly presences, I do not get nervous and simply ignore them as "wood creaking" noises.

So I focus on what I trust, and I trust that which I have high (blind?) faith in.

Wrong patience: it amazes me how patient I am with my favorite sins. As my friend once told me, "The only sins you keep are those you enjoy." The word "enjoy" here is used in the slightly ironic sense of unhealthy enjoyment. I obviously try to curb my avarice, gluttony. I blush at my lust. I haughtily ignore my pride. I am saddened by my sadness. I fight my anger. I am certain I couldn't care less about my acedia, since I am constantly sharing with others how far along I am in the path of self-discovery - and now am far above vainglory.

Wrong hospitality: instead of welcoming in the Holy Spirit and Jesus into my prayer, I spend a lot of time inviting tax collectors and sinners. I wish I could say I invited these characters of my own soul for the sake of their edification and healing. the ugly truth is that I invite them because I enjoy they taudry gaudiness. I enjoy their songs of lust and leisure more than I enjoy the psalter. So I throw a party and invite the murderer, the adulterer, the thief. hardly ever do I invite the Holy Spirit.

What is the solution?

Judging again

2010-08-31T16:36:00.001-04:00

Can I be a reasonable judge, in the old sense of the word "reasonable"? As in "And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy and living sacrifice unto thee."

When I first heard that sentence I thought it meant reasonable as in "appropriate" or "sensible" (i.e. not everything)! But my guess is that it does not mean that but it probably means something more like "intelligent" or "sound."

To be a reasonable judge of others means that I use my intellectual faculties to their fullest, both the analytical as well as intuitive and emotional sides, to grasp the full complexity that is a person - soul and body.

But to judge anyone I must begin with some prejudices (pre-judgments). These are critical. As a would-be judge must spend time working through my biases and predilections, not to necessarily purge out every vice (since that would be both impractical and impossible) but rather to know myself, to know where I am weak and where I need to be extra careful. I must spend time whittling down the log in my eyes so as to be able to help others with their specks.

I also must have some understanding of truth and reality. I must believe there is such as thing as perfect vision (20/20) and that it is objectively quantifiable (in a spiritual way).

You know how eye doctors use those eye charts with letters and numbers to test how accurate your vision is? And then they add some lenses and ask you to look again "Is it better now?" And so on. The process is very similar in spiritual life. We need to test our "normal" vision and find out how bad it is.

So the first test of "correct vision": can you see Jesus and Him only? If you can see Him clearly then your eyesight is fine. If not you need some corrective.

Second test is done in a community of believers where they are able to help you see better. Paul after the events on the road to Damascus needed that. Couldn't Christ, after blinding him and making the point, have healed his blindness? Why would he need to get Ananias (Acts 9) to do the healing? I cannot say what God was thinking but it is very fortuitous that God chose another believer to be the one who brought sight to the new convert. The fellow believer;through prayer;is able to restore my sight, to bring me back into focus. their holy life and example, their faithfulness to the call, their willingness to come to me when I am still far from the church (though, of course already saved by God), and then to pray for me, is what brings out the healing of my sight.

The third test is ongoing. I am going for regular eye checkups. Every Sunday, in fact, I gather with fellow believers and we check each other's eyes. We greet each other in the Lord's name, we gather to worship Him, we share a meal, we study His Word. This helps me make sure I am still seeing clearly.

Now that the seeing part is clearer, now that I am actively engaged in whittling away the log in my eye, now that I have people praying for my vision I am now empowered to be able to judge reasonably another.

Where does your hand go when you make a fist?

2010-08-30T15:10:00.000-04:00

http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2010/08/fist-and-hand-statue-and-lump-the-aporetics-of-composition.html

Question is it hand=fist, lump of bronze=statue? Or is it hand !=fist, bronze !=statue?

1) If you say hand=fist you are wrong because: “If you say that the fist = the hand, then when you make a fist nothing new comes into existence, and when the potter makes a pot out of clay, nothing new comes into existence. And when a mason makes a wall out of stones, nothing new comes into existence. He started with some stones and he ended with some stones. Given that the stones exist, and that the mason's work did not cause anything new to come into existence, must we not say that the single composite entity, the wall, does not exist? (For if it did exist, then there would be an existent in addition to the stones.)

But it sounds crazy to say that the wall the mason has just finished constructing does not exist.”

2) If you say hand != fist you are wrong because: “If, on the other hand, you say that the fist is not identical to the hand, then you can say that the making of a fist causes a new thing to come into existence, the fist. The same applies with the statue and the wall. After the mason stacks n stones into a wall, he has as a result of his efforts n +1 objects, the original n stones and the wall. But this is also counterintuitive. Consider the potter at his wheel. As the lump of clay spins, the potter shapes the lump into a series of many (continuum-many?) intermediate shapes before he stops with one that satisfies him. Thus we have a series of objects (proto-pots) each of which is a concrete individual numerically distinct from the clay yet (i) spatially coincident with it, and (ii) sharing with it every momentary property.”

Where does your hand go when you make a fist? You get a handful of fist? Or is it a fistful of hand? This kind of thing can be frustrating for some, but for me these questions are delightful. They work on at least two levels – one is a level of language and propositions, then other is the level of phenomenon and perception. As someone who engages the world predominantly through the intellect and others primarily through argument (the good kind, the kind that seeks the truth, not the shouting-until-I-am-hoarse kind) the first level of this puzzle helps me to remember the limits of communication and thought. But also its importance.

It does matter – at some level – whether there is a “hand”, a “fist”, or neither, or both! See in the beginning was the word, and that word was Light…or perhaps that word was “Make light”, or more imperative: “Light – be!”…at any rate there was a creation out of a Godly word. That very same Light at the beginning of Creation is shining in me: “For God, who said ‘Let there be light in the darkness’, has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Cor. 4:6)

The “very same Light” is shining in my heart. So: is it one light or two lights? How can the Light which started Creation be starting me, a new creation?

Here we bump into language, into the limits of intelligibility. Before I myself received the gracious enlightenment of the Spirit such wordplay was meaningless, but now I have come to see and know that there is no more apt or fitting description of the process. This words are inspired – in the sense that what they describe is fittingly, efficiently and correctly described. Further I have come to understand, to experience that that-which-is-described is protected and incorruptibly transmitted from generation to generation, from culture to culture by the Holy Spirit, who is at work even now in every person and committee which prayerfully seeks the Spirit’s guidance when translating Scripture.

I have frequently said that I believe in the inerrancy of Scripture the same way I believe in the inerrancy of a great poem: it could not be other than it is. But I have come to see this more broadly now. After all, a poem is perfect in its original language. Translation of a poem does it much harm and is inferior (no matter how good). Scripture is perfect in the prayerful reading, or receiving, of it. This means the words flooding a plowed and seeded heart lead to abundant fruitfulness.

In the meantime

2010-08-24T16:09:00.000-04:00

In the meantime put on the mind of Christ and go where he is, do what he is doing. Christ leads always by example. Watch him, and then mimic. Imitation is the sincerest form of prayer, to twist a term. But how do we do that? There are some things that need to happen first, and then there are some other things that need to happen always.

* Happen first
To anyone who wants to become a Christian you need to first die in Christ. you need baptism, and you need resurrection as well. You need Easter and Pentecost. You need to step up, or stand up, in a crowd of hostile and indifferent people and sing a new song to Yahweh. A love song, hopefully. But a new song is what is called for here.

You need to find that you have been found by Jesus.

* Happen always
You need to find a community of believers who want to be what you want to be.
You need to find a group who is encouraging everyone to greater effort at going where Jesus is going and doing what He is doing. I am not too concerned by the externals, the methods and practices by which this inner practice is achieved. Some like bells & smells, others prefer happy-clappy. It is all good if it is done for God.
Any serious group of believers will have a good grasp of where they came from and where they are going. This means a good grasp of history, of tradition, or reformation(s).
They will magnanimous with the past and hospitable to the future.
You will take time daily to soak in the Word of God. A nice long bath in the waters of Scripture will help melt away all troubles. Are you a morning bath or evening bath person? All times are good. Be diligent and deliberate.
You will take time daily to have a deep conversation with God. The ancient practice of "colloquy" (developed in some more detail by Ignatius) is a good place to start. Perhaps journaling.

* Eventually as you wait
Eventually, as you wait, you bring all of life to Him. This does not mean pray for intercession in this or that event (Oh please God, oh please God, let me/get me...). Instead this typing on a keyboard, this talking with someone at work, this TV watching - is done for and with Jesus through the Holy Spirit. Life becomes a sacrament.

Are you not clear yet on what to do? Then do nothing. If Jesus is not doing anything, or if you cannot see Jesus doing anything, then sit contentedly waiting. Waiting is the key here. It is a non-anxious but deliberate and attentive waiting.

Choices

2010-08-24T14:34:00.000-04:00

The serpent
Choice devours itself
Tail to mouth
Eternally
Trapped by its own
Hunger to God
Apples to apples
Choice to choice
From dust to death
If I choose now
If I choose then
I am encircled by Satan
If I choose not
If I refuse, resist
I am encircled by Satan
Ancient wise serpent
Mouth to tail
Eternity of hunger
Trapped in choice

Creativity

2010-08-23T16:26:00.000-04:00

Steps in creative thinking:

1) Fact-finding - divergent - broad inquiry into issues relevant to case. How? What?

2) Problem-finding - convergent - focus on possible solutions and design issues (too costly? too big?). Discard least likely to succeed. When? How much?

3) Idea-finding - divergent - from the possible solutions begin finding ways to implement it.

4) solution-finding - convergent. Look through possible (implementable) solutions and pick the best (beauty, simplicity, efficiency, cost).

5) Plan of action. Scale models. Negotiation. Persuasion. Alliances.

Divergent/convergent thinking:

· Divergent: open-ended, broad, wide

· Convergent: focused, narrow, deep

Applying to study of sacred texts:

· Fact-finding: When was it written? Where else was this written about? What else does it reference? What type of writing is this?

· Problem-finding: Why was this written? What is the message? What is the purpose? Who is the audience?

· Idea-finding: What are the possible interpretations of this passage? What are the possible implications of each interpretation? What issues does it address?

· Solution-finding: of the many ideas identified which one speaks to my current situation? What does it mean to me? Why should I care?

· Plan of Action: Who else should hear about this? Who else can I engage in this work?

Of course this approach can (should?) be applied to all forms of study. Perhaps it could be stretched to include all forms of communication? The first four steps involve active listening - not only not rushing to get a plan of action/advice but also asking questions which are both divergent and convergent. Only the final step involves speaking, i.e. offering suggestions, advice, to-do items.

If only I could be silent during four fifths of my conversations!

Poem

2010-08-19T13:45:00.002-04:00

It is white
         electric
And boundless - stretching in all directions
She said in the dark after we made love

I touched her curves still moist with sweat
Like a potter running his hands in wet clay

Boundaries, curves, delimitations
Uncovering and recovering hidden sacred grottoes of pleasure
Suffocating, intoxicating
                  closeness

The one word for me is embrace
No    she said   release

On intimacy

2010-08-19T13:43:00.000-04:00

False sense of intimacy: Facebook, email, Skype. At what point do we say you are intimate even if you have no physical contact?

Tabloid culture: a recent article in Newsweek taunts, "In defense of our Brangelina-loving, Jon and Kate-hating, Tiger-taunting, tawdry tabloid culture."

One of the hallmarks of intimacy is that I know both the good and the bad about you. We have shared enough time and words together that I know you in a more rounded way. I know you are wonderful with your kids, for example, but that you are very bossy at work. Or I know that you are incredible good listener, but that you are cold to your spouse and cheat on him. I know you have no fear in defending the poor and the orphans, esp. in other countries, but that you also drive this year's model BMW.

This is intimacy - I come to see that you have many qualities, some good and some bad, some appropriate and some inappropriate, but I continue to have a relationship with you. I will talk with you, I will share with you, I will go to lunch with you, I will invite you over for dinner.

It seems that the foundation stone of all relationships, and certainly of the ones which claim the title "intimate" is trust. By this I mean that a relationship will be more intimate in direct proportion to the amount of trust I have in you. I have to trust that you will not attack me, turn your back on me, betray me, or share my secrets with others. The more I am certain of this the more intimate our relationship. A second critical part is respect. Even if I expected that you would not ever reveal something about me to others, there is a line of behavior that I find unacceptable (we all do). If you behave in a way I find unacceptable I will have to end the relationship. Where is your line? Adultery? Drugs? Theft? Murder? At what point would you have to say that your trust in me has been broken?

The annoying thing is that most of the conversation about intimacy tends to focus on physical intimacy, which, strangely is the least interesting and least important of all levels of intimacy. Frankly, anyone can get naked with anyone else and exchange bodily fluids. This is trivial to the point of boredom, though the porn industry seems to make a killing out of this most unintimate form of exercise.
Becoming judges: the difficulty with intimacy is that in becoming more intimate with the case (or person) gives you fresh perspectives on the subject matter, and thus, paradoxically allows you to judge them better. Let us not kid ourselves: we all judge, and harshly, each other. From wardrobes to demeanor to word choice we are constantly judging and being judged. Around our dinner table at home at least half of the conversation with the children tend to be a subtle (and not-so-subtle) way of teaching them to police their own behavior better (sit up straight, chew with your mouth closed, don't talk with your mouth full) so that they will not be negatively judged by others - and therefore bring a bad judgment upon us parents by proxy.

The worse judges are the ones who claim not to judge, because there are only two alternatives to not judging: either you are not judging me because you have no interest in intimacy with me ("I do not care about you"), or you are simply unwilling to share the results of your judgment with me - perhaps saving it as juicy gossip (again showing your lack of respect for me). Of the first kind we see our indifference to the atrocities committed in other countries (most of the African continent for a start). But we do not care about them, so we avoid the complicate dance into intimacy with them by simply refusing to judge, to speak clearly and in love against atrocities against injustice and oppression. We also do not care about the poor, and it will be a very cold day in Hell when I stop my SUV to become intimate with a homeless person.

Of the second kind they tend to be more personal. they are people whom we think superficially that they are open-minded or loving or good listeners. But there is judgment there. At best they agree with you (i.e. pass a positive judgment), at worse they desire the attention or the information which can fulfill some other of their needs. Those who claim to not judge others are the most profound egotists, at a level that would make even Ayn Rand blush. They are in this life for themselves and themselves only.

So, assuming you want to avoid egoism and callous indifference, assuming you accept the reality that we are all in this together, in one planet, members of one species, responsible for the future health and well-being of all creatures in this planet. Assuming this, what does the Bible recommend us judges to do?

Born to fear

2010-08-19T13:36:00.001-04:00

Any of our ancestors in the African savannahs that were inveterate optimists, constantly underestimating risks (predators, loss of food, aggression from others of their kind) simply and in the blunt calculus of life did not live long enough to pass on their genes.

So which ones succeeded? The pessimists, the paranoid. Perhaps Andrew Grove had it right after all: "Only the paranoid survive". Consider this: we are the many-time removed inheritors of paranoid and pessimistic grandparents. Their fear enabled us to sit comfortably in our 5 bedroom houses and 3 SUV garages watching oil spew in the Gulf on our hi-def TVs.

So, biologically we are wired with super sensitive systems in our brains which monitor our environment for threats. 24-7. Is it any wonder you are tired all the time? But our threats these days tend to be more abstract. Our hearts start racing when our self-esteem is threatened, for example, or during the (mostly) bloodless battles of boardroom and bedroom. These "threats" activate the same circuits that enabled us to successfully flee a saber-toothed tiger: hormonal overloads to activate our fight-or-flight responses.

Of course, as we all know, when we are defensive (or offensive - in more than one way) we immediately activate the same responses from our fellow workers and mates. Having evolved to live in groups it is natural that we also evolved to pick up "vibes" from others and respond appropriately.

The depressing fact is how much energy we all expend on a daily vicious circle of attack and counter-attack, grudges and gossip, withdrawal and defensiveness. At the end of about 18 hours of such activity we crawl into bed exhausted, only to get up to the alarm clock the next morning berating us for a new day's battle.

But there is another way. It requires less energy that our accustomed way, though at first it will feel more difficult - mostly because you are trying to run your life two ways at the same time. This is similar to what happens when people begin an exercise routine. At first they are more tired, hungry than before. After a while the beneficial aspects of exercise start to percolate, and they find themselves with more energy, sleeping better, and so on. Why would we expect spiritual activity to work any differently.

So here are the 5 exercises in sobriety which, if practiced with diligence, will lead to higher levels of energy being available to be used in more noble pursuits:

1) Fear God
2) Vengeance is mine says Yahweh
3) Think of yourself as last and least
4) Be vigilant ("be sober, be watchful") to your intentions behind thoughts and actions. If these are the wrong intentions then stop and immediately smash them against the Rock, that is Christ.
5) Seek silence. First reduce your speech (spoken and unspoken), then reduce your thoughts.

Asceticism of the ordinary life

2009-10-05T14:34:00.000-04:00

One of the books which I always keep promising myself I will read but somehow never do is Therese of Liseaux's Story of a Soul. I have, though, read endless commentaries and studies about her Little Way. In brief her Little Way is a surrender to God moment-by-moment. Sounds simple, and it is. In her time it was a strong critique against extra-pious medieval pietism. In our own age it is an equally strong rejoinder against our Sundays-only, 7-and-a-half-minute sermons, coffee-shop, diluted Christianism - a movement which permeates all we do.

There are now Bibles with only the words of Jesus in them. At first this is an attractive proposition: remove the "extra stuff", and you are left with the direct wisdom of Jesus Himself. But Jesus is not Buddha or Mohammed to speak in aphorisms and wisdom-teachings. Plus the Gospels are not a collection of sagely teachings. Rather they are the very heart, soul, flesh and bones amd marrow or the Church, the Body of Christ. To remove the "extra" makes as much sense as removing your eyelids so your eyes can see unimpeded.

There are few practices which are as demanding as being a Christian minute-by-minute all blessed day long! Everyone can moderately behave for an hour or so. Everyone can muster enough attention for 15 minutes or so. Everyone can be tolerant and bask in the glow of warm friendliness towards others when safely ensconsed in a back pew for 45 minutes. But how many of us can keep up the effort throughout the day? How much energy is required to be vigilant? how much sheer endurance is called for to smile and turn the other cheek at both real and imagined insults (most especially the imagined ones).

Therese seems to consider it an act of ascetic discipline to be nice to everyone all the time. I can tell from personal experience as well as from personal inclination that being nice and curteous and gentle and meek and humble and all other virtues is well nigh impossible. The quick quip, the witty put-down, the pissy growl, the angry shout, the foreboding frown - these occur often, most especially when we are dealing with others.

I have slowly changed my own perspective on the issue of spiritual discipline. First I had this idea of heroic efforts done mostly alone. Now I am beginning to see as more of a creative ensemble work - where I keep tryign to be in tune and sync with the Main Note. As I try to respond to the Note, I am playing with others who may or may not be in tune with the same Song. But through some creative playing, what at first seems like a cacophony can become something much more concerted.

Little things are not so little, since each is like a little finger pressing a key in the piano, or a finger plucking a string of the guitar. All these little acts of kindness during the day, all these regular turnings to God in the Jesus Prayer, or the renewing of intentions to be loving and kind and patient, or simply to not respond no matter how tempting, all these things add up in volume.

One of the first thigns I learned when sitting in Benedictine choirs to chant the psalms is that this work is almost the exact opposite of what we think of singing. When you are in a normal choir the choirmaster will work very hard to get you to be as clear with your voice as possible. If you listen carefully to a good choir you can hear each voice quite clearly. Together, of course, they make a joyful sound. But chanting the psalms in monastic practice does the reverse. You try really hard not to be heard. Your voice should only be loud enough so that you can still clearly hear the voices of those next to you. It feels unnatural to sing this way. But the sheer volume of low voices can be quite well voluminous.

If I take the sum total of all these small acts during my day, driving, brushing teeth, eating, office conversations, telephone calls, trips to the supermarket. All of these small acts each whispering a song. "Anger anger" says one. "Greed greed" says another. "Glutton glutton" says a third. "Lust lust" adds a chorus. This is the diabolical choir of my life which ceaselessly intones "Me mine more". But if through the day I begin here and there working in changing the song, so that instead of "anger anger" I make a concerted effort to sing "patience patience". Instead of "lust lust" I try "charity charity".

The psalmist tells us to sing a new song to Yahweh. But anyone who has tried to "change their tune" will know how nearly impossible a task this is! It requires dilligence, concerted effort and most of all a great big helping of good humor to be able to dislodge the old tunes stuck in our heads and hearts.

I still think that periods of serious practice, say 30 minutes every day in a removed place, are very beneficial. But if that is all you do it is hard to see how much progress will be made. Some, for sure, and some is better than none. But the wonderful thing about our hearts is that they are an instrument which can be practiced at all the time - everywhere. In fact I am coming to see the heart as that which only comes into existence when I deliberately practice compassion, self-emptying and justice - until I exercise those traits I do not have a living heart at all!

Sing a new song to Yahweh!

Stuck is bad

2009-10-05T14:29:00.001-04:00

I know that most people seem to think that stuck is bad. But is it? One of the blogs I occasionally drop by to read is Trunk's Brazen Careerist. There is no value to it for myself - I am neither a careerist nor much into people who are brazen. But I do appreacite honesty and she is nothing if not honest. If you follow her posts regarding her boyfriend you will know what I mean. I am not altogether sure how I would conduct a relationship with someone who Tweets, and especially one who tweets about me - but that's another story. The point here is a quote in one of her blog entries which says "you start not being able to get out of your transition (my problem) then you are stuck. And stuck is bad. I'm stuck eating to procrastinate changing tasks because changing is hard and eating makes it easier....It's a discomfort being between things." This is an especially insightful, for me, post. The phrase "Stuck is bad" links to many things at the same time but two main things come from it: the concept of stuckiness, the implication of the alternative.

What are some forms of stuckiness? Could we say that a dark night of the soul is stuckiness? How about depression is that stuckiness? Most critically, and implied in the post, what is the opposite of stuckiness? Progress? Should we always be improving, changing, growing? This vegetable metaphor seems very popular. Is a human being called to always grow? Is there some sort of Moore's Law of self-help?

All these questions seem relatively benign until you realize that this idolatry of progress leads to some serious amount of guilt and fear and of course failure. I cannot tell how many people have told me that Christianity is too full guilt where after some soul searching questioning came to realize that it was Positivism at church which led to guilt. The Christian message, per se, in it's toe-tripping reality is the very vaccine against guilt.

Positivism is an interesting social philosophy. It first came to life at the end of the 17th century - a time when the human race unleashed the powers of rationality in a shockwave from which we are still recovering. I am not by any means an irrationalist, but I am terribly concerned with idolatry. Any philosophy which holds to a monotone theory of knowledge, be it through inspiration only or through reason only, is bound to be idolatrous. Most especially, as a Christian, any belief which rabidly defends that only natural, physical, and material approaches to knowledge are valid is bound to be found wanting when faced with the slippery nature of reality. But still the shades or shadows of Positivism linger.

Another point to keep in mind when looking at stuckiness is a distinction between people's fantasies about utopia. I first ran across this distinction when studying some Chinese philosophy. The Chinese (and many others) believed that the past was better. This BTW is also found in Christianity, especially up to and through the Middle Ages. The Rule of Benedict says: "For those monastics show themselves too lazy in the service to which they are vowed, who chant less than the Psalter with the customary canticles in the course of a week, whereas we read that our holy Fathers strenuously fulfilled that task in a single day. May we, lukewarm that we are, perform it at least in a whole week!" (Chapter 18). In fact, the idea that we are worse off than the olden days was a common belief until the Enlightenment. At that point we started, collectivelly, positing a better future, and the mem of progress firmly implanted itself in the human race, certainly in the West.

Some things need to be addressed here, but not too much because I reallyw ant to go back in be stuck on stuckiness. But at least one question comes to mind: are the obvious advances in quality of life through technology the same thing as progress? One more question: does progress advance at an equal rate across all areas of knowledge? Is there an inexorable march forward, or are we more like spilt milk - parts of it running forward from where the glass fell on the floor, but others, frustratingly, retreat to the safety of the area under the oven? Are thing getting better all the time? At the same rate?

Spirituality is a wisdom of living between things, of finding oneself being in-between. Spirituality becomes an unbrella term for a set of tools which help us broker peace between ideals and realities. Further, spirituality is a stepping into, and perhaps a stubborness to leave, liminal spaces. Anyone who's had an experience of being in a sacred space will know how it is both exhilirating and infuriating at the same time. This is the nature of the in-between spaces. This is what countless churches, synagogues and mosques aim to create with their architecture. In fact, architecture itself is a constant work of framing and delineating liminal spaces.

What makes liminal spaces so energizing is also what makes them dangerous, confusing. It is not that these spaces are themselves dangerous and confusing, bu trather that the view from there is of such a different angle that thigns which were solid certaintites before become a lot less solid and much more undertain. Spending time in liminal spaces allows us the opportunity to move from the as-if world into the what-if world. A world where we are not 100% certain of intentions behind acts. The world is no longer black and white.

One more thing happens to those who frequent liminal spaces regularly: we are constantly bumping into the 'adult world' - all those large unwieldy pieces of ethical furniture which are shaped so as to always stub your toe. We have a few of those (literal) items in my house. Very frustrating. I am sure that someone with a better industrial design eye would be able to explain exactly why everyone trips on the legs of the very large coffee table in the living room. I mean it is a hulking thing. But yet sooner or later someone slams their foot against it. Why? Something about its design, I am convinced. The lines in the upper part of the body of the table suggest that the lower less visible part should be different than it really is. And that is the perfect metaphor for ethical dilemas: something in the outward shape of the situation suggests a different inner dynamic than what is there in reality.

And here we go again with the reality thing. It is funny how hard it is to avoid reality. it just keeps tripping me up. No matter how much I wish it was a different shape, it is the shape it is.

It takes much courage to look at reality long enough to see its real shape. Only then can we begin to make some meaningful changes.

Walking the way of the psalms

2009-09-28T19:39:00.000-04:00

Lately my kids discovered passwords. Not the type we use on computers, but rather the daily shibboleths we have. For example, my 3 year old is having to learn the "Please" password. Without the password he will not gain access to whatever goods or services he needs from mother or father. His older brother has taken the password game to a whole new level.

He will say: "What's the magic word?"
The younger one will diligently say "Please."
"Wrong," the older one says. "the magic word is 'magic word'."

Round and round they go, trying to out trick each other, in the verbal equivalent of computer hacking.

The other night I was retelling the story of Ali Baba and the 40 thieves the other day to them. I think the question came up regarding "Open sesame" and what exactly is "sesame". At any rate, it was important that Ali Baba use the correct password. To say "Open bananas" would not work no matter how heartfelt, how loudly it was shouted.

One, or perhaps "the", most marked trait of monastics of any stripe are their focus on the psalms as a primary way of prayer. Be it Benedictines chanting in choir or Jesuits whispering psalms to themselves as they go about the world, psalms are part and parcel of a monastic's toolbox.

I have been asked, by those who begin to be more concerted in their spiritual efforts how to pray the psalms. The difficulties seem to come from two places: one is the need to gather more and more information; two, the repetitive lamentations of the psalms. Anyone who has actually read through the psalms more than once will quickly realize that the psalmist, and frequently those attributed to David, was constantly claiming innocence. It seems everyone around him was to blame but himself. We sophisticated moderns tend to think that this is rather spiritually and emotionally immature of him.

The conversation usually goes something like this:

"David is whining again! I do not know how I can be uplifted by his psalms!"
"Why do you think he is whining?"
"Because he keeps blaming everyone else for his problems. Does he really think he is perfect?"
"And you think this is wrong?"
"Of course it is wrong! No one is blameless. He is falling into this victim-hood trap!"
"And the way to avoid it is?"
"To accept responsibility, of course! To rely on God!"
"So in your spiritual life you live with full realization that the things that happen to you are really your fault? Or God's?"

Of course this leads to uncomfortable moments of silence. It is easy for us to blame David for blaming others. But the opposite view is equally unbalanced. We cannot blame ourselves for everything that happens either! If you do that you are going down the road of such New Age mumbo-jumbo as the Prosperity Gospel and the stuff preached on the book The Secret. And if you blame God for everything then you are falling into some sort of fatalism which denies the freedom which God has granted you.

So there has to be a balance, of course. But this work of balancing your life is not the purpose of the psalms. They are not there to balance you, but rather to expose your heart to its own imbalances.

Another very important part of the psalms is what it feeds us. We are what we eat, or to put it more generally, we will become like whatever we give our attention to. If you think and dream about money then everything you see and do is colored by money, value, profit and loss. The same thing goes to any of the eight wrong thoughts as outline by Evagrius. That is why they are "deadly". They deaden your heart and spirit. Jesus asks us to find our hearts by looking at what we treasure. This is not as complicated as it seems. What do you treasure?

There is another level of reading the psalms which is important - and this is to just read the psalms. Let me tell you what I mean. Let us take a well-known psalm such as the 23rd psalm. "The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want..." What usually happens is more like this:

The Lord (oh Lord Jesus thank you) is my shepherd (of course this means he leads me and guides me) to the still waters (which are the good places in life and sheep Jesus always calls us sheep I wonder if he was thinking of this psalm and why sheep I don't like sheep) he leads me on the paths of righteousness and my cup overflows (yes thank you God for all the blessings of this life especially for my job and my family but please do not let the boss find out about those emails I sent out)...

And on and on. This is how we usually read the psalms. And I am being generous here - usually our inner dialogue is not nearly as prayerful as that! If your mind is like mine the inner dialog tends to be absurd and profane.

To really make the psalms your way, or as the Camaldolese would say it "the way is in the psalms", you need to resist the temptation to follow any association of ideas. You just take the one psalm in front of you and it alone. You can follow the various connections to specific Old Testament passages later when you do Bible study. There will be other times for that. You can also let the psalms inspire your thinking at other times of the day, and even to let your prayer life be circumscribed by the psalms, as in the example above. This is all very good and profitable, but it is not using the psalter as a tool.

So when you read the psalms, just read the psalms. Just read the specific words before you. Of course our "monkey mind" will jump all over the place and refuse to be confined to such small cage! But do not worry about that. Ignore it. The mind will not "die" if it cannot think of 1000 different things at the same time.

Read the psalm very slowly. At first read it as if there was a comma between each word: "The, Lord, is, my, shepherd." Then do it as if there was a stop: "The. Lord. Is. My. Shepherd." But do not put any special emphasis in any of the words. Just each word at a time. With plenty of silence around them.

Of course, at this rate it will take you about 10 minutes to recite the 23rd psalm. Clearly you cannot go through the psalter with a lot of speed! You may end up spending a week or more on the longer psalms, like 119. But so what? What's the hurry? You can read through and study and cross reference the psalms during your Bible study time. But when you are using them to pray just say the psalms.

A couple of last pointers.

1) Speaking. Most of us tend to have an affected "reader's voice" when we approach the Bible. People who have really lovely voices make all these contortions when reading the Bible. Why? Somewhere they've learnt that a "Bible voice" is important to convey the seriousness of this situation. You know what I mean. The reading becomes so dramatic! While this may have some value, when you are reading the psalms for yourself try to avoid the drama. Just search for and speak with yor normal voice. Or better with the kind of voice you would use when having a quiet conversation. No special intonation. Just one word at a time in your normal voice and cadence.

2) Chanting. I love chanting the psalms. I love chanting the psalms by myself. I have a terrible singing voice, but even I can chant. Part of what makes chanting good is that it forces you to drop the drama out of reading. You have to accentuate different places in the psalms and this forces you out of your emotional readings. Another thing that chanting will give you is pace. The regular, non-hurried and non-slack pace of chanting forces you to keep moving. This prevents some of the monkey mind tricks because if you follow the word associations you will lose your place in the chant.

Penalizing yourself: one way to try to tame the monkey mind is to state (to yourself) quite clearly that if you get distracted in saying a psalm you will go back to the beginning and say it over until you can say it without interruptions. In a monastic setting monks in the choir are required to make some sort of public confession of error when reciting the psalms. Some version of bowing to the choir in apology is the most frequent form. This public humiliation is quite appropriate. But when you are doing it by yourself it is harder to enforce. So I recommend a rule of going back to the beginning.

Now it is possible that some days you will just not be able to bring your "A game" to the recitation. That is ok as well. If you take the psalms as a vital part of your spiritual life, in the course of decades, days where things did not go so well will not matter. The sheer volume of the work will carry you through. So you set yourself a target of say 15 or 20 minutes to recite. You pick one or two psalms. And you stick with it. When the time is up the time is up. You may have barely finished one psalm! But that is ok. Later today or tomorrow you can do it again. Take it up from where you left off. As St. Francis de Sales says, "Even if you did nothing during the whole of your hour but bring your mind back and place it again in our Lord’s presence, though it went away every time you brought it back, your hour would be very well employed."

Here we come to the culmination of monastic spiritual wisdom. The words of the psalms themselves are the way to God. As you read the psalm once or twice. try to memorize it - the smaller ones are easier. Be very careful with the words. Do not paraphrase, because that's another mind-trick. Just the plain words. Just the psalm. Do not try to "improve" upon the psalms or change them in any way. I know many monastic communities, and indeed our weekly lectionary, which skips over the more deprecatory stanzas of the psalter - perhaps in fear of offending the hearers. This is a great tragedy. I wish people would be more offended on Sundays! Spiritual offense (as opposed to being bullied from the pulpit) is very healthy for our souls, as it tends to deflate the ego. But the psalms, just as they stand, with their smashing babies and prayers for the suffering of enemies, embody about 3,000 years of spiritual wisdom. You cannot access this treasure trove of wisdom if you do not have the right password. Meditate on the psalms as they are, and you will find that your very life will begin to resonate with the spirit of humility and love that empower the words.

Be changed by walking the way of the psalms.

Walking on water by 2045

2009-09-28T19:37:00.001-04:00

"He will again have compassion upon us; He will suppress our iniquities. And Thou will cast all their sins in the depths of the sea." (Micah 7:19)

If Jesus had no sin then this would explain why the sea did not swallow him up - the swallowing image is a common one referring to how weighty our transgressions are. So he can walk on water simply based on the fact that he is not weighed down by his sins. Eventually, after his resurrection he could even fly!

What does this say about our future bodies? It almost sounds like science fiction, but the idea that we can live at a much higher level is one that is explored by many writers, most of which are not writing in terms of the Christian apocalypse.

One of my favorite contemporary sci-fi writers is Rudy Rucker. I was first introduced to his work when reading a non-fiction book of his on higher dimensions. It is a mathematical exploration of higher dimensions.

Since then he has gone on to write novels which deal with the Singularity. This is a concept which comes from the halls of Artificial Intelligence, and since then has been adopted by science fiction writers. The term itself was coined by another of my favorite writers, Vernor Vinge, in the early Nineties.

Since then it has been adopted by a variety of authors, the most notable of which is Ray Kurzweil.

As Kurzweil understands it "The Singularity is an era in which our intelligence will become increasingly non biological and trillions of times more powerful than it is today - the dawning of a new civilization that will enable us to transcend our biological limitations and amplify our creativity."

The other day I was talking with someone about illness and the breakdown of our bodies. Among many nuggets of information this person described the experience they had taking a new form of anesthetic which is not based on the traditional opiates. This anesthetic leaves you wide-awake during surgery, which has many beneficial uses.

But most interesting to me were the post-op side effects. Apparently this drug heightens your sense of pleasure. Not being a doctor or a chemist I cannot quite understand how the drug works, but I figure that it must suppress the pain areas of the brain (thus making it an anesthetic). but because it does not knock you out, it leaves you with the nearly-unbearable feeling of pleasure at almost everything you do.

The person described how they were given some crackers and a glass of orange juice after the surgery, and that when they tasted it those were the most delicious things they had ever eaten! Just plain hospital-grade crackers. Yet they tasted like manna from heaven, or perhaps one should say ambrosia. At any rate - with the pain mechanism removed it appears that the pleasure mechanism went on overdrive.

We then wondered whether this is just a glimpse of what our resurrected bodies will be like. The removal of the "stain" of Original Sin would leave us able to levels of pleasure which we can only dream about now. A state of living where seeing a flower, or drinking a glass of water would be immensely pleasurable. A state of such joy and freedom (think for a moment of existence without a bad back, or even the possibility of a bad back!) which brings the thoughts of "they neither marry nor are given in marriage" a whole new level of possibility.

For a moment I imagine worship in a church in 2045 (this date is given by Kurzweil as the probable date of the Singularity). Our existence is at this point transformed into the weightlessness of purity. Certainly for anyone looking in from the early 21st century it would seem to have entered a church populated with angels. Pure joy emanating from the congregation - palpable and even visual perhaps. There would be no pews, I believe - who wants to sit down anyway (and there is no bad back or bad knees to worry about)? When I think of exciting sporting events, in my case many images of World Cup soccer come to mind, I do not think sitting was one of the actions: there was much pacing, much shouting (of course) and much celebration which is always done standing up, high-fiving, hugs and kisses all around.

It is very likely that in such a state we would be intimately united, knowing each other's hearts. Again from this end of the 21st century this is a threatening idea! But then it is the norm. There would be much praising, and much deep unitive silence, especially during the Eucharist. The elements would be transformed into Body and Blood because the congregation would not be seeing it with eyes of flesh, but rather with open eyes of the spirit.

I think there would be much music. Perhaps even something which might look like the church in Acts - perhaps speaking in tongues? Certainly a palpable WHOOSH of energy going through all participants.

This is probably the worship going on in Heaven right now. Constant singing of Hallelujah! Constant praise.

Of course, for those encumbered by their selfishness, by their sin, by their unacceptable of the Good News, then all this hootin' and hollerin' is not "heavenly" at all! It is rather punishment - like being permanently condemned to live in an apartment with very noisy neighbors to both sides and above you!

How else will our worship be changed in 2045? And how much of it will be a wiser return to our origins? I say wiser return, because I see our progress, where there is any, as part of spiral (not circular) - thus at every loop and lap we go over the same points, same historical patterns, same social-economic challenges, but with a newer appreciation for these issues gained by experience, tempered by wisdom.

This leads me to another view of the 2045 church - the role of the elders. From the beginning the local church was to be wisely and charitably overseen by elders - in fact the words presbyter and bishop, are synonyms for elders. We will, by 2045, regain this understanding of wisdom and will also return to Biblical patterns which will prove to be far from outmoded. In fact they will be seen as prophetic!

Once more, when people enter a church, they will be astounded at how much we love each other, how deep is our communion, and how believers are empowered by peace to go and server their Lord in their local communities.

Sermon notes 08/02/2009

2009-09-28T19:36:00.000-04:00

(2 Sam. 11.26-12.13 - Ps 51 - Eph 4.1-16 - Jn 6.24-35)

So my beloved and long-suffering wife said she had a lot to do today so she said I had to keep this short...so it will be short!

But...there are a few things we need to talk about today's readings which I think will be profitable to us all.

First let's see - David and Bathsheba. Wow didn't that whole story sound like something you would watch on late night cable?

More importantly to what I want to talk about today is the end of the story - how the prophet Samuel brings David to repentance and a change of ways.

David, the great King David, root of the lineage which will eventually bring in the Messiah, Jesus - does not so well in this episode. It is a pivotal episode in the reign of David, and when you read the rest of David's story it is worth keeping this event in mind. David deliberately breaks several of the 10 Commandments in this episode. He had plenty of opportunities to stop! I guess glimpsing Bathsheba skinny-dipping was not really his fault. But certainly coming down and finding out who she was, and then summoning her, and then sleeping with her, and then ordering the murder of her husband - are you telling me who could not stop at any one of these points?

Eventually through the prophet Samuel he is brought face-to-face with the error of his actions and their terrible consequences. David's heart breaks. There is only one thing more terrible than finding out you are sinner, and that is finding out just how much of a sinner you are! So Psalm 51 records how David goes about asking for and trusting in God's mercy through his confession, petition for mercy, a vow to praise God on being absolved and finally a prayer for prosperity - not just prosperity of wealth, but more importantly moral prosperity - because the righteous and true worship he describes at the end of the psalm can only happen from someone who is deeply moral.

And this brings me to the meat of our conversation here today. There is a theological concept called the ordo salutis, the order of salvation. This concept outlines for us the process of salvation from beginning to end. It goes like this:

1. Election - by God's sovereign choice
2. Gospel/calling - hearing the Good News proclaimed or feeling called by God
3. Regeneration - that is being "born again"
4. Conversion - which means belief in Jesus Christ as your Savior coupled with repentance from your previous life
5. Justification - where we are made right in God's eyes through the merits of Jesus
6. Adoption - at which point we become counted as Christ's own forever
7. Sanctification - which basically mean right living
8. Perseverance - which means remaining a Christian through the rest of your life
9. Death - going to rest in the Lord
10. Glorification - which is when we receive perfected bodies upon Jesus' Second Coming

The first step is clearly all God's doing - election. But the next steps through adoption are what we would call "becoming a Christian" Somewhere in there is the stage of baptism or confirmation (depending on age). The two steps of sanctification and perseverance are what we would call "Christian living" - which is what we all should be doing now.

Ok so hold on to this process and ideas as we go through the rest of the readings.

Let me touch briefly on the Gospel. I want to highlight only a couple of things which are pertinent to what I am trying to talk with you today. Did you notice how the Jews wanted to know from Jesus what works of sanctification, what things, what formulas, what sacrifices, they needed to do to be saved?

Jesus corrects them by pointing out to them that the process of sanctification, of right living, begins at a much deeper and earlier stage. The deeper levels of the ordo salutis need to be completed before you can move on the the next one. First you have to be chosen by God. This is totally out of your control. God will choose you when it pleases God to choose you. No options. Then regeneration through faith which leads to conversion, justification and adoption.

Only then can a meaningful conversation begin about sanctification.

If you notice, the Jews had a "seeing is believing" approach. Show me signs. Show me something. The work of God is to belief without sight! 'Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."' (v. 29)

So now let's see what this means in practice. In Ephesians Paul deals with issues of belief. First he lists 3 foundations for true belief.

1) Humility: in Greek culture humility was something expected of slaves. Humility was seen as a vice for leaders and masters. But for Paul, who is concerned about unity of the Church, pride is very dangerous because it promotes disunity.

2) Gentleness/meekness: what Paul means by gentleness is really about having your emotions under control. It is the dynamic balance between being angry all the time and never being angry, for example. The godly person, the one who is a slave of God, or in Paul's phrasing "a prisoner of the Lord", such a person is angry at the right time and never angry at the wrong time.

3) Patience: in this case it means having a spirit that never quits but endures to the end, even in adversity. It is also the capacity to hold back (or hold off) from retaliation.

Assuming we master these foundational skills of being a disciple, then we will be able to reap the rewards of a healthy community. Paul lists 7 elements which are centered on the Trinity:

1. One body of believers
2. One spirit - the Holy Spirit which energizes the one body
3. One hope in Heaven
4. One Lord, Jesus Christ
5. One faith - not the Creeds, but more the inner faith, the faith of the heart and mind. Instead of one faith we could say "one mind" - we Christians are of one mind.
6. One baptism
7. One God and Father of all believers

The Church, this body of believers, us, is energized by one Holy Spirit, so that we all have one and the same hope. We are then united to our one Lord Christ through each individual's act of faith. This is symbolized by the one baptism which we together with Christians from the time of Christ to when He returns, undergo.

All of this is under one God, the Father who is Supreme Ruler over all believers, who acts through all believers when they are humble, gentle and patient, and who lives in all of us. So the Church is one and it is united.

Within this unity, each believer, each of us, is given a talent, a gift. So while the church is one it is also plural, diverse.

The way to understand this is that we are gifted believers - we are a gift to the church!

So your particular talents, music, or teaching, or organizing, or (the one I find most important) the gift of showing up ready to help, you are all gifts from God to the church.

We are gifted believers, gifted by God to the Church, just as the Church is one Body gifted by God to the world.

So here it is my friends - take this Psalm 51. Memorize it. Use it. The frequent recollection of a psalm, especially this one, will help bring you back to patience, humility and gentleness. Take this prayer by David, who had fallen from lofty heights, and use it to remind yourselves of the work of sanctification and perseverance which you have to do - toil at it until the time when God calls you home to rest and wait with him the glorification in the last days.

But do not be like those who came to Jesus asking for signs, asking for things to see before they believed. Understand that you need to be born again, be converted from your old ways (which may be only as old as one minute ago). In the wisdom of the monastic tradition, humility is seen as the best and most efficient way to clear out the way for God to shine through you. Over and over there is an emphasis on humility as superior to any and every form of asceticism, of works, of service even. A humble and contrite heart is very pleasing to the Lord. So what is humility?

An old man was asked, "What is humility?" and he said in reply, "Humility is a great work, and a work of God. The way of humility is to undertake bodily labour and believe yourself a sinner and make yourself subject to all." Then a brother said, "What does it mean, to be subject to all?" The old man answered, "To be subject to all is not to give your attention to the sins of others but always to give your attention to your own sins and to pray without ceasing to God."

Abba Macarius was returning to his cell from the marsh carrying palm-leaves, the devil met him with a sharp sickle and would have struck him but he could not. He cried out, "Great is the violence I suffer from you, Macarius, for when I want to hurt you, I cannot. But whatever you do, I do and more also. You fast now and then, but I am never refreshed by any food; you often keep vigil, but I never fall asleep. Only in one thing are you better than I am and I acknowledge that." Macarius said to him, "What is that?" and he replied, "It is because of your humility alone that I cannot overcome you."

You pray about that. Amen!

Deliver me from evil

2009-09-28T19:33:00.001-04:00

The office where I work is being moved (Aug 2009). The whole corporate office is being boxed up and we are moving to a new building. While this is wonderful news, it is also cause for much weeping and gnashing of teeth. It is amazing to me the amount of stuff that people can collect in their tiny cubicles. They look like a clown car - boxes and boxes of stuff keep coming out of each of these small workspaces.

Together with the sheer volume of stuff accumulated, there is also a large amount of discontent and stress which is associated with any move. Psychologists tell us that issues of work, and moving houses are among the top three or top five (depends who you ask) stressful things in life. When you have an office move you are pretty much guaranteeing a perfect storm.

So I walk around trying to simultaneously stay out of people's way and reassure them that the servers will be functioning just perfectly the day after the move, that none of their highly important emails, all 1,527 of them, will not be lost - even though I not-so-secretly suspect that the majority of these highly important pieces of data refer to cookie recipes or hangover cures.

I also try to be prayerful or at least cognizant of my own need for prayer during these times. I grab on to my prayer beads like a drowning man to a rope.

As is gets closer to the day of the move I find myself praying against all sorts of possible, probable or completely ludicrous things that might go wrong - from a clumsy mover dropping a server on the floor - deliver us Lord. From having another meeting so people can vent their frustrations - deliver us Lord. From a meteor striking the Earth - deliver us Lord! And on and on.

This whole petition for delivery tends to be one of the most overlooked or over-used of the lines in the prayer the Lord gave to the disciples. Usually it gets translated in our hearts as "Lord protect me and do not allow anything bad to happen to me." There is a tone of fear and trepidation. There is recognition of weakness. there is also a petition for the opposite to happen - don't let me get fired, don't let me get robbed, don't let me be injured. The request for deliverance from the Evil One or just generic, garden-variety evil is also common in Jewish prayers of the time.

But is this how I should read it? Or is this the only way to read it? There is an interesting story from the Desert Fathers which goes like this:

There was an old man living in the desert who served God for so many years and he said, "Lord, let me know if I have pleased you."

He saw an angel who said to him, "You have not yet become like the gardener in such and such place." The old man marveled and said, "I will go off to the city to see both him and what it is that he does that surpasses all my work and toil of all these years."

So he went to the city and asked the gardener about his way of life. When they were getting ready to eat in the evening, the old man heard people singing [baudy songs] in the streets, for the cell of the gardener was in a public place.

Therefore the old man said to him, "Brother, wanting as you do to live according to God, how do you remain in this place and not be troubled when you hear them singing these songs?"

The man said, "I tell you, Abba, I have never been troubled or scandalized."

When he heard this the old man said, "What, then, do you think in your heart when you hear these things?" And he replied, "That they are all going into the Kingdom."

When he heard this, the old man marveled and said, "This is the practice which surpasses my labor of all these years." (From:http://www.thenazareneway.com/paradise_of_the_desert_fathers.htm)

In this story it is clear that the evil I am asking to be delivered from is not the other, but rather myself. To be able to say with all certainty that "I have never been troubled or scandalized" would be amazing.

Take a leap of imagination and pretend for a second that you are not and will not be troubled by the behavior of others (or your own); that your environment will not have any effect on you, that you can truly say with Paul that you have nothing though possess all things (2 Cor. 6).

The next part, "Scandalized" is a lovely word which comes to English via the Old French "scandale" which means "cause of sin". It in turn comes from the Latin "scandalum" which means a trap, stumbling block, or temptation. And, as usual, these words come from the Greek.

Imagine and pretend for a moment that you are not and will not be scandalized by others. That their atrocious behavior will not bother you in the least. And, perhaps harder, that you will also not be impressed by their apparently flawless behavior either.

Hold on to this image. See how easy it is to then be able in your heart of hearts to know, not just believe or hope, but be certain that they are all going into the Kingdom?

Every day I sit at my boxed up cubicle, listening to the semi-hysterical prattle of my co-workers about the latest moving crisis and let try to let this be my prayer: they too are going to the Kingdom. Followed quickly by only 5 more days Lord. Only 4 more days Lord…

Follow no rules

2009-07-06T16:07:00.001-04:00

Giustiniani, one of the reformers of the Camaldolese, had a very un-Benedictine approach to the prayer life of the solitary. His basic rule was no-rule. He recommends nothing, he has no formulas. Unlike most writers on spiritual life, and especially on monastic life, and especially writers from that time, there is a disconcerting lack of rules for the solitary.

This is as it should be of course.

Here's some reasons why we should avoid rules for spiritual life:

1) It can dismiss or block individuality.

The incarnation created an individual. The only truly individual person. In this we should strive towards developing our individuality in healthy ways. C. S. Lewis said about saints that they were truly individual.

So if we set specific times and hours for everything (how, when, and where to recite the Offices; rules for fasting and vigils; regulations for lectio, etc) then what I am doing is mass-producing some sort of spiritual athlete.

When I was growing up I remember the elders around me wailing and complaining about the Soviet Union's Olympic "factories" with their hyper-steroided athletes, their mechanical training without any room for individuality. Indeed, part fo the Soviet experiment was indeed to reduce the individualism of each citizen for the benefit of the collective.

Of course, capitalism produces its own manufacturing of individuals. Where I work I am considered a "resource", and I work hard to be elevated to the status of "valuable asset". No one is an individual in any system where the functioning of the system is more important than those who fuel, propel, maintain and validate it.

2. Unrealistic goals and guilt

C.S. Lewis has an interesting thought on the issue of standards. On one of his essays he talks about the fact that progressives seem to believe that the "old standards" are stagnant or stale. But he counters by asking if the square of the hypotenuse being the sum of the square of the sides is stagnant? His point is: if you do have objective and legitimate and true standards, then it gives you a goal in life, a way to try to improve, to approximate that goal.

In this there is a certain type of uniformity. A Christian should be recognizable as a follower of Christ, as opposed to say, a Buddhist who should be recognized as a follower of Buddha. Even if I know nothing about the Son of God, I should see that a Christian is different (somehow) and that they are similar (again, somehow) to other Christians.

The absolute standard which every Christian should be working towards is Christ, of course. And any form of discipline in your life should be aimed at bringing you closer to that goal. This is an objective, fixed, external goal. This is the same thing that Christ asked of the apostles and that he asked the apostles to teach others - follow me, follow my commands. Immitate me as I immitate Christ, said St. Paul.

Having said this it is important to realize that some people are going to be more Christ-like than others. Even while Jesus was around some of the apostles were able to be more Christ-like than others. Peter, James and John for example. John was the disciple whom Christ loved - this does not mean that Christ had preferential love, it simply means John was a better imitator of Christ. Just as some are more naturally endowed athletes or scientists. Not everyone will be able to equally achieve levels of Christ-likeness.

This should be clear, and I am very very glad of this because it means two important things: one, it tells me that I am treasured as I am; two, God's love takes up the slack between who I am and the perfection of Christ - he is the prodigal Father who runs to meet me.

But when I formalize this quest for Christ-likeness into a strict set of rules for everyone I will be both neutralizing the awesome hopefulness of God's prodigality, as well as undermining and eventually destroying my self-worth in God's eyes through guilt.

3. Rules are a crutch

There is a way whereby contaminate the spiritual life. Rules have an insiduous way of replacing trust, belief, and faith - you know the things that make personal relationships so doggedly difficult and frustrating and tiresome.

With strict rules all you need to do, apparently, is to show up, sit in the cabboose and let the train take you.

An extreme example. A couple who chooses to have no children. They get the benefits of the tax breaks, they might even pool their resources for a nicer backyard or a bigger cars. But in every other way they live apart: they eat at different times and different foods. They go on vacations separately. They have no mutual friends. This is a marriage on paper-only. Some may envy the fact that they never fight or even bicker. Their lives are peaceful and tranquil (within the limits of life).

On the other extreme we can often mistake busyness for belief. Take a couple with many children, all of whom are in some sort of organized sport. They lead a disciplined life - with proper times for everything (otherwise they will be late for this or that practice). While Mum rushes one or more children to one sport, Dad rushes others to music practice. When they go on vacation they get a tour package to places like Disney, and they follow the routines. They are constantly busy, there are many chores. They actually have bad days and fight.

But this too is just a paper marriage. It is mildly better than the other one, because to produce children, at one point, the couple has had to stop and love each other, at least for about 10 minutes including foreplay.

There is so much busyness that the couple has no time to be a couple - they are "children facilitators."

You pile on the rules and you get busy, which apparently is better than being idle. Giustiniani's term for the solitary life is "vacare" - from which we get words like vacant and vacation. It is a life of leisure and not-doing.

Because he is no dummy, he is acutely aware that this could be seen as a life of slacking off. So most of his work is apologetic and polemic - trying to show how the "vacant life" is, in fact, more taxing and demanding than the externally regulated life. He has at one point a list of to-dos which goes on for about three pages. All of them are things that can only really be accomplished in solitude and comfort (well relative comfort - at least with the basic needs for food and shelter taken care of).

Are there any goals?

Of course, having no rules is not the same as having no structure and having no goals. The true slacker is one without goals. Solitaries are very goal oriented. They are just not too attached to one way of doing things. If there is attachment it is rather a single-minded focus on the Holy Spirit - who is very difficult to track and keep track of. The solitary then is a Spirit tracker, a Spirit-stalker.

To do this the solitary must employ everything in their lives. There is absolutely no city of refuge - as Jesus said even th ebirds get a nest, but the Son of Man gets no place to rest. This is, of course, an ontological statement - it is an approach to life which demonstrates an existential poverty. Kierkegaard wrote in Fear and Trembling: "To be able to fall down in such a way that the same second it looks as if one were standing and walking, to transform the leap of life into a walk, absolutely to express the sublime in the pedestrian–that only the knight of faith can do – and this is the one and only prodigy."

Finally, the most intersting goal is to spend time engaging as best I can Jesus. To engage jesus is to simultaneously try to discern His Heart and then discern His purpose for me. Once I know who Jesus is - not was - then I can begin my spiritual life. Until I meet Jesus I may be a good person, but I have no strategic direction to my efforts, or I am simply sitting in the caboose car enjoying the ride. Once I meet him, everything else will change, and will have to change. Then I begin a conversation with Jesus about what he wants from me.

Some complain that they do not know because Jesus hasn't told them. But God has already spoken multiple times - just go read it!

Here's where I run the risk of falling into rule-making errors. Everyone prays the Lord's Prayer. But the Lord's Prayer is really the Disciple's Model for Prayerfulness (but that is a cumbersome title). It is a challenge to not only petition God for these things (which one assumes are a sort of sphere of our lives where Jesus believes we should be asking for supernatural intervention - well-being (bread) and health (temptation and evil) as well as social concerns (kingdom come).

But to pray it is to accept the responsibilities of discipleship: to cooperate with God in making it happen. Your Kingdom come - now go open the door so it can come in! The Prayer is a pattern for our lives, and it sets another set of standards for us to mimic.

Mimesis

For me this is a positive term. Animals mimic other animals or their terrain for stealth - thus mimicking provides safety and longevity. It also is the first, and perhaps primary, form of learning. Going back to the child mimicking their parents, and then formalized in the master-apprentice relationship. Spiritually we are asked to be imitators of Christ (1 Cor. 11:1) and to be imitators of Paul, and by extension the other apostles (1 Cor. 4:16). This is not boasting perfection, but rather the more simple appeal to begin to do as the teacher does, and not get caught in over-intellectualizing the work to be done. TO imitate Jesus is not to imitate his miraculous works, obviously no one is walking on water these days, but rather to imitate his attention, his intention and the way he interacts with Creation (people and things). Does he flop down on a sofa, for eg? Does he pray before he eats? What does he say? Does he make eye contact when he talks? Does he tense up when he talks with leaders and Pharisees?

But mimicking can quickly become superficial. After all, parrots can do it. I can parrot prayers all day long, and I can even ape the exact movements of the Eucharist - but I am still only a parrot or a primate.

Practice

2009-06-29T16:33:00.005-04:00

1) Correlation is not causation
The usual examples of this have to do with medicines, or therapies. It is also frequently cited by those arguing for the tobacco companies that it is simply unscientific to say that "cigarettes cause cancer". We simply do not know enough about cancer to claim that any one thing causes it. Wikipedia has a great graph showing that the number of fatalities on US roads fell with the increase of fresh lemons imported from Mexico - clearly those things are correlated but no one would claim that there is a causal connection between them. Conspiracy theorists around the globe tend to make claims based on correlations.

2) Correlation is not identity
There is a correlation between a living person and a beating heart, but a beating heart is not the person (this example from "The really hard problem" by Owen Flanagan).

These two general rules allow me to steer clear of a variety of troublesome liminal discussions in spirituality, especially where it intersects science.

To begin I will say that there is no thought without a brain. You need to have some sort of neuronal firing for thought to occur. Having said this it is important to say that neurons firing are not thought. There is a correlation between thought and neuronal activity, but small electrical charges crossing a cellular gap are not in themselves "atoms of thought"...or even quanta of thought.

In Flanagan's book he describes the Dalai Lama's categorization of Buddhist theology as having three pillars, experience, reason and tradition. And they are ranked in that order. Personal experience trumps everything. This makes sense in a Buddhist perspective.

But it is a little disingenuous to say experience trumps everything. it is true that Buddhism is experiential, and that almost everything in Buddhism a sustained effort at bringing the individual to the experience of Buddha Nature.

But Buddhism has its sages, has its levels of enlightenment. The witness of the Dalai Lama that such and such a state of consciousness is achievable carries more weight than whatever I have experienced. If nothing else his witness inspires me to try.

Thus there is a strong authority of scripture and tradition in the shaping of reason and experience.

This, of course, is common sense. As Flanagan says even science is very much indebted to tradition, its own scientific tradition. While scientific methodology is, in theory, backwards compatible (that is I can go back and repeat experiments) in practice this is not done - why? Because if Newton says he did it, then I do not need to repeat the experiment - I can just move on from his results and develop new insights. Newton carries a lot of authority. As do Einstein and Heisenberg, etc.

I think at this stage of the game it would be very healthy for Christianity to find again the experiential approach of the Desert Fathers and Mothers. They were benefited by working from a non-canonical perspective (the canon of scripture did not coalesce until centuries later). So they had to rely heavily on personal experience as their guide.

If we read the Desert monastics with modern concerns we might see in their focused approach to spiritual investigation a perfect methodology for dealing with all sorts of pickles we get ourselves into when trying to do it "by the book".

This is not to say I do not believe in the authority of Scripture. Of course I do. But I am trying to say that the point of Scriptural authority is to witness to me and inspire me to do what has been done before, to live the way I am told Jesus lived, to think the way I am told he thought. To allow the tradition to guide my thinking (theological reasoning) and my practice.

I think that Scriptures are an inspired summary of the practice of Jesus and the practice of the Apostles. We must focus on the practice and not on the summary. In this case the Scriptures are not God, and the Scriptures are correlated to God's words - strongly correlated.

To put it another way - this blog has a record of my words, my thoughts. But the blog is not my thoughts. Even this writing is a sketch of my actual thought process, codified by the rules of English syntax. Were I writing in Portuguese the words would be different, and the tone might be different, though the general gist of it would be the same. Someone going with a toothcomb over my words in both languages might find plenty of room for contradiction.

The Bible thus is correlated to God's words because it is the inspired record of the practice of Jesus as taught by the apostles and understood and interpreted by the early group of followers.

Back to science: in books where scientists try to figure out where God is in the brain I would say that it is the responsibility of every Christian to study the findings with much care. This is important stuff. We need to understand, for example, how words impact our brains, how prayer changes the neural pathways, how music and "smells and bells" can effect change in mind.

Most importantly we need to understand how we can bring all this information towards a renewal of our Christian practice. How can the understanding of prayer through MRIs help me see where I can change my prayer life so as to be more open to God? How can a diet (of food and sleep and stimulation) lead me to be more or less charitable?

In the end, I guess I want to live as Christ did, not simply know what Christ said.

Making allies, being good neighbor (notes)

2009-06-11T15:40:00.001-04:00

Making your mind your ally
Instead of being bothered by thoughts mindfullness meditation can help you harness the mind towards more constructive ends, not through beating it into submission but rather by redirecting its ceaseless energy towards more profitable goals.

Making your body your ally
Running as a way to befriend the body. Physical exercise and especially sports as a way to befriend your body. Paul's metaphor on boxing and running suggests a compatibility between discipleship and sports.

Making your heart your ally
Conflicting emotions and desires have a tendency to distract and even harm us. A better way would be to work on listening to the heart's wisdom, giving it voice - though art for example.

Image or presence

2009-06-11T11:46:00.000-04:00

My father was one of those larger than life individuals. It was just the way he was. he would walk into a room and commandeer it. I am not sure he would do it on purpose, I used to think it was a natural outgrowth of being used to give orders and being obeyed.

I often think about the encounter with Jesus and the centurion where the centurion admits that he is used to authority, and he recognizes such a thing in Jesus.

Just say a word and it will be so. Like is known to like in a way that is obvious, though not always welcome. you get two type A personalities in a room and it is likely there will be attrition.

But I have begun to wonder how much of this commanding presence is really presence and how much of it is self-image? To clarify: self-image is how we perceive ourselves as objects of others' attention. Presence is different from self-image in that presence is purely subjective, I am this. I am what I am. Self-image is worried about how one is seen by others. For me to be aware of how you see me, requires that I create a fantasy, an abstraction - I have to generate an object of myself to myself so I can observe it.

This mechanism is useful because it is the same mechanism which allows us create an abstraction of another person and "read their minds", to realize that other people have different intentions and motives than ourselves.

This mechanism is dangerous when the self-image becomes identified as our egos. When I say "I am this" or "I am that" and I begin to relate from that abstraction as the real me. Then when anything tries to harm that self-image we respond with the same mechanism we use to protect our physical bodies - that is fight or flight.

I wonder where we got the idea that defending our self-image required the same tools and strategies as defending our physical selves?

Presence is indefensible. Mostly because it is not dependent on external factors, and a subjective state.

These two elements are not mutually exclusive. A strong presence will perhaps create a strong self-image. A strong self-image will probably create a strong presence. But the approach to it is different. If you develop a strong sense of presence, then you will not be too concerned with protecting self-image, but the reverse is not necessarily true.

Prayer life

2009-06-08T20:54:00.002-04:00

Conversations about prayer life are always a little uncomfortable for me. It is the same sort of discomfort one feels when a stranger asks some random question or makes a comment about the weather...you always feel this lingering sense of something else will be following this pleasant and meaningless exchange.

There is an added level to prayer though. There is something about wearing a robe which I guess give me a PhD in prayer in the eyes of some. So it is natural to assume I could answer questions about prayer.

It is true that I probably could answer those questions, but usually (and here is where the discomfort sets in) my explanations are supposed to include information about my prayer life. It seems most people probably either non-existent prayer lives or anemic ones so talking about what they don't have is just part of traditional bourgeois, suburban conversations about what we do not have that our neighbors do. I do not have John's extra large LCD TV or the Petersons' shinny new SUV, or Br. Leo's fantastic prayer life...Prayer, in suburbia is just another thing we need to keep up with the Joneses.

This commodification of prayer makes it very difficult to have an actual discussion about actual prayer. If prayer is a form of relating with God, then it has a lot more to do with sex than with commodities. Though, considering how much sex is a
product these days, it may not be very surprising.

Since prayer, the kind of prayer that I practice, is much more akin to sex, then I have little or no desire to discuss it at random. Someone once told me that mysticism is the erotic relationship with God. Shocking for some, but I believe this to be true if we are careful in our definitions of all the critical words (mysticism, erotic and God).

If I even go down the road of talking about prayer life, I usually I want to spend sometime talking about the person's concept of God and of prayer. What is prayer for? Who is God? How do prayer and God interact? These are not simple theological shibboleths, but rather they are necessary beginnings for a meaningful conversation about prayer life. And even then I will probably talk about their prayer life – which is what they want to talk about anyway. I still coach and help people in their devotional practices. Why? Because I love them, and they need it, and they need me to tell them that God can be there for them, that God can be a safe and trusted harbor. Life is tough enough already. They don't need anything more than a comforting God who can give some meaning and shelter.

So for myself I "envy" those who claim they reach out to God in prayer as a friend. Wish I could do that!

In reality, for me God is not "there" (or "here" for that matter). In prayer there is Nothing. Nothing prayer to not-God. And as I pray I pray that God be in His Nothingness even more there (or here) - a koan of sorts, I think.

I go to my little corner desk where I have my Nepalese singing bowl, a candle, an icon, a crucifix, and my book of psalms. Most times it is not me there at all - it is the room and the noises in the street that are breathing in that corner, watching in that corner, praying there. Sometimes that corner is in a bad mood, sometimes frustrated, sometimes quiet and content.

Further, when people talk of prayer they really are asking about intercessory prayer. To me this happens infrequently. When it does it is obvious, and powerful, and immediately effective. It feels like praying with not to God. And there is immediate consolation in knowing God knows and is doing something about it. But I would say these are the exceptions. The vast majority of time I would say intercessory prayer is simply not heard. Now, there might be other, subtler, benefits to practicing regular intercessory prayer even without the results - the greatest of which is that it is hard not to care about people you pray for. So it is always profitable to pray. Just, in my experience, expecting results is bound to be disappointing.

And what people do? They lie to themselves either by inflating the results or fabricating them altogether. Why? To protect God's reputation as a miracle worker, as a Sovereign who is All-Powerful. But did not Jesus come in as the lowest of the low? What does this say about God?

If, when people asked me about my prayer life, I told them these things I know they would rush in with their pieties (to comfort me), or think me mad.

This spirituality of mine is one of the reasons I have to be a solitary: I am too rough and uncivilized, and I cannot get comfortable with the purple pillow of piety (jasmine scented).

I really wish God was a comfort, that God was a "pill" that takes all my pains away. But the God I know and love is most often an all-devouring absence, something that removes my comforts...

This is where St. Romuald's brief Rule makes sense to me. Step six of the brief Rule states that I should destroy myself completely. This sounds like bombastic exaggeration, or perhaps Romantic afflatus, or dangerously deranged psychosis. Perhaps it is all of the above.

This sixth step is not so nice...and then is that seventh step. So people ask me, "What do you do?", and they expect some uber-monk yoga practices or some super-secret piety exercises or something which would allow me to be happy-happy all the time. And the truth is all I do is sit and wait for "the bus"... I am abandoned by God in God for God, like a baby bird chirping for some regurgitated grubs and water...

For the record: I'm not too fond of birds, and even less so of baby birds, ugly, squirmy, demanding, selfish little things. Not a very flattering image - wish I could say I was a soaring eagle!

Godly conversations

2009-05-31T23:29:00.001-04:00

Usually the conversations with my children tend to be one-sided affairs. On the ride back home from daycare it is an impressionist stream of information strung together with “and then” without much concern for chronology or even basics of plot. The other type of one-sided conversation is usually carried on with my voice raised a level or two and it usually ends with “because I say so”.

Compare that type of one-sided conversation with the type of conversation I have with my wife. Ok, granted, there are times when our conversations are one-sided, but that is less common than not. We both try to be loving and try to communicate our feelings with and to each other.

The truth is that loving communication is never one way. Having unrequited love may be very romantic, but it is not love. To be able to express our love becomes a mutual striving, and sometimes I will do the translating and sometimes she will. Both of us together give and take. Sometimes I show my love in ways which are more meaningful to me, and she charitably accept it at face value. At other times I will go out of my way to do or say something that I know she likes even though it might not be something I particularly enjoy, like vacuuming the stairs.

But how often do we carry the best of this approach to conversation to our inner conversations? More often the words running in my head are a lot closer to an abusive version of childish conversations: non-stop chatter frequently punctuated by shouts of “because I say so”.

We seem to have focused most of our education on outward behaviors, but rarely are we given a chance to learn how to apply these same rules internally. I am a lot more polite and careful with my words when talking with other people, than I am when talking with myself.

It seems that while most of us learn, from an early age how to barter our way into getting something we want or need, we tend to either ignore or downright dislike having to deal with ourselves. We have thousands of years of teachings on rhetoric – going all the way back to ancient Greece. But, looking at the situation in the world these days it is striking how we seem to be incapable of actually convincing anyone of our points of view. We seem to be frequently shouting at each other, or at best, talking past each other without any of the hallmarks of true dialog. In short, it seems we have carried our methods of inner dialog out into the world, instead of letting the more polite forms of social conversation seep into our inner dialogs.

I would say that we do have some ways of retraining ourselves. The first method is prayer. I do not mean prayer by rote. I mean prayer that resembles a deep, heartfelt conversation. It is a way of opening our hearts so that we can let the Other come in and reason with us. It is about being truthful, and honest with God, and therefore with ourselves. For example, it is about letting our anger at injustice come out in angry words so that they do not fester into resentment in our hearts.

In classical rhetoric there are three types of arguments: logical arguments which appeal to the brain; ethical argument which appeal to our gut-feeling about a person, their honesty and trustworthiness; and sympathetic arguments which are arguments which tug at our heartstrings.

Prayer is much the same. Intellectual prayer is best exemplified by stopping at the end of the day and reviewing our actions and seeing where we lived up to your own expectations and where we can do better, without being judgmental and without being sentimental either. Ethical prayer would be where we remind ourselves of God's unfailing love and mercy in our lives, and use that certainty to draw strength and courage during tough times. Finally sympathetic prayer is where we elevate our heartfelt needs up to God, and where we let God melt our hard hearts.

A few things to keep in mind to re-focus your Godly conversations: use every opportunity in the day to pray. Every little event is worthy of prayer, and every encounter can be deepened through blessing. Even when recalling the day past in a prayerful way, its focus should be what will I do next? It is future-focused, not because we are trying to escape the past and avoid the present, but because prayer will propel us into the future Kingdom.

Most importantly reward yourself for remembering to be prayerful. And reward those who talk with you by having a genuinely gentle way with words.

Darmok and Jalad at Tenagra

2009-05-14T08:43:00.001-04:00

The other night at the end of our monthly lectio meeting at my church one of the participants shared with us an insight she had while we were doing lectio on Mark 6:1-6. In our group we take turns reading the passage from different translations, to keep it fresh. She excitedly told us that these various translations reminded her of "Darmok and Jalad at Tenagra" - and that reference made me jump from my seat! She had broken through our near-Pharisaical search for meanings and caught a glimpse of the Living Word of God residing just below the text. In monastic circles we call that Contemplation, but it does not matter what you call it.

For those of you who are not Trekkies I will briefly explain that this phrase comes from one of the deeper Trek episodes - you can get a full rundown of it in various places on the web, including at Wikipedia. Very briefly: at the surface the episode deals with the problems of communication, especially intra-species communication, with Capt. Picard and an alien captain stuck together in a hostile planet where their only choice is cooperate or die. But how do you cooperate with someone whose language you do not understand?

This may seem a relatively trivial problem, but remember folks that this is the 24th century, and everyone has a "universal translator" which means, basically, that everyone speaks the same language.

I will stop for a second here to give us all an opportunity to remember for a few moments of greatness we all share. That time not so long ago when we build those towers. Symbols of our prosperity, of our greatness. Those great towers... Wasn't that a grand enterprise? Weren't we all working together? Weren't we all united? Weren't we all one? Minds and hearts and hands cooperating. Those were the good old days weren't they? Yes, that summer in Babel was truly grand.

Forward 5000 years and we have perfect communications again. But this time you meet a race where your computer is incapable of translating their language. Inconceivable! The only thing that the alien keeps saying over and over is "Darmok and Jalad at Tenagra" (trust me in the hands of a fantastic actor like Patrick Stewart this stuff reaches near Shakespearean levels).

Is language really translatable that way? When I say "I love you" would it be instantly translated into another language? I have a little book at my desk called "In Other Words: A Language Lover's Guide to the Most Intriguing Words Around the World" given to me by a dear friend and fellow logophile. The book lists hundreds of words which are untranslatable into English, or at least there is not a one-to-one correlation between those words and English.

I have personal experience of this. Having grown up in Brazil until my early teens, then living in England, and now the US I am the incarnate version of that little book. "Untranslatable" would be a great epitaph for myself. There is a very famous word in Portuguese which is often mentioned when discussions about translation come up. The word is "saudades". This term could be translated as "longing" but only if you take the word at its broadest and most poetic meaning: a longing for both past and future, people, places and things, an "intense nostalgia" is what the book tells me. Most Brazilians will just shrug at that - "Come to Brazil, spend a summer with us, dance in the Carnaval, hang out in the beaches of Rio and fall in love with a beautiful girl and take a walk with her by the sea, sip some fresh coconut juice while holding hands and looking up at the Jesus statue at the top of the Corcovado, and then leave. And then I will call you in about a year and what you will feel - that's saudades!" I think intense nostalgia does not quite grasp it.

And here we run into a fundamental issue of language, at its roots it is not made up of solid atoms of language stuff. Perhaps one time we might have fallen for that idea. Those of us who are avowed (or even born-again) Modernists think that language is made up of fixed signs. But the reality is frustratingly, beautifully more complicated. it turns out language, like atoms themselves, tends to dissipate into a cloud of metaphor when we look closer. For example when I mentioned the "meaning" of "saudades" in the last paragraph, what exactly does "meaning" mean? If you want "meaning" to mean one thing it will, and if you want it to mean something else it will too. Light can be both wave and particle - what you are looking for? What meaning are you looking for?

One of my (spiritual) mentors is the Mexican poet Octavio Paz. And as every other poet whom I have read or met, the metaphorical nature of language is of grave importance to him. He says "If we are a metaphor of the universe, the human couple is the metaphor par excellence, the point of intersection of all forces and the seed of all forms. The couple is time recaptured, the return to the time before time" (in "André Breton or the Quest of the Beginning," 1967).

So here we are in the 23rd century, stuck in a hostile planet with an alien who just keeps repeating "Darmok and Jalad at Tenagra". There is an urgency in this. There is a life and death struggle here. What are we to do? How am I tell you you I love you? How am I to pray?

In the episode it turns out that the reason the aliens' language that was untranslatable was because it was completely metaphorical. Once they uncovered the key to the alien's metaphor (their religious texts - aha!) then Capt. Picard and the alien could begin to communicate. Trust me guys, this is worth watching, and even using in an adult Bible study group.

If you are like me you have at one point or another been asked, or asked yourself, "Is the Bible literally true?" Sometimes the emphasis is on the "true", sometimes the emphasis is on the literalness. At that point you got to take a deep breath. Often I feel like the Pharisees who were asked by Jesus about the source of John's prophetic gifts: if I answer "yes" then...on the other hand if I answer "no" then...

This is not to trivialize things, but I am frequently astounded by how many smart people have not really approached a book we call Holy without the appropriate reverence. I do not mean subservience, or even negative fear, but positive fear. Take that story, any story in the Bible, and read it with the eyes of a poet - what do you see?

Is the Bible true? Yes. Is the Bible literally true? Yes. It is absolutely literally true poetry. It is the only true poem we know. It is the clearest truth we have, perfectly metaphorical. I use the adjective "perfect" the same way my scientist friends use the term "absolute". It is not a trivial thing. When you can grasp this, then perhaps the Truth of Christ can dawn upon you, and you might not be seen in public without your Bible any longer! You might just go home, no run home, so that you can spend a few precious minutes with these stories. You might just spend days marveling at "At the beginning was the WORD and the WORD was with God and the WORD was God." You just might recite the Lord's Prayer and realize that the Kingdom is coming thanks to your prayer!

Can we all speak the same language? Let the poet have the last word: "Today we all speak, if not the same tongue, the same universal language. There is no one center, and time has lost its former coherence: East and West, yesterday and tomorrow exist as a confused jumble in each one of us. Different times and different spaces are combined in a here and now that is everywhere at once"
(in "Invention, Underdevelopment, Modernity," 1967).

In Praise of Idleness

2009-03-30T08:47:00.001-04:00

By Bertrand Russell
[1932]

Like most of my generation, I was brought up on the saying: 'Satan finds some mischief for idle hands to do.' Being a highly virtuous child, I believed all that I was told, and acquired a conscience which has kept me working hard down to the present moment. But although my conscience has controlled my actions, my opinions have undergone a revolution. I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached. Everyone knows the story of the traveler in Naples who saw twelve beggars lying in the sun (it was before the days of Mussolini), and offered a lira to the laziest of them. Eleven of them jumped up to claim it, so he gave it to the twelfth. this traveler was on the right lines. But in countries which do not enjoy Mediterranean sunshine idleness is more difficult, and a great public propaganda will be required to inaugurate it. I hope that, after reading the following pages, the leaders of the YMCA will start a campaign to induce good young men to do nothing. If so, I shall not have lived in vain.

Before advancing my own arguments for laziness, I must dispose of one which I cannot accept. Whenever a person who already has enough to live on proposes to engage in some everyday kind of job, such as school-teaching or typing, he or she is told that such conduct takes the bread out of other people's mouths, and is therefore wicked. If this argument were valid, it would only be necessary for us all to be idle in order that we should all have our mouths full of bread. What people who say such things forget is that what a man earns he usually spends, and in spending he gives employment. As long as a man spends his income, he puts just as much bread into people's mouths in spending as he takes out of other people's mouths in earning. The real villain, from this point of view, is the man who saves. If he merely puts his savings in a stocking, like the proverbial French peasant, it is obvious that they do not give employment. If he invests his savings, the matter is less obvious, and different cases arise.

One of the commonest things to do with savings is to lend them to some Government. In view of the fact that the bulk of the public expenditure of most civilized Governments consists in payment for past wars or preparation for future wars, the man who lends his money to a Government is in the same position as the bad men in Shakespeare who hire murderers. The net result of the man's economical habits is to increase the armed forces of the State to which he lends his savings. Obviously it would be better if he spent the money, even if he spent it in drink or gambling.

But, I shall be told, the case is quite different when savings are invested in industrial enterprises. When such enterprises succeed, and produce something useful, this may be conceded. In these days, however, no one will deny that most enterprises fail. That means that a large amount of human labor, which might have been devoted to producing something that could be enjoyed, was expended on producing machines which, when produced, lay idle and did no good to anyone. The man who invests his savings in a concern that goes bankrupt is therefore injuring others as well as himself. If he spent his money, say, in giving parties for his friends, they (we may hope) would get pleasure, and so would all those upon whom he spent money, such as the butcher, the baker, and the bootlegger. But if he spends it (let us say) upon laying down rails for surface card in some place where surface cars turn out not to be wanted, he has diverted a mass of labor into channels where it gives pleasure to no one. Nevertheless, when he becomes poor through failure of his investment he will be regarded as a victim of undeserved misfortune, whereas the gay spendthrift, who has spent his money philanthropically, will be despised as a fool and a frivolous person.

All this is only preliminary. I want to say, in all seriousness, that a great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by belief in the virtuousness of work, and that the road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organized diminution of work.

First of all: what is work? Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid. The second kind is capable of indefinite extension: there are not only those who give orders, but those who give advice as to what orders should be given. Usually two opposite kinds of advice are given simultaneously by two organized bodies of men; this is called politics. The skill required for this kind of work is not knowledge of the subjects as to which advice is given, but knowledge of the art of persuasive speaking and writing, i.e. of advertising.

Throughout Europe, though not in America, there is a third class of men, more respected than either of the classes of workers. There are men who, through ownership of land, are able to make others pay for the privilege of being allowed to exist and to work. These landowners are idle, and I might therefore be expected to praise them. Unfortunately, their idleness is only rendered possible by the industry of others; indeed their desire for comfortable idleness is historically the source of the whole gospel of work. The last thing they have ever wished is that others should follow their example.

From the beginning of civilization until the Industrial Revolution, a man could, as a rule, produce by hard work little more than was required for the subsistence of himself and his family, although his wife worked at least as hard as he did, and his children added their labor as soon as they were old enough to do so. The small surplus above bare necessaries was not left to those who produced it, but was appropriated by warriors and priests. In times of famine there was no surplus; the warriors and priests, however, still secured as much as at other times, with the result that many of the workers died of hunger. This system persisted in Russia until 1917 [1], and still persists in the East; in England, in spite of the Industrial Revolution, it remained in full force throughout the Napoleonic wars, and until a hundred years ago, when the new class of manufacturers acquired power. In America, the system came to an end with the Revolution, except in the South, where it persisted until the Civil War. A system which lasted so long and ended so recently has naturally left a profound impress upon men's thoughts and opinions. Much that we take for granted about the desirability of work is derived from this system, and, being pre-industrial, is not adapted to the modern world. Modern technique has made it possible for leisure, within limits, to be not the prerogative of small privileged classes, but a right evenly distributed throughout the community. The morality of work is the morality of slaves, and the modern world has no need of slavery.

It is obvious that, in primitive communities, peasants, left to themselves, would not have parted with the slender surplus upon which the warriors and priests subsisted, but would have either produced less or consumed more. At first, sheer force compelled them to produce and part with the surplus. Gradually, however, it was found possible to induce many of them to accept an ethic according to which it was their duty to work hard, although part of their work went to support others in idleness. By this means the amount of compulsion required was lessened, and the expenses of government were diminished. To this day, 99 per cent of British wage-earners would be genuinely shocked if it were proposed that the King should not have a larger income than a working man. The conception of duty, speaking historically, has been a means used by the holders of power to induce others to live for the interests of their masters rather than for their own. Of course the holders of power conceal this fact from themselves by managing to believe that their interests are identical with the larger interests of humanity. Sometimes this is true; Athenian slave-owners, for instance, employed part of their leisure in making a permanent contribution to civilization which would have been impossible under a just economic system. Leisure is essential to civilization, and in former times leisure for the few was only rendered possible by the labors of the many. But their labors were valuable, not because work is good, but because leisure is good. And with modern technique it would be possible to distribute leisure justly without injury to civilization.

Modern technique has made it possible to diminish enormously the amount of labor required to secure the necessaries of life for everyone. This was made obvious during the war. At that time all the men in the armed forces, and all the men and women engaged in the production of munitions, all the men and women engaged in spying, war propaganda, or Government offices connected with the war, were withdrawn from productive occupations. In spite of this, the general level of well-being among unskilled wage-earners on the side of the Allies was higher than before or since. The significance of this fact was concealed by finance: borrowing made it appear as if the future was nourishing the present. But that, of course, would have been impossible; a man cannot eat a loaf of bread that does not yet exist. The war showed conclusively that, by the scientific organization of production, it is possible to keep modern populations in fair comfort on a small part of the working capacity of the modern world. If, at the end of the war, the scientific organization, which had been created in order to liberate men for fighting and munition work, had been preserved, and the hours of the week had been cut down to four, all would have been well. Instead of that the old chaos was restored, those whose work was demanded were made to work long hours, and the rest were left to starve as unemployed. Why? Because work is a duty, and a man should not receive wages in proportion to what he has produced, but in proportion to his virtue as exemplified by his industry.

This is the morality of the Slave State, applied in circumstances totally unlike those in which it arose. No wonder the result has been disastrous. Let us take an illustration. Suppose that, at a given moment, a certain number of people are engaged in the manufacture of pins. They make as many pins as the world needs, working (say) eight hours a day. Someone makes an invention by which the same number of men can make twice as many pins: pins are already so cheap that hardly any more will be bought at a lower price. In a sensible world, everybody concerned in the manufacturing of pins would take to working four hours instead of eight, and everything else would go on as before. But in the actual world this would be thought demoralizing. The men still work eight hours, there are too many pins, some employers go bankrupt, and half the men previously concerned in making pins are thrown out of work. There is, in the end, just as much leisure as on the other plan, but half the men are totally idle while half are still overworked. In this way, it is insured that the unavoidable leisure shall cause misery all round instead of being a universal source of happiness. Can anything more insane be imagined?

The idea that the poor should have leisure has always been shocking to the rich. In England, in the early nineteenth century, fifteen hours was the ordinary day's work for a man; children sometimes did as much, and very commonly did twelve hours a day. When meddlesome busybodies suggested that perhaps these hours were rather long, they were told that work kept adults from drink and children from mischief. When I was a child, shortly after urban working men had acquired the vote, certain public holidays were established by law, to the great indignation of the upper classes. I remember hearing an old Duchess say: 'What do the poor want with holidays? They ought to work.' People nowadays are less frank, but the sentiment persists, and is the source of much of our economic confusion.

Let us, for a moment, consider the ethics of work frankly, without superstition. Every human being, of necessity, consumes, in the course of his life, a certain amount of the produce of human labor. Assuming, as we may, that labor is on the whole disagreeable, it is unjust that a man should consume more than he produces. Of course he may provide services rather than commodities, like a medical man, for example; but he should provide something in return for his board and lodging. to this extent, the duty of work must be admitted, but to this extent only.

I shall not dwell upon the fact that, in all modern societies outside the USSR, many people escape even this minimum amount of work, namely all those who inherit money and all those who marry money. I do not think the fact that these people are allowed to be idle is nearly so harmful as the fact that wage-earners are expected to overwork or starve.

If the ordinary wage-earner worked four hours a day, there would be enough for everybody and no unemployment -- assuming a certain very moderate amount of sensible organization. This idea shocks the well-to-do, because they are convinced that the poor would not know how to use so much leisure. In America men often work long hours even when they are well off; such men, naturally, are indignant at the idea of leisure for wage-earners, except as the grim punishment of unemployment; in fact, they dislike leisure even for their sons. Oddly enough, while they wish their sons to work so hard as to have no time to be civilized, they do not mind their wives and daughters having no work at all. the snobbish admiration of uselessness, which, in an aristocratic society, extends to both sexes, is, under a plutocracy, confined to women; this, however, does not make it any more in agreement with common sense.

The wise use of leisure, it must be conceded, is a product of civilization and education. A man who has worked long hours all his life will become bored if he becomes suddenly idle. But without a considerable amount of leisure a man is cut off from many of the best things. There is no longer any reason why the bulk of the population should suffer this deprivation; only a foolish asceticism, usually vicarious, makes us continue to insist on work in excessive quantities now that the need no longer exists.

In the new creed which controls the government of Russia, while there is much that is very different from the traditional teaching of the West, there are some things that are quite unchanged. The attitude of the governing classes, and especially of those who conduct educational propaganda, on the subject of the dignity of labor, is almost exactly that which the governing classes of the world have always preached to what were called the 'honest poor'. Industry, sobriety, willingness to work long hours for distant advantages, even submissiveness to authority, all these reappear; moreover authority still represents the will of the Ruler of the Universe, Who, however, is now called by a new name, Dialectical Materialism.

The victory of the proletariat in Russia has some points in common with the victory of the feminists in some other countries. For ages, men had conceded the superior saintliness of women, and had consoled women for their inferiority by maintaining that saintliness is more desirable than power. At last the feminists decided that they would have both, since the pioneers among them believed all that the men had told them about the desirability of virtue, but not what they had told them about the worthlessness of political power. A similar thing has happened in Russia as regards manual work. For ages, the rich and their sycophants have written in praise of 'honest toil', have praised the simple life, have professed a religion which teaches that the poor are much more likely to go to heaven than the rich, and in general have tried to make manual workers believe that there is some special nobility about altering the position of matter in space, just as men tried to make women believe that they derived some special nobility from their sexual enslavement. In Russia, all this teaching about the excellence of manual work has been taken seriously, with the result that the manual worker is more honored than anyone else. What are, in essence, revivalist appeals are made, but not for the old purposes: they are made to secure shock workers for special tasks. Manual work is the ideal which is held before the young, and is the basis of all ethical teaching.

For the present, possibly, this is all to the good. A large country, full of natural resources, awaits development, and has has to be developed with very little use of credit. In these circumstances, hard work is necessary, and is likely to bring a great reward. But what will happen when the point has been reached where everybody could be comfortable without working long hours?

In the West, we have various ways of dealing with this problem. We have no attempt at economic justice, so that a large proportion of the total produce goes to a small minority of the population, many of whom do no work at all. Owing to the absence of any central control over production, we produce hosts of things that are not wanted. We keep a large percentage of the working population idle, because we can dispense with their labor by making the others overwork. When all these methods prove inadequate, we have a war: we cause a number of people to manufacture high explosives, and a number of others to explode them, as if we were children who had just discovered fireworks. By a combination of all these devices we manage, though with difficulty, to keep alive the notion that a great deal of severe manual work must be the lot of the average man.

In Russia, owing to more economic justice and central control over production, the problem will have to be differently solved. the rational solution would be, as soon as the necessaries and elementary comforts can be provided for all, to reduce the hours of labor gradually, allowing a popular vote to decide, at each stage, whether more leisure or more goods were to be preferred. But, having taught the supreme virtue of hard work, it is difficult to see how the authorities can aim at a paradise in which there will be much leisure and little work. It seems more likely that they will find continually fresh schemes, by which present leisure is to be sacrificed to future productivity. I read recently of an ingenious plan put forward by Russian engineers, for making the White Sea and the northern coasts of Siberia warm, by putting a dam across the Kara Sea. An admirable project, but liable to postpone proletarian comfort for a generation, while the nobility of toil is being displayed amid the ice-fields and snowstorms of the Arctic Ocean. This sort of thing, if it happens, will be the result of regarding the virtue of hard work as an end in itself, rather than as a means to a state of affairs in which it is no longer needed.

The fact is that moving matter about, while a certain amount of it is necessary to our existence, is emphatically not one of the ends of human life. If it were, we should have to consider every navvy superior to Shakespeare. We have been misled in this matter by two causes. One is the necessity of keeping the poor contented, which has led the rich, for thousands of years, to preach the dignity of labor, while taking care themselves to remain undignified in this respect. The other is the new pleasure in mechanism, which makes us delight in the astonishingly clever changes that we can produce on the earth's surface. Neither of these motives makes any great appeal to the actual worker. If you ask him what he thinks the best part of his life, he is not likely to say: 'I enjoy manual work because it makes me feel that I am fulfilling man's noblest task, and because I like to think how much man can transform his planet. It is true that my body demands periods of rest, which I have to fill in as best I may, but I am never so happy as when the morning comes and I can return to the toil from which my contentment springs.' I have never heard working men say this sort of thing. They consider work, as it should be considered, a necessary means to a livelihood, and it is from their leisure that they derive whatever happiness they may enjoy.

It will be said that, while a little leisure is pleasant, men would not know how to fill their days if they had only four hours of work out of the twenty-four. In so far as this is true in the modern world, it is a condemnation of our civilization; it would not have been true at any earlier period. There was formerly a capacity for light-heartedness and play which has been to some extent inhibited by the cult of efficiency. The modern man thinks that everything ought to be done for the sake of something else, and never for its own sake. Serious-minded persons, for example, are continually condemning the habit of going to the cinema, and telling us that it leads the young into crime. But all the work that goes to producing a cinema is respectable, because it is work, and because it brings a money profit. The notion that the desirable activities are those that bring a profit has made everything topsy-turvy. The butcher who provides you with meat and the baker who provides you with bread are praiseworthy, because they are making money; but when you enjoy the food they have provided, you are merely frivolous, unless you eat only to get strength for your work. Broadly speaking, it is held that getting money is good and spending money is bad. Seeing that they are two sides of one transaction, this is absurd; one might as well maintain that keys are good, but keyholes are bad. Whatever merit there may be in the production of goods must be entirely derivative from the advantage to be obtained by consuming them. The individual, in our society, works for profit; but the social purpose of his work lies in the consumption of what he produces. It is this divorce between the individual and the social purpose of production that makes it so difficult for men to think clearly in a world in which profit-making is the incentive to industry. We think too much of production, and too little of consumption. One result is that we attach too little importance to enjoyment and simple happiness, and that we do not judge production by the pleasure that it gives to the consumer.

When I suggest that working hours should be reduced to four, I am not meaning to imply that all the remaining time should necessarily be spent in pure frivolity. I mean that four hours' work a day should entitle a man to the necessities and elementary comforts of life, and that the rest of his time should be his to use as he might see fit. It is an essential part of any such social system that education should be carried further than it usually is at present, and should aim, in part, at providing tastes which would enable a man to use leisure intelligently. I am not thinking mainly of the sort of things that would be considered 'highbrow'. Peasant dances have died out except in remote rural areas, but the impulses which caused them to be cultivated must still exist in human nature. The pleasures of urban populations have become mainly passive: seeing cinemas, watching football matches, listening to the radio, and so on. This results from the fact that their active energies are fully taken up with work; if they had more leisure, they would again enjoy pleasures in which they took an active part.

In the past, there was a small leisure class and a larger working class. The leisure class enjoyed advantages for which there was no basis in social justice; this necessarily made it oppressive, limited its sympathies, and caused it to invent theories by which to justify its privileges. These facts greatly diminished its excellence, but in spite of this drawback it contributed nearly the whole of what we call civilization. It cultivated the arts and discovered the sciences; it wrote the books, invented the philosophies, and refined social relations. Even the liberation of the oppressed has usually been inaugurated from above. Without the leisure class, mankind would never have emerged from barbarism.

The method of a leisure class without duties was, however, extraordinarily wasteful. None of the members of the class had to be taught to be industrious, and the class as a whole was not exceptionally intelligent. The class might produce one Darwin, but against him had to be set tens of thousands of country gentlemen who never thought of anything more intelligent than fox-hunting and punishing poachers. At present, the universities are supposed to provide, in a more systematic way, what the leisure class provided accidentally and as a by-product. This is a great improvement, but it has certain drawbacks. University life is so different from life in the world at large that men who live in academic milieu tend to be unaware of the preoccupations and problems of ordinary men and women; moreover their ways of expressing themselves are usually such as to rob their opinions of the influence that they ought to have upon the general public. Another disadvantage is that in universities studies are organized, and the man who thinks of some original line of research is likely to be discouraged. Academic institutions, therefore, useful as they are, are not adequate guardians of the interests of civilization in a world where everyone outside their walls is too busy for unutilitarian pursuits.

In a world where no one is compelled to work more than four hours a day, every person possessed of scientific curiosity will be able to indulge it, and every painter will be able to paint without starving, however excellent his pictures may be. Young writers will not be obliged to draw attention to themselves by sensational pot-boilers, with a view to acquiring the economic independence needed for monumental works, for which, when the time at last comes, they will have lost the taste and capacity. Men who, in their professional work, have become interested in some phase of economics or government, will be able to develop their ideas without the academic detachment that makes the work of university economists often seem lacking in reality. Medical men will have the time to learn about the progress of medicine, teachers will not be exasperatedly struggling to teach by routine methods things which they learnt in their youth, which may, in the interval, have been proved to be untrue.

Above all, there will be happiness and joy of life, instead of frayed nerves, weariness, and dyspepsia. The work exacted will be enough to make leisure delightful, but not enough to produce exhaustion. Since men will not be tired in their spare time, they will not demand only such amusements as are passive and vapid. At least one per cent will probably devote the time not spent in professional work to pursuits of some public importance, and, since they will not depend upon these pursuits for their livelihood, their originality will be unhampered, and there will be no need to conform to the standards set by elderly pundits. But it is not only in these exceptional cases that the advantages of leisure will appear. Ordinary men and women, having the opportunity of a happy life, will become more kindly and less persecuting and less inclined to view others with suspicion. The taste for war will die out, partly for this reason, and partly because it will involve long and severe work for all. Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle. Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish forever.

[1] Since then, members of the Communist Party have succeeded to this privilege of the warriors and priests.

Patience, patience

2009-03-12T08:37:00.001-04:00

My sister has just recently given birth to her first child. I admit that nearly the first words out of my mouth were: "Where are the pictures? Has she updated her Facebook page?" I admit to being an information junkie, and my TV is also connected to my computer so I can check IMDB and Google and Wikipedia while watching a movie or documentary to check up on more facts - what other film has the actress been in? What is the GDP of Indonesia? My family tends to leave me alone during these times. I find I am less than unique in this addiction. My colleagues frequently chide me for not having either an iPhone or a Blackberry, and the fact that I do not Twitter makes me look like someone with "things to hide" from my more connected friends.

The fact that we want things now is really not new, after all Adam and Eve wanted the apple now, not later...

Serpent: Where u at?
Eve: Here
Serpent: Wanna get some appels? [sic]
Eve: Nah. Big Man says No-no.
Serpent: Natch. But why make them so red and delish. Here's a pic.
Eve: Lookin good.
Serpent: How about it then?
Eve: Gotta talk to BF
Serpent: Bring him too!
Eve: OK. SYL.
Serpent: 7 by the tree.

And we all know where that got us. We want instant gratification. We want instant results. We want immediate reduction in discomfort. We are, all of us, "Immediatists".

It seems the idea of spending time watching a sunset or staring at a blank wall doing Centering Prayer is nonsense if not downright madness. Imagine how many chores could've gotten done in that time! But the truth is that the very best stuff takes time to mature. Everything form thoughts, to works of art, to food preparation, to eating a meal together, is better if not rushed. We want immediate solutions to problems which came about in the first place because we rushed into solving the problems that preceded the current one.

One thing is the result of this Immediatist faith: the breaking apart, the incompleteness, of our lives in the deepest sense. In a strange sense, the rapid multiplication of instant "solutions" actually leads to a deep spiritual paralysis.

Against all this you have the methods and process of the Church. We got our Episcopal liturgy which can only move so fast (no matter how short the sermon) - before you can get to the Eucharist. We also got the church liturgical calendar which seems to stretch interminably in Advent and Lent. We also have the nearly 1500 of monastic formation which demands a slow, almost plodding, approach. It takes a year to even begin as a Novice. It take two more to begin the process of vows. It takes 6 or 7 years to "graduate", to take Final Vows. WHo wants to hand around for 7 years? And not even get an MDiv out of it?

Over and over again I have seen people come to me for spiritual direction or to one of my lectio retreats, who almost physically vibrated with anxiety (which is a St. Vitu's Dance of Immediatists). Over and over they had to find a way to slow down, to surrender to a more organic pace. To put up with psalms being recited slowly.

In monastic life, in the life of the Church, agitation is a disease. Chomping at the bit to jump at the next thing, without properly stopping before to pray for assitance from God and upon completion for a prayer of thanksgiving is like trying to hammer cold iron: a lot of noise and effort, not much result.

Anyone who takes some serious spiritual work learns first of all to move at the "speed of God." This does not mean some artificial speed. In fact it is the opposite of all our artificial speeds. Sometimes the work is frenetic, sometimes the work is measured and slow. The speed of it is based on the intrinsic properties of the work that God has set before us. It comes from nowhere else.

Monastic life treasures patience. Wait for things to evolve. Wait longer than you think you can wait, and the wait a little longer. The novice is usually wanting to move on - but move on to where? There is nothing that a senior knows or does which the novice is forbidden. The very act of waiting is formation. The need to move ahead and get to Vows and so on tells most Formation Masters that the Novice should be made to wait a little longer.

The same thing with our Sunday services. It has little to do with the type of music (classical or contemporary), or the amount of charismatic experiences we have. The order of the service ensures that there are enough pauses and enough slow moments for every person to take a deep breath and bask in adoration of God.

So, begin practicing a little more patience. Look for opportunities to be slowed down or even delayed. Look for those moments when life conspires to slow you down. Those are epiphanies - and only the patient will know God.

Pray, Think, Pray, Do

2009-01-29T15:13:00.000-05:00

One of the more important skills to develop as you practice lectio is the capacity to stop the mindless chatter that goes on in the back of your mind - sometimes even in the front!

You know what I mean. There you are, blissfully contemplating a parable or healing miracle of Jesus, and you notice that half of your mind is thinking about dinner, or a football game, or some conversation at work. Usually what we end up doing is introducing another voice into the mix: The Librarian, whose sole job is to walk around saying "Shhhh" very loudly to any and every extraneous thought that pops up.

But this is not what lectio is supposed to be like! What we are actually striving for in lectio is dialog. Yes, by all means stop your monologs or inane chatter. Stop long enough to get into a real (and lively) conversation with Jesus.Your goal is to reach enough emotional stability and a strong and healthy enough mind that you can give up all the chatter motivated by passing moods.

When having a conversation with a wise and deeply learned person, we ask few and pointed questions and then listen with all our attention to their wisdom and knowledge. How much more so when talking to God! But, unfortunately, for those of us who went to college and learned how to read ads, it is easy for us to confuse TV jingles for wisdom, and a sales pitch for insight. Our hearts are really more like a very large loudspeaker blaring tirades which reinforce our petty grudges (aren't they all?), prejudices, idle wishes, sexual and power fantasies, old songs, reruns of past events (with editing to make us look better) -- and the rest of our thoughts are hardly worth bragging about!

A little thought experiment: would you pay attention to this if it were the radio? Better yet, suppose it were a radio broadcast of someone else's mental chatter, someone you have no interest in. How long do you think you could stand it?

As Christians we are called to love the Lord our God with all our mind, our hearts, our strength. Lectio is a way to train ourselves to do just that: to develop the capacity for profitable thinking, a kind of thinking that is both in our heads but also in our hearts. A kind of thinking that permeates our whole bodies, our whole self. We want to hear God saying "Well done." We all want to make sure we have not buried our talents in the sand. Our minds are too incredible a resource to be wasted in sinful and sloppy thinking.

Lectio teaches us how to think. During Lectio we focus only on the New Testament because it is the most direct path to God, and further, we focus only on the Gospels because this is where God is most clearly and obviously acting, in human form, as Jesus. We look at every sentence in the Gospels and think through it. But "thinking" is a complex task. So let's break it down a little bit.

First we learn how to think through events and understand how the same event can have multiple interpretations (i.e. we compare the Gospels for example). We also learn how every event can have an impact on many different people in many different ways (for eg. how a healing looks from the perspective of the sick person, or a Pharisee). We begin to take time and really think through events - this begins to undermine our prejudices, our expectations, our hard heads and hard hearts. We learn to be open to surprise, to the unexpected action of the Holy Spirit.

But that is not all there is to thinking. We must go further. We must develop, through the power of the Holy Spirit, a capacity for discernment. We work very hard at trying to grasp how Jesus could always act out of love, even when he seems to be angry or sad or frustrated. How can love be angry? We seek, constantly, Jesus' heart. In other words, we are trying to grasp the mind of Jesus.

So, even though it seems there is not much going on, a person doing lectio is doing tremendously hard work.

The results of a regular practice of lectio are manifold. Primarily we are learning to think on purpose: our thoughts are focused on what we want to think about. We are paying attention to God and learning how to follow Him. We become good shepherds of our thoughts, and we do not let the sheep wander around aimlessly, but instead keep them together, leading them along, or down safe paths. Our thinking becomes more solid, anchored on the solid Ground of Jesus. We are beginning to build our houses on Rock, not sand. Over and over, as we sit with Jesus, and as our minds wander, we return to Him: "What is He doing now?" Over and over we keep asking "Where is Jesus?", "What is Jesus thinking?", "Why did He do that?", "Why did He say that?" Over and over we come back to watching Him and only Him. We wonder about virtues, we think deeply about sin and death and life. In short we engage life in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The habit you acquire of noticing and weeding out useless thoughts is very profitable, but not nearly as profitable as the habit of strengthening your useful ones - because those are the ones you will need when you leave the church and go out into the world. You begin to be able to switch to better thoughts when you find yourself caught in inappropriate or unprofitable ones. You begin noting that the such-and-such a thought is worth remembering or is beneficial in some way (usually this comes from a line of Scripture). Or it may occur to you that someone needs your help; some insight may spontaneously appear - this is how you begin to really pray, when you join the Holy Spirit in His prayer. Or you may think that some inclination to sin is really not worth following up on, so you drop it.

The results of regular lectio practice is a mind filled with a sense of well-being, of happiness, of victory in Christ. It is not vanity or conceit to congratulate yourself on producing such thoughts - and it is very appropriate to be grateful and thankful to God for them.

One more thing -- when you take the time daily to sit down and open your Bible, you are halfway to Heaven already! The next half hour is simply an intensification of what you can do on a daily basis, and the work (we call it the "work of God") can, and will, spill over more easily into your active ministry - and secular life becomes an ongoing opportunity to stay prayerful and make each daily task an opportunity for lectio, to serve God, and to bring the Good News of salvation to the whole world.

Song of Zecharaiah

2008-11-20T09:17:00.001-05:00

Also know as the Benedictus, it is right at the beginning of Luke. One of three songs (or five if you count Gabriel's messages as songs too - I do!) which open up that Gospel - talk about singing and dancing!

Since Zecharaiah was a priest there seems to me that there can be little doubt that he would recite one of the many Jewish prayers at the birth of his son. Especially after having seen a vision in the temple and struck mute for 9 months!

Wikipedia has this blessing (Shehecheyanu) which would be recited in thankgiving or commemoration of:

* The beginning of a holiday, including Passover, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Simhat Torah
* The first performance of certain mitzvot in a year, including sitting in a Sukkah, eating Matzah on at the Passover Seder, reading the megillah, or lighting the candles on Hannukah
* Eating a new fruit for the first time since Rosh Hashanah
* Seeing a friend who has not been seen in thirty days
* Buying certain new articles of clothing or utensils, such as a new suit
* The birth of a son

And this is the Shehecheyanu:

Baruch atah Adonai, elohainu melech ha-olam, sheheheyanu v’kee-y’manu v’hee-gee-anu lazman hazeh. (Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has given us life, sustained us and brought us to this great moment.)

It has been recorded for about 2000 years, which means it certainly existed around the time of Jesus (and John).

Just about every Jewish blessing starts with Baruch atah Adonai, elohainu melech ha-olam. The first words of the Benedictus are: "Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel who has come to His people and set them free."

It seems logical to me that what Zechariah probably said was the Shehecheyanu.

As I do not know enough about the very deep and broad list of Jewish blessings I am guessing at this point that some of the rest of the Benedictus also has Jewish counterparts. I am also not familiar with whether Jews do a little 'ad-libbing' with their prayers or not, thus starting with a formula and then improvising around familiar themes.

It would be very interesting to piece them all together.

Silence and actions

2008-11-14T14:32:00.003-05:00

"To act with others is always good; to talk with others for the sake of talking, complaining, and recriminating, is one of the greatest scourges on earth" (Emile-Auguste "Alain" Chartier, 1868-1951).

And then this:

Monastics ought to be zealous for silence at all times,
but especially during the hours of the night. (RB 42)

Benedict goes on many times about the ills of "murmuring":

Above all things do we give this admonition,
that they abstain from murmuring. (RB 40 - and many other places)

It is interesting how the ideas connect. Why is it that I can spend a lot of time working with someone, and be successful, but I will get into a fight with less than 5 minutes conversation?

this reminds me of an incident a few years back. I was in my backyard doing some yardwork. My neighbor's teen son was out shooting hoops with two or three of his buddies. And apart from the occasional cheer or jeer and some trash talk, there was little conversation. I in fact did not really notice them. But then up drive two girls, I am assuming girlfriends, and all of the sudden the afternoon became crowded with chatter. The girls were talking to each other and on their cell phones (I could see). It was constant chat. The boys had been out there for well over an hour with very little conversation, and certainly no self-disclosure. The women were a whirlwind of chatter.

I think I can avoid sexism here by pointing out that this is truly a male-female trait. Women have a greater propensity to self-disclosure, and in fact look for such things. Men seem to be more comfortable with activity-sharing (read the entry on Maverick Philosopher's site linked above).

In terms of creating a healthy community how can this be done? Clearly our monastic forefathers (and mothers!) were distrustful of chatter. But why? Doubtlessly because the Bible says so (James, especially). But why does the Bible and James say so? What does silence, in this case the hard work of literally keeping your opinions to yourself, why is that such a negative?

Mostly because we do not know HOW to speak. As absurd as it sounds, we have no clue how to speak. We say the wrong thing, at the wrong time, to the wrong person. For example, I may complain to my wife about my boss or co-worker. Benedict would call that murmuring. This is an example of what I call "misplaced speech". If I have an issue with my co-worker the correct person to talk to is the co-worker. Generally I talk to my wife to elicit sympathy. Or worse to judge others.

The only possible correct use of speech in this case, i.e. talking to my wife, would if I sought her advice in preparation to talking to my co-worker. But that is generally NOT how conversations go. I am not seeking advice, I am rather wanting to gossip, murmur, bicker, complain, and generally I am looking for someone to prop up my poor bruised ego.

Is there a time/place/person with whom I can talked about my bruised ego? Yes - God. This is what the psalms teach me. Go to God first and often. Talk openly about this. "Murmur to God" as it were. That is legitimate. But also listen to God. Have a dialog, not a monologue.

When talking to others there is also a Biblical pattern: "Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing." (1 Thess. 5)

God, let me words be few, and let them all be encouraging.

Prayer - why bother?

2008-11-10T14:07:00.002-05:00

I have come to understand my prayer as having more do to with my faithfulness, my constancy, my determination (I mean it in the sense of prioritizing, not of will-power, though some is required to put prayer first).

Probably, from God's perspective, there is no 'point' in my petitions - He already knows what I am praying for, why, and much more besides, including why He can/cannot honor my prayers as I ask them, but can instead offer me something else much better in the Big Scheme (which may feel a lot less or worse in my small schemes).

But prayer is not about God being changed. It is about me. It is my way of being open(ed). When I pray I change. It is that simple. And if I need to pray about one issue over and over, then I am being changed through that one issue, at ever deeper levels.

There are three changes which are wrought by prayer:

1) the development of my capacity to be reliable - praying daily teaches me to be constant in a world of inconstancy, there is something about the drip-by-drip approach to Heaven. There is no discernible, dramatic, life-altering, apocalyptic change. Just a voice in a corner of a room, in the corner of a street, in the corner of a neighborhood, in the corner of a town, in a corner of the world reciting a psalm very slowly;
2) prayer teaches me to develop patience - in a world of urgency I am reciting my prayers slowly and methodically and, well, prayerfully (lectio, reciting the psalms, etc). There is just no way out of this. You cannot rush through lectio, or it ceases to be lectio. You can say the psalms faster than one of those cattle auctioning guys, but it is no longer a recitation. Furthermore, and the psalms are the primary vehicle for this, the listening again and again to a limited series of problems (David feels cheated or betrayed, the nation of Israel is misbehaving again, God is wonderful and very very scary - did I cover them all?) has developed in me a greater capacity to listen to other people. The sad and sobering truth is that we tend to live our lives playing just one or two notes over and over again. It is a very hard thing to be able to "sing a new song";
3) the tree of constant & patient prayer gives the most succulent fruit of trust - I surrender more and more of my cares to God, and this means that my practice has a causal relationship to how calm, serene, peaceful and joyous I am even in the midst of tribulation. The ceaseless praying of every one of my needs and concerns and fears and pains and angers and lusts and desires and pettinesses and greeds as they happen, even as I am committing them....this raising up the common elements of my life, my bread and wine, so they become His Body and Blood.

It is better to understand the value of the repetitiveness of prayer by doing your own lectio on Luke 18:1-8. It will no doubt open up to you much better and practical and personal insights than the stuff I wrote above.

Stoicism and the secret of the heart

2008-11-05T10:26:00.001-05:00

I have always loved the Stoics. They make so much sense to me. And they offer a clear and simple path: use reason to deal with the stuff which I can control, and ignore the rest. Of course by "the rest" it frequently ends up meaning other people, the environment, the planet....and by "things which I can control" this frequently gets smaller and smaller, so that all I am left with are my opinions (i.e. default reactions to phenomena)....I can control those...mostly.

If taken the the extreme, this program leads one into insufferable, boorish, opinionated arrogance and a disregard for the value (and validity) of others opinions, motives, etc.

One possible way to combat it is to develop faultless logic - hmmm but who is capable of that? Another possible way is to develop perfect discernment so I can accurately identify what is (or isn't) under my control. But that too is impossible.

I could claim that regardless of control issues, I should still be able to keep myself, that is my reactions, under control. You can shout at me, but I can choose not to be troubled. You can love me, but I can choose not to. In other words, it seems feasible to expect an adult to have their own responses, especially emotional ones, under control.

But is it true? Even that is questionable. I have hardly any control over the initial flush of anger or excitement. I cannot avoid being momentarily angry or sad or happy. These things arise like sweat - autonomously.

How about my actions? Surely I can control that. I can be angry at you (for having shouted at me) but I also can stop myself from lashing out or hitting you. I can be very glad to see you, but I can stop myself from running down the platform and sweeping you in a long protracted kiss.

Most of our social interactions expect this sort of restraint. Isn't restraint one of the meanings of 'society'? Rules for propriety and decorum, not to speak of taboo, are all ways of controlling behavior, actual, external, visible actions.

Thus when I look at the 10 Commandments it is clear how much they are concerned with controlling behaviors for the sake of society. It is not very good thinking to say that God commands us not to commit adultery because God wants us to have monogamous heterosexual marriages. The rule regarding adultery is not that for a moral reason like that, but rather to ensure peace and tranquility in the tribe, since God clearly had no issues with polygamy. And on and on.

But what to make of the Sermon on the Mount? In Matthew 5:17-48 Jesus takes a different different tack, or seems to ascribe responsibility to parts of myself which I feel are out of my control. For example he talks about murder, and takes it one step further saying that even being angry with another is equivalent to murder. Same with adultery - it is not a case of physical intimacy, but rather of looking at another with lust.

The sensible approach which I outlined above falls very short of the expectations set by God. Maybe this is another case where Stoicism fails. My reason tells me that I cannot be held accountable for the very natural desire for another woman, after all this is part of my genetic makeup, the very lust which led my ancestors to copulate and eventually beget me!

But Jesus says that being lustful, that looking at another lustfully is the same as adultery...to the heart.

And perhaps here is the piece of true logic which is impossible for me to attain without revelation. Jesus speaks from Reality, while I am always speaking contextually from historical appearance.

These two positions are not the same....one (mine) is focused on the information which can be sifted by my ego, and it uses both nature, that is my current self-apprehension, and nurture, that is the social rules I have learned, in interpreting phenomena and choosing the one which is most beneficial to its own goals. The other one (Jesus) says that there is an alternative processing center - the heart - which is capable of taking in both nature, nurture and one more thing to respond to phenomena.

What is this other thing? What is the secret of the heart?

New 95 Theses

2008-11-03T13:00:00.002-05:00

Those crazy Lutherans....But there is plenty here to chew on.

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Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, the public bulletin board of his day. In like manner, we, Athanasius and Chrysostom, post these 95 theses on the door of the internet. Like the original theses, these are debatable, for we believe that it is through vigorous debate that the spirits are tested and truth is revealed.

In publishing these theses, we do not intend to foment division, but to expose those who are creating division within the body of Christ. We are not addressing any particular church body or person, but invite all who love the Gospel of Jesus Christ to engage in this debate. We do so in the spirit of the great Reformer, Martin Luther, as we implore the mercies of God upon His Church, for the sake of Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Church and Bishop of our souls.

1. When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said “Repent,” He willed that the whole life of believers should be one of repentance.

2. To “repent” means to be contrite for one’s sins and to trust Jesus Christ and solely in His completed work for one’s forgiveness, life, and salvation.

3. Those who describe the Christian life as purpose-driven deny true repentance, confuse the Law and the Gospel, and obscure the merits of Christ.

4. Impious and wicked are the methods of those who substitute self-help and pop-psychology for the Gospel in the name of relevance.

5. This impious disregard for the Gospel wickedly transforms sacred Scripture into a guidebook for living, a pharisaic sourcebook of principles, and sows tares among the wheat.

6. Relevance, self-help and pop-psychology have no power to work true contrition over sins and faith in Jesus Christ.

7. Like clouds without rain, purpose-driven preachers withhold the proclamation of the forgiveness of sins won by Christ on the cross and enslave men’s consciences to the law which they cleverly disguise as so-called 'Biblical Principles'.

8. By teaching tips for attaining perfect health, debt-free wealth, and better sex in marriage, the purveyors of relevance undermine true fear, love and trust in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

9. They are enemies of Christ, who distort the Word of God by tearing verses from their original context in order to use them as proof texts for their self-help, pop-psychology agendas.

10. Injury is done the Word of God when it is used as a source book for practical, relevant “life applications.”

11. In the name of relevance, our Lord Jesus Christ is reduced to a life-coach whose “gospel” assists and motivates people to achieve the objectives of their self-centered delusions of grandeur.

12. Apart from the Holy Spirit, the seeker cannot understand the things of God for these are “spiritually discerned” (1 Cor 2:14).

13. The natural man does not naturally seek the Gospel. “I was found by those who did not seek me; I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me” (Is. 65:1)

14. The true Seeker of men’s souls is our Lord Jesus Christ who came to seek and to save the lost by His death on the cross (Luke 19:10).

15. The truly “seeker-sensitive” church proclaims God’s wrath against our sin and His mercy for Jesus’ sake.

16. The preaching of Christ crucified is a stumbling block to purpose-driven pragmatists and foolishness to church growth consultants.

17. The true gold of the Church is the Most Holy Gospel of the glory and the grace of God.

18. But this treasure is a stench in the nostrils of fallen and sinful men because it exposes man’s complete lack of ability to save himself by his own religious efforts.

19. On the other hand, the fool’s gold of self-help is preferred by sinful men, for it creates the illusion of moral progress and a life that is pleasing to God apart from repentance.

20. The gold of the Gospel is the net by which Christ would make us fishers of men.

21. The fool’s gold of self-help is a snare by which purpose-driven purveyors of relevance attempt to capture the riches and approval of men.

22. The church is holy sheep who hear the voice of their Shepherd.

23. How can sheep hear the voice of their Shepherd when false shepherds preach self-help and pop-psychology?

24. Purveyors of purpose-driven relevance are not shepherds of men’s souls but wolves in sheep’s clothing.

25. Purveyors of relevance claim that self-help, life-applications and biblical principles are the means to reach the unchurched because they meet people’s felt needs.

26. Yet a person’s greatest need is one he does not by nature feel, namely the need for the righteousness that comes from God through faith in Jesus Christ.

27. The true means by which fallen sinners are reached is the preaching of Christ and His sacraments. (Romans 10:17)

28. The true need that mankind is seeking but does not know is justification by grace through faith for Christ’s sake.

29. Since justification is through faith and not through works, natural man neither seeks it nor desires it.

30. Therefore, the teaching of justification by grace through faith is neither seeker-sensitive nor relevant to a world that naturally seeks self-justification.

31. To be in the church is to be union with Christ through faith.

32. Regardless of the number of people in attendance, the church does not grow unless men are granted repentance and faith by God through the action of His Word.

33. Scripture clearly teaches that the means by which God grants faith are the the hearing of the Word of Christ (the Gospel) and the water of Holy Baptism.

34.Therefore, even if a congregation, through their own marketing methods and business prowess were able to draw 100,000 people every Sunday, if the Gospel is not heard and the sacraments are not administered according to the Gospel there is no church and the true Church of Jesus Christ has not grown by a single soul.

35. If numerical growth is a measure of God’s approval, then we must conclude that God approves of Islam and the Mormons.

36. If financial success is a measure of God’s approval, then we must conclude that God approves of pornography and gambling.

37. Cancer and crabgrass both grow rapidly, as does the church that obscures the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

38. The purveying of purpose-driven relevance is the theology of glory; the preaching of Christ crucified for sinners is the theology of the cross.

39. The theologian of glory says that the kingdom of God is visible now in buildings, people, and dollars; the theologian of the cross says that the kingdom of God is an article of faith.

40. The theologian of glory asks “How much?” and “How many?”; the theologian of the cross preaches Christ regardless of how much or how many.

41. The theologian of glory prepares people to receive health, wealth, and happiness; the theologian of the cross prepares people to suffer and die in faith.

42. The theologian of glory preaches that God wants to grant you favors; the theologian of the cross preaches the favor of God for the sake of Christ crucified.

43. The theologian of glory proclaims 40 days of purpose; the theologian of the cross preaches daily dying and rising in Jesus.

44. God established the Church to be a “mouth house” of forgiveness not a madhouse of activity.

45. Christ wills that His voice be heard in His Church and not the voice of man when He says, “He who hears you, hears me.” (Luke 10:16)

46. Purveyors of purpose-driven relevance obscure the voice of Christ and so draw the sheep away from the Good Shepherd.

47. Christ saves from sin and death not through the motivation of the sinner to do good, but through baptismal death and resurrection.

48. The mission of the church is not to transform the world but to disciple the nations by baptizing and teaching (Matt 28:19-20).

49. Anyone who preaches a vision and demands allegiance to it sets up a new papacy among the churches.

50. A synod or church body is a human institution that exists by the will and consent of its member congregations and pastors.

51. A synod or church body is not merely an affiliation of churches that agree on a common purpose.

52. A synod or church body is not the Church, properly speaking, but a fellowship of churches sharing a common confession of faith and practice.

53. Synods are not of the church’s essence (esse) but for her well being (bene esse).

54. Synodical leaders are not lords over the churches, but servants of the churches and stewards of their common possessions.

55. Synodical leaders are not called to promulgate visions but to execute the collective will of the synod’s churches.

56. The old papacy arrogated the Church’s treasury of merits; the new papacy arrogates the Church’s treasury.

57. The old papacy said, “As the coin in the coffer clings, so the soul from purgatory springs.”

58. The new papacy says, “As the coin in the church coffer clings, so another program out of debt springs.”

59. The old papacy counted plenary indulgences; the new papacy counts money and people.

60. The old papacy suppressed the Gospel through canon law; the new papacy suppresses the Gospel through constitutions and by-laws.

61. The old papacy was a friend of Caesar; the new papacy is a friend of Mammon.

62. The old papacy bound a man’s conscience for the sake his wallet; the new papacy binds a man’s wallet for the sake of his conscience.

63. The old papacy promulgated infallible dogma; the new papacy promulgates undebatable visions.

64. The old papacy claims to sit on the seat of Peter; the new papacy claims to sit on the mandate of the majority.

65. The old papacy reserved the right to judge doctrine and practice; the new papacy judges doctrine and practice by commissions and committees.

66. The old papacy issued “bulls;” the new papacy issues task force reports.

67. The old papacy had a college of cardinals; the new papacy has high-priced consultants.

68. Just as popes and councils have erred in the past, so synodical leaders and synodical conventions err in the present.

69. A synod that is concerned for the true unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace does not excuse unionism and syncretism.

70. Unity in doctrine and practice means discernible interchangeability in teaching, preaching, and practice.

71. Unity in doctrine and practice does not consist in signing confessional statements, but in word and deed.

72. Worship is doctrine put into practice.

73. As one worships, so one believes.

74. As one believes, so one worships.

75. Christian worship consists in God’s service to us through His giving and our receiving in faith the gifts of Christ’s Word, Body, and Blood, and our service to God by our prayer, praise, and thanksgiving.

76. Worship that is focused principles for Christian living obscures the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His gifts and is detrimental to faith and salvation.

77. While Christian liberty allows that worship forms need not be altogether the same in every time and place, unity in faith and practice requires that worship forms must not be altogether different in every time and place.

78. Worship forms serve as identifying banners in the confessional field of battle.

79. Peculiar and novel worship forms obscure the unity of the churches and extol the creativity of the worship leaders.

80. In matters neither commanded nor forbidden in the Word of God (adiaphora), the churches of God are free to change ceremonies according to circumstances, as may be most beneficial and edifying to the churches of God. (Epitome, Art X.4)

81. Such changes must avoid all frivolity and offenses, particularly with regard to those who are weak in faith (Epitome, Art X.5).

82. Where the Gospel is at stake, concessions in ceremony must not be made so as to suggest unity with those who deny the Gospel (Epitome, Art X.6)

83. Therefore, it is contrary to the doctrine of adiaphora to hide the substance of Lutheran doctrine behind a non-Lutheran style of worship.

84. To create and sustain saving faith, God established the office of the holy ministry in the church to preach the Gospel and administer the sacraments according to our Lord’s institution.

85. No one may publicly preach, teach, or administer the sacraments in the churches without his being called and ordained.

86. Those who introduce novelties into the church are the true agents of division.

87. The ordination of women is a novelty that has caused great division in the church.

88. The introduction of worship forms not held in common by the churches is a cause of division and a stumbling block.

89. The church belongs to no man but to Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, and Lord of the church.

90. Woe to the false prophets who cry, “Unity, unity” when there is no unity.

91. Again, woe to those who say, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace.

92. Again, woe to those who say, “Gospel, gospel,” when there is no Gospel.

93. Blessed are those who say, “Cross, cross,” when there is no cross.

94. Christians are to be exhorted that they be diligent in following Christ, their Head, through all suffering, death, and hell;

95. And thus be confident of entering into heaven through many trials and tribulations, rather than through the assurance of outward peace, unity, and happiness.

2008-11-03T12:40:00.001-05:00

"Our tendency to see data that confirm our prejudices more vividly than data that contradict them; our tendency to overvalue recent events when anticipating future possibilities; our tendency to spin concurring facts into a single causal narrative; our tendency to applaud our own supposed skill in circumstances when we’ve actually benefited from dumb luck." (from NY Times)

Perhaps the most critical component of monastic training is the development of simple seeing, simple hearing.

It is also one of the more difficult skills to develop and teach. Actually, that is not totally true - it is remarkably easy to teach, "just listen", "just look". But somehow such instructions are not as easy to follow as they are to give.

But why do we make it difficult?

At first I sought the 'fireworks' - you the the type of experiences which are overwhelming, something like the Holy Ghost 2x4 hitting you in the face. unmissable. And they do come! And it is amazing. And I walked around googly-eyed, mumbling and bumbling. There is a reason that the Church sent the recently converted Paul off to the Arabian deserts for a while (around 3 years). He needed time to work through some of the fireworks.

Later, as I cooled off, I spent time looking for the fireworks. Experiences which were unmissable. The irony, of course, is that I was missing out on experiences. All of them. Looking for something else. Looking perhaps for cosmic visions, and all the while missing out on Immanuel.

I have come to see that the "it" I am looking for is as subtle as a whisper. It is right here in conversations over the dinner table. Right here waiting at the traffic light. Right here in a cup of tea in the morning before the kids get up. Right here in the sunset this afternoon. Or in the memory of some event in primary school, the kind words of a teacher.

Immanuel. God with us.

Literalism

2008-10-20T11:27:00.000-04:00

Where is the True Gospel? Is it with Jesus in Heaven? Will He bring it down with Him when he returns?

Or is it perhaps locked up in the Bible? Perhaps only the original text was perfect? And now we have translations, some of which are more faithful than others? Perhaps the True Gospel is the property of the Church - by which I mean the theological teachings based on the Bible which have accumulated for millenia?

But perhaps it is a little more than that? Perhaps the True Gospel is the Christian who shares the Love of Christ with their neighbor. The True Gospel is in the open heart of every believer who strives daily to live out the Sermon on the Mount. Every believer who says the Lord's Prayer and means every word of it.

If the True Gospel is not to be found in the printed text, nor in Heaven, this places a tremendous responsibility on those of us who have absorbed the teachings and have become heralds of the Good News of God to the world.

That is the only kind of literalism that makes any sense to me.

By God through reason content

2008-10-17T14:25:00.002-04:00

People are strange when you're a stranger,
Faces look ugly when you're alone.
Women seem wicked when you're unwanted,
Streets are uneven when you're down.

When you're strange
Faces come out of the rain.
When you're strange
No one remembers your name
When you're strange,
When you're strange,
When you're strange.

The above lyrics are from the band The Doors from their album Strange Days (1967). Strangely, I feel there is a lot of this in solitary spirituality. Clearly the lyric above applies to the dark/sick sort of solitude, and as such it serves a warning to all who embark in true solitary spirituality - am I doing it because of fear or love? In the end that's what all questions of praxis boil down to.

Many poets have remarked on the paradoxical nature of loneliness. And almost everyone has experienced it first hand: going a party where you know no one, or being in a group where you feel no affinity to any of its members. Obviously the feeling of connectedness is in large part, if not wholly related to how much love we feel. A heart brimming with love will quickly connect with the most disparate crowds. A closed, cold heart will be very much alone even if in the middle of adoring crowds. This is an old story. For example, Epictetus in his Discourses (Book 3, Chpt. 13) talks about the solitary this way:

"When then we have lost either a brother, or a son, or a friend on whom we were accustomed to repose, we say that we are left solitary, though we are often in Rome, though such a crowd meet us, though so many live in the same place, and sometimes we have a great number of slaves. For the man who is solitary, as it is conceived, is considered to be a helpless person and exposed to those who wish to harm him."

Psychologically, being in a depressive state, or worse a manic-depressive state, will ensure complete incapacity to feel connections. It is very lonely place to be.

Theologically, the devil will always try to separate one from another. It is not simply the case that "united we stand" - it is rather the case that united, i.e. compassionate hearts, are godly, and thus impervious to the devil's roarings.

Looking briefly at Jesus' temptations in the desert, it is noticeable that the devil takes him places where he is set above and distant from everyone - the top of a mountain to look at the kingdoms, the top of the temple. And even when he says "make bread out of stones" it shows independence. Jesus' reply always points to interdependence - between man and God, and people to each other - buying a loaf of bread from the baker does more than provide employment for a baker. It is more than that. The baker's self worth is tied to his productivity, and my own position as dependent on the gifts of another places me existentially within a very flat web of voluntary relationships from mutual need.

Even though sometimes markets are seen as vicious and destructive, they do not have to be - they express the fundamental truth of love for neighbor. The mutually free exchange of goods and services allows me to remember that I depend on the gifts and toil of others for my existence, just as much as they depend on me.

Granted, there are elements in markets which, if left unchecked, may eventually cause the market to collapse. But is this not the same thing with any living thing? Do not cells which do not follow the "rules" end up as cancer? And plants which are disproportionately adapted to an environment (by this I usually mean transplants which did not have to grow within the "rules" of the local ecosystem) end up as weeds?

Still, within some bounds it is clear that the give and take of commerce is the very fabric of mutually recognized neighborliness and affection. Epictetus (again) knows this:

But the doctrine of philosophers promises to give us security even against these things. And what does it say? "Men, if you will attend to me, wherever you are, whatever you are doing, you will not feel sorrow, nor anger, nor compulsion, nor hindrance, but you will pass your time without perturbations and free from everything." When a man has this peace, not proclaimed by Caesar (for how should he be able to proclaim it?), but by God through reason, is he not content when he is alone? when he sees and reflects, "Now no evil can happen to me; for me there is no robber, no earthquake, everything is full of peace, full of tranquility: every way, every city, every meeting, neighbor, companion is harmless. One person whose business it is, supplies me with food; another with raiment; another with perceptions, and preconceptions. And if he does not supply what is necessary, He gives the signal for retreat, opens the door, and says to you, 'Go.' Go whither? To nothing terrible, but to the place from which you came, to your friends and kinsmen, to the elements: what there was in you of fire goes to fire; of earth, to earth; of air, to air; of water to water: no Hades, nor Acheron, nor Cocytus, nor Pyriphlegethon, but all is full of Gods and Demons." When a man has such things to think on, and sees the sun, the moon and stars, and enjoys earth and sea, he is not solitary nor even helpless. "Well then, if some man should come upon me when I am alone and murder me?" Fool, not murder you, but your poor body. (see full text here.)

The solitary, far from meeting a crowd of ugly and wicked people, looks at all these new neighbors with love and compassion and serves them in two fundamental ways: in silence and in withdrawal.

In silence the solitary walks through the marketplace without judging. Open to potential opportunities for new relationships based on love and trust.

In withdrawal the solitary walks through the market unaffected by the emotional turmoil within it. By looking at all things with equanimity the solitary is able to discern their true value - and reveal it to others. Some things, let us be honest, are junk. Some are priceless. Who can tell? Only one whose heart is balanced and free.

The solitary's presence in the marketplace both ennobles it and condemns it. Without passing a single judgment the solitary shines a light in the heart of the market, of the neighborhood, and enables others to see what is there. As Epictetus says: "Show to them in your own example what kind of men philosophy makes, and don't trifle. When you are eating, do good to those who eat with you; when you are drinking, to those who are drinking with you; by yielding to all, giving way, bearing with them, thus do them good, and do not spit on them your phlegm."

The true paradox is that this is not always welcome.

Misc.

2008-10-02T13:54:00.004-04:00

A dojo is not someplace where you should aim to become strong. Its a place for penance, a place to reflect on what you've done. And to live like a true human being. So people shouldn't misunderstand what a dojo is about. They shouldn't have any illusions. A dojo isn't something with a concrete form. Every day is a dojo, wherever you are. (Masaaki Hatsumi)

Let nothing disturb you, nothing scare you; all things are passing, God never changes! Patient endurance attains all things; who God possesses in nothing is wanting; alone God suffices. (St. Teresa of Avila)

Prayer to Overcome Anxiety

2008-09-29T16:05:00.002-04:00

I weave a silence on my lips
I weave a silence into my mind
I weave a silence within my heart
I close my ears to distractions
I close my eyes to attractions
I close my heart to temptations

Calm me O Lord as you stilled the storm
Still me O Lord, keep me from harm
Let all tumult within me cease
Enfold me Lord in your peace.

(David Adam)

What is Lectio for?

2008-09-25T10:10:00.002-04:00

When we have really grasped the affects of sin in our lives in all its stark power and complex insinuations over my countless actions (and inactions) and reactions to other sinful actions and inactions, and seen how sin has wrapped itself around everyone of us in judgmental ignorance like a python, squeezing tighter and tighter; when we have really understood the malicious, murderous and doomed (in old English this means 'judged') nature of our sin; when we have really understood just how our minds are defined, narrowed and darkened by sin, how sin makes it impossible for us to have an open and loving heart able to respond creatively to life, and how sin has blocked in us all avenues for any really compassionate action; and when we have spent a long time marveling at Jesus' sinlessness in the Gospels, gnawing deeply on every word of His, going down to the marrow of every thought, down to their most subtle hiding places, like a dog with a juicy bone (as Eugene Peterson puts it) - then there comes a moment when we understand, with brutal clarity, what Jesus said:

The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

At that moment a righteous anger flares up in us, pushing us to confront and do battle with the evil one, the prime cause of all oppression. This 'battle' is not a matter of 'victory' - being baptized we have already won - but rather a practice, like a doctor's, where we polish our hearts until they are so filled with the uncompromising charity of Jesus Christ that we cannot help but to become reflectors, shining His Light in the world, freedom fighters, proclaimers of His Good News, restorers of vision, and rescuers of all oppressed.

And, that, my friends, is what Lectio teaches. It is no exaggeration to say that. The constant and mindful focus on the Gospels, on Jesus' words, and most importantnly in discerning His mind and His heart in every act and teaching of his, will, over a period of time give us the solid ground from which all true pilgrimages begin. how can we go out into the world rejoicing if we do not first have a firm footing? And how will we find firm footing if we are not standing on the Rock, the Ground of our being? And how will we find this Ground if not by going to the Ground Himself?

Divine reading is more than instructional, it is formational. If we seek Jesus' heart in every parable, especially the ones that puzzle us, He will come and meet us - after all 'all who seek, find'. If we persist in knocking at the door it will open. Because who is it that knocks, it is Jesus Himself! And at what door? At the Door Himself!

Jesus knocks on Jesus.

Grasp this and you will be saved, as they say.

Seeds of Contemplation

2008-09-02T11:20:00.002-04:00

To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence: for God is love.

Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my character. Love is my name.

If, therefore, I do anything or think anything or say anything, or know anything or desire anything that is not purely for the love of God, it cannot give me peace, or rest, or fulfillment, or joy.

To find love I must enter into the sanctuary where it is hidden: which is the essence of God. And to enter into His sanctity I must become holy as He is holy, perfect as He is perfect. None of this can be done by any effort on my own, by any striving on my own, by any competition with other men. It means leaving all the ways that men can follow or understand.

I who am without love cannot become love unless Love identifies me with Himself. But if He sends His own Love, Himself, to act and love in me and in all that I do, then I shall be transformed, I shall discover who I am and shall possess my true identity by losing myself in Him.

And that is what is called sanctity.

(Thomas Merton, Seeds of Contemplation, p. 46.)

Co-ops

2008-08-27T16:05:00.000-04:00

Seven principles of co-ops:

1. Voluntary and Open Membership
2. Democratic Member Control
3. Member Economic Participation
4. Autonomy and Independence
5. Education
6. Cooperation among Cooperatives
7. Concern for Community

This is fundamentally the same thing I am trying to accomplish with the Community of Solitude:

1. If you believe in what we believe then join us!
2. We have no "one head" but rather a council which is duly elected and who rotates.
3. In our case it means tithe to your church.
4. Yes - that is what Solitary is all about.
5. We have a strong and organized formation program to keep everyone challenged at all levels
6. I guess we call that 'charity' or 'love'
7. And finally - through our silence we go deep into our 'cells' - that is our ZIP code, and engage all we meet in a prayerful way.

I like this.

Free will

2008-08-27T09:25:00.001-04:00

An interesting study on free will reported on SciAm (see here) gives an even more interesting result: "after people are made skeptical of free will, they cheat more."

This has some theological implications. A few questions that immediately spring to mind are: do double-predestination Calvinists cheat more? Are Open Theism advocates more ethical? Are Compatibilists able to cheat without getting caught?

This questions are only partially in jest. It seems to me that the free-will debate will never be successfully questioned/explained until we have some agreed-upon definitions of what freedom is, what is the will, and what is free-will. We probably need to answer what is determinism, predestination. We also need to think deeply about destiny, teleology, and the role of unidirectional time (i.e. the flow of history fro past to future) in the individual actions. Oh yeah, and we have to define agent, individual, and perhaps even choice!

Sounds like a cop out but in fact these questions are important. Jesus came to save me. Now which 'me' is that? Was it a choice Jesus made pre-incarnation? Did he then have no free-will during the incarnation? And on and on.

The question of free-will/predestination has to hover over the Crucifixion and Resurrection, like the Spirit over the waters.

And our minds must stay there for a while too, asking over and over not 'why' did Jesus die for me, that's obvious, but rather ask what 'me' did he die for? I.e. 'who' did He die for?

The first question asked of those who suddenly find depth in their lives is "Why am I here?". Later on they graduate to "Why is there something instead of nothing?" Eventually, if they persist long enough they will begin asking "Who?" not 'why'. "Who is at the center of it all? Who brought existence into being? Who?" A much deeper question.

And when we get into the Who question, then we also turn to look at who we are - are we some sort f self-contained monad? Are we porous like a sponge? Perhaps my self is just an epiphenomenon? A strange attractor for multiple time data - sensory, historical, etc.

These are not trivial questions. When we look into this darkness, what do we see?

Keep looking, the eyes may never get used to the total darkness, but there may be a Light....for in your Light we see light (Ps. 36)

Love is not loved

2008-08-21T19:42:00.000-04:00

Love is not loved

I am barely opening Francis' nugget
So simple really. And further: everything loves. Everything.
Sure sometimes we misplace it, like a sock in the wrong drawer;
At times we lose sight of it, like a locket that falls behind
A heavy dresser; and at times we throw it away thinking it trash,
Like that important phone number crumpled

How long ago when I saw, felt, knew that the whole of every thing
every little thing
Was a cooperative. The universe cooperates.
Not just operates, like a machine, but instead is aware and
Helps each other out to the best of its ability

As last night the moon helped me in my sleeplessness
And this afternoon the wind kept our lips cool and moist
The car filled with desire and soft afternoon breeze

And love - a word I tread through carefully, a minefield, a bog
But Love, that is the rule and warrant of all cooperation
It is a voluntary reaching out

Everything loves, and cooperates
And lovers we all are, united, saint and sinner, lost and found
Into God's Heart

Domine Iesu, noverim me, noverim te

2008-08-18T16:35:00.003-04:00

St. Augustine (354-430)

Lord Jesus, let me know myself, know You.
Let me desire nothing but You.
Let me hate myself, love You.
Let me do everything for Your sake.
Let me humble myself, exalt You.
Let me think of nothing but You.
Let me die to myself, live in You.
Let me accept whatever happens as from You.
Let me banish myself, follow You,
And ever desire to follow You.
Let me flee from myself, take refuge in You,
That I may deserve to be defended by You.
Let me fear myself, fear You,
And let me be among Your elect.
Let me distrust myself, trust You.
Let me obey for Your sake.
Let nothing affect me but You,
And let me be poor for You.
Look upon me, that I may love You.
Call me that I may see You,
And for ever enjoy You. Amen.

[Original text]

Domine Iesu, noverim me, noverim te,
Nec aliquid cupiam nisi te.
Oderim me et amem te.
Omnia agam propter te.
Humilem me, exaltem te.
Nihil cogitem nisi te.
Mortificem me et vivam in te.
Quaecumque eveniant accipiam a te.
Persequar me, sequar te,
Semerque optem sequi te.
Fugiam me, confugiam ad te,
Ut merear defendi a te.
Timeam mihi, timeam te,
Et sim inter electos a te.
Diffidam mihi, fidam in te.
Obedire velim propter te.
Ad nihil afficiar nisi ad te,
Et pauper sim propter te.
Aspice me, ut diligam te.
Voca me, ut videam te,
Et in aeternum fruar te. Amen.

Athanasian Creed (Quicumque vult)

2008-08-07T22:52:00.005-04:00

It appears that the Creed named to the learned Doctor from Alexandria was not really from his pen, though as the champion of the Trinity he would probably have approved.

It opens its labyrinthine passages in a most clear way bu defining the whole teaching of the Church: "This is what the catholic faith teaches: we worship one God in the Trinity and the Trinity in unity." This is what the faith teaches: worship. And not just any worship, but the worship of the one true God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Some background

Even though the opening is auspiciously clear, we are almost immediately thrown into the whorls of a complex Creed. Before we get lost, we should pause and take a look at the context of the writing. First, scholars are fairly certain the Creed was written around the 5th century in the region of Gaul (Western France). There are many similarities in style with the writings that came form that area at that time especially of St. Vincent of Lerins. This should help us understand the textual context of the piece, for everyone writes within a certain historical context, either in harmony with it or in revolt against it. But always in conversation with the main themes, motifs and topics of the time.

Next, the teachings of the Creed match those that came from the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcendon. Just like the Nicene Creed came from the Council of Nicea-Constantinople, and was a summation of the work of those Councils. The Creeds therefore were a sort of pill, when few people could read, and very few manuscripts were available, it was nice to have it all summed up in a Creed which would encapsulate the nuanced theological debates in an easy to memorize (and teach) formula. An important caveat: the Quicumque was not the work of those councils, it came later. The Nicene Creed itself was a work of the Councils. If we wanted to put weight to each I would say the Nicene Creed carries more weight.

One more thing, looking at the art from that time we see a predominance of what I would call "celtic motifs" - lots of spirals, and curves, and circular shapes. Clearly a culture which was familiar with ideas of circularity, repetition - indeed, one which found such things beautiful.

Finally, the Creed would be concerned with stopping the spread of heresy. This Creed is potent medicine against Arianism (which was being brought into Europe with the gothic invasions) as well as Nestorianism. A quick recap: Arianism did not believe the Sn was equal to the Father, but rather that he was a creature. Te Son, the Logos, was the first Creature and through Him all others were created, but He was also creator, and not Creator. Nestorianism posited two persons: Jesus and the Logos - this is different than saying the Jesus was one person with both a human and a divine substance. We need not concern ourselves with drawing out the implications of both these errors. Suffice to say they are errors, and when thought through they have profound implications for all things relating to the work of Christ, His sacrifice, and our redemption.

Ok. Having a little bit of background gives us better footing when dealing with the Quicumque vult. We should expect a teaching which would 'inoculate' the believer against various Christological heresies; that this teaching be full of circular references to appeal to a Gallic audience; and that it serve as a summary of the work done in recent Ecumenical Councils.

Persons and substances

In Latin (as in Greek) there were some technical terms which lose some of their significance when translated into modern English. 'Person' is one of those. For us a person is an individual, two persons mean two individuals. They are separate physically, mentally, spiritually even. A person, in this sense, is the smallest unit of being. This is not what is meant by person in the Creed (or in any Latin text). So the three persons of the Trinity are not three separate gods. Some people trying to avoid the idea of three gods, then fall into another error - of thinking that it is one God with three types of expression (three modes). A famous example is to think of God like the Sun. There is one Sun, but we can see it, we can feel its heat, and we can see its light. So three 'things' (three modes) of one thing. But that is also incorrect (and there are theological reasons for not going down that road either). What are we left with? Well, in short, a mystery! The Trinity of persons is a real, objective, eternal distinction (not division) within the Being of God Himself. And yet there is only one God. Put it this way if we could scan God we would find no divisions, no cracks, no splits. Just one God. And yet if we asked God God would use plural forms to describe Himself and His internal activities. So three but only one.

How about substance? The better translation in modern English would be a word like 'essence' or 'being'.

A writer in the 5th century would write: "To a lawyer a 'person' is a theoretical owner of rights and property; 'substance' is the aggregate of rights and property."

So three persons, one substance. In modern English it might make more sense to say three substances, one being.

The Creed

The Creed is roughly divided into two parts. The first (and longer) part goes over and over the various attributes of the Godhead, making sure each Person is labeled as such, and then always repeating "but they are one not three". It seems repetitive, but it is rather exhaustive (and some say exhausting!).

The first part ends with the words: "He, therefore, who wishes to be saved, must believe thus about the Trinity." True belief has always been of fundamental importance to the Church. Paul uses up much ink and papyrus to ensure proper belief. You see, works are much easier to be cataloged, judged, and corrected. If you feed someone who is starving there are not many ways to do ti wrong. But beliefs are more slippery. How can I judge your beliefs? Or in more contemporary terms we can ask the question this way: I can see your good actions but how do I know you had good intentions? The Creeds help us to ensure our intentions are properly calibrated.

The second part then brings together the ideas from the first and applies them to work of Jesus. It is a rather nice way to bring everything back together. It points out some of the dangers of not holding on to the proper belief.

It then ends, once more, with a warning: "Those who have done good deeds will go into eternal life; those who have done evil will go into the everlasting fire." This is just an echo of the teaching of Jesus who said: ""Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life." (John 5:24). And also said "If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire." (Matt. 18:8).

For an in-depth study of the Creed go here: http://www.katapi.org.uk/CreedsIntro/Ch6.htm

If you read this blog - pat yourself in the back....

2008-08-04T11:58:00.000-04:00

Movie Reviews

Limited control or unlimited participation?

2008-07-31T11:26:00.000-04:00

Just ran across an interesting connection between Luke 14 and Deuteronomy

As you can see there is a long tradition in Jewish law (and ethics) to firmly defend the right of the individual. The Chief Rabbi of Great Britain has a great letter on the topic (http://www.chiefrabbi.org/thoughts/massei5768.pdf).

It is interesting to note that, as the Rabbi says, in the Jewish State the society was there to serve the individual. This in itself is a fruitful source for much contemplation not only in the present and always explosive political scene in Israel, but also in understanding some of the more "selfish" acts of various disciples and followers of Jesus.

Specifically I see an interesting connection between the list of "excuses" that the various people invited to the banquet (in Jesus' parable) and the legal reasons for not serving the military in a "non-obligatory war" (i.e. a war that is not for self-defense - I like that term!). What are they? Buying new property, planting a vineyard, marriage, and fear. All of these apparently are justifiable reasons for not joining the army.

What are the reasons people give for not coming to the banquet? Buying a field, buying five yoke of oxen, and marriage!

It seems we can infer that the Law was used for more than war, it was also used for all sorts of social engagements and expectations. Within the legal framework of Judaism those reasons (new property, marriage) were perfectly acceptable reasons for absenteeism.

Jesus is pretty clear that this is not acceptable though. Is he going against the Law? Certainly the Pharisees more than once accused him of being a law-breaker.

Before we draw too many broad conclusions, it is important to remember that Jesus is talking about The Great Banquet, the Coming of the Kingdom of God. It seems that he is pointing out to the Pharisees (and us) that we can get so tangled up in the rules that we would rather miss an invitation by God if it clashed with a previous event in our agenda. "One moment God, can you postpone the Second Coming to next Weds? I will have some time then."

Does this not happen all the time, here and now? Do I not turn away from God and His Banquet to tend to my vineyards?

The most crucial point here is the turning. Turning away from abundance towards scarcity, turning away from magnanimity towards parsimony, from charity towards...what? Fear.

The end result is that we seem to choose the limited management of something we control in lieu of the unlimited participation in the Kingdom which is out of our control.

Why is that?

Politics and the English Language (George Orwell, 1946)

2008-07-30T09:42:00.003-04:00

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language -- so the argument runs -- must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.

Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers. I will come back to this presently, and I hope that by that time the meaning of what I have said here will have become clearer. Meanwhile, here are five specimens of the English language as it is now habitually written.

These five passages have not been picked out because they are especially bad -- I could have quoted far worse if I had chosen -- but because they illustrate various of the mental vices from which we now suffer. They are a little below the average, but are fairly representative examples. I number them so that i can refer back to them when necessary:

1. I am not, indeed, sure whether it is not true to say that the Milton who once seemed not unlike a seventeenth-century Shelley had not become, out of an experience ever more bitter in each year, more alien [sic] to the founder of that Jesuit sect which nothing could induce him to tolerate. (Professor Harold Laski, Essay in Freedom of Expression)

2. Above all, we cannot play ducks and drakes with a native battery of idioms which prescribes egregious collocations of vocables as the Basic put up with for tolerate, or put at a loss for bewilder. (Professor Lancelot Hogben, Interglossa)

3. On the one side we have the free personality: by definition it is not neurotic, for it has neither conflict nor dream. Its desires, such as they are, are transparent, for they are just what institutional approval keeps in the forefront of consciousness; another institutional pattern would alter their number and intensity; there is little in them that is natural, irreducible, or culturally dangerous. But on the other side, the social bond itself is nothing but the mutual reflection of these self-secure integrities. Recall the definition of love. Is not this the very picture of a small academic? Where is there a place in this hall of mirrors for either personality or fraternity? (Essay on psychology in Politics)

4. All the "best people" from the gentlemen's clubs, and all the frantic fascist captains, united in common hatred of Socialism and bestial horror at the rising tide of the mass revolutionary movement, have turned to acts of provocation, to foul incendiarism, to medieval legends of poisoned wells, to legalize their own destruction of proletarian organizations, and rouse the agitated petty-bourgeoise to chauvinistic fervor on behalf of the fight against the revolutionary way out of the crisis. (Communist pamphlet)

5. If a new spirit is to be infused into this old country, there is one thorny and contentious reform which must be tackled, and that is the humanization and galvanization of the B.B.C. Timidity here will bespeak canker and atrophy of the soul. The heart of Britain may be sound and of strong beat, for instance, but the British lion's roar at present is like that of Bottom in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream -- as gentle as any sucking dove. A virile new Britain cannot continue indefinitely to be traduced in the eyes or rather ears, of the world by the effete languors of Langham Place, brazenly masquerading as "standard English." When the Voice of Britain is heard at nine o'clock, better far and infinitely less ludicrous to hear aitches honestly dropped than the present priggish, inflated, inhibited, school-ma'amish arch braying of blameless bashful mewing maidens! (Letter in Tribune)

Each of these passages has faults of its own, but, quite apart from avoidable ugliness, two qualities are common to all of them. The first is staleness of imagery; the other is lack of precision. The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not. This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing. As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse. I list below, with notes and examples, various of the tricks by means of which the work of prose construction is habitually dodged:

Dying metaphors. A newly invented metaphor assists thought by evoking a visual image, while on the other hand a metaphor which is technically "dead" (e.g. iron resolution) has in effect reverted to being an ordinary word and can generally be used without loss of vividness. But in between these two classes there is a huge dump of worn-out metaphors which have lost all evocative power and are merely used because they save people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves. Examples are: Ring the changes on, take up the cudgel for, toe the line, ride roughshod over, stand shoulder to shoulder with, play into the hands of, no axe to grind, grist to the mill, fishing in troubled waters, on the order of the day, Achilles' heel, swan song, hotbed. Many of these are used without knowledge of their meaning (what is a "rift," for instance?), and incompatible metaphors are frequently mixed, a sure sign that the writer is not interested in what he is saying. Some metaphors now current have been twisted out of their original meaning withouth those who use them even being aware of the fact. For example, toe the line is sometimes written as tow the line. Another example is the hammer and the anvil, now always used with the implication that the anvil gets the worst of it. In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer, never the other way about: a writer who stopped to think what he was saying would avoid perverting the original phrase.

Operators or verbal false limbs. These save the trouble of picking out appropriate verbs and nouns, and at the same time pad each sentence with extra syllables which give it an appearance of symmetry. Characteristic phrases are render inoperative, militate against, make contact with, be subjected to, give rise to, give grounds for, have the effect of, play a leading part (role) in, make itself felt, take effect, exhibit a tendency to, serve the purpose of, etc., etc. The keynote is the elimination of simple verbs. Instead of being a single word, such as break, stop, spoil, mend, kill, a verb becomes a phrase, made up of a noun or adjective tacked on to some general-purpose verb such as prove, serve, form, play, render. In addition, the passive voice is wherever possible used in preference to the active, and noun constructions are used instead of gerunds (by examination of instead of by examining). The range of verbs is further cut down by means of the -ize and de- formations, and the banal statements are given an appearance of profundity by means of the not un- formation. Simple conjunctions and prepositions are replaced by such phrases as with respect to, having regard to, the fact that, by dint of, in view of, in the interests of, on the hypothesis that; and the ends of sentences are saved by anticlimax by such resounding commonplaces as greatly to be desired, cannot be left out of account, a development to be expected in the near future, deserving of serious consideration, brought to a satisfactory conclusion, and so on and so forth.

Pretentious diction. Words like phenomenon, element, individual (as noun), objective, categorical, effective, virtual, basic, primary, promote, constitute, exhibit, exploit, utilize, eliminate, liquidate, are used to dress up a simple statement and give an air of scientific impartiality to biased judgements. Adjectives like epoch-making, epic, historic, unforgettable, triumphant, age-old, inevitable, inexorable, veritable, are used to dignify the sordid process of international politics, while writing that aims at glorifying war usually takes on an archaic color, its characteristic words being: realm, throne, chariot, mailed fist, trident, sword, shield, buckler, banner, jackboot, clarion. Foreign words and expressions such as cul de sac, ancien regime, deus ex machina, mutatis mutandis, status quo, gleichschaltung, weltanschauung, are used to give an air of culture and elegance. Except for the useful abbreviations i.e., e.g., and etc., there is no real need for any of the hundreds of foreign phrases now current in the English language. Bad writers, and especially scientific, political, and sociological writers, are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones, and unnecessary words like expedite, ameliorate, predict, extraneous, deracinated, clandestine, subaqueous, and hundreds of others constantly gain ground from their Anglo-Saxon numbers.*

[*An interesting illustration of this is the way in which English flower names were in use till very recently are being ousted by Greek ones, Snapdragon becoming antirrhinum, forget-me-not becoming myosotis, etc. It is hard to see any practical reason for this change of fashion: it is probably due to an instinctive turning away from the more homely word and a vague feeling that the Greek word is scientific.]

The jargon peculiar to Marxist writing (hyena, hangman, cannibal, petty bourgeois, these gentry, lackey, flunkey, mad dog, White Guard, etc.) consists largely of words translated from Russian, German, or French; but the normal way of coining a new word is to use Latin or Greek root with the appropriate affix and, where necessary, the size formation. It is often easier to make up words of this kind (deregionalize, impermissible, extramarital, non-fragmentary and so forth) than to think up the English words that will cover one's meaning. The result, in general, is an increase in slovenliness and vagueness.

Meaningless words. In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning.*

[* Example: Comfort's catholicity of perception and image, strangely Whitmanesque in range, almost the exact opposite in aesthetic compulsion, continues to evoke that trembling atmospheric accumulative hinting at a cruel, an inexorably serene timelessness . . .Wrey Gardiner scores by aiming at simple bull's-eyes with precision. Only they are not so simple, and through this contented sadness runs more than the surface bittersweet of resignation." (Poetry Quarterly)]

Words like romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental, natural, vitality, as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly ever expected to do so by the reader. When one critic writes, "The outstanding feature of Mr. X's work is its living quality," while another writes, "The immediately striking thing about Mr. X's work is its peculiar deadness," the reader accepts this as a simple difference opinion. If words like black and white were involved, instead of the jargon words dead and living, he would see at once that language was being used in an improper way. Many political words are similarly abused. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies "something not desirable." The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements like Marshal Pétain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.

Now that I have made this catalogue of swindles and perversions, let me give another example of the kind of writing that they lead to. This time it must of its nature be an imaginary one. I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Here it is in modern English:

Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.

This is a parody, but not a very gross one. Exhibit (3) above, for instance, contains several patches of the same kind of English. It will be seen that I have not made a full translation. The beginning and ending of the sentence follow the original meaning fairly closely, but in the middle the concrete illustrations -- race, battle, bread -- dissolve into the vague phrases "success or failure in competitive activities." This had to be so, because no modern writer of the kind I am discussing -- no one capable of using phrases like "objective considerations of contemporary phenomena" -- would ever tabulate his thoughts in that precise and detailed way. The whole tendency of modern prose is away from concreteness. Now analyze these two sentences a little more closely. The first contains forty-nine words but only sixty syllables, and all its words are those of everyday life. The second contains thirty-eight words of ninety syllables: eighteen of those words are from Latin roots, and one from Greek. The first sentence contains six vivid images, and only one phrase ("time and chance") that could be called vague. The second contains not a single fresh, arresting phrase, and in spite of its ninety syllables it gives only a shortened version of the meaning contained in the first. Yet without a doubt it is the second kind of sentence that is gaining ground in modern English. I do not want to exaggerate. This kind of writing is not yet universal, and outcrops of simplicity will occur here and there in the worst-written page. Still, if you or I were told to write a few lines on the uncertainty of human fortunes, we should probably come much nearer to my imaginary sentence than to the one from Ecclesiastes.

As I have tried to show, modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing is that it is easy. It is easier -- even quicker, once you have the habit -- to say In my opinion it is not an unjustifiable assumption that than to say I think. If you use ready-made phrases, you not only don't have to hunt about for the words; you also don't have to bother with the rhythms of your sentences since these phrases are generally so arranged as to be more or less euphonious. When you are composing in a hurry -- when you are dictating to a stenographer, for instance, or making a public speech -- it is natural to fall into a pretentious, Latinized style. Tags like a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind or a conclusion to which all of us would readily assent will save many a sentence from coming down with a bump. By using stale metaphors, similes, and idioms, you save much mental effort, at the cost of leaving your meaning vague, not only for your reader but for yourself. This is the significance of mixed metaphors. The sole aim of a metaphor is to call up a visual image. When these images clash -- as in The Fascist octopus has sung its swan song, the jackboot is thrown into the melting pot -- it can be taken as certain that the writer is not seeing a mental image of the objects he is naming; in other words he is not really thinking. Look again at the examples I gave at the beginning of this essay. Professor Laski (1) uses five negatives in fifty three words. One of these is superfluous, making nonsense of the whole passage, and in addition there is the slip -- alien for akin -- making further nonsense, and several avoidable pieces of clumsiness which increase the general vagueness. Professor Hogben (2) plays ducks and drakes with a battery which is able to write prescriptions, and, while disapproving of the everyday phrase put up with, is unwilling to look egregious up in the dictionary and see what it means; (3), if one takes an uncharitable attitude towards it, is simply meaningless: probably one could work out its intended meaning by reading the whole of the article in which it occurs. In (4), the writer knows more or less what he wants to say, but an accumulation of stale phrases chokes him like tea leaves blocking a sink. In (5), words and meaning have almost parted company. People who write in this manner usually have a general emotional meaning -- they dislike one thing and want to express solidarity with another -- but they are not interested in the detail of what they are saying. A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: 1. Could I put it more shortly? 2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly? But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you -- even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent -- and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself. It is at this point that the special connection between politics and the debasement of language becomes clear.

In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing. Where it is not true, it will generally be found that the writer is some kind of rebel, expressing his private opinions and not a "party line." Orthodoxy, of whatever color, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style. The political dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading articles, manifestoes, White papers and the speeches of undersecretaries do, of course, vary from party to party, but they are all alike in that one almost never finds in them a fresh, vivid, homemade turn of speech. When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases -- bestial atrocities, iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder -- one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker's spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them. And this is not altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favorable to political conformity.

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism., question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. Consider for instance some comfortable English professor defending Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say outright, "I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good results by doing so." Probably, therefore, he will say something like this:

"While freely conceding that the Soviet regime exhibits certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain curtailment of the right to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement."

The inflated style itself is a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as "keeping out of politics." All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. I should expect to find -- this is a guess which I have not sufficient knowledge to verify -- that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years, as a result of dictatorship.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better. The debased language that I have been discussing is in some ways very convenient. Phrases like a not unjustifiable assumption, leaves much to be desired, would serve no good purpose, a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind, are a continuous temptation, a packet of aspirins always at one's elbow. Look back through this essay, and for certain you will find that I have again and again committed the very faults I am protesting against. By this morning's post I have received a pamphlet dealing with conditions in Germany. The author tells me that he "felt impelled" to write it. I open it at random, and here is almost the first sentence I see: "[The Allies] have an opportunity not only of achieving a radical transformation of Germany's social and political structure in such a way as to avoid a nationalistic reaction in Germany itself, but at the same time of laying the foundations of a co-operative and unified Europe." You see, he "feels impelled" to write -- feels, presumably, that he has something new to say -- and yet his words, like cavalry horses answering the bugle, group themselves automatically into the familiar dreary pattern. This invasion of one's mind by ready-made phrases (lay the foundations, achieve a radical transformation) can only be prevented if one is constantly on guard against them, and every such phrase anaesthetizes a portion of one's brain.

I said earlier that the decadence of our language is probably curable. Those who deny this would argue, if they produced an argument at all, that language merely reflects existing social conditions, and that we cannot influence its development by any direct tinkering with words and constructions. So far as the general tone or spirit of a language goes, this may be true, but it is not true in detail. Silly words and expressions have often disappeared, not through any evolutionary process but owing to the conscious action of a minority. Two recent examples were explore every avenue and leave no stone unturned, which were killed by the jeers of a few journalists. There is a long list of flyblown metaphors which could similarly be got rid of if enough people would interest themselves in the job; and it should also be possible to laugh the not un-formation out of existence*, to reduce the amount of Latin and Greek in the average sentence, to drive out foreign phrases and strayed scientific words, and, in general, to make pretentiousness unfashionable. But all these are minor points. The defense of the English language implies more than this, and perhaps it is best to start by saying what it does not imply.

[*One can cure oneself of the not un- formation by memorizing this sentence: A not unblack dog was chasing a not unsmall rabbit across a not ungreen field.]

To begin with it has nothing to do with archaism, with the salvaging of obsolete words and turns of speech, or with the setting up of a "standard English" which must never be departed from. On the contrary, it is especially concerned with the scrapping of every word or idiom which has outworn its usefulness. It has nothing to do with correct grammar and syntax, which are of no importance so long as one makes one's meaning clear, or with the avoidance of Americanisms, or with having what is called a "good prose style." On the other hand, it is not concerned with fake simplicity and the attempt to make written English colloquial. Nor does it even imply in every case preferring the Saxon word to the Latin one, though it does imply using the fewest and shortest words that will cover one's meaning. What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way around. In prose, the worst thing one can do with words is surrender to them. When you think of a concrete object, you think wordlessly, and then, if you want to describe the thing you have been visualizing you probably hunt about until you find the exact words that seem to fit it. When you think of something abstract you are more inclined to use words from the start, and unless you make a conscious effort to prevent it, the existing dialect will come rushing in and do the job for you, at the expense of blurring or even changing your meaning. Probably it is better to put off using words as long as possible and get one's meaning as clear as one can through pictures and sensations. Afterward one can choose -- not simply accept -- the phrases that will best cover the meaning, and then switch round and decide what impressions one's words are likely to make on another person. This last effort of the mind cuts out all stale or mixed images, all prefabricated phrases, needless repetitions, and humbug and vagueness generally. But one can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable. One could keep all of them and still write bad English, but one could not write the kind of stuff that I quoted in those five specimens at the beginning of this article.

I have not here been considering the literary use of language, but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought. Stuart Chase and others have come near to claiming that all abstract words are meaningless, and have used this as a pretext for advocating a kind of political quietism. Since you don't know what Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism? One need not swallow such absurdities as this, but one ought to recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase -- some jackboot, Achilles' heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse -- into the dustbin, where it belongs.

The Anglican Way

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The Anglican Way is a particular expression of the Christian Way of being the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ. It is formed by and rooted in Scripture, shaped by its worship of the living God, ordered for communion, and directed in faithfulness to God’s mission in the world. In diverse global situations Anglican life and ministry witnesses to the incarnate, crucified and risen Lord, and is empowered by the Holy Spirit. Together with all Christians, Anglicans hope, pray and work for the coming of the reign of God.

Formed by Scripture

1. As Anglicans we discern the voice of the living God in the Holy Scriptures, mediated by tradition and reason. We read the Bible together, corporately and individually, with a grateful and critical sense of the past, a vigorous engagement with the present, and with patient hope for God’s future.

2. We cherish the whole of Scripture for every aspect of our lives, and we value the many ways in which it teaches us to follow Christ faithfully in a variety of contexts. We pray and sing the Scriptures through liturgy and hymnody. Lectionaries connect us with the breadth of the Bible, and through preaching we interpret and apply the fullness of Scripture to our shared life in the world.

3. Accepting their authority, we listen to the Scriptures with open hearts and attentive minds. They have shaped our rich inheritance: for example, the ecumenical creeds of the early Church, the Book of Common Prayer, and Anglican formularies such as the Articles of Religion, catechisms and the Lambeth Quadrilateral.

4. In our proclamation and witness to the Word Incarnate we value the tradition of scholarly engagement with the Scriptures from earliest centuries to the present day. We desire to be a true learning community as we live out our faith, looking to one another for wisdom, strength and hope on our journey. We constantly discover that new situations call for fresh expressions of a scripturally informed faith and spiritual life.

Shaped through Worship

5. Our relationship with God is nurtured through our encounter with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in word and sacrament. This experience enriches and shapes our understanding of God and our communion with one another.

6. As Anglicans we offer praise to the Triune Holy God, expressed through corporate worship, combining order with freedom. In penitence and thanksgiving we offer ourselves in service to God in the world.

7. Through our liturgies and forms of worship we seek to integrate the rich traditions of the past with the varied cultures of our diverse communities.

8. As broken and sinful persons and communities, aware of our need of God’s mercy, we live by grace through faith and continually strive to offer holy lives to God. Forgiven through Christ and strengthened by word and sacrament, we are sent out into the world in the power of the Spirit.

Ordered for Communion

9. In our episcopally led and synodically governed dioceses and provinces, we rejoice in the diverse callings of all the baptized. As outlined in the ordinals, the threefold servant ministries of bishops, priests and deacons assist in the affirmation, coordination and development of these callings as discerned and exercised by the whole people of God.

10. As worldwide Anglicans we value our relationships with one another. We look to the Archbishop of Canterbury as a focus of unity and gather in communion with the See of Canterbury. In addition we are sustained through three formal instruments of communion: The Lambeth Conference, The Anglican Consultative Council and The Primates’ Meeting. The Archbishop of Canterbury and these three instruments offer cohesion to global Anglicanism, yet limit the centralisation of authority. They rely on bonds of affection for effective functioning.

11. We recognise the contribution of the mission agencies and other international bodies such as the Mothers’ Union. Our common life in the Body of Christ is also strengthened by commissions, task groups, networks of fellowship, regional activities, theological institutions and companion links.

Directed by God’s Mission

12. As Anglicans we are called to participate in God’s mission in the world, by embracing respectful evangelism, loving service and prophetic witness. As we do so in all our varied contexts, we bear witness to and follow Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Saviour. We celebrate God’s reconciling and life-giving mission through the creative, costly and faithful witness and ministry of men, women and children, past and present, across our Communion.

13. Nevertheless, as Anglicans we are keenly aware that our common life and engagement in God’s mission are tainted with shortcomings and failure, such as negative aspects of colonial heritage, self-serving abuse of power and privilege, undervaluing of the contributions of laity and women, inequitable distribution of resources, and blindness to the experience of the poor and oppressed. As a result, we seek to follow the Lord with renewed humility so that we may freely and joyfully spread the good news of salvation in word and deed.

14. Confident in Christ, we join with all people of good will as we work for God’s peace, justice and reconciling love. We recognise the immense challenges posed by secularisation, poverty, unbridled greed, violence, religious persecution, environmental degradation, and HIV/Aids. In response, we engage in prophetic critique of destructive political and religious ideologies, and we build on a heritage of care for human welfare expressed through education, health care and reconciliation.

15. In our relationships and dialogue with other faith communities we combine witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ with a desire for peace, and mutual respect and understanding.

16. As Anglicans, baptized into Christ, we share in the mission of God with all Christians and are deeply committed to building ecumenical relationships. Our reformed catholic tradition has proved to be a gift we are able to bring to ecumenical endeavour. We invest in dialogue with other churches based on trust and a desire that the whole company of God’s people may grow into the fullness of unity to which God calls us that the world may believe the gospel.

TEAC Anglican Way Consultation
Singapore, May 2007

From Psalm 55

2008-07-23T09:36:00.000-04:00

Words which feel so good to the skin
At first touch
like aromatic oil
Like oil for massage
Working on the skin, soothing the muscles
A friend speaks them, all is well
But
What seemed like soothing now burns
I think of Heracles ripping his tunic
Drenched in poisoned blood
Not oil, but acid
Burning the skin, hurting
It would be easier if a stranger
Would curse me on the freeway
Or pick a fight at the supermarket
I can turn the other cheek, I can walk away
But
You I let you touch me
Your hands work on me
You fingers on my skin
We talked all the night through about God
We woke up excited because it was Sunday
But
God sees, God knows
I have nothing, I did nothing
I am the victim here, and God protects me
I will still be with God
While you taste of your own medicine
Forever