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!
Monday, June 8, 2009
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Godly conversations
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.
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.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Darmok and Jalad at Tenagra
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).
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).
Monday, March 30, 2009
In Praise of Idleness
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.
[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.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Patience, patience
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...
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.
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.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Pray, Think, Pray, Do
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.
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.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Song of Zecharaiah
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:
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.
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.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Silence and actions
"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:
Benedict goes on many times about the ills of "murmuring":
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.
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.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Prayer - why bother?
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.
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.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Stoicism and the secret of the heart
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?
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?
Monday, November 3, 2008
New 95 Theses
Those crazy Lutherans....But there is plenty here to chew on.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
"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.
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.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Literalism
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.
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.
Friday, October 17, 2008
By God through reason content
People are strange when you're a stranger,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.
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.
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.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Misc.
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)
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)
Monday, September 29, 2008
Prayer to Overcome Anxiety
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)
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)
Thursday, September 25, 2008
What is Lectio for?
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:
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.
The Spirit of the Lord is on me,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.
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.
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.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Seeds of Contemplation
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.)
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