What are bodies for?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

Being present

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

Main issues:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is the solution? 

 

Judging again

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where does your hand go when you make a fist?

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the meantime

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

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

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

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

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

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

Choices

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

Creativity

Steps in creative thinking:

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

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

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

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

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

 

Divergent/convergent thinking:

·         Divergent: open-ended, broad, wide

·         Convergent: focused, narrow, deep

 

Applying to study of sacred texts:

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

Poem

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

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

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

The one word for me is embrace
No         she said         release

On intimacy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Born to fear

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Asceticism of the ordinary life

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sing a new song to Yahweh!

Stuck is bad

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Walking the way of the psalms

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

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

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

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

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

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

The conversation usually goes something like this:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A couple of last pointers.

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

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

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

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

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

Be changed by walking the way of the psalms.

Walking on water by 2045

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sermon notes 08/02/2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

Only then can a meaningful conversation begin about sanctification.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You pray about that. Amen!

Deliver me from evil

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Follow no rules

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

This is as it should be of course.

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

1) It can dismiss or block individuality.

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

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

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

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

2. Unrealistic goals and guilt

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. Rules are a crutch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Are there any goals?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mimesis

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

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

Practice

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Making allies, being good neighbor (notes)

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

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

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

Image or presence

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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