Monthly Archives: February 2013

Thomas Merton and Humility

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Thomas Merton was such a gift to Christianity and to mankind as a whole. He had deep spiritual insight which has fallen on deaf ears in most instances as is usually the case with Truth. I often quote W. H. Auden on this note, “And Truth met him and held out her hand. And he clung in panic to his tall belief and shrank away like an ill-treated child.”

Here is a stirring observation by Merton:

At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and absolute poverty is the pure Glory of God written in us, as our poverty, our indigence, as our sonship. It is like a pure diamond blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it, we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that could make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely. I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere.

As I copy this for you I am stirred once more. This is now added to my daily devotional. It is absolutely stirring and painfully humbling. I really like his conclusion, “I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere.” We prefer a “program” as that is easier. A program offers “slam, bam, thank you ma’am” with everything written up neatly in a little syllogism. And when we can wrap spirituality up like that we have succeeded in co-opting God, in maintaining our illusion of supremacy under the guise of spirituality. If we look closely, with a discerning spirit (and practice “mindfulness”) we have to acknowledge, ‘Oh, this is all about me.”

I conclude with part of a stirring sonnet by John Masefield about this spiritual smugness:

How many ways, how many different times
The tiger mind has clutched at what it sought,
Only to prove supposed virtues crimes,
The imagined godhead but a form of thought.
How many restless brains have wrought and schemed,
Padding their cage, or built, or brought to law,
Made in outlasting brass the something dreamed,
Only to prove (itself) the thing held in awe.

My Periodic Rant about Paranoia

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It is good to know that paranoia is not the exclusive property of our conservative elements. The Russian meteor strike brought to the fore that country’s doomsday fears and even included one politician who attributed the matter to the United States. It made me think of other countries in the world who blame the U.S. anytime so much as a burp takes place in their country.

All humans are so ready to blame. All of us. When calamity befalls us…and even minor mishap or misstep in our day-to-day life—it is easier to attribute blame than to consider happenstance or, cursed be the thought, that we have made a series of poor decisions. And, yes at times there is inexplicable tragedy for which there is no explanation.

One of my favorite paranoid frothings was the Lubbock, Texas judge last fall, Tom Head, who warned that the U.S. was facing a Civil War if Obama was re-elected. He also voiced fears that Obama would use the United Nations to intrude in our country and force its will on us. This is an age-old fear—some big and powerful “other” is going to intrude on our private little world and stomp us into oblivion.

And then I love “penetration phobia.” Last year Michelle “Deep Penetration” Bachman, a representative from Minnesota, warned of an Islamic infiltration of our government which had already succeeded in “penetrating deeply” into our governmental operations. In my youth, it was the “Communists” who lurked around every corner and were threatening us from within, bound and determined to take over our country.

The “slippery slope” argument is again being utilized. This argument asserts that a line must be drawn on particular issues because if that line is crossed by the government…or whoever “them” happens to be…one thing will lead to another and devastation will follow. The gun issue and second amendment matter is catching the brunt of this logical fallacy. “If we increase regulation of guns,” they argue, “that is a violation of the 2nd amendment and that will be only the start! Then they will go after the rest of the Bill of Rights.”

But, underlying the paranoia is fear and all of us are fearful little creatures. At times fear can be overwhelming and it is so easy to just cave in and allow despair to overwhelm us. And the far-right in our country includes an extreme base who can best be described as “dispossessed” and their alienation leaves them feeling powerless…and scared! But the axe I really would like to grind…once again…is with the media who exploits this non-sense, knowing that intimating some crazy paranoid suspicion is like throwing slop to pigs.

And I close with the observation of Aeschylus from thousands of years ago, “The gods create disaster so that mankind will have something to talk about.”

 

Meaning and Meaninglessness in Spirituality

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Richard Rohr writes powerfully and eloquently about the need to live in the domain of “duality” and recognize the specific relevance of the notion in the realm of spirituality. We do “see through a glass darkly” as the Apostle Paul once noted because this world we live in, which we daily imbibe (usually without any conscious awareness) is made up of infinite complexity, teeming with paradox stemming from this “duality.” One simple example is merely a favorite notion of mine, “We are not what we know ourselves to be. We are much more than that.” But being mere mortals, clothed in flesh, we have had to carve for ourselves an identity fashioned from the ephemeral so that we can function in this beautiful world, a world which…ephemeral thought it might be…is God’s creation.

As we pursue this path which Rohr and others suggest, we must “wrestle with words and meanings” (T. S. Eliot) and thus we dive headfirst into this maelstrom of ambiguity, confusion, doubt, and fear. This is because, here in this land banished from conscious awareness by our “common-sense” day-to-day world, we discover “meaning” and learn that “meaning” inevitably taunts us with “meaninglessness.”

Let me explain why with a simple philosophical maneuver. Imagine a world in which everything was colored blue. In that world, “blue” would therefore not exist for “blue” has no meaning without its complement, “not-blue.” Asking someone to pay attention to “blue” would be like asking a fish to see water.

And the whole of language lies in a similar matrix. However, I must insist that I don’t spent a lot of time wondering about the meaning of most words that I use! If I did, I would soon be swallowed up by an abyss and cease to be functional! I thank the good Lord for this neurological gift as some are not so fortunate. But some words I do deign to explore…to name just a few…god, love, truth, and “right”… and most importantly, in my case, deign to explore the word “Lewis”, the origin of Literary “Lew”. With each of these terms, which I have deemed significant, their complement (including opposite) has to be considered in order for the words to have meaning.

Let me close with an excerpt from W. H. Auden about this treacherous journey. The “Star of Nativity” is speaking his Auden’s Christmas Oratorio:

All those who follow me are led
Onto that glassy mountain where are no
Footholds for logic, to that Bridge of Dread,
Where knowledge but increases vertigo;
Those who pursue me take a twisting lone
To find themselves immediately alone
With savage water or unfeeling stone,
In labyrinths where they must entertain
Confusion, cripples, tigers, thunder, pain.

The Hobgoblin of Little Minds

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Two days after the Obama reelection in November, the Fox News reporter, Sean Hannity announced on-air that his view of immigration had “evolved” and he was willing to take a more lenient position. And since then many Republicans are taking a similar stance, deciding that on that issue in particular they have to adjust their views if they are going to have any chance of winning more Latino voters.

There are some members of the Republicans, however, who are digging their heels in and castigating those of their party who are equivocating on this and other issues. They feel that compromise against bedrock principles of their party…and all of their principles seem to be “bedrock” to them…is completely verboten. The Republican hysteria about “compromise” was so severe last summer that John Boehner in one TV interview refused to even use the word “compromise” when cornered on the matter.

But, Hannity and his ilk can equivocate on this and other matters and still be conservative Republicans. Changing your mind on issues does not mean that you have sold your soul to anyone, certainly not the “liberals” or Obama. The ability to change your mind is a sign of mental health and emotional maturity. Ralph Waldo Emerson said 150 years ago, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Being consistent for the sake of consistency is lame, to put it mildly.

But True Believers have a hard time changing their mind because in the depths of their heart that would mean to them, “Oh no. I have been wrong!” Well, welcome to the world! Who hasn’t and who will not continue to be from time to time? All of us are short-sighted and need to have our eyes checked occasionally or perhaps clean our glasses.

(True Believers was a book by Eric Hoffer about fanaticism which is worthy of a reading evn in modern times.)

Thoreau’s version of, “Ye Must be Born Again”

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The first time literature spoke to me was in college when I was introduced to Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau voted with his feet that “modern” life was not accommodating to his soul, and so he retreated to the woods and sought authenticity, declaring, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

The notion of “not having lived” as one comes to the end of his life stunned me and did so because I saw its relevance to my life at age 21. And, I did not fully understand then why, but it immediately brought to my mind the famous words of Jesus, “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?” The “not having lived” of Thoreau and the “loss of soul” that Jesus spoke of were one and the same, but I could not really explain it at that point. The insight was intuitive.

Thoreau recognized that modern life was increasingly alienated, that it increasingly cut man off from nature and from himself, turning him into a cog in an industrial apparatus. Thorough intuitively knew what we have come to witness more overtly, that Western civilization was producing a culture of consumers, people whose modus operandi was “consuming”, or “getting stuff.” (And, if he were alive today, he would marvel at how prescient he had been.!) Jesus too recognized that mankind in his day were overly invested in the “stuff” of the day, though rampant consumerism had not blighted human consciousness yet. But he recognized that mankind was missing the point, that they were guilty of the sin of “misplaced concreteness” even then taking for real that which was only ephemeral. When Jesus taught, “Ye must be born again” he was telling us, “Hey, there is another dimension of life that you need to tap into. What you see is not all that there is. You are not all that you know yourself to be. You are more than that mere concept.”

 

The “Judgment of God” in Tandem with Grace

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The concept of “boundaries” did not exist in my youth, at least not in my culture. This concept is one of the most fundamental dimensions of life and I’m pleased to note that now, even in early grade school, teachers and care-givers introduced the concept and reinforce it frequently.

When I think of “boundary” I think of a limit. And it is that, but much more; it is even a beginning. Heidegger once said that boundaries are where the Essential begins its unfolding. He argued that without boundaries there could be no unfolding of the Essential. From his observation, I suggest that without the development of boundaries (which is basically the formation of an “ego”) the child would remain lost in a maze of reptilian-brain impulses, basically a brain stem with arms and legs. And we have all seen adults who are still captivated by this old-brain energy!

Boundaries give us the power of choice. They enable us to make decisions about our impulses and behaviors, determining which ones are appropriate, and whether or not the setting is appropriate for their expression. One simple, but powerful example is sexuality. When sexuality is rearing its ugly head (wink, wink) in a male’s teen years, if he has good boundaries he will know how and when to “make a move” on a winsome young lass, having confidence that his “moves” might be and ultimately will be successful in accomplishing this physical and emotional goal. If his boundaries are poor, he will be rude and offensive, often guilty of what we now call “sexual harassment”, and sometimes even sexual aggressiveness.

This subject is very relevant to the phenomena of “feelings” about which I recently discoursed here. If our boundaries are present and mature, we will own our feelings and embrace them, but not allow them to run amok. I suggest that if they do run amok, it is not actually “feelings” but instinctual energy without the modification of boundaries, that God-given gift of our forebrain. If, on the other hand there are too many boundaries and/or if they are too rigid, there will be still another problem—the person will be pent-up and restricted and often overly moralistic. These “overly moralistic” people will emphasize the “letter of the law” and will probably merit the description “judgmental.” They champion the “judgment of the Lord” over His grace.

Let me illustrate from the New Testament. On one occasion, Jesus cast the money-lenders out of the temple, chasing them with a scourge. On another occasion, at a community well, he encountered a known adulteress and offered her forgiveness, telling her to, “Go and sin no more.” According to the letter of the law, he should have quickly organized a mob and stoned her to death. But he exercised mature judgment and “chose” to offer grace, forgiveness, and love rather than brutal punishment. I suggest that on that occasion Jesus demonstrated “feelings” and “boundaries” working in tandem in a mature fashion. Neither one predominated and he “chose” to exercise grace.

It is so easy to exercise judgment when an offering of love is usually much more appropriate.

 

Wind Imagery and Transitoriness of Life

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T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets is one my my favorite poems of all time, It is a powerful statement of mankind’s existential plight and of hope in the midst this hopelessness. He grasped the transitory nature of life and used vivid imagery to convey this. For example, in one of the Quartets (Burnt Norton) he wrote of, “Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind which blows before and after time. It reminds me of a favorite scene in the movie, American Beauty, when two characters are silently watching a video of the wind silently buffeting a plastic bag, conveying the same message of Eliot’s line.

And on the same existential theme, here is a poem by E. L. Mayo:

THIS WIND

This is the wind that blows
Everything
Through and through.

I would not toss a kitten
Knowingly into a wind like this
But there’s no taking

Anything living
Out of the fury
Of this wind we breathe and ride upon.

I conclude with the context of the Eliot quotation above:

Here is a place of disaffection
Time before and time after
In a dim light: neither daylight
Investing form with lucid stillness
Turning shadow into transient beauty
With slow rotation suggesting permanence
Nor darkness to purify the soul
Emptying the sensual with deprivation
Cleansing affection from the temporal.
Neither plenitude nor vacancy. Only a flicker
Over the strained time-ridden faces
Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration
Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind
That blows before and after time,
Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs
Time before and time after.
Eructation of unhealthy souls
Into the faded air, the torpid
Driven on the wind that sweeps the gloomy hills of London,
Hampstead and Clerkenwell, Campden and Putney,
Highgate, Primrose and Ludgate. Not here
Not here the darkness, in this twittering world.

 

Poetic Thoughts re Intense Emotion Running Amok

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In Hamlet, Laertes knows that his daughter is “palling around” with that wastrel Hamlet and cautions her, knowing something himself about masculine rapacity:

Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister,
And keep you in the rear of your affection,
Out of the shot and danger of desire.

Laertes did not want his daughter to give into emotions, but to “stand in the rear” like he did and keep her distance. For, he feared that letting go of that detachment would lead to overwhelming emotion and take her totally out of control, just as he feared it would do to him. Laertes was speaking of an “observing ego” which he knew monitors our impulses and keeps them from running amok.

For, Shakespeare knew that “feelings know no discretion but their own.” (W. H. Auden) When feelings predominate…and begin to tyrannize…they cannot submit to “monitoring” and insist on fulfillment of their own needs and desires. Adrienne Rich wrote of this immersion in emotion when she said, “when we enter touch, we enter touch completely.” And e e cummings agreed with Rich, noting that, “since feeling comes first, he who pays any attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you.”

I suggest some balance is needed. (Yes, my “observing ego” is doing its magic today!) We need intense emotion, we need to be “carried away” with passion, but the “balancer” must not be discarded. When this “balancer” or “observing ego” is discarded, or lost due to neurological impairment, Shakespeare might note of us, “The expedition of his violent love outruns the pauser reason.” Or, to put it in my words, “expression of his passionate intensity outruns the pauser reason.”

 

A Poem about Parents, Family, Sex, and Life

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I never had children. I guess it was not in the cards though I fear it was merely a lack of faith, a lack of faith in the Universe and in God and confidence in myself and my wife, though mainly myself. I guess I thought too much about it and I always remember what Hamlet said about his own tendency to think too much, saying that if this pensiveness were “quartered, it would be one part wisdom and three parts cowardice.”

Here is a beautiful poem by Sharon Olds as she conjectures about her own conception, eloquently describing her parents meeting in college, the story of their life together, the doubts and fears of their marriage, and the sexual union which produced herself. Olds’ image of coitus is just stunningly beautiful, consummately poetic.

I Go Back to May 1937

I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,
I see my father strolling out
under the ochre sandstone arch, the
red tiles glinting like bent
plates of blood behind his head, I
see my mother with a few light books at her hip
standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks with the
wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its
sword-tips black in the May air,
they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,
they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are
innocent, they would never hurt anybody.
I want to go up to them and say Stop,
don’t do it–she’s the wrong woman,
he’s the wrong man, you are going to do things
you cannot imagine you would ever do,
you are going to do bad things to children,
you are going to suffer in ways you never heard of,
you are going to want to die. I want to go
up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it,
her hungry pretty blank face turning to me,
her pitiful beautiful untouched body,
his arrogant handsome blind face turning to me,
his pitiful beautiful untouched body,
but I don’t do it. I want to live. I
take them up like the male and female
paper dolls and bang them together
at the hips like chips of flint as if to
strike sparks from them, I say
Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.

Oscar Wilde “Playing” with Reality

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I am currently reading Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Grey. I have seen the movie years ago and loved it; but the novel itself has so much more to offer. Wilde has an as astute grasp of human culture in the 19th century and could eloquently convey which way the winds were blowing. He, and other astute individuals, certainly had some insight into what was going to unfold in the 20th century.

For example, modern science was toying with human culture at the time and leaving it in the throes of relativism, ambivalence, and uncertainty. Truth, and even reality itself, came to be seen as paradoxical, leading Wilde to declare in this novel, “The way of paradoxes is the way of Truth. To test reality, we must see it on the tight rope. When the verities become acrobats, we can judge them.” T. S. Eliot would later echo this perspective on truth, declaring that to know truth, or reality, we must “live in the breakage, in the collapse of what was believed in as most certain, and therefore the fittest for renunciation.” (The Four Quartets)

So, today, a century plus from Wilde’s death, we live in the tumult of what he, “modern” science of his day, and literary license would produce. We wrestle with the question of, “What is real and what is unreal?” In my country (the United States) I feel that this is the essential issue that divides the country, that is wreaking havoc on our political system, and even spreading confusion within the erstwhile hermetically sealed “safe” confines of the Republican party.

And, ultimately I feel we must discover that “Real” is apprehended only by faith and once apprehended, we have to realize that we don’t actually “apprehend” it at all. We only intuit it, “faith” it, and hope for it. But, that does not diminish the power of its Presence. It merely humbles us, reminding us of the wisdom of the Apostle Paul, “We see through a glass darkly.” But this Presence is with us, and in us, each day as we seek to “work out our own salvation with fear and trembling.”