Category Archives: bible

Quotations of scripture and commentary

O’bama faking terrorist threat!!!!

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“Yeah, O’Bama and his cohorts are making up this terrorist threat for 9/11 just to divert attention from a failing economy!”

No, once again, I don’t really believe that.  I made it up!   But if I happen to hate him and/or “liberals”, I am inclined to interpret news in a fashion to confirm my bias and therefore arouse passions in similarly uncritical thinkers to hate him/them like I do.  It is similar to the prophets of doom and catastrophe-monger-ers–they are full of existential insecurity and dread (i.e. the poison of self-loathing) and thus compulsively announce, “The sky is falling!  The sky is falling!”  The simpleton “birthers” and “O’bama is a Muslim” crowd are guilty of the same lack of critical thinking.

Now, conservatives are going to interpret O’Bama and liberalism from their perspective.  And they should!  We need different perspectives, certainly the conservative one.  But it is important that conservatives, or liberals, or libertarians pause briefly before they make pronouncements and consider, “Now, am I just grinding my axe again?”  Now most of us will, after that pause, go right ahead and grind our axe.  I know I will!  But it is important to pause, and in that pause, from time to time we might learn that there is another way of looking at things.  And, it is important to look at things differently on occasion.

And this touches on a core issue in our culture right now—what is real and what is unreal.  I am of the conviction (i.e. “bias”) that “real” is a very nebulous term.  We are now at a point in our species development where we need to embrace the nebulous nature of reality and be willing to re-define a lot of the “categories” that we fall into and into which we project our world.  But this kind of “sophistry” is anathema to the hyper-conservatives who are not willing, or able, to compromise with what they know to be “real.”  An old fundamentalist bromide sums up this attitude, “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.”

 

 

Purity and Danger

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Mary Douglas, a noted anthropologist, wrote a very provocative book in 1966 entitled, Purity and Danger.  In this book she explains the origin of a need for purity in primitive tribes and the perceived “danger” of impurity.  (And though I hear described this as a “perceived” danger, that is not to dismiss the very real danger of impurity run amok.  Boundaries are necessary.)

I was raised in a sectarian, fundamentalist church which also emphasized purity and did so to excess.  It emphasized rules and regulations to a fault, believing that the essential dimension of Christian piety was combating the forces of darkness, inside and outside.  And to those who failed to live up to those standards there was always a hefty dollop of shame and guilt that was heaped upon them.  In retrospect, I now see that shame and guilt was the essence of their belief system.

We have modern-day examples of purity run amok.  The best one is the Taliban.  It was interesting, though horrifying, to watch them rise to power as they emphasized purity morally, politically, and socially.  But purity when it is running amok always runs out of grist for its mill when its primary focus is within its own ranks.  At some point the machinery of purity has done all it can do within its own ranks and has to turn its focus outside, seeking to purify the world.  Unfortunately for groups like this, the outside world always has a mind of its own and fights back.

Now there is nothing wrong with purity.  It is an essential dimension of human experience.  But mature purity will recognize that the impurity that it resists cannot be obliterated and that the very effort to obliterate it will result in a catastrophe if balance is not found.  As Jung noted, “What we resists, persists.”  The goal is to acknowledge the presence of impurity in our hearts and actions but to consciously pursue the pure instead.  And I think that the Christian obligation to “confess ours sins, one to another” (James 5:16) is a ritual that facilitates this recognition of impurity and provides an opportunity for catharsis.

story telling

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When I was a child, “story-telling” was just another expression for lying.  If someone said something that we saw as false, we would immediately declare with great passion, “That is not so!   That is a story!”  If someone had a history of telling falsehood, he/she was labeled with heavy opprobrium, “He/she is a story-teller.”  Even a benign “story”…such as a fairy tale…was a “story” because it was clearly made up.  The implicit assumption of that cultural verbal contrivance was that there was an objective reality and anything that differed was “a story.”

But story-telling was being maligned.  Story-telling is a wonderful way of conveying information; one could even say, “truth.”  And, technically the best we can every do is to tell stories and even history itself is a story that has evolved over the millennia.  Let’s take U.S. history, for example.  When I was taught this subject in the mid-sixties I found the subject fascinating and didn’t have to worry about critical reading or anything like that.  The story of U.S. history was merely a factual account of what had happened and I found it very interesting.  It was only in college that I learned to approach history…and the rest of our knowledge-base…with a critical mind.

Another powerful story in my youth was the Christian tradition.  But it was not presented as a “story”; it was presented as a factual account of what had happened two thousand years earlier with the life of Jesus.  I now see that too as a “story” but with that approach I have been able to glean great meaning which would have eluded me otherwise.  I see Jesus as an historical character who was an extraordinary spiritual presence.  The early Christians were captivated by the story of his life and death.  And they had little difficulty in believing that, yes, he had been raised from the dead.  These early believers perpetuated this story and contributed significantly to it.  Christian history has from that point been an unfolding of this original story, an unfolding that continues even today.

Let me close with an observation made by Harry Crews in the story of his own life:  Nothing is allowed to die in a society of a storytelling people.  It is all—the good and the bad—carted up and brought along from one generation to the next.  And everything that is brought along is colored and shaped by those who bring it..

It is important that we formulate and tell our stories.

The wrath of god

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Michelle Bachman noted Sunday re the recent natural disasters, “I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane. He said, ‘Are you going to start listening to me here?'”

So Bachman again trotted out her Old Testament world view but then, conferring with her handlers, realized this was imprudent and tried to explain she was only speaking in jest.  “No, Michelle.  You can’t get out that easy.  Your mind is teeming with that…ahem…stuff.”   Her religious affiliations and her speech has been replete with material which reflects the view of God as some vengeful, punitive tyrant.  And, as is always the case, our perspective on God always reflects our perspective on life itself and reflects our own view point on life.  As the Bible says, “As a man speaketh, so is he.”  And, “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.”

And, this perspective she offers is the reason she is a marketable political commodity in our current world.  Our country has millions of people who function on the basis of “concrete operational thinking.”  (See Jean Piaget re stages of cognitive development.)

Internal differences where the meanings are

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“The man who can articulate the movements of his inner life need no longer be a victim of himself, but is able slowly and consistently to remove the obstacles that prevent the spirit from entering.”  Henri Nouwen recognized that the Spirit of God is a Presence that makes one aware of his/her inner life which, of course, parallels an awakening awareness to the outer world.  Some see this “Presence” as “coming down from on high” and intruding or violating.  They see it in terms of time and space.  I see it as interior process beginning to unfold and making one aware of his/her heart’s machinations and subtleties.  There is a verse from the New Testament (Hebrews 4:12) which recognizes this discriminating work of the Spirit, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

 To be “mindful” of “the thoughts and intents of the heart” is simple awareness.  It is to pay attention.  It is to turn off the “automatic pilot” that we’re accustomed to operating by.

Emily Dickinson put it this way:

There’s a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the heft
Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Power of Now

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I refer often to Eckhart Tolle, especially his best-selling book, The Power of Now.  The central emphasis of this book is that our culture is captivated by our orientation to past and future.  (T.S. Eliot in The Four Quartets notes, “Time past and time future” and then claims that we “cling to that dimension.”)  And Tolle is only one of numerous gifted souls, men and women, who are aware of the shallowness of our particular culture and the unwillingness of organized religion to address the ensuing spiritual malaise.

Tolle emphasizes “the Now”.  Though he recognizes the importance of past and future and the imperative that we pay proper respect to “that dimension”, he encourages us to look below the surface, beyond the pale of the normal hum-drum of day to day life, and recognize the present moment.

But this is a very subversive notion.  It flies in the face of our most basic assumptions about life and suggests that there is more to life than meets the eye.  This “subversive function” is paid lip-service to in theological and ecclesiastical circles as the “prophetic function” of the gospel.  But most churches and spiritual teachings are unwilling to take on this “subversive function”, preferring to amuse themselves with the gospel-eze version of those “well-worn words and ready phrases that build comfortable walls against the wilderness.”  (Conrad Aiken)

It is astounding that a book of this sort has been so well-received.  It speaks of the hunger of the modern human heart, a hunger that is rarely addressed with traditional religion.   However, I do believe that this heart-hunger could be addressed with many world religions…and certainly the Christian tradition…but it would require a clergy that was willing to follow Jesus (and other Holy men and women throughout the ages) into a desert experience.

W. H. Auden summarized it so beautifully:

ll 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 lane

To find themselves immediately alone

With savage water or unfeeling stone,

In labyrinths where they must entertain

Confusion, cripples, tigers, thunder, pain.

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

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Chicken Little’s apocolyptic warning never ceases to be relevant.  For, anytime a natural disaster such as earthquakes or tornadoes threaten, the doomsayers crawl out from under their rocks and announce, “The end is nigh!  The end is night!  It is a sign of the end times!  Jesus is coming back soon!”  Glen Beck was one of the best at this, as apocalyptic doom was a stable of his chart-laden dog-and-pony show.

Now sooner or later one of them is going to be right.  For example, a mutant gene could run amok and wipe us all out.  Or some right-wing crazy with a nuclear weapon could annihilate us all.  The heavenly bodies, all so routinely dancing with intricate precision, could suddenly hiccup and this simple little planet could be smashed into the cosmic gruel it used to be.  And, the scientists say that one of these days this universe will stop spinning, will grind to a halt, and sink back into oblivion anyway.  See, we are doomed!  We are all going to die, individually and collectively!  And, when it does happen, someone will be shrieking, “The sky is falling!  The sky is falling!”  At that time I hope they all feel good about themselves and get appropriate tv news and talk-show coverage!

But these apocalyptic nut jobs just need to get a life and stop terrorizing people with their cosmic insecurity.  You see, this is all about death and death is something we have a life time to prepare for.  Someone in mental health has noted, “Those that are afraid of death are afraid of life.”  The issue in death, the “sting of death” spoken of in the Bible, is just our fragile ego sensing its finitude and realizing that it could be snuffed out like a candle at any moment and will, at some point, meet that fate.

And I’m not ready for my own little “flickering candle” to be snuffed out.  I want it to continue to burn brightly for years.  But, I’ve accepted that this is not going to happen and have determined that the best thing to do is to accept this fact, to trust my Source which gave rise to me in the first place, and to busy myself taking care of hearth-and-home and trying to offer something to the world.  It would be self-indulgent and spiritually immature to constantly bemoan my death or the death of the species.

Thousands of years ago Aeschylus noted this insanity, simply noting, “The gods created disaster so that the people will have something to talk about.”

“humility is endless”

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Richard Rohr, a Catholic monk, is one of the most discerning spiritual teachers in today’s public forum.  His book, The Naked Now, is a powerful explanation of the need of “non-dual thinking” in today’s world.  “Non-dual thinking” eschews the tendency to bifurcate the world into categories, especially the oft spoken of “us-them” paradigm.  He also has a daily blog and will also send you a daily meditation which is always right to the point and powerfully worded.

In today’s meditation he declared, “When you truly know, the giveaway is that you do not know.  And by “do not know” he means that you “do not know.”  There is a pseudo-humility available in which you announce that “you do not know” but in the depths of your heart you are very sure of yourself and willing to pound people with the fact that “you do not know.”  This is just another version of Tolle’s “egoic consciousness” masquerading in liberal sophistry.

The “not knowing” he is advocating is a simple awareness that you do not know anything ultimately and that you are only offering one perspective.  Many others will have a different perspective and they too are blessed by God’s Grace.

It is our task to merely be willing to share our perspective here and there but not to get carried away with it and begin to wield it as a weapon.  When we do that we are merely another example of pig-headed fundamentalists attempting to bludgeon others into our world view.

T.S. Eliot, in The Four Quartets, declared, “The only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility.”  And then he noted, “And humility is endless.”

Let the dead bury the dead

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In Matthew 8 Jesus is calling for disciples.  One scribe responds, “Yes, but let me first go bury my father.”  Jesus responds, “Follow me and let the dead bury their own dead.”

Now taken simply, without any use of hermeneutical discipline, this statement can be interpreted to mean that Jesus saw the whole of humanity as “dead” and doomed to eventual eternal damnation.  And this interpretation is very ego rewarding to readers who relish being part of a very select crowd of believers who are going to bask in eternal glory for eternity while the rest of those “damn heathen” roast in hell.  It is so rewarding to know that one has “seen the light”, that one is “saved” and that most of “those wretches out there” don’t see the truth.  But that is not what Jesus was saying.  I believe he was pointing out that most people do live their life in “darkness”, they have never escaped the blinders they were born with, and they go their merry way without addressing the fact that there is another dimension to life.  It does not mean they are inferior to those who have been “enlightened”….or whatever you wish to term it…it just means they are ensconced in commonplace reality and are apt to stay there.

Ronald D. Laing once noted that he believed most people live their lives in a “post hypnotic state of early childhood.”  They go through life on automatic pilot, having imbibed the cultural mandates of the little corner of the world into which they were born, and having dug their heels in with no intention of ever leaving that safe haven.  This is what Jesus meant when he called them “dead.”  But it does not mean they are stupid and certainly it does not mean they are going to roast for eternity in hell.

But some Christians thrive on being “right.”  It is so intoxicating to know that you are “special.”  But, if spiritual discernment were practiced, if “mindfulness” were present, one would see just how egotistical this comforting elixir is.  Believing one to have been “enlightened” or “saved” or whatever, one has actually taken on a bigger blinder than the one he/she was born with.

Now I do believe that “being saved” and “being enlightened” is possible.  But it just does not mean you are special or cool or destined for eternal bliss that others will be deprived of.  For ultimately God’s Grace covers us all.

Please government, please intrude!

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Michael Pearl and his wife Debi were in the news last week for their controversial publications which encourage corporal punishment and do so with an emphasis that the punishment inflicts pain. One couple took their teachings seriously and actually beat one of their children to death for which they are now looking at decades in prison. Their web site is entitled No Greater Joy and if you check it out it is apparent that there is not a whole lot of joy around that domocile.

Pearl and his ilk represent one of the extremes that our culture permits to the great detriment and abuse…and even death…of our children. One essential theme in that mentality is that children belong to them, especially the father as the “head of the home” and that it is his responsibility as head of the home to “train up a child in the way he should go.” And, an important dimension of this is that to “spare the rod is to spoil the child.”

Now it won’t be in my lifetime and probably not for a long time thereafter but we are going to have to realize that children, in an important sense, belong to all of us and that we cannot allow them to be abused or even born into abusive, stupid, hell-holes like that of Pearl and his ilk. Yes, yes, yes, this will involve “government intrusion” but there are circumstances where government does need to intrude. We did it with domestic rape! I remember when the notion of “domestic rape” was just being toyed with and was, in my youth, given pause with the reasoning, “Well, doesn’t a man have the right to have sex with his wife?” Well, now it is a no-brainer to myself and to most people that “No” he doesn’t if she says no. Why was it ever otherwise? Well, the answer is that women were property and being a sex object was a huge part of their role in life. But our government has intruded and in doing so has changed reality on the issue, by and large. And what about race? When I was a child, blacks were inferior and were looked upon with scorn in the deep South where I was raised. The government intruded and changed reality and had they not done so blacks would not have the equality that they have today.

Yes, government intrusion can go too far. But there are instances in which it does not go far enough. And when it comes to child abuse and maltreatment, I really think we should get heavy-handed about it.