Category Archives: conservativism

Meditation Can Intervene With One’s “Monkey Mind.”

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The “spin” that I have kicked around the last few posts pertains also to religion, even mine! I was given by birth the Christian tradition, which I still greatly respect, but which I realized I was given in a socio-cultural context from my birth in the American South in the early 1950’s, coming with a particular “spin” which taught me that my hyper conservative Baptist church was very “special”; it was  so “special” that even the Southern Baptist Convention of which we were a spin-off was “too liberal.”  There was a sense in which my little denomination, the Landmark Missionary Baptist Church, took for itself the exalted position of the “bride of Christ,” an honor that awaited us when we got to heaven. These were good people, very, very,  good people, who afforded me this “spin.”  If I had not been given that “spin”, I would have been given another; we all get a “spin.”  Many of the generation I grew up in did not take it as seriously as I did and were able to slough off the spin-dimension  more readily than I was; they were secure enough to not take themselves so seriously.  I was very thin-skinned, very wounded and needed the specialness “spin” to protect me from the vulnerability that would have otherwise overwhelmed me.

My spirituality has, therefore, always been “all about me” more than I could have imagined.  This is still the case and will always be.  In a sense, “I can’t help it” for I am a mere human and can only “hold this treasure in an earthen vessel.”  My ego, still with its infantile baggage, wants to believe otherwise and have the assurance that the viewpoint I have on spiritual matters is beyond question, is “objective” in some sense.  But we are never as “objective” as we think we are and this leads to delusional thinking, especially in religion…and politics. But once you “see” a dark dimension of your heart, it is not eradicated but its power begins to diminish; that “diminishment” process follows one the rest of his life.

Beginning about a decade ago when I stumbled across the work of Richard Rohr and a meditation class at a lovely church in Fayetteville, Arkansas, this narcissism began to crumble.  St. Paul’s Episcopalian Church offered many treasures, one of which was a Sunday School class which emphasized Eastern and Western meditation wisdom and practice.  There this “monkey mind” of mine became more visible, its shrieking and chattering more apparent for what it was.  Next time, I will explore a bit more the importance of meditation in my life.

The Coronavirus Has Beset Our Political System and Culture

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Michael Bloomberg has the best possibility of beating Trump in November, the only one with the wherewithal, financially and tenacity, to defeat the coronavirus that has beset our political system…and entire culture..  But, given the “free-press” which is itself a “tyrant” of sort, the myriad down-sides of Bloomberg are coming to the light.  I’m going to predict what will happen here:  while the Republicans saw Trump’s evil exposed to the light of day even before his nomination, an exposure which continued to take place during the campaign, and is still underway during his administration, the GOP has, and will, “stand by their man.”  They have been, and are, determined.

The Democrats need a similar resolve and can have that without allowing the coronavirus to attack their own willfulness.  And with Bloomberg, this might involve accepting into their fold a man with a sullied background who with his own “willfulness” can “slay the giant” of Trumpism.  By doing so, this would require a bit of humility to admit into their fold a man who has less than solid Democratic sentiments in his background.  The Democrats might then have to recognize, “Hmm, maybe we have our own dark dimension of willfulness which is why we failed to consider a huge segment of the American population in recent decades, a decision which made this segment conclude that their best bet was Trump.”  The Democrats need a “strongman” at this moment in history and I have no concern that they would then assume a supine position before him as has the GOP down with Trump.  They will bring back to our political life, “checks and balances.”

Here, I am posing as a political commentator.  But my concern here is not so much politics as the dynamic that is in play in our political system and culture.  This is a struggle with diversity, including the realization that there are two ways of looking at the world and that these “two ways” can learn to live with each other. The ego, collectively and individually, always wants to eradicate other ways of looking at the world.  I am a Democrat because I believe they best represent the offer an “inclusiveness” to our country rather than an “ex-clusiveness.”  There is room for all of us, but only if we have the courage to respect those that represent our “other,” those that we tend to dismiss as “them.”

As so often, the wisdom of W.H. Auden sums this up, “We wage the war we are.”

In My Youth Romney’s “Kind” Were Not Even Christian!

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In my youth, as a Baptist in the South, Mormons were not even Christian…in our estimation.  Today he is demonstrating “Christian” courage that I’m only now beginning to tippy-toe into.  He is about to speak truth to power by being the only member of the Republican Party to vote to remove Trump from office.  He has already faced intimidation from his party and now it will increase tremendously.  When group-think dominates a party, or any group, any one who dares to defy that toxic kool-aid will face exclusion.  That is why as a youth in the Baptist fold I kept to myself questions that were bubbling in my heart as the need to “fit in” was too important to me.

I am addressing here the toxic dimension of “belonging”, when “fitting in” becomes a tyrant and group-think is allowed to take over.  And, yes, even with noble veins of thought like the teachings of Jesus, toxicity can creep in when the ego, described by the Apostle Paul as “the flesh,”  is not recognized. I hope that Romney will gain courage under the tremendous pressure he will now face.  He has not been as outspoken as he should have; but now he has nothing to lose.  He will certainly be “primaried” by his party but he should use this opposition to “out-Christian” the “christians” who have sold their soul for “thirty pieces of silver.”

Greta Thunberg is More Wise Than Steven Mnuchin.

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Today U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin took a swipe at the climate change heroine Greta Thunberg, saying she is in no position to give advice on the matter since she has not been to college yet.  Well, let me point out he has been to college yet he works for a man who is so insecure that he had to reassure the nation and the world about the size of his penis and lacked self-awareness to the extent that there are numerous recordings of him clearly voicing his lecherous designs on his own daughter.  And these are but two “trivial” examples of Trump’s impaired judgement. Sometimes human judgement is less impaired when one has yet to be ensconced in the comfort zone of a group think that constitutes reality in her/his culture.  And yes, she is “autistic” and thus can be described as “mentally ill” given the “authority” of the DSM-V, but “mentally ill” is not so “mentally ill” in a culture that puts a mentally ill man at the helm of its government.  This brings to mind a note by Carl Jung, “If you find a sane man, bring him to me and I will cure him.”  Jung knew well that there was a “psychopathology to everyday life” that could produce madmen who would pass as “sane.”  From Thunberg’s “seclusion” in her very private world, she has not lost the ability to peer out and look upon this human comedy and offer critique, not unlike Shakespeare who noted so famously that, “Tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in its petty pace to the last syllable of recorded time. Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”  Shakespeare saw the lunacy of his day and brought it to the attention of his fellow-travelers in 16th century England.  This lovely young 17- year old lady has the courage to offer a similar critique to our day; a prophetic vision always comes from beyond the pale.

Perspectival Entrapment vs Reality

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The perspectival entrapment that I explored a couple of days ago is egregiously being played out currently in the impasse of our government.  This impeachment issue is proving very divisive as the Republicans and Democrats have pledged their troth rigidly to their “pony in the horse race.”  Yes, I certainly see the Republicans being more intransigent…blatantly so, but either side of a disputation like this must remember that on some level they too have a “pony in the race.”  Otherwise they are as ridiculous as the bizarre and inane Republcan Congressman Louie Gohmert, who last year pointed at a Democrat being interviewed, and passionately declared, “Just look at him!  Just look how biased he is!”  This brings to my mind the New Testament admonishment, “We see through a glass darkly.” How tragic if we see darkness in others and not our own.  That is called “projection.”

Having a perspective, and feeling passionate about it, is very human and even desirable.  But when one is “dug in at the heels” on an issue to the point that he is willing to totally disregard another view on the issue, his “dug-in (ness)” will reflect merely a self-serving ego investment; and ego, when pushed to an extreme, cannot back down.  That would be admitting he was “wrong” and acknowledging wrong is a something a very insecure, fragile, egomaniac cannot do  They are inclined to double-down, round up the troops on their side of the disputation, and argue with great passion and intensity.  In an extreme they will use violence rather than endure the sting of humiliation at being wrong, a sting which could be merely the dawning of a very noble human quality–humility.  It takes humility to admit, “Oh, I was not as right as I thought I was.  I wish I’d have listened to the admonishment of the bumper-sticker, ‘Don’t believe everything you think.’”

My concern with this political morass is more than mere politics.  This conflict is about the very definition of reality in our culture, what is real and unreal, what is true and what is untrue, what is acceptable and what is unacceptable.  Oh, of course, distinctions in these matters are always more nebulous that we like to think; but, there are some basic standards of human decency that are usually more or less maintained.  Beneath the surface of the “reality” that we take for granted, there is a substrate which I like to describe as Reality.  Yes, with the capitalized “R” I’m teasing with the notion of “god”, but words like god and the rest of “god-talk” which is usually mere rhetoric I can’t help today but grimace and groan about.  To illustrate my concern, I offer a quote from Shakespeare that describes just about the whole of my spiritual life and what passes for a lot of spiritual life today, “With devotions visage and pious action, they do sugar o’er the devil himself.”  Oh for those days when my perspectival enslavement kept me in the solace of that darkness!!!

Any Hope Here????

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It is really a grim moment in the history of my country.  We really live in a “stupor”, that a reference to a W.H. poem which I will quote from in a moment.  The stupor lies in the fact that we are now divided between two mind sets, “I am right” and “I am right.”  An alternative would be, “There is a bit of right on either perspective and the goal would be to see how we can reconciliate our differences.”  But the hope of that reconciliation has a significant obstruction—the leader of one side of this argument is the President of the United States and he has absolutely no capacity to equivocate on his stance of being right.  If you want to have some fun, delve into two notions on google, “solipsism” and “aseity” both of which are relevant to deity and they are both relevant to Trump.  The problem is that when these two terms become relevant to a mere mortal, the “deity” is intrinsically a “dark” deity and the results can only be catastrophic for the body politic.  If you are conservative, and happened to have stumbled into this domain, do not dare google these two google terms.

Here is the poetic quote from an astute, spiritually astute poet, W.H. Auden:

Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

“Negation and despair” besets us.  Hopelessness.  Do we dare show an “affirming flame” in this dark moment?  Trump and his minions are but an epiphenomena, a passing shadow that will pass away, the “passing away” which we might not live long enough to witness.  We can only hope.  That is called, “Faith.”

Tony Kusher, “Change Is Difficult”

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How do people change?  Well, most of us don’t; we start out lives in a rut, learn to cling to that rut, find others in a similar rut, take comfort there and try not to deviate.  To deviate is scary.  There is comfort in sameness.  When “deviance” presents itself…and any “difference” often evokes the fear of “deviance”… we are prone to put up the sign of the cross and run away.

But change is part of life.  Life is fluid; and its flow takes us different directions at times and if we resist that flow we will find ourselves in a static dimension of life.  Technically, that is “death.” However, if we are firmly ensconced in “stati-ticity” we will never make this discovery as it would be troubling to the safety we have found there.  There is comfort in living in the bubble.

Playwright Tony Kushner, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for his play, “Angels in America.”  In this powerful play there is a scene which the internal tension of change is vividly put into words; here it is presented as  gut-wrenching, which at times it can be.  Fortunately, most of the time it is merely discomforting or stressful as people like myself do not have the brilliant, sensitive, artistic temperament of people like Kushner.  Here is a quotation from one memorable scene:

Harper: In your experience of the world. How do people change?

Mormon Mother: Well it has something to do with God so it’s not very nice.

God splits the skin with a jagged thumbnail from throat to belly and then plunges a huge filthy hand in, he grabs hold of your bloody tubes and they slip to evade his grasp but he squeezes hard, he insists, he pulls and pulls till all your innards are yanked out and the pain! We can’t even talk about that. And then he stuffs them back, dirty, tangled and torn. It’s up to you to do the stitching. 

Harper: And then up you get. And walk around.

Mormon Mother: Just mangled guts pretending.

Harper: That’s how people change. 

Change is so painful as it often requires questioning the premises by which we have lived our life.  And “God” is involved often as the change involves premises that lie in the inner most part of our being, basic assumptions that we take for granted and would prefer continuing to do so.  This can be unnerving.  Theologian Paul Tillich understood this when he wrote a book entitled, “The Shaking of the Foundations” based on one of his sermons in which he presented the teachings of Jesus as intended for such a “rattling of our collective cage.”

The culture of my country is in turmoil because of the tension between the need for change and the need to maintain the status quo.  These needs are necessary in any social body and even in any individual psyche.  If any of these opposing impulses prevails to the exclusion of the other, catastrophe will take place.  The need is for some “over-arching” concern that can unite the two, can offer an harmony in dedication to a common cause.

Emily Dickinson Offered Wisdom Relevant to Modern Religious Zealotry

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The mass murder in New Zealand illustrates again the problem with “True Believers,” those who believe so strongly they will even resort to violence.  This is because if one knows the truth, and knows it with enough passion, it will shut down the “pauser reason” which would tell one that another person might feel differently about what the truth is so that violence would not be necessary.  Furthermore, it would reveal internal boundaries, i.e. discretion or “the faculty of judgement” which would allow for value of life, in all forms, so that any belief that one has would not merit acting with violence.

There is inherent in belief a peril as one can be so invested so strongly in his beliefs that the aforementioned discretion is obliterated.  This discretion involves a “still small voice” in one’s heart which might tell one thinking of acting in this fashion, “Well, maybe I don’t really have to go to that extreme.” And if this discretion is fully functioning, the issue of acting out will not even be on the table.

Poet Emily Dickinson offered wisdom about this matter of discretion and related it to meaning.  She wrote that at times, “a certain slant of light” will break through our consciousness and will bring an “oppressive” mood into our heart; it might even bring us “heavenly hurt” though “we can find no scars, but internal difference where the meanings are.”  The ability to feel “difference” in the depths of our heart, though often bringing distress, i.e. “heavenly hurt,” will offer us meaning to our life which will empower us to see meaning beyond the values and beliefs we hold dear to ourselves. The inability to experience “difference” that would offer a meaningful life will create a rigidity denying the “heavenly hurt” that is part of the human experience; it is then more likely that the resulting pent-up anguish will be projected on someone else.

People who can’t handle this internal “discord” which intrinsic to a heart that is alive, will inevitable have to “them” someone else or some group of people.  They will have to find someone who is seen as an “other” and vent their self-loathing on them.  This is a spiritual issue which is the reason why we find it so common among religious individuals and groups as spirituality often taps into a very dark dimension of the human experience leading to speech, attitudes, and deeds which can only be described as evil.

Rebecca Chopps On Our Country’s Malady of the Soul

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Barack Obama has answered the bell and has come out swinging, addressing the Republican morass of recent decades that has created our country’s present debacle, and yes, taking not-so-veiled jabs at the figure-head and spokesman for this roiling cauldron of chthonic energy.  I stumbled across a book just last week by Rebecca S. Chopps entitled, “The Power to Speak: Feminism, Language, and God,” which is relevant to this cauldron as she explores how language, including religious language, can be used to give expression to hidden dimensions of the heart, individually and socio-culturally. But for this “revelation” to occur, there must be a voice/voices from beyond the pale of the status quo who see into the heart of the poisonous mindset which is always oriented primarily to maintain the prevailing power structure.  Chopps writes as a feminist but also as a Christian…apparently…though if she calls herself a Christian she is certainly beyond the pale of the Christian power structure that would “legitimate” her wearing that label.

Here I will share a couple of paragraphs from Chopps’ book:

Proclamation, in feminist discourses of emancipatory transformation, resists and transforms the social symbolic order.  Proclamation is a form of resistance to the practices and principles of modernity that control, dominate, and oppress.  But proclamation resists by way of transformation, seeking to provide new discourses by a variety of strategies, methods, and ways, and to transform the ruling principles and order into ones that allow, encourage, and enable transformative relations of multiplicity, difference, solidarity, anticipation, embodiment, and transformation.  Transformation occurs by creating new images of human flourishing, new values of otherness, and multiplicity, new theoretical practices of solidarity and anticipation.

This is reminiscent of one of the most powerful of Paul Tillich’s sermons, “The Shaking of the Foundations” in which he argued that the purpose of the church is to, “rattle the cage” (my term) of the status quo.  But the status quo does not want to be “rattled” and will arm itself to the teeth in an effort to deny any affront to its comfy zone of satisfaction, where “they bask, agreed upon what they will not ask, bland, sunny, and adjusted by the light” of the unquestioned assumptions which give them privilege and power.  This is also obviously so with the power structure of religious culture though often those most ensconced in that power structure are basking even more in the comfort of a falsetto humility which does not permit any consideration or discussion of their motivations.

I conclude with another paragraph from Chopps:

Through discourses of emancipatory transformation, proclamation enables those marginalized voices who so often have not been heard, to speak: to speak of the beauty, hope, pain, and sorrow they have known on the margins.  Proclamation also speaks within the ambiguities of the order, the ambiguities, for instance, of the bourgeois who, though promised freedom in his autonomy, discovers few genuine possibilities for the community, relationships, and love he so desires.  Unable to find any “authentic meaning” the bourgeois attempts to fill in the empty spaces of his or her soul through the attainment of material goods that great momentary satisfaction with increasingly diminished returns.

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Here is a list of my blogs.  I invite you to check out the other two sometime.

https://anerrantbaptistpreacher.wordpress.com/

https://literarylew.wordpress.com/

https://theonlytruthinpolitics.wordpress.com/

Faith and Truth, per Carl Sandburg

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WHO AM I?
By: Carl Sandburg

MY head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of 
universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I
reach my hands and play with pebbles of 
destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty

And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs
reading “Keep Off.”
My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive 
in the universe.

All of us have a body of thought rattling around our skull which constitute “truth” and is taken for granted.  This is a necessary, though in a sense specious, certainty that allows us to function in our consensually-validated reality.  But within the noisy “rattling around” in our skull, there are certainties and premises that need to be examined occasionally and Sandburg was telling us this is especially so with those posted with the sign, “Keep Off.”  Sandburg did not mean there are no “Keep Off” dimensions to our heart and mind but that we need to pay attention to this signage and occasionally entertain the notion, “Well, maybe I should look at that idea a little further?”  This is related to my often-cited favorite bumper sticker, “Don’t believe everything you think.”  One simple little example from my youth in central Arkansas was the certainty that blacks were inferior to whites.  There was no need to question it for it was a definite, and, “The Bible said it.”

I have watched so many truths fall by the wayside in my life time and have long since given up any faint belief that I own the truth, that at best there is some primordial Truth that lies beyond the grasp of our finite mind and that yes, in a sense that “Truth” even has us!  And if I ever start trying to explain that to you, flash the sign of the cross in my face and run away quickly as this is a matter that eludes the grasp of human cognition.  This “Truth” involves faith, but not of the escapist faith that is so common, but faith that there is a, “Divinity that doeth shape our ends, rough hew them how we may,” as Shakespeare told us.  And I personally think that those who are the most obnoxious about objectively knowing about that end…and usually the end for others…are doing the roughest hewing!