Category Archives: religion and spirituality

Neuroscience Trying to be God!

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Neuroscientist, Kathleen Taylor, argues that religious fundamentalism is an illness for which there will eventually be a cure as it can be explained neurologically. Well, that is fine with me because “they” are “them” and I love it anytime I can “them” anyone! But, alas and alack, I happen to know that Taylor and her ilk also argue that spirituality itself can be explained in terms of neurology and the mythical “god spot” in the brain and therefore she has me in her sights also. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/31/kathleen-taylor-religious-fundamentalism-mental-illness_n_3365896.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular)

However, I thoroughly appreciate the neurological research and find that it actually deepens my faith. Yes, I do feel that my spiritual imagery and even the impulse itself has a neurological component. Everything that I “know” and “feel” has a neurological component and even these very words that I write, even the motivation to write them, even this “meta-cognition” being employed has a neurological dimension. This knowledge keeps me from retreating to the perspective of my youth when I felt that objectivity was possible and leaves me with the simple mystery of life and of my own human experience. And it leaves me with the conviction, foolish perhaps, that what I feel and think are important are worth “tossing out there.” Now what happens when they are “tossed out there” is beyond me and is not even my business. As T.S. Eliot said, “We offer our deeds to oblivion” in that we do not know what their outcome will be.

The dilemma for neuroscience research is that it often fails to overlook the obvious—beneath the realm of neurochemistry and “science” lays absolutely nothing. I like to use the philosopher’s term “nothingness” or a primordial void that lies at the root of our existence. I like to call it “Nothingness” or even better, “No-thingness.” And when anyone deigns to venture into that domain of human experience, he/she is pretty close to entering the realm of the “spiritual” for there is where we meet “Otherness” to which some of us assign the term “God,” or “Source” or “Ground of Being” or “I am that I am”, the latter also translated as “the Being One.” But, when we get there…if ever…the only thing we get for the “effort” is the simple knowledge of our being which I like to term “Being.” We have “am-ness” and that is it. And Eliot termed this experience “a condition of complete simplicity, costing not less than everything.” And, it has been my experience that awareness of this “simplicity” grants me a tad more humility than I was born with, allowing me to seek for inclusiveness with others, including those that disagree with me. “Where is our common interest?” I like to ask and it is always there in some finite respect and Ultimately there in that we are all simple Be-ings, “strutting and fretting our hour upon the stage” and prone to taking ourselves too seriously.

This nebulous approach to spirituality is strangely akin to quantum physics. And, in the realm of scientific research, there are individuals who do seek to find common ground between science, religion, and other approaches to life. For, they realize that “science”, like religion, is merely one approach to the incredible Mystery of life that we are all caught up in from which we cannot escape. We can attempt to “explain it” and therefore have the smug belief that it “makes sense” but history teaches us that the “absolute truth” of any particular era….the “god”…always ends up in the dustbin. Science, religion, literature are only a means to an end and not an end in themselves. Or as the Buddhists like to say, “The finger pointing to the moon is not the moon.”

 

Silence is Golden

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Most of my life I have viewed Quakerism as quite strange. The notion of a service consisting almost entirely of sitting quietly just didn’t make any sense. “That’s just silly” I would have wanted to say. “Say something!” But now a significant portion of my weekly worship is spent in silent meditation and I see so clearly the significance of silence. Silence is necessary from time to time to give our “monkey mind” a rest, to follow the advice of the Psalmist, “Be still and know that I am God.” There is some fear that this “literarylew” thing I got going on is largely chatter and that one of these days God is going to “Todd Akin” me and just “shut this whole thing down.” I understand that the great Catholic theological Thomas Aquinas had a profound mystical experience in his early fifties and, after written many basic theological treatises of the Catholic faith, never wrote another thing the rest of his life. “It is all straw,” he supposedly said.

And the notion of silence in spirituality is very Indian. And the Quaker about whom I blogged this morning, Thomas Kelly, noted that he had consulted with Hindu spiritual teachers and had studied the teachings of the Vedas. That must have been a daring move for a Quaker in 1931 for I think of Quakers as a very conservative variant of the Christian faith and conservatives Christians look askance at Indian spirituality.

I have been drawn to the wisdom of Gerard Manley Hopkins on the subject of silence long before I had any reason to know why. In the poem, “The Habit of Perfection” he declares that only when we “shut up” and embrace silence can we acquire eloquence:

ELECTED Silence, sing to me
And beat upon my whorlèd ear,
Pipe me to pastures still and be
The music that I care to hear.

Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb: 5
It is the shut, the curfew sent
From there where all surrenders come
Which only makes you eloquent.

Be shellèd, eyes, with double dark
And find the uncreated light: 10
This ruck and reel which you remark
Coils, keeps, and teases simple sight.

Palate, the hutch of tasty lust,
Desire not to be rinsed with wine:
The can must be so sweet, the crust 15
So fresh that come in fasts divine!

Nostrils, your careless breath that spend
Upon the stir and keep of pride,
What relish shall the censers send
Along the sanctuary side! 20

O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet
That want the yield of plushy sward,
But you shall walk the golden street
And you unhouse and house the Lord.

And, Poverty, be thou the bride 25
And now the marriage feast begun,
And lily-coloured clothes provide
Your spouse not laboured-at nor spun.

A Quaker Perspective on Prayer

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We pray, and yet it is not we who pray, but a Greater who prays in us. Something of our punctiform selfhood is weakened, but never lost. All we can say is, Prayer is taking place, and I am given to be in the orbit. In Holy Hush we bow in Eternity, and know the Divine Concern tenderly enwrapping us and all things within His persuading love. Here all human initiative has passed into acquiescence, and He works and prays and seeks His own through us, in exquisite, energizing life. Here the autonomy of the inner life becomes complete and we are joyfully prayed through by a Seeking Life that flows through us into the world of men. (“A Testament of Devotion” by Thomas R. Kelly)

Kelly, who was a Quaker writing in the first half of the 20th century, presents here a notion of prayer that is far removed from what I was taught. Kelly saw prayer, not just as something we do, but as something that is done to us. Prayer is a spiritual process that we can tap into if we humble ourselves, find an always elusive purity of heart, and open ourselves up to the Infinite.

But here I have posed a problem for the old “concrete thinking” lew that still abides in the depths of my heart and he wants to shriek, “This is nuts!” And, I might add that occasionally in my Sunday School class, where we approach spirituality in similar “non-duality” terms, I will occasionally facetiously announce, “This is nuts!” For, I know that my friends also see how complicated and subtle this approach to spirituality is and how that it does not fit the mind and temperament of everybody. Approaching spirituality in this vein involves the ability to hold contradictory notions in the mind at the same time and most people can’t do that. And, I might add, most people should not do that and should approach spirituality in their own way. For, God works through us all and expresses Himself through us all, even through those that I might disagree with or at times even dislike!

But, at times it is hard to maintain this humble approach in the face of an old “un-literary” lew with his (its!) concrete thinking shrieking at him, who wants to proclaim from the rooftops, “THIS IS THE TRUTH! BELIEVE LIKE ME! TURN OR BURN!” I have the nagging need to “be right” which I keep at bay most of the time. But at times it gets triggered and then the black hole that it is gnaws at my soul for a few days. For, the need to “be right” is a black hole and will devour a soul if given into. It is much easier to “know” that you are right than to have hope, confidence, and faith that there is a “Right” that is present in this universe that is seeking expression through us all, even those that believe differently than I do.

And let me close with Shakespeare’s profound observation about prayer in Hamlet, where King Claudius kneels and prays, “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. Words without thoughts never to heaven go.” And then T. S. Eliot noted, “Prayer is more than an order of words, or the sound of the voice praying, or the conscious occupation of the praying mind.”

 

Emptiness, Kenosis, and Art

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I’m really into emptiness. Yes, it says something about what I’m made of! And, actually I think that is quite accurate as, according to Eckhart Tolle, quantum physics says that we are about 95% empty space.

Now emptiness to me means the “stuff out there,” meaning, some “external reference point.” (Oh, if my mom could hear me saying this, she would echo Hamlet’s mom, “Oh what a noble mind is here o’er thrown.” Well, in mom’s case, she probably would not elevate me to “noble.”)

Emptiness, such as the Christian doctrine of “kenosis” and the existentialist notion of “nothingness” convey to me merely the notion that there is something “out there” beyond the “small bright circle of our consciousness” (Conrad Aiken). Our finite minds cannot grasp it all which is what Einstein recognized when he noted that the end result of his studies was that a mystery lay at the base of existence. Einstein recognized that even his brilliant intelligence could not wrap itself around the majesty of life.

My grasp of this mystery is intellectual. I admit it. I humbly confess and beg to atone for this sin but I am just “stuck in my head,” damn it! But I’m married to an artist and musician, and I know artists and others who approach life with a different conceptual apparatus. (I try to straighten them out, to get them to see things the “right” way but they only look at me with bewilderment!) And therefore I increasingly embrace “otherness”, the fact that there are other ways of approaching this incredible mystery that we are all caught up in, that actually has encompassed us, that has “caught us up in” itself.

I would like to share with you a blog from a visual artist that a sister of mine has turned me on to which often really intrigues me. His name is Robert Genn and he just approaches reality differently than I do; he is much less “verbal” and I really like that. His emphasis is on the importance of emptiness, or “nothingness”:

Back around the turn of the 20th century, household gadgets, from sewing machines to new fangled vacuum cleaners, were decorated with floral or other motifs. In those days, people thought things looked better when they were covered with busyness. Sewing machines themselves were sometimes made in the form of dolphins, angels or even snakes. The wide ranging art critic Sir Herbert Read (1893-1968) wrote, “The necessity of ornament is psychological. There exists in man a certain feeling which has been called horror vacui, an incapacity to tolerate an empty space. This feeling is strongest in certain savage races, and in decadent periods of civilization.”

While sophisticated Asian art tends toward the spacious, and minimalism is not yet out of fashion in the West, Western art reveals a general trend for decoration. While we may indeed be living in decadent times, my argument is we’re just being Aristotelian: “Nature abhors a vacuum.”

Fact is, a blank space may be the much needed rest period that comes before the action. It may also be the part of the work that sends the viewer yawning. A bit idiosyncratic and certainly not for everyone, I make actors of my blank spots, especially the interminable ones. Spaces can often be gradated, blended, softened, hardened or at least formed into a strong negative area. Spaces also need nearby busyness to be effective in their spaciousness, just as sophisticated neutral tones and grays are needed for the surprise and excitement of nearby colour.

A significant space in many landscapes is the sky. While plain skies have their value, a more active and complex sky can bring drama to otherwise ordinary work. “The sky,” said John Constable, “is the principal actor in your painting.”

In sculpture, the surrounding space becomes as significant as the figure. “You leave space for the body,” said Henry Moore, “imagining the other part even though it isn’t there.”

To my eye, paintings and other art take their strength from a calculated dance in which the various elements come together, interact, and move apart. No matter what the subject matter or motif, abstract style or realistic, negative and positive spaces contrive to juxtapose in a way that engages the viewer’s eye. Like a lot of art concepts, this isn’t the only way to go, but it’s a valuable one.

Best regards,

Robert

PS: “A painter is a choreographer of space.” (Barnett Newman)

Esoterica: A painter who understood the value of space was Henri Matisse. Subject matter was often second to the organization of flats. “The whole arrangement of my picture is expressive,” said Matisse. “The place occupied by the figures or objects, the empty spaces around them, the proportions, everything plays a part.” Attention to space gave Matisse permission to play with colour. Some of the most interesting and spatial of Matisse’s works were his figure studies. We’ve taken the liberty to post some of my favourites at the top of the current clickback.

Rumi on the “Faculty of Judgment”

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Out beyond ideas of wrong doing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there

Rumi was addressing what the philosophers call the “faculty of judgment”, that human ability to carve the world up into categories so that he can have the illusion of controlling it. And, I think Rumi knew this cognitive apparatus was an essential part of being a human and actually allowed him to create his world. But Rumi saw that it was necessary to not be confined by this conceptual prison and had learned that it was possible to occasionally lay aside this whirligig and meet someone out “there.”

To approach the matter clinically, Rumi was speaking of “object-separateness.” He saw that the whole of the world, and especially other humans, lay beyond the grasp of our thoughts about them. He knew that we tend to “live in the small bright circle of our consciousness beyond which lies the darkness,” the “darkness” being a boundary that we must venture into if we are to ever go “out there” and meet someone. And this is essentially a spiritual enterprise.

In this brief poem, Rumi addressed one particular bifurcation of the world that we are familiar with, that compulsive need to label some people “right” and some people “wrong.” (And, what a coincidence that I so often happen to fall into the “right” category????) Certainly, “right” and “wrong” are valid labels in this world and Rumi knew that. What he was saying is that we don’t need to wield the distinction like a weapon and can, on occasion, give it a rest, perhaps offering someone who we first want to label ‘wrong” a little bit of grace. The best example I can think Jesus offering forgiveness to the Samaritan woman at the well when he was legally required to condemn her and stone her to death.

Rumi knew there was a karmic law that is written in the universe—when one has a compulsive need to be right, he will create wrong.

Richard Rohr Re The Profane

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Again, I must let Richard Rohr speak for me today, sharing his observations about the importance of getting beneath the surface of things. He argues that everything is profane…even religion…if you keep on the surface of it. And the profanity is particularly pronounced if it happens in the domain of religion for the sacred is blasphemed even as it is purportedly worshipped. As Shakespeare put it, “With devotion’s visage and pious action we sugar o’er the devil himself” and “When love begins to sicken and decay, it useth an enforced ceremony. There are no tricks in plain and simple faith; but hollow men, like horses hot at hand, make gallant show and promise of their mettle.”

If we just stay on the fearful or superficial side of the religious spectrum, religion is invariably defined by exclusionary purity codes that always separate things into sacred and profane. God is still distant, punitive, and scary. Then our religious job becomes putting ourselves only on the side of “sacred” things (as if you could) and to stay apart from worldly or material things, even though Jesus shows no such preference himself.

After the beginnings of mystical experience (which is just prayer experiences), one finds that what makes something secular or profane is precisely whether one lives on the surface of it. It’s not that the sacred is here and the profane is over there. Everything is profane if you live on the surface of it, and everything is sacred if you go into the depths of it—even your sin. To go inside your own mistakenness is to find God. To stay on the surface of very good things, like Bible, sacrament, priesthood, or church, is to often do very unkind and evil things, while calling them good. This important distinction is perfectly illustrated by Jesus’ parable of the publican and the Pharisee (Luke 18:9-14).

So the division for the Christian is not between secular and sacred things, but between superficial things and things at their depth. The depths always reveal grace, while staying on the surface allows one to largely miss the point (the major danger of fundamentalism, by the way). Karl Rahner, the German Jesuit, and one of my heroes of Vatican II, loved to call this “the mysticism of ordinary life.

The Mystery of Godliness

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Too late loved I thee, O Thou beauty of ancient days, yet ever new! Too late I loved Thee! And behold, Thou wert within and I abroad, and there I searched for Thee, deformed I, plunging amid those fair forms which Thou hadst made. Thou were with me but I was not with Thee. Things held me far from Thee which, unless they were in Thee, were not at all. Thou calledst and shoutedst, and burstedst my deafness. Thou flashedst, shonest, and scattered my blindness. Though breathedst odors, and I drew I n breath and pant for Thee. I tasted, and hunger hunger and thirst. Thou touchedst me and I burned for Thy peace. When I shall with my whole soul cleave to Thee, I shall nowhere have sorrow or labor, and my life shall live as wholly full of Thee.

This beautiful prayer of St. Augustine is merely the long version of “my soul followeth hard after thee, O Lord” from the Psalmist.   I’ve always had this longing in my heart and, though it was definitely a learned emphasis…my role in my family and community was to be a “man of the cloth”…I think it also revealed a sensitivity in my soul that has not dissipated after six decades. Yes, there are many ways of looking at it, including neurology and certainly neurosis! Perhaps there is that “god spot” in some of our brains that was merely over heated with St. Augustine and with the rest of us who “pine” after the Ultimate. I can’t help but speculate about whether or not we’d ever have heard of St. Augustine if he’d have been prozac’d!

As has been said, “it takes call kinds” and we “piners’ are therefore part of the picture that is being painted. St. Augustine and his ilk were highly attuned to the mystery that lies at the heart of life. This mystery can be overwhelming and so God has kindly offered fig leaves to hide those intense feelings for most people.

Here is wisdom from Ranier Rilke re this mystery, shared with us this morning on the blog by Blue Eyed Ennis on WP:

And yet, Though We Strain
~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~

And yet though we strain
against the deadening grip
of daily necessity,
I sense there is this mystery:

All life is being lived.

Who is living it then?

Is it the things themselves,
or something waiting inside them,
like an unplayed melody in a flute?

Is it the winds blowing over the waters?
Is it the branches that signal to each other?

Is it flowers
interweaving their fragrances
or streets, as they wind through time?

“Where There is no Vision…”

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The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men (and women) who dream of things that never were.

I ran across this quotation from John F. Kennedy last week in a classroom and was stunned by its wisdom. Kennedy knew that “obvious reality” would not resolve the difficult situations that faced the world in his day, that resolution of those problems would only come through those who dared to dream, or envision. I immediately thought of the verse from Proverbs, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

The “obvious reality” that we face each day is a necessary evil. We must have this ego-contrived structure to keep this dog-and-pony show afloat. But, there is another reality…i.e. “Reality…that we need to draw upon to address the problems in our world, a world of dreams and visions. Venturing into that world is a spiritual adventure, a journey into realms where it feels as if “no man has gone before.” But if we cling only to the “obvious’ we will continue to stew in our own juices, never able to “get over ourselves.” I discovered relevant wisdom from the East from an unknown source this morning, “Known is a drop, Unknown is an ocean.”

This obsessive slavery to the known “obvious reality” is apparent in our current Congress. The God that Congress currently worships is “Getting Re-elected” and not the Judeo-Christian deity that most of them purport to worship. And, to them, it is quite “obvious” that they must get re-elected as that only will allow them to pursue their agenda. But, there are more important things than the “obvious” and one’s own “agenda”. If a legislator is enslaved by the desire to maintain his/her office, he/she inevitably prostitutes him/herself to an electorate just to maintain electoral viability. And when that happens, “there is no vision and the people perish.”

Now it must be noted, we can’t lay all of the blame on Congress. We elected them and they reflect the values of our culture. We too are enslaved by the “obvious” and balk at venturing into the Unknown where true value is found, where our spiritual roots can be explored.

 

“Discerning Spirit” Meets “Mindfulness”

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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.  (Hebrews ch. 12)

I have always loved this verse. In my youth it was one of my favorite verses and I frequently used it as a text for my sermons as I was intoxicated with the ego-ridden notion of wielding the “word of God.” And even then I grasped the significance of the notion of “discerning” the “thoughts and intents of the heart.” I still believe in the Judeo-Christian notion of the “Word” of God having been spoken, that the whole of creation is His “Word” reverberating throughout this void that we live in. Of course, at this point in my life, I am wont to ask, “Now, just what does that mean? which leads me into this complicated, ambiguity-filled world of “literarylew.” (I’ve tried medication but it just won’t go away!)

Yes, I do believe that I speak “the Word” today but not in any special sense, any more than do you, or even those people who believe differently than myself. And, even more so, “the Word” technically speaks “me” just as it does “you” as it is a basic, guiding energy which lies at the heart of life. For, science and mythology tells us that the whole of this universe is merely energy…including ourselves…even though I still prefer to refer to that “energy” as a “Person.”

But back to that “discerning business.” This “Word” that I believe in is indeed “personal” and therefore is essentially dynamic; it is alive. When we come into the presence of life that is static, I argue that we are face to face with death. This is very much related to the scriptural observation that “the letter of the law killeth but the spirit maketh alive.” Those who live only in the “letter of the law” (those who are literalists, for example) live in a static world and according to the Bible, they are in an important sense, “dead.” And when this Word is allowed to live within us, to be dynamic, it does offer us a “discerning spirit” which often comes through the feedback from other people. This “discerning spirit” is closely akin to the Buddhist notion of “mindfulness.”

I have friends and a wife who frequently facilitate this “discernment” process in my heart; they give me feedback. And the blog-o-sphere also provides valuable feedback re my “literarylew” ramblings which, as a body, are very reflective of what is going on in my heart. Two of my readers are very well blessed with this gift of “discernment” though both of them would be given pause for me to assign to them this “gift” as they are hardly Christian. But the Spirit that I believe in, that spoke this world into existence and continues to allow it to cohere, supersedes all religious creeds and belief systems, including those who avow that they have none. These two individuals often cut directly to the “heart” regarding my musings and their blogs themselves approach the heart issues on basic life issues that we all face. These two people have the gift of “assessing” or “judging” (in a good sense) and providing critique of what is being said and of what is going on in their world. This is a “discerning spirit” which is often missing in our world.