Writing from the Heart is Costly

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“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.”

This quotation from Franz Kafka speaks to deeply to my heart and explains why I have such a passion for literature that “rattles my cage” like he did.  Good writing does not merely amuse, confirm one’s premises, or serve as “comfort food.”  Good writing comes from the depths of the heart and speaks only to those whose heart has similar depths, hearts which simmer with the breath of Spirit and have complete disinterest with  those “smooth words” which the prophet Isaiah warned against.

A social media friend of mine this morning shared a quotation of Helene Cixous which addressed this dimension of good writing.  I will share a few quotes from this excerpt and then provide a link to the rest of it:

The only book worth writing is the one we don’t have the courage or strength to write.  The book that hurts us (“we who are writing)” makes us tremble, redden, bleed.

Writing is the difficult, delicate, and dangerous means of succeeding in avowing the unavowable”

We go toward the most unknown and the best unknown, that is what we are looking for when we write.  We go toward the best known unknown thing, when knowing and not knowing touch, where we hope we will know what is unknown.  Where we hope we will not be afraid of understanding the incomprehensible, facing invisible, hearing the inaudible, thinking the unthinkable, which is of course thinking.  Thinking is trying to think the unthinkable: thinking the thinkable is not worth the effort.

And I conclude with a relevant observation from W. H. Auden, who in this excerpt has the Christmas star speaking:

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.

 

 

 

 

 

Conspiracy Theories Running Amok!!!

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Gawd  l love conspiracy theories!  In the link provided here, you will find some of the juiciest ones that have circulated in my country lately as well as a few of our favorites from the past.  And, I confess that I grew up in conspiracy infested South, imbibing to the bitter-sweet nectar of the knowledge that the Communists were lurking around every corner, ready t to take over the country.  I remember vividly in the election of 1959 when Catholic John Kennedy was the Democratic nominee for President running against Republican Richard Nixon, hearing my Dad express solemn concern that the Pope would be waiting in a submarine off the east coast ready to take over our country should Kennedy win the election.  My fear-base was only then beginning  to constellate in my seven year old heart but it was strong enough to give me the numb realization that dark forces were “out there” ready to imperil “truth, justice, and the American way.”  But this muted terror was mitigated…speciously, albeit…by the reassurance that my family were born-again Christians and part of our lot in life was to be part of a beleagured minority who would always have to stand up against the forces of evil that were always “out there.”

Maturity sheds light on my youthful vulnerabiity and education gives me the perspective of history and psychology on social and political phenomena.  I see now so clearly now how fear is such a driving force in human experience and conspiracy theories are ready-made fodder for people whose fears are the driving force in their lives.  Psychologically it helps immensely to “know” that some entity “out there”, an individual or a group, are seeking to do one harm as one’s energy can then be directed there.  But we forget the wisdom of Pogo, the cartoon character, who told us, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

The sad thing currently is to watch politicians who know better, or should know better, deliberately stoke the fears of the “low-information voters” who constitute their base just to galvanize their energy.  The most graphic example of this occurred last summer when Texas conservatives were fearful that President Obama was using the ruse of a military training exercise (Operation Jade Helm) to take over the state; and even the Governor, Gregg Abbott, played along with their fears.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/05/the-conspiracy-theories-animating-the-right.html

An Atheist “Schools” Christians on Faith

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I never thought I’d come across such a mature and honest expression of faith as I found here, coming from the heart of an atheist.  (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/24/atheism-does-not-make-me-superior-to-believers-its-a-leap-of-faith-too) The author has the integrity and honesty to recognize that even her atheism involves premises with which it is very easy to demonstrate great arrogance and rudeness.  She recognizes that accepting these premises involves a faith in some subtle way.  I have spent most of my life as a very arrogant and smug Christian, carrying this “work of the flesh” to extremes of which I’m not humble enough to admit.  And I have no hope of ever “getting it right,” now realizing that is not the point.  And I look around at other religious people, especially Christians, and I see so much incredible smugness, arrogance, and unkindness.  I certainly understand why there are atheists and understand that it might take more courage to be an atheist than to be a rigid, dogmatic Christian who refuses to jettison the doctrinaire dimension of his faith in favor of the “Spirit of the Law.”

Control Issues and Freedom

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One of my reader’s response to yesterday’s blog has got me to thinking more about control issues and related matters.  As noted yesterday, we all have control issues and address them in ways unique to our genetic, cultural, and social endowment. Hopefully our adaptation will leave us with a socially tenable persona; or, if not, one that is so “untenable” that that we don’t give a damn about the outside field of reference, basking in the comfort of some rigid ideology or cultic religion!

The latter response is what Erich Fromm had in mind half a century ago with his book, “Escape from Freedom.”  Those who can’t submit their private field of reference to the external “market place” of ideas escape into the illusion of being in control but will be safe from any awareness of their dilemma.  Their “freedom” is specious as hell and, indeed, might be one of the best examples we have of hell.  Those who have opted to enter and confine themselves to this conflagration have found the illusory need for control so powerful that they have sold their soul.  And always they will be voicing a conviction that “we are right”…usually exclusively so…to counter the deep-seated feeling that they are intrinsically wrong and even “damned.”  Confinement to this narrow prism of “the right way” is the curse of death, spiritually speaking, as it reflects a deep-seated inability to self-reflect, to deign to let go of some of the very-human need to be in control, and to gently tippy-toe into the realm of a mature faith.  For in the often frightening world of faith, doubts, fears, and insecurities are common.

So, why do we have such an inordinate need to be in control and thwart the heart’s natural inclination to faith?  I think it stems from our unconscious “knowledge” that life is much more precarious than our tribe taught us that it was.  And this tribal “fig leaf” (part of which is our persona) was very necessary just as T. S. Eliot noted with his observation, “Humankind cannot bear very much reality.”  But if we are lucky in what Richard Rohr and Carl Jung describes as “the second half of life,” we will find the courage to slowly remove that fig leaf, tippy-toe into the nakedness that it has hidden, and learn to swim in the realm of faith.  But faith, at this mature point of our life must not be the ideological regurgitation of dogma that often characterizes the first half of life.  It must be a faith that, in addition to an external reference point, includes an internal reference point which is what Jesus had in mind when he told us the Kingdom is within.  This faith must at some point become a faith, not only in a God who is “out there” but in the person “in here” who is “me.”  It requires “The Courage to Be.”  (See Paul Tillich book by same title, free on-line pdf at following link—http://www.pol-ts.com/Research_files/Source%20Material/Tillich/courageofbe011129mbp.pdf)

The “God Complex” and Dr. Ben Carson

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When a young man, I stumbled across an evangelical self-help book about “the god-complex” and recognized then that it pertained to me.  To summarize, this term refers to someone who responds to deep-seated feelings of being out of control with the over-compensation of trying to control his world, sometimes by defining his world so narrowly that the remaining tiny fiefdom is easily manageable.. And though I am now four decades further in my life’s journey, that complex remains with me in some residual form.  Without it I must fear the primordial chaos which teases all human hearts would be overwhelming.

This term “god complex” is merely a version of what clinical jargon labels “ego structure.”  And all of us have an ego structure without which chaos would ensue and we would be non-functional, or our functional ability would be marred by glaring demonstrations of subtle pathology.  And, if you happen to be religious and cursed with what neurologists might call an hyper-active “god-spot,” the “god complex” will  be present in you for others to see, though the arrogance that this complex affords you will not allow you to see it yourself.  But the resulting “bad faith” is exquisitely delightful!

And that brings me to Dr. Ben Carson, who is currently in 2nd place in the polls for the Republican nomination for President in my country.  And though he is an accomplished neurosurgeon and, I think,  a very nice human being, he has a history of saying things that demonstrate a radical lack of self-reflection.  And his “flaws” could be described more harshly but I’m going to let someone who went to medical school with him do that:

http://www.salon.com/2015/10/21/ben_carsons_dangerous_god_complex_the_commencement_speech_i_wont_soon_forget_partner/

Now as customary, my “tee-hee” muscle wants to get flexed here!  But really, my first response is sadness to see how that such an intelligent and accomplished man can be so hampered by background, cultural influences that he would deign to take some of the stances he has taken.  And though he is responsible for himself, I want to blame his ultra-conservative religion (Seventh Day Adventist) for his radical inability to use this brilliant mind of his to utilize the self-reflective skill that lies dormant in that neo-cortex that he “knows” so much about.  But the real culprit is even deeper for ideology which threatens all religion often tyrannizes many conservative Christians.

Thinking Outside of the Box With Comedy

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I’ve always been blessed/cursed with “thinking outside of the box” though most of my life I’ve spent carefully trying and or pretending to do otherwise.  Here in this blog I like to focus on figures I have come across…past and present…who not only think outside of the box but often even dare to think outside of the box that the box is in!  Yes, that is a scary notion and can be dangerous as comedian  Robin Williams demonstrated so tragically.

Here I want to share a video link to another pair of comedians who push the envelope even further than Williams, at times venturing into anarchy or apparent nihilism.  But their intent is comedy and by sharing this skill of theirs they can certainly illustrate features of this human comedy that each of us plays a bit part in.

Keye and Peele here are spoofing President Obama, with one of them portraying Obama the straight man being very Presidential.  But then the other portrays another dimension of the President, an outlandish, outspoken, bombastic black man who is very angry.  In this spoof we see a good-natured illustration of the human comedy—we all have at least two dimensions to our personality, one in which we perform according to social convention and the other in which, if we had the liberty, we would say what we really would like to say.  This is very much related to the success of Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump who is at the top of the polls largely because he says things that more conventional candidates would never dare to say.

(http://www.cc.com/video-clips/0py5fm/key-and-peele-exclusive—obama-s-anger-translator—meet-luther—uncensored)

Here is another version of the same skit, this time featuring President Obama himself playing himself at a National Press Club Dinner.  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6NfRMv-4OY)

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Paul Tillich’s Critique of Religion

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Two of the most important gifts that living in Taos, NM the past year and a half has offered me  is discovering two reading groups, one focused on the work of Carl Jung and the other now focused on Paul Tillich’s “The Courage to Be.”

“The Courage to Be” is one of the most important books I’ve ever read, delving into the heart and soul of “being” itself and showing the relationship of “being” to spirituality and religion.  The body of Tillich’s work approaches spirituality as a mysterious enterprise that cannot be captured by the rational mind.  In fact, in one volume of his” Systematic Theology” he declares, “A religion within the bounds of reason is a mutilated religion.”  Tillich knew that faith was a matter of the heart and that the “heart” was a dimension of human experience that involves more than simple rational enterprise.  This emphasis grabbed by attention 30 years ago when I first encountered Tillich and now is even more meaningful to me and helps me understand why modern religion often appears to be so intrinsically perfunctory and even banal.

On Face Book’s Tillich page this morning I ran across quote from another Tillich book which brilliantly  assesses the state of American religion in the middle 20th century, an assessment which is still valid today.  In the selection provided below, note that he did not see religion as a detached, casual, objective enterprise but one that involves the whole heart and even the whole of life.  He saw religion as an expression of the mystery of life, an effort to find meaning in the unfolding of life into which all of us were born and into which all of those who follow us will be born.  He addressed the ephemeral nature of the subject-object distinction:

“An age that is open to the unconditional and is able to accept a kairos is not necessarily an age in which a majority of people are actively religious. The number of actively religious people can be greater in a so-called ‘irreligious’ than in a religious period. But an age that is turned toward, and open to, the unconditional is one in which the consciousness of the presence of the unconditional permeates and guides all cultural functions and forms. The divine, for such a state of mind, is not a problem but a presupposition. Its ‘givenness’ is more certain than that of anything else. This situation finds expression, first of all, in the dominating power of the religious sphere, but not in such a way as to make religion a special form of life ruling over the other forms. Rather, religion is the life-blood, the inner power, the ultimate meaning of all life. The ‘sacred’ or the ‘holy’ inflames, imbues, inspires, all reality and all aspects of existence. There is no profane nature or history, no profane ego, and no profane world. All history is sacred history, everything that happens bears a mythical character; nature and history are not separated. Equally, the separation of subject and object is missing; things are considered more as powers than as things. Therefore, the relation of them is not that of technical manipulation but that of immediate spiritual communion and of ‘magical’ (in the larger sense of the word) influence. And the knowledge of things has not the purpose of analyzing them in order to control them; it has the purpose of finding their inner meaning, their mystery, and their divine significance. Obviously, in such a situation, the arts play a much greater role than in a scientific or technical age. They reveal the meaning of the myth on the basis of which everybody lives.” (Paul Tillich, “Kairos,” 1922, in The Protestant Era, pp 81-82)

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The Devil Is Out to Getcha!!!

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When I first ventured onto Facebook several years ago, I was filling out the personal info forms which included books that I had read, two of which were by Neal Donald Walsch.  Shortly thereafter, someone with whom I had went to high school, posted without specific reference to me, an observation to another person I had went to school, “Neal Donald Walsch is of the devil” and his friend responded quickly with, “Yeah, straight from the pits of hell.”  I immediately knew it was “Welcome to Facebook” from my old classmates, though without the courage of telling it to me directly.

But I also knew immediately, “Well, they are right!  Walsch is ‘straight from the devil’ given the world they live in, the world which I somehow managed to leave decades ago.”  For with Walsch and so many other authors, I had ventured into forbidden territory. For any tribe offers its young patterns of thinking and behaving from which departure is discouraged with warnings such as, “It’s of the devil.”  It reminds me of the warnings ancient cartographers would emblazon on parts of the world maps to which no one had traveled, “There be the dragons.”  And to venture beyond the pale prescribed by these tribal elders is to incur duress which might feel at times like “hell.”

This memory provided a flashback of my youth spent in die-hard biblical literalism of the American South and the stern admonishment that anyone who ventured to look at the Bible with an open mind was already flirting with Satan.  And I also recalled how this rigidity disallowed me from questioning any Biblical, “axiomatic” truths such as that Blacks were an inferior race, that women were to be submissive to their husband even to the point of what we now call “marital rape,” and even…and here I get into the mundane…that the Southern Baptists were “unscriptural” and “liberal” and thus following the devil because they were sending their missionaries out through a “Mission Board.”  (See explanatory footnote)

But, I still believe firmly in the existence….or “presence” of a “devil”…though I do not see him or “it” as I was taught.  This is partly due to discovering the darkness in my own heart and accepted that I will have to wrestle with it the rest of my life.  And I see this darkness throughout the world when I observe the stubborn blindness of my fellow man to disregard the spiritual dimension of life and blindingly worship our modern deities…such as consumerism…even as we convince ourselves that we are worshipping God, thinly disguised as, “Truth, justice, and ‘the American Way.”  So, yes. There is a devil!

The Devil, Satan, or whatever you want to call it is always a very real presence with each of us.  I have found “it” is most present when I’m most sure of myself and even more so when I’m sure of myself with spirituality.  Reflecting back to my days in “certainty” I realize I had subscribed to a “willful blindness” rather than accept that I could only “see through a glass darkly.”  It was easier to just keep my blinders on and shut out doubt and insecurity, scream my dogma and jargon a little more loudly when threatened than to venture into the primordial silence which the Bible describes as “the still small voice of God.”

I think the devil is most conspicuous in our need to be right.  I think the surest way to locate the devil is to watch for those who are most emphatic in announcing “we are right” and they are always ready to explain why.  And, knowing they are right, they usually feel that “god” is leading them to force others to believe and behave just like they do.  The need “to be right” always reveals a profound internal conviction of being “wrong,” really, really wrong, intrinsically wrong.  And even there in that unconscious “knowledge” a narcissistic wounding expresses itself in a kind of grandiosity.  Being a mere mortal, fraught with human frailty and avarice, is not enough.  They must be “intrinsically bad.”

FOOTNOTE—I was raised in a splinter group from the Southern Baptist Convention.  We were so conservative that we saw the Southern Baptist as “liberal.”  One of the primary expressions of the SBC’s liberalism was their “modernistic” notion of sending their missionaries out through a collective body called the “Mission Board.”  My group felt that missionaries should be sent out only through the individual, “local church.”  Historically, this controversy was an expression of the 19th century rural rebellion against urbanization and the encroaching demands of modernity.

Stephen Colbert Comically Looks at Truth

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My last post explored the famous question of Pontius Pilate as he presided over the trial of Jesus, “What is truth?”  In this post I brought emphasis to the profundity of the question and the humility and temerity we need to exercise as we ponder the issue.  But in the Stephen Colbert clip provided here, the ephemerality of truth is more clearly…and wittily…explored than I could ever do with mere use of “words.”  Note the self-referentiality that Colbert utilizes in making this epistemological observation and even his awareness of the narcisstic dimension of the enterprise.  Colbert has “self” awareness to a scary degree, the “scariness” mitigated with his ability to laugh at himself in the very enquiry he is making. This quality that Colbert demonstrates nightly…with the help of his talented writers…is the reason we so often find brilliant social commentary with this show which we do not find elsewhere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxTDIPi_T-g

“What is truth?” asked Pilate.

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“What is truth?” asked Pilate.  This question posed by the Roman officiate who held in his hands the fate of Jesus still haunts us today.  A Showtime series put this question on the table again in the context of marital infidelity, as reported in this WaPo story:   https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/tv/step-1-to-start-loving-the-affair-admit-theres-no-such-thing-as-truth/2015/10/01/71b98422-65fa-11e5-9223-70cb36460919_story.html

Truth, in my youth, was pretty cut and dried.  And what made it so certain was living in a very narrow, conservative world of Arkansas fundamentalist Christianity. But I remember it with a certain degree of fondness, that qualification “certain degree” explaining why I don’t live there anymore.  If I’d have been a “True Believer” (See Eric Hoffer) I would still be there today but thanks to the infinite grace of God…and I mean that sincerely…I am not there and thus am left with the insecurity and doubt which I see as an essential dimension of faith.

But, nevertheless, Pilate’s historical and archetypal query, resonates with me profoundly.  I do so firmly believe in Truth even as I have so little doubt in my ability to quantify, define, and own it.  But I do firmly believe that Truth is present, even in my obscure little life, and in the absurdity of our collective endeavor.  Or, as my brother in Spirit, Billy Shakespeare, noted with his observations, “There is a method to our madness” and, “A Divinity doeth shape our ends, rough hew them how we may.”

But Pilate’s question is still on the table, in this instance with reference to marital faithfulness, but also to very relevant questions of my culture—abortion, gun control, evolution, and more fundamentally the notion of the old Superman tv series bromide, “Truth, justice, and the American Way.”  Is there anything “firm” and therefore “real”…or “Real”…out there? My vote is a firm “yes.” Truth is there, and “here,” but “woe is me” if I ever venture into the arrogance of thinking that I own it.