Another Self-parody of Christianity

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A Georgia high school football coach is under fire for orchestrating a mass baptismal service on his team’s football field before a practice session, a video of which has gone viral.  If you watch the video, the scene is comical as the Baptist pastor is seen trying to dunk huge boys, and a coach, in a small galvanized tin tub.  It reminds me of quarterback Tim Tebow’s ostentatious praying on the football field after a touchdown which one wit noted should have merited a penalty flag for “unnecessary and irrelevant display of piety.” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mass-baptism-filmed-at-football-practice-prompts-investigation_55e738fbe4b0aec9f3558fc5)

To sum it up, I say, “What’s the point?”  The issue on that football field was a practice session but the coach, being “full of the spirit” wanted to display his spirituality.  In so doing he is making a mockery of a really meaningful symbol in the Christian tradition and giving late-night comedians like Bill Maher more material with which to ridicule Christianity.  And this type of non-sense deserves mockery.  Jesus would be turning over in his grave…if he was in one!

This is another example of the “embedded thinking” that I am focused on right now.  When we are embedded in our own thinking, we  lose perspective and  will often speak and behave in a manner that makes even noble ideas and traditions look silly.  This coach has demonstrated that spiritual fervor can easily be merely a means of displaying our “piety” and the need of making the display simply reveals the presence of the ego in the performance.  The Apostle Paul would call this whole scene “a work of the flesh.”

Spirituality, like every dimension of life, is a perilous adventure for it does provide such an opportunity for us to “strut our stuff” under the guise of piety.  I know.  “Been there, done that” and to some degree I’m sure I’m still doing it for I am still guilty of being “human.”  And if I ever become “Holy” and have “got it right,” please, please…somebody just shoot me!  You will be doing me and the world a favor!

Shakespeare noted, “With devotions visage and pious action we sugar o’er the devil himself.”

Ideologues: Persecuted for “His” Sake

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Kim Davis, a county clerk in Kentucky has lost her battle with the U. S. Supreme Court in her refusal to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples.  But Ms. Davis claims that she bows only to a higher authority, God, and will not obey this ruling.  She declared, “To issue a marriage license which conflicts with God’s definition of marriage, with my name affixed to the certificate, would violate my conscience. It is not a light issue for me. It is a Heaven or Hell decision,” she said through her lawyers.

Ms. Davis will ultimately lose this battle before the Supreme Court but she will have the consolation of basking in the biblical trope, “Persecuted for His sake.”  For an essential part of fundamentalist Christian culture is the notion that the world is “alien” to them and their task is to convert the world to their “right way” of seeing the world.  When their efforts encounter resistance, they can immediately bask in the delight of knowing that they are being misunderstood and mistreated because of their fervent commitment to their Christian faith; they are being “persecuted for His sake.”   And, speaking from experience in my younger days, I can report of the great pleasure that can be found in knowing that one is being mistreated because of his faith.  What I now realize is that my faith took me in directions that could only lead to this “mistreatment” and feeling of being misunderstood and that the anguish of alienation was meeting some unconscious need.

Fundamentalist Christianity thrives on feelings of “dispossession” and alienation, feelings which were institutionalized in the 19th century when the fury of Revivalism that swept the South and the West, giving rise to what religious historians call our “denominational society.”  Bible verses which emphasized separation were emphasized to the exclusion of those which emphasis on unity.  For example, “Come ye out from them and be ye separate” was a favorite selection from the Apostle Paul.  The Old Testament admonishment to “stand in the gap” was used to teach fundamentalist Christians that it was their job to stand in the breach and stop in the onslaught of “modernism.”  This gave the socio-economically dispossessed the comfort of knowing they were performing an heroic biblically mandated action.  And, once again from personal experience, how wonderful it is to know that one has personally and collectively been divinely chosen for this task!  And, of course, awareness of the narcissism of this mind-set was not allowed to breach this hermetically sealed view of the world of “embedded thinking.”

Ms. Davis provides another example of a person embedded in her own thinking.  And being ensconced therein, she cannot budge for she cannot acknowledge that, though her spiritual convictions are valid for herself, they are not valid for the rest of the world.  But she thinks these convictions are valid for the rest of the world and is willing to jeopardize her job and even fines and imprisonment, knowing that in a worst case scenario she will have the comfort of being a martyr in her crowd of like-minded souls.

I have no doubt this is a good woman.  But good women…and men…can have ideas in which they are entrapped which lead to very bad decisions.  I have wasted decades of my life because of my choice to remain imprisoned in ideas of this sort.  It is wonderful, even exhilarating, to know that one is “right” even though the root cause is a deep-seated, unconscious “knowledge” that one is intrinsically “wrong.”  But this “knowledge” is specious, totally overlooking the Christian message that one is “ok”, an awareness of which would empower one to recognize the same of other people.  But when one is trapped in one’s own binary thinking one must have somebody “out there” who is wrong to avoid his/her anguish over the illusion of being intrinsically wrong.”  When my self-percept is one of being intrinsically wrong, I must fashion a world in which I am “right.”

Poet Gene Derwood once noted, “Big thoughts have got us.”  Kim has been “gotten” by a really big thought, the story of Jesus, and I personally think it is a marvelous and beautiful story of redemption.  But when one is enslaved by any vein of thought, regardless of how meaningful and rich it might be, one has sold his soul and has become a mere ideologue whose life is merely “the toy of some great pain.”

(HERE ARE TWO STORIES ABOUT THIS MATTER: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelangelo-signorile/kentucky-clerk-kim-davis_b_8071594.html; http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/31/politics/kentucky-gay-marriage-licenses-supreme-court/index.html)

Embedded Thinking #3

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Blog—embedded thinking#3

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Abu Abdallah is in an Iraqi prison, awaiting execution for recruiting suicide bombers.  In the following Guardian interview he remains adamantly committed to his cause, firmly resolved that his actions were Allah’s will, and that even collateral damage in the attacks he orchestrated were Allah’s will.  Abdu perfectly illustrates the “embedded thinking” that I have been writing about the past week, “thinking” which has such an emotional (and unconscious) investment that the body of thought appears to be completely autonomous.  He is not thinking, he is being “thought.”  This is the “dis-embodied word” that, carried to an extreme, leads to pronounced evil.  Abu Abdullah is enslaved by ideology and this “enslavement” is so complete that human experiences like regret and remorse are not possible.  Those “bothersome” human qualities are laid aside for the accomplishment of Allah’s will.   (See full article in following link:  http://www.businessinsider.com/isis-mastermind-describes-suicide-bombers-2015-8

Certainty is usually not toxic like Abdullah’s.  Most human beings live daily with the comfort of certainty that their way of viewing the world does not merit any introspection and the doubt it would create.  Give everyone the “pauser reason” that some of us have and the world would collapse immediately.  But for some individuals, and groups of individuals, the need for certainty becomes pathological and the consequences are often severe.  This need stems from deep-seated fears, an unconscious uncertainty that can be assuaged only by investing inordinately in a vein of thought that provides the illusion of certainty.  This “illusion” might appear delusional to outside observers but to those who are deeply embedded in an “illusion” it is the right way of viewing the world; and, so often this assuredness is attributed to a Supreme Being.

Life is fragile.  We are merely dust of the earth, “quintessence of dust” to use Shakespeare’s term, that has miraculously managed to gain “consciousness” and find the power to create human culture.  But beneath this thin veneer of consciousness, that reptilian brain still percolates and sometimes it “breathes out threatenings and slaughterings” and overrules the “pauser” that our forebrain was designed for.  One poet had this in mind when he wrote, “Only a tissue thin curtain in the brain shuts out the coiled recumbent land lord.”  (Eugene L. Mayo)

Pathological certainty is like a cancer in that it cannot be contained and always needs to “convince” others even at the point of the sword.  For those embedded in their own ideological certainty need to swell their ranks for the end purpose of making the world “the way it should be.”  And inevitably this “way the world should be” will be “God’s will” or “Allah’s will” and the end will always justify the means.  And as long as there is anybody in the world who does not subscribe to these “noble” and “true” ideas, the fear-based ideologue will be threatened.  The fear-based ideologue seeks to obliterate difference or “otherness”.

Mental illness is a reference problem.  This clinical bromide grasps the pathology of this “embedded thinking” which at a certain point of “embeddedness” becomes incapable of realizing that there are other ways of viewing the world.  One who feels certain that his tin foil hat will keep intrusive thoughts from outer space away is not insane in a community of like-minded souls.  And one who believes that President Obama is a Kenyan-born Muslim socialist is not “nuts” in a group that firmly believes this to be true.

Being Tyrannized into Sexual Abstinence

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Here is a powerful report of a young woman who as a ten-year old girl was subjected to a fundamentalist Christian ceremony in which she vowed to maintain her sexual maturity until her wedding night.  This report demonstrates how her parents, and the culture of her faith, tyrannized her regarding her sexuality at at time where, per her report, she didn’t even know what sex was, thought boys were “icky”, and loved having tea parties with imaginary friends.  Her parents, because of their own fears about sexuality, intruded into her innocence and the violation really crippled her when she did get married.

H. L. Mencken once cryptically noted, “The problem with abstinence is its over emphasis of sex.” Mencken acerbically noted that often an innocent dimension of life is over laden with fears of culture and problems that are certainly present to begin with in this important dimension of life are compounded by the “over emphasis.”

THE FOLLOWING IS THE REPORT OF THE YOUNG WOMAN:  http://www.alternet.org/i-took-christian-virginity-pledge-child-and-it-nearly-destroyed-my-life

Fundamentalist Christians and Sexuality

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Fundamentalist Christians offer us a frequent display of their hypocrisy regarding sexuality.  Now to be fair, this “hypocrisy” on this matter is not exclusive to this group as all of us have sexual whims and fancies which we don’t want to have exposed to public scrutiny.  But the issue for these fundamentalist Christians is that they have this need to hold forth regarding their purity and nobility only to have their dishonesty exposed too frequently often by leadership and its elite.

I grew up in that culture and remember the repressive atmosphere about sexuality and recall so well how dishonest it was.  I now realize that the root issue is the fear of the body and its impulses most of this fear being focused on the greatest temptation—SEX!!!  But this disavowal of the body overlooks a central teaching of the Christian tradition, the Incarnation, which was the idea of “the Word” being made flesh.  Yes, lip service is given to this teaching but there is not recognition of the layers of meaning in the teaching that would have us apply the teaching to the warp-and-woof of our life as we understand and experience the teachings of Jesus as not merely doctrine…cognitive precepts that we have accepted…but “cognitive precepts” that have become meaningful down in the guts of our life, in that “foul rag-and-bone shop of our heart.”

But deigning to see “layers of meaning” in spiritual teachings is a scary enterprise.  For, it will entail a simultaneous acknowledgement of experience of the “layers of meaning” in one’s own life and heart.  This brings into question the very nature of reality and the fear of coming ungrounded.  This brings one to realize that he is more than who he “thinks” he is, that he is not something he can cognitively grasp, but he is a mystery very much like the mystery that God is.  This brings one to the adventure of faith and when this adventure even tempts us it is so easy to immediately turn back to what has given us comfort to this point, cling to it more desperately, and even shout it out more loudly.  As W. H. Auden noted, “And Truth met him, and held out her hand.  But he clung in panic to his tall belief and shrank away like an ill-treated child.”

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Embedded in our Own Thoughts, Part 2

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Embedded thinking, part 2

We are naturally embedded in our own thinking because thinking…at least in the West…is inherently linear.  But it is possible for those steeped in this “linear-thinking” to find the courage to “step back” a bit from that comfortable cognitive grasp of his world and in so doing find that his world view is finite but nevertheless valid.  This “stepping back” is the exercise of a meta-cognitive muscle that we have the capacity for but is frightening to use for one who has made an inordinate emotional/spiritual investment in the world view that circumstances has given him.  This is precisely what Jesus had in mind when he chided those who have “Ears to hear but hear not, eyes to see but see not.”  Jesus recognized that being conscious, that is being spiritually alive, involves more than simple regurgitation of a mind-set and view of the world that one acquired by accident of birth.  And, if I might speak for Him now, he is telling people like me who were “Christianized” by accident of birth that mindless regurgitation of Christian dogma and teachings…and doing so with like-minded souls…can easily find us amusing ourselves in an echo chamber, which, borrowing a line from Goethe, is  “like kittens given their own tails to tease.”

Thinking is linear because of our “fall” into the time-space continuum, or that which is known as “reality.”  In fact, in the Genesis Creation story, eating the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is an illustration of falling into “thought” which always bifurcates our world even as it “bifurcates” our selves.   At that point we have been “categorized” and begin to exercise a “categorical imperative” to carve-up into dualities what had been a unified field, creating “good and evil,” male and female, right and wrong, and…yes…even Democrats and Republicans!  Linear thinking has created this world we live in and perpetuates it….and may it ever be!  For without linear thinking, our world would crash and burn immediately.  But when linear thinking runs amok without the God-given gift of “the pauser Reason” the world will still face calamity; for, any phenomena carried to an extreme becomes problematic and even dangerous.  Ideological extremism illustrates for us daily what can happen when someone or some groups gets too carried away with their “noble” and “enlightened” ideas.

Meditation has helped me immensely on this issue.  And though my “monkey mind,” incessantly running to and fro and chattering without cease, it has been given pause and this “pause” has been pregnant, allowing me to open my heart to hidden dimensions of life.  With even my lame success at meditation I have learned more intimately that “embeddedness” in my own thought has been a cognitive prison and this insight…cognitive and emotional…has been redemptive.  And that “redemption” has allowed me to experience being “out of control” which has come to me as simple anxiety.  Of course, this “simple” anxiety is not “simple” at all as it brings me face to face with my own human-ness which is always experienced as vulnerability; Norman Brown noted, “To be, is to be vulnerable.”  And it has been fear of this vulnerability that has kept me locked in this cerebral prison, the escape from which is still in progress and will be in process for the rest of my life until at last I cast off this “mortal coil” and return to my Source.

I’m planning on this “transition” not taking place for decades!  For, “fallen” though this world may be, it is a beautiful world and I am increasingly delighted with the simple but profound beauty which surrounds me every day.  The only issue is, and always has been, “Will I pay attention?”  And, paying attention is relative to the meditative lesson of looking beyond the end of my nose, peering outside of that “small bright circle of my consciousness beyond which lies the dark.”  It is in that “darkness” that I see glimmers of light and these “glimmers” are the best that we can hope for. For these “glimmers” are the brilliant flash of light that we are blessed with when we find the humility to simply “see through a glass darkly.”

Embedded in our Own Thinking

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Emily Dickinson noted in one of her poems the person who “is too near himself to see himself distinctly.” This is one way of describing the human dilemma of being embedded in a private, self-referential system of thought, which can also be described as “embedded in his own thinking.” This is best illustrated in someone who merits the term “delusional” and is, perhaps, wearing a tin foil hat to keep out the rays from “out there” which are seeking to influence his mind. But it is possible to find a group of people with the same delusional way of thinking which will then provide the validation to an individual who has just ventured over into the delusional realm. The only thing that makes this group delusional is that their shared delusion is different from the delusion of the shared reality of the larger collective in which they happen to be situated.

Yes, this smacks of the demon “relativism” that I was taught to eschew in my fundamentalist youth and, yes, carried to an extreme one can find himself without any grounding and without any sense of reality and come unglued in the dark abyss of nihilism. But taking that direction is not necessary and is actually merely the easy way out, avoiding the responsibility of finding meaning in the very complicated and mysterious phenomena that we call “life.” Self-indulgent nihilism is a delightful alternative though the “delight” usually proves short-lived and is harmful to the individual and to those around him. “Meaning” is gut-level work of the heart and most people avoid it, opting for nihilism or the ready-made escape into mindless dogma.

But, discovering that we are “embedded in our own thinking” does not mean that our way of thinking and perceiving the world is inherently invalid. The discovery of this “embeddness” only opens us to considering the limitations of how we see the world and the recognition that others might…and do…see the world differently. This insight is often very painful for it makes us realize, intellectually and emotionally, our existential plight of separateness which immediately subjects us to the anguish of loneliness which culture was contrived in the first place to avoid. But this discovery simultaneously makes possible a connection we did not know was possible, one that can best be described as one of spirit/Spirit. In this realm of the Ineffable we discover the interconnectedness of the whole of life– human, animal, and plant– and even Mother Earth herself. We are “dust of the earth” just as the Bible teaches us.

Let me close with one simple illustration of how our language illustrates this embeddedness and how it shapes our view of the world. In some Eastern languages, if an individual wants to point out that he sees a book, for example, he will say, “I see the book.” But in the West, he will likely say, “I see the book.” For, here in the West, especially in my country the subject-object distinction is more pronounced which is because one of the fundamental things we learn as a child is that we are separate and distinct from the world around us. This “separateness” is important but its emphasis neglects often our inter-relatedness with others and with the world.

ADDENDUM
W. H. Auden on the “embedded thought” of the collective:

Heroic charity is rare;
Without it, what except despair
Can shape the hero who will dare
The desperate catabasis
Into the snarl of the abyss
That always lies just underneath
Our jolly picnic on the heath
Of the agreeable, where we bask,
Agreed on what we will not ask,
Bland, sunny, and adjusted by
The light of the accepted lie.

Donald Trump’s “Dysfunctional Family”

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When our unconsciousness begins to speak to us, the messages are sometimes subtle over a period of time until we finally “get it” and start paying attention.  But then other times the unconsciousness strikes us abruptly, like a thunderbolt from the blue and then we are sometimes stunned or even devastated.  But in either case the human tendency is to deny this irruption into our safe little world of delusion…and “delusional” describes all of us…and to shore up our defenses and shout more loudly the soothing self-talk that comforts us daily.  As W. H. Auden put it, “And Truth met him, and held out her hand; and he clung in panic to his tall belief and shrank away like an ill-treated child.”

Donald Trump represents a voice from the Republican Party’s unconsciousness.  He is behaving and speaking with reckless abandonment, fulfilling the role of the identified patient in a dysfunctional family who “acts out” and announces the conflicted dynamics of the family that is trapped in its Ozzie and Harriet world.  In my clinical practice, my task was twofold: a) stop the “acting out” of the identified patient and b)get the family to own its own role in a dynamic that was often overtly pathological.  Needless to say, often one or both of the parents did not appreciate this approach to their child’s treatment.  For the unacknowledged anguish of the family had forced the identified patient to articulate its pain with word and deed and the parents  were not willing to admit that.

Donald Trump offers the Grand Old Party an opportunity to get real, to get honest with itself.  For example, one of the things that Trump is currently admired for by the base of the party is that, “He tells the truth!”  Well, yes he often does but without the decorum and respect which would make him more palatable to the upper hierarchy of the party.  But if this hierarchy would learn from this unconscious gift they have before them, they could start being such “politicians” and be less blatantly dishonest.

My favorite example…and there are many…is the climate science/global warming issue.  The base of this party is proudly skeptical of science and therefore of the overwhelming evidence that global warming is a critical issue.  But realizing that their base would disapprove if they acknowledged this, the Republican leadership and current candidates for their Presidential nomination glibly shrug their shoulders and report when questioned on the issue, “Well, I’m not a scientist.”  They could easily just simply answer the question but it would be politically inexpedient so they humiliate themselves and their party with this lame response.  And the same dishonesty has often been demonstrated on the issue of whether or not President Obama is a Muslim or was born in Kenya.

Paying attention to the unconscious is often just gut-wrenchingly painful.  But listening to this dimension of our experience, to a gut-level intuition, parallels with closely with  what Christians like to call heeding, “the Spirit of God.”  But  heeding the “Spirit of God” is not just listening to the whims of our heart that we are comfortable with, those  that confirm our pet theories and belief systems. It requires us to pay attention to those that rattle our cage.

The “Donald Trump Show” Wreaking Havoc!!!

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My immersion in the work of Carl Jung has led to an increased sensitivity to the murmurs from my unconscious depths.  I catch myself often seeing…and feeling…responses to stimuli in my world that I once would have not noticed.  For example, last week I was watching the daily “Donald Trump Show” that has exploded on my country’s political and cultural scene and caught myself wanting to say “atta boy” as he trotted out his usual falderal that is always delightful “red meat” for the rabid base of his Republican Party. For example, he offers a steady diet of juicy themes like “I’m the only one who has the courage to stand up to ‘them’” or “I’ll build a wall to keep out them there Mexicans…and make’em pay for themselves” or “I’ll make American great again” or denigrating Washington politicians as “stupid.”

His message speaks to the unconscious of voters who feel they are losing control, that their country is losing control and losing the prominence that it deserves, and that “we need a leader who will tell the truth and will ‘get something done.’”  And all of these desires are noble human desires but only when taken in context and fulfillment is sought while respecting others who might suffer as a result of their accomplishment.  But I noted my heart’s response to say “amen” in response to the primary thing his message offers—certainty!  My country…like the rest of the world…is still trying to come to terms with the flow of history and accept that the “certainties” of yesteryear need to be modified.  But some part of my heart, still listening to the reptilian brain’s insistence that my ego can be in control….can be “God”…and wants that certainty.

And this Trump message strikes right at the heart of fundamentalist Christianity which drives the base of the Republican party without which they would not be able to win anything.  But, speaking for myself…and in spite of those unconscious murmurs…there is a rudimental dimension of my fundamentalist faith of yesteryear that is not only surviving the lack of certainty but is discovering that it is thriving.  For, now in place of certainty, I find faith and hope welling up.  But I will admit it would be simpler and easier if I could just go back to the past and have confidence that my mindless…and heartless…regurgitation of dogma was sufficient.

Trump has the Republican establishment shaking in its booties.  For Trump is behaving like an enfant terrible and putting on the table what the GOP establishment wants to be kept beneath the surface because it is ‘unsavoury” to most of the American electorate.  For example, the racism and misogyny that is glaring in the Republican agenda is openly voiced by Trump while the GOP establishment stands helplessly by and cringes.  It is almost like Trump is embodying Tourette’s Syndrome for the Grand Old Party and saying the things that everyone is thinking but civility and decorum does not permit to be said.

Shakespeare, Jung, and the Unconscious

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Hamlet was moping about the castle one day, disgruntled and surly, the very picture of depression to those watching.  Suddenly aware of the object lesson he was providing he declared, “I have within me that which passeth show.  These are but the suits of woe.”  Hamlet was saying, “Hey, you guys think I’m depressed.  Hell, you don’t know the half of it!  You think this is despair, you oughta know what’s raging down inside this ‘foul rag-and-bone shop’ of my heart.”

Shakespeare had a brilliant grasp of the human unconsciousness, that murky domain beneath the surface of life which terrorizes us into this “civilized” behavior that we call reality.   In this scene Hamlet was wallowing in a despair that Shakespeare knew was beyond the grasp of words and deeds, finding faint expression…mercifully for all parties…only through behavior and words.  He knew that without the gift of sublimation, the phenomena known to philosophers as “the thing-in-itself” would violently irrupt and the social body would have more to deal with than a morose malcontent moping through the castle breathing out “threatenings and slaughterings.”

The Bard knew about the terrors…and delights…of the unconscious.  We don’t know the details of how he acquired this knowledge but it was not in school or books but in dealing with the daily grind of a relentless reality.  And, as he went about this “daily grind” he found an ability to look into his own heart and learn what the Universe was trying to teach him then so that he could eloquently and artfully present it to us in his poetry and plays.  Matthew Arnold recognized this hard-earned talent of gifted souls, noting, “The poet, in whose heart heaven hath a quicker pulse imparted, subdues that energy to scan, not his own heart, but that of man.”

But modern life does not want to recognize these subterranean depths and for good reason.  It would be painful.  But we ignore them at our own peril for these demons which we haunt us will always “out” in some fashion.  This is currently glaringly apparent in my own country (the United States) as I watch intelligent and well-educated men and women in our Congress take ridiculous positions without even a doff of the hat to “the pauser reason” which would allow them to be more moderate in their stances.

It is important to note that these subterranean depths offers more than ugliness if we would deign to go there.  Shakespeare knew very well that beauty and joy could be found there as we acknowledge and embrace what Carl Jung called our shadow.  His work presaged what Ranier Rilke would note, “the heart has its beastly little treasures” which, if acknowledged and embraced, can introduce us to the refreshing breath of Wholeness which, in my spiritual tradition is called the Spirit of God.