Jihad in America!

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About two years ago I had the immense pleasure of traveling in Greece and vicinity. My wife and I departed from Athens and took a cruise on the Aegean up to the Bosporus, down the coast of Asia Minor, to Santorini, and back to Athens. We spent a day and a half in the lovely city of Istanbul in April when the tulips were blooming in abundance. There were seas of tulips, and seas of beautiful people, beautiful buildings, delicious food, and marvelous Efes beer. Even in that brief time the culture captivated me and I basked in the experience of “difference”. I’ve always loved “difference” and travel has permitted to cater to that whim occasionally. And with the blog-o-sphere, and with reading I can also meet people of different cultures and appreciate the diversity which I feel is so vital in life. As a result of the delightful, though brief, stay in Istanbul, I have since read novels by two Turkish novelists, Orhan Pamuk (my favorite of his being The Museum of Innocence) and two novels by Elif Shafak.

I am currently reading Shafak’s novel, The Forty Rules of Love, which is a fictionalized account of the life of the Persian poet Rumi. And early in the book she makes an observation about Rumi’s perspective of jihad which is very relevant to world culture today and even to my country’s own “jihadists.” She noted of Rumi, “In an age of deeply embedded bigotries and clashes, he stood for a universal spirituality, opening his doors to people of all backgrounds. Instead of an outer-oriented jihad—defined as “the war against the infidels” and carried out by many in those days just as in the present—Rumi stood up for an inner-oriented jihad where the aim was to struggle against and ultimately prevail over one’s own ego, nafs.”

This resonates with an old refrain of mine, borrowed from W. H. Auden, “We wage the war we are” and relevant to Charlie Brown’s observation, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Though we must never withdraw and live in isolation, we must be engaged with the world and take purposeful action in this world, we must always remember that our primary enemy is always within. When the Apostle Paul lamented, “I will to do good, but evil is present with me,” I do not think he was talking about “them” out there in the world. He recognized that though he was a child of God, he still fought a daily battle with his inner haunts. Failure to recognize those haunts risks self-destruction and great harm to those around us. In my country, we have “jihadists” who are presently in paranoid fury with our government and even intimate taking up arms against this government. I really think they, and those who egg them on, should take a peak within.

I’d like to share another bit of Rumi relevant to this matter that Shafak quotes:

The whole universe is contained within a single human being–you. Everything that you see around, including the things you might not be fond of and even the people you despise or abhor, is present within you and in varying degrees. Therefore, do not look for Sheitan outside of yourself either. The devil is not an extraordinary force that attacks from without. It is an ordinary voice within. If you get to know yourself fully, facing with honesty and hardness both your dark and bright sides, you will arrive at a supreme form of consciousness. When a person know himself or herself, he or she knows God.

Shakespeare on Hypocrisy

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Shakespeare does it again! Just when I’m taking comfort, so luxuriously ensconced in my humility, he punctures my bubble:

When love begins to sicken and decay,
It useth an enforcèd 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.

Ever caught yourself being full of yourself? Ever caught yourself being pious and righteous? Ever caught yourself doing so “like horses hot at hand”? What an incredible image this is. I can see the huge horses, snorting and pawing the air, announcing, “Hey, everyone! I’m here. Look at me.”

Now in fairness to myself, I am not as guilty of this as in my youth but it still happens. Then “mindfulness” will visit me in (spite of myself), and the sting of conscience will prick me. Then, suddenly humbled by self-awareness, I will utter the famous word of Texas Governor Rick Perry, “Oops!” For I have been caught looking foolishly full of myself.

“Hollow men” wear their faith for show. In another play, Shakespeare said of them, “With devotions visage and pious action, they do sugar o’er the devil himself.” They often mean well and are often only of guilty of immaturity. But they do great harm. I think the televangelists are a good example of this “horses hot at hand” type of faith. These fellows are usually performance artists and prey on an unlearned audience, one that lacks the gift of a discriminating ear.

To use still another notion from Shakespeare, these “hollow men” have hearts that are “bronzed over” by “damned custom” so that it is “proof and bulwark against sense.” Yes, the heart has been replaced by “damn custom” or these aforementioned cognitions, the pious jargon, so that the heart itself is “proof and bulwark” against “sense” or “feeling.” Thus the heart is empty of feeling and the person living merely in the grasp of the conceptual is a “hollow man” and must make “gallant show and promise of their mettle.”

For, the “plain and simple faith” that Jesus spoke of is not available to them, the faith that Jesus had in mind when he spoke of the need of coming to him with the faith of little children. I now work often with little children and their sweet little hearts are just overflowing with faith—faith in mommy and daddy, faith in their teachers, faith in their budding notions of “god”, faith in the world they are exploring, and even faith in an old substitute teacher like me! It is beautiful to see their simple trust. This is the “simple faith” that Shakespeare had in mind and the faith that Jesus calls us to.

But, oh, it is so much easier to just rely on what we are accustomed to, those “well worth words and ready phrases that build comfortable walls against the wilderness,” even if they are the “Christian” variety!

This is the Day that the Lord Hath Made

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And the conclusion to the refrain is, “Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

It is Sunday morning and memories always flood my soul on Sunday mornings. Decades ago I was a six year old boy, getting all “gussied up” for Sunday school and church. “Gussied up” back then meant I’d taken my weekly bath the afternoon before, and was donning my pressed and starched “Sunday-go-to-meetin’” clothes, that I’d polished my shoes, and I’d read my Sunday school lesson. Back then we would all climb aboard an old rusted jalopy… all eight of us…and we’d slowly travel down the dusty Arkansas road, connect up with the highway, and eventually convene at “the Lord’s house” with people of a similar stripe. There we would imbibe standard Baptist fare, the “death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ” presented with all the fire-and-brimstone fury our standard-edition Hazel Motes could muster up.

“Gussied up” today means a clean pair of Levi’s and a wrinkle-free shirt with a pair of tennis shoes. Though my church certainly accommodates more formal attire, casual is readily accepted. I have taken my daily shower. I will shortly get into my 2006 Toyota Scion and note that, though it is a simple automobile, it will promptly start, none of its windows are cracked, and the hood is not tied down with baling wire. I will leisurely drive into town on this beautiful morning, appreciating the barren, wintry terrain of this bright sunny morning. I will probably see two or three beautiful hawks perched on the power lines along the road, looking for their Sunday “dinner”. (“Lunch” back then was “dinner” and what is now “dinner” was always “supper”.)

As I park my car near the church, I will appreciate the lovely old buildings and as I walk down the street will admire the spring flowers that are budding. I will realize that they are budding prematurely due to our global-warming induced mild winter. At about that moment I will suddenly realize, “Oh, I’m going to church” and will recall the satisfaction that came from knowing I was doing the “right thing”, I was being a “good boy” and going to church, not “forsaking the assembling together as the manner of some is.” I will note that, yes, even today I have some of this same ego reward in “dutifully” going to church, recognizing that those feelings too are ok.

I will meet with people of a “similar stripe” and will enjoy the time together as we ponder over spiritual issues. I will take satisfaction in noting that no one will guilt me into “coming back tonight for BTC” or for Wednesday night Prayer Meeting. There will be no emotional high-pressure effort to get me to believe a certain way. The “saw dust trail” of conversion is not present as one is allowed to “work out his/her own salvation with (or without) fear trembling.”

I will feel the presence of God as I do even at this moment. And I will also note that the “presence of God” was present back then also but articulated in the experience of that particular cultural moment, refracted through the experiences of that little group of people who were approaching God as best they knew how. And can any of us ever do otherwise?

(Now here is a tune by Johnny Cash re the subject. But I promise I am not hung over as he was!)

Thandie Newton’s “Being and Nothingness” Experience

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I share a video clip below from a young actress, Thandie Newton, who speaks at a TED conference about an identity crisis she experienced when just a girl and continuing as she became a fledgling young actress. She had the courage to find wisdom in her early twenties that I am only now trying to discover at thrice the age.

She speaks of self and separateness and uses the term “self” as I would use “ego.” She describes this self as a “vehicle to navigate a social world comprised of the projections of other people,” and noted that it is designed only to cope with the fear of death. She presents it as a false reality which left her feeling empty and alone.

She spoke of her discovery that “awareness of the reality of oneness can heal us” and described this realization as the loss of the false self, the ego self. Newton experienced what I would call “grace” as she embraced the world as she realized that it embraced her. She stopped drawing the distinction between “me and thee” that Western culture is so intoxicated with.

I want to conclude with an observation by Pema Chodron about our “shared humanity” and how that we can experience this “oneness” when we are willing to come out of the darkness that Newton was born into just as we all are:

Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity. (Pema Chödrön, The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times)

(You might have to copy and paste the following clip.)

“Unpacking my Heart with Words”

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When I started blogging I shared that I was doing so as a spiritual enterprise. I shared a quote from Job, that my “heart was like a taut wine-skin, full of words, about to burst” and noted that, borrowing a line from Shakepeare, I was going to “unpack my heart with words.”

And this endeavor has been very rewarding. I have learned so much about myself in part because I have made some very interesting friends from around the world who offer encouragement and gracious criticism. When we are dealing with matters of the heart we need feedback and that feedback does not need to come from an echo chamber.

“Unpacking my heart with words” brings to my mind a belief I used to have when I first began to explore the world of psychology and clinical practice. At that point I had the idea that therapy was merely a matter of exploring one’s heart, learning what one’s issues were, reaching an “aha” moment, and then going merrily along one’s way having been, for want of a better term, “enlightened”. But now I see how naïve that view was for therapy, or spiritual practice, is a life long process and that one never “arrives”, one never “gets there” has the luxury of taking solace in ensconcing oneself in spiritual bliss. It is always a process and is always underway. It makes me think of the New Testament admonishment to “Be filled with the Spirit of God” which a pastor of old explained that in the Greek it actually means, “Be ye ‘being filled’ with the Spirit.” In other words, one should always be “being filled: with the Spirit of God.

Re “unpacking my heart with words”, I used to think that at some point the task would be complete and the heart would be unpacked. Well, yes, at some point it gets unpacked of the burdens that are weighing on the heart at that moment. BUT, guess what? Immediately there are more that surface! For the “heart” is not a concrete phenomena, it does not dwell in time and space, it is an infinite domain, it is that part of our life in which our infinite nature, the God who is within, intersects with the finite world. We will spend the rest of our life exploring that infinite world, that part of our life which Jesus called the “belly out of which shall flow rivers of living water.”

We must beware of obsessing with the quest though. We must pay attention to what surfaces from the heart, give it due attention, discuss it with spiritual mentors and close friends, pray about it, and then drop it for the time and turn out attention to the day-to-day responsibilities of life, the infinitely important mundane tasking of “chopping wood, carrying water.” If we don’t have this balance, our spiritual endeavors will evolve into merely a narcissistic endeavor, a function of the ego designed to make us ostentatiously holy which is exactly what the the Pharisees did.

The Neurological Roots of Experience

An Addendum on the Incest Theme

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Let me explain a little further about the incest notion. Incest is a spiritual problem as are all problems for we aren’t a body who has a spirit but we are a body who is intrinsically an expression of Spirit. When incest takes place, something has gone horribly awry in the depths of the human heart and sometimes, though not always, finds expression in behavior. But it is first and foremost a spiritual matter. Now, of course, when addressing this issue as a clinician, my first concern was not so much the “spiritual” as the behavioral—the behavior had to stop and thus the legal system had to be employed. And by here speaking of the issue as “spiritual” I do not diminish in the least the horrible nature of the deed itself.

And by “spiritual” here I am not speaking of “Spiritual” necessarily as in God and such…though ultimately that is where this “spirituality” leads. But I am talking about the subtle intricacies of the human heart, the hidden fancies and whims which for most of us are filtered out of consciousness. Some are not so fortunate and have their conscious thought violated by these thoughts and are often overwhelmed with their intoxicating lure. When the intoxication becomes too intense, acting-out often occurs.

The spiritual incest phenomenon reflects a great distrust of the world and I suspect it stems from a great distrust of the man/woman’s own physicality. He…and I’m going to focus on the male…is fearful of the outside world and comes to find the realm of private fantasy more appealing than that of the outside world. Sure, the outside world beckons but to venture there exacts a price, it entails risk and fear, and it is easier to just retreat within a private world. And this “private world” inevitably is orchestrated in the dynamics of the parents who have their own deep-seated problems with personal and physical intimacy. And this poison deepens and evolves, becoming increasingly convoluted, and when children come along they inevitably imbibe of this atmosphere and internalize it. And, this is true even when some of these families never actually become “incestuous” overtly. For some reason they mercifully they maintain the physical boundaries but the spiritual boundaries are not there and the children are enmeshed in a morass of expectations which always include a disdain and fear of the outside world. This often gives rise to some of the families who decide to “home-school” their children, keeping them from being “contaminated” by that “evil and wicked world out there.” And they almost always adopt religious views which encourage this poison.

But this same dynamic is often present with the hyper-conservative extremist groups. They reject the world, turn within, and end up feeding on themselves; or, as Shakespeare put it, they find themselves “feeding even on the pith of life.”

The Incestuous Nature of Political Extremism

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I am one of those guys who see both sides of any particular issue and, in fact, see multiple sides of many issues. That stance in life has become problematic if one is not careful as it leaves one wishy-washy, unable to take a stand, and given to be a “commitment-phobic.” And certainly it was no accident that I did not commit to marriage until I was 37!

So, on the current political morass my country is facing I do see the need of a solid Republican Party as well as a solid Democratic Party. And I do see arrogance on both extremes. HOWEVER, what is going on with the Republican extremists, more or less the Tea Party, merits the full brunt of my analytic knife.

Any group who lives in “the bubble” like they do end up feeding on themselves to the point of catastrophe. One classic example of this insularity run amok is an incested family, a family that has become so insular, so barricaded from the outside world, so deprived of external reference, that they do feed on themselves as demonstrated by sexual violence. And in so many of these families the poison does finally erupt into physical violence and murder and mayhem ensues. (An example of this occurred in my state in the 1980’s. You can google Ronald Gene Simmons and Arkansas if you are interested.)

Now if you interpret this to mean that I am accusing the Republicans of incest you are really not a discriminating reader. My point is that incest is an illustration of the poison that the extremists of that party are infected with and that poison has been allowed to filter out into the ranks of the party as a whole. This is best illustrated in how they have ostracized two of their on in the past year for merely demonstrating a willingness to fraternize with President Obama. I’m speaking of the ex-governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, and the current governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie. Christie deigned to accept Obama’s help for his state last fall when it was ravaged by a hurricane, was photographed with Obama, and was recording thanking Obama for his help. As a result, Christie is now persona non grata with the Republicans and last week was, like Rudolph the Red nosed Reindeer, not invited to participate in one of the Party’s “Reindeer games”—the Conservative Political Action Committee. And Crist’s mistake was warmly receiving Obama shortly after his election in 2008 and even being seen embracing the President.

These extremists do not want any outside influence. They know the truth and they insist that others accept that truth and these others will not have their approval unless they accept the party line. They have the obsessive need for purity which I discoursed about earlier in the week. This too is incestuous as the incest dynamic reflects a need for self-sufficiency, an unwillingness to “marry-out”, and an unconscious belief that the family unit can meet its own sexual needs and this in turn is ultimately about meeting one’s own spiritual needs without outside influence. This is evil. And our world has before us a glaring example of where this poison leads—the Taliban!

Language and our Unity with God

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I’ve always loved words and early in school discovered I had a facility for them. I had no understanding of it at the time, but in my early development I was experientially discovering that our alphabet is “26 toy soldiers that guard us from the rim of the abyss.” (Nikos Kazantzakis) My memories of those years, especially in the first grade where these “toy soldiers” first befriended me, are kind of murky. But I know that it was a stressful time.

Late in grade school the French language came to this little central Arkansas country school. Now why in the hell it was French I’ll never know. I suppose the legislature appropriated money for the schools to help pull the state out of the stone age and a government bureaucrat told the school board, “Now you’uns need a fur’en language.” The superintendent must have said, “Why hell, Why not French?” So I fumbled with the French language and was fascinated that in another country, far off from my little provincial world, people made different sounds for things that I used English for. I was bewildered. And I guess this was the dawning of some suspicion that reality might not be as rigid as I had been taught, that there was more fluidity in reality than my tribe really wanted me to know about.

So I took French often in high school also though I really didn’t learn much beyond “Paylay vue francay” and “Ooh ay la bibliotech?” And I continued in college as I had to meet a language requirement but still did not become fluent in the language. I found it interesting but could never immerse myself in it, I could never “think” in the foreign tongue, and so fluency never came my way. And since then, I’ve dabbled in Greek and Spanish and have read extensively in the field of linquistics. But when I have traveled abroad, I’ve always had to rely on “the kindness of strangers” or my wife’s greater finesse with other languages.

But instead of my awkwardness and lack of finesse with other languages, over the decades I have come to love words, to love language, and to delight in learning intricacies of other languages. Swimming in the blog-o-sphere has whetted my appetite as many new friends have introduced me to foreign concepts and provided criticism of own “well-worn words and ready phrases that built comfortable walls against the wilderness.” (Conrad Aiken).

I’ve said all of that to get to this: Twenty-five years ago I had the first real glimpse into the heart of language, seeing for the first time how it is not merely something we use but is something we breath, something we live in, and something that shapes us. I was reading about an oriental philosopher…or perhaps Alan Watt (as those were my “Alan Watts years) and the author pointed that in a particular Eastern language one who observes a book will say, “The book is seen,” whereas in the West we will say, “I see the book.” This anecdote so vividly illustrated how English reflects the Western detachment from the world and the tendency to, therefore, see the world as something to deal with objectively. This facilitates seeing the world as something to possess, something to exploit, something to “develop.”

And it also explains why Western Christianity has this view of God as someone who is “far off”, so removed from human life, and so inaccessible. Yes, Christians teach that in Jesus God was “made nigh by the blood of the cross” but their belief system reflects the insidious belief that he is still “far off” and needing to be appeased by believing and behaving the right way. They don’t understand that “the kingdom is within.” They don’t understand their unity with God.

Thoughts about the “Saved vs. Unsaved” Paradigm

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Now I’m not going to dismiss the “Saved/Unsaved” notion. Christianity is part of our world culture and “saved/unsaved” is part of Christian tradition. I’m just much less certain about use of the idea and have deep-seated convictions that it is usually merely a means of the ego to trot out one of its favorite paradigms, “Us” vs. “Them.” You see, drawing distinctions is one of the earliest developments in the human psyche and is absolutely necessary if an ego is to emerge. The determination of “self” vs. “not-self” is an intrinsic part of the operation. If we never learn to draw a distinction between our self and that which is “not-self” we will have grave problems to say the least. In fact, many of the behavioral problems that mental health professionals deal with are boundary issues stemming from an impaired ability to draw that distinction.

And I have faint memories of learning to draw this distinction. And I know from my clinical work that the toddler’s discover of the word “No” is a key hallmark of this step in development and is an essential step in determining “self” vs. “not-self”. I remember very well the comfort in knowing that there was an “us”…meaning my particular family…and that we were separate and distinct from “them.” I also remember when this “us-them” paradigm began to grow in power in my life and when I learned that “saved-unsaved” was one of the primary ways in which the world was divided up. In fact, in that mindset, it was the most fundamental and most important division as it determined who was going to heaven and who was going to hell, who was “right” and who was “wrong.”

But what I now see is the ego reward that came with imposing that template on the world. It was exhilarating to know that I was part of “us” and that “them” did not belong there. And, yes I was horrified to know that, nevertheless, “them” would eventually burn for eternity in hell. ( I guess on some level I was really pleased that it wouldn’t be me though! I definitely took some satisfaction that “one of these days” God was “gonna kick ass” on all those rotten sinners!)

As I grew up this religious ardor diminished but for decades I know that whether or not anybody I met was “saved” or “unsaved” was an immediate issue. It was a template that I imposed on everyone, reflecting that deep-seated need to maintain a primary perceptual grasp of the world, I was “us” and they were “them.” And this also paralleled my view of the very world itself, the whole of God’s kingdom, flora and fauna. I was separate and distinct from “it” and did not see it as a matrix which ultimately was an integral part of God’s granting of my very existence.

In my participation in the blog-o-sphere the past two years or so I have met many conservative, evangelical Christians who, though more conservative than myself, demonstrate less rigidity in their faith and offer love and acceptance more readily. One in particular even had the audacity to discourse about lessons he had learned from atheists he had met. (Check out T. E. Hanna, http://ofdustandkings.com/author/TEHanna/) Hanna’s stance is that when a Christian meets an atheist, he should not immediately go into overdrive with, “Uh oh. He’s going to hell. How do I get him saved?” His attitude is to accept the person as he is, accept him lovingly and unconditionally, and not assume that it is his responsibility to cajole, intimidate, and manipulate that person into becoming a Christian. I think his attitude is like mine, that we should “work out our own salvation with fear and trembling” realizing that as we do this, God will take care of any converting that needs to take place. But when we are obsessed with “winning souls for Jesus”, we are often merely obsessed with making other people believe just as we do.

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