One of my favorite lines from e.e. cummings is:
since feeling is first
e.e. cummings
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world.
According to a recent CNN story, the Vatican is calling for increased global cooperation in economic issues, specifically for a new “global public authority” to help alleviate the economic woes that all of us are now facing. The Vatican is concerned that the market economy is not working any longer and that a central economic authority needs to be in place to regulate this market’s inequities and vulnerabilities. This authority would also be able to impose penalties on individual market economies that were not behaving “efficiently.”
Personally, I like this idea. Our world has outgrown the 20th century (and earlier) ideologies, including economic theories, and we need to realize that all the nations of the world are economically intertwined. I admit, it would be a perilous adventure to have such a global authority but I fear it is even more perilous if we continue present course.
Now I’m realistic. This is not going to happen anytime in the near future. I can hear the right-wing crowd scream with an age-old mantra, “One world government, one world government! Its of the devil and a sign of the end times.”
(CNN) – Against the backdrop of the European debt crisis and the birth of the Occupy Wall Street movement, the Vatican on Monday called for a new “global public authority” to help reform the world’s finance and economic systems.
New ideologies are “reducing the common good to economic, financial and technical questions, (placing) the future of democratic institutions themselves at risk,” said Roman Catholic Bishop Mario Toso at a Monday press conference.
The document, called “Towards reforming the international financial and monetary systems in the context of a global public authority” quotes former Pope John Paul II in bemoaning the “idolatry of the market.”
The document calls for a new global economic authority that could impose penalties on member states as “way of ensuring that they possess efficient markets,” Toso said.
Some progressives embraced the Vatican’s call, arguing that it sounded many of the same themes as the Occupy Wall Street movement.
I deeply admire the spirituality of Einstein though I think he called it his “religious sentiment.” He shows that it is possible to appreciate science, to believe deeply in the scientific exploration of our world, and still maintain faith. In the quote below he describes the “delusional systems” that we are all susceptible to and the prison that they constitute. He encourages us to broaden our world, to realize that we are all in this game together, even those that are vastly different from us:
A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _universe_, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest… a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
A mind run amok is dangerous. If life is reduced to reason, life is impoverished. There is more to life than ideas. There is more to ideas than ideas. Ideas without that “more” are very limiting. I guess I’m talking about ideologues here. And they are scary as hell. These people…in many cultures… will kill if you don’t believe their ideas.
Goethe had this in mind when he noted, “They call it reason, using light celestial, just to outdo the beasts in being beastial.” And, Rabindranath Tagore wrote, “A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it. “
A fundamentalist preacher from my youth once posed three rules for speech: Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?
Hmmm.
This should give us pause from time to time.
Just for the record, the above bromide was brought back to my attention today by Steve Roberts (coolmindwarmheart.com) who attributed it to Eknath Easwaran and an old Arab proverb: The words of the tongue should have three gatekeepers.
Mobi Ho, in his introduction to book, Thich Nhat Hanh’s, The Miracle of Mindfulness, describes how the disciples of Hanh attempted to facilitate reconciliation in Viet Nam after the war ended in 1973. He noted that these disciples “persistently refused to support either armed party and believed that both sides were but the reflection of one reality, (my emphasis) and that the true enemies were not people, but ideology, hatred, and ignorance. (my emphasis)
How can opposing sides of any issue be merely “the reflection of one reality”? Even more so, how can this be the case when both sides are armed to the teeth? Ho believed that the answer is because both sides of the conflict were slaves to “ideology, hatred, and ignorance.” T. S. Eliot described these peoples as “united by the strife which divided them.”
This is also relevant to the field of mental health. In my trade, we have a term for couples who are joined at the hip in intense conflict and would never leave each other for any amount of money: conflict habituated relationships. I once knew a couple who spent the last 35 years of their life, living at opposite ends of the same house. They hated each other intently and ravaged the lives of their children. But they could not do without each other.
I believe that Ho was very astute in his observation that the real issue in conflicts like these is “ideology, hatred, and ignorance.” It is as if the people are “the toy of some great pain”. (I think that quote comes from Ranier Rilke).
And, to conclude, I can’t help but apply this phenomena to our current Congress. I fear that the real issue is that many of them are mere ideologues, filled with “hatred and ignorance” and are willing to “ravage the lives of their children”, i.e. the American citizenry.
And one further point. Ideology is ideology. Be it conservative or be it liberal, ideology is ideology. The point is to have ideas, of course, but not be so blind as to bludgeon other people with those ideas.
I discovered a blog that I really find interesting. It is entitled “The Rumpus.net” and is about culture. The posting which caught my attention is the author’s paean to one of my heroes, Julia Kristeva, who I feel is one of the best critical thinkers/writers of our time. The author describes his “love” of Kristeva, based on her critical mind but also on her beautiful face on the cover of one of her most important books, The Powers of Horror. I could relate completely. I was taken with that book and also found that she was beautiful.
One of her teachers and mentors, Roland Barthes, describes what it is about Kristeva that I find so intriguing: she changes the order of things; she always destroys the latest preconception, the one we thought we could be comforted by, the one of which we could be proud. What she displaces is the already-said, that is to say, the insistence of the signified. What she subverts is the authority of monologic science and of filiation.
In short, she is very subversive. She questions “the assumptions in which we are drenched” (Adrienne Rich)
Julia Kristeva changes the order of things: she always destroys the latest preconception, the one we thought we could be comforted by, the one of which we could be proud: what she displaces is the already-said, that is to say, the insistence of the signified; what she subverts is the authority of monologic science and of filiation.”
I’m a staunch liberal Democrat but I’m very interested in the Republican campaign underway. I’m amazed that Romney is doing so well as I have always avowed a Mormon would have no chance with the right ring contingent of the GOP. Sure, Mormonism has some really strange beliefs but I think that can be said of any religion. The right-wingers might be backed into the corner on this issue and have to vote for Romney if O’Bama is going to be defeated. And, as they’ve made clear, defeat of O’Bama is their number one objective. And I’d love it even more if Herman Cain proves to be the VP nominee. I can see those right-wingers grimacing at the prospect of voting for a Mormon and a black man on the same ticket. And that would give me a perverted pleasure, I agree. But, more importantly, it might be one small baby-step in the direction of increased tolerance for the conservative Republicans.
This church sign near Dequeen, Arkansas is really funny. That was my first intent in posting it. However, it is really sad. The people in this little country church are suffering and use of this image in front of their church illustrates this poignantly. There is so much anguish in the world and faith is designed to help alleviate this anguish. But for those stuck in a morass of self-loathing and self-hatred it is easy to succumb to the gory details of the crucifixion. It makes me think of that horrible Mel Gibson film, “The Passion of Christ” from a few years back.
(The caption at the bottom of the pix is hard to read. It reads, “This bloods for you.” Also not clear in the pix is the streams of blood on Jesus’ face.)
It was about a year ago that the Bolivian miners were rescued from the bowels of the earth. I was so deeply touched by their ordeal and the heroic efforts to rescue them and when they were successfully brought to the surface of the earth again, I was even further moved. I remember praying for them daily and when they were rescued I thanked the good Lord for his mercy.
This experience helped me to further understand the mystery of prayer. Even as I prayed, I knew that there was no God “up there” with really big ears, considering the prayer volume from around the world, and pondering over what he would do. And I certainly knew that my simple little prayer, coming from someone so completely obscure, was not going to persuade God to intervene. And when they were rescued, I’m afraid the cynical thought crossed my mind, “Hmm. Now what’s going to happen when the next mine disaster occurs? Will God be so merciful? And if not, why?” Sure enough, within the next month or so two more mining disasters took place and everyone of the miners died.
So, why pray? Is it just a foolish gesture like so many of our intellectual hoity-toity contend? Perhaps so. I just don’t know. But, even with all of these doubts and suspicions of my own cowardice, I pray daily. One could say that I even “pray without ceasing.” I do this, first of all, because it centers me and calms me. And that is one important dimension of prayer. But I also pray because spiritual teachers from eons past…and present…speak of the importance of prayer. Does it make a difference? I have no definitive answer but these aforementioned spiritual teachers suggest that it does. If nothing else, it releases good karma and hope into this void that has us all.
And a central issue in all of this speculation is, “Is there a God?” I believe there is but He is far beyond our intellectual grasp and can be known only with a faith that is willing to look beyond our rational mind. He is so transcendent that we cannot own him like the fundamentalist believe. BUT, he also is immanent as in “the kingdom is within” and he is with us each moment and there is a critical sense in which He is us. Or, as Paul put it, “nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.”
literary lew 