Tag Archives: Christianity

“…Through a Glass Darkly.”

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Spiritual life involves a mystery. It is a mystery. This is because it is about the very heart of our existence and our existence is a mystery. Modern science is bearing this out. The Bible and other holy writ have long said as much.

This mystery can be apprehended…and I use the term loosely…by faith. For, “Faith is the evidence of things unseen and the …..” We lay hold to eternal truth only by faith and as we “lay hold” on this truth we are deeply aware of the flimsy nature of this grasp, intensely aware that the object of our faith always eludes our cognitive grasp which serves the purpose of keeping us humble. “We see through a glass darkly” and “we hold this treasure in earthen vessels.”

When we are teased with the notion, “Oh, I have arrived” a discerning spirit will let us know, “Oh, no. You are just en route!” To borrow from the astute judgment of Karl Barthes (I think!), “We are in love with the object which recedes from the knowledge of it.”

T. S. Eliot put it this way in The Four Quartets:

And what you thought you came for
Is only a shell, a husk of meaning
From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled
If at all. Either you had no purpose
Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured
And is altered in fulfilment.

And then I’d like to share from wisdom attributed (falsely) to Oscar Romero, the actual author being Bishop Ken Untener of Saginaw, Michigan:

A Future Not Our Own
It helps now and then to step back and take a long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of
saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession
brings perfection, no pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives include everything.
This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one
day will grow. We water the seeds already planted
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects
far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of
liberation in realizing this.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning,
a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s
grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the
difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not
messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.

(This quotation from the Bishop comes from a blog by Blue Eyed Ennis on wordpress.com. This blog is always a treasure trove of spiritual wisdom.)

“We Rattle the World for our Babies”

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I love the image created by this poet…and I think it was Edgar Simmons. I recall in my youth in the early sixties shaking a piggy bank and hoping to come up with six cents to get a “soda pop” down at the local mom and pop store in central Arkansas. Those coins were precious.

And so are our babies. I have deep appreciation for the beauty of nature…for birds, flowers, butterflies, deer, and certainly for doggies, being the devoted father of two lovely dachshunds. I gaze upon them, or look into their eyes, and I see the glory of God holding forth. But none of these can offer the glory of God that I see when I encounter one of God’s little children. They are our hope, our future. They represent millions of men and women voting with their feet…or some other part of their anatomy!…that life is worth living. Children represent the will of the species expressing itself.

In my retirement years, I have returned to work as a substitute teacher and I am deliberately focusing on early grade school and special needs children. They are teaching me so much about myself and about human nature. They are so fragile, so needy, and I’m so aware that even in my temporary role in their life I am part of our collective effort to “care” for them. And I’m so proud to see that even in Arkansas…always near the bottom of the education spectrum in our country…we provide such quality education and care. Some of these children would not have a chance in some countries. They would not be considered of any value at all and at one point in some cultures would have been left in the forest for nature to dispose of. But we value human life. That is a powerful decision that our culture has made. And it costs immensely but it is money well spent.

Ultimately, spirituality is about our values. What do we value? And, yes, our country is very suspect in many respects; we are so immersed in consumerism, for example. There is so much tawdry in our culture. But we do have our strong points one of which is our value of human life.

(And this is not even addressing the abortion issue! I don’t have the temerity to get into that yet.)

 

Judgment vs. “Judgmentalism”

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There are two incidents in the life of Jesus which I would like to juxtapose. In one incident, he upbraids the money-lenders in the temple, fashioning a scourge and driving them into the streets. In another incident, he is with the “woman at the well” who has been caught in adultery. He merely tells her to “go and sin no more.”

That does not make sense. Anyone knows that sex is “dirtier” than financial shenanigans (wink, wink) and why would Jesus be so lenient on this woman and so harsh with the “job creators” of the day?

I think Jesus was demonstrating judgment. He could have come down harshly with either matter; or, he could have been lenient with either. It was his choice. He was demonstrating that judgment can involve being very harsh or disapproving; but it can also be very forgiving. But in either instance, “judgment” is exercised.

You cannot be human without exercising judgment. For example, you are exercising this faculty even as you read this—you can choose to continue reading this or you can stop! You can respond with lavish praise or you can send hate mail! Yes, instead of praise, you could send money…and if you do so, please send tons of it! These are choices you are making.

And Jesus was demonstrating that there is no hard fast rule you can follow about many matters. For example, if you try to make the Bible into a rule book you will find yourself mired in the “letter of the law” and will soon be a very unlikeable, “judgmental” chap…or chappette! From day to day you have to make choices about when to speak up, to take action, and when to merely let something pass or when to actively forgive someone for some offense. Remember, “Judge not that ye be not judged.”

 

A Lesson from St. Francis

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When I was a graduate student in history, a professor introduced me to St. Francis of Assisi. I’ll never forget when she shared an anecdote re his kindness toward “brother worm”, stopping on the path and picking the worm up and moving him to the side of the path lest someone step on him. I rolled my eyes and grimaced. “What a nut job!” I thought.

Well, as you might suspect, forty years later I realize that the “nut job” was I! I now understand St. Francis’ appreciation of the unity of all God’s creatures, the presence of God in the whole of his creation. Now, I must admit I would not stop on a path and move a worm to the side though I sure would take pains to not step on it. I would have done the same back then. I feel so strongly about this Unity that I wish I could find the Grace to become a vegetarian. This wish is greatly intensified by living in Northwest Arkansas and often finding myself driving behind a Tyson chicken truck, packed with chickens who have never known a “free range” and will shortly be in a freezer at Wal-Mart.

But this unity of all things is most important in the human realm. I am you, you are me, we are all one. To “work out my own salvation with fear and trembling” will influence those around me, especially those who are nearest and dearest to me. For who I am, who I choose to “be”, makes a difference in the world.

Of course, I am talking boundaries here. And to live in this realm of “no boundaries” is very risky for it makes it imperative that we have a strong sense of identity, that we do know limits, and know that we cannot be all things to all people. We have to have…to speak clinically for a moment…”ego integrity.”

Mature boundaries are porous. But they do exist; they can “filter out” in the interest of this aforementioned “ego integrity.” But they are not concrete barricades behind which we cringe, hiding from the world as we hide from our own self and from our Source.

 

THE ART OF BROTHER KEEPING

by Edgar Simmons

 

the instant you can

accept the colon

you are christenened

in the right compromise

that no things are alike

but are related.

the greatest

the necessary

the most powerful leap of metaphor

is when I decide

I am you

the result is

a birth

a

metaphysical differentiation

carried out and on

not in flesh but in spirit–

prophetic fact in time

more than children of our flesh.

 

 

Bonheoffer, the Fall, & Time/Space Continuum

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(I posted this yesteday but forgot to include a title!)

 

Several days ago I discoursed re the time/space continuum and the human dilemma of being trapped (i.e. “lost”) therein. This is a very abstract notion and I recognize it probably sounds like a lot of non-sense to some. But I’d like to refer you to the work of Dietrich Bonheoffer who was one of the noted theologians of the 20th century; I think I could even safely place him in the evangelical pantheon of that era. In his book, Creation and Fall, he interpreted Genesis 1-3 and explained the extent of “the fall” in a similar vein to how I did in the aforementioned posting.

He posited the notion that the fall left mankind in this “time-space continuum” and that reason is itself a reflection of this fall and is intrinsically tainted by the experience. But mankind thinks he can “think” his way out of this existential predicament, not realizing that ultimately faith and hope have to have a role in the process if his rational quest is to have any ultimate meaning. Here Bonheoffer describes the circular reasoning that is the essence of this narcissistic endeavor:

…the thinking of fallen man has no beginning because it is a circle. We think in a circle. We feel and will in a circle. We exist in a circle. We might then say that in that case there is a beginning everywhere. We could equally say that there is no beginning at all; the decisive point is that thinking takes this circle for the infinite and original reality and entangles itself in a vicious circle. For where thinking directs itself upon itself as the original reality it sets itself up as an object, as an object of itself, and therefore withdraws itself behind this object again and again—or rather, thinking is antecedent to the object which it sets up.

Now I know this is convoluted. Let me try to interpret what he is saying. Bonheoffer is is echoing the words of Paul Tillich who said that “A religion within the bounds of reason is a mutilated religion.” And neither of them was disavowing reason (thinking); they were merely emphasizing its limitations. As long as mankind can keep his experience “reasonable” then he is safe in his illusion that he is in control. Spiritual teachers over the centuries have taught us that the experience of being “out of control”…momentarily, at least…is redemptive as it is in those moments that we can find an Anchor that transcends the mundane which is paradoxically immanent therein. But it/He is found only when we relinquish control and to the degree that we have done so.

And it is this “out of control” moment that teaches us the presence of a Beyond which graces the whole of our day to day life, a Beyond that gives meaning to all facets of human experience, including reason! Without this knowledge…and experience of this Beyond…we are reminded of the words of Goethe in Faust, “They call it Reason, using light celestial; just to outdo the beasts in being bestial.”

And again I am brought to a perfect object lesson in my country, the United States, and its current political impasse. We have so much confidence in “reason”, in “common sense”, in our political, military, and economic might. But we don’t pay any attention to this “Beyond” to which I make reference. If our leaders would pay the faintest attention to this Ultimate, they would at least be able to cooperate with each other well enough to address our issues like mature adults and not like two school-yard groups of thugs. Ultimately, our national issues…just like our personal issues…are resolved in the realm of the Spirit.

St Augustine Opines on Being and Nothingness

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St. Augustine and I are pals!  I never would have thunk it!  This is a profound observation about the majesty of God and his creation.  (This was posted this morning on (http://lowellsblog.blogspot.com/)  By the way, I intend to do a better job of giving credit for where I “steal” some of this stuff!

 

My brothers and sisters, where does time go? The years slip and slide past us, day by day. Those things which were, no longer are; those things yet to come, are not here. The past is dead; the future is yet to come, but only to pass away in turn. Today exists only for the moment in which we speak. Its first hours are already over and behind us, the remainder do not as yet exist; they are still to come, but only to fall into nothingness.

Nothing in this world has constancy in itself. The body does not possess being; it has no permanence. It changes with age; it changes with time and place; it changes as a result of sickness or accident. The stars have as little consistancy; they are always changing in hidden ways, they go whirling into outer space. They are not stable, they do not possess being.

Nor is the human heart any more constant. How often it is disturbed by various conflicting thoughts and ambitions! How many pleasures draw it, one minute this way, and the next minute, that way, tearing it apart! The human spirit, although endowed by God with reason, changes; it does not possess being. It wills and does not will; it knows and does not know; it remembers this but forgets that. No one has unity of being in himself.

After so much suffering, disease, difficulties and pain, let us return humbly to God, to that one Being. Let us enter into that heavenly Jerusalem, that city whose citizens share in Being itself.
Augustine,Commentary on Psalm 121 (Hebrew Ps. 122); CCSL 40, pp. 1801-3; quoted by Robert Atwell,Celebrating the Seasons, Canterbury, 1999, p.416

Lowell

 

“Within be fed, without be rich no more”

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The Republicans have helped me appreciate the gravity of the national debt. And I’m glad to see that the Democrats at least have it on their radar. This problem reflects the penchant that our culture has for preferring unreality, opting to live as if the world is something to exploit and that its resources are endless. At some point reality will when this contest.

This makes me think of an old poem by Stephen Crane:

Said a man to the Universe,
“But sir, I exist.”
Said the Universe in reply,
“That fact creates in my no great obligation.”

We are a nation of addicts and “stuff” is our drug of choice. We just can’t get enough of it. And Gerald May noted decades ago that all human beings have an addiction problem, those who merit the designation “addicts’ are merely the reflection of the spiritual malady that besets us all. The rest of us are just more subtle with our addiction than are substance abusers.

I think the root problem is the sin of misplaced concreteness, taking for real that which is only ephemeral. As John Masefield noted in the 19th century, “Like a lame donkey lured by moving hay, we chase the shade and let the Real be.” The resulting inner emptiness gnaws at our soul and has to be assuaged. W. H. Auden described this spiritual hunger as our “howling appetites.” And I blame our moribund religion for this problem. Our churches rely on a steady diet of dead platitudes, “well-worn words and ready phrases that build comfortable walls against the wilderness.” (Conrad Aiken) As Shakespeare noted, “With devotions visage and pious action, they sugar o’er the devil himself.”

I would like to close with my favorite Shakespearean sonnet which addressed this issue, encouraging us to “within be fed, without be rich no more.”

Poor soul, the center of my sinful earth,
[Thrall to] these rebel pow’rs that thee array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body’s end?
Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant’s loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more.
  So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men,
  And death once dead, there’s no more dying then.

Perfect Love Casteth Out Fear

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Fear abounds today. I see it in the news, I sense it in my day to day social life, and I feel it in my heart. I’m made to recall my early youth when fear really abounded, intensely, when I did not have the grounding that I now have in my life. At times that childhood fear beckons but I’m able to resist.

There are so many who have not been as blessed as I have been and who do not have this “grounding”. With them I see their fear abounding even to the point that paranoia rears its ugly head. And then I see how politicians, with the help of the media, exploits this fear to accomplish their goal—election. It is very sad. I’m made to think of the words of the New Testament (1 John), “Perfect love casteth out fear.” I think of that verse often when this fear besets me.

A favorite blog of mine (http://lowellsblog.blogspot.com/) shared an old story I’ve heard from my youth which is so relevant:

I’m reminded of the old Cherokee tale. A Cherokee elder is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil — he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good — he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you — and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Carolyn Briggs: Salvation Lost and Found

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I would like to recommend a very important book for spiritually-minded people, Higher Ground: A Memoir of Salvation Lost and Found by Carolyn Briggs. This is Brigg’s story of being raised in a very hyper-fundamentalist religion and her struggle to escape its oppressive grip on her life. It has now been made into a movie, Higher Ground, which which made Roger Ebert’s April Eberfest and was feted by the Sundance Move Festival in 2011.

I had the great honor of meeting this lovely woman at my church last weekend where she previewed this movie and then was interviewed by our rector about the movie and some of her experiences. Ms. Briggs emanated a lovely spiritual presence as she described her experiences, admitting that there is a sorrow that follows her to this day due to the loss of the certainty that once was such an essential part of her faith. She now recognizes that doubt is part of faith and shared how that now she has a deep, abiding faith in God even though she no longer has the comfort provided by the close-knit (and close-minded) group that she was part of. But she does have the comfort of like-minded kindred spirits, many of which have followed a similar path in their life.

I would also recommend that you read an article by her in Religion Digest last year about her trip to an atheist convention. Her observations are very amusing as they show just how fanatical and obnoxious some atheists can be, much like the “compulsive Christians” that they decry and redicule. (Google Brigg’s name and “atheist convention” and you will find it on the net.)

Let me clarify something about the notion of rejecting one’s faith, evangelical/fundamentalist or otherwise. This “rejection” does not have to be the end of one’s faith. This “rejection” can be merely letting go of the “letter of the law” and embracing the “spirit of the law.” The Bible and Christian dogma is no longer merely ideology with which one has been indoctrinated. It becomes personal and has meaning that it did not have before.

This experience means that we become willing to realize, and humbly experience, that we only “see through a glass darkly.” We do not know objectively the truth. Therefore we can be a little more tolerant of those who believe differently. We do not have to go on witch-hunts, medieval crusades, or jihads. We merely have to let our faith become articulate in our own day to day personal life and any evangelization that needs to take place will come naturally without our manipulative wiles and machinations.

 

Man’s Quest for Meaning

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Oliver Sacks writes in the current New Yorker re his battle with drug addiction during the 50’s and 60’s. He introduced the subject with a very thoughtful note re mankind’s quest for meaning:

To live on a day-to-day basis is insufficient for human beings; we need to transcend, transport, escape; we need meaning, understanding, and explanation; we need to see over-all patterns in our lives. We need hope, the sense of a future. And we need freedom (or, at least, the illusion of freedom) to get beyond ourselves, whether with telescopes and microscopes and our ever-burgeoning technology, or in states of mind that allow us to travel to other worlds, to rise above our immediate surroundings.

This adventure we are caught up in, from which we cannot escape, is just an incredible, mind-boggling enterprise. It has been delightful to spend my life pondering over the inimitable mysteries of life, poring over history and discovering that even thousands of years ago men and women looked up at the stars and felt the same overwhelming awe that I often experience.

We are such fragile little creatures who somehow have climbed to the top of the food chain, a success which now presents us with profound existential questions all of which can probably be summarized as this quest for meaning. And this quest for meaning inevitably tempts us with its antithesis…meaninglessness…and the struggle between the two often leads to some really poor decisions, individually and collectively.

We lost our religion in the 20th century and our culture is showing the wear-and-tear that happens when this happens to a tribe. Now, it is true we needed to “lose” our religion in that it had become moribund, primarily consisting of, “well-worn words and ready phrases that build comfortable walls against the wilderness.” (Conrad Aiken) But now the task is to find spiritual roots again and these roots can be found often in the very religious traditions that we have discarded.