Tag Archives: faith

Back in the “Flow” of Life!!!

This ends my longest hiatus from “literarylew” in the four years I’ve been offering this verbal “deed to oblivion.” I’ve had technical problems with WP but the real “technical problems” are with the rusty technology of my heart which has spent 63 years hiding my “light under a bushel.”

For over a year now I have been immersed in the works of Carl Jung and have found it stimulating and deeply challenging. Jung did not live on the surface of things and his writings lead one into a plunge into the subterranean depths of the unconscious, a plunge which is disconcerting to say the least. On this note, I often think of the title of an Adrienne Rich book of poetry, “Diving into the Wreck” for any descent into the hoary depths of the heart is certainly like “diving into a wreck.” T. S. Eliot described it as daring to “live in the breakage, in the collapse of what was believed in as most certain and therefore the fittest for renunciation.”

Jung wrote extensively about the Christian faith, my spiritual bailiwick, and his perspective emphasized the power of myth which, if one can lay aside the comfort of biblical literalism that I grew up in, can allow one of explore the rich layers of meaning in the Judeo-Christian tradition. But this cannot be done without daring to see one’s own life as mythical, to realize that the narrative of our life is fictional in a sort, and that in this narrative there can be found a real “Presence” which is the essence of who we are. Or, as Stanley Kunitz put it, “I have walked through many lives, some of them my own. I am not the one I was, though some remnant of being remains from which I struggle not to stray.”

Jung and Kunitz grasped the dynamic nature of life, its eternal flux. Life is not static, though our ego constantly demands that we cling to a static view and experience of life even if that view and experience is devastating to ourselves and to others. When we begin to tippy-toe into the “flow” of life (i.e., the “Spirit of God”) we find the experience unnerving.

Tribute to My Dear Momma!

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Mother’s Day in my chlld hood always meant wearing a white rose to church, announcing to everyone that our mother was still living. Wearing a red rose was what those would do if their mother had passed on. (I might have the colours reversed.) And the event was always successful in its purpose, as it brought the attention of myself and my five sisters to how wonderful our mother was.

And, she still is today; for, she does live in our hearts even now and always will as her presence is etched deeply in our memories, even pre-conscious memories when she was the source of everything good. And, even everything bad—I remember vividly crying obsessively, “Momma why’d ya do it, momma why’d ya do it, momma why’d ya do it” when I pulled a boiling cup of tea off the table and inflicted third degree burns on my four-year old chest and arm. Of course, momma did not “do this” but at that age “cause and effect” are being burned into our hearts as this time-and-space continuum that we live in demands. For, in a developing mind, if momma is responsible for everything good then it stands to the developing linear reason that she is responsible for everything bad!

But that occasion was one particular moment when momma employed such skill and good judgment, drawing on her memories of life on the farm in central Missouri and then covering my wrinkling skin with lard before she went out to tackle starting, and then driving, an old pick-up truck when she had not yet learned to drive. But she figured out how use the hand-crank on that old jalopy, fire it up, and drive me and my younger sister and I to a neighbor’s house who would then drive us to a physician. During the whole trip my refrain of “momma why’d ya do it” continued but she did not allow her own personal anguish to interfere with the task at hand and, with the help of a neighbor, got me to the doctor.

This is but one demonstration of what I call momma’s faith. I don’t know what went on in her heart at the time, but I know that she often called upon the Lord to address difficulties in life and I’m sure she did on this occasion, even as she simultaneously called upon her inner resources. And she faced many, many crises when raising her six “needful things” and at times found it overwhelming. But, even when seriously ill, she would rise up from the bed and “gird up her loins” and get the job done…and this is faith! Now, she does not have my style of faith which includes the wisdom of various spiritual traditions and quotations of the likes of Shakespeare, T. S. Eliot, and W. H. Auden. And even today, sitting up there in the comfort of heaven, she will often smile and chuckle when I’m knee-deep in my ethereal faith and whisper to me, quoting Hamlet’s mother, “Oh, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown.” But it has never even crossed my mind to dismiss her faith…or that of anyone else…knowing that faith is expressed in different ways through different people. But I remember so clearly the courage she demonstrated in difficult situations and the affirmations of her faith and see so clearly the value and validity of a faith unlike that of “literarylew.” She showed me so clearly that one dimension of faith is doing what needs to be done in one’s day to day life, an employment of the “Will of the Species” which is very much related to what my spiritual tradition calls “the Spirit of God.”

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“Quintessence of Dust” We Are!!!

Bruce Jenner, Trans-Gender Identity, & Culture-Wars

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Bruce Jenner, the former Olympic gold medalist and former husband of Kris Kardashian formally announced last week that he is a woman, explaining, “It is who I am.” Our culture provides great liberty with declaring and acting on the choice to “be who I am,” a choice that is not available in most places and never has been. And this is certainly the case when it comes to gender identity. (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/arts/television/bruce-jenner-transgender-diane-sawyer.html?emc=edit_th_20150426&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=71726985&_r=0)

Culture has one primary intent—to perpetuate itself and the “certainties” that constitute its bedrock. These certainties provide a culture’s children a template through which to view the world and this template tends to always legitimate the values of the particular culture into which one is born. And one of the simple little “certainties” that one quickly learns is gender identity and this originates when the child learns that his/her “plumbing” distinguishes himself/herself from roughly half of the population. Once that distinction is ascertained, the child then begins to learn what it means to be a “boy” or a “girl” in that culture and then has the task of following the mandate to “get with the program.” Yes, early on there are some children who have “contrary” impulses with respect to gender identification but the cultural mandate historically is overwhelming so that they dutifully obey the “law of the father” and subscribe to “proper” gender identity, repressing any impulses that might be “contrary.”

But Mr./Ms Jenner illustrates a huge cultural shift in my country and in the West. Certainties of the past are now often less certain, even those of gender identity. We are learning that the distinction between “male” and “female” is more nebulous than we were taught as children. And this is a frightening experience to those who cannot handle ambiguity and nuance and are accustomed to seeing things in black-and-white terms. And for many of those in my culture they have an immediate contrivance to rely upon—“It’s of the Devil!” It reminds me of the label ancient cartographers applied to regions of the map which had not been explored—“There be the dragons.”

The unknown is frightening. When faced with the unknown it is human tendency to retreat to what is already “known” and to “hunker down” with that little view of the world which one of my readers recently described as a “querencia.” With this “hunkering down” mentality, one clings even more desperately to what one has always believed and often will merely affirm it with more vehemence. This vehement affirmation often even leads to action, even violent action. Change cannot be tolerated to a hyper conservative mind.

Ultimately we must deal with human finitude and this gender aspect of our current “culture wars” provides us another opportunity. We are finite, fragile little critters running around on this little ball of granite, our frantic activities amounting to nothing more than the Shakespearean “tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing.” But if we have the courage, and a healthy dollop of meta-cognition as Shakespeare was blessed with, we will be able to counter the nihilistic despair with the affirmation that, “There is a Divinity that doeth shape our ends, rough hew them how we may.” In other words, there is always Hope. But hope is not mindless clinging to the dogma we were brainwashed with as children but to truth that has withstood our heart-felt, Spirit-led, mindfulness-inspired self-scrutiny.

Neurology Challenges & Deepens Faith

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The New Yorker magazine has an excellent article on a new device which electrically stimulate parts of the brain and alleviate depression and even addiction.(http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/04/06/electrified) It reminds me of neurological research of a couple of years ago that said that his religious fervor of mine can be traced to a neurological “god spot” which did not shake my faith in the least due to the intransigence of my very unique and special “god spot”!!! (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/scienceonreligion/2012/04/god-spot-in-the-brain-more-like-god-spots/)

And, seriously, my faith and the rest of my reality is not shaken by scientific exploration as I feel very strongly that my grasp of reality is a mystery beyond my comprehension and that “reality” itself is far beyond my comprehension. And since I’ve come to realize this, I’m much more accepting of myself and of others though I am often very, very angry that the rest of the world refuses to see things just as I do!!! (Just kidding!)

Consciousness is a scary thing. Hamlet said that it “doeth make cowards of us all” as Shakespeare realized that it was easier to live in the comfort of unexamined dogma, knowing that the “earth was flat” or whatever the prevailing myth of the moment is.

Ideologues are Scary!

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Another young man has been arrested for allowing Muslim extremism to enthrall his grasp on reality. conspiring to bomb the White House because of the government’s attacks on Islamist extremists. Christopher Lee Cornell looks like another typical American young man who for has stymied his personal angst and alienation by affiliating with Muslim extremism. News reports are often reporting similar stories of young men…and women even…who are trying to join Isis or other Muslim extremist groups. Alienation and anger appears to describe most of them.

But just because of anger and alienation, why would anyone have to glom onto any idea as “crazy” as violent extremism and bring upon themselves and others so much pain? It is as if they sell their soul to gain something they believe in fully, with all of their heart and life, even to the point they are willing to die and to kill others. Their desperation takes “belief” or “faith” to a level that is beyond the pale. This development in ours and other cultures illustrates the appeal and the danger of ideas. Investing inordinately in any idea, or set of ideas, often brings the temptation of taking these ideas too seriously, very much related to taking oneself too seriously. When one does this, he/she has become an “ideologue” which Eric Hoffer described decades ago, “The True Believer.”

But this illustrates the specious nature of all ideas. Yes, we look at this young man and other extremists and shake our head and call them “nuts.” But even our middle-class, educated, and “christian” ideas merit scrutiny occasionally. For an “idea” is not the “thing-in-itself” ,but is so often taken to be. When this happens, we have failed to follow the Buddhist wisdom, “The finger pointing to the moon is not the moon.”

Of course, I am not exempt from risking this peril. In this venue I trot our “ideas” myself, ideas reflecting a belief system and personal identity which I take very seriously. I myself am full of ideas and certainly have made an investment in them. But now I am old enough that I see very clearly these are only “ideas” and therefore merit caution lest I take them “too” seriously. And if I should do so, it will because my ego is influencing to overestimate by wisdom. You will know that I have done this when you discover that there is a Pay Pal button on this page with a request for donations! Or, when you discover that I have somehow found out your mailing address and are suddenly harassing you with this “stuff” in your mailbox. Or when you somehow hear that I’ve been arrested for “seet preaching” this stuff on my neighborhood streets, perhaps with the additional charge of “public indecency!”

One has become an ideologue when he/she takes “pet ideas” and puts so much energy in them that perspective is lost, failing to realize that these ideas are important to him/her but will not necessarily be important to other people. When that happens, these ideas….many of which might even contain “noble truths”…can become a hammer that is used to bludgeon other people and convert them to our way of viewing the world. The root issue of an ideologue is profound alienation, so profound that there is an inordinate need to proselytize and get others to believe the same way so to alleviate our existential loneliness Ideas, though an intrinsic part of what makes us human, often become a weapon with which we brutalize other people, often under the guise of some “ultimate truth.” The classic ideologue has in mind making others join his “tribe,” with the ultimate goal of conquering the whole world. This mind-set in my youth was often expressed with the call to “win the world to Jesus” which I now realize was merely a heart-felt desire to make the world “just like me.” And that desperation cannot be blamed on Jesus, or even the Christian tradition. It must be laid at the foot of our “human-ness” as the human need for affiliation, if unchecked, can lead to extremism.

Loneliness is painful. And subscribing to the prevailing ideas of our culture is important in our youth and helps us achieve an identity and take comfort in belonging to our tribe. But at some point we have to grow up and be willing to look at our ideas…even the one’s we deem beyond question…and begin to seek affiliation with some “thing” which if followed can lead us in the direction of being more inclusive in our approach to life.

(An afterthought: Just moments ago, I came across this wisdom from Stephen Hawking in a post on Face Book: the greatest danger to knowledge is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.)

Our Spiritual Search for Meaning

During the impeachment preliminaries of President Clinton, his response to one difficult question was the famous, “It depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is.” A lot of fun was had with that verbal finesse, but he was very right. The use of “is” is contextual and the nuances are important.

Words are ephemeral like the rest of reality and from time to time we have to “wrestle with words and meanings” as T. S. Eliot put it. For words become stale over time and lose their value, face value being taken at some point for what was once a powerful emotional and/or spiritual experience. It is simpler to not worry about “meaning” and take everything superficially and that can get you far in life but it doesn’t answer the gut-level issues that led Henry David Thoreau to declare in the mid 19^th century, “Most men live lives of quiet desperation.”

The quest for meaning is a spiritual enterprise and churches and spiritual traditions have offered guidance to men and women who have been on this quest. Recently Pope Francis described this as a “risky journey,” one that is not only a quest for God but also a search for one’s own personal identity. Francis understands that spirituality is not idle abstraction but something that involves our innermost being, something which will often challenge our most basic assumptions about ourselves and about life itself. Otherwise we often are pursuing what he called only a “caricature of God.” Here is a link to a report of his message:

http://americamagazine.org/issue/pope-santa-marta-courage-restless-heart

Relevant to this spiritual quest for meaning, here is one of my favorite excerpts of W. H. Auden’s poetry, taken from “A Christmas Oratorio.” Here the Star of the Nativity is speaking:

Beware. All those who follow me are led  Onto that Glassy Mountain where are no  Footholds for logic, to that Bridge of Dread  Where knowledge but increases vertigo:  Those who pursue me take a twisting lane  To find themselves immediately alone  With savage water or unfeeling stone, In labyrinths where they must entertain  Confusion, cripples, tigers, thunder, pain.

A Caveat re this Awakening “Stuff”

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There is a note of irony re this “awakening” business that I’m discoursing about. When you have awakened, all you get is the knowledge that, technically, you never have been awake and never will be! All you get is the knowledge…and experience…of the darkness in which you live. You will never be able to say anything but that you “see through a glass darkly” and if you have any honesty you will come to realize that your glass is a lot “darklier” than you could ever imagine!

Oh yes, I believe that “Light has come into the world” but we can only catch a faint glimmer of this Light before it is immediately beset by our ego needs which the Apostle Paul called “the flesh.” This merely means that there is always that tendency to interpret things…and certainly spiritual things…in a self-serving manner and a great resistance to acknowledging this. Of course, we see this so readily with that vast population known as “them” but it rarely dawns on us that we are guilty of the same. Since I found the temerity to acknowledge this, I have frequent “Rick Perry moments” when I have to say “Oops!” as I realize that once again I am just full of myself with some of my blather and that I am using my “enlightened” discourse to merely avoid reality.

Now, when this happens I try to not castigate myself and I certainly am not trying to say that I am a bad human being. I am not. I’m just a “human being” and it is human nature to take ourselves too seriously and not accept our shallowness and ego-centricity. And it is just so very “ok” to be “guilty” of being a human but it is important to acknowledge it! This helps me to snicker less when others are caught being guilty of the same.

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Sleep Walking in the Spiritual World

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An “awakening” is an interesting notion as it implies having been asleep before. And it brings to mind the notion someone posited that we are a “nation of sleep walkers” in reference to not apparently having any idea what we are doing. And the notion that one is not “awake” is disconcerting to say the least. It can threaten one to the core and technically should do so as the “core” is where the “stuff” of life is found. There we find the heart.

Spiritual traditions usually have awakening as a primary concern for spiritual teachers who help formulate these traditions always “see through” the falsities of life and want to bring them to the attention of others. And this was certainly so with my spiritual tradition, Christianity. But the spiritual truth that Jesus offered to the world was wisdom from the depths of the heart and this wisdom cannot be put into words. Jesus, of course, used words but knew these words would only rattle around in many heads and never make it into the depths of the heart where meaning could be experienced. This is what he meant by “having ears to hear, but hear not” and “eyes to see, but seeing not.” For He knew that the real “stuff” of life takes place deep in the bowels of the heart and words can furrow there but only when great resistance is overcome.

This issue is very relevant to my spiritual history. I was “Christianized” from early on. I imbibed the “stuff” from even before I was conscious and one might say that since then everyday was summarized by, “Wind me up and watch me be Christian.” And, yes, I grew up and got an education and dared to become a “damn liberal” and then it became, “Wind me up and watch me be a liberal Christian.” Same song, different verse. Only in the past decade or so have I realized just how I was embedded in my own thought, including in my own Christian teachings, and was largely just an indoctrinated automaton.

So, what is the solution? Atheism? Agnosticism? Self-indulgence? All of the above? Well, I don’t know if I have a “solution” but I do know that I have been granted awareness of my self-serving faith, I have been made aware that ego-gratification was one of its primary intents. And with this awareness, or “awakening,” I have suffered the disillusionment that I think is necessary at some point in life. But this descent into the darkness has taught me that there is some inner resource I have other than the ego and its trappings. I am finding a Center that is solid which words and spiritual traditions can only point to. Yes, I still think of that “Center” as God, or even the “Christ child” that is within us all but I’m aware that these are only words. I only know that in the depths of my heart I am a mystery, and that the whole of my life is a mystery, and that I’m living for a while longer in a beautiful world that is full of mystery, part of which are you!

So often I conclude with the observation, “But I have no need to convince anyone or to convert anyone.” In my spiritual tradition, the spiritual passion has always led to an urgent need to evangelize and hope that others will “join the team.” Not so in the least now, and that is one indicator that I’m growing up. Changing others is no longer my job. Changing my own life is the issue and gawd is there work to do there! And I firmly believe that as I focus on “working on my own salvation with fear and trembling” any impact on others that needs to take place will occur.

“Christians are the Salt of the Earth…

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“…everything is dead where they’ve been.” I read this in a novel by a local novelist decades ago and could not help but laugh. And I still find it very funny, even though then and now I consider myself a Christian. That novelist might have been a complete cynic or perhaps like me he could appreciate the fact that, for all of its great contributions to human culture, the Christian faith has sure introduced some nonsense from time to time, some of which is tragic and some of which is just amusing. And this brings to mind the comedian Bill Maher who regular jabs Christians for their “imaginary friend” and points out ludicrous things about contemporary Christianity. Though he is an avowed atheist, I give him an hearty “amen” as he points out absurd dimensions of the Christian faith that Christians are not capable of, or not willing to, see.

BUT, back then and even now, I don’t find myself having any thoughts about violent responses to those who would ridicule my faith. Yes, decades ago I would have been less likely to find amusement in those who would offer ridicule but now in hind sight I realize that the problem even then was that I took my faith too seriously because I took my self too seriously. To be more precise, back in my youth the “god” that I worshipped was only a projection of my own ego and thus when that “god” was criticized or ridiculed, I took it personally and reacted defensively. But now I see that God is the Wholly Other, not just a “being among other beings but the Ground of Being” (Richard Rohr) and He is not so insecure that he needs us to defend Him. Those who attempt to defend him, especially to the point of violence, are merely demonstrating personal insecurity and alienation and have projected their soul “out there” and called it “god.” There is a sense in which that leaves them without a soul and people without a soul can do heinous things without any capacity to self-reflect. “They call it Reason, using light celestial, just to outdo the beasts in being bestial.” (Shakespeare)

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Tag Archives: faith

Back in the “Flow” of Life!!!

Tribute to My Dear Momma!

“Quintessence of Dust” We Are!!!

Bruce Jenner, Trans-Gender Identity, & Culture-Wars

Neurology Challenges & Deepens Faith

Ideologues are Scary!

Our Spiritual Search for Meaning

http://americamagazine.org/issue/pope-santa-marta-courage-restless-heart

Relevant to this spiritual quest for meaning, here is one of my favorite excerpts of W. H. Auden’s poetry, taken from “A Christmas Oratorio.” Here the Star of the Nativity is speaking:

A Caveat re this Awakening “Stuff”

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Sleep Walking in the Spiritual World

“Christians are the Salt of the Earth…