In the last couple of days, I was able to get in a bit more reading in Karen Armstrong's, The Great Transformation. I have to admit that I had been "looking forward" to her discussion of Buddhism, and I was not disappointed. Of the "great religions" as they exist today, Buddhism, of all the non-Christian religions, honestly has the greatest attraction to me. Although I cannot be strongly interested in a "cosmology" of "rebirth," the "here and now" orientation and the strong emphasis on compassion just makes so much sense. It just seems so right. Although I have been writing to help myself work out a "new" Christianity, it would seem foolish to try to "do it all myself" and limit myself to "only Christian" resources.
Where we stand today is clearly "on the shoulders" of our human past. This is not to say that we are dwarfs on the shoulders of titans, but simply that, as I have opined before, each human has a cultural and societal heritage and does not need to start purely from scratch. Frankly, I would doubt that anyone would do much at all if we each had to rediscover language, writing, religious thought, philosophy, mathematics, et cetera. If our search for meaning is to have the highest chance of fulfillment, then it would be profoundly foolish to ignore any source, no matter from which religious tradition, that gets us further along the way.
I do think that it is possible that Chritianity has some meaningful things to say, and I have begun, for example, to look again at the "sayings" of Jesus outside of the gospel narratives along with the "best" of the Pauline corpus as a reasonable place to start. What makes Christianity more problematic, however, is our long devotion to theism. It is hard to find any source that is not "contaminated" by this, and I find that as I sift these sources for meaning, I end up leaving a lot of "theistic ellipses." At times this is so bad I wonder if just taking a "paper punch" to the text would be less drastic. Sensibly, we may very reasonably draw on other nontheistic sources that speak to our needs. Getting too caught up on the "authority" or "validity" of any source is simply misguided.
In this sense, a new Christianity is going to have to be more than we usually mean when we talk about being ecumenical. In the biggest and most generous conception admitted by most so far, "ecumenism" seems to boil down to "We've got a really great tradition that works for us. You've got one too. Isn't that nice?" What I believe that the "new" Christianity has to admit is that the tradition is not working for us, and that we need help. If I can find that help in "Christian" sources, then great, but that should not be the limits of our search. One does not have to go very far, for example to find in Mo-ist thought a very reasonable statement of the "love" as the center of behavior view and a conception of how that works out at a personal, local and even international/global level. If, for example, one state, filled with people who always are compassionate towards one another conceives as another state as similarly filled with people equally deserving of our highest level of compassion, then could we ever conceive of starting a war? If we all could form this compassionate attitude, then war and conflict would evaporate. Isn't the best solution for us to work hard at cultivating a spirit of compassion and encouraging others to do the same? This is, of course, just a simplistic example, but it is a clearer statement in terms of "politics" at least than the Christian version the Golden rule.
I think we need a page from Buddhism about not getting too tied up on "how we get there" but concentrating on the journey and its goals. Karen Armstrong re-tells a Buddhist parable that talks about the man who wishes to cross a river, but there is no bridge or boat or other means already available. He cobbles together a raft from whatever he can find and floats across the river to the other side. Once he gets there, what does he do? Does he pick up the raft that helped him across and carry it forever on his back because it helped him across the river, or does he leave it moored on the bank and carry on the journey ahead? I think that the lesson is clear, we need to cobble together our raft from whatever resources we can assemble, and we should not be as obsessed with turning it into some object of devotion or setting it up as an idol to worship.
To conclude, then, a new Christianity, to me, will acknowledge a heritage of religious thought from the ancient middle east and its descendants through the "Christian West (including eastern Christianity of course)," but it needs to do more than an "I'm OK and You're OK" with the sea of non-Christian religious thought. If it is to be "true" in the broadest sense, it must be inclusive in the broadest terms possible. Does it sound like I'm turning into a "Universalist?" I suppose that was inevitable.
Jeffrey Shy
(How do you use a raft in the desert?)
Mesa, Arizona
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
But what about REALLY bad sh_t?
Since I'm not sure that there are not rules here about "foul" language, I decided to "bleep" the title, but it's pretty clear what I mean here. Although a "positive" sort of tone seems to be emerging as I am trying to work out my ideas and feelings and as I am trying to find a new center and purpose for my life, it's pretty clear that I am "doing well" at this point in a number of ways. I wonder, however, how sustaining these ideas will be for me when really bad stuff happens?
It was just a little thing this morning that started this line of thought. My new morning "ritual" begins with getting up at about 5:30 AM. After that, I feed the "inside" (five at present) and the "outside" (two feral males at present) cats. Once the cats are fed, I do a bit of watering in the yard. We have "drip" irrigation that we are using twice daily, but even this is not enough for new plants and for some that are more delicate. With our mid-summer day temperatures in the 110 to 115 degree range, this is a pretty brutal time for all outside plants and animals. One plant I had rescued had been something that we had for a time largely abandoned. We had a small orchid plant that we brought back from one of our Hawai'i trips. It had languished in the bathroom in the shower stall for a while as the inside cats cannot resist chewing on a green plant. When we gave up the master suite recently for a visitor, my partner moved the orchid outside. For a time, we simply forgot it and it came close to death. I moved it under a tree outside and made it part of my daily watering campaign. Under the shade but with tropical heat and the local humidity of the soil that was watered and the daily dousings, it began to recover. First one, then two, then three, then four and a hint of five leaves. I was very pleased that I had "rescued" the little plant from dying. This morning, however, I went out to do my daily rounds and found somewhat of a mess. The paper bowls that I use for the outside cats were scattered and had clearly been chewed up by a larger animal. I noted that the orchid pot was tipped over, but it was a couple of minutes before I realized that the orchid inside was gone. I searched around and finally found what was left of it-some roots, my "five leaves" pretty much chewed away but a few stubs left.
I suppose that many would laugh that I could be upset at such a "little" thing. After all, I eat plants all the time. For that matter, I eat animals too (which of course I do not kill myself and buy at the grocers so that they look very little like any living creature that I might imagine). I understand, as well, that I was probably visited by coyotes or raccoons that are living at the edge of starvation. What was most difficult was that it was unexpected, violent and random. Human violence may anger me, but the impersonal violence leaves one without anyone or anything to blame. This one instance, I suppose, can be "explained" by a hungry creature or creatures that came into my yard drawn by the possibility of food and water. Although it upset my plans, it is, I suppose, understandable. It gets harder, however, when there is no one or nothing that seems to gain from the destruction. Who "gained" from the great Asian tsunammi? I can look "from a distance" like the deist God and see it as merely a ripple in the great fabric, but up close, it looked bad. Really up close is hard to imagine.
Is there an "answer" to this kind of thing? Is it really just all "vanity, vanity" after all? Perhaps what is getting in the way of "understanding," I wonder, is some element of "Pride?" When I imagine that humanity is unique in this world because we have "awakened to self-consciousness" and that we can "build the Kingdom of Heaven," is this really just prideful boasting that disguises a sort of "whistling in the dark" to keep the real world from intruding into the picture too much?
Today, I am not so full of answers, and I am not sure that there is a "logical" answer. I know that natural processes that are unthinking and impersonal are behind these "natural" disasters that we sometimes mockingly call "acts of God." Can we really, however, treat them as "impersonal" or "neutral" when they make such a difference to us "persons?" I really don't know.
Jeffrey Shy
(A little bit more dead today)
Mesa, Arizona
It was just a little thing this morning that started this line of thought. My new morning "ritual" begins with getting up at about 5:30 AM. After that, I feed the "inside" (five at present) and the "outside" (two feral males at present) cats. Once the cats are fed, I do a bit of watering in the yard. We have "drip" irrigation that we are using twice daily, but even this is not enough for new plants and for some that are more delicate. With our mid-summer day temperatures in the 110 to 115 degree range, this is a pretty brutal time for all outside plants and animals. One plant I had rescued had been something that we had for a time largely abandoned. We had a small orchid plant that we brought back from one of our Hawai'i trips. It had languished in the bathroom in the shower stall for a while as the inside cats cannot resist chewing on a green plant. When we gave up the master suite recently for a visitor, my partner moved the orchid outside. For a time, we simply forgot it and it came close to death. I moved it under a tree outside and made it part of my daily watering campaign. Under the shade but with tropical heat and the local humidity of the soil that was watered and the daily dousings, it began to recover. First one, then two, then three, then four and a hint of five leaves. I was very pleased that I had "rescued" the little plant from dying. This morning, however, I went out to do my daily rounds and found somewhat of a mess. The paper bowls that I use for the outside cats were scattered and had clearly been chewed up by a larger animal. I noted that the orchid pot was tipped over, but it was a couple of minutes before I realized that the orchid inside was gone. I searched around and finally found what was left of it-some roots, my "five leaves" pretty much chewed away but a few stubs left.
I suppose that many would laugh that I could be upset at such a "little" thing. After all, I eat plants all the time. For that matter, I eat animals too (which of course I do not kill myself and buy at the grocers so that they look very little like any living creature that I might imagine). I understand, as well, that I was probably visited by coyotes or raccoons that are living at the edge of starvation. What was most difficult was that it was unexpected, violent and random. Human violence may anger me, but the impersonal violence leaves one without anyone or anything to blame. This one instance, I suppose, can be "explained" by a hungry creature or creatures that came into my yard drawn by the possibility of food and water. Although it upset my plans, it is, I suppose, understandable. It gets harder, however, when there is no one or nothing that seems to gain from the destruction. Who "gained" from the great Asian tsunammi? I can look "from a distance" like the deist God and see it as merely a ripple in the great fabric, but up close, it looked bad. Really up close is hard to imagine.
Is there an "answer" to this kind of thing? Is it really just all "vanity, vanity" after all? Perhaps what is getting in the way of "understanding," I wonder, is some element of "Pride?" When I imagine that humanity is unique in this world because we have "awakened to self-consciousness" and that we can "build the Kingdom of Heaven," is this really just prideful boasting that disguises a sort of "whistling in the dark" to keep the real world from intruding into the picture too much?
Today, I am not so full of answers, and I am not sure that there is a "logical" answer. I know that natural processes that are unthinking and impersonal are behind these "natural" disasters that we sometimes mockingly call "acts of God." Can we really, however, treat them as "impersonal" or "neutral" when they make such a difference to us "persons?" I really don't know.
Jeffrey Shy
(A little bit more dead today)
Mesa, Arizona
Monday, July 17, 2006
Growing up not falling down
During the last week, I have continued to do some reading in Karen Armstrong's book, The Great Transformation but I have also continued some readings from Dr. Spong's books as well. As he follows the ramifications of the abandonment of theism, it is, of course, inevitable that Jesus "takes a tumble" as well as I have noted in previous posts. If we reject the formulation of the incarnation of God as a human without original sin who is sacrificed to "take away the sins of the world" and we also reject the creation of the world ex nihilo by the sky god, then we have to also jettison our whole concept of "sin" and "original sin." This means, of course, that humanity "never fell," and this, of course, makes a great more sense than some utopian past to which we hope to return. This is the illusion that draws so much of conservatism. We need to get back to the "good old days." Of course, the "good old days" when studied carefully, are of course no such thing. This does not mean that everything in the past was "always and everywhere" bad, but neither was it the fantastical utopia to which we would want to return.
As an alternative, Dr. Spong embraces a new approach of a humanity that is evolving and "growing up." This is, of course, in tune with evolutionary theory, the evidence from the natural sciences and the survey of the broad look at human history. Without rehearsing too many specifics, I believe that all manner of evidence confirms that we have progressed/improved in the last 20 to 30 thousand years of human history. What is more unique about our development so far, is that we are now conscious of our existence, aware of the possibilities for improvement and able to consciously act to do something about it. Rather than the long wait for a random mutation that proves to be advantageous or the selection of a pre-existing one by circumstance or climatic change, we can now do something about it. Dr. Spong goes on to consider, then, the question of evil. He is able, for the most part, to attribute evil to the evolutionary dross of the competitive nature of the evolutionary process. We succeed because we do "better" than others in our society. This works pretty well, of course, if the whole point is to merely disseminate our genetic patterns, but it works less well when we are doing something more. We must, of course, stand on the shoulders of those who went before us, and we are greatly dependent on our contemporaries as well. Each new human does not have to invent language, writing, baby wipes, food canning, etc. We can depend on a shared cultural, historical and scientific heritage that is communicated through our societal structures. Our cooperative needs, then, begin to outweigh our competitive ones. "Evil" then may be traced in large part to this evolutionarily embedded "selfishness" in which one acts on one's own behalf without regard for others. He has problems making this work when he considers some aspects for example of mental illness such as alcoholism, but I cannot really see putting them in the "evil" category. These are illnesses that, although they affect the way that we think and behave, are not necessarily completely of our own making or choosing. They live more in the "shit happens" category than in the "evil" category.
Although I have a slight wave of revulsion at summarizing this way of looking at who we are and may be come as "Be all that you can be," if I make the "you" a plural, it loses some of the military association. We are, then, in this sense, part of a "great becoming." We are moving in a general direction that, if most of us would acknowledge it, we have wanted to move in for as long as consciouness has existed. We look forward to a world without poverty, disease or suffering where all are at peace. We do not look backwards to a "Paradise Lost" but forward to a possible "Paradise to Gain." This could be the "Kingdom of Heaven" of the language of Jesus. In this sense, "God" who is in us and is us "becomes" right along with us. Our "divinity" grows as we individually and even more collectively move to a more "humane" and less selfish/self-centered world. As we as present individuals try to live today this "life in the Kingdom," we can participate in a "dim" way, perhaps, in what it would be like if it were universal. At the same time, our adoption of the "Kingdom-oriented" way of living helps to bring its universality ever closer. Our new mythology will not be the star of Satan falling from heaven, but the image of "Jacob's Ladder" on which we are climbing "higher, higher." Here, perhaps, we can escape a bit of the angst that comes when we contemplate the "futility" of human existence. We would not be where we are today if it were not for the efforts of those past humans who lived for more than just self. Those who live tomorrow will not be any better than today if we do not assume the burden for our times. Our immortality, perhaps, then is a collective one. We are, possibly, becoming a corporate being as we learn to try to move beyond just "self" to a consciouness of "more than self." Our first "great leap" was to awaken to self-consciouness. Our next "great leap" is to awaken to a sort of group "human consciouness" and perhaps, eventually to a "universal consciousness." My only "regret" then is that I will not live to see it fully consumated, but that is a "self thought" isn't it? : )
Jeffrey Shy
(What will I be when I grow up?)
Mesa, Arizona
As an alternative, Dr. Spong embraces a new approach of a humanity that is evolving and "growing up." This is, of course, in tune with evolutionary theory, the evidence from the natural sciences and the survey of the broad look at human history. Without rehearsing too many specifics, I believe that all manner of evidence confirms that we have progressed/improved in the last 20 to 30 thousand years of human history. What is more unique about our development so far, is that we are now conscious of our existence, aware of the possibilities for improvement and able to consciously act to do something about it. Rather than the long wait for a random mutation that proves to be advantageous or the selection of a pre-existing one by circumstance or climatic change, we can now do something about it. Dr. Spong goes on to consider, then, the question of evil. He is able, for the most part, to attribute evil to the evolutionary dross of the competitive nature of the evolutionary process. We succeed because we do "better" than others in our society. This works pretty well, of course, if the whole point is to merely disseminate our genetic patterns, but it works less well when we are doing something more. We must, of course, stand on the shoulders of those who went before us, and we are greatly dependent on our contemporaries as well. Each new human does not have to invent language, writing, baby wipes, food canning, etc. We can depend on a shared cultural, historical and scientific heritage that is communicated through our societal structures. Our cooperative needs, then, begin to outweigh our competitive ones. "Evil" then may be traced in large part to this evolutionarily embedded "selfishness" in which one acts on one's own behalf without regard for others. He has problems making this work when he considers some aspects for example of mental illness such as alcoholism, but I cannot really see putting them in the "evil" category. These are illnesses that, although they affect the way that we think and behave, are not necessarily completely of our own making or choosing. They live more in the "shit happens" category than in the "evil" category.
Although I have a slight wave of revulsion at summarizing this way of looking at who we are and may be come as "Be all that you can be," if I make the "you" a plural, it loses some of the military association. We are, then, in this sense, part of a "great becoming." We are moving in a general direction that, if most of us would acknowledge it, we have wanted to move in for as long as consciouness has existed. We look forward to a world without poverty, disease or suffering where all are at peace. We do not look backwards to a "Paradise Lost" but forward to a possible "Paradise to Gain." This could be the "Kingdom of Heaven" of the language of Jesus. In this sense, "God" who is in us and is us "becomes" right along with us. Our "divinity" grows as we individually and even more collectively move to a more "humane" and less selfish/self-centered world. As we as present individuals try to live today this "life in the Kingdom," we can participate in a "dim" way, perhaps, in what it would be like if it were universal. At the same time, our adoption of the "Kingdom-oriented" way of living helps to bring its universality ever closer. Our new mythology will not be the star of Satan falling from heaven, but the image of "Jacob's Ladder" on which we are climbing "higher, higher." Here, perhaps, we can escape a bit of the angst that comes when we contemplate the "futility" of human existence. We would not be where we are today if it were not for the efforts of those past humans who lived for more than just self. Those who live tomorrow will not be any better than today if we do not assume the burden for our times. Our immortality, perhaps, then is a collective one. We are, possibly, becoming a corporate being as we learn to try to move beyond just "self" to a consciouness of "more than self." Our first "great leap" was to awaken to self-consciouness. Our next "great leap" is to awaken to a sort of group "human consciouness" and perhaps, eventually to a "universal consciousness." My only "regret" then is that I will not live to see it fully consumated, but that is a "self thought" isn't it? : )
Jeffrey Shy
(What will I be when I grow up?)
Mesa, Arizona
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