Trinitarian Reflections

Although much of my attention outside of work this last week has been focused on the preparation for the music for Trinity Sunday, there has been an undercurrent of "theological angst" that has been running just beneath the surface.  Quite honestly, although I enjoy making music, Trinity Sunday is not a feast day that I look forward to with great anticipation.  As we are all fond of saying, it is the only Sunday of the church  year that is devoted to a dogma, and this one is, of its nature, a difficult one, particularly for someone who has moved away from supernatural theism. 

Although the Bishop was careful to not delve too deeply into the "mystery" of the Trinity, he did bring up an idea that has been around in Western Christianity at least since Augustine, probably before, namely, that the Trinity of God is reflected in a Trinity in humanity.  The attribution is that, a humanity created in the image of God, would have a Trinitarian identity as a reflection of that divine "imaging" process. 

I must say that I found the Trinitarian reflections less personally simulating than the restatement of the idea of the "divine" image in humanity.  For the traditional supernatural theists, the incarnation of God in Jesus cum Christ is a, if not the unique event in the history of the universe.  For some eastern incarnational theologians, the incarnation is the purpose of all creation.  For a non-theistic Christian, this is much harder, but I might get to "the same place" as my supernatural theistic friends by another route.  If I see the universe as not a "creation" of God but as a "birth" from the "substance" of God (i.e. a pantheist or panentheistic or pandeistic view), then the "incarnation" was not something "added on" to creation in Christ, but a pre-existent "fact" that is at the very nature of the world itself.  The "incarnation" is, therefore "before all worlds."  We find, therefore, the incarnation in all of "creation," ourselves included.  Not just Jesus, but every human is a unique "son" of God. To take it a step forward (which is where I would lose my theistic and orthodox friends), all humanity (not just Jesus Christ),  is fully God and fully human, as this is what, in essence, humanity is.  In the same, but different way, my cat Charlie is fully God and fully feline.  My sock is fully God and fully sock.  Each element of creation is a reflection of the image of God, because it is, in its deepest essence God/part of God because all of the universe is "God." 

In my mind, then, I hear directed at me the question that was posed to Father Telemond in the film, Shoes of the Fisherman, when he (playing the role of Father Teilhard de Chardin) is asked "What think you of Christ?"  As I have been trying to reconstruct, as it were, a new way of faith out of the shards of the one that I lost, I must truly ask, what is the place of "Christ" in this "non-theistic Christianity" that I and others are exploring? I am not sure, frankly, what I want to say in answer to this question, at least as regards a fully developed "Christology" to accompany the developing "Theology."  A partial answer may be that, it was in the human Jesus (fully God and fully human) that we were given a first or "unique" view of this pre-existent reality.  We, meaning the community of Christian believers, were given a unique glimpse or demonstration or revelation of the incarnation.  Jesus, in his own person, "showed us the Father." Because we have "seen" Jesus, we have also "seen" the "Father."  By walking in the way of Jesus or following him as his disciples, we too can be brought to a more complete or "higher" awareness of the unity of humanity and God  and experience it i ourselves.  This "Theosis" is not something to "achieve" as it were, but is an "epiphany," a revealing of something that we had all along, but of which we were, largely, unaware.  We might find, then, a correspondence or a point of communication with our Buddhist brothers and sisters who look for "Buddha nature" in themselves and the universe.  In Taoism, we might look to the concept of "pu" the "uncarved block" or "original essence."  In a "missional" or "evangelistic" sense, the Christian believer has something worthwhile to offer the non-Christian world if it helps potential believers to "self-realize" their "divine" nature. 

I know that, for "orthodox" Christians, this is the "one step too far."   It is also the step that so many mystics have taken who have been condemned as heretical.  It was, I think, the "error" of Eckhart and Origen.  But is it an "error?"  It is a truism that, often, today's orthodoxy is born from yesterday's heresy.  We shall see....

Idolatrous Meat and Having a Coffee

Last night, Integrity @ Trinity had a very productive and, dare I say, satisfying exchange and sharing with the Bishop of the Diocese of Arizona and the Dean of Trinity Cathedral Phoenix.  Naturally, a great deal of discussion was centered around concerns for moving forward on the issue of full inclusion of LGBT persons in the life of The Episcopal Church (TEC) but also the conflicts and difficulties that have been brewing in the larger Anglican Communion.  

One very valuable piece of information confirmed my suspicions that certain conservative persons have very consciously been using this issue to precipitate schism and division in TEC.  While TEC has, for the most part, held to its commitment to abide by the provisions of B033, it is quite clear that some leaders of the conservative movement have simply ignored all pleas for "restraint" such as those urged by the Windsor Commission.  To discover that one of "their" (formerly "our") bishops spoke quite openly before the consecration of V. Gene Robinson about his intent to use this issue to provoke a division of TEC, is exceedingly disheartening.  If "listening" and "dialogue" seemed to meet no response from this individual and others closely associated with him, I should not be particularly surprised about that, inasmuch as the actions were not a "reaction" to events, but a carefully plotted and "premeditated" strategy to do just what has been done.  It is, frankly, a shame that this is not more widely known. 

At the same time, it encourages me to think that persons with such ill-begotten motives cannot represent all of conservatism in TEC.  Clearly, some persons on the "right" are behaving in stunningly un-Christian ways as they defend views that really have little to do with Christianity.  At the same time, I have known committed Anglo-Catholics who have deep religious convictions and lives of prayer who simply see the world in another way.  I would hope that we may find room in TEC for both liberal and conservative individuals who are not simply motivated to do as Bishop Kirk put it,  "blow the church apart." 

I must also put in a voice of gratitude to Bishop Kirk for bringing up the one biblical passage that has troubled me most as we move forward to the formal recognition of full inclusion for LGBT individuals, specifically the discussion from St. Paul in his letter to the Corinthians centering around eating meat offered in pagan temples.  Paul quite specifically seems to agree with the position that, as the "idols" do not really "exist,"  there could be no harm in eating the food.  Meat was simply meat and could nourish just as well whether it had been offered in a pagan ritual or not. The difficulty seemed to come when those without scruples were critical of those who were not so clear on the issue and perhaps did not as clearly understand the distinction between the "false" gods of the pagan temples and the "true" God whom they now served and acknowledged.  He urged that the "eaters" should have compassion for their "weaker" brethren.   There is no doubt that this passage is on the minds of many of us who, at the same time as we wish to move forward "once and for all"  on LGBT inclusion,  do not wish to harm our "weaker brethren" who have, perhaps, simply not had enough time to understand and to reflect.  We do not want, as it were, for our practice to become a "stumbling block" for them.  

Quite frankly, this is a moral dilemma which has no pat solution that I can see.  There is no doubt in my mind that the church needs to move forward with the "courage of its convictions" about the worth of LGBT persons and allow full access to all of the sacraments of the church.  At the same time, we need to exercise compassion towards those who are shocked or surprised by this move.  In a practical sense, I tend to suspect that many within the groups that have fragmented away from TEC were "looking for an excuse" to move out, and they probably would have done so over some other issue, if not this one.  Once that dust has settled, I hope that we can continue to dialogue with those who have chosen to remain within TEC and try live in unity if not in unanimity.  To that end, if we can do what the presiding bishop has suggested, that is to  make a positive statement of inclusion, then we must also  include those for whom this, hopefully inevitable forward movement, causes pain and continue to offer them the full support and resources of the church.

Ending with an anecdote.  There is a person at Trinity Cathedral, an eastern European immigrant, who has been a member of the cathedral congregation for many years.  Philip and I met her and have had a cordial relationship with her for over 10 years now.  She has, it would seem, a very deep spiritual life and believes most strongly that her relationship with God has made her "clean all over."  It is also clear that she reads the bible frequently and intensely and quite frankly believes that homosexuality is a sin.  When she encounters groups of LGBT persons after the Sunday Eucharist, she will often give a "blessing" with a prayer that these sinful persons will be cleansed of their sin. (Sort of an involuntary exorcism) For some in the LGBT local group, this is quite frankly offensive.  I suspect that, had we not already had a cordial relationship with this person, I might have found that also to be the case.  It was, however, our relationship  to one another, that neither of us is willing to abandon, which keeps our disagreement from being disagreeable.  I simply thank her for her blessing in the spirit of compassion in which it is (from my viewpoint misguidedly) offered, and offer my own intentions to pray for her and her family as well.   Once that is past, then our relationship continues to carry us on together, we share a coffee and talk about our families and other things that we hold in common.  I hope that TEC can work to do something like this on the larger level as well. 

Many Visions

I am not sure where this "thought" will take me, but as I was having my walk this morning, I did some more reflection about the current conflict in TEC and the Anglican Communion.  It seems fairly clear that the "sides" in this current debate have different visions of themselves, God and the church.  Inasmuch as these visions guide us as we walk, it is inevitable that we will walk in different ways and different directions.  The only practical solution that I can see, is to allow those with different visions to be guided by those visions and to walk in the directions and ways that those visions lead them.  For those whose vision is of a "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever" whose vision guides them to preserve the "deposit of faith" as they have received it, they must do as that vision compels them to do.  For those of us who hear the voice of the Spirit calling us to full inclusion, openness and exploration of the many faces of the life of the Spirit, we must walk in the way that this vision compels us as well.  The best we might hope for is that, even if we do not walk in lock step and in each other's footsteps, we may still share the road together as civil companions, if not as "husband and wife."  We may still converse and point out to each other the sights that we see.   If our roads divide, then perhaps we may still say farewell with civility and hope that our paths may converge again after a time, as we surely do not know where all paths and roads lead.  Too metaphorical?  Probably, but metaphor may be the only way to cope with a reality that is too painful too experience emotionally and to "contrary" to experience logically. 

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Jeffrey Shy

"Visions in Arizona?"

J

The pain of dialogue and the ACC

I have been a bit reluctant to delve into church polity and events, but as a new subscriber to Twitter and as one following the Episcopal Cafe, I have been following as well the events of the current ACC meeting in Jamaica. It has taken so much time in my internal conversation, that some sort of reflection might be helpful, to me if to no one else.  Some of the news has been as "bad" as it might be.  The continuing Windsor report basically asks for a continuation of the "freeze" on the consecration of LGBT bishops and the blessing of same-sex unions as well as a cessation of extra-provincial incursions.  It does, of course, encourage more dialogue and listening, which is a good thing.  It also leans towards putting some "teeth" it would seem into the "instruments of unity" in the form of the so-called Anglican Covenant. 

It is hard for me to sort out how I "feel" about all this.  On the first blush, it makes me feel hurt and angry.  It seems to continue to delay the full inclusion in the life of the church of LGBT individuals.  I imagine this is somewhat like the feeling of a person caught in an abusive family relationship.  We wish to remain part of the family, and our desire to remain a part has trapped us in a relationship with certain persons who are not so much conservative in attitude (yes they are that) but also authoritarian.  There is so much here that seems to be "really" about authority and power, that one begins to feel like a convenient pawn in a power struggle about just who can claim to be "in charge."  Those who espouse a conservative and authoritarian view seem to be struggling to hold onto their authority.  The deposed bishop of Pittsburgh had barely received notice of his removal when he was immediately elevated again to a new position of authority.  The recent legal challenge to the metropolitical status of the presiding bishop and the general convention seems yet another attempt to assert authority.  Perhaps I am self-blinded by my closeness to these issues, but the consecration of V. Gene Robinson and the church's movements towards the blessing of same-sex committed relationships seems more of a "bottom up" growth than a "top down" authoritarian development. 

I am, of course, in favor of dialogue, but does that mean that we must resign ourselves to an open-ended and seemingly endless paralysis of action?  Must we wait for the entirety of global Christianity to give its assent before moving?  I would tend to suspect that, if we had chosen this pathway with regard to inclusion and ordination of women, we would still be waiting and dialoguing, not celebrating the enrichment of our lives that has come from our women deacons, priests and bishops. There is an even more important question to ask, of course, whether it is even possible to have a meaningful dialogue with someone who comes to the conversation with strongly-held authoritarian convictions? When we marry surety of belief with authoritarian power structures, can there ever be any progress in discussion.  I would like to believe that "all things are possible" but I must be realistic that not "all things are probable."  B033 was passed in a guilt-saturated attempt to "hold us together" and was followed by nearly immediate schismatic retaliation from the very people to whom it was offered. 

It is not clear that I even have the concern all for myself.  If the Episcopal and Anglican church should choose to marginalize and condemn, this would be no more than I have come to expect through my last 40 years and more.  I and others like me would, likely, simply turn inwards, regroup and continue to work.  I worry more, however, for those who are not so "hardened" to this.  What of the young LGBT people, the teens and 20-somethings who desperately need the welcome and nurture of a church that accepts them fully and wholly?  What irreparable harm will we do to them as we convey to them that they are "not quite" as good as the rest of the world? What of those who are older, who have "fought the good fight" and look to leave this life still without a reward for all their long labors?  I worry as well about the harm that will come to the Episcopal Church should we walk down this path of never-ending waiting.  TEC in North America is simply not the church of Uganda or the West Indies.  The "mainline protestant" churches in North America continue to fade, and it would be foolish for TEC to pretend that it is "something other."  We might be something other, but not if we walk backwards into ever more authoritarian structures.  So much of the growth in our church has been from those from outside the circles of "cradle Episcopalians." What do they come for?  The answer, I think, is a corporate experience of worship that is both traditional and new coupled with an openness to explore and develop our own spiritual lives and natures with the blessing, welcome and guidance of a church that "welcomes you."  Any backwards retreat will surely dilute the sincerity of that "welcome" and could, I fear, push us closer to the day of our demise. Finally, there is the issue of global justice and humanity.  It seems no coincidence that the Most Rev. Akinola presides over the church in a country that appears to be racking up one of the worst civil right records for LGBT persons in the Christian world.  What message do we send to them, if we do not challenge the positions of their religious and political leaders?  More appropriately, if we do not shine the spotlight on the horrors that appear to be happening there, we become silent conspirators to these human atrocities.  

So finally, where did this post get me?  A solution? Hardly.  A bit more clarity of my own conflict? Perhaps. 

The "Drawing" Power of Creation

Some of the writers in the mystical traditions urge us to turn away from creation to experience God in the formless interior silence.  The writer of the Cloud of Unknowing advises this.  While he lauds the worthiness of "lesser" thoughts, it is his argument that one must aim "higher" to the cloud of unknowing, that which is beyond thought and "pound at it" to move ever closer and into the cloud.  

Other authors, however, write about how God may be experienced through the contemplation of creation, the physical universe of which we also are a part.  Today's reading on "The Episcopal Cafe" for Monica, Mother of Augustine, suggests one such experience. In the quoted excerpt from The Confessions, Augustine, describes an experience which he shared with his mother, just before her death in which they were discussing and trying to imagine what the life of the world to come would be like.  I will indulge in an extended quote:

"...we laid the lips of our hearts to the heavenly stream that flows from your fountain, the source of all life which is in you, so that as far as it was in our power to do so we might be sprinkled with its waters and in some sense reach an understanding of this great mystery. As the flame of love burned stronger in us and raised us higher towards the eternal God, our thoughts ranged over the whole compass of material things in their various degrees, up to the heavens themselves, from which the sun and the moon and the stars shine down upon the earth. Higher still we climbed, thinking and speaking all the while in wonder at all that you have made. And while we spoke of the eternal Wisdom, longing for it and straining for it with all the strength of our hearts, for one fleeting instant we reached out and touched it."

Pseudionysius similarly writes:

"Hence, with regard to the supra-essential being of God–transcendent Goodness transcendently there–no lover of the truth which is above all truth will seek to praise it as word or power or mind or life or being. No. It is at a total remove from every condition, movement, life, imagination, conjecture, name, discourse, thought, conception, being, rest, dwelling, unity, limit, infinity the totality of existence. And yet, since it is the underpinning of goodness, and by merely being there is the cause of everything, to praise this divinely beneficent Providence, you must turn to all of creation. It is there at the center of everything and everything has it for a destiny. It is there "before all things and in it all things hold together." Because it is there the world has come to be and exists. All things long for it. The intelligent and rational long for it by way of knowledge, the lower strata by way of perception, the remainder by way of the stirrings of being alive and in whatever fashion befits their condition."

I do not want to stray into murky territories of "scientific creationism" or arguments for God's existence, e.g. "design requires a designer," yet there is a "drawing" power, it seems, in the contemplation of the physical universe. The way of interior silence and formlessness may indeed be a way to the mystery of God, but as a sometime scientist and "amateur" naturalist, I find myself "drawn" to the beauty and mystery of the physical universe.  Our cathedral dean, in his sermon this Sunday, commented that "like so much of our faith," we find so much that is paradoxical.  We may experience God in the interior formless silence, but we may also find the numinous in the "longing" of creation as well. 

Spirituality and Brain Evolution

Today, I am a bit short on time.  Somehow, I just needed more sleep!  I have continued, however, to read How God Changes Your Brain and found this quote this morning:

"The cultural evolution of God follows the neurological evolution of the brain. The circuits that generate images of a wrathful God are closely tied to the oldest structures in the brain, and the circuits that allow us to envision a compassionate and mystical God are in the newest part of our brain. we can't get rid of our old limbic God, which means that anger and fear will always be part of our neural and spiritual personality.  however, we can train the newer structures in our brain to suppress our biological tendency to react with anger and fear." 

Divine Enlightenment from Pseudodionysius

Sometimes, I think that it is better to hear the voice of another than to talk so much myself.  Today, I'll be silent and let Dionusius speak from The Divine Names:

"This is the kind of enlightenment into which we have been initiated by the hidden tradition of our inspired teachers, a tradition at one with scripture. We now grasp these things in the best way we can, and as they come to us, wrapped in the sacred veils of that love toward humanity with which scripture and hierarchical traditions cover the truths of the mind with things derived from the realms of the senses. And so it is that the Transcendent is clothed in the terms of being, with shape and form on things which have neither, of what is an imageless and supra-natural simplicity. But in time to come, when we are incorruptible and immortal, when we have come at last to the blessed inheritance of being like Christ, then, as scripture says, ' we shall always be with the Lord.' In most holy contemplation we shall be ever filled with the sight of God shining gloriously around us as once it shone for the disciples at the divine transfiguration. And there we shall be, our minds away from passion and from earth, and we shall have a conceptual gift of light from him and, somehow, in a way we cannot know, we shall be united with him and, our understanding carried away, blessedly happy, we shall be struck by his blazing light. Marvelously, our minds will be like those in the heavens above. We 'shall be equal to angels and sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.' "

The Meditating Brain

I was tipped off a couple of days ago by a tweet from "The Episcopal Cafe" to a new book by Andrew Newberg, M.D. and Mark Robert Waldman, How God Changes Your Brain, Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist.  Although I have just started reading, the book is well-referenced with articles from respected peer-reviewed journals. It has been his finding that meditative techniques such as contemplative prayer and the like, produce measurable and distinct changes in the brain.  Of the effects that he describes, one is that the meditative techniques appear to enhance activity in a circuit involving the anterior cingulate, prefrontal cortex, basal ganglia and thalamus. The anterior cingulate "appears to be involved with emotional regulation, learning and memory." Increased activity in the anterior cingulate appears to have a role in "lowering anxiety and irritability, and also enhances social awareness." The prefrontal cortex is also activated by meditative techniques and, of course, appears to play a role in sustained attention. One thing that Newman is very careful to point out is that this provides no "proof" of the existence of "God" and that even atheist individuals using some of the meditative techniques can achieve similar changes in the brain.  Nevertheless, it does suggest that there is something that meditation/contemplation does to our brains and that it has the very real potential to change not only our internal millieu but perhaps through the thalamic regions, our perceptions of the world around us.  

Running and Returning

Can we even talk?

I have to admit that, as a "reader" and someone who has come to love discovery, learning, knowledge, it is a bit "unnatural" to try to move away from intellectual concepts to "pure" experience.  I know, of course, that experiences can never be "pure" as the "I" that experiences them has been conditioned/shaped/created by all the experiences, internal and external that went before.   Nevertheless, there is a great emphasis in so much writing on contemplation that warns against trying to "get to it" in an overly intellectual manner. 

From the Cloud of Unknowing: 

"For God limits his divinity to come down to our level and our souls find an affinity with him because we have the great distinction of having been created in his image and likeness.  And he alone and only he is able to fulfill the longing and intentions of our soul; by virtue of his grace, which re-creates us, our soul is capable of comprehending him completely by love, though God can never be comprehended by any created intelligence–either by a human being or by an angel. But by that I mean that they do not comprehend him in the understanding, not by means of their love. He is only incomprehensible to their intelligence, not to their love. "

Years ago, I read a book whose name I no longer recall that recounted the story of a Jewish woman who was trying to recover / participate in the mystical traditions of Judaism.  One of her questions was how to "remain" in the state of contemplation and not leave it.  The answer seemed to be that she could only "run and return."   She could "run" up the mountain to the more clear presence of God, but inevitably she had to "return" down the mountain again.  

Again from the Cloud of Unknowing: 

"..pay attention to his wonderful divine activity in your soul.  Properly understood, it is always an impromptu and unpremeditated impulse, which leaps up to God as a spark springs from the coal...Yet because we are fallen creatures, he can quickly fall prey after each impulse to some thought or memory of some deed that he has either done or left undone. But so what? The soul can immediately spring up again as unexpectedly as it did before." 

Perhaps an answer is that, at the top of the mountain, I can only "be still" in the presence of God.  When I return to the bottom, then there may be a place for talk.  One story I read at some point said that Moses on the mountain did not receive any commandments, but he heard only silence, but at the bottom of the mountain, he delivered the tablets of God's word.  No one, however, suggested that the tablets, however, were the "real thing" but in a modern idiom, only a "reflection" of the "real thing."  

A blog cannot be a place to have the real thing, but some reflection may be OK, as long as it does not become the "only thing." 

Jeffrey Shy

Mesa, Arizona

"Running and Returning"

Eating is better than looking

Since no one reads this blog, as far as I know, it is not absolutely clear to me why I should keep writing it.  Perhaps, however, like many things that we do not know the end of, it is best to proceed on "Faith" and just do it. 

In the last year, I think that I finally reached what I hope is the "bottom" of the "search for the nontheistic God."  Quite simply, all my explorations as to the nature of God led me to, simply, nothing.  I wish that I could say that experiencing this was a profound revelation.  This was not a "somethingful nothing" of great significance, but simply an "absence."  No matter how far I looked in the philosophy of religion and in theology and and science, I did not find anything that made any difference to me.  By the time I eliminated all of the logical paradoxes and morally repugnant elements, I was left with simply, nothing, or at least nothing worth having. 

I have been reading, this past couple of weeks, the book The God We Never Knew by Marcus Borg.   Although I fear to distort him in paraphrase, at the center of this work is his realization that the traditional supernatural theistic view of God, was not the only, nor indeed the most (or at all) desirable way of looking at/for God.  I would like to engage in an extended quote:

"The consequences of supernatural theism for my religious life as a Christian were severe.  Four were particularly important.  It made believing in God difficult, as it has for many people. God became remote at best, unreal at worst.  The question of whether I was a believer or an atheist became the question of whether I believed in the God of supernatural theism. It also made the problem of evil acute. If one thinks of God as an all-powerful being who can intervene in the world at will (as this way of thinking about God most commonly does), then it follows that God could have intervened to stop the Holocaust and a whole host of other collective and personal disasters but chose not to. It is difficult to believe in such a God. It also affected my sense of what the Christian life was about. Because I thought of God as remote, 'up in heaven,' and not here, I thought Christian faith was about believing in a distant God; indeed, this became the central meaning of faith. Finally, it made prayer problematic. I could see no framework within which prayer made sense. It seemed like addressing a distant God who might not be there–like speaking into a universe that might be empty."   (sorry no page citation as I read this in a Kindle e-book version).

While my experience was not precisely the same, it was close enough to this that I feel as if I am reading about myself.  Borg goes on to describe his own "concept" of God as "Panentheistic."  Since I am not writing a discourse, I don't feel the need to define that, but a quick search of Wikipedia will give anyone who wants both definition and discussion.  I cannot say that I can truly espouse a panenetheistic view.  What does it mean to say that God is "more than" or "beyond" the universe as well as being in the universe?  I am not sure that it really can "mean" anything at all.   I would probably prefer, at this point, to lean more firmly on ideas of relationship and experience.  We can "experience" God only insofar as we can find that we are in "relationship" with him.  As a creature wholly of the universe, the only "place" that I can experience God or have a relationship with him is here and now, so an extra-universal deity cannot mean very much to me.  If there are "extra-universal" aspects of God, then they are, as it were "veiled" to me.  I cannot really conceive of anything "outside" the universe, other than just making words about it, so the "God is more than the universe" or "transcendent" is not really meaningful to me." 

On the problem of evil or theodicy, Borg touches very lightly and cautiously.  From my current point of view, I think that we can simply say that the conceptualization of God as omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, etc., is incompatible with the world as we experience it.  Why not then simply say that God is not all of these things?  Who said that God was all-powerful?  On what evidence or based on what experience?  Quite simply, we do not experience a loving and good God as all-powerful, so to insist that he is so is to place an insurmountable stumbling block in the way of having any experience of "God."  If I must abandon these ideas to have the experience  of God, then so be it.  I abandon them. The "Pandeist" concept of God is perhaps a little easier to live with, but maybe the problem is having any verbal concept of God period.  I suspect that some might say, "Well, duh...," but I am not always a quick study.  

It would seem that some people have an experience of the "numenous" and if that is the case, perhaps I can have or recapture that as well.  I would suspect that, in the longrun, having one good experience is better than a thousand verbal descriptions.  Eating one really great Neapolitan pizza is better than all the photos and descriptions that one could ever have.  Perhaps it is time to stop looking at the menu, and get on with the dinner. 

"Eating is better than looking"

Jeffrey Shy

Mesa, Arizona

Back from a Buddhist meditational pause.

It has been quite a long time since I wrote on this blog, but the task goes on. After a fairly intense ramble through the philosophy of religion, I felt that I had, at least for now, drawn enough water from that particular well, and I was looking for something else. I accidentally happened to discover the PBS website of Bill Moyer's Faith and Reason series. Although I did not view the original, I found the video clip of Pema Chodron quite fascinating. Shortly after watching that little interview several times, I bought one and then ultimately 3 of her books and took up a very simple practice of some silent meditation. While I cannot say that this has "solved" any of my difficulties, it has, perhaps, made it a little easier to simply "live" with them.

In Buddhist terms, it might be said that my struggle in this blog could be seen as "suffering." I like Pema Chodron's answer to Bill Moyer's on "What is suffering?" Pain, she said, is the "unavoidable." Suffering is our all-too-common reaction to pain. To use another Buddhist illustration, our reaction is like that of trying to put out a fire by pouring kerosene on it. I think it might be important, however, before walking too far down this oh-so-tempting Buddhist pathway, to consider if I can/should try to drag Christianity along with me. It seems fairly clear that Buddhism can deliver on what it promises - a "release" from suffering. Is there any point, then to trying to keep Christianity if ending the suffering is my primary goal? I do not know the answer to this question. Probably even the question is a "wrong-minded" one, I would suppose. 

This weekend, I went with may partner and family to the traditional Holy Week and Easter liturgies.  I cannot, however, help but feel that, how ever hard I tried, I could not bring back the old excitement of the "spiritual" experience that I had previously found it to be.  I do not mean say that it was a bad experience, just that it was a less intense one.  Was it "good" for me to have attended?  I am not sure.  Certainly, it sent me back to this blog today.  It heightened, I suspect, my sense of feeling "disjointed."  I feel, somehow, like I have been given a jigsaw puzzle to assemble, but I don't know what the picture is supposed to look like, making it rather hard to even consider how to put it together.  There is the further lingering doubt that it can even be put together.  I also might not be too pleased with the picture once the assembly is complete. 

What to do?

More confused than ever

Mesa, Arizona

"For this life only..."

“If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are all people most to be pitied.” I Corinthians 15:19

As I have written this BLOG over the past months, I have struggled to come to terms with the loss of the presence of God. I have also struggled to come to terms with the finality of the end of human life and what I now see as a hopeless fantasy for an eternal and better life in some other existence after our deaths here.

I have explored again the "arguments for God" in the philosophy of religion and have tried to see if we might take religious God language and “interpret” it in some other, non-theistic way to make it more palatable. I am now reading John Shelby Spong’s most recent book, Jesus for the Non-Religious. While I greatly admire his courage to speak out against the failed paradigm of literalist, fantastical Christianity, I cannot say that I share his “inexpressable-in-language” belief in the reality of God (even a nontheistic God) and the resurrection of Jesus. Clearly, he makes an “argument” about the resurrection as “experience” and finds fault not so much with the experience itself as with the way that it was later concretized in writing and doctrine. For me, however, this "possibility," while intelectually interesting perhaps, does not captivate. What “experience” can I point to that suggests transcendence or a reality beyond that which is visible to the eyes and palpable to the senses? I wish that I were as optimistic as he seems to be that we can make a revised Christianity “work." I will reserve judgment until I have finished the book of course, but any “optimistic” way seems to me to be too much like the wishful thinking that gave birth to theism in the first place. I just cannot, no matter how hard I chew the term, find much meaning in the definition of God as the “ground of being” or “being itself.” I know what "beings" are, but what is “being itself?” We can all dream up paradoxes, but that does not endow them with some sort of numinous or supernatural existence.

I wonder, when I read the line above from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church if there might be some “solace” in a religion that is “for this life only.” Perhaps the answer to the existential dilemma is to admit that, tragically, it has no answer. We are, each of us, on a walk from birth to death, and the entirety of all that we know/do/are will have to be bracketed by these events. It is not, then, just faith in Jesus or any single pursuit, but everything that is “for this life only.” We are, perhaps, “most to be pitied," if we understand and admit this finitude. No window dressing. No caveats or maybes or sighs about the numinous or some other vague conception of eternity/transcendence. Just the simple reality and admission that it is all “for this life only.”

What might it mean, then, to live in full knowledge and acceptance of that fact that all is “for this life only," to really believe that each and every living creature, known and unknown to us also lives “for this life only?” First and emotionally for me, there is a sort of quiet despair and sense of ultimate hopelessness in this acknowledgement. A sense of doom and tragedy clearly seems to pervade how I feel when I look at myself and the world from this point of view. I feel somehow, as well, as if I should speak and move quietly and softly, rather like the visitors at a funeral. Laughing and joking and, indeed, any strong emotions seem rather out of place. It is an occasion for downcast eyes and knowing “shakes of the head” and those soft shoulder pats that we give one another in sympathy and grief.

If there is, perhaps, some “ethic” in this sort of realization, it might be that we do what we can to retard decline/decay and the end of “this life only” for ourselves and for others. We also should do what we can to reduce, if possible, the suffering of others as well as ourselves and try to “do as little harm as possible.” Entropy must, of course, increase, but there is no need for us to encourage it. We may still be seen to be the “most pitiable” but that may be the best that we can do.... “for this life only.”

Jeffrey Shy
Mesa, Arizona
"for this life" at least

How about some "un" reform?

It has, of course, been a bit of time since I last made a post. Home, work and other occupations have made life VERY busy for a while, but although I have not made a post, I have been far from negligent in my “religious studies.” Since the last post, I have found myself oddly attracted to, of all things, the Bible and also the pseudepigraphic and apocryphal texts that are its “peripheral” contemporaries. It has been, actually, rather refreshing to read/look again with the “new eyes” of perhaps a bit greater objectivity than I employed when I was a “practicing theist.”
One of the more fascinating stories that I have been exploring is that of the late pre-exilic kingdom of Judah and the “reforms” of Hezekiah and Josiah. Although the writers of the Deuteronomistic history paint them as “good” kings, neither was successful politically (compare them to the “bad” Omrides for example), and both, today, would probably be classed as religious extremists or conservative fundamentalists. One thing that seems likely from rereading this history is that pre-exilic Israelite and Judahite religion was quite diverse. It would probably give Hinduism or the Greek pantheon a “run for the money” in the various divine figures that were honored or worshipped in very diverse ways. Yes, there was Yahweh/El, but there was also “his Asherah” the “Ba'als,” Molech, Chemosh Tammuz, the Sun/Moon/Stars, the “heavenly host” and probably others, and surprisingly, perhaps, most/all of them worshipped in the center of “Judaism” of Jerusalem and possibly even the temple itself. There were male temple prostitutes, women “weeping for Tammuz” in ritual grief and all manner of diverse religious activities associated with the Jerusalem temple and its near environs including the royal palace.

Witness this quote from II Kings about Josiah’s “purification” after the “finding” of the book of the law:

“And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the LORD all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the Asherah, and for all the host of heaven; and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Beth-el. 5 And he put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to offer in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that offered unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the constellations, and to all the host of heaven. 6 And he brought out the Asherah from the house of the LORD, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the common people. 7 And he broke down the houses of the sodomites, that were in the house of the LORD, where the women wove coverings for the Asherah. 8 And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had made offerings, from Geba to Beer-sheba; and he broke down the high places of the gates that were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on a man's left hand as he entered the gate of the city.” (II Kings 23:4-20, JPS)

and for good measure, from Ezekiel:

“...the door of the gate of the LORD'S house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat the women weeping for Tammuz.” (Ezekiel 8:14, JPS)

Clearly, as well, the “world of the New Testament” was one that was quite religiously pluralistic / syncretistic as well. We have recently begun to appreciate more and more that early Christianity was far from an “orthodoxy of the Apostles” that was corrupted by “heresy." It was, certainly, an extremely diverse religious movement from its very earliest days after the death of Jesus.

As I consider again how difficult monotheism has become for many thoughtful individuals as well as the worldwide problems of religious fundamentalism and chauvenism, I wonder if some of the “old diversity” would not do us good. Perhaps we need to have a reverse of the Hezekiah and Josiah “reforms” and let the Ba’als and Asheras back in, sing a good mourning song for Tammuz and remember sacred sex. If nothing else, the diversity might prove refreshing and could sweep out some of the cobwebs of antiquated “orthodoxies.”


Jeffrey Shy
Mesa, Arizona
( thinking Yahweh might have been a bit less difficult if his wife Asherah had kept him in better control)

But God was not in the wind....

In my last post, I related that I had been reading and considering Western, primarily Christian, religion from the point of "the philosophers." I reviewed the classical "proofs" for the existence of God, the problem with thinking of a God who "exists" the question of "grace and freedom" and, most importantly in the case against theism, the "problem of evil." I also re-read the biblical book of Ecclesiastes and portions of the biblical book of Job. Although I cannot say that I "found the answer," in these readings, I was perhaps able to shape the questions in my mind a bit better, and I suppose that I can say that I am "better off" in an intellectual sense by this re-introduction to the philosophy of religion.

What seems most likely to me, however, is that a quest to find a "God of the Philosophers" looks to be one that will not conclusively satisfy. In greater and lesser forms, the philosophical discussion of religion has been going on now for some thousands of years, and yet, the "grand unified theory" has eluded us. In the general text that I read as the centerpiece of my recent study, the possibility of a "soft rationalist" approach that looked at the "whole case of evidence" was offered as a "reasonable" approach to the problem of religious philosophy. This "case" would be formed of many strands or types of evidence. It could include logical argument, consideration of history and historical precedent, scientific research, divine revelation and, perhaps most importantly for my thoughts today, the contribution of "religious experience."

To my present state, it seems that the "non-experiential" portions of the case for religion create only the possibility for "god" and "religion." They do not, however, in themselves constitute a conclusive case, but allow, perhaps, a cautious curiosity. The problem, to my mind, however, is that without some sort of "experience" that "illuminates" religious practice and adherence, it remains rather abstract in the sense that I would have to make a quasi-catechetical response such as "but what does this mean for me?" Furthermore, it would seem that the "arguments" that might be advanced from religious experience would be either a "cumulative" case based on the experiences of others that we know both historically and in the present or a "conclusive" experience that I myself have that is convincing/transformational, or perhaps some lesser amalgam of both.

While staring at my bookshelves, I noted that I still had a largely-unfinished copy of Thomas Merton's biography, The Seven Story Mountain. (I know, I should have finished it years ago.) As I succumbed to the "tolle lege" that this seemed to suggest to me and began to read, however, I immediately encountered some of the less-attractive aspects of Merton, such as his "anti-protestant" bias and his immediate recourse to such conceptions as the mystery of the "non-bloody sacrifice of the mass" as the pre-eminent exemplum of divine love. Clearly, having read some of the rest of Merton, I understand that his religious experience was intense and transformational. But does an experience that leads to so many "traditional" conclusions (that I cannot accept) really inform the search for me? How am I to judge a religious experience that occurs in a context of a "traditional" concept of Christianity, when it would seem that, if the traditional concept is untenable, how is it that the "experience" is so "consistent" with it? Somehow, it would seem that my "search" for evidence in the historical experience of others is going to continue to be problematic.

As I consider, however, the other possibility, the experience that I, myself, have, I wonder what sort of experience I would find "convincing" at this stage? If I have discounted the possibility of a theistic god who could perform miracles that would "invade" the world of "natural law" and create a "special exception" for some purpose, then even "if I saw someone rise from the dead," I would have to consider questioning it. Should such a thing truly happen, then would that force me to concede and return to the theistic camp? What would be my experience of religion, then? It would be perhaps, I would suppose, one of pragmatism. Something like, "Well, heck, all that Christian dogma and doctrine really is true. Doesn't it suck that God (I would have to re-capitalize) allows such human suffering? But he holds all the cards and makes the rules, so I had better just shut up and walk the walk like a good boy." If then, miracles are "out" for the time being, then what "experience" would really "convince" me? I have dealt enough with deluded and sick minds to understand the power of want that can create internal experiences and convictions that, from my external point of view, seem clearly erroneous or delusional, that I would mistrust the argument from "feeling" the presence of "god" in "my heart" or some such conception. Again, how could I know that it was not the product of just some wishful thinking on my part?

It would seem, at this point, that the "experience" would have to be something rather un-expected. Since I know the biblical story of the "but God was not in the wind/storm/etc" and the "still small voice," it does rather suggest that at least some people got their "experience" in a form that neither they nor others might have expected. It is hard, however, to "live today" in the "hope" that some such transformational or "convincing" experience may come my way. Should I be like the "wise virgins" who "keep their lamps trimmed" waiting for the bridegroom's appearance? What would be the consequences of a life oriented to "waiting" for this sort of experience? How does one behave in the meantime? Does one simply keep "dipping one's finger in the holy water" and hope that one will "end up believing?" Does is make more sense to adopt a thoroughly secular orientation and leave religion as a "possibly provable" theory that we simply at this point do not have enough evidence at this point to affirm or refute?

Such problems!

Jeffrey Shy
("winded" in Arizona)
Mesa, Arizona

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost-Reflection on the Pericopes

After a lovely week of vacation and then a very not-so-lovely week of family illness and then one more somewhat unpleasant week of "catching up" from both, I find that it has been more than a month since I last made a post. It has not, however, been a month without reflection. For the last several weeks, I have taken up an interest again in the philosophy of religion. I was fortunate enough to have kept the textbook from my college course and used that as a starting point. I wish that I could say that I was ready to make a profound post that was a great breakthrough, but I have found that philosophical reflection has its own rewards, and some posts will likely follow shortly.

For today, I am sitting here on Monday morning with some thoughts in my head after attending church yesterday morning. The first biblical reading was from the first and second chapters of the book of Wisdom. It was striking to me first that the portion selected has a significant lacune in the middle that "robsbed" the "godless" of their full argument. The argument, of course, stated in rather striking poetry was of the evanscence of life. "In time, our name will be forgotten, nobody will remember what we have done; our life will pass away like wisps of cloud, dissolving like the mist that the sun's rays drive away and that its heat dispels. For our days are the passing of a shadow, our end is without return, the seal is affixed and nobody comes back." Then comes the conclusion of, therefore, "... let us enjoy the good things of today." This is contrasted against the god-fearing righteous man who makes his purpose the keeping of god's commandments. The difference, "of course," is that he "knows the secret" in that he contends that there is a life after death and his reward comes then. It is also one of the few times in the bible that we read, prior to the new testament, about a concern for an "afterlife." It also moves the blame for death out of the hands of god and blames the devil as the author of evil: "For God created human beings to be immortal, he made them as an image of his own nature; Death came into the world only through the Devil's envy, as those who belong to him find to their cost."

The further fallacy in the argument is that enjoying the "good things of today" comes at the cost of contempt and intentional disregard for the needs of others. This may be a practical consequence of the employment of the "live for today" mentality of some, but it is not an inevitable or necessary one.

In a further interesting "jolt," the Wisdom text is paired with the "receive a little child" story from the gospels. As the text was interpreted in our sermon, the idea was not that children were wonderful and innocent, but that they were regarded at the time as somewhat less than other human beings. The message was that we needed to concentrate each day on taking care of the "least of these," and that the "least of these" were the poor, homeless, etc. Certainly, I cannot argue with that, but the final argument advanced bothered me a great deal more. There was a reference made to the "current disagreement" in the Anglican communion. For a person "not in the know" this is quite simply dealing finally and clearly with the issue of justice for gay and lesbian persons in the church. It has been finally "forced" on the conservatives through the American church's ordination of an openly gay bishop (as opposed to closeted ones of which there have been many). It also involves a rather extraordinary turn of events that it has provoked a "crisis of Anglican unity." Simply put, those who disagree in the American church are forming splinter churches and dioceses, and those who disagree in the larger Anglican community are trying to force the American church to repent or depart. (This problem has been building, not just with regard to gay/lesbian issues, for more than 20 years) This has, very unfairly, foisted the onus of the "disruption of Anglican union" onto the backs of gay and lesbian persons in the church. "You really don't want to destroy the Anglican communion do you? Of course we (liberals) agree with you, but is 'having it all our way' worth disrupting the Anglican communion over?" We might have just as well have asked the sourthern slaves of 19th century America the same question: "You don't really want to have the United States erupt into war over this do you? Wouldn't it be better to....."

Where I was getting with this, however, was the rather additional extraordinary argument that if we got down to the "real business" of taking care of "the least of these," these other troublesome issues would take care of themselves. This was brought up at the General Convention under the protest that all the "gay and lesbian stuff" was "distracting" everyone from the "real" work of the church--in that setting this meant attention primaril to the UN millennium Development Goals to eliminate extreme poverty. While these are clearly worthy goals, I fail to see how the denial of fundamental human rights of justice and equality to 10% of the world's population is not a "real" issue for the church. There are plenty of conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists who would easily vote to criminalize and imprison gay and lesbian sinners who are perfectly happy feeding and clothing the poor and the hungry. I cannot see, therefore, that attention to the "least of these" inevitably will solve the issue of justice for gay and lesbian persons. Justice will at times be painful, especially as we consider that in cases at law, there are sometimes winners and losers. I will note, as well, that the "liberal" dioceses are not the ones threatening to leave after the weak response of the general convention and the 11th hour compromise, nor have they threatened to "leave" over the noncompliance of conservative dioceses for years over questions regarding the ordination of women. It was the conservative ones that immediately began to act out their blackmailing threats.

Am I angry still? I guess that I am. Yes, I want to feed/clothe the poor. No, I do not want to "wait" for justice at some future nebulous time.

Jeffrey Shy
Mesa, Arizona
(I suppose I would be "mad as hell" perhaps if I believed in the existence of such a place.)

We're still not there yet

As I sit down this Monday morning after the morning "chores," I feel that I should put some more words to paper. I know that literally no one (or only perhaps) one person has ever visited this blog, but that really is not the point of the blog. I did not set this up to be a campaign site to convince persons of the virtue of abandoning theism. I set up the blog to help me make sense of life and the world in the absence of the theistic god. Although I chose the term "atheistepiscopal" as the address of the blog, I have to admit that I regret it a bit. I wanted to be confrontational, perhaps, in the name and not shirk from what I had "done" in saying that I had rejected theism, but having read some more sites that are specifically "atheist," I cannot say that I find them universally thoughtful. There seems to be too much emphasis on "cutting down" and "ridiculing" people who follow theism or any religion at all. Furthermore, there seems to be little effort that goes into coming up with some alternative schema that will replace religious theism. It seems rather like tearing down a house and leaving the lot empty. Perhaps there is nothing that can replace a lost theism that will serve the same functions as theistic religion, but it seems too fatalist at the moment not to even try. There is a feeling, as well, of a certain "wickedness" in what seems to be taking pleasure in attacking and ridiculing religion and a cynical superficiality as well. I certainly "get the point" when these persons take the bible and "literally" read it and point up all manner of morally offensive and self-contradictory content, but they "miss the point" just as much as those who espouse so-called biblical literalism in the sense of literal innerancy. I may be an atheist in the sense of saying that I do not believe that I can any longer accept theism, but I am not an atheist in the sense that so many other people seem to be.

In the last week, I have continued reading some of Karen Armstrong's Book, The Battle for God, about the historical development of fundamentalism, but I must admit that I can only "stand" to read it in short bursts. There is a certain fatal despair that I feel whenever I pick it up. It is rather like watching one of those movies that begins with the ending, in this case a tragic one, and then doing the whole rest of the film as a "flashback" to see how the end comes about. We are living the reality of fundamentalism today, and it is not pretty. When we look back at the history, I can certainly see how it came about, and of course, can think of how, possibly, it could have been avoided, but that is "water under the bridge." Somehow, I feel that it is important that I really understand fundamentalism and the slightly-less-extreme versions such as the Christian "evangelical" movement. Certainly we all need to understand Islamic fundamentalism as well. It is just, unfortunately, that at times it is too distressing to look at for too long. It is escapist, I suppose, but I feel that I need some resting spots along the trip, or I will never finish it without suffering emotional exhaustion.

In between the fundamentalism book readings, I have also been reading Mortimer Adler's book, Six Great Ideas. The six "great ideas" are truth, goodness, beauty, liberty, equality and justice. I watched some pieces, years ago, of the public television show by the same name, and bought the book many years ago, but never got through much of it. (I am not even sure how long I have had it as it was published in 1981). I have been thinking about the definition of "good" that he derives. In short (and less convincing, I suppose, without the proof), those things are good that satisfy or answer human needs. Needs are defined as those things that humans must have to live a good life. They include biological needs such as food and shelter but also include other needs such as health, wealth, companionship, pleasure and beauty. Real goods are the things or means by which we satisfy these needs inherent to human nature. Apparent goods are those that satisfy wants in an innocuous way (meaning that they do not prevent/impair us from having what we ought nor in a secondary sense, produce deprivation in others). So far so good, I am still "on board" in a sense that what he "proves" seems reasonably true. The "trick" however, in determining what is "good" lies, however, in our interpretation of "human nature." What do humans really need. It occurred to me to ask if humans need religion, and then to ask the corollary question of "just what is religion" anyways? My computer version of the Oxford American Dictionary gives four definitions: (1) the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power; (2) details of belief as taught or discussed; (3) a particular system of faith and worship; (4) a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance. Clearly, the first "definition" is simply theism. The second and third are nearly tautologies, religion is a word that describes what people do when they engage in religious practice or discourse. The fourth, however, is more interesting. Religion is "a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance." This comes very close to Tillich's view of god as "that about which we are ultimately concerned."

If I accept this definition as a "working" proposition, then the question is this - what is that to which I can ascribe "supreme importance?" Furthermore, if religion is conceived of as a "need" of humans (realizing that I have not proved that human nature requires religion, of course), and religion is that with which we are ultimately or supremely concerned, then the "good" that is religion is a "supreme" good. Perhaps religion is the summum bonum of philosophy, the single highest good. The question goes back, then to the supposition that religion is a human need. Do humans need religion or do some of us simply want religion? I find it hard to come up with a firm argument that we really need religion, but perhaps we might speculate a bit. First, it does seem that humans spend a good amount of time and activity "doing" religion. If religion did not at all satisfy some sort of human need, then why do we spend so much time on it? ( I know this is dangerous. We spend a lot of time on war as well, but do we need war? ) One might speculate that we spend nearly as much time/effort at religion as we do to satisfy even our most basic "biological" needs such as food, drink, shelter, etc. Sometimes, we will even forgo access to these "basic" needs to "do" religion. Witness the gospel story of the "widow's mite." Where the poor widow placed her entire living into the temple treasury. She gave all that she had to live on for a religious reason. Secondly, if I expand "religion" to be the pursuit of the answer of the "great questions" such as illuminate a search for "meaning" of life/existence, then it would seem that a life of meaning would be preferable to a life "without meaning." We desire/want that our lives/existence should have meaning, do we not? Simply being a "being" that is self-aware, suggests that we must necessarily examine or come to terms with our most essential quality, that we "are" and that we know that we "are."

To the extent, then, that persons interpret "a-theism" to be "a-religion," then we can suggest that they are unlikely to succeed in living a "good life" inasmuch as they deny a fundamental "need" of humans. We must, however, be careful to avoid equating religion with theism, as the first dictionary definition did when it defined religion as the "belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power." Religion in the sense of a "human need" is the pursuit or acquisition of that with which we are "ultimately or supremely concerned", or the "meaning" that we find in life/existence. I think, then, I can accept, for the moment, the proposition that religion as a need and therefore a "good" as reasonably true if not self-evidently or "beyond a shadow of a doubt" true. This "broad sense" definition has somewhat of the character of an "open ended" conclusion, and perhaps an unattainable one. In theism, the "chief end of man" is to "glorify God and enjoy him forever." It has a certain point/finality to it as if the "work" is really all done. The search for meaning in existence, however, without the "end point" of a theistic God, has more about it the nature of a process. Is there a "conclusion" to this search? I do not know.

Jeffrey Shy
(Searching)
Mesa, Arizona

Building Houses on the Sand

In the last week, I have been reading in Karen Armstrong's book, The Battle for God, in which she traces the emergence of fundamentalist religion as an outgrowth of a reaction against modernity. For Armstrong's fundamentalists, there is a sense of fear and doom from the experience of modern world and rational thought (logos) when separated from the mythos of a religious experience. in this schema, fundamentalism is a, perhaps regrettable, but certainly understandable reaction to this alienation that comes of the experience of the modern world without as sense of meaning. While I am not sure that I agree that the traditional "mythos" of western Christianity can sustain us as it did in the past, I agree that we seem to need a sense of "meaning" if we are to live fully and happily in the world.

As I have been trying to explore my own sense of "meaning" in a world in which God has ceased to exist, I feel as if I stand on a knife edge between chaos on the one side and order on the other. Like apparently so many others before me, I have been exploring the idea of an "evolutionary" view of cosmic history. This has been, of course, a modernist view that looked at the history of the cosmos and also biological evolution on earth and found in it something akin to "progress" as we know it in our knowledge-based and increasing technological society. In this view, we imagine a sort of "stream of consciousness" that moved from the first awareness of self to a sense of "family" to a sense of tribe, nation, globalism and finally, I would suppose, to a sense of a "cosmic" identity and awareness. Along with this, the progress of thought and knowledge has, with some fits and starts, been one generally of growth. This is a growth from ignorance to knowledge, from superstition and myth to theory and fact, from the "red in tooth" perservation of self to an increasing sense of the need for and rightness of "charity," from simplicity to complexity (although this latter has been argued), from no thought to thought, from inanimate, to aware to self aware to globally aware.

I thought of a parable or allegory in which we are, in this view, rather like a great company of people building houses or castles in the sand. Each of us builds for a time, either a little or a lot, but inevitably death/entropy washes away these castles that are our lives. But we do not build in isolation. We build in company with those who build as our companions on the beach. We learn from them, and we copy them and they us. We also learn, in an unbroken stream into the past, from those who built before us, so that our unique contributions create castles that are of increasing complexity and "perfection." Some of us, perhaps, build well and advance the progress of self and others. Some of us build poorly, perhaps, or even give up building and dedicate ourselves to destruction. Nevertheless, the general direction, with sometimes great leaps forward, periods of stagnation and even tremendous steps backward, has so far been that of "progress." Looking at this "big picture," it seems that there is a general trend, a "direction," if you will, in what we see and are.

It is this apparent "direction," perhaps, that might give us a sense of "hope" and "purpose." Even if our presence as self-aware biomatter is one that came about by merest chance, our self-awareness gives us a unique opportunity. We each have, as it were, our "day in the sun" in which we are the builders. We can build well or poorly, according to our ability and knowledge, but whether we will or not, we will build something that influences the future and touches back to the past. We are, in our small selves, part of a larger "self" of humanity and perhaps the cosmos that reaches forwards and upwards and outwards, seeking to expand who and what we are and looking to what we may become. And who knows what it is that we might become? It is this "great becoming" that, perhaps, gives us some sense of inspiration. We are part of a great cosmic evolution that began at the time of the big bang and moves into the future to--what? We do not, of course, know the "ultimate" answer. We can, at most, use the short ruler of our experience so far to draw a theoretical "future line," but the "ultimate answer" is unknown. We dream of "perfection" but what form that or whatever future is to come is unknown with any certainty. Our meaning, however, is not that we know or can surely predict what we will become, but that we are part of this becoming and that we are know that we are a part of the life and existence of the universe. Through a great and un-numbered sequence of occurrences, we have been given a chance to be a little bit of the process by which the cosmos is able to know itself. Even the tiniest glimpse of this "great becoming" is the greatest of gifts. It is one that we receive as a most precious gift from our ancestors in humanity and farther back up our "family tree" to the beginnings of the universe of which we are direct lineal descendants. It is our awareness of being on this journey or part of this process of becoming that is our "spirituality." It is this "gift" of knowing that we will pass to the future, should we not care for it so poorly that there is no future.

It may be, perhaps, that our desire that this journey should continue would be a moral imperative that would shape our behavior. Since we know that we journey together (i.e with the help of our contemporaries as well as the "boost up" of our ancestors) , our moral behavior should be that which fosters our "togetherness." It should, therefore, be one that values the other as well as the self, leading us to restate in a new way the "golden rule" of antiquity. We do not love simply because we can, but we love because we must, for our survival and continuance depends on it. We do not learn to adapt because we can but because we must. We do not learn to be careful of our environment and the earth as a whole because we can but because we must.

But our "view" or "vision" is conditional. This "vision" may sustain and guide us today, but it may not be an adequate vision for the people or creatures of tomorrow who must evolve their own vision and find their own sense of meaning. This is, I suppose, akin to "theory" in science, which we accept not because it is necessarily "true" but because it "works" and "explains" and "interprets" reality and "predicts" it in some way. We do not necessarily discard an older view because it was "wrong" but because it no longer "works" for us in our world today. I might even be able to come to terms with Tillich's "ground of being" - that "larger being" of which I am a part and which is, in its totality, all of the cosmos or simply "the all" or "everything."

Finally, I might even imagine a sort of "dialog" with theists who "see" from a different perspective. If we can, for just a moment, admit that "religious" or philosophical language is not always "literal," I can see a point of company with the proponents of "intelligent design." Where I see a "becoming" that has, at least in a short sense, a "direction," they see the finger of God. For the theist, "God" is the creator and "prime mover" of all that is. The "progress" of the world is the creating hand of God. He is the "alpha" point of all that is. For me, while I cannot necessarily see the "alpha" point "God," I can perhaps admit that the "direction" of the universe points to something more than I/ we am/are at this point in time. This "direction" that we perceive could tend towards an "omega point" in which a sort of "perfection" might be achieved that would be, perhaps, akin to what the theist calls "God." We might be, perhaps, rather like the old story of the blind men describing the elephant. We are simply at opposite ends of the creature, and it is only in seeming that our views are so different or opposed.

Once again, this is only a "proposition," something for future contemplation and discussion and not a "final word." It would remain to see how we would function in such a view or how much "meaning" I/we could derive from it. Could it be the basis of a "meaningful" life? Could it provide some measure of "positive" and inform and inspire and shape my/our existence? Perhaps....

Jeffrey Shy
(And the foolish man built his house upon the sand....)
Mesa, Arizona

The "Love Connection"

It has been about 11 days since I had my last posting. Although I have not recently posted, partly due to a number of visits from relatives, I have continued to "think and reflect." It has been growing in my mind that there is a definite "attitude adjustment" that would come with the "universal love" religious world view. As I have been reviewing the "sayings" of Jesus and some readings in the Mohist cannon, it appears clear that there is a certain dual effect of this practice. First, we have the "internal" effects of the attitude adjustment. I truly think that it may be reasonably correct that practicing this attitude does improve feelings of well-being and, well, happiness. The external effects would seem to be significant as well. Generally, for the most part, persons who are treated well and with love have a greater tendency to respond in kind. I speculate, though, that there may be a more "spiritual" effect perhaps. It seems that there is a certain resonance that the more positive internal orientation creates in other persons. To the extent that my internal state of being is "positive," it seems to create a higher likelihood of others experiencing the same thing. Whether this is through subliminal clues, body language, pheromones or what, I do not know. It is rather like setting a tuning fork vibrating and then noting that it induces a vibration at a similar frequency in an adjacent string or tuning fork. Perhaps this is what is meant when someone is described as having an emotion that is "infectious." Although perhaps excessively "utopian," one could see that, if there were enough people "vibrating" on this frequency, the whole world could eventually fall in tune with it. Conceivably, the opposite effect could occur as well. To the extent that we are internally self-focused, angry, hateful, prejudiced, etc, we will induce negative "resonances" in others that can be "infectious" as well.

There seem to be intimations of this in some of the "sayings" of Jesus when he tells stories about the "Kingdom of Heaven." Yeast makes the whole loaf rise. The light on the lampstand lights up the whole world. You are the salt of the earth. The smallest of seeds grows up into the largest of trees. It might also give some meaning to some of the "backwards" or darker versions such as the "Beware of the leaven of the scribes and Pharisees," where the "negative" leaven can also get into the loaf and have significant ill effects.

The place where Christianity is a bit lacking, perhaps, is in concrete suggestions or a specific program to create this internal change. It is hinted at in imagery such as being "born again," but this is too tied up with the theistic god, redemption, original sin schema to hold much appeal for me. I have had, for weeks now, a phrase going repeatedly through my head, rather like a mantra. "Cultivate an attitude of calmness and compassion." This would seem to encapsulate both the "Take no thought for the morrow," with regard to personally centered anxieties as well as the "Golden rule" principle. Although it may not be enough for the longterm, I have found it helpful to "pray" this phrase repeatedly. When I find myself, for example, getting irritable, angry or upset---in short when the calmness and compassion start to fade--- then this is a time for reflection. Why did I change, do this, think this, feel this? How can I respond differently? Am I being truly compassionate? Am I practicing the "Golden Rule?" Finally, make a conscious effort to "Cultivate an attitude of calmness and compassion." Strangely, far from being an attitude that leads to apathy, it allows me to accomplish a great deal more. I begin to doubt the "power of negative emotion" such as the so-called "righteous anger." I wonder if, no matter what the outcome, the anger behind the intent somehow adversely taints the results. Yes, the concrete desired "result" may occur, but at what personal cost? I may "get the job done," but I wonder if I have not somehow damaged myself (and others) in the process? I seem to recall from reading some years ago in writings of Mahatma Gandhi where he implied that negative means inevitably produce negative ends. It is, perhaps, a failure to really believe this that makes us imagine that war can produce peace. We might, possibly, force a regime change. We might, for a time, reduce the number of "opponents" or their capacity to do violence, but ultimately, the anger/hatred/ill-feeling that war produces will have its effect, and that will of necessity be a negative one.

In a more personal sense, a "calm and compassionate attitude" truly appears to help one accomplish the daily "grind." I was reminded, on a Disneyland trip over the weekend, of the Mary Poppins "Spoonful of Sugar" song. "In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. Find, the fun, and the job's a game." If we cultivate the "attitude of calmness and compassion" the "happiness" aura that surrounds it certainly lessens the "medicine" of accomplishing many "jobs that must be done." Here I've been looking for help in centuries-old religious texts, and all I had to do was listen to Julie Andrews!

Jeffrey Shy
(Having a "spoonful of sugar")
Mesa, Arizona

Building a raft

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

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