Changes ahead

"Everything changes and nothing stands still." A saying of Heraclitus of Ephesus who also, incidentally, has given us the philosophical grounding of "logos" so integral to the theology of the Johannine Gospel and Epistles. 

I mention this for two reasons: 1. It's just interesting (knowledge for its own sake and all that) and 2. I will be moving in a few weeks' time to take up a teaching job at a new classical school in Florida. There is a link on the sidebar if you want to check it out. An opportunity presented itself that was too good to pass up, particularly the chance to be academically "useful" again and to once more have a meaningful ministry.

Thus the blog will resort to its typical lack of new posts for some time as I get settled in. Thanks for reading. Stay tuned...

Low Sunday

On this Sunday I am privileged to be the guest preacher at St. Paul Anglican parish in Melbourne, Florida. Here's what I have to say: 

In the Book of Common Prayer, there are four selections from the Gospels given for the Octave of Easter. On Sunday, we hear about the empty tomb from St. John. On Monday, St. Luke tells of the disciples walking to Emmaus and speaking about Jesus. Only after they have shared a meal with the stranger they meet on the road do they realize it is the risen Christ in their presence. Tuesdays’ Gospel and this mornings’ are accounts of Jesus appearing to the Apostles as they are gathered in the upper room, where I am sure the very air is filled with an admixture of fear, confusion and hope. It is interesting to me that one of His first acts is to show them His wounds from the Crucifixion as proof that He lives. I’ll just bet that our first reaction upon meeting someone unexpectedly would not be to hoist a pant leg and show off that knee replacement. In fact, we spend considerable time and effort trying to conceal our wounds and imperfections from each other and ourselves. Just look at all the ads for Botox, effortless weight loss and prescriptions for various dysfunctions mental and physical that surround us in print and electronic media.  Just so, there are many these days, consciously or not, who wish to conceal the wounds of Christ as well; who think that, in light of the Resurrection, His suffering and death and the torments that He received as predicted especially by Isaiah are nothing but temporary inconveniences now thankfully passed into the dustbin of history and non-being. Why? They make us uncomfortable, for they are icons of our sinfulness. The problem with trying to eliminate them is that we are not just baptized into Jesus' Resurrection, but also into His death. As soon as we have spiritually probed His hands and feet and accepted this as reality, then we inherit the obligation to follow Him all the way through the tomb. It is not always a pleasant journey: it's dark, cramped and it stinks. It is a journey that will cause us to encounter all kinds of things about ourselves that we would just as soon forget.
    

From a homily of St. Gregory the Great: “For whatever can be touched, must needs be subject to corruption; and whatever is not subject to corruption cannot be touched. But, in a way altogether wonderful and incomprehensible, our Redeemer after his Resurrection revealed himself in a body at once palpable and incorruptible. Yea, he revealed himself in an incorruptible body, that we might learn to seek a like glorification; and in a palpable body, for the strengthening of our faith.”
    

One of the fundamental principles of Christian spirituality, summed up in the Collect for today, takes up this theme of duality, of life in death, of palpability and incorruptibility, by recalling that we cannot have joy without suffering any more than we can know suffering apart from joy. Our Lord’s passion and death tell us as much. Easter is as impossible without Good Friday as Good Friday is impossible without Easter. Why, then, try to deny the undeniable? Jesus shows the Apostles His hands and feet, saying: ‘Yes, I am alive and here’s the proof of what I did for you.’ Those marks are the marks of our sins; past, present and future. Even after Easter they are apparent. And that’s okay. They show us how desperately we were in need of redemption. And they also encapsulate Christ's perfect, all sufficient work of redemption on the Cross and in the Resurrection. If we try to conceal them, we deny reality and we are not being true to ourselves. (We do the work of the 'father of lies', per Jesus' admonition in John 8:44). They are our last refuge against the forthrightness of God’s justice, but also the greatest proof of His mercy. In them, He says to us: 'a perfectly effectual sacrifice was required of you, I have offered that sacrifice for you.'
    

The Epistle this morning contains some rather evocative imagery: water, blood and the Spirit. In a literary sense, the entirety of the history of our salvation is presented here: from the flood waters of Genesis, to the passage through the Red Sea, down to the ministry of John the Baptist; from the blood shed at the institution of the Covenant with Abraham by means of circumcision to the blood offerings in the Temple to the perfect Lamb Who was slain once for all on the Cross; from the motive power of the Holy Ghost over the formless wasteland to the inspiration of the words of the Prophets, to Jesus breathing on the Apostles and giving them the gift of the Holy Ghost.
 

These three elements mentioned in St. John also make an appearance sacramentally in each of our lives as well. Water flows at our baptism, the Holy Spirit is invoked at our confirmation by the bishop, and the blood of Christ is made present in the elements on the altar each time we celebrate the Holy Eucharist. In a sense, during the course of these sacramental acts all of those things I just mentioned (from the Flood waters to the breathing forth of the Holy Ghost) are recalled and in that remembering are made present in order that we as believers might perpetually bear in heart, mind and body all that has come to pass. In Greek, this is known as anamnésis, and also forms one of the key elements in our Prayer of Consecration over the Eucharistic elements, to wit: "having in remembrance his blessed passion and precious death, his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension; rendering unto thee most hearty thanks for the innumerable benefits procured unto us by the same." In both the life of Jesus and our lives in Him, these three things point to the truth of God, as St. John tells us in the Epistle as well. That truth is intrinsically connected to both Calvary and the empty tomb.
    

Water, blood and the Spirit. These are not somehow mystical talismans any more than are the physical pages of the Bible or the words themselves printed thereon - able to be summoned on demand to confirm our self-assumed righteousness or to confound our perceived enemies. These things have no power to conceal our sins or to hide our true character. Neither do they have any power to erase the wounds Christ received on the Cross. And thank God for that! That is why He appears as He does to the Apostles. What they are able to do, however, is far more significant. They bring us into the fellowship that is the Church. It is at that point that our personal contribution to living the Christian life begins, where we "fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in [our] flesh, for his body, which is the church" (Col. 1:24). Then we must learn, in the words of the Collect, to: “put away the leaven of malice and wickedness, that we may always serve [God] in pureness of living and truth; through the merits of…Jesus Christ our Lord.” That is how we deal with our woundedness.
    

I would also like to spend some time considering the idea of leavening as mentioned in the collect, for it is an oft-invoked image of both the Old and New Testaments. One of the definitions of the verb to leaven given in Webster’s is: “to mingle, or permeate with a transforming element.” And I thought, how like the Cross and Resurrection that is. The triple aspect of Spirit, water and blood that we hear about this morning does indeed permeate our lives as Christians, allowing our entire being to be transformed into an image of Jesus Christ himself. Indeed, we have no other purpose than this: to continuously engage and be engaged by this process until it becomes indistinguishable from our very selves.
    

But then I thought, how like sin is this leavening also. For every sin begins on the surface, as an impulse of the intellect, having its cause from either internal or external stimuli. If it is allowed room to develop in the mind, then it finds its way to the will where it works to gain control of our motive power. After that, it is just a matter of time before we are doing or saying today what we only gave ashamed thought to yesterday. The further this process is allowed to develop, the more difficult it becomes to extricate it from our lives. Thoughts become desires, become actions, become habits, become a part of the “just who we are” that is so incorrectly affirmed by some contemporary thinking. Is it any wonder that so many people simply have no ‘moral compass’ at all these days? They are not asking for blame, but for help, in the manner proved by the Good Samaritan.
    

But the converse is also true. The more virtue is allowed to expand in the mind, the more it will affect our motive powers as well. Think of it this way. We live in a physical universe where everything takes up a finite amount of space. If I have a jar full of water and I drop some stones into it, what happens? Some of the water is pushed out to make room for the stones. It is the same way in the spiritual life. Virtue and vice both compete for the same amount of space that is our soul. Adding more of one will necessarily force out some of the other. What we struggle with then, is not just to remove as much of the bad as possible but also fill its place with the good. And in this process, just as some water from the jar is bound to spill over onto the floor, surely some of our own woundedness will be exposed to view, our own or that of others, just as the wounds of Christ were visible in His post-Resurrection appearances. And that is a good thing. It puts us in touch with reality (God is not deceived, no matter how hard we try). And...it is an opportunity for greater humility in our dealings with each other and ourselves. There is an oft-quoted adage that the road to recovery begins with admitting we have a problem. In the same way, our road to eternal life begins in the pierced hands, feet and side of Jesus Christ, from which flow water and blood and the Spirit of God is outpoured.
 

In conclusion, consider this, from the Old Testament Lesson at Morning Prayer today: "But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee" (Is. 43:1-2).
 

We who are baptised have indeed passed safely through the waters. Though their depths are dark, we have great confidence in the One Who passed this way before us. He has taken up and perfected the journey of the Israelites through the Red Sea, thus making sign and symbol come to fruition in reality. On account of this, we can now boldly accept the injunction given to the Romans: "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?" (6:3). And, in the words of the Psalmist: "Therefore will not we fear...Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof." (Ps. 46: 2-3a)
 

We who have received the fire of the Holy Ghost have received the gift of Him Who burns within but does not consume, the Divine reality of the type presented in Exodus. Rather do these fires serve the purpose described by the Prophet Malachi: "But who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap: And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness" (Mal. 3:2-3).
 

And so, whenever our Lord comes to you, in whatever guise or circumstance of life it may be, He greets you with His peace and shows you His wounds. Do not be afraid to do likewise. In light of the events that have come to pass liturgically these past two weeks, we have been given everything we need to come to terms with them.

Thomas Merton & Chuang Tzu (2)

 "Personalism and individualism must not be confused. Personalism gives priority to the person and not the individual self. To give priority to the person means respecting the unique and inalienable value of the other person, as well as one's own, for a respect that is centered only on one's individual self to the exclusion of others proves itself to be fraudulent." (The Way..., p. 17)

I hope, in my life and work, to cultivate a culture of personalism with those I am given to know. It is a big ask, work for a lifetime (and then some!), and strongly counter to the prevailing forces of our time, magnified as they are by (anti-)social media.

1. Fearful conformism

If it really comes down to “me vs. everyone else”, then the two prevailing options that have manifested themselves so robustly really are the fruit of this tree - individualism. The first, selfishness, is the driving force of our [By “our” I refer to contemporary America. Yes, it is a gross generalisation. But it is also plainly present and “infects” a wide swath of our society.] politics, our economics, our religious practice, our foreign policy, our cult of “celebrity”, our willingness to embrace all kinds of contrary-to-fact ideas because they appeal to the self as singular and unique, worthy of indulgence and adoration.

The second, fearful conformism, is a particular problem among the young. Seeking a stable identity, they latch onto what their peers have collectively come to proclaim is the “good of the day” with as much fundamentalism as they ascribe to and denounce in their elders.

It is ironic, then, that at the heart of this individualism lies such a corrosive collectivity. We are angry and resentful because we have been influenced or told to be so by the angry and resentful social environment we immerse ourselves in.

The culture mirrors the politics which mirrors the culture. It is so very ugly, poisonous, and dehumanising. And then we think that pursuing artificial intelligence and genetic manipulation to create “better” (And no one is thinking this through, either. Where are the social philosophers and ethicists to think deeply and debate the nature of this “improvement”?) versions of ourselves either biologically or virtually is going to solve anything. It is indeed fraudulent.

A part of the cure doubtless involves a (re-)embrace of personalism. A few year ago, I read a book by Susanne Antonetta titled “A Mind Apart: Travels in a Neurodiverse World”. She has bipolar disorder and is friendly with a group of folks who have various mental health issues. She worries, as do I, that something unique and valuable will be lost to the world if medical science and treatments are eventually able to eradicate any such phenomena before they have a chance to appear in people.

    “Anyway, I have bipolar disorder and have to tolerate lots of odd, unruly things happening in my head....But with the challenges come the gifts. And the sense, often raised by my correspondents, that the word cure is the wrong word, and that we must begin to respect the mental processes of the individual, think in terms of helping to get the gifts to emerge while the challenges become as manageable as they can. We need to develop new terms of value and of tolerance, especially as medical work in the alteration of the gene makes possible the eradication of our kind.” (Antonetta, A Mind Apart, pp. 3, 9)

In like manner, there are over 6000 extant languages spoken on earth today. A statistic posted on NationalGeographic.com says that one language “dies” every 14 days. And with it, something of the culture, the history, the way of perceiving things, dies with it. That is a great tragedy.

I was going to continue on with two other subheadings: “the tyranny of the immediate” and “the abjuration of responsibility” both of which are symptoms of the above discussion and are exacerbated by our uncritical embrace of social “networking”, but I think I'll stop here with a simple clarion call to embrace a life of personalism, to reject the “vanilla-isation” (though I don't accept the pejorative of “vanilla” as a synonym for plain, basic, or uninteresting as I think it has a marvelous aroma and flavour...but I digress) of discourse, of humanity and to embrace the authenticity of those who don't fit in. Please don't try to advise or, God forbid(!), “fix” us. Just be okay with our existence and know that we are doing our best with what we have to work with and we would wish the same for you.

Thomas Merton & Chuang Tzu (1)

By way of preface to my ongoing remarks in this series, this is in no way any sort of “formal” engagement with Merton's text. Rather is it my engagement with some of the “nuggets” found in the text itself in a way that may only tangentially relate to the wider context in which they are given. This is, rather, some of the operative “background noise” present when I read the text.

[Sidenote: As has become apparent, I will owe a significant debt to the writing of Fr. Stephen Freeman here. His work, both on his blog “Glory to God for all things” and in his book “Everwhere Present”, has had a significant impact on my thinking and helped to clarify certain theological “issues” in a way that is both intellectually cogent and emotionally satisfactory.]

And so we begin...

"The fashion of Zen in certain western circles fits into the rather confused pattern of spiritual revolution and renewal. It represents a certain understandable dissatisfaction with conventional spiritual patterns and with ethical and religious formalism. It is a symptom of western man's desperate need to recover spontaneity and depth in a world which his technological skill has made rigid, artificial, and spiritually void. But in its association with the need to recover authentic sense experience, western Zen has become identified with a spirit of improvisation and experimentation-with a sort of moral anarchy that forgets how much tough discipline and what severe traditional mores are presupposed by the Zen of China and Japan." (The Way..., p. 16)

1. Dissatisfaction

I live with this daily. Some of it comes from within myself, much of it from outside. But it will not do to simply rehash a set of grievances after the manner of social media. Rather does it become a question of discerning what I can change or manage (very few things and in a very limited manner) and what I cannot (most things and all people). That is the reality of being human, of being finite, necessarily limited. Look, after all, at the destruction that is wrought by our limited power. Imagine if we had more, and that that "more" was not just a product of our delusion but a fact. Thank God for our limitedness.

"If I have to boast, I will boast of what pertains to my weakness." (2 Cor. 11:30 _ NASB)

Fr. Stephen Freeman, a veritable gold mine of quotable material, says this in an article titled The Power in Thought – It's Not What You Think: "The simple fact is that we do not know how to manage the world. We do not know what constitutes a good outcome. We do not have the knowledge to see the future, to understand and comprehend the collateral damage of our management. The only guarantee of the outcome of history (and our lives) is the goodwill of God....In the words of St. Maximus the Confessor: He who understands the mystery of the Cross and the Tomb knows the meaning of all things." (blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/ 2018/04/16/the-power-in-thought-its-not-what-you-think/)

2. The Technological void

The advent of computer technology and digitisation has made information more widely and readily available than ever. If I need something for academic research or teaching purposes, I no longer have to trek to the library, sort through the card catalogue, speak with the reference desk, and search through a book or periodical for what I need. It is all available through my computer and/or "smart" phone in the comfort of my home. In fact, such a routine as I describe, well within my own living memory and experience (and I'm not that old!) seems almost unthinkably quaint and inefficient.

And perhaps it is inefficient. But at what cost have we traded inefficiency for perpetual availability? The student has a myriad of distractions constantly at his or her fingertips. The office worker is always just a text message away. There is no longer a sense of the "end" of the workday. And there has been a "flattening" of the discernment of what is true, what is genuinely contributive to knowledge and experience, and what is merely a load of tosh generated by the emotive "wisdom" of the collective. Do we really now need Youtube and discussion fora to tell us what to think and how to react to our lived experience? Can we not even use the bathroom or walk down the sidewalk to the grocery store without the crutch of the smartphone?

There is currently no sign of stopping such "progress" either. Our humanity will continue to be degraded (it is an ontological crisis, which requires an ontological solution), we will attempt to incorporate ourselves further and further into our virtual "idols" and to anesthetise the institutional chaos, which we have created, with money, prescription drugs, wars, greed, useless politicking. 

God save us from ourselves!

Again, from Fr. Stephen: "Christ is far more than a good man who set an example, and more than a victim of social wrong-doing. The Christian story is far richer. The nature of sin is death, not mere social oppression. Death reigns over us and holds us in bondage to its movement away from God. It certainly manifests itself in various forms of evil-doing. But it also has a cosmic sway in the movement of all things towards death, destruction, and decay. Our problem is not our morality: it is ontological, rooted in our alienation from being, truth, and beauty – from God Himself. Broken communion leads to death. Immorality, in all its forms, is but a symptom." (blogs.ancientfaith.com/ glory2godforallthings/2020/11/15/the-gospel-of-progress-and-the-new-jerusalem/)

3. Authentic sense experience and self-discipline

Yes, I realise the great irony (in light of the foregoing) that I have conceived and posted these words with an electronic device on a digital medium. But these are simply convenient tools for me. When I have finished I will sip my tea, pick up a good book, and later take a walk in a park. Technology can be useful, but it can also be destructive and manipulative (which is what its creators are counting on – how else can they get you to believe that you need a new phone every year and that you should gladly pay $1000 for it!).

So I am advocating here for a renewal of sensory experience, a greater appreciation of the real world (there is nothing like the smell of fresh flowers, the feeling of the sun's warmth, the sights and sounds of the beach, a nice glass of wine and a good conversation with a friend about meaningful things), and a re-engagement with our humanity. This will take some conscientious practice. And then, when the virtual world collapses in on itself, you won't be so caught off guard and realise that life goes on without your ipad! To that end, I also recommend “Culture Care” by Makoto Fujimura.

Still alive...

Due to the press of business, posting here has been rather sparse for a while. In fact, traffic to this blog has always been minimal. I suppose that is the result when it isn't widely known, the topics are/have been rather esoteric, and the author is himself rather eccentric(?). But I find that processing through writing and editing helps to clarify my thoughts so if this is only helpful for me, so be it. 

By way of renewal then, I have begun reading Thomas Merton's (another eccentric, not always understood or valued by the ecclesiastical establishment - I have always been drawn to such people, they are after my own heart) The Way of Chuang Tzu and shall offer commentary on both Merton's introduction as well as the poetry in the book (that he has translated from other translations). I offer here Merton's own justification for my interest in his work: "I simply like Chuang Tzu because he is what he is and I feel no need to justify this liking to myself or to anyone else. He is far too great to need any apologies from me. If St. Augustine could read Plotinus, if St. Thomas could read Aristotle and Averroes (both of them certainly a long way further from Christianity than Chuang Tzu ever was!), and if Teilhard de Chardin could make copious use of Marx and Engels in his synthesis, I think I may be pardoned for consorting with a Chinese recluse who shares the climate and peace of my own kind of solitude, and who is my own kind of person." (The Way..., pp. 10-11) 

My next post will begin the dive into the Introduction. Stay tuned...