Book on Discernment via the Framework of the Serenity Prayer

I ran across a new book and ordered it today entitled The Wisdom to Know the Difference: When to Make a Change — And When to Let Go.  It looks like an interesting read from the first chapter preview on Amazon.

All of us have wrestled with the dilemma of trying to decide when enough is enough.  This is the impetus of the book.  The author, Eileen Flanagan, grew up as a Catholic and converted to the Society of Friends later in life.  She addresses the spiritual concept of discernment through the lens of Reinhold Niebuhr’s version of the serenity prayer: “God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.”  The book promises to find the balance between fatalism and hyper-individualism.  I look forward to reading it and giving a full review later!

Oh, and the book was endorsed by the Dalai Lama….it must not be too shabby!  Check out the first chapter for free, and see what you think.

It’s been a while!

Wow. I didn’t realize how long ago it’s been since I visited here. A lot has changed since then. I just graduated from Divinity School (now, maybe I’ll have some more time to blog!). I am grateful for the past three years of education. They have taken a toll on my body (I’ve logged 50,000 miles commuting), but I’ve been renewed in my pursuit of knowledge. It also took a toll on my spiritual disciplines. Centering Prayer gave way to reading. I’m working on getting back into my regular routine of meditation, aka break new bad habits!

I’ll do my best to visit here and reflect on books I’m reading and struggles I’m having with my theology!

Blessings,
SS

Mystical Mutuality Model

Due to my bent toward mystical reflection on theology, I locate most comfortably in the Mutuality Model of the three modes we have encountered. Knitter’s description of Panikkar’s theory of “mutual fecundation” is the rubric which resonates with my mystical/theological understanding (130). Panikkar’s phrase “cosmotheandric experience” exemplifies the goal of my mystical mutuality model. God, humanity, and the material world are all interconnected and dependent upon each other. While remaining distinct, these three components exist in their own Trinitarian perichoresis. Traditional Christian theology has described God’s existence in Trinitarian language: Father/Mother, Son, and Spirit – the three in one. God is said to exist in the interconnectivity of these persons. Assuming Panikkar’s thesis that God, humanity, and creation are connected, I propose that a fractal perichoretic model may be thus extended toward religious diversity. The process of dialogue between differing religions and spiritualities constitutes a perichoretic dimensionality which both honors diversity while thriving in the paradoxical realm of discovering the ontological unity enmeshed in their very existence. As for Christology, in the Christian matrix, mysticism can both elevate Jesus’ particularity, and in kenotic fashion simultaneously empty it in the arena of universal dialogue. Again, appealing to the model of perichoresis, within interreligious dialogue, the uniqueness of Jesus and the interconnectivity with other means of salvation or enlightenment may be paradoxically juxtaposed. Within Christian circles, it makes sense to use the common revelation of God in Jesus, but it dialogue where that common revelation is not shared, the mystic can both appreciate and learn from the other who has another expression of humanity’s existential needs. In so doing, the mystic engages in metaphorical thinking which is the primary matrix for how we understand ourselves and each other and God. (See James Geary’s TEDTalks Video 12/17/2009).

Blessing and Curses

Question: Does giving thanksgiving or acknowledging God’s blessing imply anything about God’s non-intervention (i.e. absence of blessings/curse)? This week I got into a conversation with some friends from class about this one in a talk about theodicy. Ever since I saw a woman on the news in New Orleans during Katrina giving thanks to God for saving her dog, I’ve been wrestling with the question of the implications of such statements. Immediately after her testimony, the cameras began showing heartache and despair and a story of a family that lost a child was then aired. Seeing a lament for a lost child and a praise report for a spared dog really shook me up. Does God care more for canines than little children? Can I praise God for something when others are in the middle of theodicy? (Contexts and settings that make me go “hmmmmm.”)

A Day of Silence

I’ve been sitting in the Sanctuary for five hours so far today. Dusk is moving in and the candles surrounding the cross are growing brighter as the sun gives way to shadows.

I’ve stared at the cross for some time–I’ve lost track of how long. I’ve wondered about this holiday: what it means, how others view it, what I can try and salvage from it, and how to relate to Pilate’s question, “What is truth?”

Reading the Gospel Lesson for tomorrow (Mark 16:1-8) I pictured the stone being rolled away as a Sisyphean boulder I have engaged and will continue to push for all time. What is truth, what is an empty tomb, what is a resurrected life? I thought I once knew and later forgot. Then I thought I’d remembered and again found doubt. Then I reconstructed my faith and had peace which was present in loneliness. Now I have joy with sadness close at hand.

I like the shadows. It is there I feel welcomed. It is there I am seen and passed over. It is there I feel divine grace and human suffering. It is there I don’t have to squint to understand. It is there I kiss mystery and feel the breath of life.

Holy Saturday, the paradox of the dead God waiting for resurrection. This is within my tolerance.

Living the Double Life

Romans 7:21-24 (NRSV)
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

Albert Camus story The Fall takes one on a path filled with the hypocrisy innate in human existence. In the opening chapter, I was struck by Clemance’s comment, “Come on, give up. My profession is double, that’s all, like the human being.” Double like the human being…… As much as I hate this observation, experientially, I know it to be true, at least for myself. Clemance’s monolithic confession is laborious to read, the extremities of his “kindness” and his immoral apathy are disgusting. When relating a story about a murder he represented he mentioned that he “took up their defense, on the sole condition that they should be noble murderers, as others are noble savages.” He also noted that he never charged the poor and never boasted in that.

As I read this, it appeared to me that Clemance’s was okay with the double life as long as it was balanced and in place, orderly. Morality was less a priority. Orderliness was his righteousness. While he claimed to defend the guilty and oppressed, Clemance is pictured as really concerned with defending his own self worth and righteousness. Clemance is the ultimate narcissist.

A few years ago, I began practicing centering prayer and became privy to the language of the true self. Through the practice and as a result of an 8 day emersion into silence, I became aware of the double life I was living. My own spiritual narcissism was blinding me. By removing myself from stimulus, I was provided with the opportunity to deeply dialogue with myself. Up until that moment, I feel like I was somewhat like Clemance, monolithic and self-delusional. By “shutting up” and looking deep at who I was, I realized that the true self, and my self portrait were not in alignment. I saw myself for who I was not, for the first time. Granted, I don’t consider myself the bastard that Clemance is portrayed to be, (which maybe I should) I do understand the pride humility can bring. Thankfully, the spiritual practice of contemplative disciplines has helped me see this and draw closer to the altruistic self that is somewhere in me.

For me, the answer to “The Fall” (theological and Camusian) has come in the antidote offered by Father Thomas Keating: “By means of contemplative prayer, the Spirit heals the roots of self-centeredness and becomes the source of our conscious activity. To act spontaneously under the Spirit’s influence rather than under the influence of the false self, the emotional programming of the past has to be erased and replaced.” (Open Mind Open Heart. p. 16)

Green with Entanglement

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Today around the world, everyone is Irish. Green Beer and singing will both flow quite liberally. This reminds me of the concept of world connectedness Camus discussed in his essay “Neither Victims nor Executioners.” In a rapidly shrinking world, he said that we “are forced into fraternity – or complicity.” And that, “There is no suffering no torture anywhere in the world which does not affect our everyday lives.”

Chaos theory scientists call this observation Camus made “The Butterfly Effect.” The Butterfly Effect simply points to the interconnectedness of our world. It is technically called “sensitive dependency on initial conditions.” Chaos theory revolves around the tension between “sensitive dependency on initial conditions” and “recurrence” which is the desire of a system to return to its initial conditions.

In John 17, Jesus offered a prayer for his disciples before he left them and ascended into heaven. He shared with them that it was his desire that they become one with each other and one with him as he was one with the Divine Parent. Quantum mechanics is revealing more and more that our physical world is much more “connected” than we had ever dreamed. “Quantum entanglement is a possible property of a quantum mechanical state of a system of two or more objects in which the quantum states of the constituting objects are linked together so that one object can no longer be adequately described without full mention of its counterpart — even though the individual objects may be spatially separated.” Einstein referred to this phenomenon as “spooky action at a distance.”

Science and experience are revealing the interconnectedness of this system of being in which we exist. It is both Camus and Jesus’ hope that we would become more conscious of this fact. The Jewish Mishnah, Sanhedrin 4:5, teaches that all humanity is one, coming from a singular human Adam. It is Jewish practice to pray not for individual blessings, but more so for corporate blessings stemming from this ideology.

In closing, I’m quoting the song “Sunday Bloody Sunday” by the Irish rock band U2. This song was written in protest of the murder of 27 civil rights protesters in Northern Ireland in 1972.

Yes…

I can’t believe the news today
Oh, I can’t close my eyes and make it go away
How long…
How long must we sing this song?
How long? how long…

cause tonight…we can be as one
Tonight…

Broken bottles under children’s feet
Bodies strewn across the dead end street
But I won’t heed the battle call
It puts my back up
Puts my back up against the wall

Sunday, bloody sunday
Sunday, bloody sunday
Sunday, bloody sunday (sunday bloody sunday…)
(all right lets go!)

And the battles just begun
There’s many lost, but tell me who has won
The trench is dug within our hearts
And mothers, children, brothers, sisters torn apart

Sunday, bloody sunday
Sunday, bloody sunday

How long…
How long must we sing this song?
How long? How long…

cause tonight…we can be as one
Tonight…
Tonight…

Sunday, bloody sunday (tonight)
Tonight
Sunday, bloody sunday (tonight)
(come get some!)

Wipe the tears from your eyes
Wipe your tears away
Wipe your tears away
I wipe your tears away
(sunday, bloody sunday)
I wipe your blood shot eyes
(sunday, bloody sunday)

Sunday, bloody sunday (sunday, bloody sunday)
Sunday, bloody sunday (sunday, bloody sunday)
(here I come!)

And its true we are immune
When fact is fiction and TV reality
And today the millions cry
We eat and drink while tomorrow they die

The real battle yet begun (sunday, bloody sunday)
To claim the victory Jesus won (sunday, bloody sunday)
On…

Sunday bloody sunday
Sunday bloody sunday…

Hoping Words Are More Powerful Than Munitions

“Likewise, no economic problem, however minor it appears, can be solved outside the comity of nations. Europe’s bread is in Buenos Aires, Siberian machine-tools are made in Detroit. Today, tragedy is collective.”

What a visionary! Having read “Neither Victims Nor Executioners: An Ethic Superior to Murder” this line caught my attention. It’s relevance is even more inspiring when the fate of Detroit is withering away under the current economic situation. These are both days of fear and days of potential hope in which we are living. They are days that call us to bear the titles of Neither Victims nor Executioners, and resist the temptations fear will place before us while we seek to embrace the kind of love that will cast out all fear.

U2 just released a new album this past week, No Line on the Horizon, and the lead single on the album is entitled “Get On Your Boots” sounded very much like a song Camus would have embraced. It starts with the line “The future needs a big kiss.” Camus states, “There is no suffering, no torture anywhere in the world which does not affect our everyday lives.” It is because of this collective integral connectivity which exists (or should I say is becoming more realized) that Bono ‘s words strike the conscience of those with “ears to hear.”

Fear must no longer be the catalyst in the world. It creates too many victims and too many executioners. “Satan loves a bomb scare….But here’s where we gotta be, Love and community.” How do we get there? By getting on your boots! It’s time to “be into growing up,” it’s time to hear the prophetic words of Camus, “There is no idea, naturally, of constructing a new ideology, but rather of discovering a style of life.” This will require dreaming , love, patience, kindness, and perseverance. Are we ready to get on our boots, give the future a big kiss, and look at the “big revelations” of the “women of the future”? Camus describes how to get one’s boots on:

Yes, we must raise our voices. Up to this point, I have refrained from appealing to emotion. We are being torn apart by a logic of History which we have elaborated in every detail – a net which threatens to strangle us. It is not emotion which can cut through the web of a logic which has gone to irrational lengths, but only reason which can meet logic on its own ground. But I should not want to leave the impression, in concluding, that any programme for the future can get along without our powers of love and indignation. I am well aware that it takes a powerful prime mover to get men into motion and that it is hard to throw one’s self into a struggle whose objectives are so modest and where hope has only a rational basis – and hardly even that. But the problem is not how to carry men away; it is essential, on the contrary, that they not be carried away but rather that they be made to understand clearly what they are doing.

To save what can be saved so as to open up some kind of future – that is the prime mover, the passion and the sacrifice that is required. It demands only that we reflect and then decide, clearly, whether humanity’s lot must be made still more miserable in order to achieve far-off and shadowy ends, whether we should accept a world bristling with arms where brother kills brother; or whether, on the contrary, we should avoid bloodshed and misery as much as possible so that we give a chance for survival to later generations better equipped than we are.

Amen.

This will be the daunting task of ministry in the coming years — to embrace the future, and demonstrate love in the midst of fear and despair while working to create community in which the mistakes of the past, which have defined us to this point, will serve not as models on which to pattern existence in the new century, but as harbingers warning us of where we will be if we do not create and embrace an economy of love and grace.

“Get On Your Boots” lyrics

The future needs a big kiss
Winds blows with a twist
Never seen a moon like this
Can you see it too?

Night is falling everywhere
Rockets at the fun fair
Satan loves a bomb scare
But won’t scare you

Hey! Sexy boots
Get on your boots, yeah

You free me from the dark dream
Candy floss ice cream
All our kids are screaming
But the ghosts aren’t real

Here’s where we gotta be
Love and community
Laughter is eternity
If joy is real

You don’t know how beautiful
You don’t know how beautiful you are
(You don’t know!)
No, you don’t know how beautiful
(And you don’t get it, do you?)
You don’t know how beautiful you are
(You don’t know how beautiful you)

That’s someone’s stuff they’re blowing up
But we’re into growing up
Women of the future
Hold the big revelations

I got a submarine
You got gasoline
I don’t wanna talk about
Wars between nations
Not right now

Sexy boots
Get on your boots, yeah
Not right now
Bossy boots

You don’t know how beautiful
You don’t know how beautiful you are
(You don’t know!)
No, you don’t know how beautiful
(And you don’t get it, do you?)
You don’t know how beautiful you are
(You don’t know how beautiful you are)

Sexy boots
I don’t wanna talk about the wars between the nations
Sexy boots, yeah

Let me in the sound
Let me in the sound
Let me in the sound, sound
Let me in the sound, sound
Let me in the sound

Let me in the sound
Let me in the sound now
God, I’m going down
I don’t wanna drown now
Meet me in the sound

Let me in the sound
Let me in the sound
Let me in the sound, sound
Let me in the sound, sound
Meet me in the sound

Get on your boots
Get on your boots
Get on your boots, yeah hey hey!
Get on your boots, yeah hey hey!
Get on your boots, yeah hey hey!
Get on your boots, yeah hey hey!

I’ve Got the St. James Infirmary Blues

Near the end of Part II of Camus’ The Plague, Dr. Rieux and Rambert enter into a telling dialogue. Rambert accuses Rieux of not understanding the Plague yet. When Rieux questions this indictment, Rambert replies, “…you haven’t understood that it means exactly that – the same thing over and over and over again.” Rieux then gives Rambert a visual/auditoria lesson. He goes to a record player and starts playing “St. James’ Infirmary.” After it has finished playing, Rambert comments that it was quite a boring record to which Rieux replies that this is the tenth time he’s listened to it that day!

I became intrigued by the title of the song Camus chose to include in this scene from the novel: “St. James Infirmary.” I Googled it and found a rendition by jazz legend Cab Calloway set to a Snow White cartoon featuring Betty Boop and Koko the Clown. As I watched and listened to it (only three times mind you, not ten….it’s midterm week!!!), I could see Camus’ influence of “The Plague” in the cartoon. The clown Koko is a melancholy sort lamenting the grim fate of his lover. Scenes of death, skulls and ghosts are strewn throughout the video as Koko opines.

Examining the lyrics below, you can see why this song was chosen by Camus. I assume the record Rieux played for Rambert was an instrumental version of the song, because its lyrics speaks directly to the plight Rambert is facing — being separated from his wife who is in Paris — to which he draws no attention.

The tone of the music reminds me of a New Orleans funeral dirge (quite appropriate for the of Lent!). I noticed the defiance to death in the lyrics of the song (also typical of a New Orleanian funeral) . From “crap shooting pall bearers” to the “Hallelujah” chorus to be sung at the funeral of the narrator, the song both accepts and attempts to transcend death. No wonder it is Rieux’s favorite!

This week is a Plague week for me. Paper after paper after paper, followed by a killer test in Reformation. I want to put on my “straight-leg britches” so everyone can know I too “died standing pat!” I take solace in the story from “The Plague” that someone recovered from epidemic! Maybe there is a slim “crap shoot” that life will go on for me…so with that in mind and the “St. James Infirmary” in my head, I re-engage the scholastic cycle in Camusian fashion and continue to make my go at it!

“St. James Infirmary “ Lyrics:

Folks, I’m goin’ down to St. James Infirmary,
See my baby there;
She’s stretched out on a long, white table,
She’s so sweet, so cold, so fair.

Let her go, let her go, God bless her,
Wherever she may be,
She will search this wide world over,
But she’ll never find another sweet man like me.

Now, when I die, bury me in my straight-leg britches,
Put on a box-back coat and a stetson hat,
Put a twenty-dollar gold piece on my watch chain,
So you can let all the boys know I died standing pat.

An’ give me six crap shooting pall bearers,
Let a chorus girl sing me a song.
Put a red hot jazz band at the top of my head
So we can raise Hallelujah as we go along.

Folks, now that you have heard my story,
Say, boy, hand me another shot of that booze;
If anyone should ask you,
Tell ‘em I’ve got those St. James Infirmary blues.

Parable of a Lost Post

Like the woman cleaning her house looking for her lost coin in Luke 15, I was cleaning some on my PC and found a Journalspace backup dated 9-17-07. Yahoo! I was diligent at least one day. Maybe I should take this as a sign and back up my PC today….