Archive for May, 2007
May 31st, 2007
Reading an excerpt of Christopher Hitchens new book, "God is Not Great," I found myself agreeing more often than I would have thought. And principally, I agree that religion poisons everything, as Hitchens exclaims, but I agree for far different reasons.
Christopher Hitchens
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For Hitchens religion is a slurry of superstition, ceremony, sacrifice, solipsism, and servility, and so is a blight and retardant on civilization. Above all, because of this, religion is an agent of abuse and violence.
For Rene Girard–whose ardent fan I am–religion can and has involved all of these factors, but more, it poisons and conceals its poison. Religion is both a cause of violence and a remedy for violence. It uses violence to cast out violence.
Because we catch our desires from each other, we are bound to desire the same objects, bringing us into conflict over those objects. When the contagion of conflict reaches a certain point, well, all hell breaks loose.
Religion began, perhaps even sprang into being, because of its dramatic way of curtailing this violence of the all against the all. If it wasn’t for religion, hominization, let alone civilization, wouldn’t have gotten off the ground.
Rene Girard
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The violence of the all against the one "saved" the many from annihilating violence. So dramatic was the resultant peace brought on by the all against the one that awe and worship burst forth spontaneously. After that, forms of commemoration, ritual, imitative sacrifice, became a "natural" way of reenacting the event until such a time as these elements wore thin and a new round of sacrificial violence was necessary.
But that’s the problem. Scapegoating violence, which is what this is, wears thin. More than this, it has been forever exposed by a living and crucified Christ, and no longer functions. Sacrificial violence is dieing a deserved death but we still haven’t learned to live without it. We haven’t grown the mercy and love and art or language required for its displacement.
I agree with Hitchens that religion is dangerous. But not for the reasons he cites. Religion is dangerous because it has lost its power, again, a good thing. But with nothing to replace it, the violence born of envy and mimetic rivalry will escalate. Only grace, mercy, and love will do. And this comes by receiving our desire though one who is love and without violence.
Technorati Tags: Christopher Hitchens, "God Is Not Great", Religion, Violence, Rene Girard, Scapegoating, Mimetic desire
May 29th, 2007
I’m indebted to Wendy Morton for reminding me of this poem in Shakespeare’s, The Merchant of Venice.
As it stands–as reprinted a couple days ago in the Writer’s Almanac–it’s a fitting entry for Grow Mercy.
However, in the Merchant, Portia, whose words these are, is attempting to persuade the unscrupulous and vengeful Shylock to have mercy on the "noble" Christian Antonio, not recognizing the fundamental similarities between Shylock and Antonio.
Nevertheless, even in Portia’s ironic near-sightedness she speaks truth about the gentle excellence of mercy. And her poetic depiction about mercy is in need of rehearsing and growing.
The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless’d;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
’Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself,
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.
Technorati Tags: William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Peace, Violence
May 28th, 2007
O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. (Psalm 136)
A west wind is pushing a brocade-like eastern sky back upon itself. It’s a contrary wind. It gives the air an edge. Today anything could happen.
Today, according to the ancient lyric poet, we should give thanks to God because God is good. Because this God, implies the poet, is not like all the other gods.
The other gods tell us their goodness is all beyond our comprehension. What seems bad is good if only we could see it. And what is good, they say, just might not turn out to be. Our flannel-graphing Sunday-school teacher, they say, got it right. It’s simple when we remember the rules: Too much questioning leads to weak faith. This Father knows best.
Not true says the poet. Be quizzical. Question God. Study the surface of things, it will reveal many true nuances.
And then give thanks because God’s love, says the poet, is steadfast and enduring. She’s not like all those other capacious gods who use love like a stick. They stroke but could strike at any moment.
And she’s not like those gods who use love as a trick to get us interested but when you need the company, they are always out of town. These gods cast their heavy brocade shadow and then just when you’ve got them by the hem they find a phone booth and do a quick-change.
I talked to an old friend last week who realized he was still giving thanks to an impetuous and secretive god, a god who acts like an angry and petulant parent. He says he knows about the projection…but it’s so hard to escape that deep and layered god.
In that induced state he absolves god and thinks that any descent thing that happens to him is not merited and any bad thing is almost welcome because it comes as deserved punishment and relieves the guilt felt over the good thing.
The sky is turbid. We wait for it to settle out.
No need to pray or try to do anything spiritual. Just wait for as long as it takes. In time that old west wind will shift the sky good and then we’ll be able to see which god to thank. And then old things could happen in shiny new ways.
Technorati Tags: God, Guilt, Religion
May 25th, 2007
It feels late. Sleep will come.
Yesterday, I was awakened at four AM by a vapour-being, a ghoulish sort of fellow bent on convincing me I was irrelevant.
I laid awake until the sun came up over my city. Then sat at the kitchen window watching.
It was silent. As silent as cities can be. Even the seventh street sirens were quiet for a couple hours.
I sat at the open window thinking about the way street dust smells when flicked by a light rain.
Later that morning I walked by one of our shelters, and–besides wondering how I managed to manage this shelter for seven years–wondered how it was that the faces were all different and the same.
And there are more faces now. And they are spilling out onto the sidewalk.
Today I told the oneiric story–the one that woke me up–to my "therapist" and she gave me her talk on connections–links in a chain–the necessity each of us has, as link, to carry what was good about the past, add to it and place it into a future of possibilities. In other words the necessity for people.
The talk was good, she tells it better than me. But the foot massage was better.
I’m convinced that if everyone got a foot massage like that there would be no crime, no shortage of help for all the faces. Our faces.
And I’m again pointed to the circle of understanding that I can only know mercy as I share mercy and only share mercy when I’ve been shown mercy myself.
Technorati Tags: Homelessness, Hope Mission, Beauty, Peace
May 23rd, 2007
If only Pentecost hadn’t been so fleeting, and so quickly misunderstood and misused….can you imagine? Is it too late to re-understand it, and get it right, re-understand all of what happened in that part of the world back then, and experience it as a positive rather than negative force in the world? (A comment on yesterday’s post)
Never too late…we have recent examples and living examples of Pentecost-people. Every generation is responsible to remember, relearn and rehearse the spirit of Pentecost.
Even Peter had to relearn the meaning of his own blazing experience. He was given a dream.The contents of heaven were lowered to earth in a sheet and inside he saw all the different species of animals mingled together-in his world the unclean with the clean. It was a reoccurring dream that finally ended with Peter’s face to face receiving of someone culturally, historically, and religiously outside of his circle.
Of this Peter explains, "You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean."
This was Peter’s time to stand beside his new friend, elated, barely comprehending the revolutionary beauty and possibility of his inclusive act.
Pentecost envisions universal restoration. Pentecost is the dream of togetherness, the dream of the sacredness of all things.
But your right, it is still largely a dream in-waiting. We’ve read the stories but we really haven’t been possessed by them. We still prefer the neat divisions of us and them because it’s easier to be over and above than to love. Easier to manufacture division than to merge with differences and work creatively within them.
It is achingly hard to find our meaning beyond divisions because from childhood we have been candle-dipped in ways of pegging others and identifying with any inside group. Some of us even call this a gift of discernment. Thinking it a skill valuable for staying on the righteous side of some line.
The manufacturing of division pretends to give us meaning. But the story of Pentecost gives us our meaning in love, in inclusion, in beauty, in seeing the earth, our world, as sacred, as one.
Technorati Tags: Pentecost, Apostle Peter, Christianity, Peace
May 22nd, 2007
I like to keep track of the liturgical calendar and so I’m thinking Pentecostal this week. This Sunday is Pentecost. It marks the end of the Easter season and the beginning of what’s curiously called "ordinary time." The time, I suppose, when nothing extraordinary happens.
But in thinking about Pentecost the first thing that came was a particular stripe of Christianity and a particular way of being a Christian. And I’m reminded of larger and deeper divisions. The many divisions within protestant Christianity, the greater division of Catholic and Protestant, the division of world faith traditions, and finally the divisions of holy and profane.
Brueghel’s Babel
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And all this reminded me of a knack I had for sorting out the “true Christians†from the non-Christians, or the "carnal-Christians," or the straight up pagans, or for that matter, anyone other than Baptist.
It’s a knack I learned early through a kind of osmosis while growing up in a small town with a big church. But I was willing enough. The knack we sometimes had the gall to call, the gift of discernement.
My discernment, through opening up to other osmotic sources, has undergone some adjustment. (I’m hoping perhaps even a reverse osmosis from my early one.)
I know now for instance, that Pentecost is not a denomination. Pentecost is the story of the undoing of all the hard divisions along these lines.
While the ancient story of the Tower of Babel describes a world fractured through misunderstanding, and scattered by subsequent tribal wars and blood-feuds, Pentecost, rightly read, is the radical coming together of the broken and the undoing of confusion and misunderstanding.
And in this mutual understanding lies the Pentecostal dream and vision of universal restoration. And this is the direction life in "ordinary time" should take us.
Technorati Tags: Pentecost, Tower of Babel, Christianity, Peace
May 20th, 2007
Yesterday we walked across the High Level bridge. At the south end we saw this bit of graffiti on a warning reflector.
And we did…listen. And just beyond the bridge as we entered the lane bordered by thick spring green caraganas, the traffic quelled and the robins sang.
I listened through the day. Listened to the excited chatter in Starbucks on White. Listened to the quiet shuffle and rustle of feet and pages in the used book store across the street.
And on the way home I listened to the creaks and groans of Edmonton’s old trolley car. I listened to clack of iron wheels on the steel rail joints.
And I listened to the little girl dressed in a Captain Hook costume, unable to contain information as to why. She was off to a birthday party with costumes.
I listened to the streetcar’s stooped ticket master who was full of history and loved the old trolley–this being the opening weekend for another season of crossings–who was telling us all about the car and the bridge as we crossed back over. But who stoped and took time to listen to the little girl’s story, twice.
And this morning as I walk for coffee, the grey of yesterday’s day-long cloud cover lifted and I’m rewarded by more graffiti. The graffiti of reflected light.
Light poetry.
Technorati Tags: Listening, Beauty, Graffiti, Light, Poetry, Edmonton Trolley
May 18th, 2007
In a somewhat biting but entertaining bit of writing, "New Atheists" just asking for proof, God," Dan Gardner takes the authority of Dawkins and challenges all comers. And outside of some misguided understanding about scriptural interpretation he makes some fine points concluding with this:
But just what is the core of Dawkins’ radical message? Well, it goes something like this: If you claim that something is true, I will examine the evidence which supports your claim; if you have no evidence, I will not accept that what you say is true and I will think you a foolish and gullible person for believing it so.
As the ensuing letters to the editor attested, Gardner’s article managed to twist the noses of a few Christians.
But, now, the first thing a theist might ask regarding "New Atheists" just asking for proof," is why does the burden of proof fall entirely on the side of God’s existence. Isn’t it reasonable to ask for a shared burden? In the realm of origins, is it really out-of-bounds to ask an atheist to consider proving the non-existence of God?
This brings up what I see as a critical issue. In my view, (certainly not mine alone) asking for proof of God from within the realm of science, as atheists would have theists do, amounts to something like asking for proof of the Big Bang. (Most, if not all atheists hypothesize a Big Bang.) Neither God nor the Big Bang can be observed, measured, repeated, or shown to be false, therefore they are outside the realm of science.
For Dawkins however, there is nothing outside the physical, so he’s not being dishonest or objectionable when he asserts, “the presence or absence of a creative super-intelligence is unequivocally a scientific question.†But how does that work? I could as easily assert that it is unequivocally a metaphysical question. Because, what possible observable, measurable, repeatable evidence could verify or falsify the God hypothesis? The question of why there is something and not nothing is simply not answerable by science.
And that’s the rub. Science and faith are two different species (not my analogy). Of course when two different species mate they produce a hybrid which is almost always infertile. The attempted mating of religion and science has produced many mules. But once in awhile, just as in evolution, the offspring is fertile. I think Kenneth R. Miller, a leading micro-biologist and an admirer of Dawkins, is providing some fertile ground.
Miller was a critical witness in the victory of evolution over Intelligent Design in the Dover school trial. He is categorically an evolutionist. For Miller Intelligent Design is dressed up Creationism. For Miller evolution is not only theory, it is also science, tried, tested, with a host of verifiable scientific conclusions.
Now, what you can do from evolution is draw anti-theistic conclusions. That’s legitimate. And that’s what Dawkins does. And Dawkins is no fool. But it’s also legitimate to draw theistic conclusions from evolution. That is, that something beyond the physical is being pointed to. This is what Miller does. Miller is no fool either. His evolutionary biology squares with Dawkins’. But he is also a devout Catholic Christian.
I believe Miller would say that there is something called mystery. And not mystery in the sense that we just haven’t figured it out yet, but mystery as inhered presence.
So until mystery is banished I am not foolish for drawing a something-beyond-the-physical conclusion. And obviously I’m not alone. If the mystery i.e. religious impulse is an evolutionary modul of our make up, then so is the scientific impulse. They can and should live in harmony.
In the mean time, the mystery that I believe I have existentially experienced, hand in hand with the rationality bequeathed by my scientific culture, seems to be pointing me toward mercy and love and peace in the acceptance of the commonality of all things.
Technorati Tags: Richard Dawkins, Kenneth Miller, Science, Metaphysics, Mystery, Christianity, Religion, Spirituality
May 15th, 2007
Stalin was an atheist. Atheism is rooted in scientific naturalism, therefore, science enforces mono-thought, discourages philanthropy, and espouses genocide.
Okay, my statement is hugely disingenuous. Far more than Richard Dawkins’ statement: "Religious faith discourages independent thought, it is divisive, and it is dangerous."
Far more disingenuous–but not beyond correspondence. That’s simply because of all the exceptions. Ghandi, King, Mother Theresa, et al, were all people of faith. But in bondage, divisive, dangerous? only where the non-violent struggle for peace and freedom is dangerous and divisive.
However, where Richard Dawkins will get my ear is at the same place where Mahatma Ghandi has my ear. When Ghandi said, "If it weren’t for Christians, I’d be a Christian," he was offering a valid criticism drawn from valid historical reasons. And if you’ve read growmercy for awhile you’ll know how much I agree that there are fundamentalist strains of religion that are exactly as Dawkins says. And it’s these strains that need ameliorating.
But Dawkins seems to want the totalizing effect. The riddance of all religion, from which will spring a free and peaceful world.
For me the issue is not God’s existence, but a particular interpretation of God. The God that Dawkins describes and thinks most people of faith believe in, that is, the retributive, vengeful and violent God, must be extinguished by a profound atheism.
As you may already know, today marks the death of Jerry Falwell. May he rest peacefully.
Falwell’s God, while loving, was also the wrathful God of the Old Testement. This God of polarity, is in effect the same as the God of Dawkins, and must as well be met with a profound atheism.
Technorati Tags: Richard Dawkins, Stalin, Christianity, Religion, Jerry Falwell
May 14th, 2007
A line in yesterdays post was inspired by a picture of poet Wendy Morton.
I wrote her and asked about the picture and she sent me this poem as an explanation.
A beautiful and sensuous portrait of Spring and place. Thank you Wendy.
AT MOONKEY GROCERIES, VICTORIA
In Chinatown, cherry blossoms line
Fan Tan Alley,
fall into the boxes of fragrant pears,
baby bok choi;
decorate the mangos and starfruit.
Water chestnuts and watercress
are in their element.
Here, in the rain,
spring falls pink.
Opulent.
(For more of Wendy’s poetry see her link on my sidebar–Links & Blogs. Her books are available directly from her or through AbeBooks.com.)
Technorati Tags: Wendy Morton, Beauty
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