Not easy being Pope

I have hesitated to write about the recent lecture that the Pope delivered at the University of Regensburg, afraid to add to the fulminating morphic field, desiring instead to wait and watch as the thing unfolded. And thankfully there seems to be some amelioration as the Pope has steadily moved toward, not a direct apology, which would of course be disingenuous, but at least an expression of regret that what he said caused hurt among Muslim people.

As for the small number of Muslims who reacted violently, unfortunately they only reinforced the Popes conclusions.

When I read the Popes lecture I was puzzled why he didn’t take the route of self-critique and self-deprecation. It may have relegated his speech to media’s back pages, but would have, could have, given him greater credibility not only among disenfranchised Catholics, but perhaps Muslims as well.

The lecture centres upon the relationship of violence and religion as related to Reason. It tries to show that violence is incompatible with the nature of God because God is obviously reasonable and violence is something irrational. Therefore to attempt to spread faith through violence is unreasonable. It’s precisely here, in my view, that the Pope could have drawn reflectively on Christian history, the crusades being the obvious example of an "irrational" attempt at spreading faith through violence.

Instead he placed the following into his lecture:

Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels", he [Emperor Manuel II Paleologus] addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached". The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable…

Granted the Pope was also attempting to show a distinction between the Muslim view of God as wholly transcendent and the Christian view of God as transcendent and immanent. But the Pope is an intelligent man and could have approached the divergence in a much more inviting way. St. Paul’s adjuring us to be "all things to all people" may have been the right and good thing here.

My thought is that it would have been much more instructive for all, to explore why Reason failed the medieval Christians miserably, and why it so often continues to fail us modern Christians as well.

Could it be that Reason is not enough, not nearly enough, for the creation of peace?

I suspect Benedict XVI has now had time to consider and reconsider these things at length. And I pray for him. It’s not easy being Pope.

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Doubt

I’ve made this discovery about doubt. Doubt allows me to breath. It allows my faith to breath.

What is it like to be absolutely certain? It’s alien. Doubt gives my faith space to breath. All of my ideas of God, ideas I share with others, are nevertheless provisional. And things change. Doubt therefore makes room for God.

A mind made up about God is a false mind bearing a false God.

I think that most of the time I’m too afraid to doubt. I’ve been trained to control things and doubt has the stain of chaos or "god I don’t know if I’m right about this".

The Saints were never afraid to doubt. Thomas, standing in front of his friends, says prove it to me. The man with the sick daughter says, "I believe, help my unbelief." Most of my life is lived in the aridity of …"I believe, help my unbelief."

I distrust people who are absolutely certain about God, but I also distrust people who haven’t tried to be or have quite trying to be certain.

There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds. – Alfred Tennyson( 1809-1892) English Poet

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Creatures of the Good God Leap

Today, upon seeing a lady bug inch its way up a wooden railing I recalled this journal entry from exactly three years ago.

You wouldn’t think that Willie Nelson could cheer up a soul. But I feel like traveling on, on that is, that train they call the City of New Orleans. I feel like traveling a long way away. I want to feel the rhythm of steel wheels on steel track clacking beneath me. I want to feel it for miles of hours, and hours of miles. I want to travel anywhere, it doesn’t matter. Anywhere takes me away. Feeling this tells me I’m still alive.

And of course James Taylor’s music takes me, transports me, away. It opens up the possibility of leaping into the still blue breeze, climbing as high as two translucent wings can take me and drifting, catching up and down drafts without worrying the destination.

lady_bug_032705_04This is what the lady bug did. I watched from my lawn chair beside the barbecue. The spotted beetle landed for just a moment and before it had reasoned or made up its mind it flew straight up. Catching the wind about a story off the ground it sailed more than flew, weaving and swerving into a cloud covered sky, to a destination yet unknown. Considering its size, the distance it traveled was great. It was a leap I admired.

The French call the lady beetles les betes du bon Dieu or creatures of the good God and les vaches de la Vierge or cows of the Virgin. The Germans call them Marienkafer or Mary’s beetles. Lady beetles are primarily predators of aphids and other soft body insects. This makes them a friend of most gardeners. But when their life supplies thin out they don’t hesitate to fly and try another destination. And most any direction will do. Who knows if there are aphids here or there? The thing to do is to leap and to find out, not to stay and subsist on meager pickings, and die slowly.

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Scapegoating Permutations

Connie said,

So we tend not to be aware of being guilty of scapegoating (though I think we’re all quite well aware of being scapegoated)…how do we become more aware of being guilty? Or maybe I’ll answer my own question by way of another one – are we tempted to scapegoat when we’ve been on the receiving end of it? Like when we’ve been hurt by a friend, rejected or slandered in some way…is that just our reflex, to return the favour?

Reflex is an accurate description of our reciprocal-aggression habit. We payback without thinking. But of course the permutations of our "payback" are countless. A friend may have hurt us but because we desire the friendship, for what ever reason, we "scapegoat" in any number of unpredictable directions.scapegoat

To live a limpid life, free from tit-for-tat hostility is what we are meant for. But oh so hard. We need models.

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