fishtree's Xanga

Life's A Witch And Then You Fly

Sun, 03 Sep 2006 17:14:30 GMT

I like proverbs, at least good ones. Some time ago I came across a site called contemplate ability proverbs that features proverbs from around the world: 2,866 proverbs, to be exact. I certainly did not go through all of them, but of those I did, I copied three, rediscovering them only today. To me, a proverb can be a powerful and pithy embodiment of a moral message whose ultimate roots go back to those two cardinal virtues of loving God and one's neighbor as oneself.

We must blame the thief first before we say that where the owner put her property [was] improper.

(Yoruban) #2141 of 2866. type: responsibility

Treat the lesser as you would have the greater treat you.

(Venezuelan) #2133 of 2866. type: respect

In trying to straighten the horns you kill the ox.

(Japanese) #2088 of 2866. type: realism

Do you have any good proverbs to share?

Rusted, Moth-Eaten Hearts

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 07:20:53 GMT

I have very much been enjoying the first volume of George MacDonald's "Unspoken Sermons" series originally published in 1867. Many will recognize MacDonald's name as either belonging to the man who greatly inspired C.S. Lewis or else to the author of some truly exquisite fairy tales and adult fantasies (or both). His theological prose, however, is even better, for it has lost none of his poetic touch and yet presents his ideas lucidly and largely unadorned. These sermons contain quite a range of subject matter, some lengthy and brimming with "unspoken" wisdom, some by the author's admission taking the artistic liberties of an imagination anointed, and all extremely good—some exceptionally so. Among the shortest of the sermons is this one which is the sixth in the first volume; MacDonald entitles it "The Heart with the Treasure." (Incidentally, the "Unspoken Sermons" series is available online here; for purchase in book form here.)

The Heart with the Treasure

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. —Matt. vi. 19, 20, 21.

To understand the words of our Lord is the business of life. For it is the main road to the understanding of The Word himself. And to receive him is to receive the Father, and so to have Life in ourselves. And Life, the higher, the deeper, the simpler, the original, is the business of life.

The Word is that by which we live, namely, Jesus himself; and his words represent, in part, in shadow, in suggestion, himself. Any utterance worthy of being called a truth, is human food: how much more The Word, presenting no abstract laws of our being, but the vital relation of soul and body, heart and will, strength and rejoicing, beauty and light, to Him who first gave birth to them all! The Son came forth to be, before our eyes and in our hearts, that which he had made us for, that we might behold the truth in him, and cry out for the living God, who, in the highest sense of all is The Truth, not as understood, but as understanding, living, and being, doing and creating the truth. “I am the truth,” said our Lord; and by those who are in some measure like him in being the truth, the Word can be understood. Let us try to understand him.

Sometimes, no doubt, the Saviour would have spoken after a different fashion of speech, if he had come to Englishmen, instead of to Jews. But the lessons he gave would have been the same; for even when questioned about a matter for its passing import, his reply contained the enunciation of the great human principle which lay in it, and that lies changeless in every variation of changeful circumstance. With the light of added ages of Christian experience, it ought to be easier for us to understand his words than it was for those who heard him. What, I ask now, is here the power of his word For: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also? The meaning of the reason thus added is not obvious upon its surface. It has to be sought for because of its depth at once and its simplicity. But it is so complete, so imaginatively comprehensive, so immediately operative on the conscience through its poetic suggestiveness, that when it is once understood, there is nothing more to be said, but everything to be done.

“Why not lay up for ourselves treasures upon earth?”

“Because there the moth and rust and the thief come.”

“And so we should lose those treasures!”

“Yes; by the moth and the rust and the thief.”

“Does the Lord then mean that the reason for not laying up such treasures is their transitory and corruptible nature?”

“No. He adds a For: ‘For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.’”

“Of course the heart will be where the treasure is; but what has that to do with the argument?”

This: that what is with the treasure must fare as the treasure; that the heart which haunts the treasure-house where the moth and rust corrupt, will be exposed to the same ravages as the treasure, will itself be rusted and moth-eaten. Many a man, many a woman, fair and flourishing to see, is going about with a rusty moth-eaten heart within that form of strength or beauty.

“But this is only a figure.”

True. But is the reality intended, less or more than the figure? Does not the rust and the moth mean more than disease? And does not the heart mean more than the heart? Does it not mean a deeper heart, the heart of your own self, not of your body? of the self that suffers, not pain, but misery? of the self whose end is not comfort, or enjoyment, but blessedness, yea, ecstasy? a heart which is the inmost chamber wherein springs the divine fountain of your being? a heart which God regards, though you may never have known its existence, not even when its writhings under the gnawing of the moth and the slow fire of the rust have communicated a dull pain to that outer heart which sends the blood to its appointed course through your body? If God sees that heart corroded with the rust of cares, riddled into caverns and films by the worms of ambition and greed, then your heart is as God sees it, for God sees things as they are. And one day you will be compelled to see, nay, to feel your heart as God sees it; and to know that the cankered thing which you have within you, a prey to the vilest of diseases, is indeed the centre of your being, your very heart.

Nor does the lesson apply to those only who worship Mammon, who give their lives, their best energies to the accumulation of wealth: it applies to those equally who in any way worship the transitory; who seek the praise of men more than the praise of God; who would make a show in the world by wealth, by taste, by intellect, by power, by art, by genius of any kind, and so would gather golden opinions to be treasured in a storehouse of earth.

Nor to such only, but surely to those as well whose pleasures are of a more evidently transitory nature still, such as the pleasures of the senses in every direction—whether lawfully or unlawfully indulged, if the joy of being is centred in them—do these words bear terrible warning. For the hurt lies not in this—that these pleasures are false like the deceptions of magic, for such they are not: pleasures they are; nor yet in this—that they pass away, and leave a fierce disappointment behind: that is only so much the better; but the hurt lies in this—that the immortal, the infinite, created in the image of the everlasting God, is housed with the fading and the corrupting, and clings to them as its good—clings to them till it is infected and interpenetrated with their proper diseases, which assume in it a form more terrible in proportion to the superiority of its kind, that which is mere decay in the one becoming moral vileness in the other, that which fits the one for the dunghill casting the other into the outer darkness; creeps, that it may share with them, into a burrow in the earth, where its budded wings wither and damp and drop away from its shoulders, instead of haunting the open plains and the high-uplifted table-lands, spreading abroad its young pinions to the sun and the air, and strengthening them in further and further flights, till at last they should become strong to bear the God-born into the presence of its Father in Heaven. Therein lies the hurt.

He whose heart is sound because it haunts the treasure-house of heaven may be tempted of the devil, but will be first led up of the Spirit into the wilderness.

Confession and Absolution

Fri, 07 Jul 2006 15:52:46 GMT

Breath_of_Dawn asked me a good question today and I decided to post my reply here as well. "Do Episcopalians do confession?"

Not in quite the same way that Catholics do in which you visit the priest individually, though I am sure that some probably do see the priest for that specific reason. However, built into the order of the service and available except during the Easter season, as I recall [because it is an explicit celebration of triumph], is "Confession and Absolution" which can have the same effect, depending on if your heart is in the words or not:

The Deacon or Celebrant says:
Let us confess our sins against God and our neighbor.
Silence may be kept.

Minister and People:

Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we may delight in your will,
and walk in your ways,
to the glory of your Name. Amen.

The Bishop when present, or the Priest, stands and says:

Almighty God have mercy on you, forgive you all your sins
through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen you in all
goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep you in
eternal life. Amen.

An Unlikely Monarch

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 23:58:48 GMT

Excerpted from Time magazine, May 8, 2006, pages 64–65.

Jigme Singye Wangchuck: The Surprising King of Bhutan
By Pico Iyer

King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, great-grandson of Bhutan’s first hereditary monarch and once the world’s youngest King (when he came to power in 1972), rules his people more in the spirit of Buddha than of more worldly princes. To this day there is not a traffic light in the Himalayan kingdom, by law everyone must wear traditional 14th century clothing and the number of tourists allowed into the country over the past 10 years is lower than the number of fans who pile into a college football game. Television and the Internet have, it is true, arrived with the 21st century, and a few superluxe hotels are now coming up around Bhutan, but what hits you when you touch down in its only airport is the silence.

Almost 30 years ago, long before “positive psychology” became a boom in the West, King Jigme, now 50, suggested that nations be measured by “gross national happiness”; the rich are not always happy, after all, while the happy generally consider themselves rich. Four months ago, he launched an even more radical idea: self-deposition. To urge his people toward independence, he announced that he would step down two years from now (his son would officially take over) and that his country would hold its first national democratic elections.

King Jigme—who gave up absolute power in 1998 and last year sent every household in the land a new draft constitution that allowed for his impeachment—is setting a quietly revolutionary precedent. If most politicians are inherently suspect because they seem so eager to grab power and so reluctant to surrender it, what does one make of a leader who voluntarily gives up his position, as if placing his people’s needs before his own?

Iyer writes often on Asia

God in Human Guise

Sat, 13 May 2006 06:01:23 GMT

"Tell me your Christology, and I will tell you who you are."

—Theologian Karl Barth, October 24th, 2005 as quoted at http://www.dickstaub.com.

Stevie Smith: Our Bog is Dood

Fri, 05 May 2006 11:02:06 GMT

In our survey of British literature this semester, we have again come across Stevie Smith, probably best known for her poem Not Waving but Drowning. However, the following poem seemed really quite thought-provoking as well, for while it features children arguing over the "doodness" of their "Bog," it seems to me it has applications to their adult counterparts who also often argue about the goodness of their God--and quite a few other things about Him and what He expects as well.

Our Bog is dood, our Bog is dood,
They lisped in accents mild,
But when I asked them to explain
They grew a little wild.
How do you know your Bog is dood
My darling little child?

We know because we wish it so
That is enough, they cried,
And straight within each infant eye
Stood up the flame of pride,
And if you do not think it so
You shall be crucified.

Then tell me, darling little ones,
What's dood, suppose Bog is?
Just what we think, the answer came,
Just what we think it is.
They bowed their heads. Our Bog is ours
And we are wholly his.

But when they raised them up again
They had forgotten me
Each one upon each other glared
In pride and misery
For what was dood, and what their Bog
They never could agree.

Oh sweet it was to leave them then,
And sweeter not to see,
And sweetest of all to walk alone
Beside the encroaching sea,
The sea that soon should drown them all,
That never yet drowned me.

1950

Easter: Resurrection, not Crucifixion

Sun, 16 Apr 2006 18:21:03 GMT

I originally posted the following as a comment on Gerrie's blog, but it struck me as something that might merit its own post.

Hello Gerrie. I see that I missed the opportunity to post on your previous post; you've gone off and gotten inspired on me before I could come back and write. First, I want to thank you for linking to my blog: that was much appreciated. I also have done some more thinking on what Rev. Coffin was saying and I think what he is getting at is not really about which parts of the Christian message we should accept and which we should reject (law, grace, salvation: all those things about which you recently blogged) as though we can pick and choose. Rather, I think he was suggesting that authentic Christianity is about all about life! When I speak of Christianity making us more humane--more human--and not less, I am referring to this very thing. There is death in Christianity, of course: death to self, death to the "old man," death to selfishness and carnality: in a word death to death. That death is the pruning and cutting away of that which hinders life so that true life may blossom and flower uninhibited in its stead.

As most of us know, the Apostle Paul has written in his famous "love chapter" that we may possess many wonderful things in abundance, including prophesy or truth. However, we all know how he ends that chapter: by suggesting that if we do not have love, we are nothing but a clanging gong or a resounding cymbal. Stop and think for a moment about that metaphor: it makes a huge amount of noise but it ultimately hurts the ears and has almost nothing of beauty to it at all. If it was sounded in unison in the symphony--if it had love--it would have its place in God's orchestra, but as it is, it creates an awful racket and causes people to want to cover their ears--it is repulsive and repugnant.

There are Christians that we feel make far too much of love to the point that they compromise truth. We will have to admit that this observation is a true one and that it is singularly unfortunate. Yet there are also many Christians who are so focused on truth that they compromise love. When it comes to doctrinal points that they consider important, I have seen many otherwise nice, normal, everyday Christians suddenly turn into monsters, ripping and tearing at one another, acting more like children of Satan than sons and daughters of God. When we see such displays, we must ask ourselves: is this a doctrine that brings life or death? And if it brings death, is it so that life may follow? or does it just bring death and nothing else, killing all joy of spirit, all human warmth and affection, and offering nothing in return save the anger and hostility it arouses, kindled into a deadly flame?

Father Chumbly, the rector at the Episcopal Church I attend, had written a letter to the newspaper some time ago in which he expressed reservation about taking a stand for the teaching of intelligent design in schools. Ever since I have known him, he has been the very picture of Christ-likeness--a true inspiration--modeling what it means to see Christ in everyone we meet and emphasizing on a personal level the daily communion with God in the "prayer closet" of life that makes one so winsome to others, glowing, as such a person does, with a strange inner beauty. He himself seems to embody that beauty, a certain understated, quiet, other-worldly mystique often visited upon him to which I believe he is for the most part completely oblivious. He is quite an ordinary man in many ways: nothing particularly remarkable or striking about him overall as a human being and that is precisely what makes him so extraordinary, because the love of God fairly well shines out from him.

Now then, I said that he had written a letter to the local newspaper some time ago in which he sided (based on the heated comments he received) on the wrong side of the intelligent design debate. His letter somehow got posted on a discussion forum based in California in which he was absolutely torn to shreds by men and women claiming the name of Christ. These persons were not content to confine their comments to their disagreement with him over this particular issue, which was well within their right to do. Instead, they began forming accusations, calling him all kinds of awful names (without actually swearing, of course), ridiculing him, calling him ignorant and "liberal" (in that setting, a very negative word indeed) and half a dozen other slanderous things. In sum, what they were engaged in was wholesale character assassination of a man they did not know and had never met. They did not agree with his personal beliefs and nothing says that they should have either--whether he was right or wrong on this issue, rectors certainly have been known to be wrong on other issues for they are mortals like any other. But so intent were these believers on what they believed doctrinal purity, they were willing to crucify Father Chumbley with their Christian nails. I am sad to say that I have seen that kind of representation here on Xanga as well. And it is this kind of "law-and-order Christian" that I believe Rev. Coffin is speaking out against. He is not, I do not believe, speaking about picking and choosing different sides of the Christian message, but rather about the difference between embodying that message or no, about the truth that Christianity is all about spreading life to others: spreading hope, offering a respite for the weary, a cup of cold water to those whose lips are parched, and a proclamation of the good news that Christ came to set the captives free.

If Christ is our Lord, our message will be one of life and not death, at least not ultimately. We may issue correctives as we feel so led; we may point out the errors of another's teachings and ideas. But let us consider how we do it, mindful that we are ambassadors of Christ. As Rev. Coffin points out, let us not fight the unrighteousness of the world with wounded and indignant self-righteousness, trying to make ourselves feel better by giving another "a piece of our mind." Let us rather fight unrighteousness with truth spoken in love, not to make ourselves feel better but for the genuine betterment of the other, giving him or her "a piece of our heart." That will cost us a lot more and may even hurt quite a good bit, but we will thereby show that we are true sons and daughters of the King.

Christ died to set us free; He did not die so that we might go and crucify one another as He has been crucified, our words of slander nails, our poisonous accusations hammering the points home. We all learned as children that it is not only what we say but how we say it that is important. We may speak the absolute truth plated over in pure gold, but if we have not love, we are clanging cymbals--irritating, at best; at worst? murderous: takers of life, not givers.

An Interview with Rev. William Sloane Coffin

Sat, 15 Apr 2006 00:31:17 GMT

Rev. William Sloane Coffin, who served for eighteen years as chaplain at Yale university, died this Wednesday at the age of 81. While at Yale, he became known for his anti-war activism, a minister standing for a social cause much like Martin Luther King Jr. for civil rights. Today (Friday, April 14), NPR's Fresh Air featured Terry Gross' 1985 interview with Coffin. Responding to a broad range of questions, of particular interest to me were his views of what authentic Christianity looks like. He conceptualizes religion in general (and in particular Christianity, of course) as consisting of two often opposing camps: on the one hand, we have "law-and-order Christians" who seek stability and definitive answers and are most awed by God's power, on the other we have those believers who find in God the strength to face a world that remains uncertain, captivated most by the love of God. Coffin resoundingly locates himself in the second camp, believing that the integrity of love is of much greater importance than the purity of dogma. If you have about twenty minutes to listen to a streaming audio broadcast, simply go to The Words of Rev. William Sloane Coffin and click on the "Listen" button above the photograph. If you find time to give Coffin a listen, I would be interested in hearing your reaction to his comments.

As to how I caught this broadcast: Needing to pick up a package at the post office today, I happened to have the radio on and tuned to NPR, leaving just as Fresh Air was coming on, pulling into the lot and parking just as the station break was coming on--I climbed back in the car seconds after the broadcast had resumed and arrived home just as the broadcast was ending. None of that was planned.

An Open Letter to an Acquaintance

Sat, 01 Apr 2006 16:50:25 GMT

[F]or the most part we ultimately agree. . . . We both know what is it is to be misunderstood and to talk past one another; we both hold preconceived ideas and have been wounded by others who likewise do not hear what we are saying but only what they are hearing us say: two totally different things at such times. Like some of the more recent newsletters suggest, speculative writing (otherwise known as philosophical prose) can be healthy in terms of forcing us to re-evaluate what we believe to be true of the world. Otherwise, we all tend to congregate teachers around us who say what our ears want to hear, even when we believe that what we are hearing is true. But if we do not ever get a second viewpoint, how can we be certain our own meets all the objections? It can be good to get a change of perspective, to read the censored book, to see behind the enemy lines. There are times in which we begin to see that the enemy is not really the enemy at all; at others, we understand more clearly why we fight. And throughout it all, we are challenged to think and to lead authentic and considered lives.

I do not say that truth does not matter--why else would I be considering epistemology as a potential choice of doctorate programs? Yet while sound doctrine is important, it can also be used as a means of oppressing others and exalting ourselves, of adopting a subtle pride and a Pharisaical spirit. If we can label someone else with some kind of smear--he's an abortionist, she's a moral relativist--we can easily excuse ourselves from loving him or her while simultaneously elevating our own sense of moral superiority. I look across the current Christian climate and what I see, particularly in Christian media (radio, television, and print), sometimes distresses me: people persecuting other people because they do not perfectly agree on every doctrinal point; an emphasis on doctrine (sola Scriptura, often) that has not been tempered by love and compassion. My experiences in life, however, convince me that reality is not so much black and white but full living color: that Christianity should make us more humane--human, in other words--and not less.

That does not mean, either, that logic is unimportant: I believe firmly in logic and rely on it in a myriad of ways. But because I use it so often in both the classroom and in life, I understand well that logic has its limitations and there are many questions in life to which it fails to afford much light. We may have guiding principles, but we do not have fail-proof, one-size-fits-all answers. In fact, one-size-fits-all answers are often far from fair by anyone's sense of equity: part of what makes us most human is the ability to be perceptive and receptive to the needs of every individual we meet: needs that are as unique as the individual person. Wisdom is a life skill that will never be learned entirely in a course on logic or even a Bible or catechism class. Such things are gained only by living a life of compassion, being willing to operate from a double-standard: my own high standard I set for myself and my wrong-forgiving, offense-overlooking one for all others.

And wisdom, though built on the back of knowledge, nevertheless goes beyond it: wisdom is subtle and cannot easily be taught but is often only gained by really living and really listening; wisdom is to logic something like grammar is to the child learning letters versus the writing of the mature poet: at first, the child learns all the rules by rote and finds fault with all who differ. As a mature poet, however, he begins to learn that while the rules of grammar brought him to this point and he would not have arrived here otherwise, he must now go beyond these grammatical rules to a point in which he can spin pure literary gold from a bland twenty-six black letters. Before he parsed his words with precision; now he lines them up and marches them about, parading them with an unsurpassed flexibility he never would have dreamed of mastering as a child learning by rule and regulation.

I like logic a lot, but it is likewise limited. It is only a tool. It has applications where it is particularly effective and applications where it is far less so, just as a theory in relativity goes a long way in explaining time and space but does very little to feed the hungry or clothe the naked. Both are wonderful, but if the latter needs are not being met, the former knowledge begins to ring just a little hollow. In sum, logic may not ever be contradicted, but it will often be transcended. I tried to capture something of this idea in The Wind Bloweth Where it Listeth.

Delighting in the Felicity of the Beloved

Tue, 28 Mar 2006 01:35:26 GMT

Some time ago a friend bought me a copy of Thomas Merton's classic No Man is an Island. I have not read much of it yet, though what I have read speaks of the utter purity of selfless love. As the book continues, I might find it a much different read. But in this early chapter, I think to myself that I am light-years removed from such love and truthfully, I feel little inclination to even attempt to aspire to it. What I do feel inclined to inspire toward, however, is to be a bit more kind to another right here and right now, be it ever so little. Selfless love of the sort Merton describes seems to me so far removed from the reality of my life as to be unobtainable even given the course of all eternity. It is God's nature, I suppose, to be so utterly selfless. I thought of that. And it may be such a thing that in His time and good pleasure He will change me into His likeness and make Merton's words seem far more real to me than they seem just now.

In the meantime, however, I had best stick to much more realistic goals, like resolving to be an ever so little bit kinder person toward all creatures, both great and small. Even here I fail, as the last twenty-four hours alone attest. But Merton does hold forth a beautiful picture when, in the Prologue, he describes our lives as not being a matter of individual failures but rather that of one person's strengths carrying the weaknesses of another and each life extending into each life and filling up an entire generation in which we as men and women have been called to shine as suns. Sometimes we need to be reminded that the spiritual life is as much about community as commitment. At the very least, we do well to be reminded that the spiritual life is about the communion of the soul with her Lord.

I do not think I have the selfless love Merton has thus far described, but I know that my Lord does. It seems a bit one-sided, but Merton acknowledges that when "[s]elfish love"--or in any case, my own imperfect self--"consents to being loved selflessly for the sake of the beloved . . . it perfects itself." He is saying, in other words, that for selfless love to be selfless, it has to be received as well as given, or else it remains incomplete. I do not have selfless love and I deceive myself if I even for a moment engage in such pretensions. But it is a delight to me that I can delight in delighting God by my reception of His love, even if far from selflessly even in my gratitude. Yet--and of all the unlikely places--Enlightenment philosopher Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716) writes at the end of The Monadology that "pure love . . . consists in taking pleasure in the felicity of the beloved." Like Merton, he has in mind Divine love, a love that is for him more than a philosophical abstraction.

Now then, if I am to offer a cup of cold water to the thirsty or a slice of bread to the hungry, how can I give drink if I have no water or offer food if I have no bread? If I do not have this selfless love Merton mentions--though I know well enough where it may be found--then how else can I hope to attain it except by drawing near to that source? Filled with ever so small a part of its magnitude, I am inspired in my own clumsy way to be just a bit kinder and more merciful to others, spreading just a little bit more cheer in a world where one so easily loses heart. By contrast, if I spend long periods deriding my inadequacy in the face of such beneficence, I am of little value to myself, others, or my beloved, even if my love for Him has much more to do with His love for me than the other way 'round. For He delights in my happiness--pure love delights in taking pleasure in the felicity of the beloved--and it is in my happiness that I may in turn offer bread and water to other weary travelers on this journey we call human life.