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Almost all the great teachers say something to this effect: “Do not judge.”
But great teachers aren’t asking us to turn off our common sense and our rational minds; they are pointing to something deeper.
The great teachers are saying that you cannot start seeing or understanding anything if you start with “No.”
Richard Rohr, in The Naked Now
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We must be first open to life. For life is the gift we receive and we are (everyone one of us) recipients of life.
Life teaches. Life is the pre-eminent teacher. To live life is to start with “Yes.” “Yes” affirms life and the gift and Give-Giver and our basic shared identity as human beings … sacred vessels.
It has been said that one only knows what one has first loved. It is in the “Yes” to life itself that allows us to see, and know, and grow, understand and experience more fully. The “Yes” avows that in receiving life, we love life and the Gift-Giver.
Absent “Yes” one tracks to divide, distort and isolate. The need to hide or control, deceive and argue soon flourishes when the fundamental “Yes” is denied, ignored.
Absent the primary “Yes,” as Rohr reminds, we are confinded to the shallows of fickled infatuation (from the Latin meaning “false fire”) not the indispensible breath of Love.
You see nothing can be known in its proper form without that First “Yes.”
The “First Yes” brings us to the fullness of human experience – life itself, our True Self, others, The Gift and The Gift Giver.
Shalom.
… it is difficult for churches, government, and leaders to move beyond ego, the desire for control, and public posturing. Everything divides into oppositions … vested interests pulling against one another. Truth is no longer possible at this level of conversation.
… you can lead people only as far as you yourself have gone …
Richard Rohr, in The Naked Now
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Richard Rohr writes of two monks of the 11th and 12th century – Hugh of St. Victor monastery in Paris, France, and Richard of the same monastery. He tells us that these monks wrote that humans have been given three different ways of seeing. One way arises from the eyes that produce thoughts. The second way of seeing leads to reason, and to reflection and meditation. The third way of seeing leads to true understanding and contemplation.
It is the third way of seeing that is the rarest and most evolved. Whereas the first way of seeing is common, it produces little depth of experience, is more concrete and binds one to the immediate without nuance. The second way of seeing allows one to relish his or her power to conceive of the material disposition of the world. Ah, but the third way of seeing allows one to do more – it allows one to “taste” existence, to be in awe before the underlying mystery, coherence, and spaciousness that connects one with everything!
The third way of seeing is seeing as a mystic sees – seeing as God has designed us to see. This seeing exceeds the senses, does not rest on knowledge and intellect alone – but rather sees in a manner that expands his or her consciousness – and in this is transformed, made whole, lives in and above at the same time, is mortal and immortal, contented, whole and wise in ways that neither the senses nor intellect can offer.
In commenting on this Rohr says “I cannot emphasize strongly enough that the separation and loss of these three necessary eyes is at the basis of much of the short-sight-edness and religious crises in the Western world.” Hence the above quote that leads into today’s blog.
The view that Rohr shares, Dear Friends, highlights how and why “identity politics” is so destructive, so wrong-headed, so primitive, tribal, hostile, aggressive, hateful and unappetizing. Those with greater depth of human experience cannot abide that which pits one against another in a death struggle. We are, after all, not made to be enemies to one another but rather brothers and sisters to one another.
This historic moment requires us to see as the mystic sees.
Shalom.
Life demands for its completion and fulfillment a balance between joy and sorrow. But because suffering is … disagreeable, people naturally prefer not to ponder how much fear and sorrow fall to the lot of man. So they speak … about progress and the greatest possible happiness, forgetting happiness … is poisoned if the measure of suffering has not been fulfilled.
Carl Jung, M.D., in Psychotherapy and a Philosophy of Life (Collected Works, Vol. 16)
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Where are the adults and wisdom figures today? Not in politics. Not in higher education. Not in media. Not in journalism. Not in public life. Not in the law. Surely not in the established bureaucracies of the government. And most assuredly not in entertainment. Not among the Leftists and the whining ideologues, nor among the “professional” advocacy class and the liberals on television or the products of “identity politics.”
Nope, we are short of mature, wise adults.
In large measure this is due to having few people with honestly examined lives. Few who are familiar with human psychology, philosophy, the history of Western Civilization or history itself, few familiar with the Classics of literature, and fewer still who are spiritually developed and hence engaged in faith and guided by a religious narrative.
Super-power notwithstanding, a nation does not survive that is not populated with those who are broadly educated and are humbled by a life in which both joy and sorrow have been experienced.
When I look at the assembled collection of Democrat presidential aspirants I think only of this – “what a motley crew!” Not a one to whom I’d feel comfortable giving a sharpened pencil. Likewise, I prefer not to give attention to anyone in journalism – such is the state of that enterprise today.
So where does this leave one? To the task of independent self-education – becoming familiar with a range of disciplines that instruct as to the collected understanding of the human person for good and ill. And from this base – to the individual life lived to experience and know both joy and sorrow … which renders us sober, grateful, insightful, steady, humble, wise, courageous, faithful and joy-filled.
Alas the miss-mash we see in the nonsense of a secular society stripped of wisdom and insight ought to call us back to common sense, more silence than chatter, and quiet application of life dedicated to proper education and conduct now simply honored in their abandonment.
Shalom.
3:03 a.m. – how nice it is to awake in the full night of silence to think about faith
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Faith is a backward-looking virtue. It concerns who we are … “the mystical chords of memory.”
Deirdre N. McCloskey, in The Bourgeois Virtues
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In faith you are connected with those who have come before you – with a stream of being that reaches to the very distant past, the sacrifice of others, their fidelity. Their story is our story.
In faith we belong to others – to Saint Peter and Saint John – to Abraham and Martha and Mary and Lazarus … to Aquinas, St. Augustine, to Simon of Cyrene, the men on the road to Emmaus – to centuries of faithful Jews and Christians.
In faith we have identity … a place in a long story that has no end.
In a world too often focused on the immediate, the immaterial, on desire, immersed in anxiety, loneliness, doubt and worry – we have in faith: certainty, confidence, cause, connection, and a call to life.
In faith we have as Aristotle says “another self,” – in faith is solidarity and union with one another now, in the past and in what is to come. In faith we know love – a love that runs to what has come before, what is now, and what will be in all the tomorrows yet to come.
In faith, particular differences do not matter for the faith others possess is the faith we possess. Ethnicity, race, age, social status, wealth and such do not matter to those who share a faith.
The broad identity of faith is the union of belief. We are, in faith, what we believe. Therein is our solace, our identity, our purpose, our meaning, our stability and our happiness.
Shalom.
The more the powerful and independent consciousness becomes, and with it conscious will, the more is the unconscious forced into the background. When this happens, it becomes easily possible for the conscious structure to be detached from the unconscious images.
Richard Wilhelm, in The Secret of the Golden Flower
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To be whole and have psychic health, full development and contentment, our conscious life must be attached to our unconscious life. Without an unconscious life, life and our experience of it is distorted, limited and chaotic.
Indeed, it seems that this is precisely where we are in our country today.
Look at the celebrity and political class and those in control of higher education (the “teaching” intellectuals) and you see not mature and insightful individuals but narrow people full of self-assertion, anger and extreme and destructive notions.
Yes, being stuck in conscious alone is a superficial state of being, a fragmented and unhealthy state of being.
Carl Jung in a 1931 essay noted that the disconnection of consciousness from the unconscious makes for the modern man who Jung identifies as “unhistorical” – that is void of any of the broader lessons of human history.
Jung’s observation might explain the measure of ideas offered and advanced by the American Left today as well as the limited use that can be made of public discourse among those engaged in news reporting and commentary.
I find nothing so much as the separation of conscious and unconsciousness to explain what I see among public personalities, see in the conduct and discourse of the elites. Sadly, this reminds me of the tragic decline in the German culture in the inter-War years.
Disordered development creates great risk for cultures – and a failed education system and rejection of faith makes for increasing the risk of serious error and destruction. And make no mistake religious narratives all over the world instruct us in symbols and metaphors that open us to our unconscious. Ban or undermine religion and we increase our collective and individual danger.
Our individual full psychological and spiritual development is critical, indispensable to our flourishing and survival … and a sign of how far we are from health is evidenced by our reaction to the horrible shooting of people in New Zealand last night. Immediately our public commentators see it as a product of political opinion when it is rather an indication of psychological sickness – disorder all too common to its counterparts around the world.
Shalom.
Understanding someone’s suffering is the best gift you can give another person. Understanding is love’s other name. If you can’t understand you can’t love.
Thich Nhat Hanh, in How to Love
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Hanh is a masterful Buddhist teacher and a monk. His wonderful three book set (How to Love, How to Sit, How to Eat) is a lovely set of wisdom books given me by my Son in a hand-made artist box (which he made) into which these treasures sit so tightly. Yes, they sit on a book shelf within arm’s reach of my bed. It is always good to have Hanh, these books and my Son close to me. Books, art, love and living well and wisely matter greatly to my Son and to me.
Understanding. When we understand another, we take in their story, their existence, their heart, their soul, their doubts and fears, their triumphs and defeats, their hopes and aspirations, their sanctity, their dignity, their challenges, their joys and their sadness, their laughter and their tears. Ah, but our ability to understand depends on our having come to understand ourselves and life as it presents itself to each and all of us.
This for the Christian is the essence of Christ’s admonition to “take up the cross” and follow him. Life is, for all, a challenging journey … in life we find our “Crosses” and our “Crosses” find us … yet in this journey (when it is fully accepted – pains and joys the same) we come to understanding and make of us one capable of love.
Shalom.
1:05 a.m. – an early morning post … writing is like that … especially when you wonder about God and your relationship with Him … Ash Wednesday, March 6, 2019.
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Holiness consist in simply doing God’s will, and being just what God wants you to be.
St. Therese de Lisieux
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The world today is a very troubling place. I often feel overwhelmed by the division and hatred on display here. For me, it is hard to comprehend why others choose to be so selfish, so lacking in patience and humility – so prone to anger and assertion, antagonism, hostility and discontent.
Yes, I ask myself: what is it to be holy in the world that surrounds me? In the chaos, I ask – what can I do to live a holy life day in and day out? How can I sustain a witness for Christ? Find daily contentment? Be in regular relationship with God?
How can I be holy amid the chaos and evil I see, I hear each day?
I believe St. Therese has supplied the answer. We maintain holiness in the world we find today my doing God’s will … by being who God made us to be.
The irony follows. It is NOT our job to change the slant of the axis of the world in order to be holy. No, it is something far simpler that is requires of us, something more fundamental – more intimate, more personal and it is this: do God’s will and be who God made you to be. It is this which provides the access to holiness in a chaotic and godless hour we now occupy.
Do His will and be who he made you to be. This is the path to holiness today and always.
Shalom.
Spirlaw 