Reflections on the Journey

Humanities, Arts and Sciences - Surrogates for Religion?

2011-03-07T07:56:00.000-08:00

Any of you who are familiar with the intellectual and cultural history of western civilization are aware that we have witnessed the gradual demise of religion and the disappearance of God from modern secular consciousness. With this radical shift from a religious to a secular sensibility we have also seen the displacement of religion by the humanities, arts and sciences, each in its turn attempting to serve as an exclusively immanent "immortality project," to borrow a phrase from Ernest Becker's "The Denial of Death." Western modernity is a nothing if not a secular temple raised up to the Worship of Nature and Man.

Is there not now some irony in the fact that in today's post-modern technological age the secular historical consciousness of the humanities, arts and sciences, along with the memory of man's religious consciousness, has itself become increasingly displaced by the philistine culture and marketing society with its own profane trinity of obsessive Sex, Money and Power? Who can observe the dumbing down and vulgarizing trends of our mass media and entertainment industry and not conclude that we are moving toward a post-literate and post-civil society? Is this not perhaps an example of the devolutional and unintended consequences of historical dialectic? Perhaps the day is not far off when Ugliness, Violence and Obscenity will finally eclypse the classical ideals of The Good, the True and the Beautiful? Perhaps the death of Beauty, Love and Eternal Being does not mean the end of religion but only the occasion for the rise of a new religion of Banal Nothingness in Perpetual Flux? Without the intuition of transcendence does not man sink to become, as Emerson warned us, a managerie of monkeys? Camus thought we could live "without appeal" to any higher power or transcendent purpose that death does not entirely annihilate? Perhaps Nietzshe's Ubermensch (Over-Man) can achieve such a tragic and heroic feat, but that leaves most of humanity to be scattered among what Matthew Arnold called the Barbarians, the Philistines and the Populace. What do you think? What do you see as the future of humanity in an age defined by the secular titans of mass advertizing, superficial entertainment and global consumerism?

Albert Camus - Living Without Appeal

2011-03-07T07:42:00.000-08:00

Presently I'm reading my way through the literary legacy of Camus. In re-reading "The Myth of Sisyphus" I have been particularly struck by his idea of living without appeal - to various religious and secular "leaps of faith" to save us from the ambiguity, inscutability, irony and absurdity of the human condition. What does it mean to live "by appeal" to a higher power of greater purpose - whether religious or secular? What does it mean to live "without appeal" to any transcendent or immanent purpose other than an ironic passionate indifference in the midst of a meaningless and absurd universe? Why is Camus not an existentialist or a nihilist, as he insists? Any thoughts? How do you play it?

I Live My Life in Widening Circles

2009-01-07T08:14:00.001-08:00

In what is perhaps Rainer Maria Rilke's most famous poem he writes:

I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not ever complete the last one,
but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, that primordial tower.
I have been circling for a thousand years,
and I still don't know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?
_

Rilke poses the question of ultimate identity and relationship to sacred mystery.
Who does not ask these questions? Here then is my response, lived in widening circles:

I enter the first circle and answer:
I am a son of nature's Eros and ancestral desire,
my mother's and father's child, the prodigy of their loins.
But that is not all I am, for this scarcely names what I have become.

I enter the second circle and answer:
I am the first-born son of a Southern California working class family,
raised in a crazy cacophony: Pentecostal, Atheistic, New Thought, Disneyland.
And I grew up as the child of divorce, with a mother suffering from mental illness.
While left unstated, my parents' cultural icons were Marilyn Monroe and Frank Sinatra.

I enter the third circle and answer:
I am a child of devoted school teachers, of gifted women who loved students and learning.
I remember two special teachers who first saw something in me they loved and believed in.
First they and then others opened my world to the wonders of discovery and the joys of reading.

I enter the fourth circle and answer:
I am a child of evangelical Christians who reached out to me in high school with love and zeal.
In today's secular culture these folks have fallen out of favor, but their God gave new life to me.
Through the Hollywood Presbyterian Church and the ministry of The Salt Company, a Christian coffeehouse of the 60s, I came to link Christ and culture, faith and art, compassion and learning.

I enter the fifth circle and answer:
I am a child of "man's search for meaning" among all the world's spiritual wisdom traditions.
It is "Christ" that brought me to the dance, and I do believe in dancing with the One who brought you, but I have also learned that God, the Primordial Tower, is known and loved by many names. Sages, saints, prophets and mystics, all have become my teachers. Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, Animists and Humanists, all have become my friends and comrades.

I enter the sixth circle and answer:
I am a child of religious and secular modernity, of a story that encompasses the legacy of the Humanist Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, the radical Anabaptist movement, the Age of Reason and Science, the Romantic and Transcendentalist Counter-Movements, the Existentialist Revolt and Pragmatist Approach of practical necessity and living the questions. And I am a child of the post-modern age of global eclecticism and double irony, as well as the trans-modern vision of pluralistic integration and mystical union.

I enter the seventh circle and answer:
I am a child of western civilization, of a story that reaches back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, to poets and philosophers, Homer and Plato, Cicero and Epicurus. I am a child of Abraham and Sarah, of the ancient Hebrews and Christians, of prophets and evangelists, theologians and mystics. I am a child of the middle ages, a debtor to the monks and desert fathers who instilled in me an appreciation for solitude, communion and hospitality, and more than this, an ear that listens for echos of Eternity and a soul that longs for Beauty's embrace.

I enter the eighth circle and answer:
I am a child of the earth and of aboriginal man, a primordial journey that was millions of years in the making. And I am Darwin's child, distantly related to every living organism and to the evolutionary ascent of all animal species. Sometimes I am as much Cat and Dog, Lamb and Lion as Man. With Walt Whitman I contain multitudes. All that is masculine and feminine, solar and lunar, rational and passionate, Apollonian and Dionysian dwells in me.

I enter the ninth circle and answer:
I am a child not only of the earth but of the sun and moon and solar system, of the Milky Way galaxy with its billions of stars. I am a child of the universe, a dance of light, a flash of golden dust, a meteor that blazes across the midnight sky. I am the stuff of which stars are made.

I enter the tenth circle and answer:
I am a child of God, an echo of Eternity, a dream of Time, a spark of Divinity. I am that which has no name and which answers to every name. I am the Song that was present at creation. I am the Voice that answers the Beloved. I am the Heart of Sacred Longing. I am the Eyes that know as I am known. I am the Face of Satisfied Desire.

Rich

Cultivating a Contemplative and Fully Human Life

2009-01-06T07:23:00.000-08:00

For many people today "the tyranny of the urgent" hinders them from cultivating a richly contemplative way of life. To do this requires a spiritual practice that wisdom teachers refer to as holy leisure and interior solitude, a sensibility that in our modern secular age has gone almost entirely out of the world. To cultivate a contemplative and fully human life is nothing less than to go in search of the Holy Grail, to discover the unity of reality and the wholeness of experience within the Greater Ecology of Universal Being. A truly conscious and contemplative approach to living will integrate the spiritual, ethical, intellectual, aesthetic, emotional, relational, somatic, communal, societal and ecological dimensions that circumscribe and express our full humanity.

Three of the most transforming contemplative practices that I know of and can commend from personal experience include: (1) listening regularity with focused intention to selective works of classical music, especially medieval, renaissance and baroque music, and to any music that has not abandoned sacred longing and transcendent vision; (2) reading widely and deeply among the great books, including the fields of religion, spirituality, theology, philosophy, history, literature, arts, sciences, psychology and sociology, books by brilliant and gifted writers that explore life's fundamental metaphysical, nature, human and social questions; and (3) keeping an intensive journal for nurturing new seeds of contemplation. Such a journal will include thoughts and reflections, vision and dreams, intuitions and hunches, descriptions and sensations, emotions and moods, conversations and dialogue, fantasies and memories. It will open up and widen the doors of our perception.

Relatively few people today seem to engage in these contemplative and creative practices. It is not surprising. These kinds of transforming practices that nurture the human heart, soul, mind and spirit are simply not appreciated or valued by our modern secular utilitarian society that is obsessed and driven by the pervasive preoccupations of economics, commerce, consumption, entertainment, media and technology. Even most "religious church-goers" I know are obsessed to some degree or another by these secular preoccupations that may well be their true religion.

We pay professional ministers, educators, artists, therapists and activists to be holy, knowledgeable, creative, sane and civil for us, if that is possible. The truth is that each of us is responsible to become all of these ourselves by virtue of realizing the potential of our full humanity. The recovery of the practice of a true contemplative life is essential if we seek to nurture passionate souls, loving hearts, expansive minds and transcendent spirits.

Today's Need for Integrative Reflection and Global Dialogue

2008-12-10T05:42:00.000-08:00

Today we live in a pluralist society and global age. One of the greatest needs of our time is for young people and adult life-long learners to engage in integrative reflection and global dialogue. The following are ten circles for integrative reflection and global dialogue, along with some basic aspects and various perspectives for consideration within each one. These ten circles of global dialogue constitute a transforming and integrative educational currriculum for the 21st Century:

1.CONTEMPLATIVE
Faith, Hope, Love. Justice, Mercy, Peace. Spirit, Nature, Humanity. Beauty, Goodness, Truth. Being, Consciousness, Bliss. Solitude, Communion, Hospitality.

2. CHRISTOLOGICAL
Primordially Formative, Historically Incarnate, and Eschatologically Emergent. (See Raimon Panikkar, Christophany). Five Theological Worlds: Mystical Homecoming, Liberating Vindication, Humanistic Wholeness, Redemptive Forgiveness, and Existential Perseverance. (See W. Paul Jones, Theological Worlds)

3. ECUMENICAL
The Many Faces of Christianity: Mystical-Esoteric. Eastern Orthodox. Roman Catholic. Modern Protestant: Restorationalist, Millennialist, Conservative, Liberal, Progressive. Post-Modern: Pluralistic, Ironic. Trans-Modern: Global, Relational.

4. INTER-RELIGIOUS
The Major World Religions: Primordial. Hindu. Buddhist. Taoist. Jewish. Christian. Islamic. Eclectic. Syncretistic.

5. INTER-WORLDVIEW
The Major Worldviews: Monotheism (There is Only One God, the Infinite Personal Creator). Panentheism (All is in God; and God is in All; and then some). Pantheism (All is God; All is One; All is Universal Mind). Polytheism (There are many Gods, Spirits, Entities, Energies, Presences). Deism (There is one Impersonal Creator who governs by Rational and Natural Law). Naturalism (The Natural Universe is All There is; There are no Metaphysical Realities.). Agnosticism (We just don't know what is the Nature of Ultimate Reality; It's a Mystery). Paradoxicalism (Ultimate Reality is an Absolute Paradox, a Non-Dual and Non-Monist Coincidence of Opposites).

6. INTER-CULTURAL
The Perennial Inter-Cultural Value Polarities: Hierarchy and Equality. Individual and Community. Masculine and Feminine. Certitude and Ambiguity. Principles and Relationships.

7. INTER-HISTORICAL
The Ages of Man, and the Sensibilities of Each Age: Primordial, Ancient (Axial and Classical), Medieval, Modern: Renaissance, Reformation, Rationalism, Empiricism, Romanticism, Transcendentalism, Realism, Surrealism (Magical Realism), Existentialism, Pragmatism. Post-Modern: Pluralistic, Ironic. Trans-Modern: Global, Relational.

8 INTER-DISCIPLINARY
Eight Liberal Disciplines: Religion, Philosophy, History, Literature, Arts, Sciences, Psychology, Sociology

9. INTRA-PERSONAL
Eight Dimensions of Self-Knowledge and Intra-Personal Development: Senses, Emotions, Dreams, Imagination, Intellect, Volition, Conscience, Intuition

10. LIFE SYSTEMS
Twelve Life Systems to be Creatively Integrated: Self, Soul, Friendship, Love, Work, Leisure, Time, Money, Culture, Society, Nature, Spirit

In Sum, these ten circles of integrative reflection and global dialogue must be cultivated in the education of today's young people and adult life-long learners if we are going to ripen into maturity as a 21st Century civilization and realize the transforming potential of living in the pluralist society and global age.

The Quest for the Universal Human

2008-12-09T17:20:00.000-08:00

Recently I gave an address to a Unitarian Universalist Fellowship on the topic of "The Quest for the Universal Human: The Relevance of an Impossible Ideal." The main idea is that as human beings we have a higher "self-actualizing" and "self-transcending" need beyond the basic needs for survival, security, belonging and success. We search for profound meaning and integrative perspective. This search for snoptic vision and encompassing dialogue had led me to explore wisdom traditions, comparative worldviews, historical sensibilities, liberal arts, psychological theories and social ideologies. I am convinced that this is the body of general knowledge that every university student and educated adult needs to know, and probably doesn't. Our educational programs in the United States largely fail to give us a conceptual, imaginative, and spiritually transforming framework large enough to live a fully conscious and creative life in today's pluralist society and global age. Likewise, our religious communities continue to live in isolated cultural enclaves, largely ignorant of how other spiritual and cultural traditions can relate to each other in a constructive and complementary way. We are still thinking in terms of polarizing dichotomies rather than in terms of creative paradoxes. What do you think?