I'm suffering with backlog. There's more things that I want to think about, write about, reflect on, and discuss from a Christian perspective than I can find time (and conversationalists) for. Here's a selection of topics (no priority) sitting in my current list of blog drafts (quite aside from my other personal writing list). If you'd like to send me other topics / issues / questions, please do using this form - formulating questions is one of life’s great skills! Some may get blogged about.
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I'm finding more and more of my friends are turning to the mystics.
As a scientist my gut reaction is to be disturbed. Yet, as a Christian I acknowledge that by definition I worship a mystery, and to engage with mystery is to engage with the mystical. This is necessarily a scientific conclusion! So why my hesitancy over the mystics? I think my reservations are rooted in how the mystics are being used for mysticism. Three simple letters, 'ism', is all it takes to transform something proper and purposeful into a dark deceit that tries to turn simple reality into an object of desire – its a slippery slope. If carefully considered, mysticism is ridiculous (like most '-isms') - its like desiring gravity! I don't understand gravity but I need to live with it. However, it would be stupid to become fixated in gravitism. There is much that these past “mystics” have written which is rightly helpful and valuable. However, the mystics of yesteryear are increasingly being used as a tool towards mysticism. These are expressions of individuals, mostly wrapped in metaphor and evocative imagery. Thus a selective choice of their sometimes opaque expressions can easily be used paint a picture that's as comforting as it's deluding. For we do not know the wholeness of the persons who made these mystical writings, and so we do not know the wholeness that completes and properly frames each selected utterance. Mysticism seems to be trapping some in their search for comfort, even though most would profess otherwise. (Is this a signal of being trapped, like an alcoholic denying alcoholism, or the climate change denialist defending their addiction to rampant consumerism?) This tendency to seek a more friendly alternative to reality’s disturbing truths is a classic path to all sorts of 'isms. Relativist theology, syncretism, deep ritual of smells and bells, flexible and adaptive epistemology, and even the paradox of the new atheists, are all attempts to wrap reality into something more comfortable. For example Bell's “Love is all you need” (that seemingly ignores Love's marriage to Justice), Rohr's living on the edge of orthodoxy (which confusingly fights against the gravity of being centered), and even Dawkins' militant crusade to seeming nihilism, are all in some way victims of an abuse of the mystics. We know all we know only by reference. Logic would say (unless you believe we are no more than biology) that Jesus is the reference. Hence, we know the value of the mystic by contrasting them with the one reference. Does the mystic paint a picture of the reference? Is it like the way an artists distillation clarifies the essence of a world that exists independent of preferences? Or is it like abstract paintings that are the product of an imagination seeking escapism. 'ism – what will be it's fate when justice comes to call? (For some reasonable writing on the Mystery of God, knowing the unknowable, try this) (… who works all things for good ... Rom 8:28)
I'm enjoying myself. Their were four of us who started the hike together, but the other three charged off ahead, driven by either their irrepressibly energy or by my momentary obnoxious non-compliance of a few minutes ago. But now I'm enjoying myself; by moving at a place-appropriate pace I can be immersed in the startling surroundings, take the occasional photograph, stop and make a moment-memory. All this, and with a pleasing conversation in my own head; I'm really enjoying my own company. I'm thinking about how I am the product of all the good and bad that's gone before. I could be complaining about the trials of the past, the injustices, or have regrets over decisions I might change had I but known then what I know now. Or I could be wasting the present by fixating on an idealized future. But the regrets and pleasures of the past, the hopes and fears of the future, these make me what I am now. And I like what I am, I'm (mostly) good company for myself. As I walked it struck me that to enjoy others, I first need to enjoy myself. If I can't enjoy myself, how could I properly enjoy others? For if I seek the company of others as an escape from myself, if they are merely tools used for my own purposes, then I will be forever disappointed by them. For like me, everyone else is the product of imperfect living. Only when I learn to enjoy myself – to accept and be thankful for what I am now, shaped by all that has passed – only then can I then truly enjoy the company of others, and not use them as a means to avoid myself. Loneliness is sometimes self-enforced; when I don't like me I don't even have even myself for pleasant company, let alone do I know how to enjoy the company of all the imperfect people around me. Melanie Penn (again) When the sun goes in when the sun goes out When the moon rises and the ocean is high it seem like we're going to down And if I don't feel then the way that I do now If there's a shadow of doubt ... I swear I won't give in if ever questions begin No I won't flee if I'm faced by a moment of uncertainty Oh., I will remember then what I'm telling you now if there's a shadow of doubt. And Human nature is a fickle thing full of weary self-invention And I'm fully grown I know my soul is prone to wandering So if ever I should lose my way maybe then I'll know what love is If the feelings fade I promise I will stay and live it out So if a midnight comes if a fire grows cold And if a heart that once held a spark becomes harder than stone Oh I will stand by you I'll see the season through beyond a shadow of doubt |
Why?
Probably the best therapy is to express yourself. Why do you think psychiatrists make you lie on the couch and talk, while all they do is murmur "hmmm", "uhuh", or "go on"? Archives
May 2017
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