Motivation: It's my birthday, and I want to feel stupid.
Preface: There is a wonderful concept on how important it is to feel stupid. If you have no sense of inadequacy then you are not being stretched. If you are not being stretched, you are not growing. If you are not growing, you have nothing new to say. If you have nothing new to say, you have nothing new to contribute. My father was one who lived feeling stupid. He was an immense thinker and a global leader in his field, yet he was ever a learner seeking new understanding, wrestling with mystery, and discussing new insight. He died this year in expectation, anticipation, and peace ... a good death.) Caution: For the introspective recluse with limited interactions, this essay may suggest that you have to expand your circle of relations and become vulnerable. For the gregarious extrovert with extensive social circles, this post may suggest you narrow your circle of relations and become vulnerable. Question: Are you an apprentice, and a teacher, and a doer? These are essentials, especially for the Christian. Let me be offensive and suggest that many (most?) people in western cultures settle for adequacy in life -- a level at which their zone of comfort protects them enough from reality: I have my McDonalds / favorite organic new-age veggie salad (your preference), I take a vacation each year, I have a circle of friends, a job (for now), I manage to ignore the pain of my past, what more do I need? Many in the poorest developing nations similarly settle into a zone of discomfort because they've had all the ambition beaten out of them: I have a shack, a toilet, a government grant, the local shebeen, and a soccer field nearby, I have blinded myself to the pain of the future, what more do I need? And so we come to Disney's classic "The Sorcerers Apprentice", which carries some simple deep truths (as do so many fantasy tales). It's about the way we grow. There are three basic, parallel and lifelong ways we grow in skill, expertise, understanding, and insight -- three ways to learn. I am not thinking here of academia (although of course it applies), but thinking of the "me" - growing my body, mind, and spirit in a world that is, if nothing else, relational. 1. We become an apprentice, like a blacksmith apprentice who would live in the presence of the master, watching, hearing, and experiencing the essence of a blacksmith. Sadly, the formal apprenticeships of yesteryear are few and far between now. Today we've corrupted this to the production lines of university credits, or the plethora of self-help books on "3 ways to attract members of the opposite sex", and other such weighty topics. But really, there is plenty of opportunity to become apprentices. Court the company of those who are wise, for there I can hear what they say, see what they do, and discuss what they profess (as a university Professor once was ... someone who professes). This is where we really learn, in the presence of proficiency ... experiencing it first hand to learn a thousandfold more than merely being told. Sadly some hide away in shells of insecurity, while others have a wide and diffuse social network. In both cases we never develop a Master-apprentice relationship. 2. We teach what we've learned. Probably the best way to instill knowledge is to teach it. For to explain it to another means we have to fully understand it ourselves. To teach is hard, because we think we understand when all we do is know. The experience of teaching forces us to dig deeper, to integrate knowledge so it becomes understanding, for only then are we able to effectively pass it on. In teaching we are challenged by our apprentices ... we are the experts who the young apprentices seek to supplant, until they too learn the humility of competency and the responsibility for another. 3. We use our skills, we do things. Imagine an apprentice blacksmith who had never beaten a bar of glowing iron, never fired a charcoal furnace, never known the pain of failure. Imagine a doctor who had never cut someone's skin, never cured a disease, never seen someone die. It is in the doing that we gain experiential knowledge which can not be acquired any other way. This is the knowledge the apprentice can never learn from the master, and the teacher can never acquire from the pupil - what it feels like to handle a glowing bar of iron, the difficulties of managing the health of a person, they way a pupil can creatively mis-interpret. Doing means taking risks, becoming vulnerable to failure, investing in something or someone that is not ourselves. So now to the Christian, and three questions. It is the model of relationships that everyone has a mentor, a pupil, and an activity. We are, if nothing else, made for relationship. a) Who am I "apprenticed" to? Who do I have a personal relationship with, the one I go to for knowledge, explanation, correction, advice, guidance. Who do I trust enough to admonish me? Who will be a tester of my thinking of God? Do I have enough humility to acknowledge my inadequacies in such a relationship? For it is here I learn of what it means to become what I was created to be. b) Who am I teaching? Who is the person who has trusted me enough to be mentored by me, to be guided by me? Am I carrying my responsibility to impart understanding? For it is here I find the difference between truth and knowledge. c) Where am I acting? What do I do for others? How do I employ my skills, my talents, my mastery of a competency to invest in more than myself, to invest in others, and to invest in what God has called good. Here I anneal my understanding, hone my skills, learn failure, find the Joy of success, understand others, and gain new insight. Three simple facets of life. Easy to ignore, hard to do. But unless these are inherent in my life, I live in inadequacy, I short change myself, and I miss out on Joy. Joy is not happiness. I can be joyful in grief, laughter, and toil. Joy is knowing I am living as I was created to be. Joy is the endpoint of growth in relationship with God. I long for the day I have died, when the fleeting moments of Joy blend into one seamless being of who I really am. Today is my birthday ... one step closer! :)
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My biggest, loudest, most emphatic, and top complaint about people today: they don't read enough! Seriously! People don't invest time in reading, nor effort in reading hard literature, nor to read people from the past, nor to read competing views. It takes time and effort, an investment of the mind, it disturbs our comfort of ignorance, it raises more questions that we'd like. And it asks us to think! Many have lost the art of reading. I don't mean recognizing words, I mean reading that comprehends new perspectives. Real reading is an acquired skill that is to be highly desired. Reading the latest airport novel is not reading, that's entertainment. We are quick to say we read such-and-such a novel. A ready excuse is always at hand when real reading is required, and we fall back on on such classics as:
But the reality is that reading - true reading - is food for the soul. It's dangerous, because when you read a book, the book reads you. You may be changed. Their are few joys that compare to wrestling with someone else's ideas, comprehending a different view, delighting in the richness of metaphor and paradox, and experiencing the realness of growing into a person who has insight, compassion, and empathy for their fellow human. Elanor Roosevelt said : "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." Well, great thinkers, great teachers, and great people have always been great readers.
So do you have the willpower to invest time, energy, and effort (for it will take time, it will consume your energy, and it will require effort)? Are you courageous enough to be changed (for it will change you). Are you strong enough to put your opinion on hold (for you will be challenged). Do you have the will to reason and think (for unless you think while you read, you will be torn apart). But, I hear you cry, "Where do I start?" I will admit the dizzying array of books is daunting. But like anything, one trains. You find an entry point, and you start easy, build up strength, and work your way through in a planned, disciplined, and structured manner. Start with books that are acknowledged as insightful. Begin with a book that is considered trustworthy. It does not have to be book of your belief persuasion (though that helps) ... in fact, reading what you already know is not much value at all. But, I hear you cry, "How do I start?" You start in the same way you eat an elephant: one bite at a time. A suggestion I might make is to partner with someone and say, "Will you read a book with me? Let's both read this book, and then talk about what struck us." Start with what captures you, read according to where you are thinking! Get advice from someone who reads. But read! A bit of biography: Where is my own reading now? I am looking back at my beginnings. As Oscar Wilde said "If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all." The book that has influenced me more than any other is GK Chesterton's"Orthodoxy" ... my copy has more margin annotations than any other book I own. You'll be surprised by what you find in "Orthodoxy". Leading Christians throughout the ages have acknowledged Chesterton as the pivotal writer of the last two centuries. From C.S. Lewis to Yancy and Piper today, they all acclaim the influence of Chesterton. And I join these many to say that Chesterton opened my eyes to things I had not imagined. For those in the early stages of learning to read, Chesterton may require more effort than normal, but the benefits are great. When you're ready, read Chesterton. Begin with "Orthodoxy". I'll close with a quote from C.S. Lewis' book "Surprised by Joy", talking of when he was an atheist on the beginnings of becoming a Christian: "It was here that I first read a volume of Chesterton's essays. I had never heard of him and had no idea of what he stood for; nor can I quite understand why he made such an immediate conquest of me. It might have been expected that my pessimism, my atheism, and my hatred of sentiment would have made him to me the least congenial of all authors. It would almost seem that Providence, or some "second cause" of a very obscure kind, quite over-rules our previous tastes when It decides to bring two minds together. Liking an author may be as involuntary and improbable as falling in love. I was by now a sufficiently experienced reader to distinguish liking from agreement. I did not need to accept what Chesterton said in order to enjoy it. His humour was of the kind I like best - not "jokes" embedded in the page like currants in a cake, still less (what I cannot endure), a general tone of flippancy and jocularity, but the humour which is not in any way separable from the argument but is rather (as Aristotle would say) the "bloom" on dialectic itself. The sword glitters not because the swordsman set out to make it glitter but because he is fighting for his life and therefore moving it very quickly. For the critics who think Chesterton frivolous or "paradoxical" I have to work hard to feel even pity; sympathy is out of the question. Moreover, strange as it may seem, I liked him for his goodness." (Why you should read Chesterton in 2013: an interview.) A different type of blog article ... more convoluted! Michael Bazemore has an interesting post titled "Common Problems, Uncommon Grounds- A Matter of Trust" which posits "... in this meeting of the minds between religious believers and non-believers, on any topic is going to be this trust issue". It sounded a good argument as I started to read, but I think now that this is a straw man built on the position that religion is inherently an emergent property of social structures, and hence unreal at it's core. Consequently, this allows the non-theist to group theists into one camp and begin to build an argument on generalizations about a homogeneous category of people who live by a falsehood. There are two problems here: first is the assumption that theism is a social construct, and second is the grouping of all (non-)theists into two camps of like-motivated people when it comes to trust between the groups. First, the assumption that theism is a social construct. As with any assumptions one must necessarily consider the possibility that the assumption is false. What if there is a God? What if this God is knowable in relationship? What does this do to the subsequent reasoning? For if the assumption is false, then the debate of trust with non-theists is skewed to become one where it's not my belief against yours, but where I am standing in the shadow of One who made you, and who has a definite opinion on the matter. Thus our disagreement is not between me and you, but between you and God with whom I am merely aligned. Now let me clarify, this only really works where there is relationship between me and God. I cannot claim any authority in debate unless I have relationship with God. Else, that would be like me saying as a foreigner that "I like your presidents policy, therefor I have authority to argue with you". No, in that context I can merely say "I like your presidents policy, I choose to take it up as my policy, but without any authority of association". Because the authority of association is rooted in a recognized relationship. Second, I suggest that the issue of trust between theists and non-theists is a bit of a straw man, because of the imhomogenity of the two categories. It needs a more nuanced treatment. As a Christian I trust (non-)theists not because of their stated position of (non-)theism, but by the measure of their philosophy of living as expressed in their actions. That is, they have a moral framework: it may be relativistic or not, and it may be rooted in theism or not, but it is always disclosed by their actions in a way that often confounds their spoken statement of (non-)belief. So my trust is built on, and grows through experience of a persons actions. There are many who profess a position that has no bearing on their action. I profess to believe that the great wall of China exists, and that the world is round. Neither of these facts influence my actions in anyway (unless I were planning to go see the great wall of China or venture into space). I find many "theists" whose lives belies their stated belief. Such as Christians, to be more specific, who do not really seem to be trying to live like Christ. For Christianity especially (which is the one religion where relationship with God is at the heart of the matter) I suggest that many western Christians live instead by the dogma of Christianity, not the relationship with Christ. It's like trying to live with my spouse by the law of the marriage certificate, rather than by relationship. This makes all the difference in how the faith in my spouse's love for me is translated into my marriage, and equally how my faith in God is translated into actions. Likewise I also find many non-theists whose actions reflect the opposite of their words, and who display by their actions a fundamental belief in absolute values. Especially in times of stress and threat when their non-theism seemingly goes out the window. So, yes: I do think the issue of trust between people around critical issues such as climate change is central. But for many people I do not think their (non-)theism is very influential, and is rather used more commonly as a tool, argument, or weapon in their struggle for power. Sad indeed. Stuck in an aiport, long wait in the lounge, what does one do? Well I started reading old favorites, starting with Chesterton's "Heretics" (you can get it free from www.gutenberg.org). Read this! If you want to see the timelessness of reason, then read this. As a commentary on religion and atheism, post-modernism, consumerism, and all sorts of 'isms ... this is an accessible, rational primer. Invest some time to get over the slightly dated sentence structure, and you'll find the text comfortable soon enough. Annotate ... my hardcopy has pencil writing on almost every page from many years ago. But that's enough from me, here's a sample: ... He says, with a conscious laugh, "I suppose I am very heretical," and looks round for applause. The word "heresy" not only means no longer being wrong; it practically means being clear-headed and courageous. The word "orthodoxy" not only no longer means being right; it practically means being wrong. All this can mean one thing, and one thing only. It means that people care less for whether they are philosophically right. For obviously a man ought to confess himself crazy before he confesses himself heretical. The Bohemian, with a red tie, ought to pique himself on his orthodoxy. The dynamiter, laying a bomb, ought to feel that, whatever else he is, at least he is orthodox. It is foolish, generally speaking, for a philosopher to set fire to another philosopher in Smithfield Market because they do not agree in their theory of the universe. That was done very frequently in the last decadence of the Middle Ages, and it failed altogether in its object. But there is one thing that is infinitely more absurd and unpractical than burning a man for his philosophy. This is the habit of saying that his philosophy does not matter, and this is done universally in the twentieth century, in the decadence of the great revolutionary period. General theories are everywhere condemned; the doctrine of the Rights of Man is dismissed with the doctrine of the Fall of Man. Atheism itself is too theological for us to-day. Revolution itself is too much of a system; liberty itself is too much of a restraint. We will have no generalizations. Mr. Bernard Shaw has put the view in a perfect epigram: "The golden rule is that there is no golden rule." We are more and more to discuss details in art, politics, literature. A man's opinion on tramcars matters; his opinion on Botticelli matters; his opinion on all things does not matter. He may turn over and explore a million objects, but he must not find that strange object, the universe; for if he does he will have a religion, and be lost. Everything matters—except everything. C.R. Mooney posts the question of "Why do I write?" Quite frankly, I'm not sure why I write. Some reasons that come to mind include:
Words are powerful, they're all we have that last beyond the instant. Words are our primary communication, and words allow us to think (take away words and I can only feel). I don't pretend to have all (or any) of the answers. I don't care (much) if no one ever reads what I write (of course it's nice to know if someone finds value in what I say). But the power of words first and foremost affect me. If they help others, thats a secondary benefit. So for now, I think I write because that's the way I explore the combination of reason and experience. This morning I woke in a moment of doubt ...
Let me give some background. My church-flavored school education almost made me an atheist. We had twice-weekly religion classes and daily chapel that made me bored as hell (which is such a wonderfully layered saying). In fact, the only time I can remember cheating in school was during a religious studies exam. I wonder if my parents ever knew what they did by sending me there (apart from "building character", fagging, being caned, and acquiring the nickname "vampire"). The scars still catch me unawares. But the positive side is that this almost single-handedly led to me trying to understand if God is reason-able. This morning I woke in a moment of doubt -- it was during that early morning consciousness when reality is still fuzzy. What if God doesn't exist? What if all those atheists are right? Not a nice way to start a Tuesday. Fortunately the parrot interrupted me and said "good morning", then the dog put a paw in my stomach, and reality reasserted itself. As I do whenever these moments occur, a quick re-examination was in order to see who I was. Stretching the arms, torso and legs quickly confirmed I was no longer 21 years old, but still functioning adequately thank you very much. Mentally I ran through the rationale for why I believe there is a God, that God is knowable (in part), and what that says about me. This was followed by a brief recollection of my life experience of God -- that "me-story" of events that no reasoning can deny, but which requires a rational explanation -- and then I was ready to share my toast with the household animals. What's your story? I really, really like to hear people's stories and how they have reasoned to their current position of (un)belief. I can't question your story, like you can't question mine. But I'm fascinated by how you make sense of it all (and I'm saddened by those who have not examined their lives). Anyway, back to where I started. That school experience turned me into a voracious reader, and my bookshelf today is still a treasured collection. During that time I read beyond my years, I read things I probably should not have, and I still re-read to re-examine my understanding. Of my books from that period, standing head and shoulders above all others in their influence are GK Chesterton's "Orthodoxy" and "Heretics" ... a mix of imaginative and practical logic. CS Lewis follows closely, especially "Till we have faces", "Pilgrim's regress", "Religion and Rocketry", "Fern-Seed and Elephants", "That Hideous Strength", and the final of the Narnia series "The Last Battle". Then more recently there's Kreeft with his Socratic dialogues, William Lane Craig, and many, many more. Almost as important are the fantasy literature, from Aesop's Fables and Tolkien and all the way through to Terry Pratchett. As Mark Twain says, "It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense." I learned much from this genre about reason. Pratchett, writing as an atheist, has one of the most insightful minds on human experience, buried in the most hilarious fantasy. Unfortunately for one of us, he and I have (for now) come to different conclusions on the meaning of life (and it's not 42). So what's the point of this post? I don't really know. Perhaps it is to say "read and think", or "have you examined your life today". Maybe I want to say "Go wrap a cold towel around your head and see if you can explain your experience of being alive". Perhaps I merely want to write. |
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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