I went to a funeral, and we laughed. It was a good funeral for a man who took risks, accepted challenges, and filled the gaps. He was a Christian involved in church work, and I suspect 90% of the people attending were Christians too (well, at least culturally Christian). I think, and hope, that at my funeral I'll also have many non-Christians in attendance, because from Monday to Friday (and sometime the weekends too) I've lived a lived a life outside institutional religion. While my dead friend did tremendous work inside the church, he was an exception to the rule of many lives closeted behind institutional religious barriers built to keep the world outside.
Funerals are healthy: they make you think "what if it was me in that coffin". I've always said I look forward to being dead, but not to the process of dying. As a Jewish friend said to me last week, "You have faith, I have tradition and no faith!" That's one of the saddest things I've heard for awhile. Of course, when I say I look forward to being dead, I mean dead to this world, and I believe alive in a world where I can be what I was created to be. But back to the point, funerals can make you think if you'll let it, and I thought of how I don't want my funeral to be too much about me. Of course its good to have nice things said about oneself (its very seldom that anyone says nasty things at a funeral). But I think those nice things are sometimes to help us believe that when our turn comes someone will find something nice to say about us. Because really, if you say a lot of nice things about me at my funeral, I won't be there to hear. And even if I could hear, quite frankly I'll have more important things on my mind. So please, say what you need to say for the benefit of those who are there. Personally, I think funerals would best be spent talking about things that matter. We go through life stressed by the moments of immediacy, and when one day we're about to climb into that box, I imagine most of us would be thinking something like "Why didn't we ever talk about more important things". For example, I have a colleague who is vegan atheist who believes in absolute values. Now lets talk about that at my funeral: a vegan who is responding to a moral position yet as an atheist is also saying there is no authority for universal morals (which is, itself, an paradoxically absolute statement). So let's talk about atheist absolutes, that's an interesting funeral conversation. Or how about individualism as a world-view in a virtualized society? Maybe we can chat about the inevitable failure of cultural protectionism in the church, or how liberal theology is only a pendulum swing away from ritual dogmatism yet equally destructive, or what it means to know how to stand in another person's shoes, or simply what does it mean to live as an eternal creature shackled by time. If any of that is too existential for you, how about talking about the lyrics to meaningful songs (I find most of the lyrics in the songs I use in this blog to be deeply meaningful), and whether they are great metaphors for Truth or simply deceptions masquerading in melody, and how do you know the difference? Or perhaps discuss how couples go on double dates with their illusions of each other. Maybe we could even talk about what you'd like us to do for your funeral, seeing as you won't be there for it so you'd better let us know. So much to talk about. Use the time wisely. At my funeral: good music, jokes, stories about me if you must (but interesting ones, not just "Oh, he was a good academic", or "He traveled a lot"). Even tell of the intellectual struggles I have had if need be; how I wrestled with what it means to live while forever feeling inadequately expressive, or the life-long impact of bullying at school, or my irritation when people's irrationality fails to recognize that there is reason in mystery. Whatever it is, let it be about Truth. Because all atheists will be willing to talk about truth, even if they deny God. But to talk about Truth in any life-meaning sense is ultimately to talk about God. So perhaps we can sneakily get all those secularized individualists to actually talk about God without their knowing it, and they might leave the funeral having engaged with true meaning. So much to talk about.
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So I propose a toast:
We’re raising our glass, ’til we’re fixed from the inside. I witnessed an argument this morning.
The difficulty is that arguments are often about complex issues. And the difficulty there is that complexity is not the same as complicated. Something that is complicated can be solved with enough effort and resources. Something that is complex is unresolvable ... its dynamic, evolving, like trying to capture a shape-shifter. Just when you think you have an handle on it, along comes an additional factor that changes it all again. Poverty is complex, the legacy of apartheid is complex, gender equality is complex. That's not to say that there aren't central elements that are clear, there are - thats how we can identify the issue. But we so often fool ourselves into thinking its only complicated. There are two dangers in any debate. First, individual statements are always incomplete and so imply absolutes if not taken in context. Likewise, statements are often interpreted as absolutes by listeners because of missing caveats. Second is the temptation to place blame, because in doing so it will share accountability with others. Now, shared culpability is often appropriate, shared accountability is often essential, but this presumes that all involved have come to this point of recognition. Too often we presume this and become frustrated when our rationale is not accepted. For example, I regularly drive past a shack town of poverty that is, in large part (but not solely so), a legacy of apartheid. Almost every shack has a satellite dish for watching TV, and the inevitable reaction from those with relative wealth is "How can they spend money on that?" My answer is, "Wouldn't you too?" Imagine living in squalor, unemployment, cooking on paraffin stoves, a single light bulb, surrounded by a community of violence. I would also take any entertainment escape I could - it would be a lifeline to sanity. Of course this does not justify financial irresponsibility, but it can explain actions by imagining what it must be like to stand in the shoes of another - stand as them, not as me. There are two pathways forward from that point: some will use complexity to avoid responsibility, and some will dictate their solutions to others. The one attitude is selfish and perpetuates the problem, the other is arrogance and can often exacerbate the problem. The key is the word "imagine". Can you imagine being in the other persons shoes? I don't mean merely think it - for to imagine is to trade places, to emotionally stand in someone else's figurative shoes (maybe they don't own any real ones) so you can understand the why behind what they say and do. It is not to condone or condemn, but to understand. This is the difference between sympathy and empathy. Our imagination is never powerful enough to complete the picture; but it is good enough to empathize. Can I fully see poverty from the shoes of someone in poverty? No. Can I imagine what it must be like in at least some respects? Yes! If I am willing to try. Yet we so often shy away from the danger of empathizing, the danger that understanding a situation will make it part of who we are and so compel us to share accountability and call on us to give time, money, and skills (who here says "I'm too busy for that"?). Empathy is dangerous, yet it is the path to altruism. Who in the world would deny that altruism is a good thing. Yet how many will willingly choose to walk the path that travels through empathy to altruism. Empathy is the source of altruism, altruism is the antidote to individualism, and individualism is rampant. Actors and actresses are perhaps the most highly skilled at trading shoes, but they do so in order to accomplish a job. For some there are spill-over effects and they engage with good causes (e.g. Emma Watson, Shailene Woodley, Angelina Jolie, George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio), yet even then their empathy can be shallow and is often directed on "hot-button" global issues that don't require personal sacrifice. And then there are others who clearly lack any empathic skill - Trump, Putin, Zuma, Duterte - and it shows in their actions. Christians profess to be aligned with the path from empathy to altruism, but sadly few do. This says nothing about God, but says everything about people. Here is the difference between atheistic altruism and Christian altruism. The former is rooted in the emotional and intellectual strength of the individual to sustain their altruism. And that capacity is finite. However, for the Christian (at least those that live their relationship rather than simply proclaim it), the root lies in the line "blessed are the poor in spirit". In that statement Jesus says two things. First, being "blessed" means felicity: a "state of being happy". And second, that "poor in spirit" does not mean that you have no empathy, but that you recognize your personal inadequacy and how dependent you are on your relationship with God in order to sustain empathy. So what can one make of all this? Firstly, that empathy is not antithetic to being happy. Instead it means that when I understand what it means to be poor in spirit, there is still a joy to be found that lies untouchable above any consequences of empathy. For God is, if nothing else, perfectly empathic - first and foremost is his empathy for me, and that should make my happiness untouchable. Second is that I now share his empathy for others, and that should evaporate my apathy. A Christian should be able to joyfully cry in sadness. Then again, those who choose empathy should remember that is it not only the obvious situations like poverty that need our empathy. There is also intellectual poverty, emotional poverty, and experiential poverty. Those who can empathize need to empathize with such impoverished people too. For often that can change the world when those with resources become empowered to empathize. We know that human relationships can sustain us through troubles, and enable us to accomplish so much more than we can as a single individual. A God-relationship (should) take that to infinity! So in today's argument, who was right, who was wrong? Both in some ways - as we all are, because we are all moving along a path to either perfect unholiness, or perfect holiness - the choice is ours. Until then, our ability to stand in the shoes of another is finite, so we should empathize with those who are less capable of empathizing while we act for those whose shoes we can at least partially feel, and all the time consider where our strength for empathy comes from. One life completed in this world, and in another begun again. The other life still delayed. Kate Tucker "Let me go" ‘How can we understand the miserable failure of contemporary thinking to come to grips with what now confronts us?’ Breathe it in Hold my breath I don’t have the heart To live without it Don’t get involved Problem solved Leave it on the table What’s the difference Def: "evocative": Bringing strong images, memories, or feelings to mind This is about two great abysses; one spiritual, one material. I love things that are evocative: if you want to influence my thinking, use means that are evocative and I'll respond strongly. When you evoke something in me, you're stimulating my mind to match my past experiences with what is being presented: I seek analogies, draw parallels, construct metaphors, build parables. And when that happens my mind and my feelings work together to create a whole that is far greater than the sum of the parts. I don't know what the above video does for you; I find it deeply evocative, and it makes me envious because I know am inadequate to achieve the same. Between the words that don't complete a picture, music that drives through enveloping harmonies, and visuals communicating something about which one is not entirely sure, there is a reality I yearn to touch. It is a life long regret that I am not more effective in evoking. I mentioned at the start that there are two great abysses that the video evokes in my mind. The first is material - standing on the abyss of the functional failure of society. I'm not talking of the rise in nationalism, nor Trump or Brexit, and not even the arrogance of society's illogical and paradoxical relativism that cries with absolute fervor "all is relative". The material abyss is climate change! I can almost hear how that evokes a dismissive "huh" from some people (at least I can evoke something!). However, the reality is that the world is on a trajectory where for many locations in the world the future average summer temperature of a cold summer will be warmer than the warmest summers you've ever experienced now. And this trajectory will reach that point within the next 4-5 decades! The implications are tragic, let alone all the linked consequences: ecosystem failures, health, heat stress, migration, sea level rise, inundation of the world's major coastal cities, etc., etc. You think that's an exaggeration? Think again. We are standing on the edge of this abyss. We have perhaps 20 years to substantially reverse our course if we are to manage (not avoid) the growing impacts. And the world says? "Don’t get involved, Problem solved, Leave it on the table, What’s the difference" The spiritual abyss is a little more complicated. Yes, I could be referring to the gap to God. But actually, what is evoked in me is the chasm between church and society. If you have been following my thinking over the months you'll know the existential crisis I am having with the church. On the one hand I echo the video and say of the church "(I) Breathe it in, Hold my breath, I don’t have the heart, To live without it. It’s my fault, It’s your fault, If you don’t give a damn, Forget about it" (and I follow that with the chorus). For the institution of the church is building a canyon between themselves and the world. I was asked recently to be in a video and speak about climate change as a scientist and as a Christian. The target audience was to be the "evangelical community". The problem I have is that speaking to them as a scientist and a Christian is to align myself with a cultural Christianity that has lost the dynamics of a connection to God, let alone its connection to society. Instead, the cultural Christian institutions seem set on building barriers to external influences that would disturb their cultural equanimity. If I communicate on climate change as a Christian and as a scientist, why would I want to speak to this closeted culture? There are far more effective points of influence I can engage with that can help the world take a step back from the abyss. This evangelical cultural resistance to the world is not about any perceived dangers of diluting theology, but a fear of breaking down the barriers in order to bring relevance. Theology is already being diluted because it is not being lived; protectionism creates destruction. Conversely, theology that is lived is sharpened and purified. Of course there are exceptions to the rule, but the very existence of exceptions prove the rule! It is interesting to think that throughout the history of the church seismic shifts in the institution have gone hand-in-hand with seismic shifts in society. If there has ever been a seismic shift in society, it is now; individualism, relativism, and a virtualized world of global connectivity that has transformed relationships, responsibility, and community. Perhaps what I see in the church of today is the shaking from the first seismic tremors? Breathe it in
Hold my breath I don’t have the heart To live without it It’s my fault It’s your fault If you don’t give a damn Forget about it I won’t call it bad You know I wanted more than that You know I gave it all I had You just let it go like that Find a fire to light Go set your flares off in the night I’ll be miles out of sight Cause you just let me go like that Don’t get involved Problem solved Leave it on the table What’s the difference I look at you You look at me But we can’t see the forest For the distance Oh the distance I won’t call it bad You know I wanted more than that You know I gave it all I had You just let it go like that Find a fire to light Go set your flares off in the night I’ll be miles out of sight Cause you just let me go like that You go you go You go on down You dream you dream You dream out loud You eat your heart out Everytime |
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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