Dear Friends, Known and Unknown,
It has not been my habit to use this space to report on personal events in my life, at least not those which are unrelated to the themes of this weblog.
Today, I make an exception. Today the weblog must pause awhile, while the computer is packed away and I leave beloved Ireland behind - not without real grief - to go to Spain.
But for reasons far beyond the scope of this site - this relocation, difficult though it is, seems right at levels, which appear profound to both myself and to Kim, wise and cherished wife, friend and compass.
Where we are headed, internet connection will not be easy to have – at least not at first. The future of this weblog would thus seem uncertain.
Nonetheless, I feel that I must find a way to continue. Thus sooner or later, these Confessions will resume.
In the meantime, some other small pieces should appear first. I have a few fragmentary pieces already written, as well as some book reviews that never quite made it to Amazon. These will be stored with my Blogger account. And although the weeks ahead will be defined by upheaval, I may well here and there have access to the internet and upload one of these previously written pieces.
Thus this space should not go completely dead – and perhaps even a post a week might be managed. Though I make no commitments to such a schedule.
The quality and consistency of these fragmentary pieces however, may be quite different from the usual pattern here. However, I hope these fragments may still be of interest to some, and thus worth posting.
After an ‘Intermission’ of such fragments, I plan to continue and conclude my series of ‘Confessions’.
I should also note that while ‘on the move’, I will likely not have opportunity to interact as I have done in the comments section. Nonetheless I greatly appreciate any comments that are left – and in time will respond.
Here is the point perhaps to underscore my appreciation of these comments.
For the truth is, not only do I seek to continue this weblog, but in time, I am considering other related activities on the web.
These might include a more informal forum or group, where perhaps people interested in these themes might interact more easily, than in simply responding to the entries I put up.
I am also considering a website for a number of my longer writings, plus those of others.
But it is hard to gauge interest for these ideas. Another thing I have failed to do is to promote this weblog in any significant way.
Yet when I can gain a good internet connection, I may be pursuing all of these goals.
In the meantime, I would appreciate any feedback at all – either in response to this weblog, or to what I have just intimated, if not proposed. I also appreciate any attempt made by anyone, to make this weblog more known or accessible.
For it seems to me – obviously – that there is some kind of call for what I am attempting here, however inadequately. An attempt which includes at least an aspiration to a Christian Hermetic understanding of world currents – which is not divorced from the Traditional Church, but which instead seeks to cherish her and guard her.
Cherish and guard her, as she works so unceasingly to cherish and guard the World in this time of real danger ...
Yes, I regret that so many of a Christian Hermetic persuasion fail to cherish and guard the Church … And I return to the ideal of the anonymous genius, who has given us Meditations on the Tarot:
“John who submitted himself voluntarily to Peter as leader or prince of the apostles did not become his successor after his death, although he outlived Peter by many years. John [is] not called upon to succeed Peter…
Hermeticism, the living Hermetic tradition guards … the life and communal soul of religion, science and art. [Hermeticists] do not have any privilege in any of these domains; saints, true scientists and artists of genius are their superiors.
But they live for the mystery of the communal heart, which beats within all religions, all philosophies, all arts and sciences – past, present and future. And inspired by the example of John the beloved disciple, they do not pretend, and never will pretend, to play a directing role in religion, science, art, in social or political life, but they are constantly attentive so as not to miss any occasion to **serve** religion, philosophy, science, art, the social and political life of humanity ….’
To GUARD and to SERVE, and thus – as I said once before at this weblog – ‘not to succumb to the currents of destruction of tradition manifest in the New Age culture, secularism, ‘political correctness’ and so on …’
And to make effort to not let the world be overwhelmed by the voracious capitalist globalism, that is predicated on the lack of values which result from the destruction of tradition.
Yes, yes … I know that there are Christian Hermeticists, who feel the age of being carried by tradition has past. But given the failure of efforts as Anthroposophy and its like; given the tendency to become ensconced in alternative tradition (eg. ‘Steiner says …’) without further reflection; given the massive DEFLECTION of Western spirituality into channels where the Mystery of Golgotha is entirely obscured, I feel we must turn to she would guards the Mystery of Christ, not as slaves or robots, but as ones affirming tradition, and seeking collectively to aid the work of deepening it.
Yes … as I stare at the horror of the world, as I feel the Sacraments deepening my communion with the Mystery that is Christ, I know that the Church is needed, now as before. To say the very least.
And if my activities in cyberspace, can play but the tiniest part, however miniscule, in guarding and serving … perhaps they need to be not only maintained – but expanded.
In this, I would welcome any response at all.
Finally for those of you who may not have noticed, and might wish further clarification of this weblog, there is a very, very long piece I have written which might be of interest while this weblog goes more quiet.
The piece is called Hermetic Catholicism: A Letter to My Friends and was originally written mainly to a number of known friends. Many of them from my past in the New Age subculture in the UK - for whom the idea that Catholicism had anything meaningful to offer the world, could often seem sublimely ridiculous.
Yes, the walls of mistrust, ignorance, prejudice are high indeed … as they once utterly obscured my own view. And a loving effort to overcome these walls seems necessary to me.
Be that as it may, this lengthy piece is now available in two places.
Either to be read off the screen in a very basic 'bare bones' format:
http://www.graphicmath.com/roger/Hermetic_Catholicism.html
Or as a pdf file in an easier to read, more attractive format, if you wish to download and print:
http://www.graphicmath.com/roger/Hermetic_Catholicism.pdf
I should also say this piece is very personal and autobiographical in parts.
Dear Friends, it will likely be more than a week before anything further appears here. But not long after, I hope irregular fragments will appear during this Intermission from my Confessions.
With heartfelt streaming of gratitude and warmth to you all.
God be with you,
Roger
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Friday, April 14, 2006
Confessions XVI (The Demolition of Christianity and the Myth of ‘Holism’)
Good Friday
Dear Friends Known and Unknown,
Yesterday we further considered how the Course in Miracles serves to negate vast tracts of Christianity.
Yet the Course in Miracles in my experience, is usually embraced in groups and settings, which consider themselves ‘holistic’.
What does the word holistic mean? Clearly it means to do with honouring the whole. And in New Age contexts, this has often been to do with not surrendering to scientific reductionism, but to a healthy honouring of the whole of the person. The common New Age rubric Mind-Body-Spirit is another way this admirable aspiration to wholeness is expressed.
However, there are other New Age aspirations to honouring the whole. The New Age milieu has a commonly repeated mantram, that it seeks to embrace all religions, that it endeavours to honour then, the whole of humanity’s religious and spiritual experience - without discrimination.
At least, I encountered this aspiration repeatedly throughout my New Age years. What made the New Age different it was claimed, is that it was not sectarian or anti- other religions. In this sense, it was holistic.
Now this aspiration, I know, was sincerely believed. But I fear so many in the movement are not thinking clearly enough. They are sincere – but not sufficiently rigorous.
As I write, I recall a leading shaper of holistic culture in Britain. He writes with deep and genuine conviction that the holistic movement is constituted on warmly embracing all spiritual paths.
Yet I also heard him endorse the Course in Miracles over many years, as one of the most important documents of the new ‘dispensation’.
In my youth, I never questioned his sincere convictions. But I no longer believe that such a position holds up to scrutiny.
For one can accept the Course’s demolition of Christianity – or not. But what one cannot do, is have one’s cake and eat it too.
I speak as someone who in fact, tried to do precisely that, throughout my ‘esoteric youth’. The sublime power behind the Course in Miracles could not be false, I reasoned. It must be pointing to the same esoteric truth as that given by other esotericists – including Rudolf Steiner.
Thus I clung to the words of Bohr I often quote: ‘The opposite of a fact is surely a falsehood. But the opposite of one great truth may well be another great truth.’
Surely I felt, the universe is of such a vast, multifaceted nature, and so utterly beyond the limited human mind’s capacity to comprehend, that all the 'great teachings’ are actually in agreement at a deeper level.
And I believe many New-Agers cling to similar notions. In fact, as I write these very lines, another memory floats back of a man at Findhorn, who was a serious admirer of both the Course and Steiner ...
But eventually I had to face the fact that the two worlds were irreconcilable.
And the Course was in fact, CLEARLY pointing to this irreconcilability. It was clearly saying that other versions of Christianity – from Steiner’s to Catholicism – were wrong.
Today, it now seems to clear to me, that the Course is really a demolition course, in regards to traditional Christianity.
Truly, it is saying that so, so much of Christianity has got it WRONG.
I believe that I have intimated but a little of this in these last days. I believe there is far more to it, than what I have indicated about the Course rejecting prayers which ‘make the error real’ or the Crucifixion as only pointing to ‘the unreality of assault’ …
No, I think the Course goes much further in its efforts to dismantle the Christian Tradition.
It is now time, I think, to look at the source of authority the Course indicates for its teaching. Until now, I have not mentioned this.
But much of its apparent authority would appear to lie in nothing other than the fact the Course claims to originate from Jesus. In the Course, it is taken as the voice of Jesus, which tells us:
“I elected for your sake and *mine*, to demonstrate that the most outrageous assault, as judged by the ego, does not matter. As the world judges these things, but not as God knows them, I was betrayed, abandoned, beaten, torn and finally killed …
You are not persecuted, nor was I … I undertook to show this [truth] in an extreme case, ***merely*** because it would serve as a good teaching aid to those whose temptation to give in to anger and assault would not be so extreme. I will with God that none of his Sons should suffer…
The apostles often misunderstood [the crucifixion].
[Had they understood it they could not] have described my reactions to Judas as they did … I could not have said “Betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss?” unless I believed in betrayal. The ***whole*** message of the Crucifixion was simply that I did not [Emphasis mine, here and above]."
All of this appears in a section in the Course entitled 'The Message of the Crucifixion', wherein we also find:
“The crucifixion is ***nothing more*** than an extreme example [Emphasis mine] ...
The real meaning of the crucifixion lies in the ***apparent*** intensity of the assault … This, of course, is impossible … destruction itself is impossible, anything that is destructible cannot be real [Emphasis in original].”
Many a Christian may read these words and wonder how could one possibly even begin to think that this was reconcilable with Christianity, even the esoteric Christianity of Rudolf Steiner, who believed that the Mystery of the Crucifixion of Golgotha was not ‘merely … a good teaching aid’, but an unfathomable cosmic mystery, of which two thousand years of Christian tradition had only begun to scratch the surface.
Yes, Rudolf Steiner profoundly affirmed the essence of the tradition, from the earliest writings of St Paul to nearly two millennia of further inspiration and genius. (My entry for 22-12-05 may be helpful in this context).
How could I even begin to imagine reconciling such massive discrepancies?
Friends, I wish to repeat, the Course has tremendous, tremendous sophistication and power. It identifies the psychological games of ‘the ego’ with stunning acuity. Its call to forgiveness appears absolutely genuine. It is not devoid of the sublime.
Moreover, while many people of a New Age persuasion turn to less demanding - yes, less intelligent -New Age channellings, some of the most dedicated, bright and reflective folk I have known, held the Course in Miracles in high regard.
Yes, the Course is a VAST teaching. And not all of the ideas I have here selected, necessarily leap out at first acquaintance.
Indeed, I admit that I am indebted to Kenneth Wapnick, for understanding how anti-Christian, the Course actually is. Wapnick, who is perhaps the Course’s leading apologist and commentator, writes:
“Many passages in the Course are subtly aimed at the sacraments and teachings found in the Roman Catholic Church.”
In support of this, Wapnick goes on to quote ‘Jesus’ speaking in a section of the channelled material, which did not make the final edited text of the Course and which Wapnick now presents for the first time. Here ‘Jesus’ deconstructs the Mass saying:
‘I do not want to share my body in communion, because this is to share nothing. Would I try to share an illusion with the most holy children of a most holy Father … would I offer you my body, you whom I love, knowing its littleness?
It is the morning of Good Friday as I write these lines. Last night I went to the Holy Mass commemorating His Last Supper. And after it was over, I felt that strange, solemn beauty descend, that I have felt descend in every Holy Week since my confirmation in the Catholic Church.
Yes I felt that strange, solemn, eternal, haunting beauty … I believe that many Christians will know whereof I speak. It is a beauty which was entirely inaccessible to me before I entered the Church.
The Course teaches us – rightly I believe - that every belief we take on, we inevitably represent to others. We cannot help but teach that belief to others.
We can teach therefore, that the principles of the Course are real. That in reality, there is no body, there is no sin, and that the Crucifixion exists solely to demonstrate such things.
Or we can teach that the world has reality, that there is sin and suffering and tragedy and that the Crucifixion is a tremendous Mystery of the Love of God in response to all of this.
And now I have made my choice and according to the Course, I am now teaching -in my words and in my actions- that which I have chosen.
I recognise the reality of the suffering of the world - a suffering we each of us contribute to by sin. And in this weblog, I am elaborating and will continue to elaborate, why I believe that to affirm otherwise has far from desirable consequences ... in terms of both personal and political consequences. A heart numbed by negation of tragedy cannot ACT ...
And I have faith that the Crucifixion is a Mystery of Unfathomable Depth, and not to do with a personal quest to prove the world unreal (underttaken by a 'Jesus' ... 'for your sake and mine').
And so I teach my affirmation of the Mystery of Christ and of his Church, which has represented it to the world for nearly two millennia.
And I know well, that if some friends from my New Age past should read these lines, they well may shake their heads in sad disbelief.
They will imagine, perhaps, that I who had such promise, have become a reactionary in my middle age, opposed to progress. That in supporting the traditional teaching, I am now working against the new revelation of the ‘Master Jesus’ …
What can I say? We must make a choice. But I counsel that we make the choice as **consciously** as we can.
If we should choose the Course, let us be conscious that we are rejecting two thousand years of Christian tradition.
We are rejecting the testimony of the apostles that Jesus himself chose.
We are rejecting the dedication and inspiration of the early Fathers of the Church.
We are rejecting as uninspired and unimportant the testimony of countless brilliant Christian theologians and philosophers.
We are rejecting the testimony of countless Christian mystics and visionaries, whose vision of Christ contradicts the teaching of the Course. And the list continues …
And if we are of an esoteric persuasion, not trusting the exoteric Church, let us also be conscious that we are rejecting the traditions of the original Rosicrucians and of Rudolf Steiner, who gave his life’s blood to preserve the Mystery of Golgotha.
Yes, we live in a universe of free will and we are free to choose. But if we choose the Course or similar Aquarian demolitions of Christianity, let us proclaim ourselves, in all honesty, as opposed to Christian tradition.
Let us be rigorous, follow through the consequences of our thinking, and not dare to call ourselves ‘holistic’.
For my part, I now choose differently. Perhaps old friends may feel I have been captured by the power of the Church.
For my part, I confess I am concerned in turn, that they may have been captured by the power of ‘Aquarian architects of demolition’.
For my part, I feel I have been caught by a truth preserved in two thousand years of tradition, wherein a Mystery is revealed.
Today I feel the solemn beauty of Good Friday in a land,which still honours this Mystery.
As in Ireland Noon approaches, how many tens, if not hundreds of thousands in this nation of four million, will be at the Stations of the Cross? How many more will kiss the Crucifix, at the three o’clock commemoration of the Mystery of Calvary?
In Ireland, a solemn beauty descends this day, among a people still honouring the Christian Mystery. A solemn beauty descends as the Mystery of the Passion becomes present once again.
And my heart, my heart is now open to this solemn beauty in a way that the New Age and the Course in Miracles never provided for. Years ago at Findhorn, I knew a psychological path of practical love – but I did not know at all the Mystery of the Word Made Flesh …
And Ireland, holy Island, I honour you for preserving the Mystery that ‘Aquarius’ would destroy …
I wish you Friends a Holy Easter. This weblog will recommence, albeit only briefly, by WEDNESDAY.
Dear Friends Known and Unknown,
Yesterday we further considered how the Course in Miracles serves to negate vast tracts of Christianity.
Yet the Course in Miracles in my experience, is usually embraced in groups and settings, which consider themselves ‘holistic’.
What does the word holistic mean? Clearly it means to do with honouring the whole. And in New Age contexts, this has often been to do with not surrendering to scientific reductionism, but to a healthy honouring of the whole of the person. The common New Age rubric Mind-Body-Spirit is another way this admirable aspiration to wholeness is expressed.
However, there are other New Age aspirations to honouring the whole. The New Age milieu has a commonly repeated mantram, that it seeks to embrace all religions, that it endeavours to honour then, the whole of humanity’s religious and spiritual experience - without discrimination.
At least, I encountered this aspiration repeatedly throughout my New Age years. What made the New Age different it was claimed, is that it was not sectarian or anti- other religions. In this sense, it was holistic.
Now this aspiration, I know, was sincerely believed. But I fear so many in the movement are not thinking clearly enough. They are sincere – but not sufficiently rigorous.
As I write, I recall a leading shaper of holistic culture in Britain. He writes with deep and genuine conviction that the holistic movement is constituted on warmly embracing all spiritual paths.
Yet I also heard him endorse the Course in Miracles over many years, as one of the most important documents of the new ‘dispensation’.
In my youth, I never questioned his sincere convictions. But I no longer believe that such a position holds up to scrutiny.
For one can accept the Course’s demolition of Christianity – or not. But what one cannot do, is have one’s cake and eat it too.
I speak as someone who in fact, tried to do precisely that, throughout my ‘esoteric youth’. The sublime power behind the Course in Miracles could not be false, I reasoned. It must be pointing to the same esoteric truth as that given by other esotericists – including Rudolf Steiner.
Thus I clung to the words of Bohr I often quote: ‘The opposite of a fact is surely a falsehood. But the opposite of one great truth may well be another great truth.’
Surely I felt, the universe is of such a vast, multifaceted nature, and so utterly beyond the limited human mind’s capacity to comprehend, that all the 'great teachings’ are actually in agreement at a deeper level.
And I believe many New-Agers cling to similar notions. In fact, as I write these very lines, another memory floats back of a man at Findhorn, who was a serious admirer of both the Course and Steiner ...
But eventually I had to face the fact that the two worlds were irreconcilable.
And the Course was in fact, CLEARLY pointing to this irreconcilability. It was clearly saying that other versions of Christianity – from Steiner’s to Catholicism – were wrong.
Today, it now seems to clear to me, that the Course is really a demolition course, in regards to traditional Christianity.
Truly, it is saying that so, so much of Christianity has got it WRONG.
I believe that I have intimated but a little of this in these last days. I believe there is far more to it, than what I have indicated about the Course rejecting prayers which ‘make the error real’ or the Crucifixion as only pointing to ‘the unreality of assault’ …
No, I think the Course goes much further in its efforts to dismantle the Christian Tradition.
It is now time, I think, to look at the source of authority the Course indicates for its teaching. Until now, I have not mentioned this.
But much of its apparent authority would appear to lie in nothing other than the fact the Course claims to originate from Jesus. In the Course, it is taken as the voice of Jesus, which tells us:
“I elected for your sake and *mine*, to demonstrate that the most outrageous assault, as judged by the ego, does not matter. As the world judges these things, but not as God knows them, I was betrayed, abandoned, beaten, torn and finally killed …
You are not persecuted, nor was I … I undertook to show this [truth] in an extreme case, ***merely*** because it would serve as a good teaching aid to those whose temptation to give in to anger and assault would not be so extreme. I will with God that none of his Sons should suffer…
The apostles often misunderstood [the crucifixion].
[Had they understood it they could not] have described my reactions to Judas as they did … I could not have said “Betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss?” unless I believed in betrayal. The ***whole*** message of the Crucifixion was simply that I did not [Emphasis mine, here and above]."
All of this appears in a section in the Course entitled 'The Message of the Crucifixion', wherein we also find:
“The crucifixion is ***nothing more*** than an extreme example [Emphasis mine] ...
The real meaning of the crucifixion lies in the ***apparent*** intensity of the assault … This, of course, is impossible … destruction itself is impossible, anything that is destructible cannot be real [Emphasis in original].”
Many a Christian may read these words and wonder how could one possibly even begin to think that this was reconcilable with Christianity, even the esoteric Christianity of Rudolf Steiner, who believed that the Mystery of the Crucifixion of Golgotha was not ‘merely … a good teaching aid’, but an unfathomable cosmic mystery, of which two thousand years of Christian tradition had only begun to scratch the surface.
Yes, Rudolf Steiner profoundly affirmed the essence of the tradition, from the earliest writings of St Paul to nearly two millennia of further inspiration and genius. (My entry for 22-12-05 may be helpful in this context).
How could I even begin to imagine reconciling such massive discrepancies?
Friends, I wish to repeat, the Course has tremendous, tremendous sophistication and power. It identifies the psychological games of ‘the ego’ with stunning acuity. Its call to forgiveness appears absolutely genuine. It is not devoid of the sublime.
Moreover, while many people of a New Age persuasion turn to less demanding - yes, less intelligent -New Age channellings, some of the most dedicated, bright and reflective folk I have known, held the Course in Miracles in high regard.
Yes, the Course is a VAST teaching. And not all of the ideas I have here selected, necessarily leap out at first acquaintance.
Indeed, I admit that I am indebted to Kenneth Wapnick, for understanding how anti-Christian, the Course actually is. Wapnick, who is perhaps the Course’s leading apologist and commentator, writes:
“Many passages in the Course are subtly aimed at the sacraments and teachings found in the Roman Catholic Church.”
In support of this, Wapnick goes on to quote ‘Jesus’ speaking in a section of the channelled material, which did not make the final edited text of the Course and which Wapnick now presents for the first time. Here ‘Jesus’ deconstructs the Mass saying:
‘I do not want to share my body in communion, because this is to share nothing. Would I try to share an illusion with the most holy children of a most holy Father … would I offer you my body, you whom I love, knowing its littleness?
It is the morning of Good Friday as I write these lines. Last night I went to the Holy Mass commemorating His Last Supper. And after it was over, I felt that strange, solemn beauty descend, that I have felt descend in every Holy Week since my confirmation in the Catholic Church.
Yes I felt that strange, solemn, eternal, haunting beauty … I believe that many Christians will know whereof I speak. It is a beauty which was entirely inaccessible to me before I entered the Church.
The Course teaches us – rightly I believe - that every belief we take on, we inevitably represent to others. We cannot help but teach that belief to others.
We can teach therefore, that the principles of the Course are real. That in reality, there is no body, there is no sin, and that the Crucifixion exists solely to demonstrate such things.
Or we can teach that the world has reality, that there is sin and suffering and tragedy and that the Crucifixion is a tremendous Mystery of the Love of God in response to all of this.
And now I have made my choice and according to the Course, I am now teaching -in my words and in my actions- that which I have chosen.
I recognise the reality of the suffering of the world - a suffering we each of us contribute to by sin. And in this weblog, I am elaborating and will continue to elaborate, why I believe that to affirm otherwise has far from desirable consequences ... in terms of both personal and political consequences. A heart numbed by negation of tragedy cannot ACT ...
And I have faith that the Crucifixion is a Mystery of Unfathomable Depth, and not to do with a personal quest to prove the world unreal (underttaken by a 'Jesus' ... 'for your sake and mine').
And so I teach my affirmation of the Mystery of Christ and of his Church, which has represented it to the world for nearly two millennia.
And I know well, that if some friends from my New Age past should read these lines, they well may shake their heads in sad disbelief.
They will imagine, perhaps, that I who had such promise, have become a reactionary in my middle age, opposed to progress. That in supporting the traditional teaching, I am now working against the new revelation of the ‘Master Jesus’ …
What can I say? We must make a choice. But I counsel that we make the choice as **consciously** as we can.
If we should choose the Course, let us be conscious that we are rejecting two thousand years of Christian tradition.
We are rejecting the testimony of the apostles that Jesus himself chose.
We are rejecting the dedication and inspiration of the early Fathers of the Church.
We are rejecting as uninspired and unimportant the testimony of countless brilliant Christian theologians and philosophers.
We are rejecting the testimony of countless Christian mystics and visionaries, whose vision of Christ contradicts the teaching of the Course. And the list continues …
And if we are of an esoteric persuasion, not trusting the exoteric Church, let us also be conscious that we are rejecting the traditions of the original Rosicrucians and of Rudolf Steiner, who gave his life’s blood to preserve the Mystery of Golgotha.
Yes, we live in a universe of free will and we are free to choose. But if we choose the Course or similar Aquarian demolitions of Christianity, let us proclaim ourselves, in all honesty, as opposed to Christian tradition.
Let us be rigorous, follow through the consequences of our thinking, and not dare to call ourselves ‘holistic’.
For my part, I now choose differently. Perhaps old friends may feel I have been captured by the power of the Church.
For my part, I confess I am concerned in turn, that they may have been captured by the power of ‘Aquarian architects of demolition’.
For my part, I feel I have been caught by a truth preserved in two thousand years of tradition, wherein a Mystery is revealed.
Today I feel the solemn beauty of Good Friday in a land,which still honours this Mystery.
As in Ireland Noon approaches, how many tens, if not hundreds of thousands in this nation of four million, will be at the Stations of the Cross? How many more will kiss the Crucifix, at the three o’clock commemoration of the Mystery of Calvary?
In Ireland, a solemn beauty descends this day, among a people still honouring the Christian Mystery. A solemn beauty descends as the Mystery of the Passion becomes present once again.
And my heart, my heart is now open to this solemn beauty in a way that the New Age and the Course in Miracles never provided for. Years ago at Findhorn, I knew a psychological path of practical love – but I did not know at all the Mystery of the Word Made Flesh …
And Ireland, holy Island, I honour you for preserving the Mystery that ‘Aquarius’ would destroy …
I wish you Friends a Holy Easter. This weblog will recommence, albeit only briefly, by WEDNESDAY.
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Confessions XV (Sin Regarded as Illusion)
Holy Thursday
Dear Friends Known and Unknown,
Yesterday I spoke of A Course in Miracles as an immensely sophisticated text, whose influence I repeatedly encountered in many New Age venues.
Often this influence might not be particularly visible. I am thinking now, for instance, of a prominent author in the holistic milieu, who I knew and who had deeply worked with the Course, though I think that this was scarcely mentioned in his erudite writings …
Now I am not saying that A Course in Miracles is secretly at work behind the scenes in every corner of the sprawling holistic movement. I am saying I experienced it as a very popular text – and with a staying-power over the years, which other texts did not necessarily enjoy.
And even where the Course was not being studied, mention of its name frequently evoked affirmation. It would be regularly met with nods of respect.
Yes, as I look back on my New Age years, I find it easy to imagine a student of the Course being greeted with nods of respect in New Age circles everywhere.
But if I imagine myself now, as a Catholic, moving through those same circles and saying that I preferred the dogmas of Catholicism to the Course, I cannot so easily imagine those same approving nods.
I imagine rather bewilderment – and indeed I have experienced such bewilderment continuously, as I have encountered folk of a holistic persuasion in recent years.
Yes, I experience my conversion to Catholicism as bewildering for such people. I have who tasted Findhorn and the New Age to now prefer Roman Catholicism …!? The mind boggles. But that is the reaction both my wife and I have frequently met since we chose the Church.
And although the New Age milieu is commonly considered as a place without doctrines, I now believe this bewildered reaction points to a set of commonly held (though often unconscious) beliefs.
Among these is a definite sense that new teachings are superior to old. For do I not realise that texts like A Course in Miracles belong to a new ‘dispensation’ and are to be preferred to Old Age ‘dogma’?
Thus even in truth, the Course in Miracles is only studied by a very small fraction of the New Age movement, I believe that this pattern of general respect I describe is true and that behind this, there lies a tale to be told …
It is a tale of respecting 'New Revelations' – or rather a certain KIND of 'New Revelations'. These are of a kind I think, which accord-more or less-to a general New Age pattern.
Now I believe that the Course does accord –again more or less – to such a pattern. And to return to a theme in these confessions, it is a pattern which tends to dismiss the notions which attend a Fall into sin, suffering,tragedy and evil.
But to illustrate this, I need to focus on the Course more deeply.
Yesterday I spoke of how the Course’s message is that no harm has ever been done to anyone – in reality.
From this same perspective then, it naturally follows that we ourselves never can or do harm anyone. Guilt and sin are thus regarded by the Course as unhealthy ideas – as indeed is the case elsewhere in New Age thought.
Thus the Course preaches against the concept of sin:
“To sin would be to violate reality and to succeed [which according to the Course’s concept of reality is impossible.]
Sin is the proclamation that attack is real and guilt is justified … Sin is the grand illusion underlying all the ego’s grandiosity [One’s true self] cannot sin. There is nothing [the true self] can do that would really change his reality in any way, nor make him really guilty”
The Course advises us to stop JUDGING AS REAL any harm at all in our actions. It describes such a judgment as ‘Making the error real’ – the 'error' that is, that we can do *real* harm, that we thus are GUILTY of *real* harm or that we can commit what a Christian would commonly call sin.
Now if one holds such a view, a vast host of Christian prayers become meaningless. ‘Forgive us our sins’ … ‘Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.‘ These are examples of what the Course calls: 'Making the Error real".
In a similar vein, I will note that, as my heart ponders the prospects of my 11 year old daughter living out her years in a burning greenhouse, I turn to another prayer, which I believe has been given by Our Lady, and which includes the following supplication:
Let the Holy Spirit live in the hearts of all nations,
That they may be preserved from degeneration, disaster and war.
(For more on this prayer, See my entry for 1-12-05)
Yet from the perspective of the Course, in reality there is no ‘degeneration, disaster and war’.
But whether I turn to the prayer of the Lady of All Nations or not, the fact remains that the Course is claiming that a vast amount of Christian prayer and inspiration is founded on false ideas.
The Course in Miracles then, is fundamentally opposed to vast aspects of Christian teaching and practice.
But this Course finds respect in a general milieu, in which these very same ideas underlying Christianity are also opposed – to one degree or another. That is, it finds widespread respect in the milieu I call New Age.
I wish to repeat 'to one degree or another'. These aspects of Christianity are not always as **radically and consistently** opposed in the New Age culture, as they are in the Course.
But still, this milieu has in my experience, a definite tendency to oppose the so-called ‘Piscean’ notions of a Fall into sin, suffering, tragedy and evil … among other Christian conceptions.
And all of this is to do with why I believe that many New Age folk can scarcely believe that I could now prefer a ‘retrograde’ Catholicism, after tasting the fruits of the New Aquarian dispensation …
Dear Friends Known and Unknown,
Yesterday I spoke of A Course in Miracles as an immensely sophisticated text, whose influence I repeatedly encountered in many New Age venues.
Often this influence might not be particularly visible. I am thinking now, for instance, of a prominent author in the holistic milieu, who I knew and who had deeply worked with the Course, though I think that this was scarcely mentioned in his erudite writings …
Now I am not saying that A Course in Miracles is secretly at work behind the scenes in every corner of the sprawling holistic movement. I am saying I experienced it as a very popular text – and with a staying-power over the years, which other texts did not necessarily enjoy.
And even where the Course was not being studied, mention of its name frequently evoked affirmation. It would be regularly met with nods of respect.
Yes, as I look back on my New Age years, I find it easy to imagine a student of the Course being greeted with nods of respect in New Age circles everywhere.
But if I imagine myself now, as a Catholic, moving through those same circles and saying that I preferred the dogmas of Catholicism to the Course, I cannot so easily imagine those same approving nods.
I imagine rather bewilderment – and indeed I have experienced such bewilderment continuously, as I have encountered folk of a holistic persuasion in recent years.
Yes, I experience my conversion to Catholicism as bewildering for such people. I have who tasted Findhorn and the New Age to now prefer Roman Catholicism …!? The mind boggles. But that is the reaction both my wife and I have frequently met since we chose the Church.
And although the New Age milieu is commonly considered as a place without doctrines, I now believe this bewildered reaction points to a set of commonly held (though often unconscious) beliefs.
Among these is a definite sense that new teachings are superior to old. For do I not realise that texts like A Course in Miracles belong to a new ‘dispensation’ and are to be preferred to Old Age ‘dogma’?
Thus even in truth, the Course in Miracles is only studied by a very small fraction of the New Age movement, I believe that this pattern of general respect I describe is true and that behind this, there lies a tale to be told …
It is a tale of respecting 'New Revelations' – or rather a certain KIND of 'New Revelations'. These are of a kind I think, which accord-more or less-to a general New Age pattern.
Now I believe that the Course does accord –again more or less – to such a pattern. And to return to a theme in these confessions, it is a pattern which tends to dismiss the notions which attend a Fall into sin, suffering,tragedy and evil.
But to illustrate this, I need to focus on the Course more deeply.
Yesterday I spoke of how the Course’s message is that no harm has ever been done to anyone – in reality.
From this same perspective then, it naturally follows that we ourselves never can or do harm anyone. Guilt and sin are thus regarded by the Course as unhealthy ideas – as indeed is the case elsewhere in New Age thought.
Thus the Course preaches against the concept of sin:
“To sin would be to violate reality and to succeed [which according to the Course’s concept of reality is impossible.]
Sin is the proclamation that attack is real and guilt is justified … Sin is the grand illusion underlying all the ego’s grandiosity [One’s true self] cannot sin. There is nothing [the true self] can do that would really change his reality in any way, nor make him really guilty”
The Course advises us to stop JUDGING AS REAL any harm at all in our actions. It describes such a judgment as ‘Making the error real’ – the 'error' that is, that we can do *real* harm, that we thus are GUILTY of *real* harm or that we can commit what a Christian would commonly call sin.
Now if one holds such a view, a vast host of Christian prayers become meaningless. ‘Forgive us our sins’ … ‘Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.‘ These are examples of what the Course calls: 'Making the Error real".
In a similar vein, I will note that, as my heart ponders the prospects of my 11 year old daughter living out her years in a burning greenhouse, I turn to another prayer, which I believe has been given by Our Lady, and which includes the following supplication:
Let the Holy Spirit live in the hearts of all nations,
That they may be preserved from degeneration, disaster and war.
(For more on this prayer, See my entry for 1-12-05)
Yet from the perspective of the Course, in reality there is no ‘degeneration, disaster and war’.
But whether I turn to the prayer of the Lady of All Nations or not, the fact remains that the Course is claiming that a vast amount of Christian prayer and inspiration is founded on false ideas.
The Course in Miracles then, is fundamentally opposed to vast aspects of Christian teaching and practice.
But this Course finds respect in a general milieu, in which these very same ideas underlying Christianity are also opposed – to one degree or another. That is, it finds widespread respect in the milieu I call New Age.
I wish to repeat 'to one degree or another'. These aspects of Christianity are not always as **radically and consistently** opposed in the New Age culture, as they are in the Course.
But still, this milieu has in my experience, a definite tendency to oppose the so-called ‘Piscean’ notions of a Fall into sin, suffering, tragedy and evil … among other Christian conceptions.
And all of this is to do with why I believe that many New Age folk can scarcely believe that I could now prefer a ‘retrograde’ Catholicism, after tasting the fruits of the New Aquarian dispensation …
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Confessions XIV (Suffering Regarded As Illusion)
Dear Friends, Known and Unknown,
I have been suggesting that the New Age milieu can be characterised by a frequent tendency to either minimise suffering and tragedy or even deny it outright as illusory. Again I want to emphasise that this tendency is only 'frequent' - it is not consistent. There are significant exceptions.
But today I am going to focus on a book, which I believe exemplifies this frequent pattern – and which has gathered wide respect indeed within the holistic orbit.
The book is called A Course in Miracles – and it impossible for me to deny that it is a work of Genius. First, a word of what I mean by that term.
I recall when I first met Shakespeare. I met Shakespeare, when first I realised, what it was to stand in awe of Genius.
Stunned, I realised there was so, so, SO much in his tragedies, operating on so many levels, simultaneously. Layer upon layer of characterisation, penetrating psychological insight, spiritual wisdom, pathos, irony, social commentary and more – all woven together in a way which far surpassed any literature I had ever come across.
To top it all off, Shakespeare had managed to express his vast, complex vision in **poetry**. All was in iambic pentameter and included some of the most beautiful and memorable lines ever committed to English.
I actually feel something like that in response to A Course in Miracles.
Now one may wish to call it a towering work of ANTI-CHRISTIAN Genius, if one likes.
But I defy any thoughtful person to spend much time with this book, and not conclude that its author possesses an extroadinarily – I want to repeat EXTROADINARILY - sophisticated mind.
A vast and consistent vision of the nature of reality is presented, laden with **brilliant** insights into the dynamics of human psychology. And like Shakespeare, an immense amount of the text is in poetry – in fact, the same iambic pentameter employed by the bard. At many points, the language is very beautiful indeed.
As it happens, this is a 'channelled' text. The woman who received it, could not have possibly authored it in her normal every day consciousness.
But when it comes to the Course -unlike 99.8 % of New Age channelled texts - I must confess to feeling awe.
Now, the basic thrust of the Course’s message is that the world we see is illusory.
The Course posits two orders of perception. One order is real. The other is unreal.
At the outset, the Course itself states that its message can be "summed up very simply in this way:
Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God."
Thus, the course has definite similarities to Platonism, Gnosticism, Vedanta – and so on. All of which posit that we experience a world of shadow or Maya – illusion.
This thinking is not even completely foreign to Christianity – inasmuch as Christianity is not dualist. Unlike certain Gnostics, Christians do not propose two equal, opposed orders of darkness and light. The world of Darkness does not have the same, ultimate eternal validity as that of God …
But the implications the Course draws from its position are radical indeed.
Now I must confess that I have never studied the Course in its 1,200 page entirety. Nonetheless I have substantially engaged with it over the years – also through the writings of its leading commentators.
Although one must be wary indeed of reducing a vast system to a simple summary, for my part I truly believe the following words represent the message that the Course is giving. Friends, I have struggled, really struggled to do justice to the Course, and this is what I believe its message necessarily **entails**:
In reality – Hitler never murdered the Jews. The genocide committed by Stalin, Mao, the European conquerors of the indigenous Americans and so forth, in reality never happened.
Similarity – in reality – global warming, the ravages of poverty, third world sweatshops, child abuse … the list goes on – all of these are not happening. Threats are unreal and what is unreal does not exist.
And it is only through understanding this basic unreality behind all suffering, that forgiveness is even possible.
The Course is a call to forgiveness at every level. Forgiveness for the Course is THE means of salvation.
But forgiveness **only** becomes possible for the Course, when we realise that every wrong done - from the most minor insult to the most sadistic torture - has not been done – in reality.
‘In reality’ is the key here. Whatever is precisely meant by these two words ‘in reality’. I am struggling to do justice here, and in that spirit, I ask you to focus on these two words I am repeatedly stressing as the key …
Now, on this basis, the Course goes on to deconstruct a vast, vast amount of Christianity.
According to the Course, the ONLY meaning of the Crucifixion was ‘to demonstrate that the most outrageous assault, as judged by the ego, does not matter’ – again, because ‘in reality’ it never happened. The Course amplifies its message about the Crucifixion by saying ‘destruction itself is impossible, anything that is destructible cannot be real’.
Thus two millennia of Christian (traditional and esoteric) understandings of the Crucifixion, which stand in the most profound contrast to this idea, are repeatedly dismissed by the Course as misunderstandings.
Tomorrow, I shall continue with the Course’s deconstruction of Christianity.
But in doing so, I hope never to get too far away from my main theme – which is that of New Age teachings, which serve to efface tragedy and suffering.
For I believe the Course, which met with deep respect wherever I ventured in the New Age milieu, is but an outstandingly developed example of a general New Age tendency of thought.
I have been suggesting that the New Age milieu can be characterised by a frequent tendency to either minimise suffering and tragedy or even deny it outright as illusory. Again I want to emphasise that this tendency is only 'frequent' - it is not consistent. There are significant exceptions.
But today I am going to focus on a book, which I believe exemplifies this frequent pattern – and which has gathered wide respect indeed within the holistic orbit.
The book is called A Course in Miracles – and it impossible for me to deny that it is a work of Genius. First, a word of what I mean by that term.
I recall when I first met Shakespeare. I met Shakespeare, when first I realised, what it was to stand in awe of Genius.
Stunned, I realised there was so, so, SO much in his tragedies, operating on so many levels, simultaneously. Layer upon layer of characterisation, penetrating psychological insight, spiritual wisdom, pathos, irony, social commentary and more – all woven together in a way which far surpassed any literature I had ever come across.
To top it all off, Shakespeare had managed to express his vast, complex vision in **poetry**. All was in iambic pentameter and included some of the most beautiful and memorable lines ever committed to English.
I actually feel something like that in response to A Course in Miracles.
Now one may wish to call it a towering work of ANTI-CHRISTIAN Genius, if one likes.
But I defy any thoughtful person to spend much time with this book, and not conclude that its author possesses an extroadinarily – I want to repeat EXTROADINARILY - sophisticated mind.
A vast and consistent vision of the nature of reality is presented, laden with **brilliant** insights into the dynamics of human psychology. And like Shakespeare, an immense amount of the text is in poetry – in fact, the same iambic pentameter employed by the bard. At many points, the language is very beautiful indeed.
As it happens, this is a 'channelled' text. The woman who received it, could not have possibly authored it in her normal every day consciousness.
But when it comes to the Course -unlike 99.8 % of New Age channelled texts - I must confess to feeling awe.
Now, the basic thrust of the Course’s message is that the world we see is illusory.
The Course posits two orders of perception. One order is real. The other is unreal.
At the outset, the Course itself states that its message can be "summed up very simply in this way:
Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God."
Thus, the course has definite similarities to Platonism, Gnosticism, Vedanta – and so on. All of which posit that we experience a world of shadow or Maya – illusion.
This thinking is not even completely foreign to Christianity – inasmuch as Christianity is not dualist. Unlike certain Gnostics, Christians do not propose two equal, opposed orders of darkness and light. The world of Darkness does not have the same, ultimate eternal validity as that of God …
But the implications the Course draws from its position are radical indeed.
Now I must confess that I have never studied the Course in its 1,200 page entirety. Nonetheless I have substantially engaged with it over the years – also through the writings of its leading commentators.
Although one must be wary indeed of reducing a vast system to a simple summary, for my part I truly believe the following words represent the message that the Course is giving. Friends, I have struggled, really struggled to do justice to the Course, and this is what I believe its message necessarily **entails**:
In reality – Hitler never murdered the Jews. The genocide committed by Stalin, Mao, the European conquerors of the indigenous Americans and so forth, in reality never happened.
Similarity – in reality – global warming, the ravages of poverty, third world sweatshops, child abuse … the list goes on – all of these are not happening. Threats are unreal and what is unreal does not exist.
And it is only through understanding this basic unreality behind all suffering, that forgiveness is even possible.
The Course is a call to forgiveness at every level. Forgiveness for the Course is THE means of salvation.
But forgiveness **only** becomes possible for the Course, when we realise that every wrong done - from the most minor insult to the most sadistic torture - has not been done – in reality.
‘In reality’ is the key here. Whatever is precisely meant by these two words ‘in reality’. I am struggling to do justice here, and in that spirit, I ask you to focus on these two words I am repeatedly stressing as the key …
Now, on this basis, the Course goes on to deconstruct a vast, vast amount of Christianity.
According to the Course, the ONLY meaning of the Crucifixion was ‘to demonstrate that the most outrageous assault, as judged by the ego, does not matter’ – again, because ‘in reality’ it never happened. The Course amplifies its message about the Crucifixion by saying ‘destruction itself is impossible, anything that is destructible cannot be real’.
Thus two millennia of Christian (traditional and esoteric) understandings of the Crucifixion, which stand in the most profound contrast to this idea, are repeatedly dismissed by the Course as misunderstandings.
Tomorrow, I shall continue with the Course’s deconstruction of Christianity.
But in doing so, I hope never to get too far away from my main theme – which is that of New Age teachings, which serve to efface tragedy and suffering.
For I believe the Course, which met with deep respect wherever I ventured in the New Age milieu, is but an outstandingly developed example of a general New Age tendency of thought.
Friday, April 07, 2006
Confessions XIII (A Jew, a Catholic and a New-Ager go to Hell...)
Dear Friends, Known and Unknown,
Two days ago, I spoke of a distinct New Age motif that ‘either suffering is illusory or it is unimportant compared to a transcendent joy at the heart of the universe.’ And I had hoped to go further into that territory by now.
But I confess that I need more time to revise and reflect.
Strange as it may seem, much of what I have for you today, is the memory of a joke. Only the memory, for I cannot even fully recall it:
A Jew, a Catholic and a New-Ager go to Hell. The intensity of the flames is searing. And they are each of them asked: ‘How do you cope with the HEAT?'
The Jew responds perhaps with a certain lamentation, but the specific form I no longer recall.
The Catholic says: ‘I’m offering it up.’
The New Ager – who is positively drenched in perspiration - replies: ‘Heat? What heat?’
Now my partial recollection of this joke may or may not bring a smile to your face.
But I feel my entire life experience of the New Age and Catholic Christianity, points to the fact there is far more here than just a silly joke.
For Catholic spirituality, suffering is not something to be denied. It is to be taken seriously, and transformed with the Grace of God. This theme powerfully informs the entire Catholic sensibility.
But after many, many years in the holistic milieu, I can testify that the New Age is often, if not always, powerfully informed by a relativising, minimising or denial of suffering and its value.
Now it needs to be said this is far from the entire picture. There are many ways in which this New Age tendency is powerfully counteracted within the movement. Among these is an often fine PRAXIS of really engaging with another human being - truly making space for and listening to her or his inner world.
But as much as I admire the real health of this **praxis**, it nonetheless remains true that I am concerned about the **thinking** imparted by so much New Age teaching.
For what we think is not without effect upon our lives. And the presence of such a powerful spiritual teaching about suffering, will not be without its practical consequences.
As I have said, I am concerned that among these is a certain weakening of the personality and nonchalance in the face of social injustice.
Now if this is true, it is not without consquence for civilisation.
For in the Protestant countries in Europe especially, the Christian Mystery is severely weakened. In places like Ireland, Italy and Poland, the picture is rather different. But in Protestant Europe, few participate in the Church.
I think it may be fair to surmise that the dominant form of spirituality in such countries is now of a New Age variety. In such places then, one’s main options may seem to consist of either the soulless materialism of secularist capitalism or the New Age culture.
Certainly, twenty-six years ago in Britain these were the only options I personally saw. And I think this is much more likely to be the case for many today.
But I fear neither secularism nor New Age spirituality are proving sufficient to meet the situation of the planet.
The failures of secularism are clear to many of a Hermetic persuasion. But the failures of the so-called holistic panoply are often not so clear.
And so I hope to return to this theme on WEDNESDAY. But here I will also say that due to many pressing concerns, this weblog will either soon need to become more sporadic for awhile or take yet another hiatus.
As Passion Sunday and Holy Week approach, may Christ be ever with you, friends.
Two days ago, I spoke of a distinct New Age motif that ‘either suffering is illusory or it is unimportant compared to a transcendent joy at the heart of the universe.’ And I had hoped to go further into that territory by now.
But I confess that I need more time to revise and reflect.
Strange as it may seem, much of what I have for you today, is the memory of a joke. Only the memory, for I cannot even fully recall it:
A Jew, a Catholic and a New-Ager go to Hell. The intensity of the flames is searing. And they are each of them asked: ‘How do you cope with the HEAT?'
The Jew responds perhaps with a certain lamentation, but the specific form I no longer recall.
The Catholic says: ‘I’m offering it up.’
The New Ager – who is positively drenched in perspiration - replies: ‘Heat? What heat?’
Now my partial recollection of this joke may or may not bring a smile to your face.
But I feel my entire life experience of the New Age and Catholic Christianity, points to the fact there is far more here than just a silly joke.
For Catholic spirituality, suffering is not something to be denied. It is to be taken seriously, and transformed with the Grace of God. This theme powerfully informs the entire Catholic sensibility.
But after many, many years in the holistic milieu, I can testify that the New Age is often, if not always, powerfully informed by a relativising, minimising or denial of suffering and its value.
Now it needs to be said this is far from the entire picture. There are many ways in which this New Age tendency is powerfully counteracted within the movement. Among these is an often fine PRAXIS of really engaging with another human being - truly making space for and listening to her or his inner world.
But as much as I admire the real health of this **praxis**, it nonetheless remains true that I am concerned about the **thinking** imparted by so much New Age teaching.
For what we think is not without effect upon our lives. And the presence of such a powerful spiritual teaching about suffering, will not be without its practical consequences.
As I have said, I am concerned that among these is a certain weakening of the personality and nonchalance in the face of social injustice.
Now if this is true, it is not without consquence for civilisation.
For in the Protestant countries in Europe especially, the Christian Mystery is severely weakened. In places like Ireland, Italy and Poland, the picture is rather different. But in Protestant Europe, few participate in the Church.
I think it may be fair to surmise that the dominant form of spirituality in such countries is now of a New Age variety. In such places then, one’s main options may seem to consist of either the soulless materialism of secularist capitalism or the New Age culture.
Certainly, twenty-six years ago in Britain these were the only options I personally saw. And I think this is much more likely to be the case for many today.
But I fear neither secularism nor New Age spirituality are proving sufficient to meet the situation of the planet.
The failures of secularism are clear to many of a Hermetic persuasion. But the failures of the so-called holistic panoply are often not so clear.
And so I hope to return to this theme on WEDNESDAY. But here I will also say that due to many pressing concerns, this weblog will either soon need to become more sporadic for awhile or take yet another hiatus.
As Passion Sunday and Holy Week approach, may Christ be ever with you, friends.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Confessions XII (Communion and Atomisation)
Dear Friends, Known and Unknown,
Yesterday I have spoken of the need for a spirituality not blind to tragedy and a spirituality which recognises that, in our broken-ness, we cannot make it by ourselves.
We need Grace – and all my experience has pointed me to the power of the Grace, which flows through the early structures and traditions of the Church (still preserved in Orthodoxy and Catholicism).
It is moreover a Grace, I believe, which emphasises communion and co-operation.
Now in time, I hope to say more on this. For now, I will only say that I believe there is a particular communitarian sensibility to Catholicism – linked to a sense of God as mediated through the community (i.e. the Church) and which many writers have remarked on.
(This subject is often addressed vis-Ã -vis the more individual sensibility of Protestantism, with its stress on a unique, unmediated relation with a God, who has often been emphasised as more transcendent or radically ‘other’).
Thus, the Catholic sociologist Andrew Greeley speaks of a distinct Catholic Imagination. He argues that Catholics are socialised to see reality differently – with God’s sacramental presence running like a thread through family and community. He argues that Catholics bond more tightly as a result – though not always with healthy results.
Personally I feel Greeley’s analysis depends too much on ideas such as socialisation – and not nearly enough on the Mystery of the Sacraments. I was not socialised as a child to be Catholic – but I do think the Sacraments are changing me in the precise directions he indicates. For example. very human ties become ever more precious …
Whatever the origins of the Catholic communitarian ethos however, I believe there is much else to indicate that the traditional forms of the Church promote communion. The comparatively few schisms within the two millennia of Orthodoxy and Catholicism, also point to this, for example.
Now I believe that the Protestant emphasis on the individual also has tremendous value and necessity.
But as I consider Time magazine’s simple chilling headline ‘Earth at the TIPPING point’, I fear we have tipped too far into **atomisation**. And now more than ever, human co-operation and community is needed …
Here sitting at my computer in Ireland, my heart and mind are reeling at the world situation.
Here in Ireland … which still has far and away the most amazing communitarian ethos, I ever encountered among the various countries in which I lived.
Ireland which until only recently, never spawned a true right-wing party – having rejected such for decades. Ireland, where in even small cities, one can find churches with several daily masses and astonishing numbers participating in each.
Yes, Ireland for so long you rejected the secularist capitalism of the West. You were even described in tones that shivered many a spine, as ‘the greatest Theocracy West of Tehran’.
Was all of this simply Catholic socialisation – or was the Mystery of the Sacraments also a factor?
Personally, I believe it was. And when I consider the rupture from Tradition in the last centuries and the atomising trajectory, which followed in its wake, I feel my heart crying out ever more that something fundamental has been lost.
That there is something fundamentally flawed in this trajectory. A trajectory that is, that begins in the Renaissance, with the dismantling of Tradition.
Whether it is the Rationalism of Descartes, who needs to subject everything to **doubt**, in order to start building afresh.
Or whether it is the Reformation of those noble souls sincerely indignant at the very real abuses of the Church – yes, the terrible abuses, which nonetheless did not justify casting aspersions on vast masses of Christian inspiration – simply because they are not to be found in sola scriptura (i.e. the Bible alone).
Yes more and more troubled, I confess that my heart looks to that pre-Reformation tradition, and it wonders and wonders.
O Holy Mother Church, are you holding far more than we can ever see – far, far more that is directly relevant to addressing the ravaging of people and planet?
As I enter your Sacraments ever more deeply, I feel that I see, or I begin to see, something far more vital and needed within you than I ever imagined …
Now do not mistake me, dear friend. I do not wish for one moment to suggest that the Sacraments –as powerful as I experience them to be - are the only way that Christ’s Grace is available.
No, I certainly share John Paul II’s faith that this Grace comes through other religions and other paths (see my entry for 14-11-05). Personally, I become more keenly appreciative of all religious paths, which seek to honour and engage the roots of their tradition.
But the point I am stumbling towards, is that instead of a trajectory which moves ever more towards an atomised spirituality, where each of us simply does ‘our own thing’; instead of a spirituality divorced from the collective insight of a community across time (though often, it must be said, filled with fawning approbation towards the latest spiritual fad) – instead of all this, is it now more urgent than ever, that we look to what we have lost?
Is it time to realise that neither the Rationalism initiated (in a sense) by Descartes, and which underpins the secular capitalist world, nor atomised spirituality can cope with what is to come ?
O Holy Mother Church, is that what you whisper in my heart, as almost daily I join you in your Sacraments, and feel that I hear your loving, tender voice ever more vividly?
Yes I hear your voice, your Grace – and for this reason I have hope. We are not alone. Christ, Mary, the Angels and the Saints are ever with us …
Yesterday I have spoken of the need for a spirituality not blind to tragedy and a spirituality which recognises that, in our broken-ness, we cannot make it by ourselves.
We need Grace – and all my experience has pointed me to the power of the Grace, which flows through the early structures and traditions of the Church (still preserved in Orthodoxy and Catholicism).
It is moreover a Grace, I believe, which emphasises communion and co-operation.
Now in time, I hope to say more on this. For now, I will only say that I believe there is a particular communitarian sensibility to Catholicism – linked to a sense of God as mediated through the community (i.e. the Church) and which many writers have remarked on.
(This subject is often addressed vis-Ã -vis the more individual sensibility of Protestantism, with its stress on a unique, unmediated relation with a God, who has often been emphasised as more transcendent or radically ‘other’).
Thus, the Catholic sociologist Andrew Greeley speaks of a distinct Catholic Imagination. He argues that Catholics are socialised to see reality differently – with God’s sacramental presence running like a thread through family and community. He argues that Catholics bond more tightly as a result – though not always with healthy results.
Personally I feel Greeley’s analysis depends too much on ideas such as socialisation – and not nearly enough on the Mystery of the Sacraments. I was not socialised as a child to be Catholic – but I do think the Sacraments are changing me in the precise directions he indicates. For example. very human ties become ever more precious …
Whatever the origins of the Catholic communitarian ethos however, I believe there is much else to indicate that the traditional forms of the Church promote communion. The comparatively few schisms within the two millennia of Orthodoxy and Catholicism, also point to this, for example.
Now I believe that the Protestant emphasis on the individual also has tremendous value and necessity.
But as I consider Time magazine’s simple chilling headline ‘Earth at the TIPPING point’, I fear we have tipped too far into **atomisation**. And now more than ever, human co-operation and community is needed …
Here sitting at my computer in Ireland, my heart and mind are reeling at the world situation.
Here in Ireland … which still has far and away the most amazing communitarian ethos, I ever encountered among the various countries in which I lived.
Ireland which until only recently, never spawned a true right-wing party – having rejected such for decades. Ireland, where in even small cities, one can find churches with several daily masses and astonishing numbers participating in each.
Yes, Ireland for so long you rejected the secularist capitalism of the West. You were even described in tones that shivered many a spine, as ‘the greatest Theocracy West of Tehran’.
Was all of this simply Catholic socialisation – or was the Mystery of the Sacraments also a factor?
Personally, I believe it was. And when I consider the rupture from Tradition in the last centuries and the atomising trajectory, which followed in its wake, I feel my heart crying out ever more that something fundamental has been lost.
That there is something fundamentally flawed in this trajectory. A trajectory that is, that begins in the Renaissance, with the dismantling of Tradition.
Whether it is the Rationalism of Descartes, who needs to subject everything to **doubt**, in order to start building afresh.
Or whether it is the Reformation of those noble souls sincerely indignant at the very real abuses of the Church – yes, the terrible abuses, which nonetheless did not justify casting aspersions on vast masses of Christian inspiration – simply because they are not to be found in sola scriptura (i.e. the Bible alone).
Yes more and more troubled, I confess that my heart looks to that pre-Reformation tradition, and it wonders and wonders.
O Holy Mother Church, are you holding far more than we can ever see – far, far more that is directly relevant to addressing the ravaging of people and planet?
As I enter your Sacraments ever more deeply, I feel that I see, or I begin to see, something far more vital and needed within you than I ever imagined …
Now do not mistake me, dear friend. I do not wish for one moment to suggest that the Sacraments –as powerful as I experience them to be - are the only way that Christ’s Grace is available.
No, I certainly share John Paul II’s faith that this Grace comes through other religions and other paths (see my entry for 14-11-05). Personally, I become more keenly appreciative of all religious paths, which seek to honour and engage the roots of their tradition.
But the point I am stumbling towards, is that instead of a trajectory which moves ever more towards an atomised spirituality, where each of us simply does ‘our own thing’; instead of a spirituality divorced from the collective insight of a community across time (though often, it must be said, filled with fawning approbation towards the latest spiritual fad) – instead of all this, is it now more urgent than ever, that we look to what we have lost?
Is it time to realise that neither the Rationalism initiated (in a sense) by Descartes, and which underpins the secular capitalist world, nor atomised spirituality can cope with what is to come ?
O Holy Mother Church, is that what you whisper in my heart, as almost daily I join you in your Sacraments, and feel that I hear your loving, tender voice ever more vividly?
Yes I hear your voice, your Grace – and for this reason I have hope. We are not alone. Christ, Mary, the Angels and the Saints are ever with us …
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Confessions XI (Christian and New Age Responses to Suffering)
Dear Friends, Known and Unknown,
Today I will say more of why I now feel the New Age Model is flawed in its ability to respond to the demands of social and environmental justice.
But first, a further word on Catholicism. For again, these are my personal confessions, as I look back on my New Age past, through the lens of my Catholic Christian experience.
Now, this experience included a growing astonishment - an astonishment as to how very, very rich the Catholic tradition truly was.
I, who all my New Age life, had simply assumed it was anachronistic and largely irrelevant to the future. O monstrous presumption! The barefaced arrogance of youth to dismiss an immense tradition - of which I was almost entirely ignorant.
But enough of personal regret. What I would focus on now, is that among many other aspects of the Catholic tradition, I was slowly amazed to discover its extensive **engagement** with the suffering and social conditions of the modern world.
Now this happens **practically** through countless Catholic initiatives to render aid throughout the globe. But there is also a highly developed **theoretical** work proceeding apace – which is popularly called Catholic Social Teaching.
Yes, while the media would focus us on little else but Catholic positions on gender and sexuality, the Catholic Church has been quietly amassing reams of acute, penetrating social analysis -including papal, episcopal and conciliar thinking -most of which is very challenging to the kind of corporate libertarianism now devastating the world.
Though this is not the place to detail it, I simply wish to offer my view, that here is a formidable and penetrating teaching, relating to the abuses of capitalism and consumerism and oriented towards more humane systems of society.
And for me, it is a vastly more convincing effort than anything I encountered through the New Age. Yes here and there, I found New Agers with critiques of social injustice – which were sometimes moving and acute.
And many in the New Age movement also have a developed environmental awareness – at least at a level of individual or local action. Findhorn where I lived, is building an inspiring eco-village, for example. Yes when I look at Findhorn, with its wind-energy, its living sewage system (sewage purified by living organisms, not chemicals) eco-buildings and so forth – I must deeply honour its Green commitment and awareness.
Yet for a sustained critical analysis as to the causes and many of the costs of capitalist globalisation, I confess I find much more hope in Catholic Social Teaching. As also direct Catholic social action inspires me with hope.
And by contrast, it seems to me that so much of the New Age movement is all-too-accommodating to commercialist capitalism.
And I confess that I see a link between this frequent myopia to social injustice and the New Age Stripping of Tradition.
As I have said, I am concerned the New Age Stripping of Tradition can lead to losing a sense of the Fall, of Tragedy, of Evil.
But it may be that it is **precisely** these qualities which are NEEDED to awaken the heart to social justice. And which strengthen our **resolve** to address the suffering of the world.
Yes, for this reason, the traditional teaching of the Church may be more necessary than ever … to address the suffering of the world.
For as I shall come to express more fully, I am disturbed by another feature of New Age thought, which I experienced in many forms over the years.
It involves a denial of suffering. It is a denial in the affirmation that either suffering is illusory or it is unimportant, compared to a transcendent light and joy at the heart of the universe.
Now I do not deny that what is ultimately most real is God and God is love. And to love involves the profoundest of joys. But to love is also to feel the depth of compassion and to suffer in that compassion.
Thus the God of the Christian Tradition embodies profound opposites – the most Unfathomable Joy of Love and the most Unfathomable Suffering of Love. The God I believe in, is not remote, but is suffering with us.
But this God is lost in so, so much New Age teaching ...
More will be said. For now, I simply emphasise that a spirituality of excessive optimism can shade into denial. And a soul in denial is not equipped to bear or address suffering. On the contrary, this soul must inevitably become **weakened **.
Thus, when I look out on the challenges of the New Millennium, I see a need for spirituality which **strengthens** us. Yet this it seems to me, is not a spirituality of excess light, but rather one that also confronts the fact that we are fallen. We are broken and weak. The condition of the planet testifies all too painfully to our brokenness and our weakness ...
But we are not alone and and we are not unaided. And thus I also see a need for a spirituality, which acknowledges that Supernatural Grace is there to help us. There is the Grace of Christ. There is the Grace flowing through the Angelic Hierarchies and through the Communion of Saints. And there is the Grace flowing through the Sacraments …
Today I will say more of why I now feel the New Age Model is flawed in its ability to respond to the demands of social and environmental justice.
But first, a further word on Catholicism. For again, these are my personal confessions, as I look back on my New Age past, through the lens of my Catholic Christian experience.
Now, this experience included a growing astonishment - an astonishment as to how very, very rich the Catholic tradition truly was.
I, who all my New Age life, had simply assumed it was anachronistic and largely irrelevant to the future. O monstrous presumption! The barefaced arrogance of youth to dismiss an immense tradition - of which I was almost entirely ignorant.
But enough of personal regret. What I would focus on now, is that among many other aspects of the Catholic tradition, I was slowly amazed to discover its extensive **engagement** with the suffering and social conditions of the modern world.
Now this happens **practically** through countless Catholic initiatives to render aid throughout the globe. But there is also a highly developed **theoretical** work proceeding apace – which is popularly called Catholic Social Teaching.
Yes, while the media would focus us on little else but Catholic positions on gender and sexuality, the Catholic Church has been quietly amassing reams of acute, penetrating social analysis -including papal, episcopal and conciliar thinking -most of which is very challenging to the kind of corporate libertarianism now devastating the world.
Though this is not the place to detail it, I simply wish to offer my view, that here is a formidable and penetrating teaching, relating to the abuses of capitalism and consumerism and oriented towards more humane systems of society.
And for me, it is a vastly more convincing effort than anything I encountered through the New Age. Yes here and there, I found New Agers with critiques of social injustice – which were sometimes moving and acute.
And many in the New Age movement also have a developed environmental awareness – at least at a level of individual or local action. Findhorn where I lived, is building an inspiring eco-village, for example. Yes when I look at Findhorn, with its wind-energy, its living sewage system (sewage purified by living organisms, not chemicals) eco-buildings and so forth – I must deeply honour its Green commitment and awareness.
Yet for a sustained critical analysis as to the causes and many of the costs of capitalist globalisation, I confess I find much more hope in Catholic Social Teaching. As also direct Catholic social action inspires me with hope.
And by contrast, it seems to me that so much of the New Age movement is all-too-accommodating to commercialist capitalism.
And I confess that I see a link between this frequent myopia to social injustice and the New Age Stripping of Tradition.
As I have said, I am concerned the New Age Stripping of Tradition can lead to losing a sense of the Fall, of Tragedy, of Evil.
But it may be that it is **precisely** these qualities which are NEEDED to awaken the heart to social justice. And which strengthen our **resolve** to address the suffering of the world.
Yes, for this reason, the traditional teaching of the Church may be more necessary than ever … to address the suffering of the world.
For as I shall come to express more fully, I am disturbed by another feature of New Age thought, which I experienced in many forms over the years.
It involves a denial of suffering. It is a denial in the affirmation that either suffering is illusory or it is unimportant, compared to a transcendent light and joy at the heart of the universe.
Now I do not deny that what is ultimately most real is God and God is love. And to love involves the profoundest of joys. But to love is also to feel the depth of compassion and to suffer in that compassion.
Thus the God of the Christian Tradition embodies profound opposites – the most Unfathomable Joy of Love and the most Unfathomable Suffering of Love. The God I believe in, is not remote, but is suffering with us.
But this God is lost in so, so much New Age teaching ...
More will be said. For now, I simply emphasise that a spirituality of excessive optimism can shade into denial. And a soul in denial is not equipped to bear or address suffering. On the contrary, this soul must inevitably become **weakened **.
Thus, when I look out on the challenges of the New Millennium, I see a need for spirituality which **strengthens** us. Yet this it seems to me, is not a spirituality of excess light, but rather one that also confronts the fact that we are fallen. We are broken and weak. The condition of the planet testifies all too painfully to our brokenness and our weakness ...
But we are not alone and and we are not unaided. And thus I also see a need for a spirituality, which acknowledges that Supernatural Grace is there to help us. There is the Grace of Christ. There is the Grace flowing through the Angelic Hierarchies and through the Communion of Saints. And there is the Grace flowing through the Sacraments …
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Confessions X (Global Warming, ‘Soft’ Totalitarianism and the New Age)
Dear Friends, Known and Unknown,
This last weekend I have perused the latest copy of a magazine I dislike. The magazine is Time, and the reason I dislike it, is its tone of subtle, ‘soft’ TOTALITARIANISM.
By this I mean that time and again, Time presents its readers with the image that there is no alternative available to the world, other than capitalist globalisation.
One can feel this image, for example, in Time’s attitude towards France. At least, in reading Time's 'reportage', I myself find a continuous, editorialising tone, which runs something like this – when will the elements of French culture opposed to capitalist globalisation, finally get **real**, realise there is no alternative, and ‘get with the beat’?
Get with the global capitalist beat. ‘Resistance is futile’ – to borrow the chilling words of the Borg from Star Trek … It is futile for France or anyone else to mark out a different path.
Never mind that many French feel an alien ‘Anglo-Saxon’ ideology is being imposed on them – now is the time for the French to embrace unhesitatingly the values espoused by Time magazine. Or suffer the consequences.
This is what I mean by 'soft' totalitarianism. Margaret Thatcher’s brutal devastation of Britain’s social patrimony was founded on a similar principle. A famous speech she gave in the 1980’s was nicknamed by the acronym TINA: There Is No Alternative. All of this strikes me as little other than totalitarian – subtle or not.
Be that as it may, I have spent more time with Time this weekend, because of its issue (on sale now) devoted to Global Warming. A poignant picture of a Polar Bear walking on breaking ice adorns a cover with the headlines: 'Be Worried. Be VERY Worried. … Earth at the TIPPING point'.
The magazine then offers further heart-breaking imagery of droughts, flooded communities, forest fires, endangered species and more.
But nowhere do I see much sense of any alternative to the capitalist consumerist lifestyle, that is bringing this horror and suffering. Time it seems, can only hope that capitalism will find a technological fix.
Yes cleaner energy is a necessary goal, but I fear the only REAL solution involves addressing a vast, collective addiction to materialism, lived in a hyper-individual context. We will need to live more collectively, less atomised, and more simply.
All of this may seem far removed from the theme of these confessions. But for me, it is not.
The suffering of humanity, animals and nature depicted by Time is very real. And if our problem is addiction to such an extent that the media forces which guide and shape us, cannot even *begin* to imagine another alternative, we will need to deal with that addiction.
And it seems to me that, more than ever, we will need a different spiritual framework, with which to engage it. The framework of Time, its sponsors, priests and teachers will not do.
Now hardly surprisingly, I no longer believe that the ascending, even dominant New Age spirituality is up to the task. In fact, after living nearly two decades with New Age spirituality, I suspect that there are basic flaws in its model, which may even weaken people in terms of their capacity to address the suffering of the world.
Yes, I am concerned that the practical consequences of much New Age spirituality may involve both a slumbering of the heart in certain regards, as well as a certain inability to accommodate the demands of a suffering world, and of social justice.
And why I fear this, I shall expand upon tomorrow. In time, I also hope to draw out elements of Catholicism, which seem to me, far more genuinely counter-cultural and less accommodating to secularist capitalism, than much of the New Age.
I also hope to suggest that this counter-cultural stance naturally flows from a spirituality oriented to both the tragic realities of suffering and to the **supernatural** Grace of Redemption …
This last weekend I have perused the latest copy of a magazine I dislike. The magazine is Time, and the reason I dislike it, is its tone of subtle, ‘soft’ TOTALITARIANISM.
By this I mean that time and again, Time presents its readers with the image that there is no alternative available to the world, other than capitalist globalisation.
One can feel this image, for example, in Time’s attitude towards France. At least, in reading Time's 'reportage', I myself find a continuous, editorialising tone, which runs something like this – when will the elements of French culture opposed to capitalist globalisation, finally get **real**, realise there is no alternative, and ‘get with the beat’?
Get with the global capitalist beat. ‘Resistance is futile’ – to borrow the chilling words of the Borg from Star Trek … It is futile for France or anyone else to mark out a different path.
Never mind that many French feel an alien ‘Anglo-Saxon’ ideology is being imposed on them – now is the time for the French to embrace unhesitatingly the values espoused by Time magazine. Or suffer the consequences.
This is what I mean by 'soft' totalitarianism. Margaret Thatcher’s brutal devastation of Britain’s social patrimony was founded on a similar principle. A famous speech she gave in the 1980’s was nicknamed by the acronym TINA: There Is No Alternative. All of this strikes me as little other than totalitarian – subtle or not.
Be that as it may, I have spent more time with Time this weekend, because of its issue (on sale now) devoted to Global Warming. A poignant picture of a Polar Bear walking on breaking ice adorns a cover with the headlines: 'Be Worried. Be VERY Worried. … Earth at the TIPPING point'.
The magazine then offers further heart-breaking imagery of droughts, flooded communities, forest fires, endangered species and more.
But nowhere do I see much sense of any alternative to the capitalist consumerist lifestyle, that is bringing this horror and suffering. Time it seems, can only hope that capitalism will find a technological fix.
Yes cleaner energy is a necessary goal, but I fear the only REAL solution involves addressing a vast, collective addiction to materialism, lived in a hyper-individual context. We will need to live more collectively, less atomised, and more simply.
All of this may seem far removed from the theme of these confessions. But for me, it is not.
The suffering of humanity, animals and nature depicted by Time is very real. And if our problem is addiction to such an extent that the media forces which guide and shape us, cannot even *begin* to imagine another alternative, we will need to deal with that addiction.
And it seems to me that, more than ever, we will need a different spiritual framework, with which to engage it. The framework of Time, its sponsors, priests and teachers will not do.
Now hardly surprisingly, I no longer believe that the ascending, even dominant New Age spirituality is up to the task. In fact, after living nearly two decades with New Age spirituality, I suspect that there are basic flaws in its model, which may even weaken people in terms of their capacity to address the suffering of the world.
Yes, I am concerned that the practical consequences of much New Age spirituality may involve both a slumbering of the heart in certain regards, as well as a certain inability to accommodate the demands of a suffering world, and of social justice.
And why I fear this, I shall expand upon tomorrow. In time, I also hope to draw out elements of Catholicism, which seem to me, far more genuinely counter-cultural and less accommodating to secularist capitalism, than much of the New Age.
I also hope to suggest that this counter-cultural stance naturally flows from a spirituality oriented to both the tragic realities of suffering and to the **supernatural** Grace of Redemption …
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Confessions IX (To ENGAGE the Tradition)
Dear Friends, Known and Unknown,
I have been testifying to nearly two decades of experience in a New Age cultural pattern, in which there was either utter ignorance or dismissal of the Catholic Tradition.
Then slowly, I began to approach the Catholic Church. And here I discovered an entirely different pattern for Sacred Culture – one wherein two thousand years of profound inspiration regarding the Christian Mystery was neither ignored, nor dismantled.
And where, as I shall explain, this was not merely honoured at an **intellectual** level – but far more **holistically**, appealing to body and soul.
I entered a pattern of culture, then, shaped on **every level** by Tradition. One where not only first-century Christian scripture was honoured, but also two millennia of further vision and genius. And one where the Sacraments of the Church were honoured in their original entirety.
This is to speak of a context then, in which there was not merely a ‘service with bread and wine’ as still happens in many Protestant Churches – but wherein the Real Presence of Christ was honoured.
And wherein this Real Presence was not limited to the Mass, but also acknowledged in six further Sacraments - for example, the Sacrament of Confession.
Here, we are not dealing with a psychological claim, such as ‘confession is good for the soul’. No, we are dealing with the Mystery of a Sacrament, with Transcendent Grace sanctifying the soul, as transmitted by a Priest.
And although the Transcendent Grace of Christic Absolution via the Priest is central here - I do not want to ignore the fact that the sincere practice of this Sacrament also TEACHES. And it is a teaching that is not merely imparted intellectually – but which is **experienced** on widely different levels.
At least, this is how it seems to me, as I approach a mere man and say: ‘Bless me father, for I have sinned’. Where, kneeling in confession, I acknowledge the reality of the Fall in the most personal, immediate way that I can – because I am acknowledging that my psyche is inextricably caught in it. And that the result of this, is that I inevitably bring real and continuing hurt to real and suffering beings.
Yes, the Reality of the Fall becomes present to me - and not as an abstract concept.
And then I consciously turn to the Reality of Christ, as the answer the God of Love has given to our Fallen Psyches in a Fallen World.
And all of this I do traditionally - kneeling - acknowledging in body, as well as in mind, that I must bow before the Grace of Christ.
And the Christic Absolution which I receive is not without an accompanying sensation. Time and again, there is a distinct sense, often palpable hours later, of what I have called a peculiar wholesomeness. There is also a joyous sense of being more deeply united to the Body of Christ. A small tearing or rupture with the Mystici Corporis feels as though it has been healed.
It is not easy to describe these subtle, yet for me, immensely meaningful sensations. Yet more and more, I feel that it is necessary that we Catholics try. Perhaps I should even mention briefly how on one occasion, the immediate aftermath of receiving Absolution was not this subtle joy - but astonishingly and viscerally profound. Yes, the Mystery of the Sacraments must not be hidden away.
Even if we are not consciously with the subtle sensations I try to capture here, I think it may be helpful to ask – what is it that keeps bringing us back to these Sacraments? Does it not involve a sense - not only of profound meaning, but also of a joy in being with the Mystical Body?
Though I rarely hear people utter such things, I am convinced I am not alone. Even with Catholics alienated from the Tradition, I often sense this mysterious sense of meaning, even joy. There are Catholics who have even come to hate the Church – but often they find the final break difficult indeed. Implicated here I suspect, is a peculiar experience of meaning and joy still buried in their hearts …
Whatever the truth of the matter may be, I testify that in entering the Catholic Church, I entered a world wherein the tradition was not only not dismantled, nor only imparted intellectually through sermons or study, but was a world in which I now live and experience the Tradition in varied manners. From kneeling in confession to receiving the presence of Christ on my tongue ...
And with all of this, I feel I enter ever more deeply into a Mystery, a two-thousand year Mystery that is progressively **humanising** me.
In the comments to these confessions, Sun Warrior has left testimony to the notion that there is a modern longing for a spiritual experience that the Tradition cannot supply.
I concur with his strongly felt sense for this modern hunger. And for years, I would have concurred that the reason lay in the insufficiency of the old traditions.
But now I can only say that the whole 26 years of my spiritual journey has pointed me to the opposite conclusion:
That it is not so much that the tradition is insufficient. It is that the tradition – the entire tradition - is not taken seriously enough. It is not sufficiently ENGAGED.
Now within approximately 70% of world Christianity – Orthodox and Catholic- there does exists a continued effort to take the entirety of the tradition seriously, including the Seven Sacraments.
But how often is this effort entirely obscured and unknown in those countries, dominated by a Protestant and now Secular heritage! Those countries, that is to say, which include the entire English-speaking world, save Ireland. Ireland ... beloved land, where I have had the joy of engaging the Tradition more deeply than ever before.
My experience at least, is that so many in the other Anglophone cultures, have no idea at all about the fullness of the Orthodox and Catholic engagement with the Tradition.
As I had no idea of that engagement, growing up in a Protestant and Secular America and England.
And I confess that I am increasingly disquieted by this ignorance concerning the other 70% of global Christianity, this sheer ignorance that I participated in **completely** for 34 years ...
And I find myself asking, how many thousands pay vast sums for New Age workshops, where for no sum at all the Orthodox and Catholic traditions make present the Reality of Christ, in countless churches throughout the world?
And what difference would it make, if only it were only more widely realised - in the Anglo-American sphere especially - what this 70% of Christanity is still standing for? That it is still standing for a fullness of Mystery in a world hungry for Mystery - as the New Age movement clearly testifies to.
Friends, such questions haunt my soul. And now that I have attempted to render a slightly fuller picture of my experience of two spiritual cultures, I hope to say more about the PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES which, it seems to me, spring from these two very different milieus, based on two very different ideas about the nature of Reality, which ideas are then embodied in very different spiritual practices ...
I regret to say though, that this will need to wait until next TUESDAY. Until then, I pray that Christ Jesus be with you all.
I have been testifying to nearly two decades of experience in a New Age cultural pattern, in which there was either utter ignorance or dismissal of the Catholic Tradition.
Then slowly, I began to approach the Catholic Church. And here I discovered an entirely different pattern for Sacred Culture – one wherein two thousand years of profound inspiration regarding the Christian Mystery was neither ignored, nor dismantled.
And where, as I shall explain, this was not merely honoured at an **intellectual** level – but far more **holistically**, appealing to body and soul.
I entered a pattern of culture, then, shaped on **every level** by Tradition. One where not only first-century Christian scripture was honoured, but also two millennia of further vision and genius. And one where the Sacraments of the Church were honoured in their original entirety.
This is to speak of a context then, in which there was not merely a ‘service with bread and wine’ as still happens in many Protestant Churches – but wherein the Real Presence of Christ was honoured.
And wherein this Real Presence was not limited to the Mass, but also acknowledged in six further Sacraments - for example, the Sacrament of Confession.
Here, we are not dealing with a psychological claim, such as ‘confession is good for the soul’. No, we are dealing with the Mystery of a Sacrament, with Transcendent Grace sanctifying the soul, as transmitted by a Priest.
And although the Transcendent Grace of Christic Absolution via the Priest is central here - I do not want to ignore the fact that the sincere practice of this Sacrament also TEACHES. And it is a teaching that is not merely imparted intellectually – but which is **experienced** on widely different levels.
At least, this is how it seems to me, as I approach a mere man and say: ‘Bless me father, for I have sinned’. Where, kneeling in confession, I acknowledge the reality of the Fall in the most personal, immediate way that I can – because I am acknowledging that my psyche is inextricably caught in it. And that the result of this, is that I inevitably bring real and continuing hurt to real and suffering beings.
Yes, the Reality of the Fall becomes present to me - and not as an abstract concept.
And then I consciously turn to the Reality of Christ, as the answer the God of Love has given to our Fallen Psyches in a Fallen World.
And all of this I do traditionally - kneeling - acknowledging in body, as well as in mind, that I must bow before the Grace of Christ.
And the Christic Absolution which I receive is not without an accompanying sensation. Time and again, there is a distinct sense, often palpable hours later, of what I have called a peculiar wholesomeness. There is also a joyous sense of being more deeply united to the Body of Christ. A small tearing or rupture with the Mystici Corporis feels as though it has been healed.
It is not easy to describe these subtle, yet for me, immensely meaningful sensations. Yet more and more, I feel that it is necessary that we Catholics try. Perhaps I should even mention briefly how on one occasion, the immediate aftermath of receiving Absolution was not this subtle joy - but astonishingly and viscerally profound. Yes, the Mystery of the Sacraments must not be hidden away.
Even if we are not consciously with the subtle sensations I try to capture here, I think it may be helpful to ask – what is it that keeps bringing us back to these Sacraments? Does it not involve a sense - not only of profound meaning, but also of a joy in being with the Mystical Body?
Though I rarely hear people utter such things, I am convinced I am not alone. Even with Catholics alienated from the Tradition, I often sense this mysterious sense of meaning, even joy. There are Catholics who have even come to hate the Church – but often they find the final break difficult indeed. Implicated here I suspect, is a peculiar experience of meaning and joy still buried in their hearts …
Whatever the truth of the matter may be, I testify that in entering the Catholic Church, I entered a world wherein the tradition was not only not dismantled, nor only imparted intellectually through sermons or study, but was a world in which I now live and experience the Tradition in varied manners. From kneeling in confession to receiving the presence of Christ on my tongue ...
And with all of this, I feel I enter ever more deeply into a Mystery, a two-thousand year Mystery that is progressively **humanising** me.
In the comments to these confessions, Sun Warrior has left testimony to the notion that there is a modern longing for a spiritual experience that the Tradition cannot supply.
I concur with his strongly felt sense for this modern hunger. And for years, I would have concurred that the reason lay in the insufficiency of the old traditions.
But now I can only say that the whole 26 years of my spiritual journey has pointed me to the opposite conclusion:
That it is not so much that the tradition is insufficient. It is that the tradition – the entire tradition - is not taken seriously enough. It is not sufficiently ENGAGED.
Now within approximately 70% of world Christianity – Orthodox and Catholic- there does exists a continued effort to take the entirety of the tradition seriously, including the Seven Sacraments.
But how often is this effort entirely obscured and unknown in those countries, dominated by a Protestant and now Secular heritage! Those countries, that is to say, which include the entire English-speaking world, save Ireland. Ireland ... beloved land, where I have had the joy of engaging the Tradition more deeply than ever before.
My experience at least, is that so many in the other Anglophone cultures, have no idea at all about the fullness of the Orthodox and Catholic engagement with the Tradition.
As I had no idea of that engagement, growing up in a Protestant and Secular America and England.
And I confess that I am increasingly disquieted by this ignorance concerning the other 70% of global Christianity, this sheer ignorance that I participated in **completely** for 34 years ...
And I find myself asking, how many thousands pay vast sums for New Age workshops, where for no sum at all the Orthodox and Catholic traditions make present the Reality of Christ, in countless churches throughout the world?
And what difference would it make, if only it were only more widely realised - in the Anglo-American sphere especially - what this 70% of Christanity is still standing for? That it is still standing for a fullness of Mystery in a world hungry for Mystery - as the New Age movement clearly testifies to.
Friends, such questions haunt my soul. And now that I have attempted to render a slightly fuller picture of my experience of two spiritual cultures, I hope to say more about the PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES which, it seems to me, spring from these two very different milieus, based on two very different ideas about the nature of Reality, which ideas are then embodied in very different spiritual practices ...
I regret to say though, that this will need to wait until next TUESDAY. Until then, I pray that Christ Jesus be with you all.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Confessions VIII (More on the New Age Pattern for a Sacred Culture … )
Dear Friends, Known and Unknown,
Yesterday I spoke of my destiny leading me to drink deeply from two very different **patterns** of spiritual culture. In more recent years, I have explored the ‘pattern’ offered by Catholicism. But before that, I experienced intensively a new pattern of spiritual culture now emerging throughout countless ‘holistic venues’ in the West.
How many examples of this New Age cultural pattern have I experienced since 1980? I both visited and lived at the Findhorn community in Scotland over many years. I participated in countless holistic seminars and workshops, wherein people of a New Age persuasion assembled for a weekend, or even a week or two.
And in that short space of time, ‘New Age Culture’ was created in a miniature sphere - wherein the participants could leave behind the mainstream world to live and breath the New Age air.
I even co-founded a holistic educational charity in Cambridge, which offered such seminars regularly and was actively dedicated to expressing what we all believed was ‘the new spiritual culture’.
Thus, at this charity we had a room called a Sanctuary. The Sanctuary was intended as a place of meditation, and was consciously devoid of imagery. Chairs were arranged in circles and a sign hung on the door, with words from my own pen:
‘This sanctuary is dedicated to the idea that there are no words or forms that can express the ultimately REAL without also limiting it, and that no religion or belief may be said to be the TRUTH but only a refraction among many such refractions that serve to guide the way.
This room is therefore dedicated to silence and simplicity that every seeker may feel welcomed there to find within the SACRED REALITY for which no words suffice but from which healing, inspiration and renewal FLOW’.
I relate all of this, because I want to provide a clearer picture of what I mean by ‘an emerging New Age model of Sacred Culture’.
Now that my path is decisively Catholic, I have been asked if I still stand by the words I wrote for that sign. The answer is both yes and no.
Yes, inasmuch as I believe that spiritual reality does indeed transcend the forms human beings use to express it.
No, inasmuch as the words on this door have an agenda I no longer aspire to. That agenda is one of relativising or even dismissing the value of these forms.
For it does not follow - ipso facto – that because the forms necessarily limit the ‘ultimately real’, they are as dispensable as I once believed.
In fact, although the words I wrote suggest the forms are limiting, I now ask whether it is a far greater privation to have no forms at all.
That is to say, whether these limited forms may not serve to open the heart and mind to the limitlessness far, far more than could ever be the case by simply dispensing with them.
Yes, this sign that once hung upon a door to a New Age Sanctuary in Cambridge expresses the New Age Agenda: Drop the Forms which Limit Us and Enter Herein …
Without ever asking whether these limited forms might yet offer far, far more than we New Agers ever imagined.
These days I meditate on the ‘limited forms’ of the Catholic religion. And how my heart and mind have been opened by them, in ways incomprehensible to my New Age experience.
Recently I have been speaking of the universal tragedy of the Fall. This is indeed perceived through a limited form. But how much richer my own life is for having perceived it.
And how much more open, how much more **human** my HEART has become by standing before what the Judaeo-Christian teaches of the Fall …
And how impoverished my previous life appears by comparison. And yes - less **human**. Herein lies more of my pained concern regarding the New Age project for Stripping the Tradition …
So much for these morsels of New Age autobiography. Tomorrow I hope to elucidate the themes of these confessions, by drawing more on my Catholic experience.
Yesterday I spoke of my destiny leading me to drink deeply from two very different **patterns** of spiritual culture. In more recent years, I have explored the ‘pattern’ offered by Catholicism. But before that, I experienced intensively a new pattern of spiritual culture now emerging throughout countless ‘holistic venues’ in the West.
How many examples of this New Age cultural pattern have I experienced since 1980? I both visited and lived at the Findhorn community in Scotland over many years. I participated in countless holistic seminars and workshops, wherein people of a New Age persuasion assembled for a weekend, or even a week or two.
And in that short space of time, ‘New Age Culture’ was created in a miniature sphere - wherein the participants could leave behind the mainstream world to live and breath the New Age air.
I even co-founded a holistic educational charity in Cambridge, which offered such seminars regularly and was actively dedicated to expressing what we all believed was ‘the new spiritual culture’.
Thus, at this charity we had a room called a Sanctuary. The Sanctuary was intended as a place of meditation, and was consciously devoid of imagery. Chairs were arranged in circles and a sign hung on the door, with words from my own pen:
‘This sanctuary is dedicated to the idea that there are no words or forms that can express the ultimately REAL without also limiting it, and that no religion or belief may be said to be the TRUTH but only a refraction among many such refractions that serve to guide the way.
This room is therefore dedicated to silence and simplicity that every seeker may feel welcomed there to find within the SACRED REALITY for which no words suffice but from which healing, inspiration and renewal FLOW’.
I relate all of this, because I want to provide a clearer picture of what I mean by ‘an emerging New Age model of Sacred Culture’.
Now that my path is decisively Catholic, I have been asked if I still stand by the words I wrote for that sign. The answer is both yes and no.
Yes, inasmuch as I believe that spiritual reality does indeed transcend the forms human beings use to express it.
No, inasmuch as the words on this door have an agenda I no longer aspire to. That agenda is one of relativising or even dismissing the value of these forms.
For it does not follow - ipso facto – that because the forms necessarily limit the ‘ultimately real’, they are as dispensable as I once believed.
In fact, although the words I wrote suggest the forms are limiting, I now ask whether it is a far greater privation to have no forms at all.
That is to say, whether these limited forms may not serve to open the heart and mind to the limitlessness far, far more than could ever be the case by simply dispensing with them.
Yes, this sign that once hung upon a door to a New Age Sanctuary in Cambridge expresses the New Age Agenda: Drop the Forms which Limit Us and Enter Herein …
Without ever asking whether these limited forms might yet offer far, far more than we New Agers ever imagined.
These days I meditate on the ‘limited forms’ of the Catholic religion. And how my heart and mind have been opened by them, in ways incomprehensible to my New Age experience.
Recently I have been speaking of the universal tragedy of the Fall. This is indeed perceived through a limited form. But how much richer my own life is for having perceived it.
And how much more open, how much more **human** my HEART has become by standing before what the Judaeo-Christian teaches of the Fall …
And how impoverished my previous life appears by comparison. And yes - less **human**. Herein lies more of my pained concern regarding the New Age project for Stripping the Tradition …
So much for these morsels of New Age autobiography. Tomorrow I hope to elucidate the themes of these confessions, by drawing more on my Catholic experience.
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Confessions VII (Two Patterns for Culture; Two Models of the Sacred)
Dear Friends, Known and Unknown,
At the heart of these confessions, is my attempt to voice my ever-growing sense, that the Stripping of Tradition is costing our culture far, far more than is commonly appreciated.
But before continuing to ponder the consequences of the New Age Dismantling of Tradition, I am going to ‘backtrack’ in time. It is not easy to articulate my concerns and I have decided that a little more personal background to these confessions may help to elucidate them.
Thus, once upon a time, I ran a small New Age project in Cambridge, England - which published a little magazine called ‘Sacred Culture’.
That simple phrase is filled with meaning for me – and these confessions are written, looking back on more than twenty five years of my search for a ‘Sacred Culture’.
That is to say, my quest for a Culture in which the Sacred and the Truly Human would be honoured – in contradistinction to so much of the mainstream secular and increasingly brutal capitalist culture.
And in these decades of searching for ‘Sacred Culture’, I have experienced two major PATTERNS for forming such a culture. I will call these two models:The New Age pattern and the Catholic Christian pattern.
There is the New Age pattern, wherein the Christian Tradition of the West is dismantled, to be replaced - in the best instances - by a rich psychological awareness and often-rich human to human contact.
It is filled with certain **contemporary** insights into the human condition – but as I have at least suggested, so often at the cost of psychologising and relativising tremendous insights from the **past**.
Again Matthew Fox, to take a single example, seems to me to dismissive of so, so many of the insights and visions of the tradition. Not least of all, those of that author, who began his Gospel saying “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God … and the Word became Flesh and dwelt amongst us” ...
Then there is the Catholic pattern in which so, so much tradition of the West, including not only the Gospel, but also the preceding Greek and Judaic traditions is honoured. And not only sola scriptura - the Bible alone - but also two thousand years of insight into the Christian Mystery ...
These confessions are formed then, from my intimate experiences of very **different** spiritual milieus. (I have also experienced a rather different, but nonetheless Christian Anthroposophical ‘pattern for a Sacred Culture’ – but I leave this aside for the moment.)
My confessions are formed also from my experience of the ultimate inadequacy of the New Age vision, and also of the utterly unexpected riches I discovered within the Church. Profound riches I had not the slightest inkling of in the New Age world. Riches which even in my darkest times, bring me a joy, consolation and peculiar sense of wholeness and wholesomeness I never experienced in my New Age past.
Yes especially in the Sacraments, I feel this rich and peculiar sense of cleansing wholesomeness. Deep, deep, deep.
And all of these are Christian riches, which I now think the New Age ignores or strips to its peril. And I confess, I think to the peril of the world.
For it seems to me that the unexpected riches cast aside by both secularism and New Age-ism, may actually be critical to the future of humanity. By this, I mean not necessarily the survival of the species, homo sapiens – but certainly to the survival of HUMAN culture.
To me it seems inescapable. The last twenty five years or so since I first entered the New Age world, have seen the rise and rise of the New Age cafeteria. And the last twenty five years have seen an ongoing brutalisation of human culture.
Yes, these confessions are formed by very different experiences of very different patterns for a ‘Sacred Culture’. And before I proceed much further with my thoughts about the New Age Stripping of Tradition, I will delve a little further into my autobiography to try to convey better what I experience and see in these two patterns ...
At the heart of these confessions, is my attempt to voice my ever-growing sense, that the Stripping of Tradition is costing our culture far, far more than is commonly appreciated.
But before continuing to ponder the consequences of the New Age Dismantling of Tradition, I am going to ‘backtrack’ in time. It is not easy to articulate my concerns and I have decided that a little more personal background to these confessions may help to elucidate them.
Thus, once upon a time, I ran a small New Age project in Cambridge, England - which published a little magazine called ‘Sacred Culture’.
That simple phrase is filled with meaning for me – and these confessions are written, looking back on more than twenty five years of my search for a ‘Sacred Culture’.
That is to say, my quest for a Culture in which the Sacred and the Truly Human would be honoured – in contradistinction to so much of the mainstream secular and increasingly brutal capitalist culture.
And in these decades of searching for ‘Sacred Culture’, I have experienced two major PATTERNS for forming such a culture. I will call these two models:The New Age pattern and the Catholic Christian pattern.
There is the New Age pattern, wherein the Christian Tradition of the West is dismantled, to be replaced - in the best instances - by a rich psychological awareness and often-rich human to human contact.
It is filled with certain **contemporary** insights into the human condition – but as I have at least suggested, so often at the cost of psychologising and relativising tremendous insights from the **past**.
Again Matthew Fox, to take a single example, seems to me to dismissive of so, so many of the insights and visions of the tradition. Not least of all, those of that author, who began his Gospel saying “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God … and the Word became Flesh and dwelt amongst us” ...
Then there is the Catholic pattern in which so, so much tradition of the West, including not only the Gospel, but also the preceding Greek and Judaic traditions is honoured. And not only sola scriptura - the Bible alone - but also two thousand years of insight into the Christian Mystery ...
These confessions are formed then, from my intimate experiences of very **different** spiritual milieus. (I have also experienced a rather different, but nonetheless Christian Anthroposophical ‘pattern for a Sacred Culture’ – but I leave this aside for the moment.)
My confessions are formed also from my experience of the ultimate inadequacy of the New Age vision, and also of the utterly unexpected riches I discovered within the Church. Profound riches I had not the slightest inkling of in the New Age world. Riches which even in my darkest times, bring me a joy, consolation and peculiar sense of wholeness and wholesomeness I never experienced in my New Age past.
Yes especially in the Sacraments, I feel this rich and peculiar sense of cleansing wholesomeness. Deep, deep, deep.
And all of these are Christian riches, which I now think the New Age ignores or strips to its peril. And I confess, I think to the peril of the world.
For it seems to me that the unexpected riches cast aside by both secularism and New Age-ism, may actually be critical to the future of humanity. By this, I mean not necessarily the survival of the species, homo sapiens – but certainly to the survival of HUMAN culture.
To me it seems inescapable. The last twenty five years or so since I first entered the New Age world, have seen the rise and rise of the New Age cafeteria. And the last twenty five years have seen an ongoing brutalisation of human culture.
Yes, these confessions are formed by very different experiences of very different patterns for a ‘Sacred Culture’. And before I proceed much further with my thoughts about the New Age Stripping of Tradition, I will delve a little further into my autobiography to try to convey better what I experience and see in these two patterns ...
Friday, March 24, 2006
Confessions VI (Dismantling the Tradition — and its Consequences)
Dear Friends, Known and Unknown,
I have been speaking of a hidden unity I see in the New Age movement, inasmuch as its apparent holistic, all-embracing spiritual cafeteria does in fact, seem to me much more narrow and selective, than is commonly acknowledged.
That is, it seems to me to involve a ***certain definite complex of related ideas and practices***. These are often important and beautiful in themselves. They often include, for example, the need to be self-watchful, ‘centred’, and not reactive. There is also a marked call for authenticity, optimism, hope – and other important virtues. All of this is frequently expressed in life, I want to add, with genuine and moving beauty.
Clearly no Christian can have concern with any of this – as far as it goes.
However, it also seems to me that the New Age smorgasbord is focussed on this coherent complex, to an often-subtle, but active exclusion of other spiritual ideas and ideals. In this, I see a hidden unity.
And in this connection, I mentioned the former Catholic and now Episcopalian priest, Matthew Fox.
Now as I have said, these confessions are written at a stressed and pained time in my life. And Matthew Fox’s thinking has a significant depth and complexity that I am not sure I can do full justice to now.
I just want to be very personal. I want to confess an internal dialogue with you, Reverend Fox or at least with what I hear you say. What I hear you say - I repeat for emphasis.
I confess I have made a real attempt to listen to you, Reverend Fox, and what I hear you say fits all too well with the New Age pattern I see of dismantling the Christian Tradition.
Yes Reverend Fox, I know that you have done a great deal of heartfelt, careful work with the Christian Tradition. I do not place you amongst those mindlessly throwing aside the tradition, with no attempt to engage it.
But at the same time, what I am hearing involves a continuous reduction or ***relativisation*** , bordering on complete ***dismissal*** of vast amounts of the Christian tradition.
In seeking to establish your theology of ‘Creation Spirituality’ and ‘Original Blessing’, I hear you relativising to the point of negating a vast dimension - which you call ‘Fall/Redemption’.
As though the central Christian ideas of the Fall and the Redemption often amounted to little more than a pathological expression of morbid psychology, power-politics and ‘patriarchy’.
When I hear what I hear, it seems to me that there is no faith in the tradition of the Mystics over the millennia, testifying to a ***vision*** of the Fall of humanity and of God-become-human to redeem humanity.
No I hear only – rightly or wrongly – a ***hermeneutic of suspicion***, in regard to so much of the Christian Mystical Tradition.
Now I often hear penetrating psychological insight in your words, even rich human wisdom and heart.
But for my own ears at least, I hear far too little Mystery and Faith. The Christian Mystery is reduced to … almost nothing.
Yes, occasionally you seem to concede that just possibly the massive over –emphasis, as you see it, on the Fall and Redemption, had limited value in a previous age.
And I confess when I hear these things, I am reminded of New-Agers conceding that Piscean ideas, perhaps, had some value in the age of Pisces.
In what I hear, I feel a link between your view of Fall/Redemption, and the New Age mystics, who honour and embrace you. And who you honour in turn (cf. Original Blessing pg 314).
I hear your concern that Fall/Redemption theology is ‘Christolatrous’. By which you seem to mean ‘idolatrous of Christ’ inasmuch as it is actually too Christ-centred - at the expense of honouring the Creator-Father and the Spirit.
You would also appear to mean at the expense of a low Christology of Jesus, as a prophet ‘who calls others to their divinity’ (see my comment to this entry).
If I understand you correctly, I can only say that I fear your attempt to dismantle what the Church considers the core of Christianity, betrays –I repeat - a deep reductionism, bordering on utter negation of the Transcendent Mystery of Calvary.
The Transcendent Mystery that countless Christian mystics, within and without the Church, endeavoured for centuries to understand, honour and preserve …
Within and without the Church … I confess I have in mind here Rudolf Steiner and his words I have quoted here before: ‘Was heute zu retten ist, das ist das Mysterium von Golgotha’ - What is to be saved today is the Mystery of Golgotha.
A Mystery of Redemption that makes no sense at all, without a profound regard for the nature of the Fall …
I suspect that you might consider both Rudolf Steiner and myself as ‘Christolatrous’ in emphasising the tremendous importance that the tradition gives to the Fall, to the nature of Evil, and to the central role of Jesus Christ in the Redemption …
Now, dear friends, even if I am mistaken in my real efforts to understand Matthew Fox’s writing, I am nonetheless convinced that both within the Church and without, there is an effort to reduce the central Christian ideas.
Often to reduce them to nothing but psychology and power … To be ***replaced*** perhaps by a ‘Creator Theology of the Original Blessing of the Father’? Who knows?
For thinkers in this vein, this kind of replacement will be largely, if not entirely wholly good. To throw out ‘Fall/Redemption’ will mean to throw out a great source of pathology, intolerance, despair and more.
And replacing it by a new spirituality of great ecumenism, hope and non-judgment.
But are there no dangers in this dismantling of the Tradition, I ask myself. Is there nothing to be LOST in what I think Fox is recommending us - that Fall/Redemption theology be jettisoned in favour of a ‘Christianity’ that conforms so very much to the ‘New Aquarian Spirituality’?
Is there nothing of consequence to be lost? I am afraid that not only are great worlds of essential Christian meaning to be lost – but that I also fear the consequence of this loss for HUMAN civilisation may be vast indeed. And I suspect that this is what Rudolf Steiner among others, saw quite clearly.
Without acknowledging the Fall, we can easily lose the sense of universal tragedy. We are more prone to an individualistic New Age doctrine, that each of us ‘creates our own reality’ – as the New Age mantra has it. And that any tragedy that exists is simply an individual tragedy of one’s own making.
Thus is the teaching of the tradition obscured - that not only is there a fallen humanity, with outstanding representatives from age to age - from Caligula to Attila to Mao - but that there are also fallen angels. There are fallen angels of incomprehensible power, who actively seek to bring ruin.
Yes I confess it appears to me that a radical de-emphasis of the Fall has profound consequences for the spirituality which it shapes. For the ideas that shapes one’s spirituality ARE important, and to exchange one set of ideas for another, is not ***without consequence***. As Matthew Fox and other writers of a New Age cast are definitely aware.
And it seems to me that there may be many ***further*** consequences of exchanging a so-called ‘Christolatrous’ Fall/Redemption theology, for one wherein the Mystery of Christ is radically diluted. If not altogether decimated.
I confess that in my soul, there lives deep concern that among these consequences is a diminishing of human FEELING, of human heart and an all-too-cosy accommodation with the secularist capitalism ravaging the world. And why I feel this, I will soon be attempting to voice …
These confessions will continue on TUESDAY, instead of Monday. May your weekend be blessed, my friends.
I have been speaking of a hidden unity I see in the New Age movement, inasmuch as its apparent holistic, all-embracing spiritual cafeteria does in fact, seem to me much more narrow and selective, than is commonly acknowledged.
That is, it seems to me to involve a ***certain definite complex of related ideas and practices***. These are often important and beautiful in themselves. They often include, for example, the need to be self-watchful, ‘centred’, and not reactive. There is also a marked call for authenticity, optimism, hope – and other important virtues. All of this is frequently expressed in life, I want to add, with genuine and moving beauty.
Clearly no Christian can have concern with any of this – as far as it goes.
However, it also seems to me that the New Age smorgasbord is focussed on this coherent complex, to an often-subtle, but active exclusion of other spiritual ideas and ideals. In this, I see a hidden unity.
And in this connection, I mentioned the former Catholic and now Episcopalian priest, Matthew Fox.
Now as I have said, these confessions are written at a stressed and pained time in my life. And Matthew Fox’s thinking has a significant depth and complexity that I am not sure I can do full justice to now.
I just want to be very personal. I want to confess an internal dialogue with you, Reverend Fox or at least with what I hear you say. What I hear you say - I repeat for emphasis.
I confess I have made a real attempt to listen to you, Reverend Fox, and what I hear you say fits all too well with the New Age pattern I see of dismantling the Christian Tradition.
Yes Reverend Fox, I know that you have done a great deal of heartfelt, careful work with the Christian Tradition. I do not place you amongst those mindlessly throwing aside the tradition, with no attempt to engage it.
But at the same time, what I am hearing involves a continuous reduction or ***relativisation*** , bordering on complete ***dismissal*** of vast amounts of the Christian tradition.
In seeking to establish your theology of ‘Creation Spirituality’ and ‘Original Blessing’, I hear you relativising to the point of negating a vast dimension - which you call ‘Fall/Redemption’.
As though the central Christian ideas of the Fall and the Redemption often amounted to little more than a pathological expression of morbid psychology, power-politics and ‘patriarchy’.
When I hear what I hear, it seems to me that there is no faith in the tradition of the Mystics over the millennia, testifying to a ***vision*** of the Fall of humanity and of God-become-human to redeem humanity.
No I hear only – rightly or wrongly – a ***hermeneutic of suspicion***, in regard to so much of the Christian Mystical Tradition.
Now I often hear penetrating psychological insight in your words, even rich human wisdom and heart.
But for my own ears at least, I hear far too little Mystery and Faith. The Christian Mystery is reduced to … almost nothing.
Yes, occasionally you seem to concede that just possibly the massive over –emphasis, as you see it, on the Fall and Redemption, had limited value in a previous age.
And I confess when I hear these things, I am reminded of New-Agers conceding that Piscean ideas, perhaps, had some value in the age of Pisces.
In what I hear, I feel a link between your view of Fall/Redemption, and the New Age mystics, who honour and embrace you. And who you honour in turn (cf. Original Blessing pg 314).
I hear your concern that Fall/Redemption theology is ‘Christolatrous’. By which you seem to mean ‘idolatrous of Christ’ inasmuch as it is actually too Christ-centred - at the expense of honouring the Creator-Father and the Spirit.
You would also appear to mean at the expense of a low Christology of Jesus, as a prophet ‘who calls others to their divinity’ (see my comment to this entry).
If I understand you correctly, I can only say that I fear your attempt to dismantle what the Church considers the core of Christianity, betrays –I repeat - a deep reductionism, bordering on utter negation of the Transcendent Mystery of Calvary.
The Transcendent Mystery that countless Christian mystics, within and without the Church, endeavoured for centuries to understand, honour and preserve …
Within and without the Church … I confess I have in mind here Rudolf Steiner and his words I have quoted here before: ‘Was heute zu retten ist, das ist das Mysterium von Golgotha’ - What is to be saved today is the Mystery of Golgotha.
A Mystery of Redemption that makes no sense at all, without a profound regard for the nature of the Fall …
I suspect that you might consider both Rudolf Steiner and myself as ‘Christolatrous’ in emphasising the tremendous importance that the tradition gives to the Fall, to the nature of Evil, and to the central role of Jesus Christ in the Redemption …
Now, dear friends, even if I am mistaken in my real efforts to understand Matthew Fox’s writing, I am nonetheless convinced that both within the Church and without, there is an effort to reduce the central Christian ideas.
Often to reduce them to nothing but psychology and power … To be ***replaced*** perhaps by a ‘Creator Theology of the Original Blessing of the Father’? Who knows?
For thinkers in this vein, this kind of replacement will be largely, if not entirely wholly good. To throw out ‘Fall/Redemption’ will mean to throw out a great source of pathology, intolerance, despair and more.
And replacing it by a new spirituality of great ecumenism, hope and non-judgment.
But are there no dangers in this dismantling of the Tradition, I ask myself. Is there nothing to be LOST in what I think Fox is recommending us - that Fall/Redemption theology be jettisoned in favour of a ‘Christianity’ that conforms so very much to the ‘New Aquarian Spirituality’?
Is there nothing of consequence to be lost? I am afraid that not only are great worlds of essential Christian meaning to be lost – but that I also fear the consequence of this loss for HUMAN civilisation may be vast indeed. And I suspect that this is what Rudolf Steiner among others, saw quite clearly.
Without acknowledging the Fall, we can easily lose the sense of universal tragedy. We are more prone to an individualistic New Age doctrine, that each of us ‘creates our own reality’ – as the New Age mantra has it. And that any tragedy that exists is simply an individual tragedy of one’s own making.
Thus is the teaching of the tradition obscured - that not only is there a fallen humanity, with outstanding representatives from age to age - from Caligula to Attila to Mao - but that there are also fallen angels. There are fallen angels of incomprehensible power, who actively seek to bring ruin.
Yes I confess it appears to me that a radical de-emphasis of the Fall has profound consequences for the spirituality which it shapes. For the ideas that shapes one’s spirituality ARE important, and to exchange one set of ideas for another, is not ***without consequence***. As Matthew Fox and other writers of a New Age cast are definitely aware.
And it seems to me that there may be many ***further*** consequences of exchanging a so-called ‘Christolatrous’ Fall/Redemption theology, for one wherein the Mystery of Christ is radically diluted. If not altogether decimated.
I confess that in my soul, there lives deep concern that among these consequences is a diminishing of human FEELING, of human heart and an all-too-cosy accommodation with the secularist capitalism ravaging the world. And why I feel this, I will soon be attempting to voice …
These confessions will continue on TUESDAY, instead of Monday. May your weekend be blessed, my friends.
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Confessions V (Naming the New Age)
Dear Friends, Known and Unknown,
In speaking of the New Age movement, I am occasionally questioned as to what I mean by this term. I suspect that some reading these confessions may even question whether it is possible to speak of a New Age movement, as I do, as a unified phenomenon.
All of this is understandable. The New Age culture is absolutely sprawling, appears greatly diversified, diffuse and not easy to capture in words.
However, the fact that a phenomenon is not easily distillable, does not mean that it does not exist. In other words, there may well be a distinctive, unified form, beyond the level that words can easily capture.
Personally, after many years experience with this culture, this is what I believe. I believe that we are witnessing the rise of a spiritual movement that is much more uniform than many commentators accept.
Even if words for that unity are elusive, that unity can be suggested rather than defined. Suggested rather defined … this, at least, is all I know how to manage in these present confessions.
I believe we have witnessed over the last decades, a vast movement toward a spirituality that is either without formal religion, or else, if it is tenuously tied to formal religion, often dismisses or relativises vast amounts of that religion.
For me, a good example of this latter tendency is Matthew Fox, the former Catholic priest, proponent of ‘Creation Spirituality’ - at the expense of a vast amount of the Catholic tradition. And despite his undoubtedly sincere and noble intentions, I now believe that the **cost** of this sort of dismantling of tradition to be very expensive indeed. I will shortly be returning to Fox.
For now, I simply want to stress that although it can be hard to see a unity to the New Age movement, I believe that one way its unity becomes visible, is in its dismantling or rejection of tradition and particularly the Christian tradition.
Despite many variations, the New Age idea often appears something like this … There is a new spirituality arising in the world, free of sectarianism and dogma. This spirituality is destined to be the paradigm for a New Age. It is in fact, often linked to the zodiac sign of Aquarius.
In this idea of the Aquarian paradigm, qualities of the previous paradigm of Pisces – including many Christian notions of sin, evil, devotion and so forth, are now no longer seen as appropriate or so appropriate as they once were, in the ‘previous age of Pisces’.
And very definitely, in the Aquarian ideal, the notions of formal codes and institutions to embody spiritual values are frequently seen as suspect.
The New Age movement tends by its very nature to repudiate **formal** definition – and this only amplifies the image of highly diversified, heterogeneous phenomena.
But I confess to you, all my experience leads me to believe that there is an underlying unity - whether repudiated or not. And it is a unity that needs to be named.
Yet I am well aware that even the name ‘New Age’ has many pitfalls. For although in the early days of this movement- the 1960’s and 1970’s - the term 'New Age' was common parlance for this movement of spirituality at the expense of religion, later in the 1980’s, the term came to be associated with commercialism and a vast array of bizarre phenomena.
And many people who had identified with term, became embarrassed to use it. Not just embarrassed – for these were often noble souls on a sincere quest. They were not seeking to make a quick buck. And they were not necessarily enamoured by strange phenomena. They were sincere seekers, with rich insights and warm hearts …
Thus, I am uncomfortably aware that what I call a New Age movement embodies a vast number of people who do not even identify with a movement by that name! I am aware that other names surface, ‘holistic’, ‘alternative spirituality’, ‘Mind-Body-Spirit’ …
Still I believe my forty two years have led me to see the unity behind these different names, a unity I will attempt to suggest ever more as we proceed.
And for this unity which I see, some sort of name must be chosen and used. And I use the name New Age. It is the name I grew up with and it is still the most recognisable name. However adequate it is or not.
And I use the name New Age in deep respect for many, many people within this movement. Please do not interpret me as adversarial to the New Age culture. I mean what I say about the rich insight and heart, one frequently finds there.
Yes, there is often a depth of love within the New Age movement that would and should put many of us Catholics to shame ...
But with real pain, I confess that I also believe that in divorcing itself from tradition and in dismantling tradition, this rich holistic insight and heart is **less effective** in the world than it might be. Far less effective … while the world suffers and burns.
Yes, I confess I see a unity to the New Age movement, unified among other things, under a suspicion and sometimes even hostility towards the Christian tradition in particular - and that the COST of dispensing with that tradition is far, far greater than is commonly appreciated …
In speaking of the New Age movement, I am occasionally questioned as to what I mean by this term. I suspect that some reading these confessions may even question whether it is possible to speak of a New Age movement, as I do, as a unified phenomenon.
All of this is understandable. The New Age culture is absolutely sprawling, appears greatly diversified, diffuse and not easy to capture in words.
However, the fact that a phenomenon is not easily distillable, does not mean that it does not exist. In other words, there may well be a distinctive, unified form, beyond the level that words can easily capture.
Personally, after many years experience with this culture, this is what I believe. I believe that we are witnessing the rise of a spiritual movement that is much more uniform than many commentators accept.
Even if words for that unity are elusive, that unity can be suggested rather than defined. Suggested rather defined … this, at least, is all I know how to manage in these present confessions.
I believe we have witnessed over the last decades, a vast movement toward a spirituality that is either without formal religion, or else, if it is tenuously tied to formal religion, often dismisses or relativises vast amounts of that religion.
For me, a good example of this latter tendency is Matthew Fox, the former Catholic priest, proponent of ‘Creation Spirituality’ - at the expense of a vast amount of the Catholic tradition. And despite his undoubtedly sincere and noble intentions, I now believe that the **cost** of this sort of dismantling of tradition to be very expensive indeed. I will shortly be returning to Fox.
For now, I simply want to stress that although it can be hard to see a unity to the New Age movement, I believe that one way its unity becomes visible, is in its dismantling or rejection of tradition and particularly the Christian tradition.
Despite many variations, the New Age idea often appears something like this … There is a new spirituality arising in the world, free of sectarianism and dogma. This spirituality is destined to be the paradigm for a New Age. It is in fact, often linked to the zodiac sign of Aquarius.
In this idea of the Aquarian paradigm, qualities of the previous paradigm of Pisces – including many Christian notions of sin, evil, devotion and so forth, are now no longer seen as appropriate or so appropriate as they once were, in the ‘previous age of Pisces’.
And very definitely, in the Aquarian ideal, the notions of formal codes and institutions to embody spiritual values are frequently seen as suspect.
The New Age movement tends by its very nature to repudiate **formal** definition – and this only amplifies the image of highly diversified, heterogeneous phenomena.
But I confess to you, all my experience leads me to believe that there is an underlying unity - whether repudiated or not. And it is a unity that needs to be named.
Yet I am well aware that even the name ‘New Age’ has many pitfalls. For although in the early days of this movement- the 1960’s and 1970’s - the term 'New Age' was common parlance for this movement of spirituality at the expense of religion, later in the 1980’s, the term came to be associated with commercialism and a vast array of bizarre phenomena.
And many people who had identified with term, became embarrassed to use it. Not just embarrassed – for these were often noble souls on a sincere quest. They were not seeking to make a quick buck. And they were not necessarily enamoured by strange phenomena. They were sincere seekers, with rich insights and warm hearts …
Thus, I am uncomfortably aware that what I call a New Age movement embodies a vast number of people who do not even identify with a movement by that name! I am aware that other names surface, ‘holistic’, ‘alternative spirituality’, ‘Mind-Body-Spirit’ …
Still I believe my forty two years have led me to see the unity behind these different names, a unity I will attempt to suggest ever more as we proceed.
And for this unity which I see, some sort of name must be chosen and used. And I use the name New Age. It is the name I grew up with and it is still the most recognisable name. However adequate it is or not.
And I use the name New Age in deep respect for many, many people within this movement. Please do not interpret me as adversarial to the New Age culture. I mean what I say about the rich insight and heart, one frequently finds there.
Yes, there is often a depth of love within the New Age movement that would and should put many of us Catholics to shame ...
But with real pain, I confess that I also believe that in divorcing itself from tradition and in dismantling tradition, this rich holistic insight and heart is **less effective** in the world than it might be. Far less effective … while the world suffers and burns.
Yes, I confess I see a unity to the New Age movement, unified among other things, under a suspicion and sometimes even hostility towards the Christian tradition in particular - and that the COST of dispensing with that tradition is far, far greater than is commonly appreciated …
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Confessions Part IV (The Real Danger of the Holistic Cafeteria)
Dear Friends, Known and Unknown,
In these confessions, I have been sharing how, for many years I was convinced the New Age movement offered great hope for humanity - and how Christianity remained utterly opaque to me.
Now for years, I would hear Christians criticise the holistic movement, because of what they called ‘pick and mix’ or ‘cafeteria spirituality’. There was this insistent refrain – which irritated me - about why one shouldn’t just pick and choose from a tradition, but honour the whole of it.
I was very suspicious: **Why** on earth was this such a big deal to these Christians?
And strangely enough, even though I become ever more traditional, I am **still** suspicious, when I hear certain Christians bemoan ‘pick and mix’ …
And why? I confess it is because I cannot help but feel that many do not really know **why** they are critical of ‘pick and mix’. It is something they regurgitate reflexively, but they are not always able to give a good REASON for their concern.
At least, in all my New Age years of listening to Christians lament ‘pick and mix’, I never heard a reason which spoke to me. I simply did not get it.
And now that I **do** get it – it seems to me essential that traditionalists find ways to clearly articulate **why** tradition matters and **why** ‘cafeteria religion’ has its pitfalls. (To say the least).
Here then, is only one such attempt to articulate why I am now concerned about ‘pick and mix’ – the New Age smorgasbord …
I am concerned that without honouring the tradition, vital qualities for the development of human spirituality and human evolution are being LOST.
Now it will take the rest of these confessions for me to explain what I mean by these ‘vital qualities for the development of human spirituality and human evolution’ …
But today, I will just say that although New Age thinking appears to be a vast, sprawling, highly diversified and heterogeneous movement - again, embracing a wide spectrum from from wacky phenomena to rich psychological insight – I believe that there is more uniformity to it than is often supposed.
I believe that the New Age smorgasbord of ‘pick and mix’ does not necessarily offer the vast range of diversified options, which many would claim it does.
And that in fact, its options are limited by an often subtle and elusive, but definitely positive disregard for many elements of the Judaeo-Christian tradition.
This is also to do with what I meant two days ago by ‘Common Factors … relativised, dismissed or not very present in' much New Age thought.
These common factors I will say now, have much to do with what the Tradition tells us about the Fall, the nature of Evil and sin, universal tragedy, the Redemption ...
Yes, these things in my experience are not much on offer in the New Age smorgasbord. For definite reasons, I think.
Such that in my experience, even when I am speaking to highly educated and deeply thoughtful people of a holistic persuasion who deeply impress me (and there are many such people), the fact that I express such ideas often seems radical, startling, foreign to them.
They simply have not come across these ideas in their often-long journeys through a movement that is supposedly holistic and all-embracing. As I had not come across them, in my nearly twenty years of imbibing all kinds of holistic thinking, so-called.
And yet for reasons which I hope to make clearer, it is hardly without consequence for the West, that the holistic and New Age approach may perhaps be its dominant form of spirituality now – at least in much of Europe.
This is why I confess I struggle with these issues, every day of my life. Because I believe there are indeed very significant consequences to the rise of the New Age cafeteria. And the consequences may be, as I stress again, of vital import, not only for human evolution, but for preserving a truly human and humane culture.
I struggle, I struggle and why I struggle, I hope to make clearer as we proceed.
In these confessions, I have been sharing how, for many years I was convinced the New Age movement offered great hope for humanity - and how Christianity remained utterly opaque to me.
Now for years, I would hear Christians criticise the holistic movement, because of what they called ‘pick and mix’ or ‘cafeteria spirituality’. There was this insistent refrain – which irritated me - about why one shouldn’t just pick and choose from a tradition, but honour the whole of it.
I was very suspicious: **Why** on earth was this such a big deal to these Christians?
And strangely enough, even though I become ever more traditional, I am **still** suspicious, when I hear certain Christians bemoan ‘pick and mix’ …
And why? I confess it is because I cannot help but feel that many do not really know **why** they are critical of ‘pick and mix’. It is something they regurgitate reflexively, but they are not always able to give a good REASON for their concern.
At least, in all my New Age years of listening to Christians lament ‘pick and mix’, I never heard a reason which spoke to me. I simply did not get it.
And now that I **do** get it – it seems to me essential that traditionalists find ways to clearly articulate **why** tradition matters and **why** ‘cafeteria religion’ has its pitfalls. (To say the least).
Here then, is only one such attempt to articulate why I am now concerned about ‘pick and mix’ – the New Age smorgasbord …
I am concerned that without honouring the tradition, vital qualities for the development of human spirituality and human evolution are being LOST.
Now it will take the rest of these confessions for me to explain what I mean by these ‘vital qualities for the development of human spirituality and human evolution’ …
But today, I will just say that although New Age thinking appears to be a vast, sprawling, highly diversified and heterogeneous movement - again, embracing a wide spectrum from from wacky phenomena to rich psychological insight – I believe that there is more uniformity to it than is often supposed.
I believe that the New Age smorgasbord of ‘pick and mix’ does not necessarily offer the vast range of diversified options, which many would claim it does.
And that in fact, its options are limited by an often subtle and elusive, but definitely positive disregard for many elements of the Judaeo-Christian tradition.
This is also to do with what I meant two days ago by ‘Common Factors … relativised, dismissed or not very present in' much New Age thought.
These common factors I will say now, have much to do with what the Tradition tells us about the Fall, the nature of Evil and sin, universal tragedy, the Redemption ...
Yes, these things in my experience are not much on offer in the New Age smorgasbord. For definite reasons, I think.
Such that in my experience, even when I am speaking to highly educated and deeply thoughtful people of a holistic persuasion who deeply impress me (and there are many such people), the fact that I express such ideas often seems radical, startling, foreign to them.
They simply have not come across these ideas in their often-long journeys through a movement that is supposedly holistic and all-embracing. As I had not come across them, in my nearly twenty years of imbibing all kinds of holistic thinking, so-called.
And yet for reasons which I hope to make clearer, it is hardly without consequence for the West, that the holistic and New Age approach may perhaps be its dominant form of spirituality now – at least in much of Europe.
This is why I confess I struggle with these issues, every day of my life. Because I believe there are indeed very significant consequences to the rise of the New Age cafeteria. And the consequences may be, as I stress again, of vital import, not only for human evolution, but for preserving a truly human and humane culture.
I struggle, I struggle and why I struggle, I hope to make clearer as we proceed.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Confessions Part III (What Was Not on My Radar Screen)
Dear Friends, Known and Unknown,
I am – as I have been confessing to you – haunted, haunted by the idea of humanity not developing the requisite spiritual maturity to meet the crises of our age.
Now in my youth, I hardly saw everything that such 'requisite spiritual maturity' would involve – including not only rich psychological Feeling and awareness (which I did experience at Findhorn in certain ways ) but also rigorous Thinking and Will.
Thus the all-too-common New Age dismissal of the intellect (implied in‘head-tripping’, ‘mind-f******’ etc) did not especially bother me.
I did not appreciate how much our collective need for spiritual development, mandated not **dismissal** of the mind – but its deep regeneration.
But the profound Christian esoteric thinker, Rudolf Steiner saw this all too clearly. And how often over my years in the New Age, did I hear Rudolf Steiner written-off as ‘too heady’ or ‘too Christian’.
But Rudolf Steiner knew, Rudolf Steiner knew that the ENTIRE trinity of Feeling-Thinking-Will had to be regenerated, if humanity or at least humanness were to survive ...
But Christianity, neither esoteric nor exoteric, was not on the horizon of my New Age youth. In my American adolescence, I had known hardly anything but a caricature of Protestant Christianity, with its strong taint of **individualism**: ‘Jesus is **your** personal saviour; if **you** believe in him –and the Bible (literally) - **you** will not go to hell'.
And I knew nothing of the Catholic Mass celebrated every hour of the day, in nearly every corner of humanity, which seeks to ‘advance the peace and salvation of all the world’ …
And so, as with many New Age folk in the Protestant countries, Catholic Christianity was not on my 'radar screen' at all. Catholic Christianity with its hour-by-hour Communion with the Heart of the World.
And if someone were to have suggested to me, that this holy intermingling with the Sacred Heart, had anything significant to offer to the planetary crisis – for example, in rousing the stone-cold heart of neo-liberal economics - I would probably have smiled indulgently.
But looking out at the heart of flint of modern capitalism, and at the increasing social and environmental suffering, real **suffering** it brings, looking out at Lovelock’s vision of a planet **burnt** …
I confess, I confess to you, dear friends, that I no longer smile at the ‘irrelevance’ of what it now seems to me – tragically - is the Catholic Church’s ‘best kept secret’. (A near secret, at least in the secular Protestant West).
That is to say, the communion, the interpenetration, the intermingling with the Sacred Heart and the cleansing, healing and strength it brings, when entered into sincerely and regularly.
No I no longer smile, because I feel the radiance of the Sacred Heart of Humanity making me ever more human, as I regularly receive it in the Sacraments.
Yes, I admired and still admire many qualities of psychological sensitivity in the New Age movement. At the same time, I have come to feel how traditional Christianity (Catholic and Orthodox) with its ongoing Sacraments of Communion with the Sacred Heart, has done still more to deepen my human FEELING.
Yes, none of this was on my ‘radar screen’ at all before.
I looked out at the world, with a certain upbringing. I was raised in secular and Protestant countries in which I saw a Christianity that made no sense.
I saw a psychologically acute New Age movement that appeared far more vital to me. And I saw modern humanity’s need for the Spirit in living and accessible ways.
I did not know the Catholic Sacraments, healing the human heart.
I also did not know the vastness of the Catholic intellectual effort over the centuries. I did not know, for example, Catholic Social Teaching and its radical and extensive challenge to modern capitalism, articulated on many fronts. (For more on this, see my comment to this entry.)
I did not see the Will that had built countless hospitals, fed countless hungry people, brought the living Sacraments to countless more ...
But I now agree with Rudolf Steiner that the entire trinity of human Feeling, Thinking and Will must be addressed more than ever at this time …
And my entire spiritual journey, it seems to me - with many arduous trials and struggles to clarify my perception - has brought me to this point of truly beginning to SEE the Church at this hour of humanity's need.
I am – as I have been confessing to you – haunted, haunted by the idea of humanity not developing the requisite spiritual maturity to meet the crises of our age.
Now in my youth, I hardly saw everything that such 'requisite spiritual maturity' would involve – including not only rich psychological Feeling and awareness (which I did experience at Findhorn in certain ways ) but also rigorous Thinking and Will.
Thus the all-too-common New Age dismissal of the intellect (implied in‘head-tripping’, ‘mind-f******’ etc) did not especially bother me.
I did not appreciate how much our collective need for spiritual development, mandated not **dismissal** of the mind – but its deep regeneration.
But the profound Christian esoteric thinker, Rudolf Steiner saw this all too clearly. And how often over my years in the New Age, did I hear Rudolf Steiner written-off as ‘too heady’ or ‘too Christian’.
But Rudolf Steiner knew, Rudolf Steiner knew that the ENTIRE trinity of Feeling-Thinking-Will had to be regenerated, if humanity or at least humanness were to survive ...
But Christianity, neither esoteric nor exoteric, was not on the horizon of my New Age youth. In my American adolescence, I had known hardly anything but a caricature of Protestant Christianity, with its strong taint of **individualism**: ‘Jesus is **your** personal saviour; if **you** believe in him –and the Bible (literally) - **you** will not go to hell'.
And I knew nothing of the Catholic Mass celebrated every hour of the day, in nearly every corner of humanity, which seeks to ‘advance the peace and salvation of all the world’ …
And so, as with many New Age folk in the Protestant countries, Catholic Christianity was not on my 'radar screen' at all. Catholic Christianity with its hour-by-hour Communion with the Heart of the World.
And if someone were to have suggested to me, that this holy intermingling with the Sacred Heart, had anything significant to offer to the planetary crisis – for example, in rousing the stone-cold heart of neo-liberal economics - I would probably have smiled indulgently.
But looking out at the heart of flint of modern capitalism, and at the increasing social and environmental suffering, real **suffering** it brings, looking out at Lovelock’s vision of a planet **burnt** …
I confess, I confess to you, dear friends, that I no longer smile at the ‘irrelevance’ of what it now seems to me – tragically - is the Catholic Church’s ‘best kept secret’. (A near secret, at least in the secular Protestant West).
That is to say, the communion, the interpenetration, the intermingling with the Sacred Heart and the cleansing, healing and strength it brings, when entered into sincerely and regularly.
No I no longer smile, because I feel the radiance of the Sacred Heart of Humanity making me ever more human, as I regularly receive it in the Sacraments.
Yes, I admired and still admire many qualities of psychological sensitivity in the New Age movement. At the same time, I have come to feel how traditional Christianity (Catholic and Orthodox) with its ongoing Sacraments of Communion with the Sacred Heart, has done still more to deepen my human FEELING.
Yes, none of this was on my ‘radar screen’ at all before.
I looked out at the world, with a certain upbringing. I was raised in secular and Protestant countries in which I saw a Christianity that made no sense.
I saw a psychologically acute New Age movement that appeared far more vital to me. And I saw modern humanity’s need for the Spirit in living and accessible ways.
I did not know the Catholic Sacraments, healing the human heart.
I also did not know the vastness of the Catholic intellectual effort over the centuries. I did not know, for example, Catholic Social Teaching and its radical and extensive challenge to modern capitalism, articulated on many fronts. (For more on this, see my comment to this entry.)
I did not see the Will that had built countless hospitals, fed countless hungry people, brought the living Sacraments to countless more ...
But I now agree with Rudolf Steiner that the entire trinity of human Feeling, Thinking and Will must be addressed more than ever at this time …
And my entire spiritual journey, it seems to me - with many arduous trials and struggles to clarify my perception - has brought me to this point of truly beginning to SEE the Church at this hour of humanity's need.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Confessions Part II (My New Age Dream)
Dear Friends, Known and Unknown,
As I have said, these confessions are based on my own looking-out at the soul of the world and the suffering of the world. They are based on many years of searching for ways to a more humane culture.
How many years have I been with this and how many years did I believe that the rapidly ascending New Age culture held the key …
For as I look out on the new millennium, it seems incontestable to me, that the challenges we face will require the greatest degree of spiritual maturity and spiritual strength that humanity has ever marshalled.
The challenges are just SO great. And as I have written here before, I have never been able to muster faith in solutions solely of a political nature – a new economic system, a new set of laws, a new kind of government …
All my adult life, I felt that **by themselves** these could amount to nothing but a superficial panacea, a quick fix, a band-aid for a far deeper and more structural problem. The only real answer I could imagine was not in essence political, but spiritual.
Now as ludicrous as it will no doubt sound to many Christians reading this, for years my greatest hope for developing the requisite degree of spiritual strength and maturity was the New Age or holistic movement.
This may sound ludicrous in part, because of the popular image of the New Age: one of channelling, crystals, UFO’s, astral travelling, pyramid power …
And God knows what else besides. Here is the place to clarify that this is NOT the New Age movement I knew in my nearly two decades involvement with it.
No. Starting with my life-changing visit at age 16 to Findhorn in Scotland – a major centre of holistic culture in the world – I knew a very different New Age.
The New Age movement I knew was a site of very sincere and open-hearted endeavour. Its spirituality had far more to do with depth psychology than wacky phenomena.
At Findhorn, the psychological practice originated by the depth psychologists, wherein one person (the analyst) took **seriously** the life issues and life suffering of the other (the analysand) had become generalised to the entire culture.
That is to say, people at Findhorn listened to each other, really **listened** to each other. They made real ‘the reality of the other'.
And in the psychological safety that people experience when they are taken **seriously**, I witnessed people opening up, becoming creative. The New Age I knew then, was marked by authenticity and personal growth– not crystals.
All of this was far, far more convincing to me than the world of (Protestant) Christianity I had experienced – which seemed simply desiccated by comparison.
And for years, I truly believed that this new spiritual holistic culture would grow, transform and open the heart of the mainstream culture.
I certainly did not expect that the growing coldness of the heart in 1980’s Reaganism and Thatcherism would continue, let alone DEEPEN. I did not expect materialism to keep **growing**.
As it now seems to me, that unless there is radical change at the **roots** of our culture, it will keep growing - impoverishing our souls and making ever more demands on the biosphere …
I read not so much wacky New Age channelings, but holistic and spiritual thinkers such as David Spangler, William Bloom, Richard Moss, Ken Wilber, Peter Russell, Caroline Myss, William Irwin Thompson, Stanislav Grof, Matthew Fox, Krishnamurti - people who deeply impressed me, and often still impress me …
And I did not notice the **Common Factors** that now seem absent - to one degree or another - in their thinking. Common Factors which so often seem to me either relativised, dismissed or not very present in the consciousness of such thinkers, but which factors are embodied in the Christian Tradition of the West.
And which I suspect are essential to 'radical change at the roots of our culture'. I shall be returning to these Common Factors that seem missing in New Age thought ...
Yes, there was so much I failed to remark. But looking back, I can understand why, in my youth, I really believed that New Age spirituality held the key to the challenges of the new millennium.
And how long it took me to begin to see its radical insufficiency and **why** it was insufficient …
As I have said, these confessions are based on my own looking-out at the soul of the world and the suffering of the world. They are based on many years of searching for ways to a more humane culture.
How many years have I been with this and how many years did I believe that the rapidly ascending New Age culture held the key …
For as I look out on the new millennium, it seems incontestable to me, that the challenges we face will require the greatest degree of spiritual maturity and spiritual strength that humanity has ever marshalled.
The challenges are just SO great. And as I have written here before, I have never been able to muster faith in solutions solely of a political nature – a new economic system, a new set of laws, a new kind of government …
All my adult life, I felt that **by themselves** these could amount to nothing but a superficial panacea, a quick fix, a band-aid for a far deeper and more structural problem. The only real answer I could imagine was not in essence political, but spiritual.
Now as ludicrous as it will no doubt sound to many Christians reading this, for years my greatest hope for developing the requisite degree of spiritual strength and maturity was the New Age or holistic movement.
This may sound ludicrous in part, because of the popular image of the New Age: one of channelling, crystals, UFO’s, astral travelling, pyramid power …
And God knows what else besides. Here is the place to clarify that this is NOT the New Age movement I knew in my nearly two decades involvement with it.
No. Starting with my life-changing visit at age 16 to Findhorn in Scotland – a major centre of holistic culture in the world – I knew a very different New Age.
The New Age movement I knew was a site of very sincere and open-hearted endeavour. Its spirituality had far more to do with depth psychology than wacky phenomena.
At Findhorn, the psychological practice originated by the depth psychologists, wherein one person (the analyst) took **seriously** the life issues and life suffering of the other (the analysand) had become generalised to the entire culture.
That is to say, people at Findhorn listened to each other, really **listened** to each other. They made real ‘the reality of the other'.
And in the psychological safety that people experience when they are taken **seriously**, I witnessed people opening up, becoming creative. The New Age I knew then, was marked by authenticity and personal growth– not crystals.
All of this was far, far more convincing to me than the world of (Protestant) Christianity I had experienced – which seemed simply desiccated by comparison.
And for years, I truly believed that this new spiritual holistic culture would grow, transform and open the heart of the mainstream culture.
I certainly did not expect that the growing coldness of the heart in 1980’s Reaganism and Thatcherism would continue, let alone DEEPEN. I did not expect materialism to keep **growing**.
As it now seems to me, that unless there is radical change at the **roots** of our culture, it will keep growing - impoverishing our souls and making ever more demands on the biosphere …
I read not so much wacky New Age channelings, but holistic and spiritual thinkers such as David Spangler, William Bloom, Richard Moss, Ken Wilber, Peter Russell, Caroline Myss, William Irwin Thompson, Stanislav Grof, Matthew Fox, Krishnamurti - people who deeply impressed me, and often still impress me …
And I did not notice the **Common Factors** that now seem absent - to one degree or another - in their thinking. Common Factors which so often seem to me either relativised, dismissed or not very present in the consciousness of such thinkers, but which factors are embodied in the Christian Tradition of the West.
And which I suspect are essential to 'radical change at the roots of our culture'. I shall be returning to these Common Factors that seem missing in New Age thought ...
Yes, there was so much I failed to remark. But looking back, I can understand why, in my youth, I really believed that New Age spirituality held the key to the challenges of the new millennium.
And how long it took me to begin to see its radical insufficiency and **why** it was insufficient …
Friday, March 17, 2006
Confessions – Part I (Introduction)
Dear Friends, Known and Unknown,
For weeks now, it has been a very, very trying and painful time on all levels. Practical, emotional, spiritual.
And in the midst of this ongoing trial, I found myself, some days ago, writing yesterday’s entry – which has a far more personal tone than much of the material that has appeared hitherto in this weblog.
At the time, I was seriously feeling I might have to give up this project. At least temporarily.
But inwardly it felt wrong to stop – and I have found, almost miraculously, a way to continue, which feels right.
Over the space of just a few hours, I found myself writing a long piece that will now be serialised here, under the title ‘Confessions’.
I use this term for several reasons. One is to indicate a point of departure. For the next days at least, this weblog will take a far more personal turn. Though it will not address personal events in my life, it will focus on issues in this weblog – including the world situation, world spirituality and the Church – in a more personal way.
Another reason I use the term 'confessions' is that I deliberately want to call attention to the fact that, while previously I presented much material that I pondered and researched over years – the following will be a little different.
Some of it, for example, will be very fresh material emerging in my mind. Things that I have not researched sufficiently yet, to present in the previous format.
Instead, I only want to say, I confess, dear friends, I confess, this is how the world appears to me at the moment. These are also 'confessions' as to my concerns, and as to what drives me in this effort …
Under this heading of 'confessions', I am going to say a number of controversial things about Christianity, the New Age movement, the World Soul as I see them.
I am going to go further than before. Go further, as I look out at the growing suffering of the world, suffering under a soulless, secularist and capitalist system.
And as I contemplate the developments, decades down the line, if the present trajectory continues to amplify in its effects …
I will go further in saying why this contemplation leads me personally to an ever more traditional position, an ever more traditional Catholicism. Even as I strive for a traditional Catholicism, which is deeply open-hearted, respectful of other traditions and socially and environmentally engaged.
And why, for example, I cannot help but feel New Age attempts to replace the tradition of the West are inadequate to the task at hand and fatally flawed - rooted as they often now seem to me, in ignorance of the tradition, reductionistic psychologising and a hermeneutic of suspicion. Rather than profound and rigorous reflection …
And why I feel it is my painful duty to raise these issues …
And what I see the alternatives are.
Though nothing **comprehensive** is promised and what is in store will be very personal and fragmentary, this at least gives indications of what will be forthcoming.
Please note the refrains here: about appearances and feelings. How things feel and appear to me.
These are my confessions. Confessions as I look out on the modern state of the Soul of Humanity and its spiritual and religious **needs**. Or at least, what it seems to me, is so burningly needed in our world - after years of struggling with these issues.
Yes, in all these matters, I struggle to clarify and sharpen my thinking. And perhaps some of you, who struggle too, can help me.
(Comments to this weblog are very gratefully received. I work necessarily in a certain darkness, as I send out these messages. Believing in them, but having little idea as to their reception - beyond the fact that a silent majority seem to visit here every day. For which I am very grateful.)
These confessions should resume in earnest on Monday. May your weekend, dear friends, be blessed, inspired and meaningful.
For weeks now, it has been a very, very trying and painful time on all levels. Practical, emotional, spiritual.
And in the midst of this ongoing trial, I found myself, some days ago, writing yesterday’s entry – which has a far more personal tone than much of the material that has appeared hitherto in this weblog.
At the time, I was seriously feeling I might have to give up this project. At least temporarily.
But inwardly it felt wrong to stop – and I have found, almost miraculously, a way to continue, which feels right.
Over the space of just a few hours, I found myself writing a long piece that will now be serialised here, under the title ‘Confessions’.
I use this term for several reasons. One is to indicate a point of departure. For the next days at least, this weblog will take a far more personal turn. Though it will not address personal events in my life, it will focus on issues in this weblog – including the world situation, world spirituality and the Church – in a more personal way.
Another reason I use the term 'confessions' is that I deliberately want to call attention to the fact that, while previously I presented much material that I pondered and researched over years – the following will be a little different.
Some of it, for example, will be very fresh material emerging in my mind. Things that I have not researched sufficiently yet, to present in the previous format.
Instead, I only want to say, I confess, dear friends, I confess, this is how the world appears to me at the moment. These are also 'confessions' as to my concerns, and as to what drives me in this effort …
Under this heading of 'confessions', I am going to say a number of controversial things about Christianity, the New Age movement, the World Soul as I see them.
I am going to go further than before. Go further, as I look out at the growing suffering of the world, suffering under a soulless, secularist and capitalist system.
And as I contemplate the developments, decades down the line, if the present trajectory continues to amplify in its effects …
I will go further in saying why this contemplation leads me personally to an ever more traditional position, an ever more traditional Catholicism. Even as I strive for a traditional Catholicism, which is deeply open-hearted, respectful of other traditions and socially and environmentally engaged.
And why, for example, I cannot help but feel New Age attempts to replace the tradition of the West are inadequate to the task at hand and fatally flawed - rooted as they often now seem to me, in ignorance of the tradition, reductionistic psychologising and a hermeneutic of suspicion. Rather than profound and rigorous reflection …
And why I feel it is my painful duty to raise these issues …
And what I see the alternatives are.
Though nothing **comprehensive** is promised and what is in store will be very personal and fragmentary, this at least gives indications of what will be forthcoming.
Please note the refrains here: about appearances and feelings. How things feel and appear to me.
These are my confessions. Confessions as I look out on the modern state of the Soul of Humanity and its spiritual and religious **needs**. Or at least, what it seems to me, is so burningly needed in our world - after years of struggling with these issues.
Yes, in all these matters, I struggle to clarify and sharpen my thinking. And perhaps some of you, who struggle too, can help me.
(Comments to this weblog are very gratefully received. I work necessarily in a certain darkness, as I send out these messages. Believing in them, but having little idea as to their reception - beyond the fact that a silent majority seem to visit here every day. For which I am very grateful.)
These confessions should resume in earnest on Monday. May your weekend, dear friends, be blessed, inspired and meaningful.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
To be not ABSTRACT …
We live in a world of incredible suffering. Suffering so incredible that we must of necessity, remain largely asleep to it. For obviously, none of us could bear to be fully awake to all that it means. Only beings of the Angelic hierarchies can perhaps begin to bear the state of the world …
And at the same time, I see - however superficially - that every minute of every day, I contribute to the suffering of the world. And for this I pray to be forgiven, for ‘what I have done and what I have failed to do …’
And this, it seems to me, indicates a dimension to sin not emphasised enough.
For the term ‘sin’ has become caught up with abstract ideas of abstract violations of abstract virtues. Or else it has assumed morbid overtones.
Yet I have no wish to speak of sin in terms of breaking abstract rules. Nor do I want to invoke notions that we are completely and utterly wretched (as John Calvin maintained in his doctrine of the so-called 'total depravity' of the human being).
No, that is not what I mean at all and I have not the least wish to affirm extreme Protestant doctrines of 'total depravity', where the GLORY of human nature, human love and human effort count for nothing … absolutely nothing.
At the same time, I wish to face the fact of what sin **really** means. I wish to face the fact, with greater honesty, that I am **hurting** all of life. That my very existence brings pain – day in, day out.
At the same time, I pray not to forget, that insofar as my human nature and human love is wedded to Our Lord (by whatever name, we choose to give the sacred heart of divine humanity) - so also are my human efforts, not without effectiveness or meaning … Not even the very least of my human gestures.
Twenty-five years ago perhaps, I ventured one evening into a pedestrian subway in Chelmsford, Essex.
A woman passed by and smiled at me. I have never forgotten that smile. I imagine now that it must have been filled with profound human warmth. (That is to say, suffused by a truly Christic feeling, again by whatever name we choose to call it).
And I wonder now, whatever this woman in Chelmsford has ‘done or failed to do’ in her life, however she has added to the suffering of the world, I wonder what will happen when she dies, as we all shall die …
Will she die and see the unforgettable memory that gesture of warmth created in the mind of a young stranger in Chelmsford, one evening in the early 1980’s?
Will the profound warmth that radiated through her smile that night, which in all likelihood, also radiated to countless others in her life, come back to her as something she added to the world, without ever realising how much she added …?
For though little do we *truly* realise it, but we are all going to die. We are going to die in a universe, where justice will prevail. And just as the suffering we cause others matters, so does all we do to alleviate suffering … Including the subtlest of our human gestures.
All we do to love, in other words. That is to say, every sincere smile in a darkened Essex underpass, every prayer, every kind word, every effort to make real the reality of the other, every effort to bear another’s pain and not to reflexively push it away, push it away into the darkness of unconsciousness …
Yes pain is difficult and how often do we push it away. But every effort to overcome non-love in our lives counts and will count, in this world and in the world to come. And thus of course, also every effort to address the religious, social, political and environmental crisis of the planet.
And when we really die, we will see, we will feel, how we added to the suffering of the world, and also how we acted to alleviate that suffering.
And at the same time, I see - however superficially - that every minute of every day, I contribute to the suffering of the world. And for this I pray to be forgiven, for ‘what I have done and what I have failed to do …’
And this, it seems to me, indicates a dimension to sin not emphasised enough.
For the term ‘sin’ has become caught up with abstract ideas of abstract violations of abstract virtues. Or else it has assumed morbid overtones.
Yet I have no wish to speak of sin in terms of breaking abstract rules. Nor do I want to invoke notions that we are completely and utterly wretched (as John Calvin maintained in his doctrine of the so-called 'total depravity' of the human being).
No, that is not what I mean at all and I have not the least wish to affirm extreme Protestant doctrines of 'total depravity', where the GLORY of human nature, human love and human effort count for nothing … absolutely nothing.
At the same time, I wish to face the fact of what sin **really** means. I wish to face the fact, with greater honesty, that I am **hurting** all of life. That my very existence brings pain – day in, day out.
At the same time, I pray not to forget, that insofar as my human nature and human love is wedded to Our Lord (by whatever name, we choose to give the sacred heart of divine humanity) - so also are my human efforts, not without effectiveness or meaning … Not even the very least of my human gestures.
Twenty-five years ago perhaps, I ventured one evening into a pedestrian subway in Chelmsford, Essex.
A woman passed by and smiled at me. I have never forgotten that smile. I imagine now that it must have been filled with profound human warmth. (That is to say, suffused by a truly Christic feeling, again by whatever name we choose to call it).
And I wonder now, whatever this woman in Chelmsford has ‘done or failed to do’ in her life, however she has added to the suffering of the world, I wonder what will happen when she dies, as we all shall die …
Will she die and see the unforgettable memory that gesture of warmth created in the mind of a young stranger in Chelmsford, one evening in the early 1980’s?
Will the profound warmth that radiated through her smile that night, which in all likelihood, also radiated to countless others in her life, come back to her as something she added to the world, without ever realising how much she added …?
For though little do we *truly* realise it, but we are all going to die. We are going to die in a universe, where justice will prevail. And just as the suffering we cause others matters, so does all we do to alleviate suffering … Including the subtlest of our human gestures.
All we do to love, in other words. That is to say, every sincere smile in a darkened Essex underpass, every prayer, every kind word, every effort to make real the reality of the other, every effort to bear another’s pain and not to reflexively push it away, push it away into the darkness of unconsciousness …
Yes pain is difficult and how often do we push it away. But every effort to overcome non-love in our lives counts and will count, in this world and in the world to come. And thus of course, also every effort to address the religious, social, political and environmental crisis of the planet.
And when we really die, we will see, we will feel, how we added to the suffering of the world, and also how we acted to alleviate that suffering.
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