I did not, as is perhaps obvious, post every day, though of the last 42 days I have posted 20 times. I am not sure I am closer to the answers I was looking for when I chose to use posting to this blog as a Lenten discipline. Also, I failed in my goal. Also, I haven't written much explicitly on my vocation. I began there, but then I seems that most of what I have ended up posting has been a practice of being a public intellectual in the sense that i recounted here, and which J.K.A Smith talks about in the introduction to his The Devil Reads Derrida.
In this sense I suppose I have become aware of a good bit: there are a number of people who I know outside the interwebs who read this blog and appreciate my POV on things, actually appreciate is not quite right, if I am interpreting their feedback correctly over this period of more frequent blogging. Well it seems that when I write I give a perspective either that helps them give articulation to things they have been mulling over but not been able to give full expression or a differing perspective they find of interest.
I think I have learned a great deal from the post on McLaren and the Emergent church, both about the potential of speaking but also concerning my own hesitancy to speak out on such things in this public forum. But, I also am learning the need to reflect openly about what may lie behind a position I take, that is I suppose to practice an "archeology of knowledge" on my self. Which I'd argue is what we do when we stop and tell the story of our beliefs, intellectual positions, and philosophies and theologies. Perhaps not surprising to some Derrida continues to be a helpful companion in this. Though, not really because of his conclusions he himself seemed to have come. And he may think that I am not as ruthless as one could towards Christian orthodox doctrines. Yet, I find him helpful even there where I know he came to other conclusions.
This all still feels a little over exposed especially after posting this on Sunday. I feel a bit of resistance to what this all might mean. I am not really comfortable with what seems to be this public role as part of my vocation.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Is it that I'm not Listening or Have I Never Been Heard?
I am trying to grapple with the Anglobaptist's response to and the conversation on Facebook around my recent post on Brian McLaren and the emergent church. I am realizing that this is not merely about ideas or rhetoric or history (is it ever).
I have drafts of two responses (and will post them soon). The first addresses the issue of rhetoric, and Mike Clawson encouraged me to look beyond the rhetoric of "new" and equivocal use of "Christian". I can't do so since the rhetoric means something, it is not merely ornamental, it forms perceptions it is part of the meaning, it is not merely a conveyor of a meaning that I can have apart from the rhetoric, even if the rhetoric isn't all McLaren is saying. The second is attempting to get at what might give the personal and emotive force behind my discomfort with this rhetoric.
The Anglobaptist in his brief socio-historical account of his own personal experience of the American Modernist/Fundamentalist split and controversy, is a beginning. I found it helpful, because I personally do not resonate with that story of needing to choose sides and now needing to somehow hear each other again. Being told I should listen to other's peoples saints and hear how they are possibly "orthodox" in their own way, makes sense and is painful to hear.
The reason for the pain is layered, bound up in the alienation of being an immigrant (Not literally myself). All of my childhood a much of my adult life I lived in immigrant churches, in a denomination that was and in many places still is Swedish. Now most of those churches were in various stages of assimilation, and mostly very late stages of that assimilation process, so one would look at them and simply say they were white churches. However, my father is a naturalized citizen, his family were displaced persons and refuges after WWII, as his parents were German missionaries to China, who for some sense of protection destroyed their German citizenship papers and documents and were made Chinese citizens, and then due to the devastation in Germany could not prove they were German citizens. They came to the states. My father was not treated well in his first years in school in the States, even though my father has a great deal of love for the US, he also told us those stories of rejection and alienation. My Grandparents also had stories as children and grandchildren of Swedish parents of discrimination and assimilation. Of course, as Northern Europeans, once the language (German or Swedish) was given up and cultural difference were relegated to family food traditions of Christmas, the privilege of being white was given without question. While I seem to be the few of my generation in my family to struggle with this, I have found it difficult to assimilate the pain of the immigrant experience, the cultural and religious identity passed on, and the fact of assimilation.
What all this has to do with the conversation around McLaren and the Emergent Church is that the tensions of this experience of immigration and resistance to assimilation, for me was lodged in a faith tradition and identity, one that itself may be disappearing. When the Anglobaptist talks about sharing our saints I wonder who are my saints. Other than Luther I don't know who my paternal grandfather's "saints" would have been. And for the Swedish and Evangelical Covenant side of my story I did not grow up with stories of "saints", we were good Protestants of a sort where the gathered people of God were the saints, the stories were communal stories. Though the Covenant does have it's "saints" though I first began to hear their stories late High School, early College in the midst of conflict in the covenant church we were members which was attempting to resolve the tensions of the Covenant immigrant identity and assimilate into the conservative fundamentalist end side of the American Protestant experience. However, I didn't actually discover our "saints", Waldenstrom, Nyvall, Lund, etc. until I came to North Park Theological Seminary and realized that all I had been taught by my parents and my Grandparents and church of childhood, was not accidental and merely communal but the intention of these saints, and intention that once in the American context was a refusal of the Modernist/fundamentalist dualism and controversy. So, Mclaren's attempted mediation, and even his questioning of a certain theory of the atonement prevalent in American conservative Evangelicalism isn't new. And I wonder, shouldn't those who are seeking mediation listen to these "saints" these Swedish immigrants who refused American definitions of Christian faith as a witness to another way? Is my criticism really a lack of hearing, or is it an attempt to finally be heard?
I have difficulty putting into words to what degree saying all this is frightening, and at the same time feels like I should just let go and simply accept, and that in comparison to others I have it well and other voices really should be heard rather than mine. So, many voices aren't being and haven't been heard. Then I wonder do I help those other voices by simply being quiet and pretending that the dominant American stories are mine, and simply assimilate and appropriate that dominant story as my own. So, I wonder if Mike and Robyn spoke past each other when Robyn asked where are the queer's and people of color in the emergent church conversation and Mike responded saying there were such people prominently part of the conversation at a recent emergent conference. Because I too could simply be part of the conversation, as long as I would simply accept the rhetoric and dominant religious story of the American context, and ignore that my particular story has not been told and no one actually knows my "saints". Can we who do not share this white Protestant story, really speak, is Brian Mclaren and the emergent church really making space for truly different stories. When I read Brian Mclaren, when I have attended local emergent gatherings, I truthfully have never felt I had space to truly speak in my native tongue or even give the time to translate my tongue into a common tongue. This is how I feel, perhaps I have misinterpreted, but I continually experience an unacknowledged difference. A difference that it seems I am to sublimate and pretend doesn't exist. So, I am speaking attempting to admit the tensions, the contradictions, and relative privilege.
I have drafts of two responses (and will post them soon). The first addresses the issue of rhetoric, and Mike Clawson encouraged me to look beyond the rhetoric of "new" and equivocal use of "Christian". I can't do so since the rhetoric means something, it is not merely ornamental, it forms perceptions it is part of the meaning, it is not merely a conveyor of a meaning that I can have apart from the rhetoric, even if the rhetoric isn't all McLaren is saying. The second is attempting to get at what might give the personal and emotive force behind my discomfort with this rhetoric.
The Anglobaptist in his brief socio-historical account of his own personal experience of the American Modernist/Fundamentalist split and controversy, is a beginning. I found it helpful, because I personally do not resonate with that story of needing to choose sides and now needing to somehow hear each other again. Being told I should listen to other's peoples saints and hear how they are possibly "orthodox" in their own way, makes sense and is painful to hear.
The reason for the pain is layered, bound up in the alienation of being an immigrant (Not literally myself). All of my childhood a much of my adult life I lived in immigrant churches, in a denomination that was and in many places still is Swedish. Now most of those churches were in various stages of assimilation, and mostly very late stages of that assimilation process, so one would look at them and simply say they were white churches. However, my father is a naturalized citizen, his family were displaced persons and refuges after WWII, as his parents were German missionaries to China, who for some sense of protection destroyed their German citizenship papers and documents and were made Chinese citizens, and then due to the devastation in Germany could not prove they were German citizens. They came to the states. My father was not treated well in his first years in school in the States, even though my father has a great deal of love for the US, he also told us those stories of rejection and alienation. My Grandparents also had stories as children and grandchildren of Swedish parents of discrimination and assimilation. Of course, as Northern Europeans, once the language (German or Swedish) was given up and cultural difference were relegated to family food traditions of Christmas, the privilege of being white was given without question. While I seem to be the few of my generation in my family to struggle with this, I have found it difficult to assimilate the pain of the immigrant experience, the cultural and religious identity passed on, and the fact of assimilation.
What all this has to do with the conversation around McLaren and the Emergent Church is that the tensions of this experience of immigration and resistance to assimilation, for me was lodged in a faith tradition and identity, one that itself may be disappearing. When the Anglobaptist talks about sharing our saints I wonder who are my saints. Other than Luther I don't know who my paternal grandfather's "saints" would have been. And for the Swedish and Evangelical Covenant side of my story I did not grow up with stories of "saints", we were good Protestants of a sort where the gathered people of God were the saints, the stories were communal stories. Though the Covenant does have it's "saints" though I first began to hear their stories late High School, early College in the midst of conflict in the covenant church we were members which was attempting to resolve the tensions of the Covenant immigrant identity and assimilate into the conservative fundamentalist end side of the American Protestant experience. However, I didn't actually discover our "saints", Waldenstrom, Nyvall, Lund, etc. until I came to North Park Theological Seminary and realized that all I had been taught by my parents and my Grandparents and church of childhood, was not accidental and merely communal but the intention of these saints, and intention that once in the American context was a refusal of the Modernist/fundamentalist dualism and controversy. So, Mclaren's attempted mediation, and even his questioning of a certain theory of the atonement prevalent in American conservative Evangelicalism isn't new. And I wonder, shouldn't those who are seeking mediation listen to these "saints" these Swedish immigrants who refused American definitions of Christian faith as a witness to another way? Is my criticism really a lack of hearing, or is it an attempt to finally be heard?
I have difficulty putting into words to what degree saying all this is frightening, and at the same time feels like I should just let go and simply accept, and that in comparison to others I have it well and other voices really should be heard rather than mine. So, many voices aren't being and haven't been heard. Then I wonder do I help those other voices by simply being quiet and pretending that the dominant American stories are mine, and simply assimilate and appropriate that dominant story as my own. So, I wonder if Mike and Robyn spoke past each other when Robyn asked where are the queer's and people of color in the emergent church conversation and Mike responded saying there were such people prominently part of the conversation at a recent emergent conference. Because I too could simply be part of the conversation, as long as I would simply accept the rhetoric and dominant religious story of the American context, and ignore that my particular story has not been told and no one actually knows my "saints". Can we who do not share this white Protestant story, really speak, is Brian Mclaren and the emergent church really making space for truly different stories. When I read Brian Mclaren, when I have attended local emergent gatherings, I truthfully have never felt I had space to truly speak in my native tongue or even give the time to translate my tongue into a common tongue. This is how I feel, perhaps I have misinterpreted, but I continually experience an unacknowledged difference. A difference that it seems I am to sublimate and pretend doesn't exist. So, I am speaking attempting to admit the tensions, the contradictions, and relative privilege.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Here's my Problem with Brian McLaren and the Emerging Church
(I have made some edits to this post that will hopefully help clarify some of what I am saying here. LEK 3/26/2010)
I agree with a great deal of what Brian says about the Gospel in this video. Brian McLaren: Q5 – The Gospel Question | :: TheOoze.TV :: Emerging Church Video Podcast But I have so many problems with the beginning point and that Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism are his actual point of reference, but rarely overtly stated as such. This starting point then requires newness and rethinking. Brian McLaren's "New Christianity" ends up being either a fairly placid form of orthodoxy or a rehashed form of social Gospel and classic Christian liberalism (in its early stages perhaps). Much of the edginess and sense of excitement of the Emergent Church and Brian McLaren is due the keeping of the backdrop of the Fundamentalist/Modernist controversy and specifically the Fundamentalist answer to that controversy as the only form of Christianity. The Tradition is still read through the lenses of American Evangelicalism. Granted for McLaren especially and many in the Emergent Church that is their biographical and existential starting point. Even so, frankly through this constant unstated referent, and the use of "Christianity" in away that really means Evangelical or Fundamentalist, the Emergent church excludes me, who comes to all these questions without ever having seen American Evangelicalism as definitive "Christianity".
In terms of this video, I wasn't taught mainly that the Gospel was about going to heaven. (And BTW while I appreciate the spatial metaphors of up and down, to continue to emphasize them and seem to use them exclusively just reinforces my sense of how McLaren is still stuck on a very small stage, and attempting to rewrite script and call it an original and new work.) Granted I was familiar with this opinion and many in the churches I grew up in believed the Gospel was about going to heaven, but it wasn't the teaching of the church or Christianity it was simply the opinion of some. Also, it is true that I have come to believe that the form of Christianity I was raised with had spotty resistance to Fundamentalist and American Evangelical Christianity, so that by now perhaps many Covenanters would think that this itself is the teaching of the Evangelical Covenant church or at least has been part of its tradition, even though it was imported as we assimilated into the American landscape.
So,Brian McLaren wants to redefine Christianity give us something new. But when he talks about what he is redefining what he is redefining isn't "Christianity" (whatever that may be) but Fundamentalism or simply American Evangelicalism, which has never really been my faith tradition. "Pietist Lutheran" Christianity was what I was raised on though no one used that label. This form of Christianity had a great deal of emphasis on how the Gospel had "this worldly" consequences and effect on the life lived. Now it wasn't a very political sense of the effect the Gospel should have in fact it was probably quite apolitical. But it wasn't escapist, and Romans was always seen as a robust and complex theological work, not well suited tot theological reductions of the Romans road, or any other quick summary. So when McLaren attempts to re-frame Romans as about the problem of Reconciliation, I respond with this is simply another form of reduction that mimics the reduction of Romans that McLaren is critiquing.
I can affirm the criticism of the reduction of the Gospel to "upward mobility", even against using Romans exclusively or primarily as the definition of the Gospel, but in my reading of the Gospel I find something exceedingly more complex than McLaren's interpretation of Romans and the Gospel, something not so easily molded into Reconciliation and inclusiveness. Something beyond exclusion and inclusion: something far more challenging. It's easy to talk about a new kind of Christianity when your old kind was itself a new kind of Christianity, that denied its newnes, and as such had a very narrow focus. The Gospel is expansive refuses reduction, can't be made into either a social Gospel- a Gospel of this world alone- nor an escapist Gospel of heading to heaven. In part because the Gospel is the story of God redeeming and transforming humanity and all creation because we failed, and continue to fail. (And I think McLaren would want to agree with this.) To accept the Gospel is to accept that we can't make the world better and to enter into the realm where God is transforming the world. That world is heaven, its not a location, the metaphor of up should read as transcendentally immanent (Up means God has perfect view/knowledge of the world, and a separateness from its corruption), especially when we recognize as Mclaren does in the video that Heaven and earth are being joined, Heaven is coming down to earth- Heaven is being fused with earth. But we can refuse this event this transformation. We can choose our solutions. We can still try to make our selves right and just outside of this realm of God's transforming work. To the extent that we do that we exclude ourselves from God's transforming and redeeming work accomplished by Christ on the Cross. This has been what Paul preached what the Church has taught, there is no need for a new kind of Christianity simply an acceptance of what God has done and is doing, a work that is always already new and ancient at the same time. The Fundamentalist and American Evangelical reduction of the Gospel simply has been a refusal to enter into that work in its full reality, it is not nor has it ever been Christianity in its fullness.
I agree with a great deal of what Brian says about the Gospel in this video. Brian McLaren: Q5 – The Gospel Question | :: TheOoze.TV :: Emerging Church Video Podcast But I have so many problems with the beginning point and that Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism are his actual point of reference, but rarely overtly stated as such. This starting point then requires newness and rethinking. Brian McLaren's "New Christianity" ends up being either a fairly placid form of orthodoxy or a rehashed form of social Gospel and classic Christian liberalism (in its early stages perhaps). Much of the edginess and sense of excitement of the Emergent Church and Brian McLaren is due the keeping of the backdrop of the Fundamentalist/Modernist controversy and specifically the Fundamentalist answer to that controversy as the only form of Christianity. The Tradition is still read through the lenses of American Evangelicalism. Granted for McLaren especially and many in the Emergent Church that is their biographical and existential starting point. Even so, frankly through this constant unstated referent, and the use of "Christianity" in away that really means Evangelical or Fundamentalist, the Emergent church excludes me, who comes to all these questions without ever having seen American Evangelicalism as definitive "Christianity".
In terms of this video, I wasn't taught mainly that the Gospel was about going to heaven. (And BTW while I appreciate the spatial metaphors of up and down, to continue to emphasize them and seem to use them exclusively just reinforces my sense of how McLaren is still stuck on a very small stage, and attempting to rewrite script and call it an original and new work.) Granted I was familiar with this opinion and many in the churches I grew up in believed the Gospel was about going to heaven, but it wasn't the teaching of the church or Christianity it was simply the opinion of some. Also, it is true that I have come to believe that the form of Christianity I was raised with had spotty resistance to Fundamentalist and American Evangelical Christianity, so that by now perhaps many Covenanters would think that this itself is the teaching of the Evangelical Covenant church or at least has been part of its tradition, even though it was imported as we assimilated into the American landscape.
So,Brian McLaren wants to redefine Christianity give us something new. But when he talks about what he is redefining what he is redefining isn't "Christianity" (whatever that may be) but Fundamentalism or simply American Evangelicalism, which has never really been my faith tradition. "Pietist Lutheran" Christianity was what I was raised on though no one used that label. This form of Christianity had a great deal of emphasis on how the Gospel had "this worldly" consequences and effect on the life lived. Now it wasn't a very political sense of the effect the Gospel should have in fact it was probably quite apolitical. But it wasn't escapist, and Romans was always seen as a robust and complex theological work, not well suited tot theological reductions of the Romans road, or any other quick summary. So when McLaren attempts to re-frame Romans as about the problem of Reconciliation, I respond with this is simply another form of reduction that mimics the reduction of Romans that McLaren is critiquing.
I can affirm the criticism of the reduction of the Gospel to "upward mobility", even against using Romans exclusively or primarily as the definition of the Gospel, but in my reading of the Gospel I find something exceedingly more complex than McLaren's interpretation of Romans and the Gospel, something not so easily molded into Reconciliation and inclusiveness. Something beyond exclusion and inclusion: something far more challenging. It's easy to talk about a new kind of Christianity when your old kind was itself a new kind of Christianity, that denied its newnes, and as such had a very narrow focus. The Gospel is expansive refuses reduction, can't be made into either a social Gospel- a Gospel of this world alone- nor an escapist Gospel of heading to heaven. In part because the Gospel is the story of God redeeming and transforming humanity and all creation because we failed, and continue to fail. (And I think McLaren would want to agree with this.) To accept the Gospel is to accept that we can't make the world better and to enter into the realm where God is transforming the world. That world is heaven, its not a location, the metaphor of up should read as transcendentally immanent (Up means God has perfect view/knowledge of the world, and a separateness from its corruption), especially when we recognize as Mclaren does in the video that Heaven and earth are being joined, Heaven is coming down to earth- Heaven is being fused with earth. But we can refuse this event this transformation. We can choose our solutions. We can still try to make our selves right and just outside of this realm of God's transforming work. To the extent that we do that we exclude ourselves from God's transforming and redeeming work accomplished by Christ on the Cross. This has been what Paul preached what the Church has taught, there is no need for a new kind of Christianity simply an acceptance of what God has done and is doing, a work that is always already new and ancient at the same time. The Fundamentalist and American Evangelical reduction of the Gospel simply has been a refusal to enter into that work in its full reality, it is not nor has it ever been Christianity in its fullness.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Thirsting for Beauty
This past week has been kind of rough. Within three days of returning from my retreat at St Gregory's Abbey, I got sick, and was not all that functional for the next three days. In the illness and as I tried to make some sense of the Lectionary texts for the Fifth Sunday in Lent I found myself in a deep longing for things saturated with beauty and feeling that so little even that which purports to be beautiful is truly saturated in it. Mary's extravagant action of anointing Jesus' feet with very expensive perfume had me transfixed and the result of her action as described by John The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume." (John 12:3) In all my preparation for this sermon I tried to focus on Isaiah 43, or the Philippians passage, or both Isaiah and Philippians, but to no avail. This one verse describing Mary's astounding and seemingly incomprehensible act of extravagance wouldn't let me be. Mary just kept saying contemplate what I did there, take in the fragrance of Christs burial, take in the olfactory beauty.
Today as I was preparing for service and attempting to get some order to my thoughts for the sermon, I was astounded at how deeply I was longing for beauty and how despairing I was feeling that one could actually find things truly saturated with it. I was truly feeling a sense of a world devoid of beauty even as I reflected on things that I would usually think beautiful, or recent movies. It was quite troubling.
After service and weaving John 12:3 and Mary's action throughout a sermon in which I also touched on Isaiah 43 and Philipians 3:4-14, it occurred to me that this longing and desire for beauty to fill the world and feeling its absence, was a desert experience. Something to be expected to some degree in Lent, and in the midst of various forms of fasting and discipline. I am thirsty and hungry, as we are in the last stretch of Lent things are feeling a bit barren, I am finding this expressed in myself in this experience of a world devoid of beauty. So, we'll see what Holy Week and Easter bring. But until then I think I'll remain thirsting for beauty and finding a world devoid of it.
Today as I was preparing for service and attempting to get some order to my thoughts for the sermon, I was astounded at how deeply I was longing for beauty and how despairing I was feeling that one could actually find things truly saturated with it. I was truly feeling a sense of a world devoid of beauty even as I reflected on things that I would usually think beautiful, or recent movies. It was quite troubling.
After service and weaving John 12:3 and Mary's action throughout a sermon in which I also touched on Isaiah 43 and Philipians 3:4-14, it occurred to me that this longing and desire for beauty to fill the world and feeling its absence, was a desert experience. Something to be expected to some degree in Lent, and in the midst of various forms of fasting and discipline. I am thirsty and hungry, as we are in the last stretch of Lent things are feeling a bit barren, I am finding this expressed in myself in this experience of a world devoid of beauty. So, we'll see what Holy Week and Easter bring. But until then I think I'll remain thirsting for beauty and finding a world devoid of it.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
A day of contrasts
This morning met with someone Kate has been saying he and I should meet. We hit it off quite well. Spent much more time over coffee than either of us expected. It was one of those mostly effortless conversations in which telling ones story lead also to mutual reflections on life God and self. This sort of immediate and deep connection with someone happens rarely for me, perhaps for most people I don't know. I am usually more cautious in getting to know people. Then at times I meet someone and for reasons that are not entirely clear to me, I feel free and the other person feels free to say those things we don't always feel free to say to most people, or to express doubts, or questions that we don't generally get to express. In our midst there is an opening and a connection that is quite profound. It is perhaps relevant to note that one of the few times this has happened is when my wife and I went on our fist date, now 12 or 13 years ago.
I Came home from that meeting and ran some errands and did some other things related to the community and was going to work on my sermon and presentation for tomorrow evening on the Exsultet, and suddenly felt exhausted and a fever with a developing sore throat. So, it has been a last the pleasant rest of the day, and probably will go to bed soon, and am missing the One of the Girls gig I had planned to go to. Hope it was a good gig - I am sure it was.
I Came home from that meeting and ran some errands and did some other things related to the community and was going to work on my sermon and presentation for tomorrow evening on the Exsultet, and suddenly felt exhausted and a fever with a developing sore throat. So, it has been a last the pleasant rest of the day, and probably will go to bed soon, and am missing the One of the Girls gig I had planned to go to. Hope it was a good gig - I am sure it was.
Monday, March 15, 2010
A time of Surprises at St. Gregory's Abbey
My retreat at St Gregory's Abbey I think yielded what I had hoped but not what I expected. I went with the intention to being open to God's leading in my role of pastor of Reconciler and prior of Holy Trinity. And I had a very gentle lesson in being open to what God might be doing in the moment when things did not go as I planned or necessarily wanted for my time at the Abbey.
Things did not go as I would have had them on my way and first couple of hours at the monastery. First I left about 15 minutes later than I intended, but I had planned to leave so as to arrive at Union station early. I did not leave early but with still ten minutes to spare, so more or less just on time since I needed to collect my tickets. It was a little nerve wracking but it turned out I had enough time. Then the train arrived on time and the monk who was picking me up was late and had been hoping he could count on that this line of the Amtrak tends to be late. But we had a quite tasty meal at an Indian restaurant in Kalamazoo. I think just about some of the best Indian food I have had, and that is saying something. This was my first surprise. I had not expected to find Indian food in Kalamozoo that rivaled what I have had in Chicago and L.A.
Once at the Abbey I ended up being locked out of my room because house keeping didn't unlock the room until I had been at the Abbey for an hour and a half. This disrupted what has become my pattern: unpack, make bed setup the desk for study, then go to the church to pray and ask the prayers of St Benedict, St Gregory and Virgin Mary for my time at the abbey and then to the library and check some books out. Too my surprise, once I established that I was not going to get right into my room, I was able to settle in anyway, went to the church and prayed and came back and read a book I had brought along until the bell rang for None. After None I was able to get into my room and settle in the rest of the way.
The most surprising thing was that I was more social than I usually am on such retreats and it enriched my times of silence meditation and reading/study. The first night after supper I ended up talking for about a half an hour with one of the other guests, who seemed like he needed someone to talk to. Then the evening Kate arrived one of he monks, Br. Cuthbert took us into town to meet up with mutual friends of ours who live in Three Rivers, Rob and Kirsten VGR. Friday was the Feast of St Gregory, so there was not only a celebratory feel of the day but there is conversation at meals (usually we eat in silence as one of the monks reads from a book that has been selected) and at supper guest and monks sat at the same table and at both dinner and supper there was beer and wine to drink. All very festive and I played darts with another guest and some of the monks in the refectory. In the midst of this celebration I also did a good bit of studying and of course there is still the Divine office though some of the Hours are combined but the day is still punctuated withe the Hours of prayer. So even in the midst of finding myself interacting more with other guests and the Monks it did not detract from the other reasons I came for there was the time and opportunity for them as well.
On the whole the Feast of St Gregory that was the most surprising. It was a day that felt so full of a pure joy I have rarely if ever experienced. At diner at midday on Friday as we the guests sat at our table and I watched and heard the Monks at theirs, I caught a glimpse of a larger feast going on around and in the midst of us, one that ours was a sort of shadow. Or I could just make out the saints there celebrating with us, St Gregory and St Benedict and the Virgin laughing with the monks, Jesus Christ carrying a glass walking about in our midst. Even felt this in the evening meal though for some reason not as deeply. However, I partied with the monks (yes monks do party especially on the feast of their patron Saint.) and it was among the most purely joyful times I have ever had in my life. Makes most parties I have been to seem dreary places to tell the truth.
I had no great insights to my situation from this time but I feel more open to what God has in what lies ahead for the congregation and the community. Also, feel a little more attuned to the roles and various involvements and connections I have here in Chicago.
Oh, a side note to conclude. In playing darts, I won the game we were playing and for a time it was Prior Aelred and I neck and neck so to speak, but I got the final bull's eye that won the game. So I beat out the Prior of the abbey in a game of darts. I mostly think that is all kind of funny and silly and that was part of the joy and surprise of this retreat.
Things did not go as I would have had them on my way and first couple of hours at the monastery. First I left about 15 minutes later than I intended, but I had planned to leave so as to arrive at Union station early. I did not leave early but with still ten minutes to spare, so more or less just on time since I needed to collect my tickets. It was a little nerve wracking but it turned out I had enough time. Then the train arrived on time and the monk who was picking me up was late and had been hoping he could count on that this line of the Amtrak tends to be late. But we had a quite tasty meal at an Indian restaurant in Kalamazoo. I think just about some of the best Indian food I have had, and that is saying something. This was my first surprise. I had not expected to find Indian food in Kalamozoo that rivaled what I have had in Chicago and L.A.
Once at the Abbey I ended up being locked out of my room because house keeping didn't unlock the room until I had been at the Abbey for an hour and a half. This disrupted what has become my pattern: unpack, make bed setup the desk for study, then go to the church to pray and ask the prayers of St Benedict, St Gregory and Virgin Mary for my time at the abbey and then to the library and check some books out. Too my surprise, once I established that I was not going to get right into my room, I was able to settle in anyway, went to the church and prayed and came back and read a book I had brought along until the bell rang for None. After None I was able to get into my room and settle in the rest of the way.
The most surprising thing was that I was more social than I usually am on such retreats and it enriched my times of silence meditation and reading/study. The first night after supper I ended up talking for about a half an hour with one of the other guests, who seemed like he needed someone to talk to. Then the evening Kate arrived one of he monks, Br. Cuthbert took us into town to meet up with mutual friends of ours who live in Three Rivers, Rob and Kirsten VGR. Friday was the Feast of St Gregory, so there was not only a celebratory feel of the day but there is conversation at meals (usually we eat in silence as one of the monks reads from a book that has been selected) and at supper guest and monks sat at the same table and at both dinner and supper there was beer and wine to drink. All very festive and I played darts with another guest and some of the monks in the refectory. In the midst of this celebration I also did a good bit of studying and of course there is still the Divine office though some of the Hours are combined but the day is still punctuated withe the Hours of prayer. So even in the midst of finding myself interacting more with other guests and the Monks it did not detract from the other reasons I came for there was the time and opportunity for them as well.
On the whole the Feast of St Gregory that was the most surprising. It was a day that felt so full of a pure joy I have rarely if ever experienced. At diner at midday on Friday as we the guests sat at our table and I watched and heard the Monks at theirs, I caught a glimpse of a larger feast going on around and in the midst of us, one that ours was a sort of shadow. Or I could just make out the saints there celebrating with us, St Gregory and St Benedict and the Virgin laughing with the monks, Jesus Christ carrying a glass walking about in our midst. Even felt this in the evening meal though for some reason not as deeply. However, I partied with the monks (yes monks do party especially on the feast of their patron Saint.) and it was among the most purely joyful times I have ever had in my life. Makes most parties I have been to seem dreary places to tell the truth.
I had no great insights to my situation from this time but I feel more open to what God has in what lies ahead for the congregation and the community. Also, feel a little more attuned to the roles and various involvements and connections I have here in Chicago.
Oh, a side note to conclude. In playing darts, I won the game we were playing and for a time it was Prior Aelred and I neck and neck so to speak, but I got the final bull's eye that won the game. So I beat out the Prior of the abbey in a game of darts. I mostly think that is all kind of funny and silly and that was part of the joy and surprise of this retreat.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Resurrection Insurection?
This latest Emergent Church Tour is interesting but I am skeptical. No I am hesitant and a bit puzzled by what exactly this all needs to be said. not sure who is being addressed by such a tour. Certainly not me, though I am probably going to the Chicago stop, because I just need to see one of these Emergent events up close and personal.
The tour website says this about itself:
"The task today does not lie in some naive attempt to return to the early church.
The church before Constantine.
The church before Platonic philosophy.
The church before Paul.
The church before...
For these moves fail to bring us back far enough.
Rather we must call a new army of agitators into being. Dissidents courageous enough to return to the event that gave birth to the early church. A new breed of individuals brave enough to turn back so as to advance."
A part of me really resonates with this except for the suspicion this is the simple sign of a Protestantism that has exhausted itself pretending it still has energy to continue on as a separate thing without consuming itself.
Does this really get beyond the logic of return to that pure origin? Must we not renounce the idea of going back far enough. And in the end insurrection against what or whom?
Is the Resurrection a thing, and event, or is it in itself that turn, that hinge of history, that place that transfigures all places and times, and in that transfiguration will in the end consume all that is not of the Resurrection?
I feel that this leads to preposterous theological gymnastics, to achieve what Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism have without such agonizing rhetoric attempting to be hip and faithful at the same time.
I say all this as one who respects many in the Emergent Church movement, who at times suspects that he really is Emergent when it gets down to it, and who is also trying to find a way for Protestant faith to be truly orthodox. That might just be a preposterous idea.
The tour website says this about itself:
"The task today does not lie in some naive attempt to return to the early church.
The church before Constantine.
The church before Platonic philosophy.
The church before Paul.
The church before...
For these moves fail to bring us back far enough.
Rather we must call a new army of agitators into being. Dissidents courageous enough to return to the event that gave birth to the early church. A new breed of individuals brave enough to turn back so as to advance."
A part of me really resonates with this except for the suspicion this is the simple sign of a Protestantism that has exhausted itself pretending it still has energy to continue on as a separate thing without consuming itself.
Does this really get beyond the logic of return to that pure origin? Must we not renounce the idea of going back far enough. And in the end insurrection against what or whom?
Is the Resurrection a thing, and event, or is it in itself that turn, that hinge of history, that place that transfigures all places and times, and in that transfiguration will in the end consume all that is not of the Resurrection?
I feel that this leads to preposterous theological gymnastics, to achieve what Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism have without such agonizing rhetoric attempting to be hip and faithful at the same time.
I say all this as one who respects many in the Emergent Church movement, who at times suspects that he really is Emergent when it gets down to it, and who is also trying to find a way for Protestant faith to be truly orthodox. That might just be a preposterous idea.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
The Gaze of the Lense and the Visual Politics of the Prayer Vigil
The Organization of the North East (ONE) and The Edgewater Community Religious Association (ECRA) held a 30 minute prayer vigil Monday March 8th, outside the Somerset in response to the 30 day notice given to residents as it is being closed down. The Somerset is a home that has been the residence for nearly 300 people living with mental illness. Here is a Chicago Tribune Article on the closing On March 9th we met with Alderman Smith and were able to get a greater sense of what was going on and assured that the needs and desires of the residents where being addressed and that mental health workers were involved in the transition. While the moving of the residents was happening rapidly it was not indiscriminately and without regard to the needs and desires of the residents.
Though my thoughts are more on the prayer vigil itself, and the role of the camera in meaning and reality creation. Not to down play the importance of the issue of the closing of the Somerset, I was at the vigil because I believe the importance of this. I arrived at the Somerset almost 10 minutes before the 5 pm stated start time of the vigil and the news trucks and camera's were there. I hadn't really thought about it but I realized that I hadn't thought about news crews being present, but that made sense. I approached my colleagues who had arrived before I and I was handed a song sheet and one had a tambourine. A few more clergy showed up from ECRA. 5 o'cklock had now rolled around and the pastors who were going to speak and pray were consulting to be sure all knew what they were going to do.
As the final preparations were made, and as the rest of the camera's were set up, I had the strange feeling that I was on a movie set, and I was an extra, with my colleagues who were going to speak and pray the actors with the lines. I was even handed by a "PA" the prop for the scene, a candle. We were even directed to move as a group to have the right placement in front of the Somerset so the cameras could get us along with the name of the Somerset in the shot. There was also a script, that those who spoke followed. Once we were done it was a wrap, and it was all over. It dawned on me that this prayer vigil was done for the camera.
There is some dissonance here for me, between the staged liturgy orchestrated for the camera, and the notion that a prayer vigil is a waiting and appealing to God, a watching (vigil) in prayer before God. While what we did seemed to be for and before not the gaze of God, but the Gaze of the camera, with the props the camera would recognize, with the scripted language that will appease an ear for sound bites.
Not to accuse my colleagues perhaps they were able to not be captured by the gaze of the camera and the ear of the sound bite. But I don't think I prayed to God there, I was too aware of that all this was scripted for the camera, that this was not a liturgy of worship of God, but a liturgy to appease the god of the dissemination of information and the god of being "on message". I understand the pragmatic reality of this, the need to mold an image (which was possibly not done very well, though we really probably needed more information to actually do have done that well, we were in part acting on partial and misinformation it seems.)
I left wondering why couldn't we have actually had a vigil planned spend hours in actual prayer not staged prayer for the camera, not banish the camera, maybe give a nod to the needs of image and the gaze of the lens and have some portion of the vigil ahve the orchestrated quality of the movie set rather than of the orchestrated quality of the work of the people in worship before their God. Perhaps if we had spent more time in prayer we'd have had a more reflective have allowed ourselves to see that we were acting on very little information, and really just reacting.
In the end I suppose I may be uncomfortable and oppose the use of prayer for such a specific act of visual power politics. It felt to me that the power of our prayer was sucked out that it had no life but the life the gaze of the lens would give it, and that seems to me to be walking a little too close to the line of idolatry. Or at least I could not escape at this prayer vigil the idolotary of the image of appearing to be in prayer in protest.
Though my thoughts are more on the prayer vigil itself, and the role of the camera in meaning and reality creation. Not to down play the importance of the issue of the closing of the Somerset, I was at the vigil because I believe the importance of this. I arrived at the Somerset almost 10 minutes before the 5 pm stated start time of the vigil and the news trucks and camera's were there. I hadn't really thought about it but I realized that I hadn't thought about news crews being present, but that made sense. I approached my colleagues who had arrived before I and I was handed a song sheet and one had a tambourine. A few more clergy showed up from ECRA. 5 o'cklock had now rolled around and the pastors who were going to speak and pray were consulting to be sure all knew what they were going to do.
As the final preparations were made, and as the rest of the camera's were set up, I had the strange feeling that I was on a movie set, and I was an extra, with my colleagues who were going to speak and pray the actors with the lines. I was even handed by a "PA" the prop for the scene, a candle. We were even directed to move as a group to have the right placement in front of the Somerset so the cameras could get us along with the name of the Somerset in the shot. There was also a script, that those who spoke followed. Once we were done it was a wrap, and it was all over. It dawned on me that this prayer vigil was done for the camera.
There is some dissonance here for me, between the staged liturgy orchestrated for the camera, and the notion that a prayer vigil is a waiting and appealing to God, a watching (vigil) in prayer before God. While what we did seemed to be for and before not the gaze of God, but the Gaze of the camera, with the props the camera would recognize, with the scripted language that will appease an ear for sound bites.
Not to accuse my colleagues perhaps they were able to not be captured by the gaze of the camera and the ear of the sound bite. But I don't think I prayed to God there, I was too aware of that all this was scripted for the camera, that this was not a liturgy of worship of God, but a liturgy to appease the god of the dissemination of information and the god of being "on message". I understand the pragmatic reality of this, the need to mold an image (which was possibly not done very well, though we really probably needed more information to actually do have done that well, we were in part acting on partial and misinformation it seems.)
I left wondering why couldn't we have actually had a vigil planned spend hours in actual prayer not staged prayer for the camera, not banish the camera, maybe give a nod to the needs of image and the gaze of the lens and have some portion of the vigil ahve the orchestrated quality of the movie set rather than of the orchestrated quality of the work of the people in worship before their God. Perhaps if we had spent more time in prayer we'd have had a more reflective have allowed ourselves to see that we were acting on very little information, and really just reacting.
In the end I suppose I may be uncomfortable and oppose the use of prayer for such a specific act of visual power politics. It felt to me that the power of our prayer was sucked out that it had no life but the life the gaze of the lens would give it, and that seems to me to be walking a little too close to the line of idolatry. Or at least I could not escape at this prayer vigil the idolotary of the image of appearing to be in prayer in protest.
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Lenten Retreat
Since I have been a pastor Lent has always felt to me like a time to take a personal spiritual retreat. Yet, Lent always seemed ill suited as well, as one is also preparing for Holy Week and Easter services and as a pastor I wanted to also provide places for Lenten reflection and studies. It was difficult to let myself get away. Last year I finally simply went ahead and did it. And I discovered that Lent was a very good time for me to go on retreat. It got a little hectic after I got back because I took it the week before Palm Sunday. So I have scheduled the retreat earlier in Lent and this is feeling good.
This will be the longest retreat I have taken, 4 days. There are many things I feel I need to wrestle with God about. Also, Kate is coming along as she did last time, but by taking a longer retreat I am able to go for about a day and a half a head of her, and so will have about a day to pray and think before she arrives which I feel will be good. We'll see.
I will be praying with the monks of St Gregory's Abbey, I find it is very restorative to immerse myself in the full cycle of prayer and their life, well as much as I can as a guest. I actually like to get up at 4 am when I am there, and those who know me, know that I am a night owl, so mornings usually not my favorite time of the day.
So I am going to be away from the interwebs for the next four days. I have a couple of posts that I have been working on the past two days, and I will schedule them to post while away so you will have something from me to think about while I am away.
This will be the longest retreat I have taken, 4 days. There are many things I feel I need to wrestle with God about. Also, Kate is coming along as she did last time, but by taking a longer retreat I am able to go for about a day and a half a head of her, and so will have about a day to pray and think before she arrives which I feel will be good. We'll see.
I will be praying with the monks of St Gregory's Abbey, I find it is very restorative to immerse myself in the full cycle of prayer and their life, well as much as I can as a guest. I actually like to get up at 4 am when I am there, and those who know me, know that I am a night owl, so mornings usually not my favorite time of the day.
So I am going to be away from the interwebs for the next four days. I have a couple of posts that I have been working on the past two days, and I will schedule them to post while away so you will have something from me to think about while I am away.
Monday, March 08, 2010
Preaching Repentance: is this Repentance?
Sunday I preached on Repentance. Unfortunately it was not a very good sermon. Not my worst, I hope, but it was a bit disjointed and I did not communicate what I had hoped, actually dropped a whole portion of the sermon on Jesus parable of the fig tree and the gardener. If I am honest, it wasn't a good sermon because I was on the edge of my own understanding. I was preaching to myself as much to the congregation. There's something about repentance and the scriptures appointed for Sunday take me to the edge of my own understanding.
This reminded me that in may or June of 2008 I wrote about being on the edge of my understanding theologically. I think I am still there. Repentance challenges me, because I do not know how to turn wholly towards God. The longer I live and pastor and lead an intentional Christian community the more I know to the depth of my being that God calls me to turn myself towards God and orient my whole self and life around God. Yet, That is so far from the truth. And I resist this turning, I resist the call to repent, and in that resistance I can feel the presence of death. Such resistance dilutes me in someway, I am less vibrant, somehow less alive in those areas where I resist. Yet, I resist all the same. Parts of me disbelieve that to be wholly oriented and ordered around God and God's love is to have true life. Even though I experience this life in those areas of my life where I have turned from self and worldly expectations towards God.
So it turns out I was probably a bit conflicted about what I was seeking to preach. This conflict or perhaps more accurately my inability to recognize the conflict in the midst of sermon preparation to realize that I didn't believe some of what I was trying to preach. So I think I was preaching more to myself than to the congregation. I suppose that is bound to happen maybe even needs to happen from time to time. But at least in this instance it was a lack luster sermon
This reminded me that in may or June of 2008 I wrote about being on the edge of my understanding theologically. I think I am still there. Repentance challenges me, because I do not know how to turn wholly towards God. The longer I live and pastor and lead an intentional Christian community the more I know to the depth of my being that God calls me to turn myself towards God and orient my whole self and life around God. Yet, That is so far from the truth. And I resist this turning, I resist the call to repent, and in that resistance I can feel the presence of death. Such resistance dilutes me in someway, I am less vibrant, somehow less alive in those areas where I resist. Yet, I resist all the same. Parts of me disbelieve that to be wholly oriented and ordered around God and God's love is to have true life. Even though I experience this life in those areas of my life where I have turned from self and worldly expectations towards God.
So it turns out I was probably a bit conflicted about what I was seeking to preach. This conflict or perhaps more accurately my inability to recognize the conflict in the midst of sermon preparation to realize that I didn't believe some of what I was trying to preach. So I think I was preaching more to myself than to the congregation. I suppose that is bound to happen maybe even needs to happen from time to time. But at least in this instance it was a lack luster sermon
Saturday, March 06, 2010
Weekend distractedness: Repentance and Enlightenment and a Birthday
Well a sermon is rattling around and will eventually come out. Its on repentance. Leonard Cohen's song The Future has been playing in my head largely because of the part of the refrain "...When they said Repent, Repent, I wonder what they meant..." For a time I thought of using the song in my sermon but most of the lyrics would simply distract from the point I feel lead to make and that is that repentance is something other than avoiding the wrath of an angry god- something quite other.
Also, I can't get Jodorowsky's film the Holy Mount out of my head. I will need to see it again soon. The ending of the film and my sense that there isn't a take on enlightenment given in that film has me a bit distracted. I want to probe the film more. So, I am wondering what is the connection between enlightenment and repentance. Is there one, and if so what would it be. Certainly I don't think there really is a depiction of repentance in the film. But is repentance a particularly Christian concept.
And then there was simply a lot going on at the 'Nidge today. A great deal of activity and today was the birthday of one of our members and there was a party at an establishment near by and some were going to the Neo-Futurists afterward. I Joined the party for a while and had a couple of pints of excellent Belgian beer, but all of this is just spinning in my head. Well I was kind of hoping this might lead to some profound insight into what I am preaching tomorrow it has not so back to sermon work proper.
Also, I can't get Jodorowsky's film the Holy Mount out of my head. I will need to see it again soon. The ending of the film and my sense that there isn't a take on enlightenment given in that film has me a bit distracted. I want to probe the film more. So, I am wondering what is the connection between enlightenment and repentance. Is there one, and if so what would it be. Certainly I don't think there really is a depiction of repentance in the film. But is repentance a particularly Christian concept.
And then there was simply a lot going on at the 'Nidge today. A great deal of activity and today was the birthday of one of our members and there was a party at an establishment near by and some were going to the Neo-Futurists afterward. I Joined the party for a while and had a couple of pints of excellent Belgian beer, but all of this is just spinning in my head. Well I was kind of hoping this might lead to some profound insight into what I am preaching tomorrow it has not so back to sermon work proper.
Friday, March 05, 2010
The Holy Mountain
As I mentioned last night a group of us got together to view Jodorowsky's film The Holy Mountain, along with some excellent soup made by Benjamin, and Liz's bread was delectable.
One of the original trailers of the film says that nothing in your experience can prepare you for this film. But apparently a decent course of study in Religious Studies and mythology is pretty good preparation. Admittedly it is a well textured film and I don't think I got all the nuances and various symbolism.
The film begins with a man (who we soon realize is the protagonist of the film) lying spread eagle on the ground in a desolate landscape empty bottles of liquor strewn about him, his face covered with flies. Another man most of whose limbs have been amputated but who also has a certain shamanistic air chases away the flies from the protagonists face and begins to nurse him. Then naked children rush out from the landscape and they and the "shaman" carry the man off and while he is still unconscious hang him on a sort of cross and begin to throw stones at him. He comes to and chases of the children and then takes the shaman with him. This opening sequence is unsettling and as the beginning of a movie about the path of enlightenment makes a good deal of sense. Well in that one can get stuck and over think, attempt to figure out what the children mean, when the scene itself is one of the unenlightened soul, awakening to an unpleasant reality of the self mired in the world.
We then follow the protagonist through a puzzling and grotesque world that is similar to and very different from our own. But it in outlandish and disorienting ways presents a world of the passions and suffering and violence. In this world we find Christ crucified as a trinket to be bought and sold, by a nun/St Mary (a man in drag) and portly roman soldiers. Our protagonist is made drunk by these and then make a plaster cast of him in cruciform and they make hundreds of life size Christs and the protagonist awakes to hundreds of himself as Christ. He smashes them, all but one. then takes that one and carry's it. If one is not keeping up we have the awakening to the self through self denial and dying to the self, all while passing through and in some sense emerging from the world of the passions, violence and suffering.
Actually there is a great deal going on beyond this in terms of Jodorowsky's depiction of the world, including a reenactment of the conquest of Mexico with toads. and also a depictions of what Irigary called the homosexuate structure of patriarchy. But to get into all that would be to write a book on this film, and I am for now focusing on its main theme - enlightenment.
After passing through the world he finds a tower in which an alchemist lives who will be his guide up the Holy Mountain, bringing him to enlightenment. In the tower he goes through various initiations and purification, and then is joined with a number of the powerful in the world he has just left all of which are on a journey to enlightenment and to gain immortality. Each of these powerful are associated with a planet. It should be noted that Jorodowsky plays with the astrological as he has played with and will play with all the religious and mystical symbolism in ways that aren't necessarily consistent with the symbolism as they would function in their originating systems. Once this group seeking enlightenment and immortality has been formed by the alchemist we are taken upon various ordeals and our protagonist must give up anything that he has taken from earlier, his Christ consciousness, his shaman who firs awakened him. But a prostitute with an ape whom he met while carrying his plaster Christ follows him and those on the path up the holy mountain.
Just as all are going to make the final ascent, the alchemist says that they no longer need a guide, and leaves. The protagonist follows him and the alchemist tells him that he must cut his head off and he ends up cutting in two a lamb and not cutting off the alchemist's head. Then the protagonist is sent back to the world, to love and make a better world. meanwhile the powerful people make it to the summit to take on the 9 immortals, who turn out to be manikins and the alchemist, and then we are told that this all is an illusion and are shown that this is just a film and the shot pulls back to reveal the film crew and equipment.
The ending puzzles me in terms of what the film might tell us about enlightenment. Perhaps it presents a plethora of understandings of enlightenment and Jodorowsky simply makes the viewer choose. And that might be most telling. Where I went immediately was that Jodorowsky was saying that enlightenment is not enlightenment in the sense of Nirvana or the complete dissolution of self but an awakened engagement with the world based in love. But this as we talked after the film this was an unsatisfactory answer and there were elements of the film that certainly could make one discomforted by this conclusion. Another take is that enlightenment is just another way to seek power over others and the world, and as such, is as much an illusion as the the world of passion, violence and suffering. These two sort of make the film's theme as being about the impossibility or the unreality of enlightenment. A third meaning is that the path to enlightenment is still part of the illusion of self, that the path itself must be abandoned, to achieve enlightenment but in so doing one is perhaps left without away of knowing if enlightenment has been achieved. And lastly in my own reflection in the past 24 hours is that while the film has outlined a path of enlightenment, the film will not bring one to enlightenment, nor is it a proscribed path, in the end we the viewers must decide what to do with the film, its vision of the world, reality and illusion. At the end of the film we are at best only at the beginning of awakening.
(edited for clarity 3/6/2010, LEK)
One of the original trailers of the film says that nothing in your experience can prepare you for this film. But apparently a decent course of study in Religious Studies and mythology is pretty good preparation. Admittedly it is a well textured film and I don't think I got all the nuances and various symbolism.
The film begins with a man (who we soon realize is the protagonist of the film) lying spread eagle on the ground in a desolate landscape empty bottles of liquor strewn about him, his face covered with flies. Another man most of whose limbs have been amputated but who also has a certain shamanistic air chases away the flies from the protagonists face and begins to nurse him. Then naked children rush out from the landscape and they and the "shaman" carry the man off and while he is still unconscious hang him on a sort of cross and begin to throw stones at him. He comes to and chases of the children and then takes the shaman with him. This opening sequence is unsettling and as the beginning of a movie about the path of enlightenment makes a good deal of sense. Well in that one can get stuck and over think, attempt to figure out what the children mean, when the scene itself is one of the unenlightened soul, awakening to an unpleasant reality of the self mired in the world.
We then follow the protagonist through a puzzling and grotesque world that is similar to and very different from our own. But it in outlandish and disorienting ways presents a world of the passions and suffering and violence. In this world we find Christ crucified as a trinket to be bought and sold, by a nun/St Mary (a man in drag) and portly roman soldiers. Our protagonist is made drunk by these and then make a plaster cast of him in cruciform and they make hundreds of life size Christs and the protagonist awakes to hundreds of himself as Christ. He smashes them, all but one. then takes that one and carry's it. If one is not keeping up we have the awakening to the self through self denial and dying to the self, all while passing through and in some sense emerging from the world of the passions, violence and suffering.
Actually there is a great deal going on beyond this in terms of Jodorowsky's depiction of the world, including a reenactment of the conquest of Mexico with toads. and also a depictions of what Irigary called the homosexuate structure of patriarchy. But to get into all that would be to write a book on this film, and I am for now focusing on its main theme - enlightenment.
After passing through the world he finds a tower in which an alchemist lives who will be his guide up the Holy Mountain, bringing him to enlightenment. In the tower he goes through various initiations and purification, and then is joined with a number of the powerful in the world he has just left all of which are on a journey to enlightenment and to gain immortality. Each of these powerful are associated with a planet. It should be noted that Jorodowsky plays with the astrological as he has played with and will play with all the religious and mystical symbolism in ways that aren't necessarily consistent with the symbolism as they would function in their originating systems. Once this group seeking enlightenment and immortality has been formed by the alchemist we are taken upon various ordeals and our protagonist must give up anything that he has taken from earlier, his Christ consciousness, his shaman who firs awakened him. But a prostitute with an ape whom he met while carrying his plaster Christ follows him and those on the path up the holy mountain.
Just as all are going to make the final ascent, the alchemist says that they no longer need a guide, and leaves. The protagonist follows him and the alchemist tells him that he must cut his head off and he ends up cutting in two a lamb and not cutting off the alchemist's head. Then the protagonist is sent back to the world, to love and make a better world. meanwhile the powerful people make it to the summit to take on the 9 immortals, who turn out to be manikins and the alchemist, and then we are told that this all is an illusion and are shown that this is just a film and the shot pulls back to reveal the film crew and equipment.
The ending puzzles me in terms of what the film might tell us about enlightenment. Perhaps it presents a plethora of understandings of enlightenment and Jodorowsky simply makes the viewer choose. And that might be most telling. Where I went immediately was that Jodorowsky was saying that enlightenment is not enlightenment in the sense of Nirvana or the complete dissolution of self but an awakened engagement with the world based in love. But this as we talked after the film this was an unsatisfactory answer and there were elements of the film that certainly could make one discomforted by this conclusion. Another take is that enlightenment is just another way to seek power over others and the world, and as such, is as much an illusion as the the world of passion, violence and suffering. These two sort of make the film's theme as being about the impossibility or the unreality of enlightenment. A third meaning is that the path to enlightenment is still part of the illusion of self, that the path itself must be abandoned, to achieve enlightenment but in so doing one is perhaps left without away of knowing if enlightenment has been achieved. And lastly in my own reflection in the past 24 hours is that while the film has outlined a path of enlightenment, the film will not bring one to enlightenment, nor is it a proscribed path, in the end we the viewers must decide what to do with the film, its vision of the world, reality and illusion. At the end of the film we are at best only at the beginning of awakening.
(edited for clarity 3/6/2010, LEK)
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Metablogging and Seeing Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain
I have been posting more but not quite every day. Weekends seem to go by without my being able to bring my self to write a blog post. Last weekend that in part was due to helping some friends of ours in their move. The weekend before 4 of the seven members were changing rooms so that was a big move although all within the parsonage that we inhabit.
So there have been mitigating circumstances. but simply blogging more has surprised me a few people I see on a regular basis have said they appreciate my more consistent posting. I hadn't really expected that, in part because I don't feel I have said anything particularly profound or even revealing. Also, I am not all that satisfied with my style when I am simply shooting off a post.
Also, surprising is the response to the brief comment I made last week about enlightenment both here and on Twitter. Since my Twitter account talks to my facebook account that comment elicited an extended conversation on facebook. I have also had several conversations in person about enlightenment with people who read one or both posts. This brings me back to one of the inspirations for seeking to post daily in Lent: James K. A. Smith's description of his philosophical writing as diaconal, in the introduction of his collection of "occasional" essays The Devil Reads Derrida. The essays collected in this work he describes variously as Public Philosophy, Public Theology, or "philosophical reflection in the service of faithful discipleship." In so describing he sees the church as a "public", and thus seeing in part his calling to be a "public intellectual" for the church. On some level it seems to me that this role also falls to a pastor especially if that pastor like me is a student and a scholar by bent as well as by training. I have taken up daily blogging in part because I was convicted that I was tempted to shrink from this sort of role. I shrank from it in part because blogging at times feels a bit self-centered and vain. And I suppose it can be, though that isn't my temptation I think.
So, I will reflect in the next few days on Jodorowsky's film I saw tonight with some of you who are reading this. I'll reflect some more about enlightenment. As a foretaste: The Holy Mountain on one level could be seen as having an anti-enlightenment message, that is enlightenment at least if it is seen as that which would lead you to see living a "normal" life as an illusion. What was named as an illusion in the end was the very seeking after enlightenment. Or enlightenment is for the film, recognizing the value of life lived and not seeking some other reality or consciousness, but rather to be fully conscious to life lived with all its joys and sorrows and full sense of self. But I suspect that is not all there is. More to come
So there have been mitigating circumstances. but simply blogging more has surprised me a few people I see on a regular basis have said they appreciate my more consistent posting. I hadn't really expected that, in part because I don't feel I have said anything particularly profound or even revealing. Also, I am not all that satisfied with my style when I am simply shooting off a post.
Also, surprising is the response to the brief comment I made last week about enlightenment both here and on Twitter. Since my Twitter account talks to my facebook account that comment elicited an extended conversation on facebook. I have also had several conversations in person about enlightenment with people who read one or both posts. This brings me back to one of the inspirations for seeking to post daily in Lent: James K. A. Smith's description of his philosophical writing as diaconal, in the introduction of his collection of "occasional" essays The Devil Reads Derrida. The essays collected in this work he describes variously as Public Philosophy, Public Theology, or "philosophical reflection in the service of faithful discipleship." In so describing he sees the church as a "public", and thus seeing in part his calling to be a "public intellectual" for the church. On some level it seems to me that this role also falls to a pastor especially if that pastor like me is a student and a scholar by bent as well as by training. I have taken up daily blogging in part because I was convicted that I was tempted to shrink from this sort of role. I shrank from it in part because blogging at times feels a bit self-centered and vain. And I suppose it can be, though that isn't my temptation I think.
So, I will reflect in the next few days on Jodorowsky's film I saw tonight with some of you who are reading this. I'll reflect some more about enlightenment. As a foretaste: The Holy Mountain on one level could be seen as having an anti-enlightenment message, that is enlightenment at least if it is seen as that which would lead you to see living a "normal" life as an illusion. What was named as an illusion in the end was the very seeking after enlightenment. Or enlightenment is for the film, recognizing the value of life lived and not seeking some other reality or consciousness, but rather to be fully conscious to life lived with all its joys and sorrows and full sense of self. But I suspect that is not all there is. More to come
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Praying the Psalms
Since I began praying the Daily Office as part of the daily rhythms of the Community of the Holy Trinity I have been taking a journey of learning what it means to pray the psalms. Initially it was the struggle of feeling like I often was praying things that were not my feelings, or that did not match my life. Praying the Psalms was at first uncomfortable and ill fitting. I chafed at some of the violent language and the language of desiring God to save from and triumph over enemies. Aren't we called to love our enemies. Then I began to appreciate in a general sense how the Psalms expressed deep and a wide variety of human emotion and was even able to allow myself in praying the Divine Office to feel those emotions even if I didn't feel that way.
At some point I was able to admit that the violence and the emotions I wished to avoid when praying the Psalms were in me and were things from which I tried to hide and ignore. Once I accepted that these weren't just human emotions in general, but my own unwanted and troubling emotions I was able to offer more and more of myself to God in my prayers.
Overtime I began to find certain Psalms deeply intimate conversation with God, that somehow addressed and gave me words to address to God about my circumstances or a worry or concern. The Psalms were becoming deeply personal: others words that had been prayed by the saints who have gone before that gave me a language to offer my life up to God in ways that my own words could never communicate or express.
I have been living here for awhile, and it is hard to believe I at one time saw the Psalms as foreign strange and at times even repulsive they became my words of prayer to God.
Something happened this Ash Wednesday I stopped praying the Psalms for myself, and as I have been praying the Psalms since then I have been praying them for others. As I begin to pray the Psalm I have found a person or persons coming to mind and a sense that this Psalm is not only my prayer for them but their deepest prayer, that they may never think to pray for themselves. I now think it have some inkling of how one can pray the Psalter ones entire life, even praying the whole of the psalter each month or even over a week. I have stumbled upon a great mystery, something that makes me tremble a bit if I attempt to contemplate it to long. I haven't prayed for myself since Ash Wednesday. I trust that others are praying for me in ways that I could never do on my own. And this is the reality of the Church the Body of Christ, I have come to experience how Divine Office is the prayer of the church.
At some point I was able to admit that the violence and the emotions I wished to avoid when praying the Psalms were in me and were things from which I tried to hide and ignore. Once I accepted that these weren't just human emotions in general, but my own unwanted and troubling emotions I was able to offer more and more of myself to God in my prayers.
Overtime I began to find certain Psalms deeply intimate conversation with God, that somehow addressed and gave me words to address to God about my circumstances or a worry or concern. The Psalms were becoming deeply personal: others words that had been prayed by the saints who have gone before that gave me a language to offer my life up to God in ways that my own words could never communicate or express.
I have been living here for awhile, and it is hard to believe I at one time saw the Psalms as foreign strange and at times even repulsive they became my words of prayer to God.
Something happened this Ash Wednesday I stopped praying the Psalms for myself, and as I have been praying the Psalms since then I have been praying them for others. As I begin to pray the Psalm I have found a person or persons coming to mind and a sense that this Psalm is not only my prayer for them but their deepest prayer, that they may never think to pray for themselves. I now think it have some inkling of how one can pray the Psalter ones entire life, even praying the whole of the psalter each month or even over a week. I have stumbled upon a great mystery, something that makes me tremble a bit if I attempt to contemplate it to long. I haven't prayed for myself since Ash Wednesday. I trust that others are praying for me in ways that I could never do on my own. And this is the reality of the Church the Body of Christ, I have come to experience how Divine Office is the prayer of the church.
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