∞
Watching Out For One Another
Something that has struck me lately, a new way (for me, at least) to think of some ancient religious texts:
But maybe the one step they have taken away from superstition is this: they both speak of taking care of others.
We may err intentionally, and that is our fault. But we all err ignorantly and unintentionally as well. We offend without meaning to offend. We do harm without knowing the consequences of our actions.
It is good to be reminded of these things, if only so that we don't think of ourselves too highly. The sacrifice is at least a reminder that we are not flawless, and that we should still examine our lives. Even what we intend for good may cause harm.
If we know that about ourselves, we may know it about others as well. And knowing it about others, we may have the same compassion for them as we have for ourselves.
****************
*The first passage is from the Book of Ezekiel, 45.20; the second is from the Book of Job, 1.5. Both are from the New International Version, which happened to be the one nearest to hand as I wrote this. The first passage is from a passage instructing priests; the second is from the ancient poem about Job, the good man who suffers unexplained evil.
"You are to do the same [sacrifices] for anyone who sins unintentionally or through ignorance..."
and
These texts look only one step removed from magic and superstition, where a fear of evil consequences makes us undergo purifying rituals."Early in the morning, he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, "Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts."*
But maybe the one step they have taken away from superstition is this: they both speak of taking care of others.
We may err intentionally, and that is our fault. But we all err ignorantly and unintentionally as well. We offend without meaning to offend. We do harm without knowing the consequences of our actions.
It is good to be reminded of these things, if only so that we don't think of ourselves too highly. The sacrifice is at least a reminder that we are not flawless, and that we should still examine our lives. Even what we intend for good may cause harm.
If we know that about ourselves, we may know it about others as well. And knowing it about others, we may have the same compassion for them as we have for ourselves.
****************
*The first passage is from the Book of Ezekiel, 45.20; the second is from the Book of Job, 1.5. Both are from the New International Version, which happened to be the one nearest to hand as I wrote this. The first passage is from a passage instructing priests; the second is from the ancient poem about Job, the good man who suffers unexplained evil.
∞
Reluctant Prayer
I do not like to pray, but I think prayer is important.
Of course, "prayer" can mean many different things, and I do not mean all of them. But - despite my disliking for the activity of prayer - I practice several kinds of prayer.
Petition and Intercession
I spend most of my prayer time asking for things. This probably sounds foolish on more than one level. Here's the thing: I use the language of asking because it's what comes most naturally. I'm not an expert at this. But this asking is, for me, like stretching my muscles before a run. If I stretch well, I can run further and faster, and I do more good than harm. Stretching prepares me to do more than I could have done otherwise. It expels stiffness and inertia and inaction.
Asking God to do good in the lives of others could be a cop-out, where we dump our problems on the divine and then proceed to ignore them. What I try to practice is a kind of asking where I'm not giving up on being part of the solution. Frankly, I think a lot of the big problems in the world will take more than just me, so I have no shame about asking God to do some of the heavy lifting. But it's also important that I take some time out of my day to practice being less concerned with my own worries and more concerned with others. This is not the run; it is the warmup, the stretching. The stretching does some good all on its own, but it also prepares me to do other good.
One part of this I have a hard time sorting out is whether and how to tell people I am praying for them. Some people are grateful for it, others are bothered by it. I understand both of those reactions. There are times when we feel the weight of grief less heavily when we know others care enough to devote part of their day to the contemplation of our suffering. And there are times when it seems like people tell us about their prayers so that we will think more highly of them. I have yet to figure this all out. I'll just say it now: if you tell me of your sorrows, I will do my best to remember those sorrows in my quiet time, and I will bring them, in silent contemplation, into the presence of my contemplation of the divine.
Make Me A Blessing
My main prayer each day is one I learned from actor Richard Gere. Years ago, after he became a Buddhist, he said in an interview that when he meets someone he says to himself, silently, "Let me be a blessing to this person." This has stayed with me, and it seems like a good prayer. (He might not call it a prayer, which is fine with me.) I begin my day with that prayer, in the abstract, something like this: "Let me be a blessing to everyone I encounter, to everyone affected by my life. Let me be a blessing, and not a curse. Let me not bring shame on anyone, and keep me from doing or saying what is foolish or harmful." This is not unlike the well-known prayer of St Francis, whose story I have loved since Professor Pardon Tillinghast first made me study it in college years ago.
We Become Like What We Worship
What lies behind all this is my hunch - and I admit it's just a hunch - that we come to resemble the things that matter most to us, the things that we treasure and mentally caress in our inmost parts. And I think this happens subtly and slowly, the way habits build up, or the way our bodies slowly change over time, one cell division at a time. The little things add up to the big thing; our small gestures become the great sweep of our lives.
So in prayer I'm trying to take time out of each day to at least expose myself once again to the things I think are most worth imitating: love of neighbor, love of justice, peacemaking, contentment, hospitality, generosity, gentleness, defense of the downtrodden, healing, joy, patience, self-control. So much of the rest of my day I wind up chasing after things that take up an amount of time that is disproportionate to their value.
If prayer does nothing else than force me to remember what I claim is important--even if this means exposing myself to myself as a hypocrite--then it has already done me some good. And I hope this will mean I'm less of a jerk to everyone else, too. When I'm honest with myself (and let's be honest, that's not as often as it should be) this leads me to what churches have long called confession and repentance, the acknowledgement that I'm not all I claim to be, that I'm not yet all I could be, that I have let myself and others down, and that needs to change. Perhaps this comes from my long interest in Socrates: I think it's probably healthy to make it a habit to consider one's own life.
Musement and Contemplation
There is another kind of prayer that I find quite difficult most of the time, but sometimes I fall into it, and when I do, it is always a delight. It happens sometimes when I am walking, or in the shower, or while reading something that utterly disrupts my usual patterns of thinking. It happens sometimes while I lie awake at night. Charles Peirce talks about this as "musement," a kind of disinterested contemplation of all our possible and actual experiences.
Emerson called prayer the consideration of the facts of the universe from the highest possible point of view. I'm not sure I get anything like the highest possible point of view when I pray, but contemplative prayer does feel like an attempt to at least consider what such a point of view would be like.
Perhaps the best part of this Peircean/Emersonian kind of prayer is the opportunity for rest. Oddly, Peirce says that this is not a relaxation of one's mental powers but the vigorous use of one's powers. The difference between this and hard work is that musement doesn't try to accomplish anything. Peirce says that we could call this "Pure Play." Play may be physically tiring but it is mentally and spiritually refreshing, and it often shows us things we would not otherwise have seen. At least, this is my experience in the outdoors - I climb mountains and wade in rivers and snorkel in the ocean in order to experience the moment when what is possible becomes actual, when what I have not yet seen becomes a fact in my existence. The novelty of it makes life delicious.
Why I Pray
This is a good deal of what drives me to pray, anyway: I want to love my neighbor and my world more than I actually do, so I spend time preparing to do so; I want to become more like the best things and the best people I know, so I spend time dwelling on them, in the belief that worship shapes my character; and I know it is good for me to have my patterns of thought disrupted, so I try to allow myself to enter into a playful contemplation of the world and all that it symbolizes. None of this is easy. It is like any other exercise, sometimes rewarding, often difficult, and nearly always a preparation for the unexpected.
Of course, "prayer" can mean many different things, and I do not mean all of them. But - despite my disliking for the activity of prayer - I practice several kinds of prayer.
Petition and Intercession
I spend most of my prayer time asking for things. This probably sounds foolish on more than one level. Here's the thing: I use the language of asking because it's what comes most naturally. I'm not an expert at this. But this asking is, for me, like stretching my muscles before a run. If I stretch well, I can run further and faster, and I do more good than harm. Stretching prepares me to do more than I could have done otherwise. It expels stiffness and inertia and inaction.
Asking God to do good in the lives of others could be a cop-out, where we dump our problems on the divine and then proceed to ignore them. What I try to practice is a kind of asking where I'm not giving up on being part of the solution. Frankly, I think a lot of the big problems in the world will take more than just me, so I have no shame about asking God to do some of the heavy lifting. But it's also important that I take some time out of my day to practice being less concerned with my own worries and more concerned with others. This is not the run; it is the warmup, the stretching. The stretching does some good all on its own, but it also prepares me to do other good.
One part of this I have a hard time sorting out is whether and how to tell people I am praying for them. Some people are grateful for it, others are bothered by it. I understand both of those reactions. There are times when we feel the weight of grief less heavily when we know others care enough to devote part of their day to the contemplation of our suffering. And there are times when it seems like people tell us about their prayers so that we will think more highly of them. I have yet to figure this all out. I'll just say it now: if you tell me of your sorrows, I will do my best to remember those sorrows in my quiet time, and I will bring them, in silent contemplation, into the presence of my contemplation of the divine.
Make Me A Blessing
My main prayer each day is one I learned from actor Richard Gere. Years ago, after he became a Buddhist, he said in an interview that when he meets someone he says to himself, silently, "Let me be a blessing to this person." This has stayed with me, and it seems like a good prayer. (He might not call it a prayer, which is fine with me.) I begin my day with that prayer, in the abstract, something like this: "Let me be a blessing to everyone I encounter, to everyone affected by my life. Let me be a blessing, and not a curse. Let me not bring shame on anyone, and keep me from doing or saying what is foolish or harmful." This is not unlike the well-known prayer of St Francis, whose story I have loved since Professor Pardon Tillinghast first made me study it in college years ago.
We Become Like What We Worship
What lies behind all this is my hunch - and I admit it's just a hunch - that we come to resemble the things that matter most to us, the things that we treasure and mentally caress in our inmost parts. And I think this happens subtly and slowly, the way habits build up, or the way our bodies slowly change over time, one cell division at a time. The little things add up to the big thing; our small gestures become the great sweep of our lives.
So in prayer I'm trying to take time out of each day to at least expose myself once again to the things I think are most worth imitating: love of neighbor, love of justice, peacemaking, contentment, hospitality, generosity, gentleness, defense of the downtrodden, healing, joy, patience, self-control. So much of the rest of my day I wind up chasing after things that take up an amount of time that is disproportionate to their value.
If prayer does nothing else than force me to remember what I claim is important--even if this means exposing myself to myself as a hypocrite--then it has already done me some good. And I hope this will mean I'm less of a jerk to everyone else, too. When I'm honest with myself (and let's be honest, that's not as often as it should be) this leads me to what churches have long called confession and repentance, the acknowledgement that I'm not all I claim to be, that I'm not yet all I could be, that I have let myself and others down, and that needs to change. Perhaps this comes from my long interest in Socrates: I think it's probably healthy to make it a habit to consider one's own life.
Musement and Contemplation
There is another kind of prayer that I find quite difficult most of the time, but sometimes I fall into it, and when I do, it is always a delight. It happens sometimes when I am walking, or in the shower, or while reading something that utterly disrupts my usual patterns of thinking. It happens sometimes while I lie awake at night. Charles Peirce talks about this as "musement," a kind of disinterested contemplation of all our possible and actual experiences.
Emerson called prayer the consideration of the facts of the universe from the highest possible point of view. I'm not sure I get anything like the highest possible point of view when I pray, but contemplative prayer does feel like an attempt to at least consider what such a point of view would be like.
Perhaps the best part of this Peircean/Emersonian kind of prayer is the opportunity for rest. Oddly, Peirce says that this is not a relaxation of one's mental powers but the vigorous use of one's powers. The difference between this and hard work is that musement doesn't try to accomplish anything. Peirce says that we could call this "Pure Play." Play may be physically tiring but it is mentally and spiritually refreshing, and it often shows us things we would not otherwise have seen. At least, this is my experience in the outdoors - I climb mountains and wade in rivers and snorkel in the ocean in order to experience the moment when what is possible becomes actual, when what I have not yet seen becomes a fact in my existence. The novelty of it makes life delicious.
Why I Pray
This is a good deal of what drives me to pray, anyway: I want to love my neighbor and my world more than I actually do, so I spend time preparing to do so; I want to become more like the best things and the best people I know, so I spend time dwelling on them, in the belief that worship shapes my character; and I know it is good for me to have my patterns of thought disrupted, so I try to allow myself to enter into a playful contemplation of the world and all that it symbolizes. None of this is easy. It is like any other exercise, sometimes rewarding, often difficult, and nearly always a preparation for the unexpected.
∞
Home and Hospitality
A friend asked me today to explain what I mean by "home" in a sentence or two. This is too tall an order for someone as wordy as me. I think of Du Bellay's "Heureux qui, comme Ulysse," of what Hebrews 11 says about Abraham, who looked forward to leaving his tents for a city with foundations; I think of the mountains of my youth, and my homesickness for their colors, and sounds, and seasonal smells. I think of Odysseus, and his long road home, home to where others patiently waited for his return. It matters that we find our way home, and the whole earth does not count as our home. We incarcerate people in places that are not home-ly; we fight to live in our particular home when we are invaded, even though our species can live almost anywhere. Home matters.
Perhaps home means this: the place where we feel free to show, or to receive hospitality. The measure of our willingness to be hospitable to others, or of our ability to receive hospitality in new places, is the measure of our homes. They are not measured in square feet, but in welcome. What do you think? That feels like a good first try, but perhaps you can say something better, or truer than that.
Perhaps home means this: the place where we feel free to show, or to receive hospitality. The measure of our willingness to be hospitable to others, or of our ability to receive hospitality in new places, is the measure of our homes. They are not measured in square feet, but in welcome. What do you think? That feels like a good first try, but perhaps you can say something better, or truer than that.
∞
Boredom and Curiosity - My Talk To The Class of 2016
This year I had the rare privilege of giving the Convocation Address to our new students. Here's a bit of what I said, with a link to the full text:
"I think boredom often begins when we start to care too much about those serious stories we tell about our lives, the ones we hope others will care about. If we become too fixated on accomplishing, in some distant future, the practical and respectable things that will make others respect us, we can easily come to view the events of the current day as an obstacle to be overcome on the way. As a result, rather than enjoying our today, we endure it."
"I think boredom often begins when we start to care too much about those serious stories we tell about our lives, the ones we hope others will care about. If we become too fixated on accomplishing, in some distant future, the practical and respectable things that will make others respect us, we can easily come to view the events of the current day as an obstacle to be overcome on the way. As a result, rather than enjoying our today, we endure it."
∞
Future Hopes, Present Experience, and the Wisdom of the Past
A reflection on Henry Bugbee's Inward Morning, his entry dated Friday, September 5.
Bugbee writes: "Of experience...we may hope for understanding in our own time, and in this we do not seem to have the edge on preceding generations of men."
Science grows from one generation to another. What we know is more advanced than what previous generations knew. But precisely because of this, we are alienated from what science will know, what it aims to know when it reaches its goal. Science uses experience, it swims in the medium of experience on a long-distance swim. We are like generations of migratory butterflies, none of us making the whole journey, but each of us making part of it so that the next generation may fly further. Standing on one another's shoulders we become the giants upon whose shoulders our intellectual descendants may stand.
At first blush, experience seems less worth knowing, since it is subjective, unquantifiable, subject to the winds of time and the diurnal tides of the chemistry of our blood. But experience is immediate. No generation is privileged; every generation receives the same share. Here our knowledge is not a deposit that we hope will gain interest for our children; it is something in our hands and for us now. The wisdom of the past does not advance the next generation so much as clarify our own.
Bugbee again: "It is not a question of our beginning from where they leave off and going on to supersede them. We are fortunate if we can become communicant in our own way with what they have to say."
Tradition has roots that mean handed-down. Bugbee reminds me, gives me words to articulate, why it is worth continuing to try to read ancient wisdom. He reminds me why, when I could have chosen to work in science, it is not a bad choice to work as a teacher, priest, curator, historian, poet, librarian - a custodian of the narratives of experience. Science aims forward beyond our lives; but experience is here now, where we live. Is it such a bad thing to live here and now?
Bugbee writes: "Of experience...we may hope for understanding in our own time, and in this we do not seem to have the edge on preceding generations of men."
Science grows from one generation to another. What we know is more advanced than what previous generations knew. But precisely because of this, we are alienated from what science will know, what it aims to know when it reaches its goal. Science uses experience, it swims in the medium of experience on a long-distance swim. We are like generations of migratory butterflies, none of us making the whole journey, but each of us making part of it so that the next generation may fly further. Standing on one another's shoulders we become the giants upon whose shoulders our intellectual descendants may stand.
At first blush, experience seems less worth knowing, since it is subjective, unquantifiable, subject to the winds of time and the diurnal tides of the chemistry of our blood. But experience is immediate. No generation is privileged; every generation receives the same share. Here our knowledge is not a deposit that we hope will gain interest for our children; it is something in our hands and for us now. The wisdom of the past does not advance the next generation so much as clarify our own.
Bugbee again: "It is not a question of our beginning from where they leave off and going on to supersede them. We are fortunate if we can become communicant in our own way with what they have to say."
Tradition has roots that mean handed-down. Bugbee reminds me, gives me words to articulate, why it is worth continuing to try to read ancient wisdom. He reminds me why, when I could have chosen to work in science, it is not a bad choice to work as a teacher, priest, curator, historian, poet, librarian - a custodian of the narratives of experience. Science aims forward beyond our lives; but experience is here now, where we live. Is it such a bad thing to live here and now?
∞
Philosophy Begins in Wonder
Aristotle famously remarked that the love of wisdom - philosophy - begins in wonder. This is correct.
It has since been noted that philosophy aims at the conclusion of wonder. This, unlike the first statement, might not be correct.
So much depends on what we understand the aim of philosophy to be. If we model it on the applied sciences, then its aim is to solve particular problems, in which case it aims to be done with its work. The conclusion of a chain of reasoning becomes its consummation, and the consummation becomes the end.
But if philosophy should also aim to make us scientists as Peirce understood science - he says it is "the pursuit of those who desire to find things out" and something that is carried out in a community, not by an isolated individual - then it aims not just at solving problems but at introducing us to the world.
Bugbee points out (Inward Morning, August 31 entry) that in wonder, "reality has begun to sink into us." Think about it: when you really wonder at something, isn't it because of a disclosure? Wonder may seem to concern what is hidden, but the beginning of wonder is also the beginning of an opening, when the world opens to us. If it were not so, we would not even know to wonder.
Philosophy teaches us - or ought to teach us - to open ourselves in return. This opening of ourselves is not the conclusion of wonder but the development of the habit of wonder. I don't mean the slack-jawed laziness that poses as wonder and pretends that all things are wonderful while being open to none of them, but, as Bugbee puts it, a commitment to being in the wilderness and the patience to let ourselves be "overtaken...by that which can make us at home in this condition."
It has since been noted that philosophy aims at the conclusion of wonder. This, unlike the first statement, might not be correct.
So much depends on what we understand the aim of philosophy to be. If we model it on the applied sciences, then its aim is to solve particular problems, in which case it aims to be done with its work. The conclusion of a chain of reasoning becomes its consummation, and the consummation becomes the end.
But if philosophy should also aim to make us scientists as Peirce understood science - he says it is "the pursuit of those who desire to find things out" and something that is carried out in a community, not by an isolated individual - then it aims not just at solving problems but at introducing us to the world.
Bugbee points out (Inward Morning, August 31 entry) that in wonder, "reality has begun to sink into us." Think about it: when you really wonder at something, isn't it because of a disclosure? Wonder may seem to concern what is hidden, but the beginning of wonder is also the beginning of an opening, when the world opens to us. If it were not so, we would not even know to wonder.
Philosophy teaches us - or ought to teach us - to open ourselves in return. This opening of ourselves is not the conclusion of wonder but the development of the habit of wonder. I don't mean the slack-jawed laziness that poses as wonder and pretends that all things are wonderful while being open to none of them, but, as Bugbee puts it, a commitment to being in the wilderness and the patience to let ourselves be "overtaken...by that which can make us at home in this condition."
∞
Faith, Hope, and Certainty
“Certainty may be quite compatible with being at a loss to
say what one is certain of. Indeed
I seriously doubt if the notion of ‘certainty of,’ or ‘certainty that’ will
take us accurately to the heart of the matter. It seems to me that certainty is at least very much akin to
hope and faith. And I agree with
Gabriel Marcel that it would be a mistake to undertake the interpretation of
hope and of faith under what I will call the aspect of specificity, as if hope
were essentially ‘hope that,’ and faith ‘belief that.’ Likewise, then, of certainty: Perhaps
it too is not a matter of knowledge we can be said to possess.”
Henry Bugbee, The
Inward Morning, (Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 1999),
pp.36-37.
∞
I often turn to Peirce not just for technical philosophical matters but also for insights like this one. What sort of people am I interested in surrounding myself with? It is most comfortable to surround myself with people who share my views and who espouse them with the air of certainty. But as Peirce reminds us in "The Fixation of Belief," the great danger there is that in so doing I cut myself off from seeing my own errors and from improving my thinking.
As with so many things worth remembering, it is hard to keep this in mind. We need not just people who think differently from the way we think but also communities that will help us return to those words and ideas that sharpen us and provoke us to thought. This is the challenge of theology and of philosophy, and of liturgies, both sacred and secular - to remind us of what we ought to remember while at the same time challenging us to resist the comfort of resting in what seems sure. As Augustine writes, "Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee, O Lord." Until then, until our hearts find rest in the absolute, we should be wary of certainty, which is so often the enemy of learning.
The Comfort of Certainty
"Only once, as far as I remember, in all my lifetime have I experienced the pleasure of praise--not for what it might bring but in itself. That pleasure was beatific; and the praise that conferred it was meant for blame. It was that a critic said of me that I did not seem to be absolutely sure of my conclusions."
--Charles S. Peirce, Collected Papers 1.10. (1897)I often turn to Peirce not just for technical philosophical matters but also for insights like this one. What sort of people am I interested in surrounding myself with? It is most comfortable to surround myself with people who share my views and who espouse them with the air of certainty. But as Peirce reminds us in "The Fixation of Belief," the great danger there is that in so doing I cut myself off from seeing my own errors and from improving my thinking.
As with so many things worth remembering, it is hard to keep this in mind. We need not just people who think differently from the way we think but also communities that will help us return to those words and ideas that sharpen us and provoke us to thought. This is the challenge of theology and of philosophy, and of liturgies, both sacred and secular - to remind us of what we ought to remember while at the same time challenging us to resist the comfort of resting in what seems sure. As Augustine writes, "Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee, O Lord." Until then, until our hearts find rest in the absolute, we should be wary of certainty, which is so often the enemy of learning.
∞
In the opening entry of The Inward Morning, Henry Bugbee writes
Bugbee and the Tillage of the Soul
In the opening entry of The Inward Morning, Henry Bugbee writes
“I have yet to discover how to say what moves me to the
endless search and research, the reflective turning over in my mind of
experience. The turning over is
all so much tilling….All this tilling can be but a burying deeper of what ought
to be coming out. The moments in
which something reliable has seemed to come of it all have impressed me as
sudden. Insight is earned, to be
sure, but it is not steered, and it must find its own articulate form. If it is to become more than sporadic
and utterly ephemeral, one must pay attention to it, it must be worked out.”
(Athens
and London: University of Georgia Press, 1999), pp.33-34.
This is as much about philosophy as
about mysticism; but it is a philosophic attention to mysticism. The difficulty is not discovering
what moves me to search; that is already known, albeit in a way that is not
easily said. The difficulty is in
learning how to say it. “God” and “the
soul” and “eternity” all present themselves as shorthand for this motive. It is enough to say them, sometimes,
but they are placeholders. They
must not be said in vain. We do
not possess God; we seek God. God
is, as Eriugena intimated (in his description of what it means to create), both that which we seek and that which impels our
seeking. God’s creativity and
origin-ality are complex, even if God is simple.
∞
"Come, Let Us Reason Together": Thinking About God
A student in my philosophy of religion class recently asked me, "Do we really need to put this much thought into God? Is it not okay for me to believe without all the philosophical questions?"
On the one hand, yes, it is okay for you to believe without being a philosopher. As William James points out, we often decide to believe religious, ethical, and aesthetic propositions on insufficient evidence, and we often do so justly. Sometimes you've just got to choose, even if you can't prove you've made the right choice.
And I'm sympathetic with this student's position. Faith can be, as James puts it, passional. When people question our passions, or put restrictions on them, that can feel like a violation of something very personal and intimate. In those times we feel that the person telling us we may not believe is a dogmatist and a tyrant.
On the other hand, I think there are some good reasons to spend time thinking philosophically about God. Here are five reasons why I think religious people - and specifically but not exclusively Christians - ought to do so.
First, if your belief is based in Jewish and Christian scriptures, you might find the commandment to "love the Lord your God with all your...mind" to be sufficient reason. If you love God, why would you withhold your mind from your worship? And if you claim to be giving your whole self in worship but withhold your reason, aren't you in danger of committing the error of Ananias and Sapphira?
Second, thinking about God brings us into community with others. It's a way of putting our beliefs into words, and when we do that, we invite others to consider them with us.
Third, lots of people have opinions about God, and some opinions about God lead people to do violent things to others. If we disagree with that violence, and want to stop it, we have two choices: we can oppose it with equal and opposite violence, or we can try to reason with others. Perhaps more importantly, we can reason with those who might one day become violent and help them form reasonable and peaceable beliefs. It's hard to reason about others' opinions if we aren't able to reason about our own opinions.
Fourth, even if our reasoning about God is inconclusive (as it often is!) it is a kind of exercise for the mind, one that might prepare us for the conversations I just mentioned and also for solving lots of other kinds of problems.
Finally, thinking about God can help us discover idols in our own thinking. It's a kind of self-examination. If you take God seriously, then you probably want to make sure you don't worship the wrong thing. My experience tells me that when I think about very difficult problems, part of me gets tired and wants to settle on any old solution so that I can be done thinking. But that settling on a workable solution might well get in the way of finding the best solution. Similarly, settling for an easy theology might get in the way of finding the best theology. Will I ever find the best theology? I admit I'm not sanguine about this. But why should that keep me from longing and trying to make the theology I have better? At any rate, surely I should try to avoid believing in the wrong thing. I find Merold Westphal's position to be a helpful one: skeptics of religion are often better idol-detectors than I am.
What do you think?
∞
In Lewis's novel Out of the Silent Planet, the antagonist Weston attempts to explain why his civilization is superior to another. He says,
For Weston, the annihilation of space and time is proof of advancement. I am reminded of Rabbi Heschel's words about the Sabbath in his book Between God and Man, where he advances a quite different view:
"Technical civilization is man's conquest of space. It is a triumph frequently achieved by sacrificing an essential ingredient of existence, namely time. In technical civilization, we expend time to gain space. To enhance our power in the world of space is our main objective. Yet to have more does not mean to be more. The power we attain in the world of space terminates abruptly at the borderline of time. But time is the heart of existence."
The conquest of space - that is, of gaining power over things and making them our servants - comes always at the expense of time, which we often expend as though we could withdraw from that deposit infinite sums without deficit.
"To have more is not to be more"
In Lewis's novel Out of the Silent Planet, the antagonist Weston attempts to explain why his civilization is superior to another. He says,
"Your tribal life...has nothing to compare with our civilization--with our science, medicine and law, our armies, our architecture, our commerce, and our transport system which is rapidly annihilating space and time. Our right to supersede you is the right of the higher over the lower."
For Weston, the annihilation of space and time is proof of advancement. I am reminded of Rabbi Heschel's words about the Sabbath in his book Between God and Man, where he advances a quite different view:
"Technical civilization is man's conquest of space. It is a triumph frequently achieved by sacrificing an essential ingredient of existence, namely time. In technical civilization, we expend time to gain space. To enhance our power in the world of space is our main objective. Yet to have more does not mean to be more. The power we attain in the world of space terminates abruptly at the borderline of time. But time is the heart of existence."
The conquest of space - that is, of gaining power over things and making them our servants - comes always at the expense of time, which we often expend as though we could withdraw from that deposit infinite sums without deficit.
∞
Crime, Punishment, and the Great Community
How should we treat criminals? "The reply is: Treat them as if you loved them."
-- Charles S. Peirce, 4 May, 1892
-- Charles S. Peirce, 4 May, 1892
∞
Peirce's Parable of the Puritan
Peirce once wrote a school-essay responding to a prompt that asked whether there was any valid excuse for the intolerance of the "Pilgrim Fathers." (MS 1633) Peirce replied with a parable, which I will paraphrase here:
On judgment day, a Puritan was called before God to give account of his life. The Puritan admitted his faults, and then pulled from his breast pocket a document that he claimed contained a justification of "hard-heartedness." When he handed this to God, someone laughed aloud at the possibility of making such a justification. The scoffer was seized by angels and taken to kneel before God, where "he will be told by the Judge that He considered it worthwhile to see what the Puritan had to say. But that he the scoffer as he judged shall be judged."
On judgment day, a Puritan was called before God to give account of his life. The Puritan admitted his faults, and then pulled from his breast pocket a document that he claimed contained a justification of "hard-heartedness." When he handed this to God, someone laughed aloud at the possibility of making such a justification. The scoffer was seized by angels and taken to kneel before God, where "he will be told by the Judge that He considered it worthwhile to see what the Puritan had to say. But that he the scoffer as he judged shall be judged."
∞
Puritans and Vaccinations
In light of recent political debates in the United States, this seems worth noting: the Puritan divine Jonathan Edwards died of smallpox on March 22, 1758. His death was the result of a bad inoculation, which is, of course, tragic. But it is worth remembering that he received the inoculation to protect himself from the disease, and, apparently, as a way of showing that he thought the science behind it was trustworthy enough to take a risk and set an example for others. We sometimes think of Puritans as being benighted, ignorant and pathologically anhedonic. Edwards' active intellect and his attention to the works of John Locke and Isaac Newton suggest that this description of Puritans is facile and false. (Thanks for nothing, H.L. Mencken.)
Of course, there are other issues at stake here, like the ethical question of whether vaccines should ever be mandated, and whether the facts about the HPV vaccine are being reported accurately.
But what strikes me about Edwards' death is the possibility that in choosing to receive a vaccine, Edwards risked--and lost--his own life for the sake of others. I would not require others to follow his example, but I think that Christians (and especially those who revere the memory of the Puritans) might take his example to heart.
Of course, there are other issues at stake here, like the ethical question of whether vaccines should ever be mandated, and whether the facts about the HPV vaccine are being reported accurately.
But what strikes me about Edwards' death is the possibility that in choosing to receive a vaccine, Edwards risked--and lost--his own life for the sake of others. I would not require others to follow his example, but I think that Christians (and especially those who revere the memory of the Puritans) might take his example to heart.
∞
Scientia Cordis
"Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts."
-- Charles Peirce, "Some Consequences of Four Incapacities," (1868).
-- Charles Peirce, "Some Consequences of Four Incapacities," (1868).
∞
I like to begin my class on ancient and medieval philosophy with two questions: (1) Do we know more about the moon than they knew five centuries ago? (2) Do you know what phase the moon is in right now?
Of course, most of us would say "yes" to the first question, and with good reason. After all, we've been to the moon several times, and we've brought samples back. We have remarkable technologies for remote sensing. The sciences have gone beyond what most people even a century ago could have imagined.
The second question might be harder to answer without looking up the answer somewhere. When I ask my students, usually none of them know the current phase of the moon. A recent facebook poll I gave my friends yielded many more positive replies to the second question. Not a very scientific poll, since it might be that many who did not know simply chose not to reply out of shame. Still, fewer than half of those who replied said they did know the moon's current phase.
I can think of no reason to be ashamed of not knowing the phase of the moon. Most of us have no need to know it, and I don't ask the question in order to scold my students, but to point out something about how our knowledge has changed. It seems likely to me that five hundred years ago many more people would have been aware of the phase of the moon. Children who play outside, farmers, fishers, sailors, and soldiers all wind up depending on the moon, or at least having considerable exposure to it. Today, very few of us have reason to notice it, because our lives have changed so much.
This brings me back to my first question: do we know more about the moon today than they knew five centuries ago? In one sense, the answer is still obviously "yes." But in another way, it has to be "no." Most of us (myself included) don't pay much attention to the moon. Our knowledge of its phase is not the knowledge of familiarity but rather confidence that, if we needed to know, we could look it up somewhere. We have confidence in the knowledge of our community, and of its possession of data.
Which leads me to a third question: Is it enough to know that someone else knows the answer? Sure, we don't need to know what the moon looks like right now. But if you haven't taken a little time to stare at it lately, you might have forgotten something worth knowing: the moon is beautiful. Go have a look.
******
Photos: (top) Full moon over Sioux Falls, SD, summer, 2011. (middle) The moon rises over the Atlantic and shines through mangroves in Belize, January, 2011. (bottom) The moon rises over Buenos Aires, August 2010.
Do You Know The Phase Of The Moon?
I like to begin my class on ancient and medieval philosophy with two questions: (1) Do we know more about the moon than they knew five centuries ago? (2) Do you know what phase the moon is in right now?
Of course, most of us would say "yes" to the first question, and with good reason. After all, we've been to the moon several times, and we've brought samples back. We have remarkable technologies for remote sensing. The sciences have gone beyond what most people even a century ago could have imagined.
The second question might be harder to answer without looking up the answer somewhere. When I ask my students, usually none of them know the current phase of the moon. A recent facebook poll I gave my friends yielded many more positive replies to the second question. Not a very scientific poll, since it might be that many who did not know simply chose not to reply out of shame. Still, fewer than half of those who replied said they did know the moon's current phase.
I can think of no reason to be ashamed of not knowing the phase of the moon. Most of us have no need to know it, and I don't ask the question in order to scold my students, but to point out something about how our knowledge has changed. It seems likely to me that five hundred years ago many more people would have been aware of the phase of the moon. Children who play outside, farmers, fishers, sailors, and soldiers all wind up depending on the moon, or at least having considerable exposure to it. Today, very few of us have reason to notice it, because our lives have changed so much.
This brings me back to my first question: do we know more about the moon today than they knew five centuries ago? In one sense, the answer is still obviously "yes." But in another way, it has to be "no." Most of us (myself included) don't pay much attention to the moon. Our knowledge of its phase is not the knowledge of familiarity but rather confidence that, if we needed to know, we could look it up somewhere. We have confidence in the knowledge of our community, and of its possession of data.
Which leads me to a third question: Is it enough to know that someone else knows the answer? Sure, we don't need to know what the moon looks like right now. But if you haven't taken a little time to stare at it lately, you might have forgotten something worth knowing: the moon is beautiful. Go have a look.
******
Photos: (top) Full moon over Sioux Falls, SD, summer, 2011. (middle) The moon rises over the Atlantic and shines through mangroves in Belize, January, 2011. (bottom) The moon rises over Buenos Aires, August 2010.
∞
The Ethics of Hunting
According to the myth, Actaeon the hunter was turned into a stag and torn to pieces by his own dogs. Many versions add that this was because Actaeon offended Artemis. He viewed her as she bathed, or he attempted to violate her. His punishment was to be transformed from hunter to hunted. His own dogs did not recognize him as they devoured him, (though Apollodorus adds that they later grieved as they searched for their master.)
Just as there are many versions of the myth, so there are many interpretations, and many things that Actaeon and Artemis might symbolize. The divinity of Artemis suggests to some that hunters seek something much loftier than meat for their table. Her femininity and virginity suggest to others that hunting represents sexual violence in another guise.
Both of these may be correct, but let me offer a third possibility: perhaps this is a story about virtue. Actaeon acts without virtue, and he then becomes the victim of his own plans. He makes the mistake of thinking that a hunter is the rightful possessor of all he sees, and so he fails to act with humility and gratitude. As a result, he loses everything, including those relationships that were most dear to him.
The myth of Actaeon is a vivid picture of what good hunters know: the hunter is not lord of the forest nor master of nature. Most of us live our lives as far from predation as we can arrange. A certain type of hunter attempts to erase some of that distance. The best hunters may be those who, in doing so, discover their true place in nature and emerge from the forest and field remembering their place with humility and gratitude. Actaeon forgets who he is when he attempts to take Artemis as his own, and his forgetfulness is absolute.
Just as there are many versions of the myth, so there are many interpretations, and many things that Actaeon and Artemis might symbolize. The divinity of Artemis suggests to some that hunters seek something much loftier than meat for their table. Her femininity and virginity suggest to others that hunting represents sexual violence in another guise.
Both of these may be correct, but let me offer a third possibility: perhaps this is a story about virtue. Actaeon acts without virtue, and he then becomes the victim of his own plans. He makes the mistake of thinking that a hunter is the rightful possessor of all he sees, and so he fails to act with humility and gratitude. As a result, he loses everything, including those relationships that were most dear to him.
The myth of Actaeon is a vivid picture of what good hunters know: the hunter is not lord of the forest nor master of nature. Most of us live our lives as far from predation as we can arrange. A certain type of hunter attempts to erase some of that distance. The best hunters may be those who, in doing so, discover their true place in nature and emerge from the forest and field remembering their place with humility and gratitude. Actaeon forgets who he is when he attempts to take Artemis as his own, and his forgetfulness is absolute.
∞
People Of The Waters That Are Never Still
Generations ago, one of my European grandfathers and one of my Native American grandmothers married, fusing in their offspring two peoples who had parted ways ages before, one heading west to the British Isles, the other to the Bering Strait and across to North America. I grew up in New York, near where they met and married, and my childhood is marked by memories of that land: tall oaks and white pines, deep forests, rocky crags over which the water pours, never still, always the same, always changing. The waterfalls of the Catskill Mountains are a constant presence in those mountains and in my memories. They are the waters of my mothers and fathers, and of my youth.
My family has since lost the languages those ancestors spoke, and this fusion of tribes has adopted the linguistic fusion of English. I have no intention of claiming a legal place among either of the nations from which I am descended, nor even to name them here. But I find that the memory of both, and of the lands they lived on, is rooted deeply in my consciousness of who I am. Last year, while visiting the British Museum, I saw a display of various Native American peoples, including my own. It was the only time a museum has moved me to tears. The words and ways of my forebears may be mostly gone, but they are not forgotten. My father taught me to remember them and what they knew of the land we lived on, and often, while teaching me to know the woods, he would remind me that those woods were old family acquaintances.
Jacob Wawatie and Stephanie Pyne, in their article "Tracking in Pursuit of Knowledge," cite Russell Barsh as saying that "what is 'traditional' about traditional knowledge is not its antiquity but the way in which it is acquired and used." Our word "tradition" comes from Latin roots that mean something like "giving over" or "handing down." Traditional knowledge is knowledge that is a gift from one generation to the next, a gift we give because we ourselves were given it. I am grateful to my father, in ways that I may never have told him - in ways that perhaps words cannot begin to tell - for the traditions he learned and loved and passed on to me. I'm grateful that he has not let me forget.
There is, of course danger in emphasizing one's heritage and one's roots, especially if we make that the source of a distinction between ourselves and others, or a way of diminishing the lives and traditions of others. Just as much as it matters to me that I am from the people of the waters of the Catskills, it matters to me that my ancestors shared those waters with one another, people from two continents recognizing, each in the other, the waters from which both arose.
For all that I have received, for the traditions like waters pouring over the cliffs, gifts like the Kaaterskill Creek, let me give thanks. Let me give thanks with my life, offering to those who come after me, a taste of the sweetness of those same waters.
(Photo: Kaaterskill Creek in New York State)
My family has since lost the languages those ancestors spoke, and this fusion of tribes has adopted the linguistic fusion of English. I have no intention of claiming a legal place among either of the nations from which I am descended, nor even to name them here. But I find that the memory of both, and of the lands they lived on, is rooted deeply in my consciousness of who I am. Last year, while visiting the British Museum, I saw a display of various Native American peoples, including my own. It was the only time a museum has moved me to tears. The words and ways of my forebears may be mostly gone, but they are not forgotten. My father taught me to remember them and what they knew of the land we lived on, and often, while teaching me to know the woods, he would remind me that those woods were old family acquaintances.
Jacob Wawatie and Stephanie Pyne, in their article "Tracking in Pursuit of Knowledge," cite Russell Barsh as saying that "what is 'traditional' about traditional knowledge is not its antiquity but the way in which it is acquired and used." Our word "tradition" comes from Latin roots that mean something like "giving over" or "handing down." Traditional knowledge is knowledge that is a gift from one generation to the next, a gift we give because we ourselves were given it. I am grateful to my father, in ways that I may never have told him - in ways that perhaps words cannot begin to tell - for the traditions he learned and loved and passed on to me. I'm grateful that he has not let me forget.
There is, of course danger in emphasizing one's heritage and one's roots, especially if we make that the source of a distinction between ourselves and others, or a way of diminishing the lives and traditions of others. Just as much as it matters to me that I am from the people of the waters of the Catskills, it matters to me that my ancestors shared those waters with one another, people from two continents recognizing, each in the other, the waters from which both arose.
For all that I have received, for the traditions like waters pouring over the cliffs, gifts like the Kaaterskill Creek, let me give thanks. Let me give thanks with my life, offering to those who come after me, a taste of the sweetness of those same waters.
∞
Taxing Mileage
Several recent news articles have mentioned the possibility of taxing miles driven rather than (or in addition to) taxing gasoline.
On the one hand, this is a fair way of making sure that drivers of electric vehicles share the cost of maintaining roads.
But if it is to be enacted fairly, any such law will have to:
On the one hand, this is a fair way of making sure that drivers of electric vehicles share the cost of maintaining roads.
But if it is to be enacted fairly, any such law will have to:
- avoid placing an unfair burden on rural drivers, who generally must drive further to work and school, and earn less than their urban counterparts; and
- ensure Americans that the GPS devices that would track mileage are not also used inappropriately by government to track the locations and movements of citizens.