pride, possession, and something about karma

bigbro and i were speaking long ago about his bearing of the burdens of a rather wealthy other, and the stress connected with being instrumental in attending to this person's freedom from the darkness that had dogged his every step...





I've learned that a man can shed his demons and there is a really good feeling of freedom that comes with that shedding, but there is also a loneliness, because those demons were all the guy had for company for a long time......bigbro aka fred call

taking on the demons of another? some heavy sledding there.
two things:

1) the demons don't want to leave, and

2) their hosts are usually terrified of the hole that will be left. a friend of mine was telling me about how he quit music altogether after going through rehab because he was terrified of what would happen if he stepped onstage straight and tried to do what he does better than anything in the world without the usual buffers. it's been four years now...

anyway, it's true; prosperity and loneliness seem to be together a lot.
the story of king midas comes to mind...

and so bigbro continued:
As for Z: He had money. He had demons. Then he realized he couldn't buy his demons off with money. He really didn't want to live. I think he wanted to beat his bad karma before he died, so he didn't have to take it with him. My instincts say he had a better chance of taking his money with him than he had of taking better karma with him. In the final analysis, it was his decision how to go. That he's gone, I think he's happier. I just hope he managed to shed the bad assed karma that gave him cancer in the first place. Otherwise, he's got to go through chemo again in the next go round.

could the whole deathwish thing be inherent in our preoccupation with ourselves? navel-gazing spiritual beings finding themselves relegated by their behaviour and the attitudes or perspectives that give life to that behaviour into something less than was originally intended? even though we fear death and the uncertainty that it holds for anyone in search of hard facts, we still feel more comfortable with despair than with hope because this allows us to essentially remain the same, being ever victimized by things beyond our apparent control in the process..

as i read about bigbro's wealthy friend, i was reminded of something i had read just the day before... i love those nexus moments where things just appear to randomly connect and to inform each other... what we do with those connections is another affair, but i think if we can at least recognize them when they come together there has to be some benefit.

"God, in his power, drags away the rich. They may rise high, but they have no assurance in life. They may be allowed to live in security, but God is always watching them. And though they are great now, in a moment they will be gone like all others, withered like heads of grain. "Can anyone claim otherwise? Who can prove me wrong?" (job 24.22-24, NLT)

i remember being told once -probably back in bible school- that job is arguably the oldest book (or at least the oldest story) in the bible apart from the creation narratives themselves and the stuff about the adams family ('adam' meaning 'son of dirt' or 'first man') ... all this to say that, in my view, apparently the whole notion of wealth and the basic disparity of the human race has been with us for awhile.

and so in what ring of dante's hell was the rich man standing when he begged michael to send lazarus down with a drop of water for his tongue? and why in the hell did he think that it was the poor man's job to serve him beverages?

in sri lanka, august of 2005, clues as to an answer for this second query came in through the back door.

traditionally the sri lankans are a hospitality culture, offering preferential treatment to anyone who arrives at their door having journeyed long- they are still that way, even while in the throes of a twenty-five year old civil war. one day we arrived at this guy's place, having traveled for about 6 hours or so in a van with no air-conditioning. he greeted us warmly (although he was surprisingly more aware of the fact that, due to spot checks and road conditions, we were arriving two hours late than we had expected him to be) and proceeded to draw a bucket of water from the family well (only about 3 feet of water in it at the time) for us to wash our hands before he then washed our feet with the remainder of the water. he would not allow us to share a bucket- a new one had to be drawn for each guest.

now in my western oh-no-not-me-i'm-so-unimportant vanity, this would have been awkward and there would have been this graceless non-receiving of a kindness offered that probably would have led to pain, as this man would be left pondering a cultural question:
'what have i or my family done, that you would not accept this humble kindness from us?'

however, having been there nearly two weeks already and therefore used to hospitality by then, i just said thank you.

see, whether it's having this sick entitlement thing that presumes some form of dominion over another, or having this nauseating false humility thing that refuses to allow another the freedom to give selflessly, it seems to me that the main problem- the swelling that makes the camel far too large for the needle's eye- is humankind's inability to get over itself.

i think that that's probably the bad-assed karma of which bigbro spoke. like edgar alan poe's imp of the perverse, it drives us to to self destruction through the destruction of others. as a species, we're really good at putting ourselves first and attributing our selfishness to natural selection or something. it's how we got here and it's how we'll ultimately leave.

the apostle paul said that 'the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ.'

okay, now i'm not being one of job's buddies here, providing some pretty hollow words of explanation as to why bad things happen to good people. (in truth, i think that the problem is that there aren't actually any good people... now there's an encouraging topic for a whole nother blog) i'm simply suggesting that if we want some answers as to the pain that assails us all- not the physically or emotionally detailed, circumstancial, case-sensitive pain of an individual, but that pain which systematically dismantles us while defining us as one people, one race, one species- we probably don't have to look very far.

unfortunately, as long as we continue to preoccupy ourselves with ourselves, i think that we're stuck with it for awhile longer.

urochrome filter

(this) is a controversial photograph by American photographer Andres Serrano. It depicts a small plastic crucifix supporting the body of Jesus Christ submerged in a glass of the artist's urine. Some have suggested that the glass may also contain the artist's blood. The piece was a winner of the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art's "Awards in the Visual Arts" competition, which is sponsored in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, a United States Government agency that offers support and funding for artistic projects.

The piece caused a scandal when it was exhibited in 1989, with detractors accusing Serrano of blasphemy and others raising this as a major issue of artistic freedom. On the floor of the United States Senate, Senators Al D'Amato and Jesse Helms expressed outrage that the piece was supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, since it is a federal taxpayer-financed institution.

Surprisingly, the art critic and Catholic Nun Sister Wendy Beckett voiced her approval of (it) whose public exhibition offended all conservative, most moderate and even some liberal Catholics.

Serrano produced other similar works to much less controversy; Madonna and Child II (1989), for example, in which the subject is similarly submerged in urine, is not nearly as well known...

(it) is often used as a test-case for the idea of freedom of speech, and was described in the journal Arts & Opinion as "a clash between the interests of artists in freedom of expression on the one hand, and the hurt such works may cause to a section of the community on the other."

It is referred to in many popular publications including Bill Maher's book When You Ride Alone You Ride with Bin Laden. (as per www.wikipedia.com)
***

fredcall sends me the strangest stuff. i've been on holidays from my computer for awhile, and was glad that this didn't 'expire' the way things in my hotmail junkbox regularly do when i don't attend to them.

so... this photograph. hmmmm. really bad title. kinda funny, the things that set us off. for me, i just hated the title so i substituted all of the (it)'s because the tone just brought everything down somehow. sorry- my blog, i can censor as i see fit, but let's just refer to this photograph as PC, okay? you can look it up in the wikipedia under the name of the artist if my little title problem is really bothering you.

anyway, there are two things that come to mind when i think of this photograph and the controversy that surrounds it- one has to do with literal interpretations, the other with figurative ones:

A) literal:
i've gotta give a big 'whatever' on this one.
i mean, yes, there is real urine- but let's also not forget that there is also a plastic figurine.

this isn't Jesus, it's just a little plastic thingie that bears some resemblance to him according to popular arts expressions from the euro renaissance. we should all try to remember that there is nothing inherently more holy about this figurine than about the figurine of 'earthworm jim' that is on the file cabinet behind me as i type. as a matter of fact, i believe both of them represent humankind's propensity for idol-making and fancy.

as for the urine? well, it's the very healthy product of a well-functioning urinary system which was designed by God to flush out the effluent in both animals and mammals. an entry in the wikipedia asserts that "Healthy urine is a clear aqueous solution, varying in colour from dark yellow to colourless, depending on the dilution. The main constituent besides water is urea; urochrome is the pigment that gives urine its color. Urea is one of the three nitrogenous waste products. The other two are creatinine and uric acid. Urine also contains various inorganic ions, including sodium and chloride. Lighter urine indicates higher water consumption."

so basically, plastic is plastic and piss is piss.

B) figurative:
having said that plastic is plastic and piss is piss, we probably need to look at what these things have come to represent to us. plastic first- artificiality. something easily fashioned and easily refashioned with the help of a little heat. plastic often means counterfeit or fake to us. if we want to be all uptight about the significance of things, then we should probably reconsider whether renderings of Jesus should be permitted at all. i mean, how often do people bow down before or talk to a picture or figurine of Christ as if it were the actual God? pagan idols were also representations of characters from an unseen pantheon that were prayed to as if they were the real thing, yet this was called idolatry by both God and man... oh, but it's all different when it's Jesus? i don't think so.

if one wanted to be really strict and legalistic, then the words of j.i. packer in his classic book 'Knowing God' probably bear some repitition (note: i have done a bit of clipping in order to summarize what i believe are his key relevent points of discussion- totally good book from start to finish if you're into that kinda thing)

• 1) images dishonor God for they obscure his glory...the pathos of the crucifix obscures the glory of Christ, for it hides the fact of his deity, his victory on the cross, and his present kingdom. it displays his human weakness, but it conceals his divine strength; it depicts the reality of his pain, but keeps out of our sight the reality of his joy and his power... the symbol is unworthy most of all because of what it fails to display. and so are all other visible representations of deity
• 2)images mislead us. they convey false ideas about God... the very inadequecy with which they represent him perverts our thoughts of him and plants in our minds errors of all sorts about his character and will... the use of the crucifix as an aid to prayer has encouraged people to equate devotion with brooding over Christ's bodily sufferings; it has made them morbid about the spiritual value of physical pain and it has kept them from the knowledge of the risen saviour. (Packer, Knowing God, 1973, p50-51)

as for the piss? well, typically we equate pissing on something with disrespect. that's probably why all the controversy. here's what i think, though:

art is about bringing into the physical world, the abstractions of the artist's heart and mind. somehow taking that which is intangible and making it tangible. sometimes these abstractions and the apparent metaphoric connections with life are intentional, but often they are random, unintentional and subliminal. regardless of what the artist might have intended, i take from this piece some interesting (to me) reminders of life, the universe and everything... but most importantly of God's love for me.

if we are gonna just ignore all the 'right thinking' of packer and attach something really significant to the plastic figurine, fine. i'm okay with that, because then this photograph speaks to me of the divine in the presence of the profane; the holy withstanding the unholy; life in death.

we regularly, willfully piss upon all that Christ was and is about... our pissing was and is his suffering on our behalf. as we disrespect and blaspheme through thought and action, we pour out our derision upon the crucified Christ, not even realizing that his suffering was for our relief and freedom.

yet he didn't remain submerged in it. that's where the real hope is.

and, in a miracle of mercy, grace and transformative power, he turned our fetid water into fine wine, beckoning all of us to drink deeply of it as often as we think of him. the cup of his suffering becomes the cup of our salvation because he is God and behold, he makes all things new.

all truth is God's truth. all hope is found in him and him alone.

left, left, left right left

we were talking about this whole holy-militia approach to social issues. a good question came up:

are believers supposed to march or simply stand?

i mean, you can have your own stand on a social issue without marching around trying to spiritually bully people.

next up for incineration- the harry potter series... but narnia is fine.
and we can only drink milk from a christian cow.

onward christian soldiers
marching as to war
with the cross of Jesus
going on before...

i know that the brown shirt variety of believers make it very hard to even briefly consider that the God they serve may be valid, however they are hard right minority and like their islamic counterparts the al qaeda network, they don't speak for us all... they just think they do.

matt7.21-23 comes to mind... it's better to let God do the judging.

but everywhere we look, it becomes apparent that people are getting really tired of a bad-news gospel. take my friend fredcall... please! (jokes)

if i remember correctly, the conversational thread that led to fred's story about his younger brother began when he sent me a note that had been written proudly by a mother whose elementary school-age child had torn nearly the entire book of leviticus out of a bible because of basic justice issues arising from a literal misinterpretation of the scriptures.

i made a remark about this jefferson bible maneouver being simply an anti-religious expression of the same mindset that has books like catcher in the rye and huckleberry finn removed from schools and burned.

and, well, off we went, exploring together the differences between theology and ideology.

Ideology and spirituality are not one and the same. Unfortunately what is passing for fundamentalism (Christian, Judaic, Islamic, Scientologists and Moonies for example) are basing their beliefs on ideology, not spirituality...

Theosophically (or philosophically or politically or scientifically or whaterver) understanding what you are talking about goes a long way toward something along the spiritual line of tackling life's situations. Manchurian Candidate ideology is far short of anything I look upon as spirituality. If you (figuratively you) are marching to war, do you understand why you are marching to war, or are you wound up by an invisible hand- turned key. -fredcall

if i read his attitude towards most things correctly, he is interested in people's ability to sort things out for themselves rather than the simple adoption of a company line with regard to topics of ultimate importance. although fred's approach is confrontational and mildly unorthodox, his quest is the pursuit of enlightenment- not only for himself but for others- and it is fueled by, among other things, love and frustration.

love for his younger brother (which could be pretty much anyone who has been drawn into a faith that has robbed him or her of the capacity for reason amidst the faith) and frustration with empty words and pat answers in an increasingly complicated world.

One time I playfully asked my kid brother what he thought about Free Will versus Determinism (as bandied about by Dante and Milton and lots of others). My kid brother got this far away look in his eyes before saying, "Let me think about this before I answer." To which I said, "Sure, take your time." He went back to his (church) Elders with my question and they told him point blank rote what to say to me. He came back with some kind of response that were not his words. He didn't even understand what he was saying. He had memorized what he was told to reply without the foggiest clue what it all theosophically meant.

I had to bite my tongue cause he's my little brother and it's not my place to embarrass him in front of his fundamentalist friends. I just nodded and left the discussion at that having learned a lesson that I can't engage this (church) ideological bunch in a theosophical discussion.

well, now that is one heckuva playful discussion topic.
yeah, let's keep it nice and light and then we'll go wrestle in the backyard!

yet so much of our take on what's happening with regard to the big questions (and, might i also say, others' big answers) has to do with how we've managed to sort through this one in order to sleep at night.

in the last month, not prompted by anything circumstancial or situational or relational, I have been reading job. interesting book- especially as we read behind the dialogue that takes place between job and his friends. I really believe that these friends love him and that they are sincere, but their theology continues to take them around the horn to one particular notion: job has done evil and is refusing to acknowledge it.

we, the readers, have a pretty nice little role in the story: do nothing and learn all there is to learn vicariously. we read job's words to his friends and feel his frustration. we read his friends' words and hear the conventional, cause-and-effect wisdom. yet we have the luxury of knowing before the whole thing starts that God is in charge and job is, in fact, righteous. the discrepancies and the real spiritual danger for job lie in the fact that these dear friends are being used to cause job to doubt himself, his heart and his life, considering the possible integrity questions that are inherent in the statements that these guys make in order to defend himself against them. when they could be bringing strength, they are instead bringing doubt.

the book of job is a pretty good example that this kind of discussion has been going on for as long as people have been trying to sort out why so many bad things happen to good people in a world created and overseen/manipulated (big fork in the road right here) by a God who is supposed to be sovereign.

but will one man's answer ever really satisfy the longings of another man's soul? hmm.

i was thinking about an interesting quote by brian d mclaren from his book finding faith and decided to try to google it in order to cite his words correctly. i ended up at the site of a blogger whose online handle is based upon the same quote by cs lewis as my own... (http://jollyblogger.typepad.com/jollyblogger/2006/04/tim_challies_on.html)
well anyway, whether by free will, determinism or just a goofy coincidence, this guy has a post dealing with the emergent church... citing and acquiescing with, in particular, one guy's (a certain tim challies) misgivings with mclaren's take on the emergent church in the postmodern world:

The faith McLaren commends is a faith that always questions, always doubts. It seems that the only faith McLaren hates is the faith of a person who knows what he believes and is convicted by Scripture and by plain reason that what God has revealed is truth--true truth. As others have observed, the real enemy of the Emerging Church is conservative, biblical Protestantism.

well, regardless of challies' feelings about brother brian, the description cited is exactly what makes the work of mclaren resonnate with me. since when is questioning wrong? although Jesus likened people to sheep, i don't think that he intended for us to adopt the orwellian animal farm sheep's characteristic blind, unthinking ascent. Jesus also said that we are to have the faith of a child and, as you know, little children ask a million questions a day because it is in seeking answers to questions that people grow. if there's any point at all to this, it is that our asking of questions is as crucial to our brother's journey as it is to our own.

a friend of mine is a successful financial planner who was once a seminarian and decided that he just had too many questions of God to continue. well, whether he missed some sort of calling or not is between him and God, as he seems to be doing quite well managing other people's fortunes for fun and profit. i like going out for a guinness with him because the conversation is always engaging and always challenging.

i once said to him that if he were to ever meet someone who could ask him questions that stretched him and ripped conversational remote control from his hands long enough for him to begin searching for the answers, his faith journey might resume. you see, he knows that no one can respond to his questions with answers that satisfy his reason, so he does not have to change or grow.

i think that the primary factor at work in the heart and life of the 'questioning faithful' is that person's desire to actually discover the answers to the questions posed. sometimes we just ask questions to make points. who has time for all that rhetoric?

as for all this marching, standing, and burning things, there is nothing wrong with being activistic. however, sometimes we can be so convinced that we are the only ones who are right that everyone left is a liberal or heretic. the important spiritual, not ideological, discernment helps us to determine whether to march or to stand still to listen to the message on the wind. (yep, that's a fredcall soundbyte)

how much love is there in calling anyone an anything?

humUNkind

well...
while i was holding my breath for forty days, fred_call and i dialogued a bit via email... on one particular day, we were talking about science and the strange things that people do, all the while justifying their actions in the name of progress and the 'greater good for the greater number' thing. my view that science has replaced God for many, and that the people in our western world seem to struggle with accepting a pluralism that would afford attention to be given in different ways to both God and science- recognizing science as a means of understanding God's work more deeply rather than a means of somehow overcoming him (the whole either/or rather than both/and debate)- was probably important context for the views that went charging off of my keyboard into cyberspace. however, there was also some basic human stuff going on in my life- broken relationships leading to betrayal and the like that also fueled my comments. not being able to blog this stuff left me a bit lost, as writing is, for me, a means of bringing sense to the senseless in this life... call it idealistic whining or nagging optimism or something. that others occasionally read the ramblings is just a bonus... but it does also force me to keep my perspectives in check- ongoing accountability is a good thing!

anyway, thanks fred for those emails. likewise, thanks curious servant for your prayers, and marcy and cj for your words. finally, societyvs... we gotta hook up, man.

shalom
***
i was watching this show on the Holocau- i mean History channel one evening. with a motherlode of cadavers to choose from, doctor death was free to experiment away in the name of science, doing strange things like fusing people together surgically and the like. people just love to play God.

the atrocities committed in the name of science almost match those committed in the name of God... almost.

the key difference is probably to whom the justification takes place. with science, we justify our actions to colleagues, citing a higher purpose; with spirituality, we justify our actions to our victims, citing a higher promise.

point of reference and frame of mind are everything some days, but it seems to me that the one thing that humankind does better than anyone else on the planet is exploit.

well, we're certainly a cynical little believer today, aren't we?

this too, shall pass.