"I am" or "I have"?

      True confession (although probably not a surprise to anyone):  I have "Christianism". And, to complicate it, I suffer from an extreme form of it:  "Clergyism". Some folks might nod their heads -- either with humor, or disdain, and say, "Yup, you aredisordered!". Most others, however, would probably shake their head and say, "What is he talking about?" Most of us don't use those words unless in some semi-scholarly sense, and certainly notabout ourselves. Most ordained folks might say "I am a Christian clergy-person". It is part of what makes us who we are; I doubt few of us would think that either our religious identity or clerical identity was something that could be easily removed.
       I think a lot about identities. Certainly that topic is a matter of much conversation on college campuses. Students gather around their identities. Whether it's the Muslim Student Association or the South Asian Student Association or the Black Student Alliance, students in these groups celebrate their common identity with pride, and advocate for recognition and acceptance in the wider "culture". These groups are more than simple interest groups that bring together folks who share a hobby or professional goal. In my professional context, of course, I think most about religious identities -- "identities", not "conditions".
      Yet there are other identities that are often discussed in the manner of conditions; identities that become marginalizable as "-isms". I was reminded of this the other day when a video was shared on Facebook in which the subject was described as "having dwarfism". I understand that the word "dwarf" can have a lot of negative baggage associated with it -- although some wear it with pride, but it is not a condition (i.e., "dwarfism") that can be remedied. It is an identity, in his case, an easily seen identity.
      There are, of course, "invisible" identities that are treated as conditions. I think of people who are autistic or dyslexic. When we speak of them "having autism" or "having dyslexia", we make them "other", and potentially subject to different sets of "rules". We may seek to "cure" them, or, as was the case in 1940's Germany, to eradicate them, since they aren't "normal" -- as wemight define it.
      I can't deny anyone the right to "self-define", but I do believe that when we start classifying people who differ from us in any was as "disordered", we've crossed a line. My "Christianism" compels me to agree with Pope Francis who reportedlytold a gay man earlier this week that “You have to be happy with who you are. God made you this way and loves you this way, and the pope loves you this way.” And, although he didn't say it, I would imagine he would agree with a saying I recall from several decades ago, "God don't make no junk." Or, to quote another figure from this week's news, Episcopal Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, "When love is the way, there's plenty good room - plenty good room - for all of God's children." *

Namasté

Gary

* From his sermon at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

The Identity of a Book

      At the beginning of his novel, The Shadow of the Wind,Carlos Ruiz Zafón has Daniel and his father making Daniel's first visit to the "Cemetery of Forgotten Books" in post-WWII Barcelona. As Daniel's father explains it:

This is a place of mystery, Daniel, a sanctuary. Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.*

Zafón (or Daniel's father) doesn't say it, but I took this passage also to imply that the book becomes part of the soul of the reader. And, in my experience, the more folks I know who've read a certain book, who've shared their thoughts and feelings about it, my tie to the book "grows and strengthens". There arises a community "of the book".
       This put in my mind of part of Tim Crane's analysis of religion in The Meaning of Belief,**the subject of this month's book discussion. Crane takes to task the "New Atheists" (e.g., Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, etc.) for missing the point about religion. He argues (among other things) that these authors want to reduce religion to a antiquated cosmology so that they can more easily dismiss it. He points out that these authors don't quite understand why the "religious" don't fall under the weight of their critique, and renounce their delusion. And, then, Crane asserts that it's because the "religious" don't base their adherence to a religious system solely on its cosmology.
        Crane—an atheist himself—proposes that the religious world-view is a combination of (a) a sense of the transcendent, and (b) the role of identification with a community—past and present—that provides, through rituals, being together, and common understanding, ways of making meaning in one's own life, and of life in general. This goes far beyond any kind of cosmology. 
         Most religions, or course, arereligions "of the book" in one way or another. Attitudes towards sacred texts vary, but the transmission of the tradition relies in no small part on the presence of those texts in the lives of the community of the faithful. Those texts help "make us" who we are. But, if my supposition about Zafón's implication that books become part of the soul of the reader is correct, I have to wonder what we do to ourselves when we pull other volumes off of the shelf. And, here, of course, I include more than simply novels, but movies, social media, etc. -- any transmission of information.
         An old cliché has it that "You are what you eat". If it were modified a bit, would we be happy knowing that "We become what we read"? And, if not, what's our appropriate response?

 

Gary

*Translated by Lucia Graves (Penguin Books, 2004), 5-6.
** Subtitled Religion from an Atheist's Point of View(Harvard, 2017).

Look again!

 

    Over the last several months, I've been playing the game "Word Crossy" on my phone. The screen shot above probably says as much about how the game should be played as any narrative. But, basically, I need to string the letters together to fill the various rows/columns in the "cross-word" puzzle, without any clues.  Sometimes I can speed right through the game. Other times I can barely start. There aresome "helps" provided. Tapping the light bulb in the lower right will charge your "bank" 50 points (of the 278 in the lower left) and fill in one letter in the puzzle; often that's enough to spur thinking. Or, the little double-crossed arrows in the lower left corner will re-juggle the letters in the circle; the supposition is that seeing things differently will also spur thinking.
     There have been plenty of times when I've used up my points, and juggling the letters just doesn't work. So, in frustration (why doI keep playing this game!?), I leave the app and check my mail, or the weather, or Facebook. Or I just shut the phone down and go clean the bathroom. Then, more often than not, when I return to the game, I solve it within seconds. The letters hadn't changed; I simply quit staring at them for a while. Clearly, the same phenomenon is part of the fascination with some optical illusions. You can look at the patterns of colors or shapes and only see oneimage. Come back to the picture later, and, all of a sudden you can't believe you didn't see the otherone!
       I've found something similar in a "non-visual" arena. Starting last year (2017), I decided that I would read another tradition's sacred text over the course of the year. In 2017, it was the Quran; this year is the Bhagavad Gita. Some of this comes from my innate curiosity. I just want to know what the text reallysays (rather than relying on snippets, sound-bites or proof-texts); and, I want to read it appreciatively. When I find something I don't understand, I can easily turn to a knowledgable-in-that-tradition friend. But another reason I've been doing this is that I find places of convergence between the other tradition and my own. And, often enough, my understanding of my own tradition is deepened or altered in a way that wouldn't have happened had I spent all my time in my own texts. I've very much come to value this addition to my spiritual practice.
      There's something here that points, too, to one of our society's besetting problems these days. Whether its our choice of multiple broadcast news outlets or which online news sources we "follow", we have such a tendency to fall into tribalism. "Echo-chamber" is the phrase often bandied about. Getting out and hearing a different voice is becoming increasingly foreign. And, I believe, we are all the lesser for it.
      Yesterday, I led a workshop on Appreciative Inquiry for one of DU's divisions. Part of the workshop had the attendees pair up and interview each other on a series of questions. At the end, when I asked "How was the process for you?", one participant said that he had been paired with someone in a different unit within the division, someone he didn't know well. And then he commented on how valuable that was, as opposed to being with someone from his own unit whose answers he probably already knew.
      It's so often time to shut the app down, do something else, read something else, talk to someone else, and then come look again.

Namasté,

Gary

Living in a microbial world

     This past Wednesday evening, we happened upon an episode of NOVA on PBS (no, we're NOT one of thosefamilies!) on microbes: "What's Living In You?" Absolutely fascinating . . . and a bit frightening! The show featured some segments where researchers took "skin scrapes"  from peoples' faces (e.g., collecting the skin-cells/oil from next to the nose) and placing them under powerful microscopes. The images were astonishing. But what was even more mind-blowing (to this non-biologist) was the assertion (as described in the teaser on the RMPBS website):  "Microbes play a central role in your life. Trillions of bacteria, viruses, and fungi are so abundant in your body, they outnumber your human cells." "THEY OUTNUMBER YOUR HUMAN CELLS"!There are more things living ON me, than there is OF me!
      My word! What if they ganged up on me? I wouldn't have a chance!
      Well, of course, that can happen, in some ways. Some of the microbes are harmful and can cause disease. And then there are others that will attack the bad guys! But, most of the time, we leave at relative peace with one another, me and my millions of microbial guests. They need me, and, apparently, I need them. As I wrote a couple of weeks ago*, we are all interconnected in ways we rarely consider.
      As humans, we have a tendency to forget that we are part of something larger, or more complex. We have been steeped in this kind of thinking since the dawn of humanity: our "tribe" is the only "human" one, all others are barbarians; our world is the center of the universe; our universe is the coolest. Or, more pointedly, in the words of Paul Simon, "I am a rock; I am an island".** We see things from our perspective -- naturally, but not necessarily helpfully.
      Much the same point was made by physicist Carol Rovelli in an interview with OnBeing's Krista Tippett. Except he took exception (though not directly) to the fixed nature of Paul Simon's "rock": "We live 100 years, but suppose we lived a billion years. A stone would be just a moment in which some sand gets together and then it disaggregates, so it's just a momentary getting-together of sand." His point throughout the interview is neatly summed up in the title to the episode: "All Reality is Interaction." And I remember being taught much the same "stuff" when, in college, I took a course in process philosophy. The agreement between the physicist and the philosophers is quite striking. First, according to process philosophy, everything "proceeds" towards its goal, although not at the same speed (i.e., a spark proceeds fast than humans, which proceed faster than stones). But second, every encounter between two "entities" changes both of them in some way, so, in Rovellis' words, "all reality is interaction."
       I can't really get over some of the implications of this. Yes, there is the "butterfly effect" -- one small action may have incredible consequences far away. But I have to wonder what would happen if we really started thinking about our (inter-)actions and the impacts they may have. We are so intertwined, from the microbes on the bridge of my nose to those who supply me with tangerines. Wouldn't it make a wonderful difference if we believed that, and acted in accordance with that belief, as opposed to our ancient, and increasingly prevalent, tribalized thinking?
   

Namasté,

Gary

* "The World in a Tangerine"**  http://www.metrolyrics.com/i-am-a-rock-lyrics-paul-simon.html