The Christian paradox

In my other blog, I wrote about how on the loss of Kirstin, we stood in raw grief before the God who had given her life and then claimed her back and it occurred to me that to an unbeliever, that must really come across as odd. It is a paradox, no getting away from it, but it is not a contradiction. Many writers have spoken about pride been at the source of all sin and our response, as human as it is, in the face of death is no different. We ask why? Assuming for a minute that there was an answer we could fully understand, what does that do? Does it comfort us? Does it undo the tragedy? Does it restore anything at all? No. But it gives us a sense of control. Most human events of significance prompt the questions: How did this happen? and then: Why did this happen? And often a host of people saying: We will get to the bottom of this! We will ensure it will not happen again! And this is a good thing - safety measures are put into place and prevent unnecessary future tragedies. But at its most basic, it is an attempt to control the future. So when death comes and we, as humans are faced with an event we cannot control or prevent, we flounder around and get angry. Perhaps we even think: 'if I was God, I would've done this or that.' We almost cannot stand knowing our own impotency. And yet it is not only useful, it is a necessary element of our Christian humility that we know this part of ourselves - our utter dependency. Yes we are Spirit-filled, etc. but all of this power comes from God within, not from within our own selves. And so surrender becomes a prayer of letting God be God. The prophet Habakkuk in that well known canticle really put it starkly and challenges us by his example:

For even though the fig does not blossom,
nor fruit grow on the vine,
even though the olive crop fail,
and fields produce no harvest,
even though flocks vanish from the folds
and stalls stand empty of cattle,
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord
and exult in God my Saviour.
The Lord my God is my strength.
(Habakkuk 3)

Background

Perhaps before I reflect on some ethical issues, I should give a few indicators of sentiments that have informed my position with regards to the post modernist world that rather simplistically abdicates responsibility for ethical deliberation. The Princeton sociologist, Robert Wuthnow has said of his fellow Americans, though it could have been said of any other first world society: that they piece together their faith like a patch work quilt. In his book, Choosing the Good, Dennis Hollinger also makes the telling comment that Church members increasingly focus on experience, as opposed to coherent systems of meaning, and borrow from traditions that are frequently at odds with their own community's tradition. He quotes Alasdair MacIntyre from After Virtue who accurately referred to the current cultural state of moral discourse as emotivism. Hollinger goes on to deal with 2 of the most thorny irritants: the Great Virtue of Tolerance and what he terms the Triumph of the Therapeutic. The reason I mention this is that I have found it almost impossible to discuss any contemporary moral issue within society without first addressing these two insiduous and bankrupt notions that are the fallback for the great mass of the unthinking. Their usefulness extends only as a response to the equally imbecilic cover-all, antithetical little gem so favoured by - though not exclusive to - those with a fundamentalist bent: 'What would Jesus do?'
And so it has been my experience that those most viciously critical of the fundamentalist Christians and their 'ilk' are themsleves the most fundamentalist examples of walking, talking post modernist cliches.
I will deal with the first issue of Tolerance in my next blog.

The Art of Loving

Recent reports on CNN suggest that the wholesale abandonment of Christian values in the US by those in public life, continues apace. Those in positions of political power, ala the New York governor, are scrambling to find the most politically expedient way to survive and are now flip flopping on the issue of homosexual ‘marriage’. They plan to accord homosexual civil unions the full status that is accorded to normal marriages. They have typically tried to dodge the issue with the ‘let’s move beyond this debate’, which of course, attempts to divert attention and / or mute any rational analyses of the moral turpitude of their position. This debate has proved divisive, most strangely amongst Christians and even Catholics for some reason. The intolerance of the liberal media to opposing views has, frankly, approached something akin to the most fascist totalitarian regimes of the last century, but guilt must also be apportioned to those who have used the issue to direct a cruel bigotry towards those who find themselves afflicted with this disorder. The Church’s position is crystal clear and I will outline it in some detail in my next blog, but I have always found the commentary by Erich Fromm , a Jewish secular humanist to be eerily close to the Catholic position, so before I lay dogma before the issue, I thought I would open discussion on this disorder with the views as expressed in his book, The Art of Loving:
The male-female polarity is also the basis for interpersonal creativity. This is obvious biologically in the fact that the union of sperm and ovum is the basis for the birth of a child. But in the purely psychic realm it is not different; in the love between man and woman, each of them is reborn. (The homosexual deviation is a failure to attain this polarised union, and thus the homosexual suffers from the pain of never-resolved separateness, a failure, however, which he shares with the average heterosexual who cannot love.)

Universality

One of the most awesome things about being a Catholic, is that wherever you go in the world and whatever the language, when you attend Mass, you can follow it. The liturgical seasons are the same, etc. When you travel, you really get a sense of the universality of the Church as a diverse and incredibly rich Body of Christ. When I visited Notre Dame Cathedral a couple of years ago, I, as a South African, went to confession in the French capital to a Ugandan priest! On this weekend past, I went with my wife to another Christian faith community for a baptism which was done in the context of their regular Sunday service. It was Palm Sunday and yet the pastor never mentioned it; he had his own message and focus. That of course is his perogative, but more and more, I am noticing that non-Catholic and even evangelical communities are adopting some of the liturgies and seasonal celebrations of the Catholic church - like Lent, to name one example. It speaks to a unity of worship which effects the unity it symbolises - much as the shared rituals / traditions / memories of a family bind that family. It is a different and more sustainable approach than that of communities built around the cult of a particular pastor. This catholicity / universality is a profound treasure of the Church and is expressed so eloquently in the hymn: 'The day thou gavest..'

We thank thee that thy Church unsleeping,
While earth rolls onward into light,
Through all the world her watch is keeping,
And rests not now by day or night.

As over continent and island
The dawn leads on another day,
The voice of prayer is never silent,
Nor dies the strain of praise away.

The sun that bids us rest is waking
Our brethren 'neath the western sky,
And hour by hour fresh lips are making
Thy wondrous doings heard on high.

Do not pass begin

Sometimes I wish I had married a less intelligent wife. As Michael Novak puts it: 'Seeing myself through the unblinking eyes of an intelligent, honest spouse is humiliating.' Years ago she told me that I should go into ministry and apply to become a deacon and off and on I have vacillated between agreeing and being unsure. The thing is, I guess I am under no illusions about the implications of my taking such a step. My goal of becoming an academic specialising in Ethics means that I dedicate myself to the search of truth, but it does not necessarily mean that I have to change. You can believe in the right things and still be in bondage, you can believe all the right things and still be miserable, you can believe all the right things and still be unchanged” (Marcus Borg in The Heart of Christianity). Diaconate, on the other hand means that because one enters public ministry, I would have to make very real changes to the way I live my life. And so if I am to be whole, both are necessary. I suppose this is true - regardless of whether one enters public ministry or not. I just feel so often that the old saying by TS Elliot seems to have been written specifically for me:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

If I had simply listened to my wife, I could have shortcircuited all my meaningless meanderings only to get back to the same place. My writing this novel has revealed it to me even more starkly. I really thought that this was what I was called to do, but it seems everytime I think I have the answer, it moves along. I am going to finish the novel as it is something I have really wanted to write and I enjoy, but I think it will probably be my last one. I have hit the same wall as I did in business, in my dreams when I wanted to become a tennis pro and then journalist. They are ultimately meaningless and leave nothing behind. Sure a writer, if he /she is good, leaves a deposit to be enjoyed even after his life, but a deposit of what? Entertainment? How is that more meaningful than merely living a hedonistic life? I want more. The fire that Jeremiah speaks of burns so strongly within me needs to purify me first and then I need to stop messing around, second guessing God and get on with doing His will. Leaving a legacy that for better or worse, contributes to the deposit of truth.
"I say to myself, I will not mention him, I will speak in his name no more. But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones; I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it" (Jeremiah 20:9).

Compline

I will quit writing on and on about the Breviary, but permit me one last post.
There is no question that my favourite prayer of the day is Compline (aka Night Prayer). I think people may say it is because I am lazy and it is the shortest of the hours! But there has always been something about it: that feeling at the end of a frantic day of activity just before you go to sleep of been able to just surrender into God as opposed to the day when I tend to keep wrestling with Him for control. The short responsory we pray from Scripture every night even says it: Into your hands Lord, I commend my spirit. And then the Antiphon before the canticle: Save us Lord while we are awake; protect us while we sleep; that we may keep watch with Christ and rest with him in peace. I often feel that it is enough to make me want to die in my sleep just to have those as the last words on my lips. The words of the Canticle of Simeon in Luke are the cherry on the top, but I would like to throw out a somewhat dodgy theological opinion on this. Simeon was an old devout man who was promised by God that he would see the Christ before he died and after seeing Jesus, he prayed this prayer (Lk2:29-32) which we pray at Night Prayer:
At last all-powerful Master,
you give leave to your servant
to go in peace, according to your promise.

For my eyes have seen your salvation
which you have prepared for all nations,
the light to enlighten the Gentiles
and give glory to Israel, your people.

There is an element of surrender to this prayer, especially for Simeon. But for us as Christians, is this not also a commission? That we are able to not only die in peace but go out in peace according to God's promise specifically because our eyes have seen our salvation. That this is not a nebulous 'peace' like a tepid pool of water but a simmering pool of lava burning at our core with God's love for the world and consuming all that is impure within us and the world . A peace that is not a passive state of the soul, but an active way of being - of Loving. (with a Christian 'L')

And then finally: The Lord grant us a quiet night and a perfect end.
Amen.

The Benedictus

One of the most poignant passages in the Bible is in the middle of the Canticle of Zechariah where he interrupts his prayer to God to speak tenderly to his newborn baby, John the Baptist. I find that passage a very personal commission and challenge and appropriate that it is included in Lauds (Morning Prayer) to send us out into the day:
As for you little child
you shall be called a prophet of God, the Most High.
You shall go ahead of the Lord
to prepare his ways before him,

To make known to his people their salvation
through forgiveness of all their sins,
the loving-kindess of the heart of our God
who visits us like the dawn from on high.

He will give light to those in darkness,
those who dwell in the shadow of death,
and guide us into the way of peace.

It encapsulates the essential and awesome responsibility that we have as Christians to not only proclaim the Gospel, but the manner in which we are to do so. I find this 'sensitivity' or 'character' of how we are to be and communicate the Gospel, inadvertently but accurately described by a non-Christian, Thoreaux, in Walden: The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.