Location, location, location. We hear it all the time, usually regarding real estate.

Shakespeare set his plays in a variety of oddball locales (from a modern point of view). As I read his works, I’ll pay special attention to the effect setting has on the meaning. But for now, I want to present a personal metaphor.

The picture above is from Saint Sophia Orthodox Church in Los Angeles, California. It’s modeled on one of the most amazing spaces in the world: the cathedral/mosque/museum known as Hagia Sophia, a building that once dominated the skyline of Constantinople (now Istanbul).

We’d like to think that our interior lives can be independent of our surroundings. I know I do, especially when I get caught up in the rat race or find myself becoming blue based on the behavior of institutions like CitiCorp or individuals such as Tiger Woods (You knew there’d be a Tiger Woods reference before too long, didn’t you?).

Secular society, by definition, does not place particular importance on the sacred, the mysterious, or the holy. These terms are abandoned to religion (unless you live in a theocracy), thus furthering the bifurcation in our perspectives regarding the sanctity of daily life.

A play, quite naturally, is centered around the plot: all the “stuff” that happens. Paradoxically, we care about these events only because of the characters who persevere through them — and occasionally even triumph over them. As the eminent theologian Martin Buber once pointed out, it’s how we respond to circumstances that ultimately defines our ethics, a sentiment Bono echoes with tongue firmly planted in cheek on the song “Stand Up Comedy” from U2’s recent album, No Line on the Horizon.

Noble souls like Gandhi and Mother Theresa elevate themselves above the herd by their selfless choices made under fire. Their actions testify to a sense of higher ideals so strong that they overcome the bruteness of the material conditions in the societies surrounding them.

Most people by and large are reactive, following the more immediate dictates of the biological imperative. The bulk of their lives is spent scratching the itch at hand, unaware of how the impulse for sex and status or comfort dominates their behavior. Wisdom is unwittingly sacrificed in the mindless pursuit of personal pleasure, reproduction or the acquisition of material goods.

How do these different human traits play out in Shakespeare? Why do we identify so readily with some characters and not with others? Why are some plays considered masterpieces, while others — even for Shakespeare — remain obscure and relatively unperformed?

What factors do location, plot and individual character play? What makes Hamlet so memorable? How did Shakespeare manage to create so many distinct, recognizable personas in his writing?

As one minor being on a vast planet, I know that where I am exercises a tremendous influence on how I feel about my self, my soul, my life, my integrity. I am reminded, especially at this time of year, why it’s necessary to set aside time for reflection in sanctuaries away from the hustle and bustle, how a respite in an atmosphere of sanctity restores a sense of balance and peace.

Costco and Saint Sophia exist for different purposes. Both are superior at what they do. We just can’t expect one of them to provide what was meant for the other to accomplish.

Buddha had to still himself beneath the Boddhi Tree to find illumination. And Jesus retreated to the desert to fast and pray and focus his inner calling.

If they required solitude to restore their sense of wholeness, how much more must I?

Are you satisfied with a purely secular approach to the Christmas season?  If not, you might consider spending some time reading the New Testament gospels and reflecting on the life and teachings of Jesus that they depict.

Skeptics will resist this suggestion but could soften their stance when they learn that respected thinkers like Thomas Jefferson and Martin Buber (yes, the 20th Century Jewish philosopher!) would have nodded their assent.  Both considered the gospels to be sources of immense wisdom.  They had no illusion about the human authorship of the Bible; this did not prevent them from engaging it energetically and with seriousness of purpose.  In so doing, they testify to its importance.  Both adopted unique approaches to Scripture; their approaches offer helpful examples of how we too might to read it.

Although he didn’t consider Jesus to be divine, Thomas Jefferson was inspired by the Biblical Jesus’ message—albeit in its distinctly human dimension.  New Testament verses concerning morality and sin met with Jefferson’s approval but the miracles and Jesus’ resurrection struck him as implausible.  Jefferson decided to extract the passages reflecting his ideas about Jesus from the four Gospels to create a single, unified gospel.  Over a period of several years, he selected passages from six different (hardcopy) Bibles, cut them out (with scissors—yup, the old, old-fashioned way), and pasted them together (with glue) to create his own, integrated gospel.  His Bible selection included excerpts from the King James Bible, a Greek Bible, one in Latin, and two more in French.  He entitled his cut-and-paste Bible:  The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.

What follows is the narrative of Jesus’ birth from Jefferson’s Bible.  Because this account only appears in the gospel of Luke, Jefferson relied on uniquely on Luke to redact his version of the nativity:

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.  Lk 2:1

(And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)  Lk 2:2

And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. Lk 2:3

And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem (because he was of the house and lineage of David.)  Lk 2:4

To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.  Lk 2:5

And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.  Lk 2:6

And she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them at the inn.  Lk 2:7

And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS,  Lk 2:21

And when they had performed all things according to the Law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth.  Lk 2:39

Although this passage doesn’t include the moral teachings so important to Jefferson, it does show that he had no qualms about altering sacred Scripture to make it his own–including the story of Jesus’ birth.

Given when and where he lived, it isn’t surprising that Jefferson considered Jesus, the man, a source of inspiration.  However, it is surprising that Martin Buber, best known for his book of Jewish theology, I and Thou, considered Jesus his great brother.  Buber found much significance in Jesus’ suffering, his self-doubt and his death.  Indeed, Buber wrote:

“From my youth onwards, I have found in Jesus my great brother.  That Christianity has regarded and does regard him as God and Saviour has always appeared to me a fact of the highest importance which for his sake and my own, I must endeavor to understand…  my own fraternally open relationship with him has grown ever stronger and clearer…  For nearly 50 years, the New Testament has been a main concern in my studies.”

In Jesus, Buber found a great son of Israel.  He found the genuine Jewish principle manifest in Jesus’ teachings.  He also felt a strong kinship to the Jesus depicted in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke—that is to say, a strong kinship for the plain and embodied man grappling with concrete situations.

For Buber, it was this Jesus, the one who, struggling in the depth of the actual moment, found eternity.  He had the highest regard for the man who lacked certainty about his nature, who experienced shocks to this certainty, and whose last question was ‘Why’?

If Buber had less affinity for the version of Jesus depicted in the gospel of John, this was because John’s Jesus entered the spiritual realm where he was no longer open to attacks of self-questioning.

Buber ascribed enormous importance to passages like the following one from the Sermon on the Mount (in the gospel of Matthew): “Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors SO THAT you may become the children of your Father in heaven.” Based on his research, Buber held that until Jesus spoke those words, nowhere else had love for others been described as the path to becoming a child of God.

In Buber’s view, Jesus’ statement rose out of Israel’s faith, it implied it, and yet at the same time, supplemented it.  It opened the door to all those who really love.  Buber celebrated Jesus as the religious leader who challenged human beings, for the first time in our history, to Love our enemies and pray for our persecutors so that we might become what we were meant to be, brothers and sisters to one another.

Should you, like Buber or Jefferson, decide to revisit the Bible during this season of Advent then, like them, you will want to acknowledge the ugly parts of the gospels, or of any other Biblical book for that matter, if that’s what those passages deserve.  Neither Buber nor Jefferson approached Scripture with naive reverence.  They relied on their analytic and critical skills to winnow “the grain from the chaff.”

Jefferson explained his approach in a letter he wrote to William Short, a Unitarian with whom he corresponded about religious matters during the years he worked to create his personal Gospel.  In one of those letters, he said:

“We find in the writings of [Jesus’] biographers matter of two distinct descriptions.  First, a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstitions, fanaticisms and fabrications.  Intermixed with these, again, are sublime ideas of the Supreme Being, aphorisms, and precepts of the purest morality and benevolence, sanctioned by a life of humility, innocence, and simplicity of manners, neglect of riches, absence of worldly ambition and honors, with an eloquence and persuasiveness which have not been surpassed.”

If you (re)visit the gospels, why not start with the gospel of Luke?  Not only does this gospel contain the story at the core of this season’s Christmas celebration, but it is prized for its literary elegance, its great interest in the poor, the “lost,” women, Jews, Samaritans, and Gentiles.  Luke’s book has received much praise for what has been called his universalism based on his willingness to be inclusive of a variety of interests and audiences.  Some have even speculated a woman wrote this gospel.

Who knows, after reading Luke’s account, you, like Jefferson and Buber, might discover beauty and truth in the Biblical story of Jesus.  You might even, in this busy and often spirit-draining time of Advent, find a meaning in Jesus’ birth that’s all your own, enabling you to invite him to the bash you’re throwing in his name.  On some level this holiday is universal–there’s something in it for everyone–Jews, Muslims, Mormons, Buddhists, Christians and atheists.

So go ahead, pick up a Bible and find the gospels.  Read a passage.  Or two.  What is there to lose–except the sinking feeling that Christmas is little more than an opportunity for gift-giving and sweets-eating?

References:  Thomas Jefferson, The Jefferson Bible:  The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth (Boston:  Beacon Press, 1989); Martin Buber, Two Types of Faith, trans. Norman P. Goldhawk (London:  Routledge & Kegan, 1951).

I was introduced to Martin Buber’s thought in the mid 1960’s. At that time this was  not all that unusual in certain circles of higher learning. Buber was almost “fashionable.” The difference for me was the introducer. Ronald Gregor Smith, one of my professors, was the original translator of the Buber classic I and Thou. His lectures on Buber, and his private conversation, were sprinkled with anecdotal information which brought Buber into the room. It was a thrilling experience for me and made Buber an indelible influence.

More recently a translation of I and Thou has appeared which, though excellent, uses “you” instead of “‘thou.” This is unfortunate. Indeed the dropping of thou from contemporary spoken English is more broadly unfortunate. (Stick with me on this!) Consider, variously:

In German, the original language of I and Thou, Buber wrote Ich und Du. Du is very particularly used in German. It suggests intimate closeness, familiarity, connection. When these elements are missing “Sie” is used, the same word for “they.”  When used for “you” Sie connotes all that those elements which make “you” a “Du” are missing. The I-Thou stands in contrast to the more familiar and frequent I-It in which I objectify, manipulate, distort, and merely use the other.

“You” is so ambiguous in English. Does it mean one, two, or more people. Not so long ago I heard a woman puzzling what Jesus meant when he turned to the paralytic carried to him by four friends and said, “Your sins are forgiven.” Did he mean that one man’s sin or all five’s, or did he even include everyone standing around watching? The question was given a wild answer which could so easily have been shown by looking at the Greek text. Greek, like many other languages, has a singular for “thou,thee,thy.” (My father used to argue that the Bible needs this pronoun for accuracy, not just in such cases, but when referring to God especially.)

Buber’s “Du” of course does not isolate, as if just “the two of us” are an island cut off from everyone and all else. An I-Thou relationship can be encountered, he writes, not just between two individual human beings, but between a single human being and other entities, animals, trees, even rocks. (Yes, you can see God through the sunset!) He goes on, in his poetic and mythic style, to say that “the parallel lines of all I-Thous meet in the Eternal Thou.” Parallel lines meeting. I love that!

Two observations from all this:

First, while indeed I can find Thou in anything and all around me and in doing so am lifted above treating the world and its many contents as It, human beings are the supreme summons. More, amongst human beings a few will be the frequent summons and indeed there will be the one who is the constant Du: the Du upon whom my Ich utterly depends, without which it withers and  becomes an It unto myself first and thus for all others consequently. This Thou incarnates, that is makes present, the Eternal Thou for my Ich. This Thou is thy “nearest and dearest” and in loving this Thou love flows back. The dialogue of love is the ontology of the Ich-Du. It is the only ground upon which the self can stand. This is what the great John Macmurray meant when, in Persons in Relation passim, he wrote, “I need you in order to be myself.” He meant “Ich” and “Du.”

Second, identify your Thou!  This Other is the one upon whom your life depends, without whom you are no longer your true self, for whom you breathe, and with whom you hope. Oddly, this Other is also the one you can most hurt and disappoint and thus the one from whom true forgiveness can flow which is simply life’s only restorative power. Buber was right about encountering the Du in objects, animals, and other phenomena of life, but the authentic Ich-Du is and must be with another human being. Only another human being can understand foibles and forgive failings. Failure to be able to identify your Thou signals isolation and loneliness and ought to awaken you to your need for love.

My Thou is still sleeping, but will shortly come in for her coffee; my wife, my companion, my solace, and my joy; my life.

At this Advent time Christians await the coming of the Thou for all, as if he too were “still sleeping” but will be here shortly. Of this Thou who is the presence of the Eternal Thou, each Thou is a reflection.

Great chance lies precisely in the unlikeness of men...and crayons, I would add.

One of my favorite quotes is from Martin Buber in The Way of Man, in which he says, “Mankind’s great chance lies precisely in the unlikeness of men, in the unlikeness of their qualities and inclinations.”

A few weeks ago as I was leading a poetry class, I forgot Buber’s words when I unexpectedly found myself feeling very unlike the small group of students who faced me. I wondered if I was sharing poems – both my own and others’ – that they could connect with at all. Since I was the teacher, I didn’t have any choice but to press on. Read what I learned in my article The Power of Admitting Where You’re From on the Risk A Day blog.

This article is also a tribute to the poem and writing prompt “Where I’m From” by George Ella Lyon.

Acts 16:33
At that hour of the night the jailer took them [Paul and Silas] and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized.

When the jailer accepted the word of God that Paul and Silas shared with him, his eyes were opened and with those open eyes came compassion. Paul and Silas were no longer just prisoners but injured men who needed attending. Before that, the jailer had been complacent.

I wonder how often I have missed human need and suffering because of a callous heart. I drive the same streets every day. I walk the neighborhoods. I go to the same grocery store and eat at the same restaurants. Am I looking and not seeing?

Martin Buber spoke eloquently of man’s ability to look at “the other” without seeing in his book, I and Thou. Am I looking at other as “object” … as an “it,” or as a person … a true “thou.”

William Shakespeare captured this idea slightly differently (but effectively) in the Merchant of Venice through one of the speeches of Shylock: “I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die?” [Act III, sc 1] Replace the word Jew with “the poor” and you get the idea.

The jailer could not do much. He couldn’t free Paul and Silas, he couldn’t change their circumstances, but he could give a small comfort: he could wash their wounds.

When I see poor and wretched souls, I become numb with the enormity of their deprivation. What can I possibly do? Perhaps it’s only the small act that needs doing in the moment…. washing wounds by listening, touching, asking, engaging, feeding, sharing. Perhaps I should stop worrying about what I cannot do and simply do what I can do.

I have heard it said that we can never “out give” the poor. Their need will always be greater that our ability to meet it. This sentiment reverberates in Jesus’s own words: “The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want…” [Mark 14:7a]

Quoted by Elie Wiesel, All Rivers Run to the Sea (pgs. 354-55); I read it in Walter Brueggemann’s Theology of the Old Testament (pg. 403 n. 6):

What is the difference between Jews and Christians? We all await the Messiah. You believe He has already come and gone, while we do not. I therefore propose that we await Him together. And when He appears, we can ask Him: “Were you here before?”… And I hope that at that moment I will be close enough to whisper in his ear, “For the love of heaven, don’t answer.”

Martin Buber har skrivit mycket om relationer människor emellan. Jag läste hans bok Dialogens väsen och fann den mycket tilltalande, inte minst tack vare hans poetiska språk. I boken beskriver han det ideala mötet mellan två personer. Stereotyper läggs inte på den andre, betraktaren försöker istället låta honom komma fram i egenskap av sig själv. Alla avsikter är bortblåsta, stunden är unik – den har aldrig inträffat förr. Motpartnerna står med öppna sinnen och vad som helst kan ske. Samtalet tycks formas av egen kraft. Motsatsen är två monologer förklädda till dialog.

”Självtillvändhet kallar jag det, när någon undandrar sig att acceptera en annan person i dennes säregenhet och låter den andre endast bestå av den egna upplevelsen, dvs. endast höra till det som är ’mitt’”

Boken igenom lägger Buber vikt att det måste få finnas en sorts mystik i våra liv. Han skriver om ’tecknen’ i tillvaron som vi bara kan se om vi är öppna för dem. Jag får en känsla av att han vill att vi inte ska styra oss själva på det sätt vi gör, att vi har blivit för rationella, och att vi därför missar ’tecknen’ som vi annars skulle se varje dag. Den här boken gick rakt in i mitt känslosinne. Mer av Martin Buber får det bli framöver!

I like data. I’m naturally drawn to complex things that don’t really involve people — electronics, maps, architectural diagrams, programming code, chess, mechanical stuff, etc., and I’m really comfortable picking up a complex thing that I’ve never seen before. These traits are not unlike those of many men I know.

Being naturally drawn to people, though — that’s a different story. Don’t get me wrong — I’m not a socially awkward geek — but I’ve been noticing something lately as I’ve been working on remembering people’s faces and names.   I’m very present when I’m with someone (and I’m mainly talking about new people here, but it applies also to people who are a fundamental part of my life) – but when I’m not with that person, I just don’t think about them. I don’t think about what I’ll say to them when I see them again. I don’t wonder what their lives are like, whether they’re married or have kids, whether they’re Democrat or Republican. That’s just not what my mind does on its own. So after I meet someone initially, they often quickly fade in my mind so that when I see them again, a week later, it’s like I’m seeing them for the first time. Nothing stuck from the last meeting.  I’m like that goldfish, constantly surprised to see the little plastic castle in his tank.

With respect to faces, what I rarely do — and what I’m trying to do now — is to picture the person’s face in my mind after we’ve parted. I’m now trying to let other people’s being into my mind. I’ll picture her face, his face, I’ll remember their name, maybe something about them, I’ll remember something I want to say — *want* to say, not just feel obligated to say – to them when I see them again. This really involves a fundamental turning:  turning towards people, and away from the other stuff that I usually occupy myself with.  I’m choosing to spend my mental energy on people rather than things. It’s exercise for me; it doesn’t come naturally.  It feels forced, and false, like smiling when you don’t want to.  But I believe that even this small effort has an impact, both on me and on those around me.

I still like my iPod Touch, but, as Martin Buber might frame it, I’m voting Yes for the I-Thou relationship.

My first day back at hospice. Coworkers greet me with hugs and smiles, ask about my trip to Europe. It’s good to be home. A woman sits alone in the lounge, looking lost. I take the seat next to her, introduce myself. Knowing only that she’s come to visit a patient, I ask: What brings you here?

My mother, she replies.
Is she dying?
(Silence. Then tears.)
Yes. It’s all so sudden. She was here in August and I knew it would come to this. Still …

You’re going to lose your mom. (Pause.) Have you told her?
Told her what?
How much she matters to you.
(Silence. More tears. Tissue paper in shreds.)

Who are you? I don’t even know you. (Smiles through tears.)
Does it matter? Grief brings us together, this moment. (Tears in my eyes as well. More silence.)
Thank you.
(Palms together.) Thank you.

We frequently view both objects and people by their functions, writes philosopher Martin Buber (1878-1965). Sometimes this is good: scientists, for instance, can learn a great deal about our world by observing, measuring, and examining.

Unfortunately, we frequently view people in the same way. Rather than making ourselves completely available to them, understanding them, sharing totally with them, really talking with them, we observe them or keep part of ourselves outside the moment of relationship. We do so either to protect our vulnerabilities or to get them to respond in some preconceived way, to get something from them. Buber calls such an interaction “I-It.”

It is possible, notes Buber, to place ourselves completely into a relationship, to truly understand and “be there” with another person, without masks, pretenses, even without words. Such a moment of relating is called “I-Thou.” Each person comes to such a relationship without preconditions. The bond thus created enlarges each person, and each person responds by trying to enhance the other person. The result is true dialogue, true sharing. (More …)

source: Buber, M. (1923/1958), I and Thou. Smith, R.G. (trans). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Ist Gott ein Prinzip? Jenes entfernte “höhere Wesen, welches wir verehren”? (nach Heinrich Böll) Ist Gott eine gedankliche Hilfskonstruktion? Mache ich mit der Rede von Gott mein Weltbild rund, obwohl es eigentlich meint, ohne Gott bestehen zu können? Nehme ich Gott ernst oder ist er nur eine sprachliche Floskel?

Von Beginn der Bibel an ist Gott dem Menschen ein personales Gegenüber. Ein “Du”. Eben kein Prinzip. Und in und mit Jesus Christus hat er die Entfernung zu sich “begehbar” gemacht. Er hat einen Weg zu seiner Heiligkeit aufgewiesen: “Ich bin der Weg, die Wahrheit und das Leben”, sagt Jesus selber im Johannes-Evangelium (Kapitel 14, Vers 6). Der Vers geht noch weiter: “Niemand kommt zum Vater denn durch mich.” Richtig: Niemand. Ausnahmslos.

Wenn ich das Scheitern um mich herum ansehe – die Kinder, die nicht ordentlich versorgt, erzogen werden, um die man sich nicht wirklich kümmert, – die Ehen, die scheitern (aus was für Gründen eigentlich), wenn ich in den Nachrichten vom vielfältigen menschlichen Versagen lesen:

Wie kann der Mensch ernsthaft meinen, allein zurecht zu kommen?

Wir brauchen Gott, wir brauchen das “Du”, das er ist und das er uns angeboten hat. Wir brauchen ihn, seine Hilfe, seine Weisung, seinen Halt. Seine Zurechtweisung wie seinen Trost.

Ich glaube an Gott, und ich glaube ihm. Statt “glauben” kann man hier auch “vertrauen” sagen: Ich vertraue Gott! Deshalb kann ich mit ihm reden: Er hat zugesagt mich zu hören – und mein Gebet aus dem Glauben zu erhören.

“Wenn an Gott glauben bedeutet, von ihm in der dritten Person reden zu können, glaube ich nicht an Gott.

Wenn an ihn glauben bedeutet, zu ihm reden zu können, glaube ich an Gott. “

Martin Buber

A photo taken just a few moments ago; yes, it snowed today and it looks like it will snow again tomorrow.  There are still leaves, green leaves on the trees.  Of course, the snow will disappear in quick order.  The message is clear, winter is on its way.

One of the things I am learning as I post here almost every day is the fact that this is really a dialogue with you.  The fact that you can and do respond to my posts with comments has served to help orient my following posts.  This makes the blog a living thing, an authentic dialogue.  In realizing this, I think back to my introduction to the concept when I first came across the book, I and Thou, by Martin Buber.  I learned that humans are aware of the world with two attitudes; a relation to the world as “it” and a relation to the world as “you.”

Now, I’ll let Buber speak for himself:

The life of a human being does not exist merely in the sphere of goal-directed verbs.  It does not consist merely of activities that something for their object.

I perceive something. I feel something. I imagine something. I want something. I sense something.  I think something.  The life of a human being does not consist merely of all this and its like.

All this is the basis of the real of It.

But the realm of You has another basis.

Whoever says You does not have something for his object. For wherever there is something there is also another something; every It borders  on other Its; It is only by virtue of bordering on others.  But where You is said there is no something.  You has no borders.

Whoever says You does not have something; he has nothing.  But he stands in relation. (Buber, I and Thou, Kaufmann translation, 1970, pp. 54-55)

I had this book in my library for more than thirty years and value it as one of the best books in my collection.  Buber helped prepare me for a new way of looking at and understanding self, other and it.  Any questions?  Any comments?

The following is an introduction and part 1 of a bibliography for an 8-week course that will be taught this fall called “Practicing Christian Commmunity.”  The library’s own network coordinator, and this blog’s most frequent contributor, Rafael Ubico, will be teaching the second section of the course — “Practicing Christian Community Outside the Church” — following section one — “Practicing Christian Community Within the Church” — taught by Ross Loomis.  Section one meets Wednesdays October 14 through November 4.  Section two meets November 10, 17, 24, and December 1.  7:00 pm to 8:30 pm.

Introduction

The Northern Colorado Faith Library at FUMC offers a good selection of books on the practice of Christian community. These books can help us understand the state of community life in contemporary society, learn from life as practiced in communities of faith, carry a sense of Christian community into the world, and envision our place within the unity of all creation. They range from 20^th century classics by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Buber, Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to more recent works by such important contemporary religious writers as Thomas Berry, Wendell Berry, Jurgen Moltmann, Parker Palmer, M. Scott Peck, Jean Vanier, and William Willimon.

A list of suggested books currently held in the NCFL on practicing Christian community is presented below. Some brief comments are offered on the general subject coverage they provide. Any of these books afford useful background reading in preparation for the classes to be given on this subject at FUMC this Fall. (Note: One book is identified as a holding of the NCFL partner library at Blessed John XXIII University Parish. FUMC readers are welcome to check out books from this library.)

Part 1: The Current State of Community Life in Society

This group of books deals with the loss of community life in society and the obstacles that need to be overcome for its recovery. The two Wendell Berry novels depict the breakdown of rural community life in the fictional town of Port William, Kentucky. Between Man and Man presents five classic Martin Buber essays on the existential struggle to maintain I-Thou relationships among people in contemporary society. Two chapters in Parker Palmer’s book deal respectively with the paradoxes that community life presents and with the risks, myths and forms of modern community life. In The Different Drum, Scott Peck explores the characteristics and awards of true community life and shows how such communities can still emerge in today’s conflicted world and contribute to personal wholeness.

Berry, Wendell. Hannah Coulter: A Novel, Shoemaker & Hoard, 2004.

Berry, Wendell. Jayber Crow: A Novel, Counterpoint, 2000.

Buber, Martin. Between Man and Man, Macmillan, 1965.

Palmer, Parker J. The Promise of Paradox: A Celebration of Contradictions in the Christian Life, Jossey-Bass/Wiley, 2008 (chaps. 3 &4).

Peck, M. Scott. The Different Drum: Community-Making and Peace, Simon & Schuster, 1987.

It’s common wisdom that religion is NEVER, EVER a topic of polite conversation.  Talking about religious views supposedly leads to arguments, so if one wishes to avoid the risk of a friendship-ending conflict, one should keep mum.  We are trained at near Pavlovian levels;  if our interlocutor has the bad grace to bring up religion, we either find an excuse to leave, switch to a different topic, or fall back on the conversation-stopper “let’s just agree to disagree.”

Which is a waste, because the imagined conversation between Tillich and Anderson in Post #33 helped identify some of the strengths and weaknesses of Anderson’s empirical theology.

Given the importance of religion in all of our lives (atheists are as impacted by religion as anyone else), shouldn’t we engage this topic at every opportunity?  Doing so would require the conversation partners to be honest about their views, including their concerns and disagreements.  Because how can common ground be discovered (if any is to be had) unless differences are acknowledged?

The Jewish theologian, Martin Buber, in an address delivered at a conference of Christian missionary societies in 1930, did not subscribe to the self-censorship practiced by so many liberal religionists and theologians then and today.  He broached, with frankness but also with hope, the subjects of what Christians and Jews have in common and of where they cannot agree.

This a slightly adapted version of what Buber said to the missionaries (Buber’s words are in italics):

What do Christians and Jews have in common?  To put it in the most concrete way, Jews and Christians have a book and an expectation. The book they have in common is called the Tanakh by Jews and the Old Testament by Christians.

It is the sanctuary itself for Jews but only the antechamber for Christians who walk through it on the way to a different sanctuary—the New Testament.  Still, it is a place they have in common, and in it they may listen together to the voice which speaks in it. They can labor together digging for the speech that is buried there, liberating the living word that is imprisoned.

They also share an expectation for a different reality.  The expectation of Jews is for a coming of what has not yet been. The expectation of Christians is for the second coming.  Their fortunes took separate directions in the pre-Messianic era.  Since then, the Jew is incomprehensible to the Christian; he is the stiff-necked one who refuses to see that God came in the person of Jesus to inaugurate a new and redeemed history.  The Christian is equally incomprehensible to the Jew; he is the presumptuous one who asserts redemption as an accomplished fact in a world which is unredeemed.

This schism, no human power can bridge.  But it does not preclude harmonious cooperation in watching for the oneness coming from God.  Although they expect a different oneness, they can wait together for that which is to come, and in those moments, pave the road for it in joint effort.

– End of adapted excerpt –

Some reading Buber’s words today would find that he simply named the obvious schism between Judaism and Christianity.  Others might have preferred that he had used gentler terms than “stiff-necked” or “presumptious,” or resorted to more round-about language, or not mentioned the schism at all.  Were Buber’s remarks inflammatory?  The missionaries to whom he spoke had no illusion about the abyss separating the two faith-traditions.  And Buber, having demonstrated his willingness to discuss that abyss, could be taken seriously when he explored what the Jewish and Christian communities could hope accomplish in “harmonious cooperation.”  Having openly discussed their differences, when he described his vision of the work they could undertake together, his vision seemed a genuine possibility and mutual enrichment seemed plausible.

So here’s a plea to set aside the old adage of “be polite; don’t talk about religion.”  Whether you’re an atheist talking to a theist or vice-versa, or a Lutheran talking to a Roman Catholic or vice-versa, or a process theologian talking to an Orthodox theologian, or pick-your- group talking to someone from pick-another-group, try to have an authentic conversation.

If you wish to be authentic, you’ll name the schism.  Then you just might have a shot at a more interesting dialogue—the one about harmonious cooperation.

HNFFT:  If you reacted negatively to Buber’s comments, how would you have broached the differences between Jews and Christians?  If you’d have chosen to say nothing at all about them, do you think it’s possible to have an authentic conversation without mentioning disagreements?

Reference:  The address, delivered by Martin Buber to a conference of Christian missionary societies in 1930, is quoted in Samuel Bergman’s Faith and Reason:  An Introduction to Modern Jewish Thought, trans. and ed. by Alfred Jospe (Washington, D.C.:  B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundations, 1961), 96.

The Ancient of Days, aka God

William Blake, 1794

(–”What do you mean, William Blake?”

–”I mean William Blake!”)

Chapter Three is the God chapter, but of course this topic– like the last one, the Meaning of Life– is just too sprawling for a single chapter, book, or course. It may be too big for a human lifetime.

For those drawn to it not merely as an interesting object of study but as the sacred source and center of life itself, we need to catch our breaths before we begin. And let us remind ourselves: not everyone thinks about God (or “God,” “Allah,” “Yahweh,” “Jehovah,” “Bhagwan,” “Ahura Mazda,” et al) the same way you or I do.  Humans have nominated many alleged supreme supernatural beings through the centuries. They have advanced many claims and fewer arguments  in the names thereof. Non-believers have ignored, studied, disputed, and sometimes ridiculed those claims.

Philosophers have attempted to identify, examine, and critique those arguments (or argument place-holders), as they should: it’s in the job description. Pious non-philosophers have often protested this activity.

The next caution for us all: we are not obliged to respect a view just because those who espouse it call it their religion. We are not obliged to bite our tongues and refrain from saying that we find a particular religious view unworthy of respect. I’ll say it right now: I do not respect the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. OK, you say, but that’s not a serious religion.  Further up the mainstream, then: I do not respect Scientology. Its founder is on record as saying that if you want to get rich, start your own religion. He was a charlatan, and the tenets of his faith as I have examined them are just laughable.

Yes, laughable in my opinion. But in philosophical conversation we don’t just swap opinions. If the subject comes up in the classroom, or the agora, or in an online exchange hosted by a conscientious and self-respecting philosophy blogger, reasons will need to be provided if the exchange is to bear fruit. And if any of the defenders of any of those religions comes up with a good case for God, I’ll try to be among the first to say so.

I’m not just picking on L.Ron Hubbard.  I could swim further up the mainstream, discovering more cause for derisive laughter. I have, I will. So have others. But one must be sensitive to time and place and circumstance.

And in fact, there are considerations of social civility, politeness, and prudence that make full disclosure of anyone’s view of someone else’s creed  inappropriate in many social settings, and that I don’t deny. But in the classroom, in books and other printed matter, in the streets and on the Internet, I’m particularly wary about laying down strict ground rules or prohibitions that would have the effect of stifling anyone’s first amendment rights or, as the American philosopher Charles Peirce said, “blocking the road of inquiry.”

And so I just advise: distinguish belief from believer, and accord everyone– classmates included– presumptive respect as human beings.  Remember the ad hominem fallacy, among others, and don’t attack others’ character or impugn their motives. Ask for their reasons. Offer your own. Let them speak, one at a time, and speak in turn when they’ve finished.

But all, heed: “that’s just how I was raised,” or “that’s what we believe in my faith,” are not good philosophical reasons. You can’t win or even begin an argument with such statements. Presumably those who raised you and taught your Sunday School had reasons. Specify them, and defend them rationally, if you’re going to bring them into the conversation at all.

I count close friends among the representatives of most major religions and faith traditions. We agree to disagree on matters of spirituality and religion. They understand that my rejection of their faith is not personal.

Another very important distinction, in a free and secular society: church and state. Not sharing a friend’s faith, not respecting a neighbor’s religion, not having a recognized religion or believing in God yourself at all, are well within your constitutionally protected rights as a citizen of the American republic.  They do not make you unpatriotic. They might not make you popular; but studying Socrates brought us to a pithy rejoinder on that point: so what?

But after saying all this, it remains to acknowledge: some will be made uncomfortable by the fact that we’re discussing this topic at all, in the public space of a university classroom. (Others are made uncomfortable by the discussion’s being online; but of course they can re-direct their browsers.) To that I say, again: philosophy exists for the very purpose of making all who enter its ambit uncomfortable. Discomfort is a positive sign of thinking-going-on. Now, if you’d rather not think at all, I don’t suppose there’s much else I can say that will change your mind.

The Great Commoner, William Jennings Bryan (aka Matthew Harrison Brady, in “Inherit the Wind”), told his legal nemesis Clarence Darrow at Dayton, Tennessee in 1926: “I don’t think about things I don’t think about.” Darrow replied: “Do you think about things you do “think” about?” I know what he was asking, but there really wasn’t anywhere for that conversation to go.

Still, there’s one form of faith we must all evince, all who’ve consented to participate in this class:  faith in philosophical reason to ameliorate your discomfort, one way or another. Even an irrationalist like Kierkegaard must invoke reasons for rejecting reasons. Why the passionate “leap of faith”? No reason at all? Surely not.

Enough preliminaries, for now. Let’s begin by thinking about the survey in our text. “How Do [You] Think About Religion?” Which boxes did you check under “I believe what I do about religion because __,” “When I go to a religious service I feel __”? What does “spirituality” mean to you? What’s your view of organized religion in general?

William James is quoted in this chapter, sounding very much like the Jewish theologian Martin Buber, exploring  his feeling that the universe is not a mere It to us but a Thou.

James said many other interesting things about what he called “the varieties of religious experience.” He  sympathized with others’ beliefs, because he thought they all reflected a universal human impulse for life. ”Not God, but more life,” said James, is the most natural human impulse , the ultimate source of religious variety, and the real point of religion.  And he was very open to alternative approaches. The religious, for him, meant anything that brought home for people the reality of whatever they considered “divine.”

And, as he informed a correspondent in 1901, his own sense of life was most quickened by what he could not help regarding as the progressive epic of evolution. “I believe myself to be (probably) permanently incapable of believing the Christian scheme of vicarious salvation, and wedded to a more continuously evolutionary mode of thought.”

James would probably understand where Karen Armstrong is coming from in her new book, The Case for God. But he’d probably rather discuss Robert Wright’s: The Evolution of God.

James filled out a “God & religion” questionnaire himself once:

Do you believe in personal immortality? “Never keenly; but more strongly as I grow older.” Do you pray? “I cannot possibly pray—I feel foolish and artificial.” What do you mean by ’spirituality’? ”Susceptibility to ideals, but with a certain freedom to indulge in imagination about them. A certain amount of ‘other worldly’ fancy. Otherwise you have mere morality, or ‘taste.’” What do you mean by a ‘religious experience’? “Any moment of life that brings the reality of spiritual things more ‘home’ to one.”

Some have read in these responses a Jamesian tilt toward supernaturalism, but I am more inclined to view them as a nod of sympathetic recognition and moral support, an instance of neutral distancing and what’s been called James’s belief in (others’) believing. In any case, his use of the term salvation in the present context is neutral with respect to any supernatural implications. It means something like “deliverance from evil,” where ‘evil’ is not taken necessarily to imply a malevolent supernatural agency at work in the world, and where it is hoped and supposed that natural human powers are equal to the task of resisting it successfully, not always but often, at least in the long run.

As for the “problem of evil”: it was a problem, to James. ”I cannot bring myself, as so many seem able to do, to blink the evil out of sight, and gloss it over,” James wrote to his brother as a young man in 1870. “It’s as real as the good, and if it is denied, good must be denied too. It must be hated and resisted while there’s breath in our bodies.” And sixteen years later: “There is no full consolation. Evil is evil and pain is pain.” James biographer R. B. Perry: “He was too sensitive to ignore evil, too moral to tolerate it, and too ardent to accept it as inevitable. Optimism was as impossible for him as pessimism. No philosophy could possibly suit him that did not candidly recognize the dubious fortunes of mankind, and encourage him as a moral individual to buckle on his armor and go forth to battle.”

And yet, he also believed wholeheartedly in “moral holidays.” Holidays are celebratory times, and James never forgets the celebratory elements of experience, most especially the moments of “transcendence.” They are the saving elements that ”make life worth living.”

But that’s another story, another song. If you’re interested, check out chapter four in Jimmy Buffett and Philosophy: the Porpoise Driven Life… the chapter called “License to Chill.” (BTW: Jimmy Buffett’s full name is James William Buffett.) Suffice here to say: Buffett’s God, and James’s, would want you to enjoy your life. Fall Break is coming; but have a little fun today too. And find some “evil” to resist while you’re at it. That’s a divine agenda.

“I fully believe in the legitimacy of taking moral holidays.” -William James.

“Well it’s only up to you, no one else can tell you to Go out and have some fun… And take a Holiday. You need a Holiday…” -Jimmy Buffett

Vandaag vlogen er vele vliegtuigen boven de Edese hei die hun parachutisten naar beneden lieten vallen. Zo hebben we vorm gegeven aan onze herdenking van bevrijding van de onderdrukker uit de tweede wereldoorlog. Het systeem van de Nazi’s drukte op ons land en op onze individuele vrijheid. De parachutisten waren de verwijzing naar de moedige mannen die hun leven waagden voor onze vrijheid. 

Misschien heb ik met mijn blog maar 1 ding voor ogen. Ik wil getuigen van mijn bevrijding. Mijn bevrijding van het grote verhaal en de drukkende concepten en artikelen in mijn hoofd voor de vrijheid van mijn ervaring. En niet alleen de bevrijding voor mijn ervaring alleen, eigenlijk wil ik getuigen van de bevrijding  voor mijn ervaring van mijn verlangen naar liefde. En ik hoop dat je iets van deze ‘bevrijding’ mee kan maken, als je mijn blog leest.

Maar waarom dan zo’n ingewikkeld en soms intellectueel gedoe om dit doel te bereiken? Dat heeft – denk ik – te maken met mijn persoonlijke weg hoe ik (weer) tot deze ervaring ben gekomen. Ik heb gemerkt dat ik in de loop der tijd geimponeerd was geraakt door wat er zich in mijn denken afspeelde. Er waren harde theorieën aanwezig en harde beelden die zoveel ruimte in beslag namen, dat er geen ruimte meer overbleef voor mijn eenvoudige ervaring. Toen ik mij bewust werd dat ze geen ruimte in beslag namen, maar dat ik ze zelf deze ruimte gaf, gebeurde er iets wat ik hier meerdere malen “verzwakking” heb genoemd. Ik merkte dat ik ze kon verzwakken om mijn ervaring de ruimte te geven.

Dat ik mij hier zoveel bezig houd met het postmodernisme, heeft te maken met een herkenning in wat ik daar zie. Daar zie ik ook een verzwakking of een relativering van imponerende grote verhalen die gewelddadig op individuele ervaringen kunnen drukken. Ook het postmodernisme wil de weg vrij maken voor diversiteit. Maar diversiteit is misschien een mooie doelstelling op een politieke agenda of in het sociale verkeer, voor mij persoonlijk is het niet genoeg. Ik wil dat er ruimte komt voor mijn ervaring van mijn verlangen naar liefde. Dit verlangen motiveert mij om op zoek te gaan naar de ander.

Ik kom er nu achter dat dit ook mijn motivatie is om tegengas te geven als er weer nieuwe grote verhalen opduiken. Dit merk ik bij Boele”s koninkrijkverhaal en dit merk ik op Johan’s site over emerging churches en de verhalen die hij daar voorstelt. Mijn reacties aldaar zijn vooral gemotiveerd vanuit mijn verlangen om de ruimte vrij te stellen van mijn ervaring van mijn verlangen naar liefde. Dit vind geen vervulling in de “ik-het sfeer” van het verhaal, het naratieve. Dit vraagt om presentie van de ander in de ik-jij sfeer.

Vandaar ook mijn sympathie voor Martin Buber’s “ik en jij”. Deze wordt gemotiveerd vanuit mijn drive om mijn verlangen naar liefde te bevrijden. Een verlangen wat zich voor mij niet laat zien in de “ik-hij sfeer” waar beelden en theorieën gangbaar zijn en de ervaring van de ander en het andere per definitie afwezig is. Liefde speelt zich in mijn ervaring af in de ik-jij sfeer, de directe ervaring van de ander. En mijn allergie naar ik-hij of ik-het komt misschien wel voort uit mijn wantrouwen dat dit een surrogaat is die nooit de ik-jij relatie kan vervangen. En surrogaat lijkt me dan weer een bedreiging voor mijn verlangen naar liefde. Maar dat is misschien te overgevoelig van mij… Misschien hebben verhalen wel een evocatieve functie om de ik-jij beleving op te roepen of creeren ze een decor waarop de ik-jij relatie zich kan afspelen. Maar dan vind ik het wel zo pastoraal om de verhalen bewust een achtergrondfunctie te geven. Een decor wat het perspectief kan verhelderen door diepte aan te brengen, maar ook juist kan zorgen dat de aandacht wordt gevestigd op de voorgrond die “er UIT springt” omdat het beweegt ten opzicht van een stilstaande achtergrond.

Mijn verlangen naar liefde is kwetsbaar en heeft niet alleen een intellectuele “vijand” – die ik met intellectuele “wapens” bestrijd – maar heeft ook een emotionele “vijand”, die zich veel moeilijker laat bestrijden.
Mijn verlangen naar liefde komt niet alleen tevoorschijn wanneer het imponerende van de grote verhalen en de drukkende dogma’s is verdwenen. Het “moeten-zijn” van de metafysica, het “moeten-doen” van de ethiek en zelfs het “moeten-geloven” van de theologie waar ik mij tegen verzet… Veel moeilijker kan ik mij verzetten tegen de emotionele barrieres die mij het zicht ontnemen op mijn verlangen naar liefde.

Zoals gezegd: verlangens zijn een kwetsbare aangelegenheid. Was het Salomo niet die in zijn Spreuken zei, dat een langgerekt hopen het hart ziek maakt. Verlangens die niet worden bevredigd, verlangens die worden gefrustreerd of onderdrukt, worden op een gegeven moment ontkent omdat de pijn van de niet-vervulling ondraaglijk kan worden. Met het verlangen naar liefde is dit volgens mij niet anders. Verslaving, verdoving, vervanging, surrogaat hebben volgens mij veel te maken met de ontkenning van mijn verlangen naar liefde. Maar ook angst, boosheid, cynisme lijken mij terug te voeren op mijn verlangen naar liefde. Om deze onder ogen te zien en bewust de weg terug te gaan in de richting van mijn verlangen naar liefde is voor mij een ervaring die zeer “genezend” is geworden. Genezend heeft hier veel te maken met heilzaam waarin het woord heel zit. Mijn verlangen naar liefde is datgene wat een eenheid geeft in mijn doen en laten en in mijn denken en voelen. Het maakt me heel. Mijn verlangen naar liefde is ook datgene wat mij verbind met mijn omgeving. Niet mijn denken verbindt mij met mijn omgeving, zoals ik soms geneigd ben te denken in mijn dwaasheid, maar mijn verlangen naar liefde kan mij verbinden met de ander. Als ik mij tenminste niet laat belemmeren door mijn angst. Mijn angst maakt me afstandelijk en cynisch. Ook mijn humor kan ondergeschikt zijn aan mijn angst om de kwetsbaarheid van mijn verlangen onder ogen te zien. Dat is voor mij immers een spannende zaak.

Bij mij heeft ook het het boek van Marcel Moring (Het grote verlangen) een belangrijke rol gespeeld om op het spoor van mijn verlangen te komen. Ik weet niet eens meer precies waar het boek over gaat. Ik kan me alleen nog de relatie tussen twee broers herinneren, maar wat ik me nog wel herinner, is mijn bewustwording van de rol van mijn verlangens. Ik zat toen in een fase waar ik niet meer durfde te verlangen en dat ik mij daar niet eens bewust van was.

Mijn verlangen naar liefde is voor mij dus zo belangrijk geworden dat ik op mijn hoede ben voor grote verhalen en hun imponerende uitwerking op mij. Het gegeven dat ik mij soms nog steeds geimponeerd voel als er harde dogma’s en grote verhalen worden verkondigd, geeft aan dat er nog vrees is en ik mij bedreigd voel in mijn prive-ruimte waarin ik mijn verlangens ervaar. De volmaakte liefde zal deze vrees kunnen verdrijven.

Daarover zegt Anselm Grun juist dat er binnenin ons een ruimte is waarin er geen bedreiging hoeft te zijn. Een ruimte waarin ons verlangen naar liefde veilig is en waar ook de liefde mag worden ervaren van God die in ons hart is gekomen. Er is een plek in ons waarin we veilig zijn tegenover het imponerende geweld van de grote verhalen. Grote verhalen zijn ook groot omdat we ze zelf zo groot maken. Daarin heeft het postmodernisme mij geleerd om te relativeren. Daarin leert de zen-meester zijn leerling “if you find your Buddha, kill your Buddha”. Alleen is daar geen antwoord te vinden op mijn persoonlijk verlangen naar liefde. Dit persoonlijke verlangen naar liefde heeft bij mij een antwoord gekregen in een ervaring met een levende God. Dit kan ik niet ander zien. Een ervaring waarin ikzelf werd gezien en waarin een God van liefde Zijn ‘tedere’ aanwezigheid in mijn ervaring bracht en mij verzekerde dat Hij er altijd was en er altijd voor mij zal zijn. Dat was een machtige ervaring.

Deze ervaring is voor mij een begin geworden om dit verlangen waar het allemaal mee begon te blijven koesteren. En ik merk dat dit verlangen kan blijven bestaan als ik mij richt op de liefde.

Rob Haster vroeg mij in een vorige reactie om liefde te omschrijven. Daar heb ik wat stamelende woorden geschreven. Liefde is voor mij mijn ervaring van mijn verlangen naar liefde en het antwoord wat ik daarop kreeg in mijn ervaring. Mijn verlangen naar liefde heeft alles te maken met vertrouwen waarin het veilig kan bestaan en bij afwezigheid van de liefde wordt ook de hoop een werkelijke troost. Geloof hoop en liefde, maar het meest van deze is de liefde….

Religieus zonder religie betekent voor mij dan ook verlangen zonder imponerend verhaal. Weer terug naar mijn verlangen, het verlangen wat ik deel met mensen om me heen en hopelijk ook met jou als je dit leest.

“Mijn verlangen naar liefde is mijn lege hand die ik open ophoud naar de God van de liefde”

This photo taken early yesterday morning fits my mood which is more reflective than active.  Since it is harvest time, my allergies are in high gear leaving me with little energy for being active.  Even being reflective is reduced to slow motion.  The photo was taken in my living room; just a hint of green with bands of shadow and light, lots of shadow.

Thinking comes in bits and spurts and I wonder about this process of blogging.  Is this really an act of communication?  Is there any real communication happening?  Of course, simply asking myself that question sent me to my book shelves where I went in search of Martin Buber in order to see what he had to say:

There is genuine dialogue – no matter whether spoken or silent – where each of the participants really has in mind the other or others in their present and particular being and turns to them with the intention of establishing a living mutual relation between himself and them. (Martin Buber, Between Man and Man, 1947, p. 37)

Is this happening here?  Do I write to myself only?  Or, do I put these words here “knowing” that you are listening, aware of your presence?  Is there a real intention of establishing and/or maintaining a “living mutual relation” between myself and you?  I do know that I write knowing you are there.  Some of you I know by name, some I don’t.  At least one of you is also known in the face-to-face world.  I write knowing you are listening.  Sometimes I get surprised when you respond with comments.  Why?  Well, at times it does seem as though I might be talking to myself and that this is a sad excuse for engaging in more face-to-face dialogues.

The problem with face-to-face dialogues, for me, is the problem of finding someone who would willingly listen to these words.  Topics of the weather, the harvest, sports and perhaps even politics are safe enough and allow me to connect in the face-to-face world.  However, the notion of philosophy or psychology as topics is out of the question.  I am different enough without getting in the faces of my community with the depth of that difference.  So, it is here where I find true freedom to speak.  It is here that I find an occasional “other” who changes the monologues into authentic dialogue.  And so, I blog on.

I’m reading Martin Buber on utopia (Paths in Utopia, translated by R.F.C. Hull, New York: Macmillan, 1950), which is interesting, but a little disheartening as well. In gist, he is reviewing the contributions to socialist theory of the “utopian socialists,” and looking to relate their ideas to those of Marx and the Marxists. One of his central points is the distinction between “social” phenomena, the development of “organic” social forms that sustain communal social relations between people, and “political” phenomena, or means — the State understood as a coercive instrument, revolution understood as extra-statal coercion or violence, but as an essentially political practice.

I find this disheartening, because it seems to me that the distinction between “social” and “political” phenomena is ultimately artificial. I have thought this for a long time, and remain convinced that unless the fundamental, ubiquitous, essentially human character of politics is recognized and appreciated, people will waste time in futile efforts to transcend politics or segregate politics in particular spheres, and not devote the necessary time and effort to cultivating adequate and legitimate forms of politics in every sphere in which politics arises — that is, in every sphere of human life, period. Politics is inescapable, it just is supra-individual decisionmaking. The question is, how to conduct politics, in whatever context, in a way that gives up coercion and the illegitimate exercise of the many forms of force available to people, and that instead is a different form of politics, a . . . cooperative, deliberative, mutually appreciative form of politics that strikes a balance between self-limitation and self-assertion, self-denial and self-gratification?

Yes, it’s a tall order, but that doesn’t make it any less the order of the day, this one and every one.

“De liefde zoekt zichzelf niet…

1Kor13:5 (WV)

“De liefde verzwakt alle belemmeringen die echt contact met de ander in de weg staan”

Liefde zoekt niet zichzelf maar de ander. Dit lijkt me een centraal kenmerk van de liefde. Veel boeken over relaties laten zien dat we altijd weer geneigd zijn om onszelf in anderen te zoeken. Herkenning van overeenkomsten geeft dan snel het gevoel van contact of vertrouwdheid. Maar de ander ook echt als ander zien is eigenlijk onmenselijk. Levinas heeft dit zover mogelijk in onze beleving laten landen. De oneindige ander is voor hem een centraal thema in zijn boeken. In de tweede wereldoorlog was het immers – volgens Levinas o.a. – weer gebleken dat mensen (de Nazi’s) op zoek waren naar hetzelfde soort mensen. Al het afwijkende was niet welkom en moest zelfs worden vernietigd.

Het andere uiterste is dus de liefde die juist niet zichzelf zoekt, maar de ander en deze ander als ander wilt respecteren. Dat lijkt een onmenselijk opgave. We projecteren er op los en drukken onze beelden die we uit onze ervaringen hebben opgedaan naar hartelust op onze beleving in het hier en nu. Als de ander zich ‘laat zien’, dan zijn we altijd weer geneigd om deze nieuwe indrukken te verminken met onze eigen schema’s, oordelen en emoties.

In de psychologie is hier uitvoerig over nagedacht. Cognitieve dissonantie is een psychologische theorie van Festinger die het proces  probeert te beschrijven waarin overtuigingen zwaarder wegen dan wat we in onze waarneming op ons af krijgen. Piaget gebruikte hier weer andere woorden voor (assimileren en accomoderen) en Perls had een meer dynamisch model waarin conflueren en deflecteren elkaar afwisselen als respectievelijk samenvloeien waarin projecties en introjecties in eerste instantie het beeld vertroebelen en vervolgens deflectie kan leiden tot het proces: dit hoort bij jou en dit hoort bij mij, zodat ik de ander en mezelf recht kan doen. Ik ben ik en jij bent jij!

Martin Buber had deze vorm van ‘pseudo-contact’ al rond 1930 aangeduid als een “ik-hij relatie”. Hierin is de ander per definitie afwezig en leven wij met de beelden van de ander in onze herinnering. Echter als we deze beelden ook laten heersen als de ander aanwezig is komen we niet tot de ik-jij relatie die nodig is om de ander echt te zien als ander en te komen tot een waarachtige ontmoeting. Buber past dit ook toe op onze Godservaring of liever onze Godsverduistering die veelal een gevolg is dat we meer met onze beelden van God leven dan dat we met God in de ik-jij relatie leven. En dat is weer te herkennen in Nietzsches “dood van God”. Maar dat uitstapje voert wat ver…

Levinas introduceert hierbij een ethisch perspectief die ons behoed voor onze ‘geweldadigheid’ om onze medemens als ‘hetzelfde’ te zien. Door deze ethiek van de oneindige ander worden wij behoed om de ander in zijn andersheid te ‘vermoorden’. Dit lijkt me een andere manier om veiligheid in een relatie te ontwikkelen. Een veiligheid die voorwaarde is voor contact.

Is een mens wel tot echt contact in staat als contact ook betekent dat we de ander recht doen als ander?

Volgens mij kan het perspectief van de verzwakking ons helpen om onze beelden en vooringenomenheid te relativeren in het contact met de ander. Wanneer we in het contact met de ander onze nieuwe indrukken bewust meenemen in de ‘hermeneutische cirkel van onze interpretatie’, zal bij verzwakking van onze beelden en vooringenomenheid er een corrigerende werking uitgaan van de nieuwe indrukken die de ander ‘laat zien’. 

Dit lijkt erg vanzelfsprekend misschien, maar volgens mij kan in deze cirkel vanuit het perspectief van de liefde ook een ‘zorgende’ werking uitgaan die zichzelf niet zoekt, snel is om te horen (en traag om te spreken/oordelen) en dus geduld heeft en alle andere kenmerken die we bijvoorbeeld in 1Kor13 kunnen lezen. Het ethische perspectief van Levinas  lijkt me tot op zekere hoogte behulpzaam, maar vraagt volgens mij om een meer ‘dynamisch’ voor-rationeel ‘kader’ van de liefde. Dan vind ik zelf mijn inspiratie in het christelijk perspectief van de liefde die relationele werkelijkheid wordt in ons leven door de inwoning van Gods geest. Iets wat in onze beleving kan ‘landen’ voordat we nog maar ‘denken’ over de ander en over onzelf. 

Maar omdat angst nog steeds een factor van belang speelt in mijn beleving die mij drijft naar mijn veilige beelden en mijn zelfbeschermingsreacties wordt liefde een blijvende ‘opgave’ in de ontmoeting met de ander. 

Hoe deze liefde in mijn beleving gestalte kan krijgen is voor mij een praktische vraag.  Geholpen door de relativering van het postmodernisme en vooral geinspireerd door de monastieke traditie kom ik tot ‘heilzame’ herinterpretaties van bijbelteksten. Lectio divina maakt bijbellezen voor mij tot een beleving die meer is dan begrijpen en innerlijk zwijgen komt hierbij erg overeen met wat ik hier verzwakking van onze beelden noem. Ook de christelijke meditatieve beweging van John Main, die deze praktijk weer opdiept uit de aloude christelijke traditie vind ik hierin zeer behulpzaam. Maar daarover later meer…

Zo wordt de liefde niet alleen beperkt in ons doen (en laten), maar ontvangen in ons centrum vanwaaruit alle uitgangen des levens zijn (Spreuken). Het centrum wat in de bijbel vaak ‘hart’ wordt genoemd en waarvan Rom 5:5 zegt dat daarin Gods liefde is ‘gestort’. Een liefde die ons tot toewijding brengt en onze denken vernieuwt (Rom 12).

Zo kan de liefde tot een kracht worden (dynamiek/dynamos) die ons omvormt naar het beeld waarin ik Jezus meen te herkennen.

(one in a series of Strictly Opinion posts)

In June of 2006 Jay Rosen (journalism professor at NYU) punched out a blog piece for The Huffington Post under the title “The People Formerly Known as the Audience”  originally aired on his own blog PressThink, which took  Dan Gillmor’s (Director, Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at ASU) “former audience” idea from the book We the Media and punctuated the point.

It includes clenched fist verbiage. Those in the forefront of a revolution often need to express a point with an exclamation point. Now that a lot of the dust has settled – and the point itself has been settled – there can be no real question in November of 2009 that media communication needs to be a two-way street, irrespective of who initiates that communication, it seems appropriate to invite consideration of the basis for relationship/interaction models for now and the future . 

The movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind  demonstrates that music is quite literally a universal form of communication. With this in mind, I want to give some examples from the world of music to make a point about media communication and “audience” participation.

I have a passion for music, in most all its myriad forms, from tabla (type of drums played in India, more about these later) to banjo, from classical harp to jazz flugelhorn. In my youth I was very immersed in the American folk music revival of the time. Later I was part of a singing group called “The Evening’s Entertainment”  with gigs ranging from charity events to nursing homes (not the big time to be sure but rewarding nonetheless). As a singer/songwriter I sent a demo tape into the great Nashville vortex never to be heard again.  I have been on  the stage and in the stands and it is from this perspective that I want to review the proceedings.

Speaking of folk music, when Pete Seeger, the folk music/activist icon ”took” the stage, he never for a moment construed his goal as – be quiet and listen vis-a-vis those who sat or stood before him; his modus operandi has always been – get everybody singin’ – his intent is to ensure that everyone in the hall/on the shoreline, wherever, participates in the moment, creating a collective “experience” which by its very nature moves mind and emotion. This isn’t a just found “theory of practice”, it is an approach that comes naturally to a natural-born communicator who has been around the horn.  The idea of participation of this sort is nothing new.

Many “primitive” types of music involve “call and response” in which one participant initiates a musical statement and this is answered by other participants. This has evolved into very sophisticated forms – but it all relates back to this basic one. There is the traditional jazz ensemble in which each instrument takes a turn with a lead solo of specified length, improvising – everyone knows the “changes” (the chord progressions and structures for a particular piece) - and  “working around” the melody produces sometimes very innovative and novel results. In classical music, somewhat the same process is achieved through “variations on a theme”. 

This musical interlude has been presented to show that, just as in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind  an optimal way to generate communication – given varying circumstances and the desired outcome -can be achieved when there is a sincere motivation and commitment to do so.

What is touted as new  is the application of these musically common approaches to another form of communication – but everybody is not in fact always equal in the endeavor. There are Andrea Bocelli moments in the world of journalism for instance, which warrant just ”listening to”. To suggest we are all in this together is fine, but sometimes we – the people formerly known as the audience – can contribute most effectively by just clapping our hands in time to the music. The term “audience” is not yet ready to be relegated to the archaic. The audience defines itself and its role. An audience, as such, can be very much involved in any given instance. The performer  requires an audience as much as the other way around – if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? This is a well-known philosophical inquiry and applies in this case. Speaking of philosophy,  there is another important concept that bears on the  nature of participants and communication, that springs from this discipline.  For Martin Buber the eminent philosopher, the idea of “dialogue” is an essential building block of community, and involves communication in which relationship and connection are achieved between the participants. It involves having regard for both self and the other. It is the difference between talking with someone and talking to someone.

Back to the tabla drums of India as mentioned earlier. The two tabla drums are played in combination to produce very complex rhythmic and melodic patterns which are steeped in long-standing tradition, and passed on from tabla master to disciple. (tabla example). Each of the two drums produces its own unique set of sounds and played together the blending of these sounds is equally unique. The tabla drums are a metaphor for any form of what might be termed interconnected communication, including media communication as it is evolving. This concept of interconnected communication stems from collaborative method theory which provides, along with the concepts of music and dialogue referred to here , an excellent basis for considering what is possible with media. In the end, the goal is that each ”actor” brings their own value to the final result produced by the interconnection. Bravo!

http://communicatorsandcommunications.com/2009/11/30/amazing-media-audience-defines-itself-and-its-role/