HSRodgers One Lifetime is not Enough

2 – One Lifetime – More Autobiographies .htm

Philosophy

The line between Science and Philosophy is fuzzy to say the least.  If something doesn’t make sense, I think we should ignore it, but first we should look into it.

Philosophy In The Flesh: The Embodied Mind And Its Challenge To Western Thought by Geo Lakoff and Mark Johnson – 1999 – Basic Books – NYC

I bought this book second-hand at the big Barnes and Noble book store in north Jersey.  It appears to be exactly what I want – an up-to-date, clearly written introduction to Philosophy.

One thing that becomes clear is that I have been ‘doing’ philosophy right along – I just didn’t know it.  It’s kind of like the man who was delighted to learn that he had been speaking prose all his life.

Geo Lakoff is Prof of Linguistics at USC Berkeley.  Mark Johnson is Head and Prof of Philosophy at the Univ of Oregon.

Basic questions:  What does it mean to be human?  How is knowledge possible?  Where do moral values come from?

Part 1 – How the Embodied Mind Challenges the Western Philosophical Tradition – Chap I – Intro:  Who are we?  Opening section: How Cognitive Science Reopens Central Philosophical Questions.

Another Autobiography

Here I Stand: My Struggle for a Christianity of Integrity, Love and Equality by John Shelby Spong, Episcopal Bishop of Newark, NJ for 20 years -  1999 – Harper – San Francisco

I requested this book from the Bookmobile several months ago.  I suppose they couldn’t find a copy in the USA, so they bought their own copy.  Having put them to so much trouble, the least I can do is to comment on it.

His is an interesting story, but emotional problems were not a part of it.  His wife was an emotional basket case, but he does not elaborate on those problems.

He reminds me of Thomas Paine in that he tears the Christian religion apart ruthlessly.  I don’t think that is necessary.

He has been reviled by the Christian Right, which in itself is enough to make him a hero to me.

Peter Singer – another Hero

From an article by Harold Shapiro.  Re Peter Singer

“In a letter of his own to the Wall Street Journal, Professor Singer notes that significant advances in medical technology require us to think in new ways about how we should make critical medical decisions about life and death. "Our increased medical powers mean that we can no longer run away from the question by pretending that we are 'allowing nature to take its course.' In a modern intensive care unit, it is doctors, not nature, who make the decisions." Professor Amy Gutmann, the former dean of the faculty at Princeton and current director of the University Center for Human Values, notes that throughout his career, "Professor Singer has remained deeply committed to arguing for the reduction of suffering in the world (through the avoidance of famine and the humane treatment of all sentient beings), the ethical treatment of animals, and the improvement of the environment for the benefit of all.  He also has found time to reflect on what it means to live a good life, reviving the time-honored idea that turning away from self-centeredness and towards the urgent needs of others makes for a satisfying life."

So Peter Singer is another hero of mine.

Geo Buttrick is of my father’s generation, but his monuments still live.  I use the Interpreter’s Bible frequently.

To God Be the Glory: Sermons in Honor of Geo A Buttrick ed by Theo A Gill – 1973 – Abington – Nashville, New York

Geo Buttrick was born in 1892, was ordained in 1915, and became pastor of the Madison Ave Presbyterian Church in 1927, where he served for 28 years.  He was a prolific author, producing eight books by 1959.  He became a professor at Union Theological Seminary, and later at Harvard.  Also at Garrett Theo Sem and at Vanderbilt Div School.  His most impressive achievement that I see every day is the great twelve volume Interpreter’s Bible of which he was editor.

At seventy-nine he had accepted an important new professorship, and was still writing profusely.  The book To God Be the Glory honors Geo on his eightieth birthday.  Ernest Campbell, one of the contributors, was one of my professors at Pgh. He was for many years, pastor of Riverside, (I should say principle preacher.  They had over 200 ordained professionals in that church.)

Gill closes his intro with the thought ‘Eighty years are not nearly enough.‘

I just found this article [2/14/02] National Geographic Mag – Nov 2000 – The Art of Being Luis Marden by Cathy Newman  –  p 83 Closing remarks:  “We may chart our life.  We may sail for distant ports, finding fresh wonder in the far reaches of the world.  Eventually, the rudder slips from our hand.  Time weakens us.  Fate overtakes us.  We drift, becalmed.  These days Luis Marden lives in a nursing home.”  “One lifetime isn’t enough,” Marden once said.  “Just when you start to learn, its time to go.” 

Ecclesiastes

The book of Ecclesiastes is the story of another man with a problem.  You decide what his problem is or was.

Ecclesiastes

as a Dra­matic Read­ing

The words of the old philoso­pher, a son of David, King in Jerusalem.

What are we striv­ing for in this life?  Is life really worth liv­ing?  We all leave this life with nothing.  What do we gain by all our efforts – all our work? 

The uni­verse goes on for ever – time stands still for it – the sun has been rising in the east and setting in the west since time be­gan – the wind has been blow­ing – the streams have been run­ning – and time is not consumed – but what has been accom­plish­ed?  Not­hing!  Nothing ever really changes.

It is into this scene that we are born – only to die after a fleet­ing moment.

I, the old philosopher, could have been king over Israel in Jeru­salem had things been different, but my youth was spent searching for wisdom – trying to learn why things are the way they are.

But I never saw a human activity that was worth the effort.  In fact, human effort usually pro­duced more unhappiness than happiness.

In time I lost my taste for being king, in part because I be­came convinced that there was noth­ing constructive a king could do.  Most kings were driven by pride and greed to an end that was essential­ly destruc­tive.  They didn't realize this, of course, but I did – and I wanted no part of it.

I was a prince in the royal palace, with the opportunity to indulge myself in every way con­ceivable – and I tried them all.  Wine, women, and song, they said, provid­ed every satisfaction a man could want – but not for me.  I had all of these, but they weren't enough.  Surely, they were­n't what a man was made for.

I wanted to do something construc­tive with my life.  My father put me in charge of pub­lic works – I built parks and gardens – orchards and vine­yards – a huge water-works for irriga­tion.  I spent many years on these pro­jects, and I do believe I accom­plished something – but even so, in the loneliness of my mind, I could never forget that it would all turn back to desert when I died – and die I would – perhaps a year – perhaps a day – and then the still-unanswered question, 'What was the gain?'

               I didn't mind dying.

                                            Or did I?

I thought of myself as a cut above the aver­age – more wise – more riches – more ability – and yet here it was that I had to die the same as that ignorant clod who tended the vines.

And when we died we would turn back to the same dust – and the memories of us would decay as fast as our bodies.

And all the time there was this nag­ging awareness that would not go away – the aware­ness that my life was as nothing in this world.  So, what was I liv­ing for?  Why was I working so hard?

Another thing that vexed me was seeing those lazy nephews of mine lying around doing nothing.  One of my brothers would be king one day and these shallow leach­es would be the new princes.

These lazy worthless boys would one day inherit it all.  I hated to think of it – I didn't want to think of it, but my mind seemed to be drawn to this and to every other vexing thought that kept me awake at night.

I didn't have to, but I did work hard at the work I had cho­sen.  Why then, could­n't I rest at night like those useless boys?  My mind tor­ments me with these jealousies, even though my ratio­nal mind tells me that these use­less boys are doing as well as any­one can in this life.

If they find pleasure in eat­ing, drink­ing, and wenching, isn't that as good as any other human activity?

Supposedly, the man who pleases God will find pleasure in this life – the sin­ner will find only sweat and tears – but I haven't found this to be true.  God puts us here and we find what we find.

Life is just one self-defeating activity after another – each act nullifies the preced­ing act.

But we go thru the motions as though we were making prog­ress.  If you came here expecting to make a difference, consider the following sched­ule – you are al­ready locked into it – you cannot escape it:

There is a time to be born and a time to die,

A time to plant and a time to harvest,

A time to kill and a time to heal,

A time to destroy and a time to build,

A time to weep and a time to laugh,

A time to mourn and a time to rejoice,

A time to scatter stones and a time to gath­er stones,

A time to copulate and a time to abstain,

A time to seek and a time to lose,

A time to keep and a time to dis­card,

A time to tear and a time to re­pair,

A time to speak and a time to listen,

A time to love and a time to hate,

A time for war and a time for peace.

After you have done all this, what have you accomplished?  Was it worth the effort?  This is the life that God has laid out for you.

Oh! At first, everything is beautiful.  Hey! Its great to be here!  But then you realize that you will be here for only an in­stant in time, and that that instant is taken up with the mundane activities just de­scribed.  We keep so busy with trivialities that we have no time to discover the uni­verse.  Not that we could do any­thing about it if we did have time.

The end of the dramatic reading.

The following was incorporated into the sermon “On Becoming a More Spiritual Person”. 

The Church Responds

Is the emptiness that Ecclesi­astes feels, unique?  Is life really like that?  What then does the Church have to say to a per­son like Ecclesiastes?  What is the good news of the Gospel?

We might say something like this:  “You, Sir, have discovered the futility of making personal fulfillment your goal.  It seems that the more you seek after happi­ness, the more it eludes you.

You have discovered the emptiness of trying to love and serve yourself.  You discovered this quickly in your life because you were born rich, of an indulgent father, who provided all your material wants.  So, you found that, even when you had every­thing that could possibly provide pleasure for you, you still had a nagging uneasiness that person­al pleasure was not the principal reason for being – that the human was created for a nobler purpose.”

We teach this (the Christian Faith) because we believe that it is the will of God, and experience over the centuries shows that it works.  Uncountable numbers of people have testified that it works for them.  Most of us have found that it works for us.  Not our will, but thy will be done.

Not only did Ecclesiastes appear to be unconcerned about being righteous – that is, ac­ceptable to God – apparently he did not feel that he should try to maintain a close personal rela­tionship to God.

This commentary is an inquiry into this situation.  Is happiness important?  If so, how can we find it?  Is the spiritual life a real possibility?  If so, what is the spiritual life?

Then he sees that within this flow of time, man is born to flourish in the morning and perish in the evening.  We see as we study Ecclesiastes, that he saw the shortness and futility of life.  Other lines from Ps 39, Illustrate this same theme.

History

How did other ancient Hebrews feel about their One Lifetime?

The following is from Ps 39:  RSV

It is a ‘lament’ and a major theme of the OT.

4-6 “Lord, let me know my end,

and what is the measure of my days;

let me know how fleeting my life is!

Behold, thou hast made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing in thy sight.

Surely, every man stands as a mere breath!  Surely, man goes about as a shadow!  Surely, for naught they are in turmoil; man heaps up, and knows not who will gather!

7.  And now, Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in thee.

11c. Surely, every man is a mere breath!

12b.  For I am thy passing guest, a sojourner like all my fathers.”

This thought is repeated, at least in part, in other places in the OT.

Fault-finding

After a lifetime of fault-finding, I can testify that a major problem for Ecclesiastes was fault-finding.  This world is full of faulty people, and faulty products.  If we allow ourselves to dwell on or even think about these faults, then we are going to find ourselves upset about ‘situations that we cannot control’, and a whole cloud of negative thinking is going to intrude and disrupt our equanimity – our tranquility. 

Ecclesiastes was a very rational man – his logical brain was in charge, therefore he could see the implausibility of some of the proverbs he had to learn.  We have no record of the proverb he is refuting, but we can visualize it.  It is only since the days of seminary that we pastors have learned to keep an escape route open.  Nothing 'always' happens, or 'never' hap­pens.  So the original probably said, with­out qualification, 'The race is to the swift, the battle to the strong.'  One exception proves that such an unqualified statement is wrong.  So we have this observation:  Most (note that I qualify my statement) biblical proverbs are not qualified (do not allow for exceptions).  This is the way the Hebrew mind worked in those days.

Ecclesiastes saw these exceptions.

Part 3.

3 – One Lifetime – Still More

There Is a Dance in the Old Dame Yet by Harriet Robey – 1982 – G K Hall – Boston

From the Jacket:  “This remarkable book chronicles Harriet Robey’s life from ages 75 to 80.  During that time Robey’s husband died, she retired from her job as a psychiatric social worker, endured crippling back pain and suffered encroaching blindness.  But Robey did not want to spend her remaining years worthlessly.  Within the ‘Prison of Old Age’ she found a new freedom.”

(It is a measure of the place culture has in our lives that I do not recognize the name ‘Robey’ as Anglo-Saxon.)

p 8 – After her husband’s funeral and everyone leaves, “And then as if struck, I see everything brilliantly and horribly.  I am now alone.  Of Alec and our life together, nothing is left but ashes.  I am only half a person; the other half of me is in that urn.”

P 11 – At the age of 39 she ‘went into psychoanalytic treatment’ . . . ‘my clan does not talk about feelings’.

“I was very depressed from unknown causes.”

P 12 “ Once well into analysis my blood and brain were stirred to a life they had never known before.”

I notice in this book, and in Gomes, how much of the ‘Journal’ there is in them.   None of us have a point to make that doesn’t include our day-to-day lives – our ‘Journal’.

Also, I see that in our books, most of us (old-timers) are focusing primarily on ourselves – ‘This is the way I found it.’  If we mention what others have found, it is mostly to confirm our own observations.  These are very personal books.

Regarding the idea of ‘culture’, she mentions her ‘clan’ and her ‘tribe’.  Of her marriage, she says that both she and her husband were ‘of the same general social, cultural, intellectual, educational, religious, financial, ethnic, and ethical backgrounds.’

P 70 – “After the age of five, I took on a powerful conscience and became shy, timid, and too good.”  See Karen Horney.

“I was almost forty before I found I had a tiger, tiger burning bright within my preciousness.”

‘It occurred one day in an analytic session.  I was rigid and restless and the doctor remarked, “You’re pretty knotted-up with anger and hate, aren’t you?”  I hit the ceiling.  “I’ve never hated anyone in my life.  Never!  I’m never angry!”

“No?”

There was a long silence, full of implications.  Then I burst into tears.’

P 210 – Doing her 4th step inventory at the pain clinic, “For the first time since early childhood I had stopped trying to be accepted by being good.”

‘Without self-consciousness I now became a member of our community [her support group].’

Re: the entry from p 210 above:  This is characteristic of Karen Horney’s Compliant Person.  I, among many, have had this problem.  I can relate to Harriet in many other ways.

In this connection see Kushner:

How Good Do We Have to Be?

A New Understanding of Guilt and Forgiveness by Harold Kushner – 1966 – Little Brown and Co.  Boston, NYC, Toronto, London

ISBN Topics:  1. Eden.  2. Good and Evil.  3. Bible.  OT.  Genesis III [prob Chap 3] – criticism, interpretation, etc.  4. Self-esteem – Religious aspects. 5. Perfection – Religious aspects. 6. Guilt – Religious aspects.                   7. Forgiveness – Religious aspects.      8. Religious addiction – controversial literature.

P 14  “But the illusion that we can control events if we do everything right, and that we can make people love us, if we do things right, and that we can guarantee happy endings by deserving them is an illusion, and a very destructive one.  No matter how much we love our parents, and no matter how much money we spend on their medical care, they will grow old and die, and we will torture ourselves unnecessarily by thinking we might have prevented it. (especially if there is a corner in our brain that remembers a time when we might have wished them harm).  No matter how hard we try to be perfect spouses and perfect parents, some marriages will die of natural causes despite our best efforts, and some children will grow up to disappoint us.  We just make the situation worse by hitting our heads against the wall and repeating the words “If only I had done something differently.”

P 3  “Even as a child I was bothered by the biblical story of the Garden of Eden.  A God who punished people so severely for breaking one arbitrary rule was not a God I wanted to believe in, especially since the story seemed to suggest that Adam and Eve had no knowledge of what good and bad meant before they broke the rule.”

HSR – Strangely enough, I never had this problem.  I don’t remember the effect bible stories had on me as a child.  I do know that evolution made sense and that early on in college, I became a scientist.  (This is of course, much more than a career choice – it is a mindset – it is a way of looking at everything.)

I don’t recall exactly when I became aware of the importance of etiology in the bible, probably soon after I began to study AS Peake. Anyway, all I saw in the Garden of Eden story was answers to questions:  Where did people come from?  Why do men have to work so hard?  Why do women suffer during childbirth?, etc.  It never occurred to me that this was a picture of how God was.

I think this situation is related to my being a scientist:  As one of my theology professors said, “You have to think theology all of the time.”  I didn’t then and still don’t.

Kushner sees the story of ‘The Fall’ as that of the human’s change from animal with no knowledge of good and evil, and no knowledge of morality.

I want to incorporate comments from and on Kushner in my new book, but I am not sure exactly how it wants to be organized.

I see that my last Journal entry is related to this topic, therefore it should be incorporated in this neighborhood.

Let’s put it right here for the nonce.

I am sure there are many ‘forest managers’ who think a ‘wilderness’ is perfect.  I disagree, but I do want to learn to see the beauty of the wilderness.

How much work do we create for ourselves when we say, “It would be better if it was this other way.”

So also!  Why can’t we accept the life we were dealt?  Why do we always presume that there would have been a better life ‘only if’?  Why do we always assume that if we could ‘prune the branches’ and ‘clear away the rubbish’ that we would have perfect lives?

Does this mean that I should never do anything unless I can justify it?  Perish forbid!  The human is exempted from all restraints.  ‘I can do anything I want to.”  Except that I have to justify my actions to myself.  “Was I right?”  (Does this mean, “Am I justified?”)

This is not exactly what Kushner is talking about.  All Kushner did was to remind me of this thought.

Kushner’s closing Paragraph:

“But at the end, if we are brave enough to love, if we are strong enough to forgive, if we are generous enough to rejoice in another’s happiness, and if we are wise enough to know that there is enough love to go around for us all, then we can achieve a fulfillment that no other living creature will ever know.  We can re-enter Paradise.”

A major theme of Kushner is that we are not perfect, and that we do ourselves and others a disservice when we expect perfection.

P 9  “. . . a lot of misery could be traced to this one mistaken notion:  We need to be perfect for people to love us and we forfeit that love if we ever fall short of perfection.”

The Last Gift of Time by Carolyn G Heilbrun – 1997 – Ballantine Books – NYC

Carolyn compares her life at 70 to that of Doris Grumbach in ‘Coming Into the Endzone’.  She says that for Doris, on reaching her seventh birthday. There was a ‘cry of despair and disillusion.  She hated her aging body, and feared the streets of her city, she bemoaned the death of many beloved friends.  She felt that the better part of her life had passed.’

Carolyn then compares their two similar lives.  What had made the difference?  This book is interesting, but it is as different from mine as it is from Grumbach’s.

Both Doris and Carolyn are Jews.  And even though it may sound like bias on my part, I sincerely believe that culture is everything in our lives.  Living here in Las Vegas NM, in the heart of the Spanish culture, this notion almost forces itself upon us.

Everybody takes pride in his own culture, and hates to give it up in order to be assimilated into the ‘Melting pot’.  This doesn’t mean that we can’t live together in peace and harmony, but it does mean that there will continue to be for many more generations, many separate cultures.  Culture.htm

 See also the following as regards the importance of culture.

“Immigrants Will Weaken America’s Future” by Joseph F Coates – from America Beyond 2001: Opposing Viewpoints – 1996 – Greenhaven – San Diego

Coates is described as a ‘Futurist’.  The thrust of this essay is that certain cultures within America seem to resist assimilation.  He mentions specifically the Mexican Nationals who are a major immigration problem.  He thinks that the reason they resist assimilation is that they are so close to their ‘home base’, Mexico.  Apparently, he doesn’t know that there are 10th generation Hispanics in this country who have never been, and never will be, assimilated.  It is the culture that holds them.

He mentions also the Chinese who resist assimilation – he has not yet heard about the Koreans.  I don’t know much about the other Asians, but I suspect that they will resist also.

Once again, I will stress that it is traditional for individuals to be assimilated, or at least to be able to enter into the commercial world (including entertainment), but that doesn’t mean that they have been assimilated into the ‘melting pot’.

It took a major effort to get a few African-Americans into the mainstream, but it looks like it will be OK now.

Even so there are still racists out there who cannot accept even that little.  I, for one, half believe that a major factor in the OJ Simpson trial was that the jury was afraid that if they convicted, then the Blacks would riot again, perhaps burning down more than Watts.  Look also at the Cuban Sub-culture that manifested itself during the Elian Gonzales case.

Human Destiny

I am the master of my fate – I am the captain of my soul.  Or am I?

This line is from Invictus by Henley:

The following was in Encyclopedia Britannica.  Invictus was written by Wm Ernest Henley, probably in the 1800s.   Invictus – invincible.

Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships by Eric Berne – 1964 – Ballantine Books – NYC

P 184  “The somber picture presented in Parts I and II of this book, in which human life is mainly a process of filling in time until the arrival of death, or Santa Claus, with very little choice, if any . . .

. . . there is something which transcends all classifications of behavior and that is awareness (stress mine).

. . . there is no hope for the human race, but there is hope for individual members of it.”

Berne saw a program of sorts in his patients.  It was his conviction that this program was a product of the patient’s own making.

The ‘seasons’ poem in Ecclesiastes speaks to the ‘programed’ life – your life is in your genes.  You will do what you are programed to do.

Berne Cont’d: from the Appendix

The Classification of Behavior

“At any given moment a human being is engaged in one of the following classes of behavior:

Class I – Internally Programed

Class II – Probability Programed

Class III – Socially Programed”

This book is described as: The Basic Handbook of Transactional analysis.

I had studied this book in the early 70s, but did not recall it while studying Ecclesiastes.  Even so, I may have got the idea that the ‘seasons’ poem was about the programed life from Berne.

Regarding Fatalism:  ‘They’ say ‘God knows everything – past, present and future.’  ‘God knows what is going to happen.’  Therefore the future is already established.

5 – One Lifetime – Fiction

Le Morte Darthur

Almost as soon as I got to Montajean’s in Aug 2000, I got involved in my grandson’s, (Travis) summer-reading project, Le Morte Darthur .  In reflecting on why this literature, had such an appeal for me, I realized that my new-found ability to feel was a major factor.  The Caxton rendition was a strangely moving experience for me.  Then I recalled some lines from Idylls of the King, by Tennyson, so I looked them up on the Net.  They too, were moving.  They were an emotional experience.  Hey!  This is what they mean by ‘reading for pleasure’. 

Thus, we have another good reason for getting rid of that albatross – poor emotional health.  Here is a sample – I think you will like it. 

Le Morte Darthur – Caxton Ed

It befell in the days of Uther Pendragon, when he was king of all England, and so reigned, that there was a mighty duke in Cornwall that held war against him long time. And the duke was called the Duke of Tintagil. And so by means King Uther sent for this duke, charging him to bring his wife with him, for she was called a fair lady, and a passing wise, and her name was called Igraine.

So when the duke and his wife were come unto the king, by the means of great lords they were accorded both. The king liked and loved this lady well, and he made them great cheer out of measure, and desired to have lain by her. But she was a passing good woman, and would not assent unto the king. And then she told the duke her husband, and said, I suppose that we were sent for that I should be dishonoured; wherefore, husband, I counsel you, that we depart from hence suddenly, that we may ride all night unto our own castle. And in like wise as she said so they departed, that neither the king nor none of his council were ware of their departing. All so soon as King Uther knew of their departing so suddenly, he was wonderly wroth. Then he called to him his privy council, and told them of the sudden departing of the duke and his wife.

These are the opening lines.  The book is 500 pages more or less.

I found on the Arthur Menu of The Camelot Project at the Univ of Rochester, Idylls of the King by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.  

The Death of Arthur

Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere:

'Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go?

Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?

For now I see the true old times are dead,

When every morning brought a noble chance,

And every chance brought out a noble knight.

Such times have been not since the light that led

The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh.

But now the whole Round Table is dissolved

Which was an image of the mighty world,

And I, the last, go forth companionless,

And the days darken round me, and the years,

Among new men, strange faces, other minds.'

And slowly answered Arthur from the barge:

'The old order changeth, yielding place to new,

And God fulfils himself in many ways,

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.

Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?

I have lived my life, and that which I have done

May He within himself make pure! but thou,

If thou shouldst never see my face again,

Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer

Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice

Rise like a fountain for me night and day.

For what are men better than sheep or goats

That nourish a blind life within the brain,

If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer

Both for themselves and those who call

Truly moving!

Consider this story

Think about this:  This story comes from the early French ‘romances’ –from a mind that saw in it something of value – something of interest to others.  Like other monuments, this one required the support of enthusiasts who saw the merit in it.

People had to save it, and take care of it, and promote it, and perhaps to make hand-written copies of the original manuscript.

So also, Sir Thomas Malory, an imprisoned criminal, saw the merits of the story.  He too, believed that it would interest others.  Malory elaborated on it – fleshed it out, but he was building on an idea that he believed had merit.  Two hundred years later, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, saw the story – loved it, and put it into poetry – beautiful poetry.  Not only in my opinion but also those of scholars and enthusiasts who believe it should be on the Net.

Even the enthusiasts of J F Kennedy and his life referred to that little world as ‘Camelot’.  People love this story.

What is the enduring appeal of this legend?

The answer is that it is about life – about our own experiences – but it is enhanced with the supernatural – including our belief in the basic nobility of mortal man. 

One who is truly human is going to love this story and the people in it.  He is going to relate to them and grieve at their deaths.  This story is a truly moving emotional experience, but I believe that it is more than that – I believe that it is a religious experience.  Here is humanity that transcends this world – here is humanity that enables us to believe in the spiritual world.

How did I get this far?  Thomas A Harris was a major factor in those days – before OA.

Thomas A Harris – I’m OK You’re OK – 1969 – Avon – NYC

p51 "The 10-mo old child has found that he is able to do something which grows from his own aware­ness and original thought.  This self-actual­iza­tion is the beginning of the adult."

'Self-actualization' is Horney's term.  Harris does not cite her in his index.  He may not be aware of where the term came from.

I was [and still am] very enthusiastic about HA Over­street's ‘The Mature Mind’, even considering it for The Modern Scripture. (What modern book, I asked, would be as beneficial as studying the bible?)  See:  ha_overstreet.htm

Journal – 9/30/90

HA Overstreet – The Mature Mind 1949 – WW Norton – NYC

From the blurb:  'For many years he (HAO) headed the Dept of Philosophy at CCNY…'  It is amazing to me that I missed this book in my reading.  The insight of HAO is amazing – my ignorance of it is amazing, etc.  Perhaps I saw it but dismissed it for some 'immature' reason.  I never read anything by a philosopher before.  By 1956 the book was in its 28th printing – the '538th thousand'.  Surely, well over a million readers.  What happened?  Why is the world, especially America, still so ignorant?

p15 "All children,” Diderot once observed, “are essentially criminal.  It is merely our good luck that their physical powers are still too limited to permit them to carry out their de­structiveness.”  By extension, Diderot might have said, 'All childish minds are dangerous.'  p46 'The human being is born ignorant.'  p50 'The human being is born irresponsible.' [It was only recently that I 'discovered' irresponsibility as a human failing.]  p54 'The human being is born inarticulate.'

Back to Harris:  He draws on computer analogies.

 The child of five is three persons:

The Child – recording internal events. (felt concept of life) (the Feeling Brain?)

The Parent – recording external events.  (taught concept of life) (Super Ego?)

The Adult – recording data acquired and computed thru exploration and testing.  (thought concept of life) (Thinking brain?)

"The Adult is a data-processing comput­er…Weighing the taught concepts, the felt con­cepts, and the learned concepts.  Tentatively, we might say that the Adult is an impersonal, non-emotional, evaluator.  The felt concepts must continue to be associated with the Child. They are personal and highly emotional."  The Parent seems to fit in nicely with the super ego.

In my sermon, the Three Persons are:  Feeling Brain, Thinking Brain, and Ego.  I do not have much personal experience with super ego, so it was not a major factor for me.  I am sure other people found that it was a major factor.

Harris was one of the major contributors to the founding of Transactional Analysis.  What contribution does TA make to our overall under­standing of human development?  Focusing pri­marily on the Parent, we see a non-logical reaction to a situation.  This is in contrast to the Adult, who will always react logically to a situation.  The Child also reacts non-logically to the situation, but his reaction comes from the feeling brain.

What can I tell the reader of my essay(s) that will help him understand himself and others, and to become psychologically mature?

As the term ‘Transactional Analysis’ suggests, the way to understand ourselves (and others) is to analyze our transactions (our conversational exchanges).  Especially important is to recognize the presence of the Child or the Parent in the conversation.  When is the conversation turning irrational?

The Twelve-step Programs          

I didn’t know about 12-step programs in 1975, but I did take an inventory of sorts by following Berne in What “Do You Say After You “Say Hello?  It didn’t do a whole lot of good, because I still didn’t know how to remove these short-comings. 

There are twelve steps in a 12-step program.  Having completed the Step-four Inventory, we have made great progress, but we haven’t yet arrived.  We still must get rid of the short-comings we have discovered, or we must at least learn to live with them.

The main reason that the inventory didn’t help me was because I kept seeing the faults of other people.  I was trying to remove their faults – to change them.  In OA or in any 12-step program, we keep the focus on ourselves.  We learn to avoid taking the other person’s inventory.

See:  ‘How I Was’; I describe the situation in my life that kept me from managing it. 

Journal 

Certainly, some people find the ‘golden’ years golden, but not all of us.  I for one, find the term ‘declining’ more appropriate.

Not only is my physical strength and endurance declining, but also my mental creativity seems to be less and less.

I suppose we are looking at a ‘bell’ curve here – a normal distribution curve – Ability vs Age.

Let’s take a look at the literature.

Ecclesiastes’ Thoughts

I think Eccl 12:1-7 is a beautiful pericope.  Here we have another man who does not see the declining years as ‘golden’.

From my Commentary on Ecclesiastes (My initial entries were more or less like Journal entries)

12:1-7 A really beautiful pericope (passage).  We cannot get enough of it.  We almost become one with Ecclesiastes as we read it, even though we don’t really know what it means.  All we know is what we sense – what we feel.  It isn’t easy getting old.  Somehow this pericope touches us, ‘We know what you mean, man.’  ‘And the spirit returns to God who gave it.’

We are going to die, but that isn't all there is.  There is a new life.  Emotionally we know this, even though rationally we don't understand it.

Remember Your Creator

12:1     K probably wrote, 'Remember also your grave in the days of your youth…'  This is what you would expect from K.

K stands for ‘ Qoheleth’ commonly rendered ‘Koheleth’, the Hebrew word for the Greek Word ‘Ecclesiastes’.

Some editor, probably Chasid, changed (perhaps), 'bor ka' to 'bor ay ka' to turn the word 'grave' into 'Creator'.

12:2     A comparison of old age with winter.

12:3-7  A comparison of old age with a household that has come upon hard times.

This poem is a good example of a metaphor.  When you get old it will be like this:  The 'keepers of the house' are the arms, etc.  ABS (American Bible Society) paraphrases the passage, giving the meaning of the text, without the metaphor.  This is probably just as well, be­cause I (for one) did not know what the passage meant, until I read the commen­tary.

RSV – Man goes to his eternal home (the grave).  This Hebrew term occurs only in Eccle­siastes.  There is a possibility it is Egyptian in origin. Certainly, 'eternal home' is better than the 'long home' of KJV.

12:7     And the dust returns to the earth, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

'Spirit' = the spark of life.

Reading this pericope while aware of Luke's impending death was a religious experience for me.  I have since translated it from the Hebrew for a clearer understanding of it, but I was working from the RSV and commentaries at that time.

My Translation

We have two goals in rendering this passage: 

1.     A faithful translation, and  

2.  Maintain the rhythm.

Remember now your Creator

in the days of your youth,

Before they come, the days of misery,

Before they draw near, the years to come,

When you will say, "There is no pleasure in them."   

Before your eyes go bad, and everything is dark;

the stars, the moon, even the sun is dark.

Every day is a cloudy day.

In the day when they will tremble -

the once-strong arms,

the arms that once took care of you.

And the once-strong legs,

now barely support your weight.

And your teeth will fall out;

soft food will be your rations.

You can't see out the windows,

and they won't let you loose outside.

Your hearing fails;

street noises are muffled.

You can't hear the women sing,

but the song of a bird wakes you.

You are afraid to be on the roof;

You are afraid of crime in the streets;

Your gray hair attracts muggers and purse-snatchers.

Your sex life is history.

And man goes to his eternal home

And mourners gather in the street.

RSV – before the silver cord is snapped,

or the golden bowl is broken,

or the pitcher is broken at the fountain

or the wheel broken at the cistern…

And the dust returns to the earth as it was

And the spirit returns to God who gave it.

Comments:  This pericope is full of metaphors.  You need a good commentary in order to understand it completely.  I have revised it some for clarity.

Regarding the 'silver cord' etc:  Silver and Gold refer to valuable things.  The 'silver cord' is a figure of speech for purse strings.  When it is loosed, the valuable contents spill out.  Life spills out.

The 'golden bowl' contains valuable contents, when it is 'broken' its contents spill out.  Life spills out.

The 'pitcher' and the 'wheel' allude to the spiritual value of water, something like Jesus' 'living water'.

You cannot live without water – if you are dead you don't need water.

David’s Declining Years

I K 1:1 ‘Now king David was old and stricken in years, and [even though] they covered him with [bed] clothes, he gat no heat.’  KJV

I K 2:1 “Now the days of David drew nigh that he should die; and he charged Solomon, his son, saying ‘I go the way of all the earth; be thou strong therefore, and shew [show] thyself a man . . .’” KJV

Monuments

Recall Rankin’s comment on Ecclesiastes:  The ascription to Solomon was appropriate, he said, because after Solomon it was down-hill all the way for Israel.  In a sense, Solomon destroyed David’s ‘monument’- the nation of Israel.

A human is more than One Lifetime, he is also his ‘monuments’ – the products of his lifetime.  Left to themselves, they will not long survive.  Subsequent Lifetimes may be required to preserve them.  Recall my comments on Le Morte Darthur as a monument.  Re Monuments:

6 – One Lifetime – Monuments

"The Last Cathedral" by Ty Harrington, Prentise Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1979, ISBN 0-13-523878-1

In explaining the purpose of this book, TH says p xiii, "The great tragedy of the glorious medieval cathedrals is that their creators have been largely anonymous.  The Nat’l Cathedral, proba­bly the last great Gothic cathedral that will ever be built, provides a final opportunity to delve into the individual relationships of the craftsmen with their work."

Again and again as TH interviews the crafts-people involved in creating this masterpiece, we get the feeling that these people do this work, not for money, not for glory, but in the belief that their work is excellent and that it will endure.  This cathedral is their monument.

Admittedly, there is an ego-trip involved, but I feel that it is much nobler than that; that a person who has talent wants to, and deserves to display that talent.  If he does that, he is entitled to a 'monument'.

Though some will want to preserve someone else’s monument, there may be others who will want to destroy the monuments.  I recall the destruction of the monuments exalting the Third Reich, and those of Stalin.  We will never know the mind of the destroyer, but it could have been hatred – a desire to destroy the memory of those principals.

Some monuments endure:  Shakespeare, Martin Luther, Christopher Columbus, Galileo, Michelangelo.

A principal monument that has required many dedicated supporters is the Bible.  It has been copied many, many times by hand.

Overeaters Anonymous

I ‘joined’ OA in the early 80s, and although I resisted their therapy for almost a year, I finally gave in and began to ‘work the program’.  Within another year, I had lost 60 lbs and a lot of emotional ‘fat’, as well.  This program works when we ‘keep the focus on ourselves’.  I tell that story in How I Was.  OA does not encourage outside help, nor do they discourage it.  I found that Karen Horney had explanations for human behavior that made sense to me.  I made an in-depth study of her book, Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Toward Self-realization.  This book helped me a lot because I kept the focus on myself.

Of course, I didn’t come into OA from a vacuum.  I had been studying the field of ‘mental health’ for years.  [I now call this field ‘emotional health’.] Check out Berne, a Psychologist from my ranch days. (1970-1975)           

Feelings

An important factor in ‘emotional health’ is that sometimes we have been traumatized so badly that our psyche has given us a sedative, or anesthetic, so that we will not feel the pain.  This is certainly better than suffering, but if we are now away from those situations that caused us pain, then we need to let go of that solution, and try to grow into the normal, healthy person we want to be.  To that end, we want to learn to feel, to trust, and to discuss our feelings.

Grief

One of the first things I had to learn was to feel ‘grief’.

The story of David’s grief at the death of Absalom, affected me deeply.  At first I thought the feeling was a religious experience, but later I decided it was only genuine grief, a ‘feeling’ with which I was not familiar. 

David’s Grief

All of us have an instinctive drive to dominate our fellowman – we want to be in charge – we too want to be king.  So it was with Absalom, son of David, when he saw David’s power and the satisfactions it could bring.

We have no doubt that Absalom loved his father very much.  The story implies that they were very close.  But the desire to be in charge – to be king – overrode all benevolent feelings.

So it was that Absalom began a campaign to displace David.  For years he worked toward this goal, and he almost succeeded.  He had Israel on his side and David on the run.  But during this critical battle, the unexpected happened.  As he dashed thru the woods, Absalom rode under a mighty oak, and it proved to be his downfall.  His head or his long hair was caught in the branches of the oak, and there we find Absalom suspended between heaven and earth, and there he was found by David’s men.  The mightiest of David’s mighty men was Joab, fiercely loyal to David and to the Kingdom.

Even though David had pleaded with his army, ‘Please do not hurt Absalom.’, Joab was more loyal to David’s authority than to his feelings.  When he found Absalom, hanging helpless in the tree, he slew Absalom where he hung.  The army cut him down and buried him on the spot.

When the news came back to David, it was reported as, ‘Good news!  The enemies of David have been slain.’  David, primarily a father, secondarily a king, pressed to know, ‘But how about Absalom?  Is he all right?’  Almost as he suspected it would be, he learned that Absalom had been killed and buried.

When the news of Absalom’s fate finally penetrated, David let all his anguish spill out:  “O Absalom, my son, my son, O Absalom, my son.  Would God that I had died instead of you.  O Absalom, my son.”

(I believe that I have told this story well, because I again feel the grief of David.)

Joab is one of my heroes.  Just to learn a little about him here is one episode.

Joab’s Response to David’s Grief

2 Sam 19:5-7  Then Joab came into the house to the king, and said, “You have today covered with shame the faces of all your servants, who have this day saved your life, and the lives of your sons and daughters, and the lives of your wives and your concubines, because you love those who hate you and hate those who love you; for today I perceive that if Absalom were alive and all of us were dead, then you would be pleased.  Now therefore, arise, go out and speak kindly to your servants; for I swear by the Lord, if you do not go not a man will stay with you this night; and this will be worse for you than all the evil that has come upon you from your youth until now.”

David knew in his heart that Joab was right, so he did as Joab suggested, but he harbored resentment against Joab for the rest of his life.

Basic Instincts

Consider the genes you started with.  In addition to those traits that set you apart as an individual, you have other traits in common with the human race – and with mammals in general.  Foremost among them is the instinct to survive.  This instinct is a major theme in this book, as it is in life in general. 

Like many others, I felt I was lucky to be able to survive, let alone accomplish anything.  It is a sad fact that many lives are wasted. 

Most of my life right now is consumed with forest-management, road-building, and fence-fixing.  It doesn’t take doesn’t take a lot of perception to see that the fruits of these activities will not endure.  I tell myself that they ‘have to be done’.  If they are neglected, the ‘wilderness’ will take over.

Most of man’s activities are of this nature – we are trying to survive – whatever it takes.  We are fortunate if we have any time left over.

7 – One Lifetime – Search for Spirituality

The world it too much with us

late and soon;

Getting and spending we lay waste

our powers.                (Wordsworth)

My Search for Spirituality

Journal – 9/25/96

Thom Merton – The Last of the Fathers

Merton describes the theme of the Papal Encyclical as ‘mystic wisdom’

I am seeking an understanding of just what that means.

P76 “God himself is wisdom.  Therefore, He can only be loved fittingly if he is loved wisely.

 “…the whole purpose of St B’s [Bernard – I think] study and contemplation was to rise above human subtleties and, uniting the rays of truth in one shaft of loving contemplation, to direct them altogether upon the highest truth.”

 “mystical union”, “mystical doctrine”,  “mystical marriage”,  “mystical prayer”

 “perfect sanctity”  “…all [people] can and must from time to time lift their hearts from the earthly things around them to those of heaven…”

 “the highest mystical graces”

Contemplating Now  – Monica Furlong – 1971 – Westminster Press – Phila, PA

p102  “ this [spirituality] requires a movement towards something which begins to look extraordinarily like the traditional idea of holiness.  For example [we find in it] a considerable amount of freedom from covetousness and ambition, a certain carelessness about material reward, a freedom to become aware of what is going on within other people, and an ability to respond to it, some discipline of desire, and above all, a lack of fear, since it is fear that makes us rigid.”

Journal – 10/27/96

Yesterday, while I was admiring the beautiful stained-glass windows in the chapel of the Methodist Church, I noted to myself that one was the angel by the empty tomb.  As soon as I said to myself, “He is not here, He is risen.” I felt the powerful emotion I have been calling the religious experience.  Today, I have been asking myself about the feeling I felt.  What was it, and how did it feel?            I don’t know much about ‘feelings’ or ‘emotions’; they are relatively new to me.  But even a person who has been highly emotional all of his life, finds it difficult to describe ‘feelings’.  They arise in the feeling brain where there are virtually no language skills.

I had thought that the feeling I felt while preparing to say, and saying [in the Eulogy], “So long Luke, I’ll see you on the other shore.”, was grief.  Now I don’t believe it was.  Just because you expect that you will feel grief doesn’t mean that it is grief.

Just because tears well up in your eyes doesn’t mean that it is grief.  Just because tears welled-up in Cornill’s eyes when he read Jonah doesn’t mean that the feeling is grief.  It means that this is the way a religious experience feels to me and to Cornill.

I should hasten to add that this isn’t the only religious experience.  It is one of many.

I will add also that spirituality is not necessarily an emotional experience.  One does not necessarily ‘feel’ spiritual.

I have not been faithfully recording all of my ‘religious experiences’.  We can’t discover much about them unless we keep an eye on all the data.

I do not know where this investigation will lead, which is the way true research goes.  Soon or late, I hope to have two sermons:  one on the religious experience, and one on spirituality.

Journal – 10/29/96

Normally, the following experience would not even be mentioned, but since I am trying to get some data on the ‘religious experience’, I will record it.

Mon Morn  11/4/96  Editor Houston Hodges reports on the death of a friend and fellow Christian.  Everyone pitches in to handle the situation.  His closing sentence:  “We, [Christians] do some things very well and they are things that come from the heart and from being touched by Jesus’ love.”

I hadn’t finished this sentence before I felt that surge of emotion welling-up within me.  This was I am sure another religious experience.

Journal – 11/2/96

Another ‘religious experience’.

Presbyterians Today  Nov 96  v86

Lead Editorial – Catherine Cottingham

Going thru the Motions and Then

She is quoting David Brown, a pastor, FedWay. WA as he describes an episode of NYPD Blue.  In this story, the principal character, a rejecter of the Church, is walking down the aisle with his wife and infant son, and the priest during the christening ceremony.  At first, he remains aloof from what is happening, but finally he too is swept up in the emotions of the moment.  “Please God, take care of this baby, take care of my other son.  Hold them close to your heart, and give me strength to be a good person…”

Brown summarizes, “What started out as simply going thru the motions became an authentic religious experience, an encounter with the sacred.”

Most of the time we only ‘go thru the motions’ in our religious life, but don’t think the time isn’t utilized; it is, for we have to have the background before we can have the religious experience.

As I read this story, I had an emotional reaction – a religious experience.  Even though there was nothing sad about the story, the emotional reaction included tears welling-up in my eyes and the inner surge of emotion.

CS Lewis (Probably from A Grief Observed)

“You can’t see anything properly while your eyes are blurred with tears.”   This is a play on the word ‘see’, which also means ‘understand’.

It might also mean that while Emotional Man is in charge, Rational Man must sit on the sidelines.  Normally only one is in charge.

Journal – 11/3/96

I think we need to be prepared for a religious experience – I don’t think it comes out of a clear-blue sky.  If I am in the middle of research like this, then I am looking for and expecting something.  If I am in the middle of some worldly endeavor, I am not likely to experience anything un-usual.  Here again, I think we need the background, and it needs to be fresh in our memory.

We must remember too, that not every emotional experience is a religious experience, but I think that every religious experience is an emotional experience.

Sometimes we have a simple emotional experience, like grief, being merged with a full religious experience.  This is not important unless you are doing research.

Journal – 11/14/96

Re:  Not every emotional experience is a religious experience.

Last night on Fashion File Or The Look:  A connoisseur of ‘fashion’ was asked what she thought of the designer’s collection she had just seen.  She said something to the effect, “I am not rational now.  I am highly emotional.”  Meaning that the collection of fashions she had just seen was an emotional experience for her.

Although it may not seem like an art to many of us, I believe that it is, and that we can become emotional about it (fashion).

Many people experience intense emotions when they look at a great painting.  If I have, I don’t recall it, but I do have this experience with music, and it doesn’t even have to be ‘great’.

There is one painting in MOMA (NYC) that was an emotional experience for me.  I don’t know the name of it or who painted it, but I will never forget it.

I think Gothic Architecture is an emotional experience for me.  This is close to a religious experience, because the great cathedrals of the world move me.  The great sculptures of Rome move me, more so than non-religious sculptures.

We have a satellite mini-dish (RCA), which gives incredible fidelity in reproducing the video sent down.  (Digital Recording?)  Most modern movies are made using this system; therefore, most modern movies have incredible video fidelity.

Since I can’t hear well, I have to be content with viewing, which is OK with me.  Sometimes the audio gets in the way of the video.

 (Suddenly I remember the name of the Richard Dreyfus movie about the autistic boy – ‘Silent Fall’.  I remembered it because the Fall [Autumn] scenes in it were very attractive.  They weren’t accidental – they were meant to be a part of the film-maker’s art.  They weren’t an emotional experience for me but other scenes have been.)

If the film-maker has not zeroed-in on two people talking, I get a chance to see the scenery.  Often this is incredibly beautiful, and many times it has been an emotional experience for me to see it.

To see the beauty in an otherwise slip-shod movie is a giant step for me.  Usually I am too critical, too bitter, too hostile, too angry – to see the good in anything.  I continue to work on it but it is a tough row to hoe.

Journal – 11/26/96

Rob’t M Grant – The Interpreter’s Bible, Vol I – Article:  History of the Interpretation of the Bible, I Ancient period.

A Major Article

He refers to an “Aristotelian principle” that I am not familiar with, but which seems to have to do with Rational Man vs Emotional Man:  After bible scholarship, he says, there is little room left for faith (Emotional Man).  “The reason for this is that our religion is super-rational, but not ir-rational:  What reason teaches, faith understands, and where reason fails, faith leads the way.  Faith and reason are never opposed to each other.  The separation of exegesis from theology has begun.”  Grant is quoting from Junilius Africanus writing about 550 AD.

Journal – 11/27/96

The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that, at least in my case, the religious experience flows out of the Death and Dying theme.  I cite the Eccl 12:1-7 entry.

One Sunday during SS, we were discussing the religious experience, and several members said they had never had a religious experience.  This is not uncommon for a person who has been raised in the faith.  They have never been exposed to the ‘conversion experience’.

Even so, there may have been religious experiences among this group that were not recognized as such.  I want to explore that possibility.

Background

Having lost two brothers this year with ample opportunity for me to discuss death with them, I realized that I had not given enough thought to the subject.  As a minister, I should have been prepared to be supportive of them but I am afraid I was woefully inadequate.  My younger brother Gene died in the faith, and he had his own minister there to help prepare him.  Luke who was older, was only on the fringes of the faith, and did not have this kind of support.

There were chaplains in the hospital, and in his various organizations, who did their best, but he was never able to see immortal life as Christians see it.  I offered the following prayer with him as a kind of ‘last rite’.  This is a very personal prayer and would not be appropriate for a different situation.  [He accepted the prayer without comment, but, the text of the prayer is long gone.]

Back to Eccl 12:1-7

At that time Luke was still alive, but I had promised to do his eulogy, so I was working on it.

I had wanted to use this passage in the eulogy, but I could not pull it off – it was too violently emotional for me.  Part of this was grief, perhaps part was self-pity, and part was religious, but the combo really shook me up.

Rob’t C Denton in the Intro to Chap 9-14 of Zechariah – The Interpreter’s Bible

“These chapters not only give us a valuable glimpse into the mind of the Jewish community in Palestine during the Greek period, but they also have permanent religious value because of their strong emphasis upon the ultimate establishment of God’s kingdom and its extension to all the people of the earth.  Not only are the Philistines to be incorporated as equals into the Jewish community (9:7), but also all nations are to find their spiritual home in the Holy City (14:16).

The beauty of this conception is unfortunately partly obscured by the conventional apocalyptic language in which it is contained, especially in Chapters 12-14, and by the concern with the ceremonial and legalistic ideas.  Both apocalyptic and legalism are characteristic of Jewish religion of this period and demand upon the part of the modern reader an unusual effort at sympathy… legalism is an attempt to express in terms of visible and material symbols ideas which are ultimately of profound spiritual meaning.”  (Italics mine)

Denton may be putting his own experience down here, but his concept is similar to mine.  ‘Profound spiritual meanings’ are not easily expressed in mere words.  Words can call-up an emotional experience, but it cannot be described in words.

8 – One Lifetime – Exploring Spirituality

I apologize for the following first draft, but it illustrates how one goes about exploring any subject.  I think it illustrates how difficult it is to explore such a nebulous field as Spirituality.  If you are not into such a study, just skip it and go on down to the finished sermon.

On Becoming a More

 Spiritual Person

1st draft

What Do We Mean by Spiritual?

            Two contrasts come to mind: 

1. In contrast to a material person.  They call Madonna 'The Material Girl', partly because she recorded a song by that name, and partly because she is clearly a material person.  Ecclesiastes was a material per­son.  2. In contrast to a physical person.

America's obsession with sex and violence is the (at least a) result of being obsessed with physical things, especially sex.  This was not a problem for Ecclesiastes. It may have been for David.

The Primal Urges – Sin

At seminary, someone called sin 'a condit­ion', in contrast to an action.  Evil is an action that hurts somebody.  (See Is 11:9, and Is 65:25 – In the kingdom of God ‘they will neither kill nor hurt in all my holy mountain’.)

Sin is an urge in a normal person.  It is (or can be) a compulsion in a neurotic.

My original list consisted of two sins:  Pride and Greed.  As I worked thru my understanding of the principal driving forces, I came to see that the urge or compulsion to dominate the other person was a principal source of human friction, and a principal source of human unhappiness.  So, I added domination to my list.  [or Power]

Then I saw, just recently, that another primal urge that drives people relentlessly is impa­tience.  On the surface we might think that we could dismiss impatience as a minor problem, causing minor disturbances in human relation­ships.  Such is not the case.

Impatience is the basis for the desire for instant gratification.  We will not work toward a desired goal and wait for a proper time (a delayed time) for the reward.  Instead, we want what we want NOW.  Result (among others):  Teen-age pregnancy, and all the misery that brings.

We want what our neighbor has NOW.  So, we kill him to get it.  We want instant happiness NOW.  So we take drugs for the immediate high.  I call this cardinal sin impatience.

These are the driving forces that motivate the material person and the physical person.

Closely related to all these forces is one that seems almost negative – ir-responsibility.  A ratio­nal, functional human being realizes that he is a part of the community, and as such, he accepts his share of the responsibility required to make the community work.

As we drive around America, looking, and listening to TV, we get impressions that may or not be correct.  Middle-class America seems to thrive on pride and greed.  We see evidence there that 'Greed is never satisfied' (Ecclesiastes).

Looking at lower-class America we see a world obsessed with sex and violence.  These people are being driven by the sins of impatience and ir-responsibility.  We don't know much about these people except that they don't live very long.  With their kind of lifestyle, they may not have time to reflect on spiritual values.

With this background, what does a person strive for as he seeks spirituality?

Two Goals

First, he strives to reduce his material wants to a minimum.  You cannot serve God and Mam­mon.

Even though I do not appear to be striving for more material possessions or more status, in fact these two concerns are hurting me spiritually.  So, goal one:  Strive for non-material possessions.  Strive for and try to attain spiritual blessings.

I know that I am impatient, and that I do not always behave responsibly.  So! Strive for the serenity of the serenity prayer.

Accept responsibility.  Act for the good of the community.  The community meaning those people whose lives I touch.

The spiritual person moves away from being self-centered toward being other-centered.

These two goals are only a start.  One of my theology professors said, 'We must learn to think theologically.'  In order to do that, we must build on the past.  This is hard to do, because the past has so much trash in it.  But it wasn't all trash.

Holistic Health

Ideally, a person seeks for completeness.  A spiritual person must still exist in a material body, and consume material things in order to live.  Thus we still practice holistic health:  Physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, financial health.  We still need our physical and mental exercise every day.  We do not neglect our social health, nor our emotional health.

Eternal Vigilance

It is so easy to slip off the straight and narrow path of spirituality, that I, at least, have to be constantly aware of what I am doing and why I am doing it.  One of the things that I catch myself doing is being concerned about some material thing that some other person might be able to use.  This is OK but it has its limits.  I have to pry deeply into why I am thus concerned.

It is, perhaps, unfortunate that I have all this valuable junk (salvage) on hand.  My sense of responsibility is over-developed, so I am overly concerned about its preservation.

My rationale for preservation in general, is that we already have this material on hand.  We should use it up before we buy or make more.  But!

It is not my responsibility.

What I have to do is to reconcile the possi­ble with the ideal – without getting myself into a stew.  Not that we need to become drifters in the sea of life.  It is great to have purpose and direc­tion; that is part of being responsible.

A teen-ager we know is a good example of an irresponsible person, having no purpose and no goal.  She is throwing her life away as far as we can see.  If she had goals of any sort, she would at least try to steer.

This situation is not my problem, nor my responsibility.  The fact that I worry about her and her behavior is my problem.  That I can work on.

Responsibility

What are we responsible for?  Consider the career person:  He/she has already accepted the responsibility of preparing him/herself for a career. 

When the career person moves ahead into the career he has prepared himself for, he/she assumes countless new responsibilities.  It then becomes imperative that he/she determine exactly what his/her responsibilities are.

The following ‘Rules’ came out.

Rule 1

He/she is not and cannot be responsible for things over which he/she has no control.

In most American organizations, we have a system of hierarchy in which authority originates at the top and becomes action at the bottom.

In modern organizations 'the top' is more and more accepting input from all levels of the pyramid.  The career person in such an organiza­tion is expected to, and should offer, input whenev­er requested to, or is expected to, offer it.

Even if a person is not in a modern organi­zation he/she should be prepared to offer input into the decision-making process, especially if it be­comes his social responsibility to do so.

Rule 2

Social responsibility takes precedence over personal success.  If the organization is not socially responsible then the socially responsible person should not be in it.

Rule 3

Any person seeking spirituality must be sure he understands what he is responsible for.

Rule 4

The spiritual person must have the serenity to accept everything that is, or that comes to be, without anger or any other critical emotion.

This includes things that he might be able to affect, but whether he can affect them or not, he must be able to accept everything with serenity.

It is my intention to watch myself very closely for evidence of impatience or of judgment.  It is a rare situation that I see that does not pro­duce a comment from me, usually derogatory.

In order to try to get a hold of these charac­ter defects, I intend to point out to myself every evidence of impatience (or anger) that I detect, and every evidence of my being critical, or judgmental, or making the derogatory remark.

Bible ‘Criticism’

Aside:  Bible scholars have trans­lated the German word 'geschicte' as 'criticism'.  Thus we have form criticism, literary criti­cism, redaction criticism, etc.  'Gesch­icte' actually means 'study'.  'Study' has posi­tive connotations, whereas 'criticism' is nega­tive as I use it.  [I will use the term ‘study’ in my writing, but you need to know both terms.]

Some of us, being compulsively critical, will take on responsibilities just because others seem to be so irresponsible.  This is very risky business.  We do not rule the world.  We are not in charge.  We must think twice before we take on such re­sponsi­bilities.  We must ask ourselves, 'Are we being critical of another person?  Is this problem a major social issue?  Is it one where my action will make a difference?'

Management

It is a manager’s job to be critical – to see things that need to be corrected – to see ways of doing things better.  If management is our job, and if we are responsible for the efficient operation of an activity, then we have to be critical (while being considerate of peoples feelings).  But this road is fraught with hazards.  If we are compulsively critical, then we might find ourselves 'managing' our neighbor's home, business, or lifestyle.  That is not our job.

Are we compulsive managers?

Coping with the Critical Attitude

What do we say to ourselves when we catch ourselves being critical?  Recall the rules:

'I am not responsible for that situation.  I am not in control of that situation.  There is noth­ing I can do about that situation.  I must try to accept that situation with serenity (without anger).

There is a lot in life that makes me unhap­py, but happiness is where we find it; it is not everywhere.  I must try to accept many things that make me unhappy.  Unhappiness is a part of life.

[Somewhere I say that I put my hands up beside my eyes like blinders on a horse, and say ‘hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.’]  See:  spiritual_health.htm

End of entry

As pessimistic as Eccl was, it is not surprising that he did not try to get close to God.  Like most of the OT people, he was a little afraid of God.  God was seen as similar to a human monarch.  He might be able to help you, but he could also do you much harm.  It would be better to keep your distance.

Journal – June 1, 1997

A Little History

The first day of June and the first day of the rest of my life.  On 6/5/97 we (guess who) will have been married 54 yrs.

As we look back over our lives we have to ask:  What have you accomplished of lasting value?  I made a living, but I doubt now that that was of lasting value.

I am now working on getting my sermons typed up, suitable for binding, but as is usual with indecisive people, we doubt its value.

See: 8 – One Lifetime .htm

9 – One Lifetime – Some History

In Monday Morning – June 1997 v 62 No. 11 p23

Harry E Chase writes, quoting Dr Andrew Blackwood, "In every pew there is a broken heart.  Preach to that."

That is good advice – when in doubt, preach to the broken-hearted.  I have not done that.  I show off my erudition, and present my rather radical views, but very seldom do I touch a broken heart.

It looks like I am trying to change things I cannot change.  Of course, if I cannot change the church, how do I know that I can 'heal the broken-hearted'?

About all you can say about my sermons is that I made an effort – I did the best I could with the talents I had, and the limitations that are a part of the package.

Chase also mentions being inspired by Geo Buttrick whom he identifies as 'pastor of the Madison Ave Church in NYC'.  He calls Geo a 'pulpit giant'.  I would almost call him 'the greatest Christian force of our generation' – if creating something of lasting value counts – and I think it does.

There were two 'pulpit giants' in my generation:  George Arthur Buttrick and Harry Emerson Fosdick, but I never heard either preach from their pulpits.  Of course, I can still read their sermons, and perhaps hear them (most seminaries have a collection of recorded sermons).

The reason I never heard them was that at that time, I wasn't really a Christian – I was self-centered beyond belief.  I was too critical of others to believe that someone else knew as much as I did.  I was a proto-hippie – rejecting the establishment en toto.  I didn't want to know where the church's head was at.

When the call went out for Sunday-school teachers (I was a nominal member of the Presbyterian Church in New Milford), I volunteered.  In preparing myself for this task, I was fortunate enough to run across the bible commentary by A S Peake.

I couldn't believe what it contained – it was a liberal's promised-land.  No longer was I bound by the literal reading of scripture – here was a scholar who accepted what common sense told him.

At that time (Brian was in Jr Hi, and in my class) I began to see new possibilities for the Christian faith.  I devoted my thoughts to preparing Sunday-school lessons, and to presenting these tentative thoughts to my SS class.  After nine years in that class, I retired (we moved to Morristown).

I might add that at that time, the denomination literature was also liberal, and so I had support for my radical thoughts.

I might also mention that on p 16 of that same issue of Mon Morn there is an article 'Scary' by Rev Mullins on the radio programs being disseminated in the south in the name of Christianity.  He blames the fundamentalists, etc, mentioning specifically the Southern Baptists.  "About 50% of all broadcasts are direct assaults upon government, especially the federal government, and often more particularly the courts and the IRS."  They are almost advocating violence to solve religious problems.  (The Christian Militia, etc.)  Unfortunately, the force of this message is deadened by the subsequent article on UFO's.  It sounds like Houston [the Editor] is grouping the kooks.

On p 17 is an ad for Presbyterian Hunger Program criticizing Welfare Reform.  We don't know who these people are, but if they are not UPC(USA) the ad  should say so.

Journal

I am tired of transcribing sermons.  Besides that, I always have doubts – some major – some minor – about the lasting value of what I am doing.  I have before me some typed notes that I must have thought worthwhile at one time, for me to get them typed – if they are full of mistakes, I typed them.  Lets take a look at where my head was at in 1958.

Journal – 6/28/58

Henry Miller – Tropic of Capricorn (Quoting)

“Everything that happens, when it has significance, is in the nature of a contradiction.  Until the one for whom this is written came along I imagined that some where outside, in life, as they say, lay the solution to all things.  I thought, when I came upon her, that I was seizing hold of life, seizing hold of something which I could bite into.  Instead I lost hold of life completely.  I reached out for something to attach myself to – and I found nothing.  But in reaching out, in the effort to grasp, to attach myself, left high and dry as I was, I nevertheless found something I had not looked for – myself.  I found that what I had desired all my life was not to live – if what others are doing is called living – but to express myself.  I realized that I had never the least interest in living, but only in this which I am doing now, something which is parallel to life, of it at the same time, and beyond it.  What is true interests me scarcely at all, nor even what is real; only that interests me which I imagine to be, that which I had stifled every day in order to live.  Whether I die today or tomorrow is of no importance to me, never has been, but that today even, after years of effort, I cannot say what I think and feel – that bothers me, that rankles.  From childhood on I can see myself on the track of this spectre, enjoying nothing, desiring nothing but this power, this ability.  Everything else is a lie – everything I ever did or said which did not bear upon this.  And that is pretty much the greater part of my life.”   End of quote from Henry Miller.

[Henry Miller is not a really great writer.  In this passage I get the feeling that he is using the word 'which' incorrectly.  Even so, I suspect he is trying to express feelings in words, and that is hard to do.  This may be in part, the result of having feelings that other people have not had.  It must be human nature to think we are unique - that our feelings - our understanding of life is unique.

Journal - 5/20/58

This year the azaleas are particularly beautiful.  As you drive by the homes, you can see these great splashes of color in front.  The thought struck me:  If these great splashes of color are so pretty, why not build a frame and paint the colors on the surface, or cover it with colored cloth, or even build artificial azalea bushes with artificial blossoms like they do for the movies?

I called Joan to the window today and pointed to a red shirt hanging on a line.  I asked if the shirt wasn't as pretty as an azalea bush.  She said No!  I said Why not?  I think perhaps the knowledge that the azalea bush is a natural thing (may I say 'God-created'?) makes it pretty in our eyes.  'In our mind' I should say, because there is the source of pleasure.  If one sees an azalea bush in a mescaline dream, is it not as pretty as if it were real?

The pleasure that originates in the mind can be inspired by an azalea bush or the Taj Mahal, and the intensity of the pleasure can be the same.  I keep telling Joan that pleasure is right here - right in front of us.  We don't have to go skiing or travel in foreign lands.  There is as much pleasure in looking out the lab window (which looks out on a slummy back alley) as elsewhere.  I call Joan over.  "Lets look at life."  For life is as much here as in Calcutta or Hong Kong.  The secret is behind your eyes and nose and tongue, and between your ears.  Happiness is in your mind, or comes out of your mind.  It is a result of external stimulus.  It can be azalea bushes, or little-league baseball, or hiking or electrodes, or drugs.  Somehow, this external stimulus has just got to tickle that one certain little spot in your brain and you go into ecstasy. 

But don't think for one minute that I, or you, if you understand me, can find happiness just because we [understand the theory].  On the contrary, we are less apt to find it now – now that we know what we are looking for.  All we can find now is knowledge.  I get no kicks now from azaleas – I asked too many questions.

Journal – 6/7/58

Last night I was reading some history and my attention was forced on the fact of how much better off we are today than people were in times past.  I do seem to be an ungrateful wretch not to appreciate it.

Now that I have had my say as a restless individual – bitter at the world for not being better when actually it could be much worse – I am turning to tranquilizers rather than to the escape of Wolfe, Orwell, and Dillon Thomas – all dead before reaching my age.  I am going back inside with the help of the great new medical discovery.

Journal – 9/15/58

Louis E Bisch – Be Glad You're Neurotic (1946)

A footnote:  A psychopath is an individual suffering from an emotional inadequacy (not instability), which is present from birth (like mental defect), and is incurable.  [Actually, he is not 'suffering'.  This is just an expression meaning 'he has this condition'.]

He is an individual upon whom an ordinary stimulus produces an unusual and extraordinary effect, hence he does not respond to love, sentiment, pity etc, as do [both] normals and neurotics.

 ['Hence' would not be my choice of word here.  'Hence' implies that the following clause is a consequence of the introductory clause.  Perhaps, 'in that'.]

Emotionally, he may be 'as cold as steel', or he may experience feeling in no more definite a manner than does the 'normal' in regard to the earth being round.  But, the psychopath is not a psychotic although he may develop a psychosis.

Nor does he suffer a genuine mental defect in the sense of being feeble-minded.  Intellectual development may even be above average, with emotional development, comparatively speaking, nil.

A large percentage of our criminal population, especially those who commit atrocious murders with planfulness and cunning, are psychopaths.  Unfortunately, the courts are woefully behind science in that they do not as yet accept the psychopath diagnosis.  They confuse psychopaths with psychotics; or, if their intellectual development be low, with the feeble-minded; and sometimes they confuse the personality deviations of these individuals even with neurotic states.  Separate institutions should be provided for psychopathic cases, the same as is provided for the feeble-minded and for the insane [psychotic].

[I am not sure that Bisch and I agree on what we mean by 'emotional development'.  I never thought of the psychopath as lacking 'emotional development'.  Actually, I never probed very deeply into this particular personality disorder.]

The Merck Manual – Ninth Edition – 1956

Superego – the internal restrictive, permissive, punitive, and standard-setting forces of the personality.  A small conscious portion of the superego is experienced as conscience.

Personality Disorders

Personality Trait Disturbances

Compulsive Personality

Such individuals show chronic, excessive, or obsessive concern with standards of conscience or of conformity.  They may be over inhibited, or over conscientious, and may have an inordinate capacity for work.  Typically, they are rigid, and lack a normal capacity for relaxation.

Sociopathic Personality Disturbances

Antisocial Reaction 

This term refers to individuals who are always in trouble, profiting neither from experience nor punishment, and maintaining no real loyalties to any person, group, or code.  They are frequently callous and hedonistic, showing marked emotional immaturity.  They lack judgment and a sense of responsibility, but can rationalize their behavior so that it appears reasonable and justified.

[Rationalizing is usually characteristic of an emotional problem.  I still don't think 'maturity' is the best word.  What did I say about The Mature Mind - H A Overstreet?]

Mental Deficiency

About 1 % of the total population is feeble-minded, and about 2 % of the total school population is mentally deficient.  About 5 % of the elementary-school population is 'borderline' sub-normal (I Q from 60 to 85) and needs special instruction.

Journal – 9/5/58

Re: "About 1 % of the population is feeble-minded." 

And about 1 % of the population has more intelligence than the other 99 % – ['Feeble-minded' may be defined as the bottom 1 %, but we must not lose sight of the fact that it is a purely arbitrary distinction.]  Between these two extremes we find the rest of the population distributed in a statistical manner.  I suppose these curves exist, you may be able to find them and check me on it.

One curve that I doubt exists is a plot of frequency vs superego.  [The data doesn't exist.]  We see now that superego is the trait that outsiders have a lot of.  [Perhaps I have shown this somewhere in the Journal, but it is not in the data just presented.] Perhaps the upper few percent went off their rockers (became psychotic), but the next few percent just became neurotic.  [I think I have the cart before the horse here.  Assuming that superego can be measured, and that a high superego means that a person is 'overly sensitive', it is more than likely that this condition was the result of a neurosis, rather than the cause of a neurosis.]  The lower few percent [least sensitive] are the psychopaths, specifically, the antisocial portion of the sociopathic personalities.

The Outsiders [Colin Wilson group - in which I find myself] are considered to have personality disorders too, being in the compulsive personality group.  Between these two extremes lies the rest of the population in a distribution curve almost identical with the one of frequency vs intelligence.

Generally speaking, though of course not always, an individual will fall into the same general section of both curves.  A person who falls on the upper portion of the superego curve, but only average or lower on the intelligence curve will usually have his energies mis-directed, say into anti-vivisection or religious fanaticism.  But this is mere details.  Superego is a personality trait.  Intelligence is another.  Contrariness may be another.  I could mention a few more but the point is that any character trait has a magnitude, and throughout the population has a statistical distribution.  With a set of curves (or perhaps with only one) of character traits vs frequency, any individual, real or fictional, can be exactly identified.

I can now look at a person's behavior and tell myself that this person simply has limitations, and that these limitations can result in faults over which he has no control.

A person who is on either extreme end of the curve in one or more traits can now see why he feels so apart from the rest of the people.

 [This was the situation in 1958.]

  See:  the_outsider_by_colin_wilson.htm  for current thoughts.

10 – One Lifetime – The Spiritual Channel

Journal Sat, Nov 21, 1998

Handbook to Higher Consciousness by Ken Keyes Jr – Living Love Publishers – 1975 – Living Love Center – Coos Bay OR

Appendix 3 p207 – How to accelerate your growth in the Living Love way.

There are eight ways . . .

3. Give yourself the benefit of all 5 methods.

4.    Avoid a spiritual soup.  When you find your spiritual path, put your full energy into perfecting your practice of the methods associated with your chosen path.

5.    Surrender.

6.    Intensify your desire for growth.  When spiritual growth is the most important thing in your life, the full miracle of love and oneness will unfold in your life.

7.    Offer the Living Love Way to Others.

P205 – “The Way to Happiness

The practical solution to the problem of continually enjoying our lives is to retrain our bio-computers so that the first response to a life situation is to harmonize our energies with the outside world instead of trying to force the outside world to fit our inner patterns.  Unconditionally loving communication (which is not addicted to results) will usually permit the adjustments to occur that we need for harmonizing our energies.  Every addiction leaves us vulnerable; preferences enable us to continually enjoy life.  When our bio-computers operate from preferential programming, our happiness is not affected – regardless of whether the outside world fits our preferences or not.  This permits us to enjoy the here and now of our lives, to remain centered at all times, to love unconditionally, to avoid subject-object manipulation, [I prefer ‘subject/object’ which means more or less either/or] to feel secure and invulnerable, to increase our insight and perceptiveness, and to feel at home in the world.

When our bio-computers are retrained to interact with our world in these ways, we find that life gives us the optimum in security, sensations, power, and love.  The Living Love Way does far more than enable a person to passively adjust to the here and now of his or her life; it is a dynamic system for retraining one’s consciousness to live an effective life that is continuously enjoyable.”

Comment – 11/21/98

I propose that spirituality is not a ‘higher consciousness’ – it is a different consciousness – lower if anything.

To be aware of human faults and to feel the pain when a fellow creature suffers is surely the highest consciousness.  I found that this state existed in the man Ecclesiastes.  I then accounted for his pessimism by concluding that ‘It is the only channel he has’.  As we seek other channels let us not belittle the value of the ‘full-awareness’ channel.

When we pray for ‘the serenity to accept the things I cannot change’, we pray for another channel.  No sensitive human being is going to accept with serenity child abuse, battered wives, or a myriad other situations where evil exists.  All he can do is to humbly admit that he is powerless to affect the situation.  He will admit that he too is a weak and faulty human.  Humility is crucial in this move.  “I am not in charge – never was – and never will be.”

What does this do to self-esteem?

Somehow, your relationship with other humans becomes less and less important, and your relationship with the ‘universe‘ becomes more and more.  Self-esteem does not suffer.  If your relationship with God is well-established, then your relationship with the few humans with whom you are in contact will also be well-established.

We don’t like to admit that we are weak and fallible humans.  Big Ego wants us to “Be Important.”  Well, we are important, even if we do not stand out from the crowd.

We are important because we are members of the family of God.  If we are doing all we can to be loving people, and to enrich the lives of those with whom we come in contact, then we are doing our share.  The church sees us as ‘servants’.  We make few decisions; mostly we just obey.  We certainly are not ‘judge, jury, and executioner’.

In a way, this is a bitter pill to take, but take it we must.  How long does it take for us to get this message?  I think that rationally we knew it from the start.  It was just that emotionally we couldn’t accept it.

Who’s in charge?  Rational Man!

So!  As we seek a different consciousness, we learn to accept ourselves as weak and faulty humans – important as the children and servants of God, but humble servants.  We are not in charge.  We do the best we can to ‘brighten the corner where you are’.

When we are at rest, we can put all toil and turmoil out of our minds.  This is not easy but we can do it.  We can use our mantra or mantras, or we can just train our minds to put all worldly things on hold.  This is where I am right now.  It works, but I feel a little guilty that I have abandoned all the victims of evil that I used to worry about.  Rationally I know that I was never able to help them anyway.  And I am trying to put Rational Man in charge. 

So! Where is your mind?  Is it fretting about things that are or might be?  Back Off!  Switch channels.  We want the Serenity Channel.  What is it like?  It is serene – peaceful – idyllic.  No turmoil – trouble – cares – woes – pain – unhappiness.

These troubles still exist – but not on the Serenity Channel.  Serenity is not solely the absence of troubles – it also is the presence of positive things – gratitude – contentment – a sense of belonging – a sense of rightness – that everything that is, is good.  If everything we sense isn’t good, let’s try to tune it out.  Unless, of course, it requires our immediate attention – like for example the house is on fire.

Journal – Sun Nov 22, 1998

Back when I was still meditating, I found that state of consciousness very pleasant, in fact so pleasant that I was afraid that it would become addictive in itself.  Therefore, I tried to limit myself to ten minutes per session – one session per day.

What I am now proposing is very similar to meditation, but I have no reason to fear it – at least I see no reason right now.

Keyes says that we are normally addicted to our pleasures, etc.  Freud first suggested this – The Pleasure Principle.  What I am sensing now is that no matter how pleasant something is, we eventually get tired of it and want to do something else.  Keyes says this is all right provided that it remains an option, and does not become a compulsion.  (There is surely a very blurry line there.)

In the case of eating, we usually know when we have satisfied the needs of the body, and that eating more food than that comes from an addiction.  The fact that we tire of things no matter how pleasant may tell us that there are other pleasures available that are not harmful, including the meditative state, ie a respite from pleasure.

The Big Discovery as it Happened

Later – I don’t want to confuse the issue of . . . ?  What is that channel?  I used the term ‘full-awareness’, which sounds acceptable, but is not quite what my channel is.  Is it the ‘fault-finding channel’?  I think so.  . . . the problem of the ‘fault-finding’ channel vs the Serenity Channel.

I think the Big Ego leads me to find fault – when I find a fault, that makes me important.  Anyway, I must begin to tell myself, when I catch myself fault-finding, “That’s fault-finding”, and, if possible, switch to another channel.  Let’s not confuse the issue.

Restlessness – Discontent

We also have this problem with restlessness or discontent.  This is characteristic of most living creatures – we have an urge – an instinct – to keep moving – to explore – to investigate.  This trait manifests itself in (and is exemplified by) my ‘surfing’ on TV.  I feel the urge to ‘keep moving’ – to explore.

I accept this as a useful tool, and will try to build on it.  At the same time, I see that we must watch ourselves, or discontent will make us unhappy.

Thanksgiving – 1998

So far, my program is working.  I can get off the Fault-finding Channel and back on the Serenity Channel, just by reminding myself, “That’s fault-finding.”

Now!  Being aware that I am a restless creature, with an urge to switch channels, are there other channels available?

Can I get on the ‘Management Channel’ eg, and get back to work on that topic?  I am sure I can, provided I keep a close eye on myself.

Also, I need to look into the Spiritual Channel, which will have a different ‘program’ than the Serenity Channel.  (‘Program’ as in TV Program.)  In order to do that, I need to re-study ‘the fruits of the spirit’ and my mantra.  I need to study Paul more.

I need to continue the ‘Forgiveness’ sermon.  It is almost done.  And I need to continue the ‘Happiness’ essay.  I am not sure where it stands.  I still haven’t done ‘The Beatitudes’ justice.  A new sermon on that topic would be a good start.

That’s four new channels – there must be more.

An Accepting Channel

I wonder if there is an ‘Accepting’ Channel.  It would be the one that we turn to first.  Say, a situation exists that we don’t like.  The first thing we have to do is to accept it.  Even if there is something we can do about it, or think there might be, we still need to accept it until we can change it.

I was just thinking about my road-building, which is essentially past history now.  I may be able to get a helper someday, but in the meantime we tune to the accepting channel.

Looking Out For Number One by Rob’t J Ringer – 1977 – Funk and Wagnalls – NYC

Another How-to book – how to ‘succeed’

px ‘You and you alone are responsible for your success or failure.’

P1  “Looking Out for Number One is the conscious rational effort to spend as much time as possible doing those things which bring you the greatest amount of pleasure and less time on those things which cause pain.  Everyone automatically makes the effort to be happy, so the key word is ‘rational’”.

P5  “Happiness is possibly only to a rational man [person], the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values, and finds his joy in nothing but rational actions.”  Ayn Rand – Atlas Shrugged.  Actually Ayn’s character, John Gault, says this.

P5  “The end for which we all more or less strive is happiness.  Our differences in behavior are due to our different notions of what happiness is.”  Aristotle as paraphrased by L R Loomis.

Comment:  I have only glanced at this book.  Even though the title implies that it is radically anti-Christian, I don’t think it is.  From the excerpts above, we think his key word is ‘rational’.

His theme is ‘Happiness’.  This brings me to consider another channel – ‘The Happiness Channel”.

Ringer would probably ask, “Does what you are doing bring you happiness?  If not, why are you doing it?”

Fault-finding does not bring me happiness.

(Check out my entry on working Step Six.)

Restlessness/Discontent

This state is going to come to you soon or late, no matter what state (channel) you have been in.  You read biographies about people who are so absorbed in their creative efforts that they forget food, sleep, sex, and elimination.  But that is a problem for the driven – not for the less gifted.

Being in the latter category, I find myself moving involuntarily from the Serene State to the Restless State, in which state I find myself looking first for something to eat or second for a glass of wine,

I consider it a blessing that the glass of wine moves me easily into a creative state of some sort.  (Like it has just now.)

11/28/98 So far it’s working.  The procedure:

First, we must reconcile ourselves that there is no ‘easier, softer way’.  It is not easy.  But it would be even harder is we didn’t know what we were trying to do.

We are always tuned to a channel of some sort – we are always in a state of consciousness (unless we are in deep sleep or unconscious).

There are other channels (states of consciousness) available.

One of these is the Meditative State.  It is as near to ‘no state’ as we can get.  It might be helpful to learn how to enter into this state (see my essay on this procedure or many others in the literature).  If we can do this then we can believe that switching channels is possible.  I think this aspect is important.

We have to want to switch channels.  We have to believe that we can do it.  We have to know what other channels are available.  And we have to make a sustained effort to do it. 

About the Effort Required

Think of our addiction to a particular channel as a bad habit.  It is not easy to give up a habit – good or bad.  It takes constant vigilance.  The only way is to make the sustained effort – keep after it – we will fall back into our old ways frequently – lets just make sure we don’t deliberately slip.  I keep telling myself, “That’s fault-finding.”

The Other Channels

It might be that we have to go thru a channel in order to get to the channel we want.  (In the old days before the remote control, we spun the dial, in order to reach the channel we wanted.)  In my case, I believe that I have to go thru the Serenity Channel in order to get to one of my creative channels.

Somebody used the term ‘to center-in’ or perhaps ‘to become centered’.  Its meaning is vague, but I think it means ‘to focus your whole attention on’.  My attention tends to fly off in all directions, like sparks from a fire.  So, I can see the value of trying ‘to center-in’.

Radio Signals

Radio signals, in contrast to TV, tend to come in contaminated with stray signals.  In fact, it is not easy to get a clean radio signal.  If our Serenity Channel is contaminated, it is not going to be pure serenity.  We will need to ‘center-in’, to get rid of the static.

The Pursuit of Happiness

I am not sure about that ‘Happiness Channel’.  It might work for you, but I will be happy if I can just stay in the Serenity Channel.

Chap 11

11 – One Lifetime – Theology

Theology Two

This may be the place to elaborate on the topic of ‘Theology’.  Strictly speaking, ‘theology’ means ‘the study of God’, but practically it means the study of man’s concept of God.  Within this field we find both the shallow and the profound.  Not that shallow concepts are necessarily useless – they may be very practical – anything that enables a person to become more spiritual is certainly useful. 

Are these questions useful?  A paint chemist asks, ‘Can God make a paint he can’t remove?’  Another question, ‘Can God make a rock he can’t lift?’

A woman visiting a historic mansion exclaims, “It just shows what God could do if he had the money.”

A visiting preacher, expounding on an obscure passage, “What God is trying to say here . . .”

Right now, lets look at a profound concept:

 Bultmann’s Theology

Quotes from

Jesus Christ and Mythology, by Rudolf Bultmann – 1951 – Chas Scribner’s Sons, NYC

Along with many other ‘Modernists’, Bultmann wants to rid Christianity of its ‘mythology’ – The movement is still there, but most people don’t want to hear about it.

(This book dates from the ‘50s as you can tell from the sexist language.  For ‘man’ read ‘humanity’.)

(I have broken-up the reading into little bites so that we might be able to digest it easier.)

“God’s action bestows upon us a new understanding of ourselves.”

“Thus modern man is in danger of forgetting two things:  first, that his plans and undertakings should be guided, not by his own desires for happiness and security, usefulness and profit,

but rather by obedient responses to the challenge of goodness, truth, and love, by obedience to the commandment of God which man forgets in his selfishness and presumptions;

And secondly, that it is an illusion to suppose that real security can be gained by men organizing their own personal life.

There are encounters and destinies which man cannot master.  He cannot secure endurance for his works.  His life is fleeting and its end is death.

History goes on and pulls down all the towers of Babel again and again.

There is no real, definitive security, and it is precisely this illusion to which men are prone to succumb in their yearning for security.

What is the underlying reason for this yearning?  It is the sorrow, the secret anxiety which moves in the depths of the soul at the very moment when man thinks he must obtain security for himself.

It is the word of God which calls man away from his selfishness and from the illusory security which he has built up for himself.  It calls him to God, who is beyond the world and beyond scientific thinking. 

At the same time it calls man to his true self.  For the self of man, his inner life, his personal existence is also beyond the visible world and beyond rational thinking.

The word of God addresses man in his personal existence and thereby it gives him freedom from the world and from the sorrow and anxiety which overwhelms him when he forgets the beyond.

By means of science men try to take possession of the world, but in fact the world gets possession of them.

We can see in our times to what degree men are dependent on technology, and to what degree technology brings with it terrible consequences.

To believe in the word of God means to abandon all merely human security and thus to overcome the despair which arises from the attempt to find security, an attempt which is always in vain.

Faith in this sense is both the demand of and the gift offered by preaching.  Faith is the answer to the message [kerygma].  Faith is the abandonment of man’s own security and the readiness to find security only in the unseen beyond, in God.

This means that faith is security where no security can be seen; it is, as Luther said, the readiness to enter confidently into the darkness of the future.

Faith in God, who has power over time and eternity, who calls me – and who has acted, and is now acting on me – this faith can become real only in its ‘nevertheless’ against the world.

For in the world nothing of God and his action is visible or can be visible to men who seek security in the world.”

“If we hold that God’s action is not visible, not capable of proof; that the events of redemption cannot be demonstrated, that the spirit with which believers are endowed is not an object visible to objective observation;

if we hold that we can speak of all such matters only when we are concerned with our personal existence, then it can be said that faith is a new understanding of personal existence.

In other words, God’s action bestows upon us a new understanding of ourselves.”

See also:  Primitive Christianity In Its Contemporary Setting by Rudolph Bultmann – 1956 – New American Library – NYC

What is Theology? By Rudolph Bultmann – 1926 – Eng Trans – 1997 – Fortress Press, Minneapolis MN

Faith and Understanding by Rudolph Bultmann – Ca 1927 – Trans 1966 – Harper and Row – NYC

Journal – Apr 00                   From:

From:  The Interpreters Bible Vol I “History of the Interpretation of the Bible III – Modern Period”

“The kingdom of God comes by coming to the individual, by entering into his soul and laying hold of it.  True, the kingdom of God is the rule of God; but it is the rule of the holy God in the hearts of individuals; it is God himself in his power.  From this point of view everything that is dramatic in the external and historical has since vanished, and gone are the external hopes for the future . . . of God and the soul, the soul and its God.”  Adolph von Harnack – quoted by Samuel Terrien.  [von Harnack was one of the giants pioneering bible scholarship late in the 1800s.]

“Historical knowledge can no doubt introduce greater clearness into an existing spiritual life, but it cannot call spiritual life into existence . . .” Albert Schweitzer – quoted by Terrien.   [Albert Schweitzer was also a major bible scholar from that era.  Incidentally, he was also a concert pianist (or organist).]

Wilhelm de Wette called the story of the 7th Century creation and discovery of Deuteronomy a ‘pious fraud’.

That the ‘Priestly Code’ was post-exilic was established prior to Wellhausen.

It was Wellhausen’s conclusion that the 8th and 7th Century prophets pulled the Jewish religion together – not something earlier.

Alfred Loisy, on the origins of the faith: “The scheme of Messianic salvation, of which the Galileean prophet thought himself the destined head, became a myth of universal salvation.”  Of course, this quote is out of context, and may be misunderstood, but it is my impression that Jesus did not consider himself the head of anything – all of these ideas came from the early church.

Loisy continues:  “[Jesus} was a savior-god . . . like Adonis, Osiris, and Attis, he had died a violent death, and like them he had returned to life; like them he had prefigured in his lot that of the human beings who should take part in his worship, and commemorate his mystic enterprise; like them, he had predetermined, prepared and assured the salvation of those who became partners in his passion.”  Loisy says that this info came from James Frazer, The Golden Bough - Parts III and IV (I think - see footnote in this article) I have a review of Loisy somewhere.  We used Frazer as a text in Anthropology 101.

I think that Loisy is saying that the elements of the Christian faith were being developed slowly over the generations by combining ideas from Greek, Egyptian, and other sources.  If one wants to pursue this further he will have to study these histories.

[All of the persons mentioned here were major bible scholars.]

My quote from Buttrick is from the article ‘The Study of the Bible’ in The Interpreter’s Bible – Vol I.

See: 12 – One Lifetime

13 – One Lifetime – Emotional Maturity 

[I have a feeling that I am including some things that are already entered.  If so, let me know and I will remove the duplicates.]

An early book on the problem of emotional maturity was ‘The Mature Mind’ by HA Overstreet.  The following was written after I recently re-read the book.  ha_overstreet.htm

If you are not familiar with Overstreet get it and read it.

We see in my Commentary on Eccl and the Spiritual Life [not included in this Page] that I was still struggling with inner turmoil myself in 1995, and that I still had a few things to learn when I wrote it.

In the process of studying Ecclesiastes’ life, I introduce some of my own problems, because in a way, Ecclesiastes ‘ problems are my problems.

Out of my study of Ecclesiastes came a sermon, ‘On Becoming a More Spiritual Person’.  It should have been titled, ‘Toward Becoming a More Spiritual Person’.  I still had a long way to go when I wrote it, and still have.  My first draft of this sermon is in this Book somewhere.  See:  7 – Exploring Spirituality

Another study of ‘Negotiation’ is in:   Peacemaking.htm

In order to satisfy oneself that one has a good grasp on a subject, it is a good idea to write a ‘lesson’ on the subject.  Here is a lesson that I prepared on:   personal_growth.htm

Situation Ethics

I have heard that the reason the military taught situation ethics to the armed forces was so that no one had to make an instant decision.  He made decisions carefully and deliberately, and then applied them in an emergency.

Thus, a driver, with a truck-load of soldiers, would not swerve off the road in order to avoid hitting a rabbit, thus endangering the lives of the soldiers.

On Death and Dying

The Main Theme

The Biology of Life

            Part of my problem is that I see this problem.  The other problems are more remote.  Out of sight – out of mind.

            Also, I am a born (or made) controller – I want to rule the world – Therefore when I see a problem to which I think I have a solution, I am angry at the world for not seeing what I see.

            This is not supposed to be a Journal entry, therefore I am not supposed to pour out my soul in this essay.  Somehow I think I owe it to the reader to let him know about my biases.

            The bottom line:  The health-care industry is motivated by greed just like the rest of us.  And they will take advantage of our weaknesses for their own gain – this too is ‘standard procedure’.

Toward a Theology of Life

I think we do need a clear perspective on the present situation.  We need to be able to see that we are not in control of the mechanical aspects of Death and Dying.  We can seize control, but it will not be easy.

Culture and Who We Are

There is a major factor that affects our lives, and that is our culture.  Of course, there are cultures and sub-cultures, but most of us know of at least one other culture that seems completely different from our own.  Some people do not pry very deeply into this difference, and I suppose that in some ways that is good.  More power to you if you can see another person as just another fellow human.  It is my experience that culture is major factor in human relationships.  Therefore, culture affects our lives.

Culture.htm

As one looks deeper into theology, one finds that it is more and more cryptic.  This is understandable when one considers that theology is a product of the Feeling Brain, which does not sense things rationally.  ‘They’ say that Alfred North Whitehead began as a scientist, but eventually drifted into the field of theology.

Bultmann says in Faith and Understanding – 1933 – trans 1969 – Harper and Row – NYC  p 53 “Anyone who is persuaded by arguments to believe the reality of God can be certain that he has no comprehension whatever of the reality of God.”

Funk, in his Intro, says, quoting Troeltsch, p 13  “[Theology] is now included in the social sciences and has gained ‘universal validity’ at the cost of no longer mattering to anyone.”

In the above essay, Bultmann considers ‘the word (LC) of God’ as a major theological theme.

He quotes Dibelius, “History which can be investigated by the historico-critical method is ‘world’, consequently God is not to be found in it.”  He adds, “Religion, because it is not God, is a piece of the world.”

Before I go, I want to show you another file having to do with the Physical World vs the Spiritual World.   

obstacles_to_the_faith.htm   There are additional comments at the end of this sermon, having to do with its creation.

Here I am almost at the end – why don’t I incorporate a recent sermon – one that I think speaks of the heart of the faith.                 the_living_word_of_god.htm

These sermons were in this book before I decided to write a new one:  Commentary on the Christian Faith.