Doing Better

From Jewish with Feeling: Meaningful Jewish Practice, by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi:

The Hasidim tell of Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, who used to say, before he went  to sleep at night, "Master of the Universe, today I didn't do so well. I promise that tomorrow I'm going to do better."

Immediately he would chide himself. "But Levi Yitzchak, that's what you said last night!"

"Ah, but tonight," he'd reply to himself, "tonight I really mean it."

Mythology and Religion

Joseph Campbell on mythology and religion:

My favorite definition of mythology: Other people's religion. My favorite definition of religion: Misunderstanding of mythology. The misunderstanding consists in the reading of the spiritual mythological symbols as if they were primarily references to historical events. Localized provincial readings separate the various religious communities. Remythologization - recapturing the mythological meaning - reveals a common spirituality of mankind.

The Wise Dummy

In her book The Search for the Beloved, Jean Houston tells the story of going to visit Edgar Bergen with her father, who was a comedy writer.

Ed didn't hear us as we knocked at his open hotel door; he was sitting on the side of a bed deep in conversation with Charlie. My Dad shrugged. "He's rehearsing." But then we heard what Ed was saying. He was asking Charlie ultimate questions, like: "Charlie, what is the nature of love? What is the meaning of life truly lived? What really comprises the good, the true, and the beautiful?" And Charlie was answering! Pouring out pungent, beautifully crafted statements of deep wisdom. The funny-faced little dummy was expounding the kind of knowing that could only have come from a lifetime of loving study, observation, and interaction with equally high beings.

After several minutes of listening to this wooden Socrates, my father, embarrassed, coughed. Bergen looked up and somewhat shamefacedly greeted us. "Hello, Jack, hi Jean. I see you caught us."

"Yeah, Ed," my father said. "What in the world are you doing?"

"I'm talking to Charlie. He's the wisest person I know."

"But Ed," my father expostulated, "that's your voice and your mind coming out of that dummy!"

"Yes, Jack, I suppose it is," Ed answered quietly. But then he added with great poignancy, "And yet, when he answers me, it is so much more than I know."

Houston goes on to say how this short conversation profoundly influenced the direction of her own life:

At that moment my future was set. I had no choice but to pursue a path and a career that would discover ways to tap into the "so much more" of the deep knowledge that we all contain but rarely contact. These ways are offered in my seminars, not to produce more ventriloquists, but to enable people to inhabit more levels of themselves.

"The Pursuit of Happyness": A (Late) Review

I saw this 2006 film on DVD the other night and have been thinking about it here and there ever since. My first impression was that it was one of the most agonizingly suspenseful movies I have ever seen, and I don’t mean this in any positive sense. The relentless parade of increasingly unfortunate events suffered by the main character Chris Gardner (Will Smith) and his young son had me squirming in my seat for much of the picture. I kept hoping—in vain as it turned out—that the next incident would signal an upturn in Mr. Gardner’s fortunes. Only in about the last three minutes of the film were we rewarded for our positively saintly patience with some kind of redemption.

The story goes something like this: Chris Gardner is a salesman with big dreams, as in dreams of $$$$$$$$$$$. He and his wife use all of their savings to buy a whole bunch of bone scanning machines, which Gardner then tries to hawk to doctors, clinics, hospitals. As the movie opens, sales are not going well, the rent and bills are not being paid, and the Gardners, who have a very young son, are not getting along. Gardner desperately tries to hold everything together with his salesman-like bravado but the family’s life continues to unravel. The wife leaves, Gardner and the son get kicked out of their apartment and then out of the motel they are living in and end up sleeping in a shelters, and he loses a couple of bone scanners and has his bank account cleaned out by the IRS.

One day, in the midst of these trials, our feckless hero spots an expensive red imported sports car parked by the curb; the owner turns out to be a stockbroker. Chris decides then and there that despite the ridiculous odds against success—if he succeeds in becoming one of twenty interns working for Dean Winter and learning the trade, he is also competing against the other nineteen for the one job that is waiting at the end of six-month internship—he is going to become a stockbroker.

Chris Gardner is a smart, witty, and determined man, and at the very end of the film he is chosen out of the twenty to become a broker at Dean Winter. After the film ends, we learn that he goes on to found his own brokerage firm and eventually sold a minority share in that company for a very large sum of money.

Happy ending. Well, if happy ending means I was glad the movie was over, then yes, The Pursuit of Happyness ended happily. But if this film, which was “inspired by a true story,” was meant to in turn inspire viewers to do whatever it takes (including putting your child through a virtual hell) to get a job that is going to put enough money in their pocket to give them financial security (and bolster their already significant ego at the same time), I am not sure if this is a message I would want to be giving.

I did not feel sorry for Chris Garner, nor did I cheer him on (except in the sense that I wanted him to achieve sufficient success—really quickly—to put me out of my misery). He is an egotistical, irresponsible jerk who cares only about himself. I could not help but feeling that his determination to keep his son when his wife was leaving him and his gritty resolve to succeed at Dean Winter were also manifestations of an ego out of control. I wonder what lessons the son took away from the experience his father put him through.

This is not a movie I would ever watch again, nor would I encourage a young person to buy into its message.

Update

Since I began this blog in late 2009—and actually even before that—I have been pretty much allowing the Spirit to guide what I study, read, or write (or not write) on any given day. The blog entries reflect this practice, I think.

In the past few months I have been moved to read and study more widely outside of Roman Catholicism. Books that I have on the go include the one by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi quoted from in an earlier blog; a new book by Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly entitled All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age; a book on general science, Science Matters: Achieving Scientific Literacy; and the ubiquitous Joseph Campbell, to whom I always seem to keep returning. I am also writing an article about a very interesting friend who has lived in Japan for the past thirty years. And I will soon finish watching the lectures in the Yale course “Introduction to New Testament History and Literature.”

At the same time, it seems that I no longer wish to attend Mass. I am at present more inspired to spend Sunday in my office with my books and my various projects. I have no feelings of guilt or regret about this inclination to “lapse,” and will therefore not force myself to go to church just because Sunday is a day of obligatory attendance for those who call themselves Catholics.

I now have a clearer idea of where all this “drifting” may be leading although I do not wish to in any way project my thoughts into the future or to begin to hang on to something I may have been subconsciously searching for over the past few years, and especially in the fifteen months since I began blogging. I now realize that this practice of allowing the Spirit to guide my work has been leading me to gradually let go of habits, ideas, and beliefs that I once thought were terribly important and thus clung stubbornly and desperately to. I am becoming more and more conscious of the fact that I have truly begun to “follow my bliss,” which Campbell defines as “that deep sense of being present, of doing what you absolutely must do to be yourself.”

"If you can hang on to that, you are on the edge of the transcendent already. You may not have any money, but it doesn’t matter. When I came back from my student years in Germany and Paris, it was three weeks before the Wall Street crash in 1929, and I didn’t have a job for five years. And, fortunately for me, there was no welfare. I had nothing to do but sit in Woodstock and read and figure out where my bliss lay. There I was on the edge of excitement all the time."

At this moment I also feel on the edge of excitement much of the time. I am very interested in this idea of following one’s bliss and I am moved to explore it further. I have no idea of what this means in terms of my Catholicism, but I somehow feel that I will sooner or later return to it because it is “the myth that I was brought up with.” I am always inspired by Karen Armstrong, whose life and whose person are true reflections of bliss: Armstrong entered the convent seeking God but only found God when she discovered her bliss, long after leaving the convent and only after several “failed” attempts at establishing a career.

As for Confessions of a Liturgy Queen, I am not sure if I will keep it going because I think of myself less and less as a “liturgy queen” as this term was defined in the earliest blog postings. This may be because I have not been able to find a church that consistently moves me closer to God through the overall conduct of the liturgy. I do not blame any church for my own disappointment; the problem—if it is a problem—lies with me. I am apparently being called to experience God on my own.

I am profoundly grateful to all those who have followed this journey, who have endured with kindness and patience all the ramblings and rages that have appeared on these “pages,” and who have supported and encouraged me along the way.

Blessings and peace to all of you.

"A Mystical Approach to Judaism"

A few weeks ago a friend and former colleague, who is Jewish, came over for lunch and brought me some books to read as I had been telling her that I wished to know more about Judaism. Today is the first opportunity I have had to crack one of these books and the one I opened immediately struck my heart with a resonance that I experienced with few of the Catholic or Christian books I have read.

Here is a good part of the Introduction to Jewish with Feeling: A Guide to Meaningful Jewish Practice, by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi:

A spiritual seeker is a person whose soul is awake, whose spirit has experienced -- whether the mind knows it or not -- that slap that gets the first breath going in a newborn. Such a soul is not content to stay on the level of mere observance, ritual, and dogmatic belief that it encounters in most Jewish settings. It needs a more personal and mystical approach. It wants an open-sky Judaism: a Judaism that invites the infinite and operates at a higher level of spiritual consciousness. It senses the divine just beyond the surface of everyday existence and wants to connect to that. It yearns to achieve for itself those inner experiences that lie at the heart of religion's external forms. A mystical approach to Judaism is therefore less dogmatic and more experimental. It doesn't have a low ceiling, capping the mind and frustrating its desire to unite in love and awe with a vital, living universe. It is open-minded, open-souled. It says, "Try this. If you feel it as a living reality, we're getting somewhere."

A mystical approach also recognizes that no static philosophy, no one-size-fits-all Judaism, can express the entire range of our inner growth. As we progress and develop, our spiritual needs will change. I grew up with Judaism in my mother's milk, but before committing myself intellectually to the Jewish path, I had to shed the religion I learned in the cheders, which spoke to me in almost superstitious ways. In my teenage years "the old man in the sky" was like a straitjacket. I couldn't think, or feel, or know anything about that kind of God.. I grew to adolescence during the Holocaust. I witnessed the persecution and humiliation of our people, including my own family. By the summer of 1939, when I was fifteen years old, we had to flee our home in Vienna, where I grew up, and cross the border illegally into Belgium, where we lived a precarious existence. I was so angry with God, with Yiddishkeit, with everything I'd been taught. Where were all the rewards God promised us? These, my cheder teachers said, were reserved for olam ha-ba, the world to come. In olam ha-ba there would be rivers of wine, and clothes would grow on trees, and the Mashiach would come; we'd be on top and the goyim on the bottom, and all the graves would open up and the dead would live again. I couldn't swallow these notions. My higher mind's immune system rejected them.

One weekend in Antwerp I said to myself, this Shabbos I'm going to get even with all that big rock-candy mountain nonsense. That afternoon I went to the local Orthodox youth study group, the same sort of group I used to attend in Vienna. I knew they were learning "Ethics of the Fathers," and sure enough a student began to read the introduction: "Every Jew has a portion of the world to come." "Pie in the sky!" I shouted. "Did anyone ever come back from there? It's all narishkeit, all rubbish. The opiate of the masses." I poured it all out -- standing by the door for a quick getaway. The other students wanted to tear me apart, but the man sitting at the head of the table said, "Let him talk." When I finally had nothing more to say, the teacher said, "Would you like to hear from someone who agrees with you?" He asked for someone to bring Tractate Sanhedrin of the Talmud, turned to Maimonides' commentary on the Mishnah in the back, and started to read aloud. People have no idea what olam ha-ba is all about, Maimonides says. A blind man doesn't understand color; a eunuch doesn't understand sex. How could people living in this material world understand the pure godliness and spirit of the next?

This was so freeing. The teacher showed me that debunking foolish ideas was kosher, that our tradition had some precedents for that. He later introduced me to a group of young men who worked in Antwerp's diamond cutting trade and who, like him, had become Lubavitcher Hasidim. They would sit around cutting diamonds on those special lathes and studying Torah, and I joined them for a time. They listened seriously to my adolescent questions and encouraged me to find answers that rang true for me. Not only did they initiate me into the study of Hasidic texts, meditation, and introspection; they also gave me Romain Roland, a French writer and an exponent of Hinduism, and Johannes Anker Larsen, a mystical Danish novelist and playwright. Instead of being confused, I was in-fused. My soul always seems to have felt the need to hang in tension between polar opposites, and this tension my mythical mentors provided with generosity. So even in the midst of teenage hopelessness I began to get glimpses of the Presence to which I ultimately devoted my life.

I once brought some college students to see Reb Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the last Lubavitcher Rebbe. The Rebbe spoke to them for a little while, then asked if they had any questions. One young man raised his hand: "What is a rebbe good for?" he asked. Far from being offended, the Rebbe said: "That is a very good question. Let me tell you. It is written: 'You shall be unto me a land of desire' [Malachi 3:12]. The Earth contains all kinds of treasures, but you have to know where to dig. If you do not, you will come up with nothing but rocks or mud. But if you ask the geologist of the soul where to dig, you might find silver, which is the love of God; gold, which is awe before God; or diamonds,, which is faith. A rebbe can only show you where to dig. You must do the digging yourself."

Throughout my life I have revised and adjusted my beliefs. I grew slowly, through study and prayer and God-wrestling and standing in the presence of great souls. I did not experience one seismic and pivotal moment, but a long series of epiphanies, which often seemed unrelated to one another. Like a Zen student, I needed meditative and contemplative training to make sense of these "Aha!" moments. Ultimately, just as I grew into the world of the Lubavitch, I moved beyond it. I wanted to learn from the spiritually experienced of other fields: Sufi sheikhs, Buddhist monks, Christian contemplatives, American savants. I received something from all of them. Today, once again I find myself in suspension between two polar opposites. To modern Jews I am one of the last Mohicans of pre-Holocaust Jewish mysticism. As such, I am concerned about the continuity of our tradition and lineage and making it come alive for my own children, who, with so many Jews today, are searching for the balance between the values that are specific to Judaism and those that are universal. On the other foot, I stand on concern for the future -- the future not only of our people but of the planet as a whole -- and for the survival of the human race on our way to a great and divinizing transformation.

In a world where such a universalist spirituality is possible, why be Jewish? So many of my values connect me to nature, to the planet, to compassion for all living beings, that my Judaism at moments feels like a confinement -- unless I begin to see that my Jewish values are the very ones that produced my universal concern. Today, I feel more than ever that we Jews are integral and necessary to life in the larger body of nations on planet Earth, that we need to be the healthy vital organ of the whole Earth that we are meant to be. By being the best and most enlightened Jews we can, we place ourselves at the service of all other beings with whom we share the here and now.

There is here an open-mindedness, an open-heartedness, the embrace of a universal spirituality expressed through a single, yet very rich, religious tradition, that is seldom seen in such a public display by a Catholic cleric. Yet one cannot help but think that the tension Rabbi Schachter-Shalomi speaks of in this introduction is felt by many thoughtful Catholic priests. It is a great pity and a great loss for thinking, questioning, doubtful Catholics that such healthy - even joyful - tension is kept behind the dark and heavy curtain of Catholic orthodoxy.

 

 Photo Credit

"IMG_2511" by   andydr

Creative Commons@flickr.com: some rights reserved

The Gift of Sexuality: Canadian Bishops' Pastoral Letter on Chastity

I can always count on the local diocesan newspaper, The B.C. Catholic to give me something to write about if I choose to take the proffered bait. Last week the venerable publication dangled a nice big juicy worm right where I could not resist grabbing for it.

On the front page of the February 7 issue of The BCC was the following article heading: “The virtues of chastity: Bishops release pastoral letter on chaste living.” Of course, following my rages at the Courage apostolate and its promotion of an entire life of chastity for those “afflicted with same-sex attraction,” the sight or mention of the word sets off a whole orchestra of cacophonous klaxons in my uncharitable—and definitely unchaste—heart.

The article, with a local by-line, contains all the usual clichés about the body as “a temple of the Holy Spirit” needing to be treated with “the reverence it deserves”; about our “sex-saturated society”; and about the necessity of constant prayer and regular confession to aid in leading a chaste life.

Another article in the back pages of the paper, with a national by-line, offers more quotes from the Canadian bishops’ pastoral letter as well as from prominent figures in Catholic life in Canada.

I have no idea how many single people, young or otherwise, opt for chastity in their sex lives; I am not aware of any surveys that might provide insight into this issue. Nor do I claim to know all the reasons a person may choose to remain chaste. As a healthy male, however, I think I can state with considerable confidence that living a chaste life—which also includes abstaining from sexual self-gratification, by the way—would be extraordinarily demanding.

It is commendable, in my opinion, that the Canadian bishops “want to assure those young people who are struggling to live a life of chastity that their bishops stand prayerfully with them and are there to support and encourage them.” I am certain that those who have chosen to live chastely can use all the help they can get.

But the bishops would also have young people believe that they possess the knowledge of how God intends the gift of sexuality to be used:

“When this gift is used as the Father wills, we give him glory and build up his Kingdom. When we live our sexuality in the proper way, according to our state in life, others will be able to find God through us.”

They even appear to have knowledge of what sexual activities God condones and does not condone:

“…the sexual act has to be unitive and procreative and [that is] why some kinds of sexual activity are mot chaste. Though pleasure may be present, some acts are a misuse of sex when they fall short of what God intends.”

Finally, the bishops seem to have access to information about the consequences of not living a chaste life:

“Failure to live chastely leads to a self-centered existence that blinds us to the needs, the joys and the beauty of the world around us.”

I am not so privileged as to have direct access to knowledge of God’s intentions for my sexuality, or for anything else. I do have an opinion, however, which comes from the brain that God gave me.

I agree that if human sexuality is a gift from God, it must be treated reverently, as we would treat any gift given to us by someone who loves us. And I agree that we need to teach our young people that the precious gift of our sexuality is not something to be squandered or abused by ourselves or stolen by others; the consequences of misusing our sexuality can be devastating, even fatal. But we are very fortunate in this society in that we are for the most part in control of our sexuality and are therefore able to freely choose how it is to be used.

I cannot for the life of me understand how God could on the one hand give me a beautiful gift like my sexuality and then turn around and tell me that because he made me gay or because I am unable to find a wife or because I am physically incapable of procreating, I may not enjoy this gift. One would think that such a cruel joke could only be played by Satan. I am therefore incapable of buying the bishops’ argument; I expect that a thoughtful young person would also have difficulty accepting their “teaching.”

This pastoral letter leaves me with the sad feeling that bishops as a group are quite out of touch with both authentic spirituality and the reality of modern life and that this dis-integrated condition renders them and their words irrelevant.

I can only hope that young Catholics recognize that the gift of sexuality is theirs alone to use or to share—wisely, I pray—and that the choice of expressing their sexuality in a loving relationship or remaining chaste is theirs and theirs alone.