"Glad to hear, zealous to preach, but reluctant, apparently, to demonstrate"

Joseph Campbell's The Hero wwith a Thousand Faces was published in 1949. Here is an excerpt from the section entitled Apotheosis, which rings with contemporary relevance:

Once we have broken free of the prejudices of our own provincially limited ecclesiastical, tribal, or national rendition of the world archetypes, it becomes possible to understand that the supreme initiation is not that of the local motherly fathers, who then project aggression onto the neighbors for their own defense. The good news, which the World Redeemer brings and which many have been glad to hear, zealous to preach, but reluctant, apparently, to demonstrate, is that God is love, that He can be, and is to be, loved, and that all without exception are his children. Such comparatively trivial matters as the remaining details of the credo, the techniques of worship, and the devices of episcopal organization (which have so absorbed the interest of Occidental theologians that they are today seriously discussed as the principal questions of religion), are merely pedantic snares, unless kept ancillary to the major teaching. Indeed, where not so kept, they have a regressive effect: they reduce the father image back again to the dimensions of the totem. And this, of course, is what has happened throughout the Christian world. One would think that we had been called upon to decide or to know whom, of all of us, the Father prefers. Whereas, the teaching is much less flattering: "Judge not, that ye be not judged." The World Savior's cross, despite the behavior of its professed priests, is a vastly more democratic symbol than the local flag.

The understanding of the final -- and critical -- implications of the world-redemptive words and symbols of the tradition of Christendom has been so disarranged during the tumultuous centuries that have elapsed since St. Augustine's declaration of the holy war of the Civitas Dei against the Civitas Diaboli, that the modern thinker wishing to know the meaning of a world religion (i.e., of a doctrine of universal love) must turn his mind to the other great (and much older) universal communion: that of the Buddha, where the primary word still is peace -- peace to all beings.

While it is not necessary that those of us who are disenchanted with the "pedantic snares" and the "disarranged world-redemptive words and symbols" of the contemporary Church become Buddhists, we might like to reflect on the fact that our brother Jesus (as fellow blogger Michael Bayly so aptly and touchingly refers to him) was neither theologian nor cleric, neither pope nor bishop; he was simply called "Rabbi" - teacher. He was not concerned with creeds, liturgy, or "the devices of episcopal organization." His only concern was love.

"Flags are in the heads of people"

I live in Vancouver. Our hockey team, the Canucks, is about to play in Game Seven of the Stanley Cup final against the Boston Bruins. The city is completely abuzz with the possibility that the team will win its first Stanley Cup in the forty years of its existence and that the Cup will return to Canada (after all, hockey is our sport) for the first time since 1993. There have been comparisons made with the excitement in the city around the hockey final between the US and Canada in the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, held here in Vancouver.

There are Canucks flags flying everywhere.

Here is another gem from Anthony de Mello's book:

Something more about words. I said to you earlier that words are limited. There is more I have to add. There are some words that correspond to nothing. For instance, I am an Indian. Now, let's suppose that I'm a prisoner of war in Pakistan, and they say to me, "Well, today we're going to take you to the frontier and you're going to take a look at your country." So they bring me to the frontier, and I look across the border, and I think, "Oh my country, my beautiful country. I see villages and trees and hills. This is my own, my native land!" After a while, one of the guards says, "Excuse me, we've made a mistake here. We have to move up another ten miles." What was I reacting to? Nothing. I kept focusing on a word, India. But trees are not India. Trees are trees. In fact, there are no frontiers or boundaries. They were put there by the human mind; generally by stupid, avaricious politicians. My country was one country once upon a time; it's four now. If we don't watch out it might be six. Then we'll have six flags, six armies. That's why you'll never catch me saluting a flag. I abhor all national flags because they are idols. What are we saluting? I salute humanity, not a flag with an army around it.

Flags are in the heads of people. In any case there are thousands of words in our vocabulary that do not correspond to reality at all. But do they trigger emotions in us! So we begin to see things that are not there. We actually see Indian mountains when they don't exist. Your American conditioning exists.  My Indian conditioning exists.

And our Canadian conditioning exists, our Vancouver conditioning exists, and our Canucks conditioning exists. 

(Go Canucks!)

Anthony de Mello: Awareness without Evaluating Everything

 From Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality:

Do you want to change the world? How about beginning with yourself? How about being transformed yourself first? But how do you achieve that? Through observation. Through understanding. With no interference or judgment on your part. Because what you judge you cannot understand.

When you say of someone "He's a communist," understanding has stopped at that moment. You slapped a label on him. "She's a capitalist." Understanding has stopped at that moment. You slapped a label on her, and if the label carries undertones of approval or disapproval, so much the worse! How are you going to understand what you disapprove of, or what you approve of, for that matter? All of this sounds like a new world, doesn't it? No judgment, no commentary, no attitude: one simply observes, one studies, one watches, without the desire to change what is. Because if you desire to change what is into what should be, you no longer understand.

 The last sentence is the key: we seem always to want to change the behaviour of others so that it conforms with our expectations, and of course when it does not conform, we are not only disappointed, we judge that other person as selfish, hurtful, insensitive, thoughtless, whatever. The problem lies in our harbouring these expectations, which we often do unconsciously.If we can let them go and simply be aware, all our judgmental notions of good and bad simply dissolve.

De Mello goes on to say:

A dog trainer attempts to understand a dog so that he can train the dog to perform certain tricks. A scientist observes the behavior of ants with no further end in view than to study ants, to learn as much as possible about them. He has no other aim. He's not attempting to train them or to get anything out of them. He's interested in ants, he wants to learn as much as possible about them. That's his attitude. The day you attain a posture like that, you will experience a miracle. You will change -- effortlessly, correctly. Change will happen, you will not have to bring it about. As the life of awareness settles on your darkness, whatever is evil will disappear. Whatever is good will be fostered. You will have to experience that for yourself. 

 Judging (and condemning) are life-long habits -- so much so that they are automatic, mechanical, unconscious reactions. Like other habits that are unhealthy for us, we need to replace them with healthy ones. In this case we need to replace desire and expectation and unconscious judgment with the habit of observation, of awareness. Such a process takes a certain amount of discipline. But the result will be profound and miraculous: a transformation from unhappiness to happiness.

Wrestling with Faith: Embracing the Tension between Head and Heart

On June 22 of last year I posted an article on faith entitled "Reconciling Faith and Disbelief (I)." I never did write the second part of this article. I approached the topic again recently and, after much additional reflection and reading, wrote a "new" piece, which appears today on Life as a Human.

Film Review: Mao's Last Dancer

 

I recently bought a “previously viewed” copy of the film Mao’s Last Dancer from my local Blockbuster’s outlet. I had been intrigued by this film when I saw the trailers because, admittedly, the lead actor/dancer was very cute, but also because I had been a student in China during the last stages of Moa Zedong’s so-called Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and was thus familiar with some of the film’s political and cultural underpinnings.

The story goes like this: Li Cunxin, a young boy from a very poor peasant family in Shandong Province, is suddenly plucked from his classroom by a group of strange men, put through a very painful “audition,” and as a result is chosen to attend the national ballet school in Beijing, which is at the time under the sponsorship of Chairman Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing. The training is relentless and brutal, but ultimately Li falls in love with ballet and becomes a superlative dancer. When the Cultural Revolution ends and China opens her doors to the world, he is selected to receive three months training at the Houston Ballet, where after an initial period of cultural shock, he thrives, both artistically and emotionally.

The adult Li is played by dancer/actor Chi Cao.

In Houston, Li falls in love with and marries an American dancer, deciding that he is going to stay in America with his new wife. When he goes to the Chinese consulate in Houston to announce his plan, he is basically kidnapped and held until political pressure forces the Chinese authorities to release him. Upon his release he is told that he may never step on Chinese soil again and will never be allowed to see or even contact his family again. He is devastated but is determined to become a world-class artist. Soon he is offered a permanent contract at the Houston Ballet and a successful career is assured.

As China gradually opens up even further, there is hope that he will be able to see his parents again. The film ends with Li as principal dancer in a performance of “The Rite of Spring” and the surprise appearance of his parents in the audience. Tears flowed on both sides of the TV screen.

A friend who watched this movie with us commented dismissively throughout and afterward that the film was “predictable” and “schmaltzy” although she did like it overall. At one time I would have agreed with her and would have been equally disparaging. Now, however, I understand two things that I never understood before. First, this is a film about an incredible human journey, one that most of us will never choose or be required to take. Mao’s Last Dancer is in fact based on the autobiography of Li Cunxin, so the film is depicting real events in a real life. Even if we could have seen from at least one very obvious hint that the dancer’s parents were going to show up at his performance, this foreknowledge would not have diminished in any way the emotional impact of that moment, given what we know about the pain of separation in a Chinese family and the tremendous sacrifices Li made for his art.

Second, as a rather amateur and bumbling screenwriter, I know how difficult it is to write a credible script, even when it based on a true story. What details of the story do we include? How do we arrange them for the best dramatic effect? How do we make the dialogue cinematically realistic?

In the end, I think this movie is a small triumph. The story is touching and inspiring; the dancing is awesome and beautiful. And Chi Cao is never hard to look at.

Facing the Minotaur and Finding our Way to Freedom

"The multitude of men and women choose the less adventurous way of the comparatively unconscious civic and tribal routines. But these seekers, too, are saved -- by virtue of the inherited symbolic aids of society, the rites of passage, the grace-yielding sacraments, given to mankind of old by the redeemers and handed down through millennia. It is only those who know neither an inner call nor an outer doctrine whose plight truly is desperate; that is to say, most of us today, in this labyrinth without and within the heart. Alas, where is the guide, that fond virgin, Ariadne, to supply the simple clue that will give us courage to face the Minotaur, and the means then to find our way to freedom when the monster has been met and slain?

"Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos, fell in love with the handsome Theseus the moment she saw him disembark from the boat that had brought the pitiful group of Athenian youths and maidens for the Minotaur. She found a way to talk with him, and declared that she would supply a means to help him back out of the labyrinth if he would promise to take her away from Crete with him and make her his wife. The pledge was given. Ariadne turned for help, then, to the crafty Daedalus, by whose art the labyrinth had been constructed and Ariadne's mother enabled to give birth to its inhabitant. Daedalus simply presented her with a skein of linen thread, which the visiting hero might fix to the entrance and unwind as he went into the maze. It is, indeed, very little that we need! But lacking that, the adventure into the labyrinth is without hope.

"The little is close at hand. Most curiously, the very scientist who, in the service of the sinful king, was the brain behind the horror of the labyrinth, quite as readily can serve the purposes of freedom. But the hero-heart must be at hand. For centuries Daedalus has represented the type of the artist-scientist: that curiously disinterested, almost diabolic human phenomenon, beyond the normal bounds of social judgment, dedicated to the morals not of his time but of his art. He is the hero of the way of thought -- singlehearted, courageous, and full of faith that the truth, as he finds it, shall make us free.

"And so now we may turn to him, as did Ariadne. The flax for the linen of his thread he has gathered from the fields of the human imagination. Centuries of husbandry, decades of diligent culling, the work of numerous hearts and hands, have gone into the hackling, sorting, and spinning of this tightly twisted yarn. Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world."

Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces

A Priest's Dilemma, A Church's Sinfulness

I have just finished reading Dilemma: A Priest's Struggle with Faith and Love, by Father Alberto Cutie. Padre Alberto, famous in the Southeastern United States and in much of Latin America for his work in the media, particularly in television, was propelled to international notoriety when pictures of the Roman Catholic priest and his girlfriend lying on a Miami beach appeared on the Internet and in tabloid and mainstream newspapers in early 2009. Removed from active ministry and deprived of salary and benefits, Cutie subsequently joined the Episcopalian (Anglican) Church and now serves as a priest in a Miami parish. He and his girlfriend were married and now have a daughter.

Dilemma tells the story of Father Cutie's journey of receiving the call to the priesthood from God and becoming a a very busy and active priest, both as pastor of various parishes and as media personality. It describes his increasing awareness of and concern over dysfunction in the Catholic Church, particularly among clergy and the hierarchy. And it tells the story of how Fr. Cutie was suddenly faced with an almost unbearable challenge to his promise of celibacy when he met and fell in love with Ruhama, the woman who would eventually become his wife.

The story of this priest's struggle was not as interesting to me as was the view of a Church insider of its serious state of dysfunction and of the disconnection between the institutionalized Catholicism as reflected in the attitudes and actions of the hierarchy and the real lives of the people in the pews. Father Cutie knew many priests who were cast aside by their bishop upon even the slightest suspicion of misconduct and with no opportunity to prove their innocence. He and his parishioners experienced the cold shoulder of the archbishop in times of great need. For example, in 2002 he was appointed temporary administrator of a very large parish whose "hugely popular, charismatic" pastor had been removed after allegations of sexual abuse.

Four months into my job as administrator at San Isidro, I finally went to my bishop to find out how much longer I would have to stay at the megachurch. He assured me that I would only be there a few more months. Instead, I remained assigned there for nearly two full years, working fifteen hours a day.

What was most disappointing to me is that never again in those two years did the bishop speak to me. Not once! He never visited the parish, called, or asked how the San Isidro church was doing or how the parishioners felt. There was no discussion about what the game plan should be for the future of this important parish, either.

Finally, after a few more months had gone by, I called his priest secretary - a young monsignor - to ask when we could expect the archbishop to visit; I still thought that he might be planning to speak to the hurting flock and to listen to their pain regarding their ousted pastor. The secretary's response was curt: "I'm sure the archbishop will visit San Isidro the next time that he is scheduled for Confirmation."

I couldn't believe it. Church officials were acting as if nothing special at all had happened in that parish, despite the blaze of bad press and the obvious knowledge that the people this pastor had served were feeling shattered. Never mind the fact that I had been thrown into this situation to face the press and the parish with zero support. I knew that I'd get through everything with a lot of prayer and help from people in the parish, many of whom were wonderfully understanding. What bothered me more was that Church officials obviously felt no real need to face the people of this parish, who were hungry for answers and wanted to know about the future of their spiritual home. These people had invested a lot of their time and resources into this megachurch, yet the officials of the archdiocese ran from them like the plague.

Again, I had to observe that this removed, rigid, and dysfunctional way of conducting business was all too common for the Church. It appeared as if those in positions of authority seemed determined to keep their distance from anything - or anyone - that might contaminate them or hurt their chances of continuing to climb the Church ladder. Until the time these incidents occurred, I was convinced that bishops were shepherds with a spiritual and [pastoral role to fulfill. Unfortunately, what I saw were Church leaders who ran and hid from difficult situations, including those which needed them the most.

 The idealism of this young priest, including a commitment to live a life of celibacy, was gradually eroded by what he observed and what he experienced in ministry. He knew and knew of many priests, bishops, and even cardinals who secretly kept girlfriends or boyfriends, some even maintaining separate residences so that they could live with their partners. His own situation, in which he truly loved being a priest while loving a woman at the same time, made him question the wisdom of the requirement for celibacy. And through the problems and questions of the thousands of people he came into contact with in his parochial and media ministries, he began to question other Church doctrines and policies.

Father Cutie's book is a passionate, generally reasoned, and ultimately devastating critique of a Church that desperately needs reform. His decision to leave the Church he grew up in and loves reflects, apart from the fallout of the scandal he created, his view that such reform will not be quickly forthcoming.

If I have one criticism of this book, and it is not a small one, it is that Father Cutie never fails to present himself as a kind of ideal priest and as a victim of the dysfunctional hierarchy. While both of these may be true to a great degree, this approach detracts from the credibility of the story enough to diminish the effect of what I regard to be the true value of this book, a view of the rot from the inside.

Nevertheless, it is a worthwhile read.