Uh oh - crazy thought (that also ties several other blog-thoughts together, too)

So, I just picked up this book of sayings of the desert fathers. You know - figured I'd take a gander - see what they have to offer. And - it's CRAZY. These dudes were so severe, and it's all demons and devils and what not. I am tempted to dismiss it out of hand as just the "hallucinations" resulting from weeks with no food and little water and an incessant desert sun. And then somewhere between these thoughts I realized its not really ok for me to think along such lines (of dismissal based on the interpretation of 'hallucinations'). I keep using quote marks around 'hallucinations' because that is just what we neuro-scientists categorize them as, when, on the contrary, the phenomenon presents itself as: In order to be able to see the spiritual realm, you need to fast. Clear and simple with no neuro-schmeuro nonsense. This surface (yet deepest [eidos]) interpretation is also far more compatible with the world the New Testament speaks of. So - all of the sudden I am left dumb-founded that maybe it's all real: all the monks' stories, all the crazy demons and what not. And if this is the case - then I need to re-adjust my life accordingly! For starters - maybe giving fasting a try. (So bloody difficult!) Also - reading classic Christian texts with much more credulity than my skeptical modern eyes usually afford them. But most of all - clinging ever tighter to the Christ who is my savior!

I have now lived 25 years on this earth

And how happy I am for all these years of life. Vis-a-vis this blog - how happy I am to have had these several years of dialogue and friendship with you, Mark, and all ye readers with whom I have likewise enjoyed the rich pleasure of armchair philosophizing.

Also - in recognition of this quarter century, and because of the hundreds of COPD patients I have seen at the medical hospital - I quit smoking! About 36 hrs ago. Didn't sleep a wink this night, but am over the moon about my new status as a non-smoker.

Remember those nights where we would get a bit tipsy, and then in the middle of the night I would stumble awake and throw away our cigarettes? Well I am finally honoring that uninhibited impulse once and for all. :)

I changed my profile pic in recognition of this.

Also, as eager as I am to put this in writing to seal the deal, this shall also be the last you will ever hear of it from me. Nothing more annoying than that guy who always talks about how long he's gone without, etc. How he "used to be one of those" etc. Yuck.

Also, to any of ye readers ever looking to do the same, I highly recommend this book (hat tip: my dear friend Tony Kaehny). Takes all of 20 minutes to read, but is an amazing tool which I am leaning on in these first couple weeks while the physical withdrawals subside.

Psychoanalytic findings as myth-making

On a couple occasions lately I have been speaking with someone who (over)shared some snippet of their past as it relates to their future. Y'all know of what I speak - like, when someone says, "well, I have deep trust issues because when I was 8 my Dad forgot to pick me up from soccer practice". Ok, that's a rather demure example, but that sort of statement. Anyway - while I have no doubt that our current ways of thinking and acting are formed by our experiences in the developmental years, when people pin it down to specific incidents, or specific people that 'wounded' them, I have this gut-sense that the thing they are labeling as the offender and the cause of their problems isn't really the cause of the problem. Rather - the things we latch on to that we use to explain current psychological problems actually are just the myths that we create for ourselves in order to comprehend our own story. That is - in the same way the greek myths help to explain things - even if only in a sort of chthonic, vague way - like, Cupid (romantic attraction) is the child of Eros and Psyche, etc. likewise - identifying and creating a narrative of our own childhood hurts, help us to conceive of our real, deeper hurt. I need to clarify a little: not that the pain-stories we tell (or discover when psychoanalysed) are made-up (although - I reckon they can be, and can still be useful), indeed they can be very real instances of abuse, neglect or false-standards, but when we label these things as the cause, we miss the mark a little. I think these things are not the real root of our pain; but rather - our specific painful memories allow us to point to and to access a deeper, more original pain (original sin?) that we all really do have. That is - there is some deep hole or scar or something in all of us, which we are doomed to live out of regardless of how our childhoods were. The myths we tell then, do allow us to describe the specific form our original-pain has taken as it has unfolded in our lives, but we err if we label the myth itself as the thing.

Secondarily to this - we all know some people who are just totally stuck on the painful elements in their past. Now, if their childhood was one full of trauma - this is entirely understandable, however, I think the problem here is that they have chosen their pain-myths as the most foundational narratives to their identity. This is problematic. Let there be no mistake - it is absolutely necessary to process past trauma, if there is some, with a therapist, and this can of course take years to fully work out, but if - even through the course of therapy (and this is the problem with the pop-version of psychoanalysis that is wide-spread) - these pain-stories are allowed first place in the category of 'stories that define our lives', then we will inevitably be stuck in our pain (and also think that the myths are the real source of it all - rather than something more original, that I was arguing earlier). I think this is where the Christian story has something very real and practical to help we, the hurting (that is - all of us): God has revealed that what is most true about us is that we are made by God, and that we bear God's image, and that this has been restored to us in Christ. That the truest thing about us is the glory we bear. C.S. Lewis comes to this a lot (Weight of Glory, the lessons in the Narnia stories), and he is right. Our pain - the primal, original kind; that is, the ache in all of us, and the specific pains we experienced and that effected our development are a secondary element to our identity.

Anyways, you buy it?

cosmic curiosity

I just don't know what it says about God that in creation we find inter-filament (a filament is a collection of super-clusters of galaxies) voids that are areas of space with NOTHING in them for spans of 500 million light-years! in case you forgot your math - that's 3,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles, WITH NOTHING - NOT EVEN DUST - IN IT!
That's just crazy amounts of space. And for some reason it freaks me out. Such large quantities of absence just don't fit with the character of YHWH as he has revealed himself in specific revelation, no?
Anyways - it troubles me.

Brain-Chemistry is Lame, pt II - an anecdote

As an example of how much better it is to not have the language of brain-chemistry littered in our conversation or understanding, compare this Orwell passage on a cup of tea (1946), with how people these days brashly talk about "caffeine":

First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays — it is economical, and one can drink it without milk — but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone who has used that comforting phrase 'a nice cup of tea' invariably means Indian tea.

(Taken from this excellent essay)

Damn you, Neuroscience!

This will be a brief rant, i promise.

I am just so bloody annoyed at how the claims and lingo of neuroscience have invaded both common speech and journalistic writing!

I feel incensed the way Blake was at the rationalists of his own day: How dare they demean happiness by calling it just dopamine! Do they really think that bliss is explained by seratonin?

I am of course not doubting the observations of the neuroscientists—of course, when we observe someone who is happy we also are able to observe an increase in dopamine. But observing the fact that they happen at the same time does not mean that we have found a sufficient explanation for happiness! Here again, scientists, and the masses who assimilate their ideas, have confused the question of 'how?' (as in, ''how does the brain work?") which is the quest of science, with the existential and spiritual question of 'why?'

I am not very dextrous with Aristotelian terminology, but to rephrase it as such: Science has partially described the material cause of human workings, but it does not—indeed, structurally cannot—touch the other three causes that make up the being of a thing! That is, what it's aim is, what it's orignal source is, etc. (see here for a primer on what I am talking about)

And yet—so many claim (more often tacitly than explicitly) that it does explain the human condition fully.

And I am torn with both pity and anger for all those who speak in such a way. That they think the depths of a human's heart can be encompassed with the names of a few chemicals. And anger - because they seek to demean my own being-in-this-world.

Ok, if i let the anger subside for a moment, I think I can see how this came about. In part because of an ever-increasing materialist outlook which has been devloping since Darwin. In part because of the proliferation of psycho-tropic medication which only imparts a chemical, and yet does effect an emotional change, but both of these things are understood too simply! Regarding meds, they do effect a degree of change in the taker, but unless the taker supplements this temporary boost (for they all of them wear off over time) with the hard-work of an existential quest to find meaning and happiness - they will remain despondent!

(I bet there are studies out there to back me up on this, but i don't know of them off-hand)

Also, I am stunned that people think the observations of neuroscientists are profound! We see some headline of 'when x people experienced y phenomenon, we noticed a difference in z part of their brain!'

Oh, really! you mean there is somthing mechanical happening as a result of actions taken by the will? Ok, that's kind of cool that we can see it, but when people think that the material happening is the explainer of the experience, they are just putting the bloody cart before the horse!

Mock on, mock on, MRI and CT scans.

On Belief

The latest thing that keeps coming up in my mind when I am feeling ponderous is this idea of Scripture being our "norming norm". I have tried to read some stuff on this (Grenz, et al.) and most of it is in pretty abstract theological terms. As in – scripture should be the primary informer of our (the Church's) theology. I.e. the truest theology is biblical theology.

But I am interested in a further application: the world the scriptures inhabit should be a norming world for our own.

Here's one example, that in thinking about I am struck by: The words of Jesus and the letters of Paul are unequivocal in the idea that what is necessary for salvation is belief. Just believe that Jesus is Lord and redeemer, and you are saved! now, evangelicals & fundamentalists have latched on to this and emphasized it (and rightly so, as I am about to argue), but it sounds outrageous to most modern ears. How could laying claim to something in my mind have any bearing on my eternal destination? Taking for granted the johannine theme that all belief should exemplify itself in works, I am thinking of situations like death-bed conversions, the impetus for street-evangelism, etc.

It just doesn't really register. What happens in my mind—witnessed only on a neural level*—surely cannot have consequences in the physical and meta-physical realms.

I think this idea is foundationally present in much of the multi-faith/religious-inclusivity/universalist dialogue—that what counts is what is visible (charitable works, peaceful demeanors, etc), not what is in our brains.

And yet, the bible seems to say clearly otherwise, and so I want to allow this world of the bible—where personal belief; intellectual assent is paramount—to correct the worldview that exists within our culture, and which is my own go-to paradigm.

So, contra "common"-sense, I choose to believe that personal belief is crucially significant.

Moreover, this move then further reforms my understanding of what a self is, in that it places much more weight on what one believes. That is, it opens up a philosophical discussion on the relationship between self and mind, and between what is in us, and what is of consequence in the world of the tangible. In our culture's eyes, the connection is slim, if existent at all (and here of course I can point to the over-travelled road of discourse about the false claims of an isolated cartesian self, etc, etc.); but through the lens of the world as we have it in scripture – what is in your head matters, has substance.

And I like it!

*i am speaking here in the language our culture uses - language I think is deeply problematic; see my next post.

Baring-Gould, pt. II

I just have to share this awesomeness.
I feel I have found in Sabine a real kindred spirit in history:

An account of the Eucharist in the first three centuries
A collection of Fairy Tales
Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets
An old English Home and its dependencies [a collection of origin-stories of elements of village life]
Strange Surivials [a collection of origin-stories of the basic elements of survival]
A collection of folk-ballads in the English oral tadition

I'll say it again: What. A. Man.
Also - Thank you, book digitizing projects! (Google, Gutenberg, et al.)

Two W.H.'s on Indian Spirituality

"I think there should be holy war against yoga classes. It detours us from real thinking. It's just this kind of...feeling and floating and meditation and whatever. It's as tourism in religions. People all of a sudden becoming Buddhist here in Los Angeles" --Werner Herzog (in a great GQ interview)

"[the] deplorable spectacle of a grown man occupied with the mumbo-jumbo of magic and the nonsense of India." --Wystan Hugh Auden (on Yeats' poetry)

Even as one who has enjoyed the relaxing effects of yoga, I am inclined to agree!

also, for the definitive scholarly take-down of the "ancient yoga" mythos:

http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/living/not-as-old-as-you-think

This is the first, and last post about Aliens

So, I was talking with this dude the other day, and he played the familiar card of, 'The universe is so big, there has got to be life on other planets.'

Man, I hate this one!

and I think it can totally be taken down by placing it in a larger crypto-zoological discussion.

What i mean is: Aliens fall into the same category as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, etc. and also their antecedants: abundant human-killing wolves, etc.

In this way: Whenever we humans encounter big, dark, abyssal spaces, they evoke a primal terror in us. In such spaces—forests, the ocean, mountain ranges—there is just an overwhelming quantity of opaque 'unknown-ness'. The foe that evokes this fear is too large and faceless to be wrestled with, and so we mythologize and create (often anthropomorphic) monsters that embody and represent the fear of the unknown. Giving it a face allows it to be a foe that can be faced down, and also then provides the fodder for folk tales. And so: Mountains::Yeti, Oceans::Sea-Monsters (except there actually are sea-monsters, so void that one), Forests::Wolves, Caves::trolls, etc.

In like manner, with the gargantuan blackness of space, we have constructed humanoid aliens. done! case-closed! there are no such thing as aliens! it's just modern man's version of the big-bad-wolf.

***

In thinking about this, I realized there is one other area where a similiar psychological 'face-making' takes place: Computers! And the myth is the Terminator! (as in - the films). Computers present us with a complexity and quantity of data that i think we register it in the same emotional category as a dark forest. I mean, think about why a film like 'Terminator' was made? what is it's source? I mean - self-aware, impossibly tough techno-monsters? not a feasible reality - it's mythic!

***

Lastly - regarding the form aliens so often 'have' - I just came across the most mind-blowing idea! that an 'alien face' is actually similiar to the way a mother's face looks when one is just an infant and cannot focus one's eyes properly, and is developing a visual memory. I.e. the most profound image we can imagine! for a proper explanation see this article (although, their take is that the mothers-face is an image 'pre-wired' into an infants brain, a la evolutionary psychology—also feasible):
http://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/close-encounters-of-the-facial-kind/


Insane! Blows my mind!

also - for the record - that alien image scares the shit out of me.

ok. never again will i post on such garbage.

This is the best blog on the Internet—

or at least, what grips him almost always grips me, and he draws from awesome wells.

http://crashinglybeautiful.tumblr.com/

A G.K. quote sent to me by Giles (a professed agnostic):

“You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.”

- G.K. Chesterton

"I don’t understand why they’re not greedy for what’s inside them. The heart has the ability to experience so much—and we don’t have much time."

Zac reminded me of this line the other day, one of many inspirations to be found in this interview with Jack Gilbert.

Also, this line summarizes some of the sadness and discontent I have sometimes felt at my chaplaincy internship - how few are those who have taken matters of the heart seriously.

'Tis a pity.

A note to our Readers—

So, the readership of this blog has expanded a little bit since we first began.

I have gathered that among our regulars here are the other members of Harcout-Brace-JovanaBitch: Rachel Thompson, & Zac; then there's also Tim Davis, my Dad and brother Tim, and Steph Lee (who ps. did I hear you became Orthodox?); and then a little while back upon request I opened the space up to Lisbeth, Tony, Brian, Decort, and Travis K. who may take a gander, and then Trent, Rachel Primrose and my Mom know of it, but i don't know if they ever peruse. Mark– I know that you have brought Dayna into the circle, and Kevin Walker, and Bondy, too? Feel free to share with others.

Anyways, just because Internet anonymity is no fun, I figured i'd put that out there, and also:

Dear readers! guests in this digital living-room of armchair philosophico-theologizing, Feel free to chime in! Either with comments on posts, or, if you have some ideas of your own that you'd love to share in just such a setting - email them to me and I would love to post them!
Some dialogue would be fun, no?
well, if 'no', no problem, Mark and I shall continue to blab unprompted :)

—Ben

ps. any regulars that I forgot?

Anecdote from the Radio—

Driving home from a wonderful weekend in the Chi/Wheaton, I was listening to RadioLab on the radio, and heard this story:

So, apparantly, Xenophon was set for battle against the Persians (who greatly outnumbered them), and the day before battle he was speaking with the Captain of the army about where they should fight—where would give them the greatest tactical advantage, etc. Xenophon said that they must take their stand on the very edge of the cliff. That is, the Greeks would have their backs to the cliff's drop-off, and fight forwards. The Captain objected: "But then there is no way for a retreat if we begin to lose!", "Exactly" replied Xenophon, who foresaw that if his fellow soldiers had no other option than to fight to the death, then it would charge them all the more to make sure it was their enemies' death and not their own. Furthermore, the Persians would see this situation, and the steeled resolve of the Greeks would no doubt be a source of intimidation. "Embrace the Cliff." was Xenophon's conclusion.

I think they won the fight.

Man does this story stir my courage! and the RadioLab producers didn't overlook its potency. Indeed, it introduced the episode's topic:

Commitment. Arranging it so that you cannot compromise.

mmmMMMmm!