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Completing Knowledge – with Beauty

However smart it may be, an overwhelming portion of our idea-making is made suspect by its use for self-promotion and image-making. Well okay, self-promotion isn’t a bad thing, but it is if it’s exercised at the expense and, often, manipulation of others—done in the service, ostensibly, of some greater good (This is the classic excuse of the manipulator, who really just loves the accompanying power and control).

Even when exercise of the mind is as pure as it can get, even in the service of altruistic goals, there is something missing: What place for beauty (even allowing for a certain beauty in the pursuit of truth)? There is a kind of wisdom in beauty-in-itself that is beyond any other kind of meaning—“wiser than wise,” I claim. How to source this deeper wisdom? Turn from the heights of thought to the depth of one another’s eyes.

And so, I heroically (he says humbly, with a slight cough) attempt to express this in song:

https://open.spotify.com/track/2wVYgWDP4Ey0SklE0AONdu?si=3sHqNDGQTBK5gXjSvo3bUw

Everyday Salvation

“That’s frustrating”

I trained as a student minister for a whole year under a hospital chaplain. He once made the observation that you can respond to pretty much whatever anyone says with “That’s frustrating,” and you will find you have connected with them in a meaningful way. An exaggeration? Anyone, anytime? Yes, that’s an exaggeration—but not that much of one.

I never did actually try it, and would not recommend experimenting with people’s feelings. But I did try for a while imagining what it would be like responding with “That’s frustrating” to what people were actually saying, while responding more authentically (It may sound complicated, but it’s amazing what a mind—even mine— can handle). If you keep that response in mind in conversations you have, you may find it surprising how often it would actually fit the context. I take this as a measure of the level of frustration, or disappointment, anger, and anxiety that are inside us.

Consider the casual encounters we have any given day—perhaps more significant for many of us through a time when there has been a widespread experience of isolation. The words we share then are rarely profound. But do we ever in these encounters, with those scintillating comments on the weather, make eye contact? Probably not. But there is something to try. I have been making a point of this, and it can bring a subtle but important transformation to the brief experience. We communicate much more with brief eye contact (prolonged would be creepy) than with most words. And it may be the only connection of any kind that person might have for the day.  

Faith language uses the term “atonement” for (re)connecting the divine and human. Making connection with another living soul is itself a kind of salvation, overcoming alone-ness. In a real sense, we “save” one another by overcoming isolation. In our everyday chance encounters, there are faces to look into, and people need to see your eyes (so get those shades off).

And maybe check out this song, Searching Faces.

It Was a Decision

There was chaos enough. I mean in Nova Scotia, like everywhere in these strange times. But it has descended there into something few of us can truly apprehend. 

Even at the best of times, I suspect you are not unusual if you have, not all that far beneath the surface, and even when things seem to be bumping along ok, a sense that it wouldn’t take much for everything to just fall apart. I suspect, further, that that beneath-the-surface thing is one reason routine is important for us. 

A very common pairing of words in the Bible would seem significant in how we can help one another with these under-the-surface things. I just used it: one another. Love one another, for instance. Our decisions, for good or for ill, even when they seem to concern only ourselves, have an impact on others. There are incalculable factors that lead up to the decisions we make, but there comes that moment when it is our decision to make, to say or do this or that.

We may never know what led to the Nova Scotian shooter’s decision to do what he did–though that is a necessary investigation– but it was, in the end, a decision (let’s not ask what drove him). It erupted in devastating chaos and darkness for many. 

I, for one, am reminded, especially given the fears and insecurities that may already be just beneath the surface of those I may affect, to take care regarding the decisions I make. Not, actually, a bad thing to pray at the start of each day.

Controlling the Narrative

The public impeachment hearings that have been held in Wahington over the past two weeks should be important to take in But are they? The drama going on may simply be between, on the one hand, establishing truth to act on (or not), and, on the other hand, simply engaging in a nasty battle over who controls the narrative. In other words, it’s all about what it’s all about.

It could be argued you’re not missing anything if you haven’t seen any of it. After all, you live it every day.

Do you live your own truth? Decide what that is? Do your best to live it? Or accept the most appealing narrative of the most compelling influencers–personal, political, or commercial?

It is almost Advent in the Christian calendar. You will find (still, at least in some churches) Scrioture employed that focuses on ultimate things, with Jesus talking about his Advent to come (e.g. Mark 13).

Advent celebrates that we have the opportunity to know, now, the one who is yet to come.

There is truth. Truth will win out. Truth matters. That should be obvious, but apparently it is not obvious.

And oh yes, there is an accompanying major Scriptural theme in Advent, drawing on scenes with John the Baptist (e.g. Luke 3). He anticipates Jesus’ own warnings against leaders who are obsessed with their power and status, and with controlling the narrative of their people and their time.

It will not end well for such people in any age.

Berlin and More

This year’s Remembrance  Day (Nov. 11) coincides with the weekend’s thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. There were huge forces at work in both times. What we want to remember and honour most, however, are the individual stories of heartbreak, heroism and sacrifice lived out for the greater good.

There are, of course, great forces at work today. Their impact is felt just in weariness over the news. But the contributions we acknowledge now should prod us to recognize we are not powerless. What we do each day can and does make a difference, from how we speak to the drive-through person to the attitude we bring home from what we”ve been through for the day.

Big forces have their day. What we do in love has eternal significance.

Romans 12:17-18

The Forever Link

Among the mysteries of the universe is the age of said universe. The tool used by science to calculate the universe’s age is called the gravitational constant. This refers to the rate at which everything is expanding. A seemingly small difference in estimates of that can translate to several billion years’ difference in estimated age. Then there’s the question of what it’s all heading to. There is even less certainty concerning what lies at the other, future end of things, a topic in physical cosmology.

Meanwhile, there are those who present challenges to what we take for granted in our everyday experience, such as the perception of colours and the passing of time, which are said to be constructs of our minds.

A reliable source points out that the path toward reality — ultimate and everyday — starts with what we do rather than with that which we (presume to) know.

Action, then content: That was the order of things for Jesus when he sent out 70 followers. Heal, then announce the Kingdom, a new reality, a taste of the transformation in store for the whole cosmos. The followers’ own link to this universal transformation was signalled, in the language and symbolism of the time, through  assurance of their names being “written in heaven” (References here are from Luke 10: 1-24).

The fundamental activity of humans is to be a coming together. That necessitates healing in this fractured world. The demonically characteristic affliction of our time is disconnectedness and, along with it, polarization, or tribalism, often intentionally engineered.

The claim of Scripture is that the goal of humanity with the divine is a unity, both celebrating and simultaneously unifying our wonderful diversity. See, for example, Revelation 7:9.

But something spectacular is to happen. The observations about our brains and perception of the present world are not that different from the insistence of the Apostle Paul that we must exchange present, limited perceptions for a new being in order to be part of ultimate reality (1 Corinthians 15:53).

The richness and wonder if it all is ours now. How? Whenever we seek healing for humanity, or simply care for one another, we are tapping into what it’s all and forever about.