Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, May 8, 2007

All one's inventions are true, you can be sure of that.
Poetry is as exact a science as geometry.

- Gustave Flaubert, French author (“Madame Bovary”),
who died on this day, 1880


Aphrodite rose from the foam that gathered around the castrated genitals of Uranus (Heaven) which his son Cronos had cast into the sea. She is associated therefore with Creation, and is also known as a goddess of pure and spiritual love. She is the source of human passion, and therefore is at the heart of human existence.

Man and Woman, Adam and Adama, rise from the dust at the command of God. They are the mythological parents of the human race.

Stories. Stories. There are countless like them – for the human mind and heart and spirit are infinitely fertile of imagination and power, as is the great Mystery at the origin of all Being.

All true inventions, from the Latin invenire, to “come from within”. All “exact a science as geometry”. All true in their poetry.

I read the “poetry” of the human race and I am amazed and filled with wonder at the Truth that rises up in the art and imagination of the human community – and even more by the Source of it all.

I am grateful for them all.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, May 7, 2007


Any person seasoned with a just sense of the imperfections of
natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with the greatest avidity.

- David Hume, Scottish philosopher, historian, economist and essayist,
born on this day, 1711

I have long considered the question of so-called “revealed truth”. In religion, the popular understanding of “revealed truth” is that God dictated it to a scribe who faithfully recorded it, or, wrote it Himself - like the tablets of the Ten Commandments.

I have become convinced, theologically and philosophically, that there is no such thing as such “revealed truth”. Truth, like History, is always filtered through the human mind, however it gets there. The human mind makes judgments on a vast set of variables (imagination, prejudice, intellectual attitude, culture, etc), and records its own version of “revealed truth”. Read any Scripture. For myself, Truth is always the product of the interaction of “God” with a receptive human mind(s) and heart(s).

“Revealed truth” is an invention of those who understand the gullibility of those who are not able to live with the reality of the “imperfections of natural reason” - often including themselves. For myself, I choose the “imperfections of natural reason” as a more trustworthy guide to Truth. Especially as I look around me at religion in the World today and see the havoc raised by those who “fly to revealed truth with the greatest avidity”.

Hume said, It is not reason which is the guide of life, but custom. Reason, even imperfect reason, would tell you that imagination and change applied to long-valued spiritual principles and goals would enhance spiritual growth and worship. But most often spiritual growth is stifled by “custom” - i.e., We have always done it this way! Sigh. At times I am certain I am in the wrong line of work!

Ah well. It’s fun to wrestle with Hume. Pardon such heavy stuff on a Monday morning. Meanwhile, how about we practice charity and kindness - with avidity!

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Saturday, May 05, 2007


Love one another as I have loved you.

- Jesus of Nazareth (from the Gospel reading for Easter V C)


Focus.

Servant of giving birth to deeper humanity.

Sharing wisdom.

Leaving free.

Living holiness.

Speaking truth gently.

Accepting uniqueness.

Not judging.


Sounds like a plan!

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, May 4, 2007


People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed,
revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone.

- Audrey Hepburn, actress, good-will ambassador,
born on this day, 1929 (She was 63 when she died)


People want to have happen to them everything that Audrey says - if they have any sense, any normal human longings and hopes. And people “invent” a God that meets those needs. Here, I am using “invent” in the “old” Elizabethan sense - to “go/find within”.

Oh, the guilt and the dark side comes out, of course. The gods/goddesses/God always have a dark side, a negative side. Look at Yahweh, Allah, Vishnu, etc. Yahweh is often presented as murderous and revengeful. But this, I believe, is primarily an expression of the human anxiety about our own capacity for evil projected onto God.

God, in my view, is useless if God is just conceived as a policeman. The Universe doesn’t need a divine policeman - the unpleasant consequences of our behavior probably have more police power. I have never believed that Divine Anger accomplished anything essential in terms of human behavior. People may hesitate, but their hearts don’t change. And the Change of Heart is what God – Yahweh, anyway – desires.

I’d rather give over my life to restoring, renewing, reviving, reclaiming, redeeming. Like Audrey, I know how much I and all of us need it. The true God is the God Who loves in this way. “I will be with you always, even unto the end of the Ages.”

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, May 3, 2007


Down through the centuries, this trick has been tried by
various establishments throughout the world. They force
people to get involved in the kind of examination that has
only one aim and that is to stamp out dissent.

- Pete Seeger, singer, American patriot, born on this day, 1919


In the human sphere, it’s far far too often about control. Pete, whom I spent a day with on the sloop “Clearwater” and found to be fascinating and egocentric, refused to be controlled by McCarthy during those awful un-American days - and it was McCarthy who was being viciously un-American, not those he was persecuting. Joe McCarthy was the classic controlling megalomaniac. Pete had too much humanity and self-respect and respect of others and of his country to capitulate to that twisted mind.

I think God is a democrat - though many in the Christian sphere would like to portray Him/Her as an autocrat. Ironically, they push God’s supreme power and control - but they are highly selective in where they allow God to rule in their own lives. When it comes to the ultimate authority of Love (the theme of the Gospel on this coming Sunday, Easter V) they play fast and loose.

God never tries to stamp out dissent. Think about the conversation with Satan over Job. Think of Jesus’ relationship with Judas Iscariot, or Pontius Pilate. Think of God’s conversation with Moses about the one righteous person. Oh, there are plenty of passages in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures where God gunches the nasties - but in my mind, those are instances that make clear where human nastiness overwhelms any true depiction of God. Oh, how we love to make God in our own image!

God delights in dissent – it means that God’s people are taking Life seriously, thinking. Democracy lives, survives authentically, on dissent. As soon as someone tries to stamp out dissent, be suspicious - democracy is sliding into autocracy.

Christians are, by nature. dissenters. When others try to suppress compassion, love, caring, respect, truth, Christians rise up and say “No”.

Say “No”. The world needs dissenters these days.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, May 2, 2007


A great wind is blowing, and that gives you
either imagination or a headache.

- Catherine the Great of Russia, born
on this day, 1729


Catherine was a woman of her times and station. She was also a woman who, like so many people in their relationship with “God”, were delusional. I can’t tell you the number of people I have met personally in my life who actually believe that God is their lapdog, who will meekly do their will, countenance their sub-humanity. Catherine is one of them. She said, “I shall be an autocrat, that's my trade; and the good Lord will forgive me, that's his.”

Wrong, lady. God is just – not a patsy.

However, people say interesting things. Great winds are always blowing. That is Life. Change is the only constant. Catherine is correct: one can either meet the Great Winds with imagination, or get a headache - and usually become an obstructionist and a crank. I vote for the Imagination. Global warming. Immigration. Global shifting of populations. Religious syncretism or religious war. Meeting of cultures and religions. Poverty. Classism. Fear of the “different”. We can see the possibilities of Imagination – see the possibilities for human evolvement. Or we can shrivel in fear and build our little enclaves and soon we will be holed up in our foxholes in animal skins and ignorance. Which future sounds good to you??

Catherine never did a thing for the poor, for the starving, for the enslaved, for the suffering.

Jesus died for them.

I know which path I choose.

Brian+

I am "branching out". This is the "political" dimension of my thoughts of the Reflection for May 2:

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, May 2, 2007


A great wind is blowing, and that gives you
either imagination or a headache.

- Catherine the Great of Russia, born
on this day, 1729


Catherine was a woman of her times and station. She was also a woman who, like so many people in their relationship with “God”, were delusional. I can’t tell you the number of people I have met personally in my life who actually believe that God is their lapdog, who will meekly do their will, countenance their sub-humanity. Catherine is one of them; George W. Bush is another. She said, “I shall be an autocrat, that's my trade; and the good Lord will forgive me, that's his.”

Wrong, lady. And equally, God will not forgive George Bush for taking God’s name in vain – unless of course George Bush repents. George Bush has no more a sense of what God is than Judas Iscariot did. And George Bush has blasphemed against God on every level. George Bush has re-made God in his own image. God is just – not a patsy.

However, people say interesting things. Great winds are always blowing. That is Life. Change is the only constant. Catherine is correct: one can either meet the Great Winds with imagination, or get a headache - and usually become an obstructionist and a crank. I vote for the Imagination. Global warming. Immigration. Global shifting of populations. Religious syncretism or religious war. Meeting of cultures and religions. Poverty. Classism. Fear of the “different”. We can see the possibilities of Imagination – see the possibilities for human evolvement. Or we can shrivel in fear and build our little enclaves and soon we will be holed up in our foxholes in animal skins and ignorance. Which future sounds good to you??

Catherine never did a thing for the poor, for the starving, for the enslaved, for the suffering.

Jesus died for them.

I know which path I choose.

Brian+