The title for this blog entry comes from Matthew 2:1-2 in the New Testament:
"After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, 'Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.'" (New International Version)
Not much of what the gospels say about Jesus’ birth is universally believed anymore. Most scholars now claim that Jesus was born in Nazareth, not Bethlehem. Some say he might have been born in a place called Bethlehem, but in Galilee, not Judea. (The difference is significant for more than geographical reasons, but needn’t detain us here.) Gone are the inn and the manger, the shepherds and the angels, and the Magi mentioned here. Gone the census, gone the dreams and annunciations, gone the virgin birth. And of course the best scholars, even of conservative hue, have long claimed that Jesus was probably born in the spring, not in December. Yet a lot of people do still believe in the gospels’ so-called Infancy Narratives, for reasons best known only to themselves.
The Infancy Narratives and all the rest of the gospels are all about a long-awaited Redeemer. After Jesus’ death his followers composed stories that had him fulfilling Old Testament prophecies of one sent from God to turn the people of Israel from their sins and inaugurate a reign of peace and justice. Little matter that they reinterpreted those old prophecies and invented stories to fulfill them. Little matter that the Jesus of the gospels was nothing like the Jews’ expected savior. Not all Jews in Jesus’ day expected a Messiah; many did not. Most of those who did, expected someone to come and save them, not from their sins, but from their oppressors. But there was an element, an extreme element, within the Judaism of Jesus’ day that believed the people of Israel had to be turned from their sins back to God before God would save them from their oppressors. Jesus and his followers appealed to precisely this element.
I do not believe in sin. I believe that all that is, is the perfect expression of the Infinite One’s perfect, eternal will. The Infinite can hardly punish Its manifestations for being what It has made them–indeed, what It makes them from moment to moment. There can be no eternal retribution from which we must be saved, no guilt from which we must be redeemed.
That, however, doesn’t mean we have no need of redemption. It doesn’t mean that the Infinite manifests us as we are with the intent that we never change and grow, for change and growth are the constants of Its manifestation.
Redemption is a far subtler thing than Christian doctrine advertises. "You are not your own," says the New Testament, "you were bought at a price" (see I Corinthians 6:19-20). Bought from the Evil One, bought from damnation, with the price of Christ’s blood, so we are told.
We are what God created and our Creator could never have lost us to another from whom we must be bought back. But in an operant sense, in the sense of living our daily lives, we often need redemption from the seeming errors into which we fall, we often need to be brought back from the self-defeating paths we travel. This is where some of Jesus’ teachings come in handy; this is why he is worth remembering and celebrating today.
We began with a quote from the gospel according to Matthew, and it happens that Matthew contains the best summary of the best parts of Jesus’ teachings–the Sermon on the Mount (chapters 5 through 7). "It’s all good," as the saying goes, but there are a few highlights that verily show us how to live, today as in his day, though our times and his be radically different.
"In everything do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 7:12). We call this the Golden Rule, but Christians may not realize that Jesus didn’t make it up. The great Rabbi Hillel said something very similar a century before Jesus: "That which is repugnant to you, do not to your neighbor. This is the whole Law; the rest is commentary." This is the cornerstone of common decency, the foundation of all fairness and justice, and without it we deceive ourselves if we think we live humanly. From it follows everything that follows here.
"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you too will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you" (7:1-2). None of us wants to be judged or condemned, but when we judge or condemn others we invite judgment and condemnation upon ourselves. What we give, is what we deserve back again.
"Blsssed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy" (5:8)–and we all need mercy from someone, somewhere, from time to time.
"Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you" (5:42). Most of us (including me) violate this every day, and quickly excuse ourselves with lots of good reasons. But who among us would want to be ignored or rebuffed in our need? And who among us would want someone else to define our need and desert for us?
In Jesus’ day, as in our own, survival was a challenge. Jesus’ teachings offered no one any help with the challenge of survival, except through mutual aid. The challenge he offered was to overcome our sense of personal need and our need for personal safety to give to others–though he also offered the hope of receiving our bounty back again. For he said:
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important then food, and the body more important than clothes? . . . But seek first [God’s] kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" (6:25,33).
In our practical world we think we do well not to believe such promises. But a world in which such promises are believed and practiced, will be a better world than the one we have.
Jesus’ ethical teachings are remembered because he accompanied them with seeming miracles and led his followers to believe a new kingdom was coming soon, to be introduced by him. Today our world is very different from his, and yet surprisingly the same. Like his contemporaries we fear for our lives and scratch and scramble to maintain them, as if that could be worth our while. In our day as in his, the life worth living is the life that maintains others. That was the light he offered then, and that is the light he offers now.
"We saw his star in the east, and have come to worship him." His teachings about serving others are that guiding star.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Thursday, November 25, 2010
"In every thing give thanks"
I write this on Thanksgiving Day, 2010. At the office yesterday, as a meeting broke up, I bade my coworkers a happy Thanksgiving and added, "A day without [company] work. We can be thankful for that, if nothing else!" (Oops. The office of our division president was within ten feet of our conference room. The lights were on and the door was open.) Of course I meant to say something else, but I actually did mean what I said.
The title of this blog entry is taken from I Thessalonians 5:18 in the New Testament: "In every thing give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you" (King James Version).
"But wait!" you might say. "This is Thanksgiving. Who said anything about giving thanks? Thanksgiving is for indulgence, not for giving thanks. Giving thanks on Thanksgiving! That’s so seventeenth century! Oh, darn, OK, I’ll give thanks if I must. Thanks be to whomever for whatever. There, I’ve done it. Pass the turkey. Who’s playing this afternoon? What time is the game?"
I almost feel guilty now. What a killjoy. Imagine spoiling someone’s meal with the thought of giving thanks. I should be thankful that nobody will. But I’ve always believed that things should be what they’re called and be called what they are. And if we insist on calling this day Thanksgiving rather than National Gluttony Day, by heaven we’d better give thanks here!
But for what?
My opening anecdote might sound as if I weren’t thankful for my job. Let me be clear. I am grateful for the ability to buy food, clothing, and shelter without anyone’s help. Enough said. Every morning I give thanks for the ability to buy my own food, clothing, and shelter. Every morning I give thanks to the Infinite One for all Its blessings to all Its worlds of manifestation. And every morning the words nearly catch in my throat.
It has always seemed remarkably selfish to me to give thanks for something someone else has not got. Feels rather like the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable who found himself praying near a despised tax collector in the temple in Jerusalem and said, "I thank thee, O Lord, that I am not like this publican." I thank thee, O Lord, that I get to have good stuff even if those hapless wretches living in garbage dumps in Mexico City and Manila don’t. Correction: especially because they don’t.
In my lifetime I’ve had jobs that I thought were decent or even good, with organizations that had earned my respect or affection. I’ve had a job that I thought was awful with an organization that I thought was good. I’ve had jobs that I loathed with organizations I despised. It’s easier to give thanks for the first type than the last. I’ve also been close enough to going without food, clothing, or shelter to be thankful for such as I had. But none of us is more worthy of God’s bounty than anyone else. What we take for our worth is only God’s grace. So what of those who do go without?
Our Pilgrim forebears, who started Thanksgiving, were Protestant Christians. Thanksgiving is, in that sense, an extension of the Christian tradition. Our Pilgrim forebears had come through tough times and were thankful just to be alive. (They were not, thereby, despising their departed brethren, whom they must have regarded as even better off, being "absent from the body, but present with the Lord." Interesting paradox, that.) The most prosperous of these people hadn’t a tenth of what we have. But that’s beside the point. In his own time and place, our Pilgrim forebears’ Lord and Savior had told the wealthy to sell what they had, give the money to the poor, and follow him. Today, in the proud tradition of our Pilgrim forebears and their Lord and Savior, we gorge ourselves like imperial Romans.
Yet just as the Pilgrims’ day was different from ours, so was Jesus’. In his day, there were a few very wealthy men and women, a great many more (indeed, many times more) who subsisted at some level of poverty, and a number somewhere in between who lived–well, somewhere in between. They were not as many or as poor as the poor, nor as few or as rich as the rich. But the sociologists tell us they were not a middle class; they were "retainers" to the wealthy (as if today’s middle class were not). When Jesus told the wealthy to sell what they had and give the money to the poor, he was talking to men who had amassed great wealth without desert, telling them to help men and women who had nothing through no fault of their own, who had nothing because that’s how society was. He thought he would soon introduce a heavenly kingdom where no such inequalities would exist, and he proposed that the unprepared prepare.
Things have turned out rather differently. Today if those who have were to sell all they have and gave the money to those who have not, soon everyone would be poor, because our money economy would collapse. And every one of us is too afraid of having nothing to give up what we have, be it a great lot or a very little.
To be honest, sometimes we give thanks just so as not to render curses. Life is hard enough without resentment. But for what, really, should we give thanks?
We should give thanks that we can give thanks. As the saying goes, "It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness."
We should give thanks for anything that makes any given moment worth living. And we should give thanks for every moment that is worth living, be they many or few.
Finally, but most importantly, we should give thanks for every opportunity to relieve or prevent someone else’s pain. The Infinite One does not share Its reasons for apportioning pleasure and pain as It does. Every theory about the Infinite is bound to be incoherent to the finite mind, so the likelihood that we will ever understand is virtually nil. But the life the Infinite gives us is most worth living when we make another’s better.
The title of this blog entry is taken from I Thessalonians 5:18 in the New Testament: "In every thing give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you" (King James Version).
"But wait!" you might say. "This is Thanksgiving. Who said anything about giving thanks? Thanksgiving is for indulgence, not for giving thanks. Giving thanks on Thanksgiving! That’s so seventeenth century! Oh, darn, OK, I’ll give thanks if I must. Thanks be to whomever for whatever. There, I’ve done it. Pass the turkey. Who’s playing this afternoon? What time is the game?"
I almost feel guilty now. What a killjoy. Imagine spoiling someone’s meal with the thought of giving thanks. I should be thankful that nobody will. But I’ve always believed that things should be what they’re called and be called what they are. And if we insist on calling this day Thanksgiving rather than National Gluttony Day, by heaven we’d better give thanks here!
But for what?
My opening anecdote might sound as if I weren’t thankful for my job. Let me be clear. I am grateful for the ability to buy food, clothing, and shelter without anyone’s help. Enough said. Every morning I give thanks for the ability to buy my own food, clothing, and shelter. Every morning I give thanks to the Infinite One for all Its blessings to all Its worlds of manifestation. And every morning the words nearly catch in my throat.
It has always seemed remarkably selfish to me to give thanks for something someone else has not got. Feels rather like the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable who found himself praying near a despised tax collector in the temple in Jerusalem and said, "I thank thee, O Lord, that I am not like this publican." I thank thee, O Lord, that I get to have good stuff even if those hapless wretches living in garbage dumps in Mexico City and Manila don’t. Correction: especially because they don’t.
In my lifetime I’ve had jobs that I thought were decent or even good, with organizations that had earned my respect or affection. I’ve had a job that I thought was awful with an organization that I thought was good. I’ve had jobs that I loathed with organizations I despised. It’s easier to give thanks for the first type than the last. I’ve also been close enough to going without food, clothing, or shelter to be thankful for such as I had. But none of us is more worthy of God’s bounty than anyone else. What we take for our worth is only God’s grace. So what of those who do go without?
Our Pilgrim forebears, who started Thanksgiving, were Protestant Christians. Thanksgiving is, in that sense, an extension of the Christian tradition. Our Pilgrim forebears had come through tough times and were thankful just to be alive. (They were not, thereby, despising their departed brethren, whom they must have regarded as even better off, being "absent from the body, but present with the Lord." Interesting paradox, that.) The most prosperous of these people hadn’t a tenth of what we have. But that’s beside the point. In his own time and place, our Pilgrim forebears’ Lord and Savior had told the wealthy to sell what they had, give the money to the poor, and follow him. Today, in the proud tradition of our Pilgrim forebears and their Lord and Savior, we gorge ourselves like imperial Romans.
Yet just as the Pilgrims’ day was different from ours, so was Jesus’. In his day, there were a few very wealthy men and women, a great many more (indeed, many times more) who subsisted at some level of poverty, and a number somewhere in between who lived–well, somewhere in between. They were not as many or as poor as the poor, nor as few or as rich as the rich. But the sociologists tell us they were not a middle class; they were "retainers" to the wealthy (as if today’s middle class were not). When Jesus told the wealthy to sell what they had and give the money to the poor, he was talking to men who had amassed great wealth without desert, telling them to help men and women who had nothing through no fault of their own, who had nothing because that’s how society was. He thought he would soon introduce a heavenly kingdom where no such inequalities would exist, and he proposed that the unprepared prepare.
Things have turned out rather differently. Today if those who have were to sell all they have and gave the money to those who have not, soon everyone would be poor, because our money economy would collapse. And every one of us is too afraid of having nothing to give up what we have, be it a great lot or a very little.
To be honest, sometimes we give thanks just so as not to render curses. Life is hard enough without resentment. But for what, really, should we give thanks?
We should give thanks that we can give thanks. As the saying goes, "It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness."
We should give thanks for anything that makes any given moment worth living. And we should give thanks for every moment that is worth living, be they many or few.
Finally, but most importantly, we should give thanks for every opportunity to relieve or prevent someone else’s pain. The Infinite One does not share Its reasons for apportioning pleasure and pain as It does. Every theory about the Infinite is bound to be incoherent to the finite mind, so the likelihood that we will ever understand is virtually nil. But the life the Infinite gives us is most worth living when we make another’s better.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
We, the people "who deserve better"
First of all, lest I share any opinions in this post, let me begin with my disclaimer: The opinions stated herein do not necessarily represent those of my employers or coworkers.
Recently I rented The Edge of Darkness, starring Mel Gibson. Toward the end of the film, a British-born U.S. government operative called Captain Jedburgh says, "I’ve decided what this country is." When asked what, he says, "People who deserve better." (He then proceeds to shoot a U.S. senator and two other government operatives–but that’s entirely beside the point here.)
We have heard ad nauseum about the American people deserving better. It’s a standard cliché: The upright, hard working American people should, and eventually will, "throw the bums out" and get "public servants" who actually serve the public rather than themselves.
Most standard clichés have a basis in fact, but not this one.
There is another standard cliché, more common in a smaller circle, to the effect that people get the government they deserve. This standard cliché is actually based in fact–especially where the people do, in fact, have the means of peacefully transferring power from those who hold it to someone else. History shows that power cannot be taken; it can only be given. And it is we, the people of the United States, who keep giving power to the bums we say we want to throw out.
Granted, throughout history people have seemed to have little choice but to accede to those with stronger armies or better weapons or smarter organization. (Their choice was to submit or die, and they usually chose not to die.) That has rarely been the case in this country. Even in the South after the Civil War, the old power élites found a way to maintain their power and suppress a whole race of new aspirants. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked for them. The new aspirants who were being suppressed faced the choice of submission or death, but this is the exception that proved the rule. The old power holders refused to give up their power, and found a way not to.
A slight digression is in order here to address another apparent exception: case law. Unelected judges make law from the bench and we mere citizens have to submit or be punished. But even here, the rule is not negated: we could change the system if we really so desired. In fact we don’t really want to do so, because we have other things to do. They might be other things we have to do, but often they’re other things we’d rather do.
I say thank the Infinite One for case law, because without unelected judges we’d be cooked. We may not like much that they do, but do you really want to surrender your entire destiny to your elected officials? Oh, say it isn’t so!
I will not contradict the notion that we Americans are upright, hard working people, though I know too many exceptions to support the notion wholeheartedly. The point isn’t that we aren’t upright or hard working. The point is that we are never going to "throw the bums out" until we stop electing people just because we think they’re going to give us what we want. And make no mistake, it really is all about what we want.
Of course what we want varies from person to person and moment to moment. But that’s OK; it’s a person’s prerogative to change his or her mind, and it doesn’t result in much turnover in elected office anyway.
The bigger problem with electing people based on what we want is that, if that’s what we’re going to do, that’s how elected officials are going to get elected–by convincing us that they’re going to give us what we want. Or at least candidate A is going to give us more of what we want and less of what we don’t want then the miserable schmuck running against him or her. And of course the winner has often either lied to us outright or at least misled us. Then, come the next election, he or she lies to us or misleads us about what he or she has been doing. And we believe it, because we would rather do other things than actually pay attention or (gasp!) look up the record.
So what's the alternative? The obvious choice would be to elect our officials based on no consideration of what's good for us, but entirely on the question of what's good for everyone. The problem here is that most people fashion their ideas of what's good for everyone upon what they think is good for them. It isn’t a conscious process; it’s perfectly unconscious. But the next time you judge what is fair or good or right, ask yourself why, and keep asking yourself why, until you get to the last possible reason. It will almost certainly be because of something that satisfies or doesn’t satisfy you–your needs, your wants, your ideas, your beliefs, your feelings, or something else about you.
I write this on Independence Day. Today we celebrate all that is good in the United States, and especially our identity as a "free" nation. We honor those who made our nation free and those who have fought and died to keep it free. And we should. By any reasonable standard this is the greatest nation the world has ever known, and it may be the greatest the world will ever know. But integrity demands that, rather than celebrate all that is good in our country today and complain about all its ills tomorrow, while we celebrate we also think about how what is less than optimal might be improved.
The ideal of freedom is as old as the Exodus, but it was a different ideal then than it is now. Today it is freedom for each of us to do as he or she will, subject to the assumed qualification that we not hurt anyone. In biblical times the idea of freedom was less about individual liberties than about the freedom of a people to follow its own beliefs and customs, the freedom of a community to rule itself. In this sense the people of Israel set the standard for fighting and dying for freedom, in the Maccabean revolt against a repressive Seleucid king and in the two revolts against Rome in the first and second centuries of the Common Era. It should not surprise us, then, that a product of that time and place, Jesus of Nazareth, is supposed to have said two things that might seem paradoxical, but really aren’t.
He is supposed to have said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (John 8:32).
He is also supposed to have said:
"Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, or the body more than clothing? . . . But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" (Matthew 6:25,33).
The freedom that counts is the freedom to do the right thing, including freedom from the fear of what it will cost us to do so. Any other notion of freedom should be unworthy of us. But that freedom can’t be given or taken by human agency. It is available only by the surrender of our own wants and needs, our own beliefs and feelings, to the One whose manifestation we are. When enough of us have attained that freedom, we will not only deserve better, we shall have it–but not until then.
Recently I rented The Edge of Darkness, starring Mel Gibson. Toward the end of the film, a British-born U.S. government operative called Captain Jedburgh says, "I’ve decided what this country is." When asked what, he says, "People who deserve better." (He then proceeds to shoot a U.S. senator and two other government operatives–but that’s entirely beside the point here.)
We have heard ad nauseum about the American people deserving better. It’s a standard cliché: The upright, hard working American people should, and eventually will, "throw the bums out" and get "public servants" who actually serve the public rather than themselves.
Most standard clichés have a basis in fact, but not this one.
There is another standard cliché, more common in a smaller circle, to the effect that people get the government they deserve. This standard cliché is actually based in fact–especially where the people do, in fact, have the means of peacefully transferring power from those who hold it to someone else. History shows that power cannot be taken; it can only be given. And it is we, the people of the United States, who keep giving power to the bums we say we want to throw out.
Granted, throughout history people have seemed to have little choice but to accede to those with stronger armies or better weapons or smarter organization. (Their choice was to submit or die, and they usually chose not to die.) That has rarely been the case in this country. Even in the South after the Civil War, the old power élites found a way to maintain their power and suppress a whole race of new aspirants. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked for them. The new aspirants who were being suppressed faced the choice of submission or death, but this is the exception that proved the rule. The old power holders refused to give up their power, and found a way not to.
A slight digression is in order here to address another apparent exception: case law. Unelected judges make law from the bench and we mere citizens have to submit or be punished. But even here, the rule is not negated: we could change the system if we really so desired. In fact we don’t really want to do so, because we have other things to do. They might be other things we have to do, but often they’re other things we’d rather do.
I say thank the Infinite One for case law, because without unelected judges we’d be cooked. We may not like much that they do, but do you really want to surrender your entire destiny to your elected officials? Oh, say it isn’t so!
I will not contradict the notion that we Americans are upright, hard working people, though I know too many exceptions to support the notion wholeheartedly. The point isn’t that we aren’t upright or hard working. The point is that we are never going to "throw the bums out" until we stop electing people just because we think they’re going to give us what we want. And make no mistake, it really is all about what we want.
Of course what we want varies from person to person and moment to moment. But that’s OK; it’s a person’s prerogative to change his or her mind, and it doesn’t result in much turnover in elected office anyway.
The bigger problem with electing people based on what we want is that, if that’s what we’re going to do, that’s how elected officials are going to get elected–by convincing us that they’re going to give us what we want. Or at least candidate A is going to give us more of what we want and less of what we don’t want then the miserable schmuck running against him or her. And of course the winner has often either lied to us outright or at least misled us. Then, come the next election, he or she lies to us or misleads us about what he or she has been doing. And we believe it, because we would rather do other things than actually pay attention or (gasp!) look up the record.
So what's the alternative? The obvious choice would be to elect our officials based on no consideration of what's good for us, but entirely on the question of what's good for everyone. The problem here is that most people fashion their ideas of what's good for everyone upon what they think is good for them. It isn’t a conscious process; it’s perfectly unconscious. But the next time you judge what is fair or good or right, ask yourself why, and keep asking yourself why, until you get to the last possible reason. It will almost certainly be because of something that satisfies or doesn’t satisfy you–your needs, your wants, your ideas, your beliefs, your feelings, or something else about you.
I write this on Independence Day. Today we celebrate all that is good in the United States, and especially our identity as a "free" nation. We honor those who made our nation free and those who have fought and died to keep it free. And we should. By any reasonable standard this is the greatest nation the world has ever known, and it may be the greatest the world will ever know. But integrity demands that, rather than celebrate all that is good in our country today and complain about all its ills tomorrow, while we celebrate we also think about how what is less than optimal might be improved.
The ideal of freedom is as old as the Exodus, but it was a different ideal then than it is now. Today it is freedom for each of us to do as he or she will, subject to the assumed qualification that we not hurt anyone. In biblical times the idea of freedom was less about individual liberties than about the freedom of a people to follow its own beliefs and customs, the freedom of a community to rule itself. In this sense the people of Israel set the standard for fighting and dying for freedom, in the Maccabean revolt against a repressive Seleucid king and in the two revolts against Rome in the first and second centuries of the Common Era. It should not surprise us, then, that a product of that time and place, Jesus of Nazareth, is supposed to have said two things that might seem paradoxical, but really aren’t.
He is supposed to have said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (John 8:32).
He is also supposed to have said:
"Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, or the body more than clothing? . . . But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" (Matthew 6:25,33).
The freedom that counts is the freedom to do the right thing, including freedom from the fear of what it will cost us to do so. Any other notion of freedom should be unworthy of us. But that freedom can’t be given or taken by human agency. It is available only by the surrender of our own wants and needs, our own beliefs and feelings, to the One whose manifestation we are. When enough of us have attained that freedom, we will not only deserve better, we shall have it–but not until then.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Always together
Recently several of my friends and acquaintances have lost loved ones: spouses, parents, siblings. I have never been married, so I can’t relate directly to the loss of a spouse. I had a much older half-sister who died a few years ago, but we had not been close, separated as we were by age and geography. On the other hand, both of the blessed souls who took me in in infancy and eventually adopted me–my parents–died some years ago: my father when I was thirteen, my mother when I was in my thirties. And there have been others.
The loss of loved ones is not limited to any age or set of circumstances, but as we age we know we will encounter more of them. Others, after all, are aging chronologically at exactly the same rate as we.
There are striking similarities and differences in the ways people respond to these events. In nearly all cases there is an enormous sense of loss, and sometimes of guilt over unresolved strains in the relationship that now seems to be severed. Sometimes there is a celebration of the life lived, the time spent together, and the belief that the loved one has gone on to a better existence. And sometimes there is a sense that the relationship is not, indeed, severed, for all time or even for the time being: that the loved one is literally still with us in ways that we can clearly discern.
Before I proceed, let me admit that for years I never quite resolved the loss of my adoptive parents. My father meant everything to me as a child. My mother never stopped missing him. Neither have my siblings. Nor did I, until recently. He has been gone for thirty-seven years.
My relationship with my adoptive mother was nothing like that with my father. We spent years at loggerheads. I always found some reason to be impatient with her. But as I aged out of my teens and she aged into her seventies, she became remarkably patient with me. At long last, as I entered my mid-twenties, we became friends. Not until then did I understand how, and how much, she loved me. And then, in too few years, she was gone.
From the mid-1980s to the turn of the ‘90s, my mother called me every night around 6:00. I was living in the Brighton section of Boston, she in Rockland, about twenty miles to the south. But since neither of us drove a car, it might as well have been half a world’s distance. In the early 1990s she became ill, her mental faculties declined rather rapidly, and she went into a nursing home. I was burned out of my apartment building in Brighton and moved to Quincy–to Quincy, just south of Boston, in particular, to be closer to my mother and siblings and still have easy access to public transportation. But my mother couldn’t call me anymore, nor I her. I saw her fairly seldom. She lost the ability to speak intelligibly, and it was never clear that she knew who her visitors were, or what they said.
My mother was hospitalized for a while shortly before she died. When she came out of the hospital for a few days and went back to the nursing home, my sister called me from my mother’s room. She put my mother on the phone, I don’t know why. To my sister’s prompting, my mother said, with perfect clarity, "I love you, Alan." I don’t know whether she knew what she was saying, or to whom, but they were the last words I heard her speak and the clearest and most coherent in years.
She died within weeks. It didn’t seem too hard to take at the time, because in important ways I had lost her already. But some months after her death, about 6:00 every evening for several days, I found myself thinking, "It’s time for Mother to call"–just as if she would.
In the years since my mother’s death, I’ve read a few books about the afterlife and the reported phenomena of contact between the living and the dead. I needn’t go into the details. They are pretty much what you’d expect. But latterly, as I’ve investigated the idea that all existence is One, a new idea has occurred to me. Of course, it isn’t a new idea at all, it’s thousands of years old, but it’s new to me.
The idea is that we have not, indeed, lost our loved ones. They have not been parted from us. We are always together because we are not, essentially, separate beings at all. It only seems so.
There are many varieties of Oneness belief, some ancient, some modern adaptations. Some depend for their validity on individual meditative and intuitive experience, and some on the evidence of quantum physics. Mine is a little different from all those of which I’ve read. It borrows from all of them, and from my years as an evangelical Christian. It is this:
I believe there is an eternal, infinite, perfect, knowing, willing Being who eternally wills all that is. In Its infinity, It contains all things within Itself: It is everything and there is nothing but It. It may be called the Ein Sof ("without limit"), as in Jewish Kabbalah tradition, or It may be called God as in Western philosophy. It may be approximately called Brahman, borrowing a name from Hinduism, or It may be called "the vastness" to borrow a phrase from an experience reported in one of my readings. It hardly matters. I call It the One. All that we are, all that we experience, is the eternal will of the One. All that we experience is the One willing, and therefore is the One, because Its will cannot be distinguished from Itself. Only the One truly and eternally exists; we, Its manifestations, exist only insofar as It wills us perceiving ourselves and everything around us. Not only we, but our world, the progression of events, the framework of space and time, exist within Its perfect eternal will–within Its infinity.
In the annals of death and survival, Oneness is little discussed, though there is much about closeness, presence, visions, voices, dreams, and other oddities. A number of psychics, forsaking the traditional, doctrinally based ideas of heaven and hell, portray a place called "the Other Side" or "the Invisible World" or (for reincarnationists in particular) "life between lives", where all who have lived and died dwell in perfect bliss. The ideas about this place are as many as there are proponents.
My mother had been a professional singer, in a small way, in her youth. In later years she still loved to sing and could accompany herself or my sister at the piano. She had a limited knowledge, but a definite love, of classical music and opera, and I have this love from her. Nowadays, when I think of my mother, I am less apt to think of her as I knew her, in her middle and declining years, than as a young woman, sitting at a grand piano before a packed concert hall on "the Other Side," playing music of her own composition that elicits instant transcendence in its hearers and enlofts the very heavens.
This idea of my mother began a few months ago, after I, myself, heard a "voice". As I lay in bed awaiting sleep, but not yet sleepy, I heard my mother’s voice in my mind’s ear (I don’t hear it often), saying, simply, "Hello, Alan."
I thought, "Hello, Mother! I feel that there ought to be music–but what music?"
"Orpheus in the Underworld," she replied.
The name originates with the Greek myth of Orpheus, who musically charmed his way through Hades to bring out his love, Eurydice. But it’s the title of an opera by Jacques Offenbach which, to my knowledge, my mother never would have recognized while living.
You must clearly understand that my mother lived most of her life in what used to be called reduced circumstances, but from her affluent upbringing she retained an almost aristocratic dignity and grace. She also had a wicked little smile that she showed whenever she enjoyed a good joke that was, perhaps, not quite of the loftiest character.
If you know of the opera, you probably know that it contains the music of the cancan, a roistering burlesque dance of the late 1800s. That, and my mother, simply do not go together–except with that mischievous smile.
I don’t know about life after death. I don’t know about reincarnation. I don’t bother myself much about them. And I no longer wish with a vain fervor to hear from my parents again. I don’t have to. I do know that there is no limit to what the One can will, what It can manifest in experience–but whatever that experience is, is One.
My parents and I, you and your loved ones, are always together–always One.
The loss of loved ones is not limited to any age or set of circumstances, but as we age we know we will encounter more of them. Others, after all, are aging chronologically at exactly the same rate as we.
There are striking similarities and differences in the ways people respond to these events. In nearly all cases there is an enormous sense of loss, and sometimes of guilt over unresolved strains in the relationship that now seems to be severed. Sometimes there is a celebration of the life lived, the time spent together, and the belief that the loved one has gone on to a better existence. And sometimes there is a sense that the relationship is not, indeed, severed, for all time or even for the time being: that the loved one is literally still with us in ways that we can clearly discern.
Before I proceed, let me admit that for years I never quite resolved the loss of my adoptive parents. My father meant everything to me as a child. My mother never stopped missing him. Neither have my siblings. Nor did I, until recently. He has been gone for thirty-seven years.
My relationship with my adoptive mother was nothing like that with my father. We spent years at loggerheads. I always found some reason to be impatient with her. But as I aged out of my teens and she aged into her seventies, she became remarkably patient with me. At long last, as I entered my mid-twenties, we became friends. Not until then did I understand how, and how much, she loved me. And then, in too few years, she was gone.
From the mid-1980s to the turn of the ‘90s, my mother called me every night around 6:00. I was living in the Brighton section of Boston, she in Rockland, about twenty miles to the south. But since neither of us drove a car, it might as well have been half a world’s distance. In the early 1990s she became ill, her mental faculties declined rather rapidly, and she went into a nursing home. I was burned out of my apartment building in Brighton and moved to Quincy–to Quincy, just south of Boston, in particular, to be closer to my mother and siblings and still have easy access to public transportation. But my mother couldn’t call me anymore, nor I her. I saw her fairly seldom. She lost the ability to speak intelligibly, and it was never clear that she knew who her visitors were, or what they said.
My mother was hospitalized for a while shortly before she died. When she came out of the hospital for a few days and went back to the nursing home, my sister called me from my mother’s room. She put my mother on the phone, I don’t know why. To my sister’s prompting, my mother said, with perfect clarity, "I love you, Alan." I don’t know whether she knew what she was saying, or to whom, but they were the last words I heard her speak and the clearest and most coherent in years.
She died within weeks. It didn’t seem too hard to take at the time, because in important ways I had lost her already. But some months after her death, about 6:00 every evening for several days, I found myself thinking, "It’s time for Mother to call"–just as if she would.
In the years since my mother’s death, I’ve read a few books about the afterlife and the reported phenomena of contact between the living and the dead. I needn’t go into the details. They are pretty much what you’d expect. But latterly, as I’ve investigated the idea that all existence is One, a new idea has occurred to me. Of course, it isn’t a new idea at all, it’s thousands of years old, but it’s new to me.
The idea is that we have not, indeed, lost our loved ones. They have not been parted from us. We are always together because we are not, essentially, separate beings at all. It only seems so.
There are many varieties of Oneness belief, some ancient, some modern adaptations. Some depend for their validity on individual meditative and intuitive experience, and some on the evidence of quantum physics. Mine is a little different from all those of which I’ve read. It borrows from all of them, and from my years as an evangelical Christian. It is this:
I believe there is an eternal, infinite, perfect, knowing, willing Being who eternally wills all that is. In Its infinity, It contains all things within Itself: It is everything and there is nothing but It. It may be called the Ein Sof ("without limit"), as in Jewish Kabbalah tradition, or It may be called God as in Western philosophy. It may be approximately called Brahman, borrowing a name from Hinduism, or It may be called "the vastness" to borrow a phrase from an experience reported in one of my readings. It hardly matters. I call It the One. All that we are, all that we experience, is the eternal will of the One. All that we experience is the One willing, and therefore is the One, because Its will cannot be distinguished from Itself. Only the One truly and eternally exists; we, Its manifestations, exist only insofar as It wills us perceiving ourselves and everything around us. Not only we, but our world, the progression of events, the framework of space and time, exist within Its perfect eternal will–within Its infinity.
In the annals of death and survival, Oneness is little discussed, though there is much about closeness, presence, visions, voices, dreams, and other oddities. A number of psychics, forsaking the traditional, doctrinally based ideas of heaven and hell, portray a place called "the Other Side" or "the Invisible World" or (for reincarnationists in particular) "life between lives", where all who have lived and died dwell in perfect bliss. The ideas about this place are as many as there are proponents.
My mother had been a professional singer, in a small way, in her youth. In later years she still loved to sing and could accompany herself or my sister at the piano. She had a limited knowledge, but a definite love, of classical music and opera, and I have this love from her. Nowadays, when I think of my mother, I am less apt to think of her as I knew her, in her middle and declining years, than as a young woman, sitting at a grand piano before a packed concert hall on "the Other Side," playing music of her own composition that elicits instant transcendence in its hearers and enlofts the very heavens.
This idea of my mother began a few months ago, after I, myself, heard a "voice". As I lay in bed awaiting sleep, but not yet sleepy, I heard my mother’s voice in my mind’s ear (I don’t hear it often), saying, simply, "Hello, Alan."
I thought, "Hello, Mother! I feel that there ought to be music–but what music?"
"Orpheus in the Underworld," she replied.
The name originates with the Greek myth of Orpheus, who musically charmed his way through Hades to bring out his love, Eurydice. But it’s the title of an opera by Jacques Offenbach which, to my knowledge, my mother never would have recognized while living.
You must clearly understand that my mother lived most of her life in what used to be called reduced circumstances, but from her affluent upbringing she retained an almost aristocratic dignity and grace. She also had a wicked little smile that she showed whenever she enjoyed a good joke that was, perhaps, not quite of the loftiest character.
If you know of the opera, you probably know that it contains the music of the cancan, a roistering burlesque dance of the late 1800s. That, and my mother, simply do not go together–except with that mischievous smile.
I don’t know about life after death. I don’t know about reincarnation. I don’t bother myself much about them. And I no longer wish with a vain fervor to hear from my parents again. I don’t have to. I do know that there is no limit to what the One can will, what It can manifest in experience–but whatever that experience is, is One.
My parents and I, you and your loved ones, are always together–always One.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Confessions of a libertarian Monist
When you have no reason for being, you have four choices.
The first and most obvious choice is to consent to being without a reason. To most of us, this option is boring at best and depressing at worst.
The second choice is not to be, but that choice is inaccessible to most of us. Our animal instinct for self-preservation sets rather strict limits to our options.
The third choice is to invent a reason for being.
The fourth choice is to combine options 2 and 3: to invent a reason for being which effectively nullifies one’s being while not actually ending it.
I confess to you today that, for reasons with which I needn’t bore you, I have seldom had a reason for being. I simply was, whether I wanted to be or not. I rarely wanted to be but, given the instinct-based limitations of my character, there wasn’t much to be done about it.
By the time I was thirty-six years old, I had found option 1 intolerable, option 2 infeasible, and option 4 incomprehensible. Option 3 had failed me more than once–or perhaps I had failed it–but I found myself needing to try again. I decided to invent a new reason for being. My reason for being would be to live for what I believed in. Though I knew no reason for being, I was not a nihilist. I did believe in something, and I believed that living for that belief would give my life meaning.
I wasn’t entirely sure that I believed in God or goodness or love. I believed in what I could see, touch, taste, smell, and hear. I believed in the existence of the world we see and the individuals we perceive ourselves to be. I believed that individual consciousness was the irreducible fact of all existence, and I became a libertarian–of a sort.
There are many sorts of libertarians. Many libertarians of one sort or another believe that libertarians of other sorts are unworthy of the name. It’s like any other philosophy or any religion. There are libertarian purists and there are libertarians who define themselves more loosely as such. We needn’t go into the details. I was a libertarian Republican who only briefly maintained a paying membership in the Libertarian Association that existed in Massachusetts before it achieved short-lived party status here. I suppose the association still exists, but I confess that I don’t know. But as a libertarian Republican, I was not what the truest, bluest Libertarians considered worthy of the name. Too bad. “Libertarian” is not a brand.
In general, I believed that though there were legitimate uses for government beyond “anarchy plus the policeman,” those legitimate uses were few and limited. I believed that individuals must be free to choose every aspect of their lives consistent with the preservation of individual rights. I believed that that was actually best for everyone, though it meant some people would have painful choices to make.
I had invented a little catch phrase for myself, called “maximum aggregate utility.” It was like “the greatest good for the greatest number,” except that it purported to include the greatest good for all, not just for the many as opposed to the few. It was not “screw the few,” but, “What works out best overall, for everyone?”, even if some had to sacrifice some satisfaction. Within this framework of maximum aggregate utility, I believed individual choice and responsibility should still be the driving factors most of the time.
Specifics: I personally oppose homosexuality, but did not believe government should ban or explicitly approve it. I believed it would be best for government to get out of running schools and get into setting broad performance standards which private schools should meet. I believed in keeping taxes and government spending as low as could possibly be, while still providing for those who had no other means of provision. I believed in equal employment opportunity regardless of race, gender, or religion, but not in affirmative action. I personally opposed abortion, but did not believe government should either ban it or pay for it. I did not favor public prayer in schools, but did favor allowing students to pray privately in school. I believed government should build and pave roads, maintain parks, and other stuff of the like, but not subsidize artists or broadcasting. I believed government should provide minimal decent housing and medical care for those who had no other possible means of provision, but no one else.
The foregoing was all good when it amounted to mere ideology–when I was chairman of a little libertarian Republican activist group. When it came to actually trying to make a practical difference, as president of a local taxpayers’ association, it soon transpired that even this moderate libertarianism would go nowhere fast. I became a centrist, though still cherishing the somewhat libertarian values of maximum personal choice and responsibility and maximum efficiency in government. I found ways to rationalize paying for and running public schools because I knew if I didn’t very few people would listen to me and nothing would get done; but I said that, in education and all government activity, we’d bloody well better get the best possible value for the least possible expense.
Ladies and gentlemen, to borrow a line from W. Somerset Maugham, “from nothing nothing comes.” When my invented reason for being failed me again–or I failed it again, as you prefer–I realized that I had come from nothing, I had been and remained nothing, and nothing had come of anything I’d done. You could almost say it had all been a mirage, except that it had cost me a great deal of money and the so-called best years of my life.
You will not like what follows, but stay with me. It isn’t as bad as it looks.
We are all defined by what we do, what we say, what we experience, what we think, what we feel, and what we have. But if these things define us, then there is nothing at our core and what defines us amounts to nothing as well. Our self-definition is like the accretion of extraneous matter and energy around an empty core.
When we entertain ourselves, we do so to forget ourselves. Why? Because at the core of our “selves”, our ego, there is nothing to remember. When we think, we think to fill the void within us. We manufacture our feelings to fill our emptiness, whether those feelings be good or ill. When we acquire things we acquire things to satisfy a lack within ourselves–yet if our egos, our "selves", are empty at our core, then what we have acquired, having been made by others who are also empty, really amounts to nothing. We act because if we do not act we are nothing, yet if nothing comes of nothing, our actions do not change us from nothing to something.
What stuff and nonsense! How morbid! Sick! Sick!
Really? What defines who you are? From what source does that definition derive its reality?
But there’s “something” all around us, there’s “something” happening all the time! How can you say nothing amounts to anything?
We’ve already explored the idea that all experience is merely an appearance within consciousness, that experience is a “seamless totality with no separate entities or events anywhere to be found,” to quote Rupert Spira in The Transparency of Things. The interesting thing about that idea is that it almost seems to be founded on memory (Spira is not, after all, writing of his experience in the moment, but of his reconstruction of past experience). Memory has about it the unreality of dreams. In memory indeed the separation between self and other is rendered indistinct–as it is in a dream. In waking life, however, the separation is very apparent, very tangible, to most of us most of the time. Yet in mindfulness of the Buddhist sort, in being fully present in the moment without commentary or filter, even in waking life the distinction between self and other is blurred and experience does indeed take on the aspect of a seamless totality. We reinforce distinction with thought. We reinforce separation with belief. Without them, what we experience is just This.
Thus we come to option 4, inventing a reason for being which nullifies being without actually ending it. But what it nullifies is not being, but non-being, the empty individual ego that claims to reside at our core. It affirms the Being that is real, eternal and true. For most of my life the realization of my own emptiness was a burden. Today it is becoming a source of joy.
Today I do believe in God. I believe that God is the infinite, perfect Being that eternally knows and wills all that is. All that is, is God because the Limitless cannot be limited by distinction. Yet all that is, is nothing because it exists within God and not unto itself or of itself. And God, the Limitless, may be thought of as nothing because It cannot be limited by our finite idea of what it means to be “something”. God is no thing in particular; God is All. Because I have no reason for being, other than to fulfill God’s purpose for manifesting me, my reason for being is to know my finite self as nothing and to experience God as All, and then to share that experience with the “others” God manifests around me.
Libertarianism, classically understood, is all about “enlightened self-interest.” According to this ideal, society is best served when all men and women best serve themselves, and they best serve themselves when they serve others. But many Monists (as I’ve taken to calling myself) see the Oneness of all being in a light that admits of little self-interest, or none at all. I know from experience and observation that most libertarianism is really about self-interest, enlightened or otherwise. Most actions are really about self-interest in one form or another. There is really nothing at the core of our egos, but let nothing threaten that core! Let nothing prevent that empty core from defining itself as whatever it wants to be! Even the New Age mystics follow this line of thinking, what with their law of attraction and their paradox of honoring the self while seeking the greater Self. It’s bogus, boys and girls.
If we are all One, then we must help those in need regardless of the need and regardless of our “self-interest”. If we are all One, we must eschew doing injury to “others”, either willfully or inadvertently–though, admittedly, it’s not always easy to know what is truly helpful and what is truly injurious. Easy it’s not, but it is possible. The point is to live for All, not for self.
If we’re used to filling our void with self-interest, this is not an easy philosophy to practice. If we find ourselves still interested in politics, we face immediate cognitive dissonance. Coercion is bad, choice is good, but we want to promote the welfare of all, not “maximum aggregate utility.” Maximum aggregate utility is not a zero-sum game like the “greatest good for the greatest number”; it does admit of expanding aggregate utility. But it also admits that if you want to do the best for everyone, someone may not be happy with it. Promoting the welfare of all, on the other hand, means reducing the threats to everyone’s well-being, eschewing harm to anyone’s well-being, and in the current state of the world that is impossible.
I have a friend, an atheist, who says human nature never changes. I disagree. I believe the influence of ethical religion over the past few millennia has changed human nature from mere refined animalism to something more nearly approaching what we like to call humane values. Compassion barely existed in the human heart before God was said to require it. But ethical religion that mattered was always supported by government power, and the state religion in turn usually supported that power. In our secular, individualist (libertarian) world, that is no longer true. Or is it? Today someone’s prevailing ethics are still supported by government power, and the “religion” of ethical humanism in turn supports that power. That means some people are forced to adhere to ethics they don’t really accept.
Libertarians everywhere–if they read this, which few of them will–would be aghast at what I’m about to say: The ethical force of humanist-supported government power hasn’t all been bad. White people would still despise and effectively enslave nonwhites, had it not been for the power of government to enforce some degree of racial equality. Now most people agree that racial bigotry and discrimination are evil. Men would still despise and effectively enslave women, had it not been for the power of government to enforce some degree of equality between the sexes. Now most people will admit that women should have equal opportunities with men, and will grant them. The rich would despise and effectively enslave the poor had it not been for the power of government to equalize opportunity and economic rights, and today most people think of ruthless economic exploitation as a a bad thing. And so it goes.
The next frontier is healthcare. Barack Obama is about to make us bear one another’s burdens whether we like it or not. Ideally in fifty years it would never occur to anyone that anyone should go without the best healthcare society can provide.
I fear that this ideal will not be realized in any meaningful way because the president’s methods will make the ideal of healthcare meaningless. His plan will deprive insurers of the ability to insure. Consumer choice will be only partly matched by consumer responsibility, and in the end healthcare will become impossible to provide in the way we expect and demand.
Maybe we demand too much. Maybe we will end up providing too little.
Healthcare is the next frontier, but we are still stumbling along the uneven trails of the old ones, including education, housing, and employment.
Despite being a Monist who wants everyone to be happy, healthy, educated, clothed, sheltered, and fed, because all are One, I can’t get past the sense that sometimes we create more division than unity by forcing our ideas on others. Sometimes we spoil what we want to achieve by trying to do things we really have no idea how to do, and it might have been better to forebear. Sometimes it might be best for us, as individuals and communities, to figure things out for ourselves and take the consequences if we err. Until we get over our self-interest and learn to provide for ourselves and one another with a whole heart, we will continue to err and take the consequences anyway.
They’ll just be consequences redistributed.
I believe that the One’s eternal will is perfect and perfectly expressed in the reality It manifests. But I hope It will manifest a more efficient and effective way than statist-corporatist socialism for us to come together and realize the Oneness that we are.
[Disclaimer: For those who know that I work for an insurance company, I am obliged to point out that the opinions expressed above do not necessarily represent the views of my employers.]
The first and most obvious choice is to consent to being without a reason. To most of us, this option is boring at best and depressing at worst.
The second choice is not to be, but that choice is inaccessible to most of us. Our animal instinct for self-preservation sets rather strict limits to our options.
The third choice is to invent a reason for being.
The fourth choice is to combine options 2 and 3: to invent a reason for being which effectively nullifies one’s being while not actually ending it.
I confess to you today that, for reasons with which I needn’t bore you, I have seldom had a reason for being. I simply was, whether I wanted to be or not. I rarely wanted to be but, given the instinct-based limitations of my character, there wasn’t much to be done about it.
By the time I was thirty-six years old, I had found option 1 intolerable, option 2 infeasible, and option 4 incomprehensible. Option 3 had failed me more than once–or perhaps I had failed it–but I found myself needing to try again. I decided to invent a new reason for being. My reason for being would be to live for what I believed in. Though I knew no reason for being, I was not a nihilist. I did believe in something, and I believed that living for that belief would give my life meaning.
I wasn’t entirely sure that I believed in God or goodness or love. I believed in what I could see, touch, taste, smell, and hear. I believed in the existence of the world we see and the individuals we perceive ourselves to be. I believed that individual consciousness was the irreducible fact of all existence, and I became a libertarian–of a sort.
There are many sorts of libertarians. Many libertarians of one sort or another believe that libertarians of other sorts are unworthy of the name. It’s like any other philosophy or any religion. There are libertarian purists and there are libertarians who define themselves more loosely as such. We needn’t go into the details. I was a libertarian Republican who only briefly maintained a paying membership in the Libertarian Association that existed in Massachusetts before it achieved short-lived party status here. I suppose the association still exists, but I confess that I don’t know. But as a libertarian Republican, I was not what the truest, bluest Libertarians considered worthy of the name. Too bad. “Libertarian” is not a brand.
In general, I believed that though there were legitimate uses for government beyond “anarchy plus the policeman,” those legitimate uses were few and limited. I believed that individuals must be free to choose every aspect of their lives consistent with the preservation of individual rights. I believed that that was actually best for everyone, though it meant some people would have painful choices to make.
I had invented a little catch phrase for myself, called “maximum aggregate utility.” It was like “the greatest good for the greatest number,” except that it purported to include the greatest good for all, not just for the many as opposed to the few. It was not “screw the few,” but, “What works out best overall, for everyone?”, even if some had to sacrifice some satisfaction. Within this framework of maximum aggregate utility, I believed individual choice and responsibility should still be the driving factors most of the time.
Specifics: I personally oppose homosexuality, but did not believe government should ban or explicitly approve it. I believed it would be best for government to get out of running schools and get into setting broad performance standards which private schools should meet. I believed in keeping taxes and government spending as low as could possibly be, while still providing for those who had no other means of provision. I believed in equal employment opportunity regardless of race, gender, or religion, but not in affirmative action. I personally opposed abortion, but did not believe government should either ban it or pay for it. I did not favor public prayer in schools, but did favor allowing students to pray privately in school. I believed government should build and pave roads, maintain parks, and other stuff of the like, but not subsidize artists or broadcasting. I believed government should provide minimal decent housing and medical care for those who had no other possible means of provision, but no one else.
The foregoing was all good when it amounted to mere ideology–when I was chairman of a little libertarian Republican activist group. When it came to actually trying to make a practical difference, as president of a local taxpayers’ association, it soon transpired that even this moderate libertarianism would go nowhere fast. I became a centrist, though still cherishing the somewhat libertarian values of maximum personal choice and responsibility and maximum efficiency in government. I found ways to rationalize paying for and running public schools because I knew if I didn’t very few people would listen to me and nothing would get done; but I said that, in education and all government activity, we’d bloody well better get the best possible value for the least possible expense.
Ladies and gentlemen, to borrow a line from W. Somerset Maugham, “from nothing nothing comes.” When my invented reason for being failed me again–or I failed it again, as you prefer–I realized that I had come from nothing, I had been and remained nothing, and nothing had come of anything I’d done. You could almost say it had all been a mirage, except that it had cost me a great deal of money and the so-called best years of my life.
You will not like what follows, but stay with me. It isn’t as bad as it looks.
We are all defined by what we do, what we say, what we experience, what we think, what we feel, and what we have. But if these things define us, then there is nothing at our core and what defines us amounts to nothing as well. Our self-definition is like the accretion of extraneous matter and energy around an empty core.
When we entertain ourselves, we do so to forget ourselves. Why? Because at the core of our “selves”, our ego, there is nothing to remember. When we think, we think to fill the void within us. We manufacture our feelings to fill our emptiness, whether those feelings be good or ill. When we acquire things we acquire things to satisfy a lack within ourselves–yet if our egos, our "selves", are empty at our core, then what we have acquired, having been made by others who are also empty, really amounts to nothing. We act because if we do not act we are nothing, yet if nothing comes of nothing, our actions do not change us from nothing to something.
What stuff and nonsense! How morbid! Sick! Sick!
Really? What defines who you are? From what source does that definition derive its reality?
But there’s “something” all around us, there’s “something” happening all the time! How can you say nothing amounts to anything?
We’ve already explored the idea that all experience is merely an appearance within consciousness, that experience is a “seamless totality with no separate entities or events anywhere to be found,” to quote Rupert Spira in The Transparency of Things. The interesting thing about that idea is that it almost seems to be founded on memory (Spira is not, after all, writing of his experience in the moment, but of his reconstruction of past experience). Memory has about it the unreality of dreams. In memory indeed the separation between self and other is rendered indistinct–as it is in a dream. In waking life, however, the separation is very apparent, very tangible, to most of us most of the time. Yet in mindfulness of the Buddhist sort, in being fully present in the moment without commentary or filter, even in waking life the distinction between self and other is blurred and experience does indeed take on the aspect of a seamless totality. We reinforce distinction with thought. We reinforce separation with belief. Without them, what we experience is just This.
Thus we come to option 4, inventing a reason for being which nullifies being without actually ending it. But what it nullifies is not being, but non-being, the empty individual ego that claims to reside at our core. It affirms the Being that is real, eternal and true. For most of my life the realization of my own emptiness was a burden. Today it is becoming a source of joy.
Today I do believe in God. I believe that God is the infinite, perfect Being that eternally knows and wills all that is. All that is, is God because the Limitless cannot be limited by distinction. Yet all that is, is nothing because it exists within God and not unto itself or of itself. And God, the Limitless, may be thought of as nothing because It cannot be limited by our finite idea of what it means to be “something”. God is no thing in particular; God is All. Because I have no reason for being, other than to fulfill God’s purpose for manifesting me, my reason for being is to know my finite self as nothing and to experience God as All, and then to share that experience with the “others” God manifests around me.
Libertarianism, classically understood, is all about “enlightened self-interest.” According to this ideal, society is best served when all men and women best serve themselves, and they best serve themselves when they serve others. But many Monists (as I’ve taken to calling myself) see the Oneness of all being in a light that admits of little self-interest, or none at all. I know from experience and observation that most libertarianism is really about self-interest, enlightened or otherwise. Most actions are really about self-interest in one form or another. There is really nothing at the core of our egos, but let nothing threaten that core! Let nothing prevent that empty core from defining itself as whatever it wants to be! Even the New Age mystics follow this line of thinking, what with their law of attraction and their paradox of honoring the self while seeking the greater Self. It’s bogus, boys and girls.
If we are all One, then we must help those in need regardless of the need and regardless of our “self-interest”. If we are all One, we must eschew doing injury to “others”, either willfully or inadvertently–though, admittedly, it’s not always easy to know what is truly helpful and what is truly injurious. Easy it’s not, but it is possible. The point is to live for All, not for self.
If we’re used to filling our void with self-interest, this is not an easy philosophy to practice. If we find ourselves still interested in politics, we face immediate cognitive dissonance. Coercion is bad, choice is good, but we want to promote the welfare of all, not “maximum aggregate utility.” Maximum aggregate utility is not a zero-sum game like the “greatest good for the greatest number”; it does admit of expanding aggregate utility. But it also admits that if you want to do the best for everyone, someone may not be happy with it. Promoting the welfare of all, on the other hand, means reducing the threats to everyone’s well-being, eschewing harm to anyone’s well-being, and in the current state of the world that is impossible.
I have a friend, an atheist, who says human nature never changes. I disagree. I believe the influence of ethical religion over the past few millennia has changed human nature from mere refined animalism to something more nearly approaching what we like to call humane values. Compassion barely existed in the human heart before God was said to require it. But ethical religion that mattered was always supported by government power, and the state religion in turn usually supported that power. In our secular, individualist (libertarian) world, that is no longer true. Or is it? Today someone’s prevailing ethics are still supported by government power, and the “religion” of ethical humanism in turn supports that power. That means some people are forced to adhere to ethics they don’t really accept.
Libertarians everywhere–if they read this, which few of them will–would be aghast at what I’m about to say: The ethical force of humanist-supported government power hasn’t all been bad. White people would still despise and effectively enslave nonwhites, had it not been for the power of government to enforce some degree of racial equality. Now most people agree that racial bigotry and discrimination are evil. Men would still despise and effectively enslave women, had it not been for the power of government to enforce some degree of equality between the sexes. Now most people will admit that women should have equal opportunities with men, and will grant them. The rich would despise and effectively enslave the poor had it not been for the power of government to equalize opportunity and economic rights, and today most people think of ruthless economic exploitation as a a bad thing. And so it goes.
The next frontier is healthcare. Barack Obama is about to make us bear one another’s burdens whether we like it or not. Ideally in fifty years it would never occur to anyone that anyone should go without the best healthcare society can provide.
I fear that this ideal will not be realized in any meaningful way because the president’s methods will make the ideal of healthcare meaningless. His plan will deprive insurers of the ability to insure. Consumer choice will be only partly matched by consumer responsibility, and in the end healthcare will become impossible to provide in the way we expect and demand.
Maybe we demand too much. Maybe we will end up providing too little.
Healthcare is the next frontier, but we are still stumbling along the uneven trails of the old ones, including education, housing, and employment.
Despite being a Monist who wants everyone to be happy, healthy, educated, clothed, sheltered, and fed, because all are One, I can’t get past the sense that sometimes we create more division than unity by forcing our ideas on others. Sometimes we spoil what we want to achieve by trying to do things we really have no idea how to do, and it might have been better to forebear. Sometimes it might be best for us, as individuals and communities, to figure things out for ourselves and take the consequences if we err. Until we get over our self-interest and learn to provide for ourselves and one another with a whole heart, we will continue to err and take the consequences anyway.
They’ll just be consequences redistributed.
I believe that the One’s eternal will is perfect and perfectly expressed in the reality It manifests. But I hope It will manifest a more efficient and effective way than statist-corporatist socialism for us to come together and realize the Oneness that we are.
[Disclaimer: For those who know that I work for an insurance company, I am obliged to point out that the opinions expressed above do not necessarily represent the views of my employers.]
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Unraveling the mystery of silliness
The other day an acquaintance asked, with genuine puzzlement, why certain very bright people had come up with certain silly ideas or made some rather silly blunders.
Knowing the people and their situation, I jestingly said: “They work within a dampening field. Everyone who walks through that door immediately loses 50 percent of their intelligence.” It always seems as if these people and almost everyone around them are either woefully uninformed or unable to think, despite the fact that some of them seem pretty intelligent and have advanced educations.
(This phenomenon is also commonly observed in politics and public policy.)
My acquaintance is not a scientist or a science fiction fan, so she didn’t know what a dampening field is. To clarify, I went online and found the following definition at Yahoo! Answers:
I sent her this definition with the following addendum:
Later, with specific reference to the people my acquaintance had in mind, I added:
Of course, none of these addenda are true or even scientifically plausible. They are my sardonic humor mixed with New Age technobabble. (I can, however, think of some authors who would probably endorse these ideas as facts.) But the mystery remains: Why do smart people do stupid things?
There is actually an easy answer. Often smart people do stupid things because they have an idea, a desire, or a fear that preempts other important considerations. They don’t weigh those other considerations adequately vis-a-vis their particular predisposition. Sometimes they’re just so busy thinking about one thing that they forget other things. Or the opposite may be true: They’re thinking about too many things at once and not giving adequate attention to the subject at hand. Then again, they may just not have the information they need to make an informed choice. They may not realize they lack this information or may not know how significant the lack of information is.
This easy answer only gets us part of the way to unraveling the mystery, though. Stupidity can be infectious. A group of intelligent people gathered to resolve a problem can easily fall into stupid groupthink. But it goes beyond even this. Whole organizations can be infected by the mindlessness of their leaders.
I don’t mean that these people literally haven’t got minds. People in leadership positions wouldn’t have reached them without any minds at all. They’re not using their minds to best advantage. In this case mindlessness is the opposite of the Buddhist concept of mindfulness–being fully present and attentive in the moment, looking deeply into everything within us and around us so that we truly understand it. So the employees or group members infected by their leaders’ mindlessness do things just as hurriedly or just as sloppily, and make decisions just as poorly, as their leaders. It may be because too much is being demanded of them. It may be because the demands being made of them are not rational. Members or employees who feel they can’t leave “go along to get along” rather than mount a hopeless fight against the prevailing mindlessness.
How, then, to react to this infectious stupidity? Anger is self destructive and frustration only builds upon itself to create more frustration. Humor often borders on contempt, and sometimes crosses the border. Contempt is the convenient answer, but it’s also the wrong one. Who among us can truly claim never to have made decisions guided by the wrong considerations? So who are we to judge others for doing the same? How about compassion then? Compassion is fine so long as it isn’t really just concealed contempt: “It isn’t right for me to despise them, so I feel sorry for them.” In that case the two are not different.
I think the best answer has two parts:
First, we can learn to see ourselves in those making the dubious choices, and to see them in ourselves. We are not really different from them. Only the contexts and content of the choices are different. Then our compassion can arise from love rather than contempt, and maybe we can even make use of it.
Second, if we are caught in one of these dampening fields and can’t make use of our compassion to make the situation better, we should recognize that and get busy today making other plans.
Knowing the people and their situation, I jestingly said: “They work within a dampening field. Everyone who walks through that door immediately loses 50 percent of their intelligence.” It always seems as if these people and almost everyone around them are either woefully uninformed or unable to think, despite the fact that some of them seem pretty intelligent and have advanced educations.
(This phenomenon is also commonly observed in politics and public policy.)
My acquaintance is not a scientist or a science fiction fan, so she didn’t know what a dampening field is. To clarify, I went online and found the following definition at Yahoo! Answers:
In broadcasting, it is an electromagnetic field that counteracts another electromagnetic field, i.e., a radio or television broadcast. The common name for it is "jamming" as in jamming a signal.
I sent her this definition with the following addendum:
In an area surrounded by a synaptic dampening field, a preselected percentage of brain synapses fail to fire, or their signals dissipate before reaching neighboring neurons. The selection is set by increasing or decreasing the intensity of the dampening field at its generation point.
There are also brainwave dampening fields that can impede the generation of brainwaves, or cause them to generate at a lower frequency, so that instead of the normal waking Beta or optimal-functioning Alpha brainwaves, all individuals within an affected area generate only Theta or Delta brainwaves, indicating near catatonia or deep sleep, respectively.
Later, with specific reference to the people my acquaintance had in mind, I added:
Some synaptic or brainwave dampening fields have been found to autogenerate, emanated by the habitual, concentrated self-serving thought of the affected
area’s occupants or their “thought leaders”. It has also been found that some areas seem to be naturally afflicted with synaptic or brainwave dampening
fields. Through interviews and observations of the areas’ occupants, researchers have hypothesized that these dampening fields are generated by the collective “negative” karma of the occupants or their leaders. Research is ongoing to validate this hypothesis.
Of course, none of these addenda are true or even scientifically plausible. They are my sardonic humor mixed with New Age technobabble. (I can, however, think of some authors who would probably endorse these ideas as facts.) But the mystery remains: Why do smart people do stupid things?
There is actually an easy answer. Often smart people do stupid things because they have an idea, a desire, or a fear that preempts other important considerations. They don’t weigh those other considerations adequately vis-a-vis their particular predisposition. Sometimes they’re just so busy thinking about one thing that they forget other things. Or the opposite may be true: They’re thinking about too many things at once and not giving adequate attention to the subject at hand. Then again, they may just not have the information they need to make an informed choice. They may not realize they lack this information or may not know how significant the lack of information is.
This easy answer only gets us part of the way to unraveling the mystery, though. Stupidity can be infectious. A group of intelligent people gathered to resolve a problem can easily fall into stupid groupthink. But it goes beyond even this. Whole organizations can be infected by the mindlessness of their leaders.
I don’t mean that these people literally haven’t got minds. People in leadership positions wouldn’t have reached them without any minds at all. They’re not using their minds to best advantage. In this case mindlessness is the opposite of the Buddhist concept of mindfulness–being fully present and attentive in the moment, looking deeply into everything within us and around us so that we truly understand it. So the employees or group members infected by their leaders’ mindlessness do things just as hurriedly or just as sloppily, and make decisions just as poorly, as their leaders. It may be because too much is being demanded of them. It may be because the demands being made of them are not rational. Members or employees who feel they can’t leave “go along to get along” rather than mount a hopeless fight against the prevailing mindlessness.
How, then, to react to this infectious stupidity? Anger is self destructive and frustration only builds upon itself to create more frustration. Humor often borders on contempt, and sometimes crosses the border. Contempt is the convenient answer, but it’s also the wrong one. Who among us can truly claim never to have made decisions guided by the wrong considerations? So who are we to judge others for doing the same? How about compassion then? Compassion is fine so long as it isn’t really just concealed contempt: “It isn’t right for me to despise them, so I feel sorry for them.” In that case the two are not different.
I think the best answer has two parts:
First, we can learn to see ourselves in those making the dubious choices, and to see them in ourselves. We are not really different from them. Only the contexts and content of the choices are different. Then our compassion can arise from love rather than contempt, and maybe we can even make use of it.
Second, if we are caught in one of these dampening fields and can’t make use of our compassion to make the situation better, we should recognize that and get busy today making other plans.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Adventures in transparency
In Shropshire, England, there's a ceramicist–a potter if you prefer–who moonlights as a teacher of transparency. Not transparency in government or business. Not institutional or organizational transparency. No, nothing so trivial. Just as he now concentrates in "studio pottery" rather than functional pottery, his teaching focus is nothing less than the transparency of everything.
The ceramicist's name is Rupert Spira. In 2008 he published a book–apparently his first–entitled The Transparency of Things: Contemplations on the Nature of Experience. The conclusion is best summarized, in the paperback edition, on the back cover: "We see that our experience is and has only ever been one seamless totality with no separate entities, objects, or parts anywhere to be found."
From the name of this blog and from other random hints you might have inferred (correctly) that I agree with Spira's conclusion. Unfortunately his exposition leaves something to be desired.
Transparency is published by Non-duality Press. They also publish Oneness: The Destination You Never Left, by John Greven. Both books left me with a peculiar dissatisfaction despite almost complete agreement.
In the world of Oneness, the common denominator is a belief that an infinite, eternal consciousness underlies all existence. More than that, all existence is regarded as really one thing, ultimately identical with that consciousness. From that point on, unity fractures into diversity just as that one Consciousness takes myriad forms. The nature and description of that Consciousness are open to much interpretation and debate.
These notions of metaphysical monism are reportedly native to Eastern minds, but non-native, indeed alien, to Western ones. In the West the Creator is generally viewed as at least distinct from Creation. The most outstanding apparent exception is the mystical Jewish tradition of Kabbalah, where the ultimate Being, the Ein Sof ("without limit") is regarded as including within Itself all that exists.
Spira and Greven are both well acquainted with Eastern tradition and appear to adhere to the Advaita (non-duality) school in particular. Advaita is of Hindu origin, but Spira and Greven know they will never reach their readers with the exotic name of Brahman. Perhaps, being Westerners, they themselves don’t think of the Eternal and Infinite as Brahman. Instead they refer to It as "Consciousness," "Presence," or (in Greven's case) "Awareness." They try, by irresistable logic but without empirical evidence, to show that none of us are what we think we are: We are not ourselves, as we believe ourselves to be; we are all this eternal, infinite Consciousness/Presence/Awareness–and, in reality, nothing else.
The trouble with this presentation is that, to the Western mind, it is totally counterintuitive. Without empirical evidence, it ultimately fails. To the Western mind, consciousness, presence, and awareness are not entities or beings, they're states or conditions; an eternal, infinite Presence without objective qualities, without attributes or identity, is simply empty of meaning. We want to know about whose consciousness we are talking. Well, it's no one's consciousness in particular, because there is no one in particular; the whole idea of individual identity is, for Spira, "Consciousness in search of itself outside of itself." Everything that we experience, including the body, the mind, and the world, is really an appearance within Consciousness of Consciousness. Moreover, the closest analogy to the ultimate, "true" state of Consciousness is deep sleep, where no objects appear and nothing is objectively experienced.
The problem is not that Spira and Greven are wrong. They have simply put their case poorly for their intended audience. In trying to make sense of it for us, they have made something close to nonsense of it.
Others take different approaches to matters like these, and we may explore those later. Spira's Transparency and Greven's Oneness both contain good things for those who already believe. It is helpful to have a reminder, for use in everyday thought, that everything we experience, including our own "selves," is really the One manifest. But those who don’t already believe may need to look elsewhere for their introduction to the Infinite.
The ceramicist's name is Rupert Spira. In 2008 he published a book–apparently his first–entitled The Transparency of Things: Contemplations on the Nature of Experience. The conclusion is best summarized, in the paperback edition, on the back cover: "We see that our experience is and has only ever been one seamless totality with no separate entities, objects, or parts anywhere to be found."
From the name of this blog and from other random hints you might have inferred (correctly) that I agree with Spira's conclusion. Unfortunately his exposition leaves something to be desired.
Transparency is published by Non-duality Press. They also publish Oneness: The Destination You Never Left, by John Greven. Both books left me with a peculiar dissatisfaction despite almost complete agreement.
In the world of Oneness, the common denominator is a belief that an infinite, eternal consciousness underlies all existence. More than that, all existence is regarded as really one thing, ultimately identical with that consciousness. From that point on, unity fractures into diversity just as that one Consciousness takes myriad forms. The nature and description of that Consciousness are open to much interpretation and debate.
These notions of metaphysical monism are reportedly native to Eastern minds, but non-native, indeed alien, to Western ones. In the West the Creator is generally viewed as at least distinct from Creation. The most outstanding apparent exception is the mystical Jewish tradition of Kabbalah, where the ultimate Being, the Ein Sof ("without limit") is regarded as including within Itself all that exists.
Spira and Greven are both well acquainted with Eastern tradition and appear to adhere to the Advaita (non-duality) school in particular. Advaita is of Hindu origin, but Spira and Greven know they will never reach their readers with the exotic name of Brahman. Perhaps, being Westerners, they themselves don’t think of the Eternal and Infinite as Brahman. Instead they refer to It as "Consciousness," "Presence," or (in Greven's case) "Awareness." They try, by irresistable logic but without empirical evidence, to show that none of us are what we think we are: We are not ourselves, as we believe ourselves to be; we are all this eternal, infinite Consciousness/Presence/Awareness–and, in reality, nothing else.
The trouble with this presentation is that, to the Western mind, it is totally counterintuitive. Without empirical evidence, it ultimately fails. To the Western mind, consciousness, presence, and awareness are not entities or beings, they're states or conditions; an eternal, infinite Presence without objective qualities, without attributes or identity, is simply empty of meaning. We want to know about whose consciousness we are talking. Well, it's no one's consciousness in particular, because there is no one in particular; the whole idea of individual identity is, for Spira, "Consciousness in search of itself outside of itself." Everything that we experience, including the body, the mind, and the world, is really an appearance within Consciousness of Consciousness. Moreover, the closest analogy to the ultimate, "true" state of Consciousness is deep sleep, where no objects appear and nothing is objectively experienced.
The problem is not that Spira and Greven are wrong. They have simply put their case poorly for their intended audience. In trying to make sense of it for us, they have made something close to nonsense of it.
Others take different approaches to matters like these, and we may explore those later. Spira's Transparency and Greven's Oneness both contain good things for those who already believe. It is helpful to have a reminder, for use in everyday thought, that everything we experience, including our own "selves," is really the One manifest. But those who don’t already believe may need to look elsewhere for their introduction to the Infinite.
Monday, February 8, 2010
The people who take the early train
When Jesse Jackson Sr. ran for President a few years ago, one of his campaign buzz-phrases had to do with "the people who take the early bus." He proposed to champion the interests and concerns of people who had to get up really early every morning to take the bus (as opposed to driving) to ill-paid, low-status jobs.
I avoid buses whenever possible, but frequently take the first or second Orange Line train into Boston on the MBTA. I happen to like going to the office earlier rather than later, although it means staying an extra couple of hours there. But I often think about the other people on the train and remember Jackson's campaign phrase.
Most of these people look like they've just about managed to drag themselves out of bed, and aren't awake yet. I get up several hours before going to work, for reasons of my own, but certainly know how it feels to have to drag oneself somnambulantly to a place one doesn't want to go. And what is the story behind these sleepy faces? They're not going to State Street to make eight-figure incomes playing with other people's money; they're lucky if they're among the people whose minimal five-figure incomes are being played with. Maybe they're setting up the sandwich concessions for the money-gamers, but that's the closest they're going to get to discretionary income.
So do these people like their jobs? Does it matter? Are their jobs worth doing to anyone who has a choice? Does it matter? Do they have a choice? If not, why not? Is it their own fault if they don't? Are they getting paid what they're supposed to be paid, and are they being treated the way you or I would want to be treated on the job? If not, do they stand up for themselves? What happens if they do? What if they or their children get sick? Does it matter?
Do we care? If not, why not? Are we better than they? Who said so? Oh, we did better for ourselves. Are we sure these people had a real chance to do better for themselves? One thing I've learned in recent years is that people can't help being what God made them. God made them that way, and keeps them that way, for a reason. But lots of things happen for God's inscrutable reasons that we aren't meant just to watch with approving apathy. And if all of a sudden we should find ourselves among the people who take the early train because we have to, would we want people to think so little of us?
I avoid buses whenever possible, but frequently take the first or second Orange Line train into Boston on the MBTA. I happen to like going to the office earlier rather than later, although it means staying an extra couple of hours there. But I often think about the other people on the train and remember Jackson's campaign phrase.
Most of these people look like they've just about managed to drag themselves out of bed, and aren't awake yet. I get up several hours before going to work, for reasons of my own, but certainly know how it feels to have to drag oneself somnambulantly to a place one doesn't want to go. And what is the story behind these sleepy faces? They're not going to State Street to make eight-figure incomes playing with other people's money; they're lucky if they're among the people whose minimal five-figure incomes are being played with. Maybe they're setting up the sandwich concessions for the money-gamers, but that's the closest they're going to get to discretionary income.
So do these people like their jobs? Does it matter? Are their jobs worth doing to anyone who has a choice? Does it matter? Do they have a choice? If not, why not? Is it their own fault if they don't? Are they getting paid what they're supposed to be paid, and are they being treated the way you or I would want to be treated on the job? If not, do they stand up for themselves? What happens if they do? What if they or their children get sick? Does it matter?
Do we care? If not, why not? Are we better than they? Who said so? Oh, we did better for ourselves. Are we sure these people had a real chance to do better for themselves? One thing I've learned in recent years is that people can't help being what God made them. God made them that way, and keeps them that way, for a reason. But lots of things happen for God's inscrutable reasons that we aren't meant just to watch with approving apathy. And if all of a sudden we should find ourselves among the people who take the early train because we have to, would we want people to think so little of us?
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
