Setting the Stage

Christian scholars agree that God spent all of human history up to the birth of Christ preparing for that exact moment when a young Jewish girl would speak her acquiescence to the will of God with a humble "behold the handmaid of the Lord." Nations were brought low, and nations were raised up to provide the propitious circumstances for the birth of the son of Mary and the Son of God in long ago Bethlehem.

The notion of a single deity was remarkable in the setting to which Christ was introduced. God's chosen people were surrounded by polytheistic cultures rife with blood rituals that sometimes included human sacrifices. In the midst of this, God presented a clear message: Hear O Israel; The Lord your God, the Lord is one. Whenever there was an attempt to integrate foreign gods, the prophets responded with rebuke and the reminder that there was only one God who had chosen and delivered them. How on earth then did we get to the bizarre Christian doctrine of the Trinity?

Given the difficulties in understanding and communicating the concept of the Trinity, perhaps it is best put aside as too mysterious and indefensible. This would deny the value of the meticulous groundwork that is laid in history and in scripture for this surprising doctrine. If there is any one defining characteristic of historical and present day Judaism, it is monotheism. The Shema Yisrael proclaims in no uncertain terms, Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. This is the key distinction that set ancient Israel at odds with its neighbours and put the "chosen" in the "chosen people."

If there are a multitude of gods, then surely there are enough to go around: one for you, one for me, and one for those crazy Philistines that live down the road. If, however, there is only one God, we had better be sure to be on his or her side when the going gets tough. Israel was on the Lord’s side, and paid the price dearly when she strayed.

Into this strict setting, Christ was born. We must conclude then, that he is nothing other than a remarkable man, or that he is truly God incarnate. There is no room here for a demi-god.

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This article was originally posted at my blog Triessence and is available at DisturbingTheWorld.org.

Reducing Consciousness

In the classic Dickens story, A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge sees a ghost. Skeptic that he is, he does not believe what he sees. When the ghost asks him why he doubts his senses, he replies:

"Because," said Scrooge, "a little thing affects them.
A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may
be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of
cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of
gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"

While this is not a true story, Scrooge does make a valid point. Our thoughts and perceptions can be influenced by what we ingest. That is why we have laws about driving while intoxicated. When we are cold sober, however, it is usually safe to assume that our thoughts and perceptions are our own. And so we do.

The adoption of a materialistic point of view questions this assumption. If all we are is what can be seen, touched or measured, then what we commonly experience as our own thoughts and perceptions is nothing more than "an undigested bit of beef." To the true empiricist, everything that we know as our consciousness, our minds, our souls, and our personalities can be reduced to random chemical reactions and electrical impulses.

Call me pretentious, but I can't resist the compulsion to see human consciousness as more than a cosmic accident. Call me greedy, but I prefer to take ownership of my thoughts and refuse to attribute them to a blob of grey jelly inside my skull that is at the mercy of what I eat and drink.

I love my brain, but it is not all that exists of my mind. I am thankful for my heart that beats so strongly and makes possible the vast conduit of health throughout my body that is my circulatory system, but it is not all there is of my soul. So much of what we are is not accessible to our senses and never will be.

Human consciousness is much more than "a fragment of an underdone potato."

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This article was originally posted on my blog Triessence and is available at DisturbingTheWorld.org.

Snow Day Musings

As the weather has turned nasty here at my home in Ontario, Canada, I've been spending much more time at the computer. Hopefully what I've produced will do somebody some good somewhere.

I am particularly hopeful about DisturbingTheWorld.org. While this is strictly a part time labour of love, I do hope that people will benefit from the resources that are provided there, both in the form of the lessons and devotionals, and from the books featured for sale on the site.

Also at the site are forums and chats, so why not invite your friends for a relaxing time of online fellowship and discussion? You won't even need to shovel the snow to get to DisturbingTheWorld.org!

DisturbingTheWorld.org

View an expanded version of this blog at DisturbingTheWorld.org.

The Weight of Glory

Winter seems to have passed at last. The days are becoming long, the sun is shining, and the unmistakable aroma of spring is in the fresh outdoor air. I welcome the spring after a harsh and unrelenting winter as much as anyone. But in the celebration of spring, I like to pause to remember the lessons that the past winter has taught me.

While Canadian winters are known for their shortened days and darkness, what I love the most about a crisp winter’s day is the quality of the sun’s light when it does deign to shine. There is a blue, piercing quality to the light of winter that doesn’t exist at any other time of the year. It is a purer, truer light that shines on a sunny December morning.

In the same way, winter’s truth is a truth without distraction. The frills and fluff of the leaves and plants have been taken out of the way to reveal a bare bones reality that doesn’t allow for haziness, laziness, or excuses. The glare of the winter’s sun might seem harsh and blinding, but it can reveal things that would otherwise go unnoticed in the shadows. A shocking red cardinal at the bird feeder. The dust floating in a sunbeam that reminds me a good spring cleaning is long overdue. The truths that are revealed in the strong light of winter are both a reminder of the good and a caveat against the bad.

I am remembering a particular winter’s morning. After a prolonged sunless period of grey and dreary days, I awoke to a sparkling blanket of snow on the ground, and to trees laden with brilliance. I thought about the weight that those trees had to bear at that moment, and how burdensome it must be for them to bear the weight of all that splendour. Yet it was their heavy burden that, at that particular moment, was making those trees breathtakingly beautiful.

And strong. Those trees were not just made beautiful by their burden of glistening snow. They were also being made stronger, as they had been strengthened by the snows of previous winters. It is the same for us humans. Weight bearing exercise doesn’t just increase muscle strength, it also increases bone density and bone strength. Strength plus endurance… a formidable combination.

God help me to see my burdens in the dazzling light of winter, not as weights that hold me down and oppress me, but as glories that make me strong and beautiful. As St. Paul says, our “slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:17,18 NRSV)

Whatever your burdens and troubles might be at the moment, God cares about you. He wants to co-operate with you to turn them into strength and beauty.

No Helmet Required

This past summer I had the opportunity to spend some time in the beautiful state of Ohio. With its rolling, verdant hills and miles of scenic roads through lush Amish farm country, Ohio is a motorcyclist’s paradise. One other thing that makes it so is Ohio’s lack of a helmet law. While young bicyclists in Ohio are expected to wear helmets, motorcyclists are free to ride bareheaded.

I admit it caused me to do a double take every time I saw a helmetless biker. I was particularly amazed at how many long-haired women and men just let their hair flow in the breeze as they rode. Wouldn't it take hours to comb the tangles out? That feeling of freedom must be deemed worth the aggravation.

And freedom is what a motorcycle is all about. Even the freedom to ride recklessly without a helmet. Having some experience as a rider, I can testify that the thrill of facing instantaneous oblivion is definitely part of the allure. One slick spot on the road, one careless patch of loose gravel and your head could have a terminal encounter with a telephone pole, whether you’re wearing a helmet or not. Non-riders can’t imagine the gleeful liberation that this produces. It is an amazing gift to be unafraid of death. But where does this lack of fear come from? Is it a defiant, daredevil thumbing of the nose at God? Or is it a happy willingness to embrace mortality as an inevitable consequence of being human, trusting God with the outcome?

Overcoming fear is certainly part of the painful process of living and growing for everyone. No baby eaglet ever just spread his wings and flew out of the nest. They are all pushed out, flapping and screaming, to face certain death on the rocks below. But surprisingly, they fly. I can remember my first shaky attempts at bicycle riding, how my mother held on to the back of my seat, and the fear and elation I felt when she let go. I also remember the pain of toppling over and crashing on the sidewalk. I remember the blood. But I did learn to ride a bicycle, and have had many happier memories since those early days. I have no hard feelings toward my mother for letting go. I earned freedom and independence because of it.

Even as an adult, when going through difficult times you might feel abandoned by God. “Where is his love, now that I am sitting, bleeding, on the sidewalk? Why did he have to let go of me?” You might be tempted to give it up. The path to freedom, however, is perseverance. Get up, get with God, and get back on your bicycle. You might feel like God doesn’t care. But in fact, he is watching over you as carefully as ever, waiting for you to master the skills you need to ride with abandon. Take courage! He’s got the keys to your Harley in his pocket.

Beyond Good Manners 2

Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others.  If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter which fork you use.  ~Emily Post

As Emily Post, the guru of good manners acknowledges, it’s what’s inside that counts. It is possible to conceal a core of evil behind a smiling facade. A woman can be sweet and pleasant to your face and then figuratively stab you in the back with hurtful words. A man of "good-breeding" can politely send millions to their deaths in the misguided name of ethnic cleansing. These are moral infants who have never grown beyond the outward show of good manners to the internalised virtues that they are designed to represent.

A truly virtuous person has learned to value the underlying virtue over the external form of manners, without neglecting or devaluing the manners themselves. André Comte-Sponville, in A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues, encapsulates this by saying, "It is better to be too honest to be polite than to be too polite to be honest," valuing the virtue of honesty over the external show of politeness. Compte-Sponville is not advocating rudeness here, but just that we learn how to be truthful. Sometimes honesty means acknowledging our own limitations. How often do our lives get too busy because we are too polite to say no to people who ask favours of us? A frankly spoken “no” could save us from much bigger problems like resentment and burnout.

The value of internal virtue is also the lesson of Jesus when his disciples were caught handpicking grain to eat on the Sabbath, which was illegal. He rebuked their accusers with a quotation from the Scriptures saying, "If you had known what these words mean 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the innocent." According to the outward form of the law, the hungry and roadweary disciples were in the wrong, but Jesus valued their health and comfort above the strict letter of the law. He excused them without ever devaluing the law itself. The law is an outside imposition, a schoolmaster, what philosopher Emmanuel Kant calls an "external constraint," to teach people right and wrong through obedience. The real goal has always been that we would develop a true compass within us, guiding the way to right behaviour. This requires self-discipline and a lifetime of practice, which is why we teach manners to children.

We never outgrow the necessary social lubricant of politeness. But that must not be all that we have to live by. Good manners are meaningless without empowering virtues like the respect that indwells every "please," the gratitude that inhabits each "thank you," and the compassion that must infuse every sincere "I'm sorry." In all of our dealings, we should strive to be driven by these internal values. In addition to teaching our children the outward form of good manners, we must teach them the respect for others that is much more important.