2/19/17

Today, I was reminded once again just how bad I am at keeping in touch with people. I found out that my friend and godfather, Romanos, passed away back in October. October! I'd even been thinking about him recently, thinking about how I hadn't seen much from him on Facebook or his blogs for a long time. So when Barbara mentioned his passing, I was shocked.

I met Romanos back in 2010 at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church, where he was volunteering during their annual Greek festival. We spent a lot of time talking that day, and we eventually became friends, talking (and sometimes arguing) about religion, philosophy, politics, you name it. He was a unique person to say the least, and I never quite figured him out; but he was genuinely kind and smart and caring. He loved to talk, but he was also a good listener when he needed to be.

What I appreciated the most about him, though, was his approach to spirituality. It was contemplative and loving and it really spoke to me. I really enjoyed our discussions. Because of him, I started to see something good in everyone. Our long talks gave me plenty to think about, and he truly got my spirituality. He gave me a couple of books that really piqued my interest in contemplative Christianity, an interest that eventually led me to spend a week at a nearby Trappist monastery. And from there, I soon discovered the wonderful community at St. Philip Neri.

With his help, I'd found my own spiritual home, a warm, welcoming community with a strong interest in social justice and a contemplative foundation. And when I decided to be formally initiated into the community, I asked Romanos to be my sponsor and godfather even though he was Orthodox and the community I was joining was Catholic. But labels never really mattered to Romanos, and he followed his heart regardless of what people thought about his religious and political views or the company he kept.

He was my friend even though he disagreed with my politics. He was my friend when I called myself a Buddhist. He was my friend when I called myself a Catholic Buddhist. And he remained my friend when I simply saw myself as a contemplative socialist of various stripes, deeply ecumenical and outspoken on progressive social issues.

We'd often go months without speaking, and during that time, I was going through a lot of changes. New job. New place. New relationship. I guess I was just too wrapped up in my own world to notice the Facebook post his son made about his passing. I regret not being at the funeral to say goodbye, but I'm consoled by the fact that I knew such a strange and wonderful character at all.

Everlasting be your memory, my brother, who are worthy of blessedness and eternal memory.

1/21/17

I'm currently reading Gareth Stedman Jones' book, Karl Marx: Greatness and Illusion, which Rebecca got me for Christmas, and one section has me wondering why more Christians, and Catholics in particular, aren't communists in the proper sense of the word and vice versa. That's not to say I think one must (or even necessarily should) be the other; only that I find them to be immensely compatible on a fundamental level.

For example, in contrast to Feuerbach's criticism of Christianity as a philosophical roadblock to the emergence of a modern, communal society characterized by spiritual and political freedom — the 'unity of I and Thou' — the universality of 'the church as one body' (via 1 Cor 12:12-13) most certainly contains within it the communal essence of the human species as Feuerbach envisions it.

Our tendency towards abstraction aside, rather than simply seeing the state of religion as "the particular union of each individual with an external being," as Stedman Jones summarizes Feuerbach's critique of Christianity (p. 127), this theological concept explicitly conceives of each individual as an integral part of the same communal, unifying body within the universality that is personified by Christ. Moreover, Christ himself makes concern for the needs of others the entry fee into the kingdom of heaven (Mt 25:31-46).

So, rather than usurping the primordial species-unity of 'I and Thou,' as Feuerbach suggests, Christ actually embodies that unity. All are one in Christ, and Christ is one with all (Gal 3:28). Next to loving God, loving our neighbour as ourselves is the greatest commandment (Mt 22:34-40). And the relational nature of God in the form of the trinity itself reflects the interdependent nature of humanity, the aspect of individuals as communal species-beings.

While this revolutionary facet of Christianity has been suppressed by ruling elites, both spiritual and political, throughout most of its history, its existence is clearly evinced by the early apostles themselves: "There was no needy person among them, for those who owned property or houses would sell them, bring the proceeds of the sale, and put them at the feet of the apostles, and they were distributed to each according to need" (Acts 4:34-35).

In addition, for Marx and Feuerbach, God is a mystification of our species-essence, an abstraction, an inversion of subject and object; and therefore our religious inclinations are in reality just a fetishization of this alienated aspect of our species-being that we've objectified and turned into something alien from ourselves. But the revolutionary story of Jesus effectively undoes this inversion of subject and object.

Jesus is God manifest in human form; and in this sense, represents a demystification of our species-essence and a reunification of our spiritual and political consciousness. Jesus not only bridges the gap between the transcendent and the concrete, but the rift between humanity and itself created by our tendency to, in the words of Feuerbach, "posit the essence of nature outside nature, the essence of humanity outside humanity, the essence of thought outside the act of thinking."

I think that both Feuerbach and Marx were correct in their criticism of idealist philosophies that begin with "the 'I' or 'self' in isolation," as well as of the role that Christianity played in the rise of individualism and egotistical withdrawal from communal life within modern society. But I think they make a mistake by neglecting the revolutionary spirit embedded within the New Testament.

12/3/16

I started reading Etienne Gilson's God and Philosophy today and realized how a lot of philosophy goes over my head. Does God exist? What is God? What is existence? What is the nature of being? These are just some of the many questions that the philosopher seeks to answer. But what can I really say about God or existence or the nature of being? I have a hard enough time grasping my own existence let alone that of God or the nature of reality itself. There's nothing I can say that will be of any help to anyone. I could never do the subject justice. But then there's Jesus.

Whenever I find myself stuck on an intellectual problem, I turn back to the story of Jesus, because I really like Jesus. I can relate to Jesus and feel like I understand him. Jesus is a child of God, as we all are in a way; and as the divine archetype, he embodies everything that we share with God. The thing I like most about Jesus, though, is that his message is simple and he teaches it by example: Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind; and love your neighbor as yourself (Mk 12:30-31). As St. Paul says, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:28); and Jesus, out of love, helps all who come to him and ask.

It's not their asking that's important, it's his acting out of love. Jesus makes no distinction in who he helps, even those who were considered unclean and sinful. If they ask, he helps. But he also gets angry at greed, corruption, and the empty and often haughty words of hypocrites, because he saw with piercing clarity that it's the quality of one's heart and intentions that make them clean or unclean, pious or truly sinful. A person who acts out of kindness and love, even if they transgress this law or that, is clean. And one who is truly sorrowful and repentant for a wrongdoing they've committed is infinitely holier than one who refrains from outward acts of sin and harmfulness but has a heart full of anger, hatred, malice, or greed. When criticized for his followers' lack of ritual hand washing before eating, he says to his followers, "Are even you still without understanding? Do you not realize that everything that enters the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled into the latrine? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile" (Mt 15:16-18). Hence he forgives the adulterer and heals the untouchables and eats with those who have unsavory occupations in the eyes of the religious authorities of his day, and he drives the money changers out of the temple with a whip.

The story of Jesus is ultimately the story of how to be closer to God. It's a story in which one person's life shines forth like a light in the darkness and cuts through the Gordian Knot of intellectual paradoxes and religious dogmas to get at the heart of the matter: the best way to get closer to God is through relationships. God is one but is paradoxically expressed as a trinity, three 'persons,' because I think it reflects the relational nature of existence. We relate to God by relating to one another. We love God by loving one another. And we serve God by serving one another. In the gospels, John says that "God is love" (John 4:8), so in a way we can say love is our first principle, and that loving one another is the only philosophical system we really need. Of course, that's easier said than done. It's easier to do in the abstract, but not so easy face to face in a seemingly chaotic and cruel world, where one class or group of people always seems to oppress another. Where things like poverty, illness, addiction, and abuse make some people difficult to love, let alone help or even be around.

Even Jesus faced criticism, abuse, and ultimately even death on the cross following this path; and that reflects our own challenges in choosing to follow his example. It's not always an easy path to follow. But I think Jesus would agree with the sentiment behind Marx's famous line, "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it" (Theses on Feuerbach).

4/10/16

Last night's bonfire reconciliation service was one of the most moving experiences of my life. Gathered around the fire pit in the dying light of the setting sun, we placed a lit candle around the fire one by one, either in silence or while sharing what was on our hearts and minds, confessing our faults and failing as well as our desires to be better people. Many were moved to tears, their own hearts pierced by the pain and hope of others as much as by the love and support each of us offered in return.

When it was my turn to place my candle around the fire, I shared with everyone that I'm going through a difficult time, that I've been depressed and lost and so self-absorbed in my own pain that I've neglected those closest to me. And I shared my hope that I can start to pick up the pieces and heal myself somehow and be more considerate, loving, and kind to the people around me, especially those who I'm unintentionally hurting with my self-destructive behaviour.

There's a line from Leonard Cohen's "Anthem" that Fr. Michael likes to use: "There is a crack in everything / That's how the light gets in." He said that those cracks are where we're broken, and yet, it's those very same cracks that can make the world a brighter place if we work on them. And in the darkness of that night, the world felt just a little bit brighter.

3/15/16

I went to my first reconciliation service today, which wasn't quite what I'd expected. I find many religious rituals interesting, and see in them a social dynamic that I think explains their continued popularity and relevance in an increasingly secularized world. Take the sacrament of reconciliation, for example. Despite how most people view it, the sacrament itself isn't meant to appease some vengeful deity (especially if one believes that God is love and mercy). Rather, it's meant to help us heal ourselves and our relationships with one another. And how do we do that? We start by admitting the mistakes we've made and the areas where we fall short and endeavour to do better. It's not meant to be some kind of magical sin-sponge that sucks up all the selfish and lustful and harmful and deluded things we've done, but an honest reflection of who we are and who we want to be. And the expectation of this particular sacrament is that we're willing to do something about it, that we're willing to try to make amends and live a more compassionate and skillful life, which in turn we do by following the example of spiritual teachers like Jesus, who make a point to illustrate our interdependent nature. This idea might be a little out there, but I think the act of confession, while having a more religious connotation, is a universal compulsion among most human beings given our social nature. Fr. Michael once said something to the effect that, we sin because we suffer. And that got me thinking that perhaps the root of sin is this suffering, and in particular, the suffering that arises from holding onto what we can't admit to. Expose this root, and it withers away. And to confess, to freely share this difficult thing, this source of anger or shame or whatever it causes us to feel, is to expose the root, which thrives in darkness, into the light of awareness, freeing us from its hold and the shame we feel. In this way, then, the act of confession, of saying out loud what we often can't even bear to think, is salvific. But rather than being saved from the fires of hell, we're saved from the fires of our own shame and self-loathing.

3/1/16

Sunday, Annie and I went hiking at Smith Rock on a weekend getaway for our twelve year anniversary. Smith Rock is a beautiful cathedral of peaks and cliffs in the midst of central Oregon's desert plains. As it happened, the first reading at church that morning was the passage from Exodus where Moses goes up the mountain and hears the voice of God. Many ancient peoples from around the world held mountains to be sacred places, and standing upon the summit of Smith Rock, I could easily understand why. In that quiet and solitude, surveying the natural beauty of the landscape surrounding me as far as the eye could see, I felt at once both insignificant and the centre of the universe. And in that moment, I felt so overwhelmingly thankful for everyone and everything in my life and wanted to share that feeling with everyone I knew. But the feeling faded once I was back home and separated from the conditions that gave rise to it; and the question that I now find myself faced with is, How can I cultivate that same kind of feeling in my day-to-day life?

2/13/16

So many things going on in my head. Where to begin? Looking back at the past couple of months, I've realized that I've been depressed. It seems obvious in hindsight: the tiredness, the lack of motivation (especially when it comes to writing), the general unhappiness and anger I've been feeling, etc. I'm doing my best to weather it, but it's been difficult. My job is as stressful and unfulfilling as ever. My dad has been a huge asshole to both me and my sister, as well as irresponsible financially, which is making things difficult for her. I've been sick off and on since Christmas. I haven't been sleeping well, and have been having a lot of dreams about my mom, amplifying the sadness and loneliness I already feel at her absence in my life. On top of that, the Paulist General Council has voted on the fate of St. Philip this week, and they've decided that St. Philip will cease to be a Paulist parish at a time when my faith is being devoured by darkness. A few weeks ago, for example, I wrote in my other blog/journal:

An existential malaise has fallen upon me of late, with its feverish yet indescribable woe and melancholy. Truly, how does one put into words the terror of reality and its semblant meaninglessness? How does one express the despair of existence when all pretenses are dropped and the chaotic banality of our frailty and suffering become so apparent, so oppressive? How does one look at the face of death and its unquenchable emptiness and then turn around and describe it to another? How does one communicate the anguish of their hopelessness or the infinite sadness of their loneliness to another any more successfully than a shade can impart their innermost thoughts to the living when each is separated by an insurmountable divide? How does one confide these things when the coarseness of words fails us, when we're unable to peer into one another's hearts and read the subtle language of the soul? They say that the eyes are a window into the soul, that pneumatic void. And what would that soul say if it could speak, that deep, dark abyss that lies at the heart of our individual beingness? What secrets would it share that our lips are incapable of divulging?

I've felt so lost and helpless these past few months. It seems like every time I make some progress in life, spiritually or otherwise, everything comes crashing down around me and I have to start all over again. I thought I was over the worst of the grieving. I thought I'd finally found a stable spiritual community that would support me and help guide me in the right direction. I thought I was right where I needed to be. And now? Now I'm as unsure of myself as ever.

Fr. Michael is trying to be as positive and supportive as he can, and I appreciate that, but I'm afraid of what the future holds for St. Philip. I still can't believe it even though I've been preparing for the possibility. The news hit me hard, and it's going to hit the rest of the community even harder. I really hope that the parish community will survive this and carry on the Paulist charism after they're gone, but I worry that it won't. Nothing will be the same. Fr. Michael is the heart of the B- group, and it will die without him. And the Paulists have been the spiritual heart of St. Philip for over a hundred years. What will happen to the parish, and to the spirituality of Portland when they're gone? They're such a unique presence, and they're openness is truly Christlike. I'm not sure I'm strong enough in my faith to stand on my own feet yet, and I worry that I'll slowly drift away from the church without the encouragement, wisdom, and openness of the Paulists to help guide me.

I'm sad, devastated even. I admit that I'm also angry. I realize that they're stretched thin and that they have to leave somewhere, but I'm angry that they've picked the one place that's been such a bright spot in my rather dark life. They always say how their mission as missionaries is to reach out to the young and unchurched, and Portland is the youngest and most unchurched city in the US. And by leaving, I feel like they've not only failed us, as a community, but their very mission, that they've essentially given up, that Mammon has conquered Christ. But I also know that this is the angry and selfish part of me talking, and that in time I will see things differently and be thankful that I had the good fortune to wander into St. Philip while they were still here.

Still, this news has me questioning my faith, my path, even more than before. Before falling asleep last night, I was reflecting on life and loss and felt a wave of samvega envelop me, what Thanissro Bhikkhu defines as "the oppressive sense of shock, dismay, and alienation that come with realizing the futility and meaninglessness of life as it's normally lived." Everything is impermanent. People come and go. Our health comes and goes. Thoughts. Feelings. Each day is unlike the last; each moment we're a different person. There's no refuge to be found, no safe place to weather the storm of arising and ceasing. And the more you cling to something, the more you hold it tight, the greater the hole in your heart when it's no longer there. And yet I still foolishly try to cling to everything I love. The people. The places. The tastes and sensations. I try to hold onto all of them like a handful of sand, even as the grains come pouring out, lamenting as each one is lost. It's almost as if grief is the natural state of life, the one constant throughout our lives masked by moments of happiness and joy. Maybe the Buddha was right after all. Maybe nothing is worth clinging to.

But perhaps Fr. Michael is also right in that, even though it is the clinging that causes the pain, it doesn't mean it relegates us to misery, that for the Buddha and for us life is 'full of Grace.' I'm not sure if it's true, but I'd like to believe it is, and that my faith in God/Dhamma will guide me and bring me towards the peace spoken of by Solomon in Proverbs 3:1-6:

My son, do not forget my teaching,
take to heart my commands;
For many days, and years of life,
and peace, will they bring you.
Do not let love and fidelity forsake you;
bind them around your neck;
write them on the tablet of your heart.
Then will you win favor and esteem
before God and human beings.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
on your own intelligence do not rely;
In all your ways be mindful of him,
and he will make straight your paths.

I suppose that only time will tell if it will.