I believe in equality. Not a political, social, and/or economic equality, but a deep, thorough and utter equality of our human experiences. I believe that no one’s experience can set that person above or below anybody else in the world. I believe it can set them apart, yes, for I believe in diversity – I believe in infinite diversity. I do not believe in a hierarchy in the value of given human experiences, given human lives.
My two best friends that I have had the longest in life thus far are Dan and Alex. I have known Dan since before I can remember, and Alex since 7th grade. Both are more intelligent than I, and yet for different reasons were less “academically” inclined in elementary and then especially high school. They learned, and understood, but weren’t as bothered with all the “shoulds” of being a “high school student.” I did well “academically,” and was accepted into a good school that my parents could afford. Dan went to a family school on the East coast and Alex went to none, preferring to explore and learn about life through his own means.
Because of my family and my college I have been able to spend time in many countries on many continents. I’m now teaching on a Pacific island with palm trees, coconuts and the ocean literally all around. I could write for pages about seemingly exotic expereinces that are in fact quite normal. And yet, I know that when I return home the same beautiful thing will happen that happens every time we three have a reunion.
Dan and Alex have traveled less than I, and have had fewer “amazing experiences,”by our cultures ignorant definition. Nonetheless, when we see each other, I feel wonderfully humble. When I am with them, I know that they have as much to say, and will always have as much to say about being human as I will. For they, like myself, live it everyday.
It is this equality that I believe in. That the “human experience” is inherently made up of the equal sum of our individual lives, our individual realities, our individual experiences. That we each have as much sharing and listening to do as the next person. This I believe.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Reflections on Stress and God
Stress replaces God. It fills our lives with meaning and purpose, protects us from apathy, provides a direction. Apathy is depressing and tiring, it is without this direction. We are missing God, and we know it. Perhaps not missing God, but ignoring God at a fundamental level, where one’s strength is greatest. A truth in experience we neglect.
What Christians and others call God is this very energy, this very power that we can sense, that at times we can even harness, that at times pulls and pushes us in certain directions, even simply to make certain decisions despite what logical facts may be before us. This is the meaning in life, and our vocation is a response to this meaning. A response to us, as individuals, and our relationship with the greater truth, meaning in the world.
When we abandon religions, above all we abandon a focus on this very meaning. We miss it, it becomes ever more evasive and unclear and distant. Uncertainty of a different sets in, or in the least, we stop seeing the deepest connections between ourselves and the greater reality of our society, our world, our reality. We become increasingly out of touch. We lack direction, purpose.
This is where work and progress and careers come in. We’ve been able to substitute Work for God as our purpose, our meaning. Our prayers have moved from silence in the Church to working in the office. Our hopes, from peace and salvation (personal and universal) to greater economic success and fortune. It is our jobs that give us meaning. And it is stress that gives us passion. We feel alive when we are stressed because we once again feel at the mercy of something bigger, something towards which we are moving.
The glory of God is a human being fully alive. “Fully alive” means movement. We no longer let God pull us, and so it is stress which fills in the emptiness. Jesus is our savior from dangerous apathy and its fake idols and saviors. Stress is a fake idol.
What Christians and others call God is this very energy, this very power that we can sense, that at times we can even harness, that at times pulls and pushes us in certain directions, even simply to make certain decisions despite what logical facts may be before us. This is the meaning in life, and our vocation is a response to this meaning. A response to us, as individuals, and our relationship with the greater truth, meaning in the world.
When we abandon religions, above all we abandon a focus on this very meaning. We miss it, it becomes ever more evasive and unclear and distant. Uncertainty of a different sets in, or in the least, we stop seeing the deepest connections between ourselves and the greater reality of our society, our world, our reality. We become increasingly out of touch. We lack direction, purpose.
This is where work and progress and careers come in. We’ve been able to substitute Work for God as our purpose, our meaning. Our prayers have moved from silence in the Church to working in the office. Our hopes, from peace and salvation (personal and universal) to greater economic success and fortune. It is our jobs that give us meaning. And it is stress that gives us passion. We feel alive when we are stressed because we once again feel at the mercy of something bigger, something towards which we are moving.
The glory of God is a human being fully alive. “Fully alive” means movement. We no longer let God pull us, and so it is stress which fills in the emptiness. Jesus is our savior from dangerous apathy and its fake idols and saviors. Stress is a fake idol.
Reflections on Exclusivism
Any theological understanding of God simply cannot be exclusive. This limits God, and this is unacceptable. We cannot force our own inabilities to reconcile seemingly opposing viewpoints onto God.
The argument for exclusivism is based in revelation alone. God has revealed to us, through the Holy Bible, that he/she is exclusive. That he/she is judgmental, that some will “make it” and some will not. This argument is not easily contradicted, nor does it need to be. The power in the idea of judgment is that we must realize that we are accountable for actions and faith, that we are responsible. This is a strength of Christianity, of any religion, without doubt. But, as Christians, we recognized the new testament as revelation and we cannot ignore the force with which Jesus tells us not to judge others ourselves. This presents difficulties in holding others accountable, an important task in our society, but we certainly are not discussing what is easier and what is more difficult.
Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount indisputably forbids the judging of another. QUOTE. God may be judgmental, but that is not our place. And therefore, any claim on exclusivism must be based on the assumption that one knows what God is thinking, how God judges another person. That one knows that other person as well as God and has as many means to judge him or her by. This, of course, is absurd. It is as absurd as the claim for exclusivism.
The argument for exclusivism is based in revelation alone. God has revealed to us, through the Holy Bible, that he/she is exclusive. That he/she is judgmental, that some will “make it” and some will not. This argument is not easily contradicted, nor does it need to be. The power in the idea of judgment is that we must realize that we are accountable for actions and faith, that we are responsible. This is a strength of Christianity, of any religion, without doubt. But, as Christians, we recognized the new testament as revelation and we cannot ignore the force with which Jesus tells us not to judge others ourselves. This presents difficulties in holding others accountable, an important task in our society, but we certainly are not discussing what is easier and what is more difficult.
Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount indisputably forbids the judging of another. QUOTE. God may be judgmental, but that is not our place. And therefore, any claim on exclusivism must be based on the assumption that one knows what God is thinking, how God judges another person. That one knows that other person as well as God and has as many means to judge him or her by. This, of course, is absurd. It is as absurd as the claim for exclusivism.
Reflections on being a Volunteer
I’ve never felt completely at ease here. I have never been %100 without reservation about my role here.
For starters, I work at a private school. This is against my most basic principals and belief in public education. This is significant.
Saramen Chuuk Academy exists as a response to a failing public education system. This seems like a fair and justified response. With the public schools failing, the Church does the society a service by providing quality education for the most promising youth. The problem is, all the churches do this, and you end up with 8 schools for a population of a few thousand, and resources being split up and wasted. Why not use all that power, influence and money to get the public system back on its feet? And instead of bringing JVIs to Saramen Chuuk Academy, why not send them to the public school? Put all the volunteers together? This would truly, more purely satisfy the needs of the people, especially of the poor, which ought to matter to a Christian. So, I’m not convinced that SCA’s very existences was, or is the best response to a failing public high school, and I’m not convinced that I couldn’t be of more use at Chuuk High School.
Secondly, I’m working in Chuuk which, while it got screwed over by the U.S., feels like a place that has needs to take control of itself and take it’s destiny back into its own hands. There are Chuukese who could teach, but don’t for a various number of reasons. Most predominantly it is because they never came back from their education and experiences abroad. It isn’t clear to me that we, as volunteers are what is needed at this point. At least, not as North American, western volunteers.
Chuuk needs self confidence, optimism and hope in its own abilities. I don’t want someone to attribute a Saramen Chuuk Academy student’s abilities to the presence of Jesuit Volunteers. I want them to attribute it to the school itself, a Chuukese school, run by Chuukese, for Chuukese. And to attribute it to the abilities and strengths of the student him or herself. In short, I want to be invisible. If we are going to be here, then I want to be as silent and unnoticeable as possible. I want Chuukese to see the inherent potential of Chuukese, despite the discrimination, direct and indirect, that comes from the other states and countries. If we cause a deflating “oh, it’s because they have Jesuit Volunteers” sentiment then I want to leave.
For these two reasons I don’t think I’ll ever be fully at ease here. Not that I don’t love it. I love the people, the students, the school, the teachers. The islands are beautiful, and I’m happy on a day to day basis. Wonderfully happy. It is just that I’m not convinced that everything is as it ought to be, that I really want to be supporting, full fledged, that which I am supporting, full fledged, simply by being here.
All that said, I find comfort in knowing that while it may not feel perfect, it is far from feeling wrong. I am happy, and I take comfort in doing what I can for a state that, like so many, has been marginalized and bullied and has had a massive uphill battle towards equality placed before it.
For starters, I work at a private school. This is against my most basic principals and belief in public education. This is significant.
Saramen Chuuk Academy exists as a response to a failing public education system. This seems like a fair and justified response. With the public schools failing, the Church does the society a service by providing quality education for the most promising youth. The problem is, all the churches do this, and you end up with 8 schools for a population of a few thousand, and resources being split up and wasted. Why not use all that power, influence and money to get the public system back on its feet? And instead of bringing JVIs to Saramen Chuuk Academy, why not send them to the public school? Put all the volunteers together? This would truly, more purely satisfy the needs of the people, especially of the poor, which ought to matter to a Christian. So, I’m not convinced that SCA’s very existences was, or is the best response to a failing public high school, and I’m not convinced that I couldn’t be of more use at Chuuk High School.
Secondly, I’m working in Chuuk which, while it got screwed over by the U.S., feels like a place that has needs to take control of itself and take it’s destiny back into its own hands. There are Chuukese who could teach, but don’t for a various number of reasons. Most predominantly it is because they never came back from their education and experiences abroad. It isn’t clear to me that we, as volunteers are what is needed at this point. At least, not as North American, western volunteers.
Chuuk needs self confidence, optimism and hope in its own abilities. I don’t want someone to attribute a Saramen Chuuk Academy student’s abilities to the presence of Jesuit Volunteers. I want them to attribute it to the school itself, a Chuukese school, run by Chuukese, for Chuukese. And to attribute it to the abilities and strengths of the student him or herself. In short, I want to be invisible. If we are going to be here, then I want to be as silent and unnoticeable as possible. I want Chuukese to see the inherent potential of Chuukese, despite the discrimination, direct and indirect, that comes from the other states and countries. If we cause a deflating “oh, it’s because they have Jesuit Volunteers” sentiment then I want to leave.
For these two reasons I don’t think I’ll ever be fully at ease here. Not that I don’t love it. I love the people, the students, the school, the teachers. The islands are beautiful, and I’m happy on a day to day basis. Wonderfully happy. It is just that I’m not convinced that everything is as it ought to be, that I really want to be supporting, full fledged, that which I am supporting, full fledged, simply by being here.
All that said, I find comfort in knowing that while it may not feel perfect, it is far from feeling wrong. I am happy, and I take comfort in doing what I can for a state that, like so many, has been marginalized and bullied and has had a massive uphill battle towards equality placed before it.
Reflections on God
I went through a period of time attempting to describe God with the perfect noun. God is love, God is trust, God is everything, God is happiness, etc., on and on. Eventually I realized that I was attempting to much, that what I wanted to say was simply “God is.”
I have since realized the truly expansive implications of this, and combining it with ideas about evil have come to terms with a personal perspective on God.
To begin, we must humbly recognize the following. We have five basic senses, but we must recognize that reality, and God of that reality, is infinitely more than what these rudimentary means of data collecting can pick up. Even our senses fail us often enough, and are vastly inadequate within themselves.
We are not limited to these five senses, however. We have means of perception that are deeper than these data collecting techniques. We have intuition, love, awareness. We can guess the power and awesomeness of all that we cannot perceive due to our lacking abilities because of our soul, and our unspeakable connection to God. God, the greater reality. But God is beyond us, of course. She must be. And the power is beyond our imagination – how could it not be? For God is the greater reality, is reality. All that is is God, absolutely everything and anything and all that we can’t even imagine. All is God.
So where is evil? Nowhere. It is the very absence. The big bang theorists are right in a at least on thing. We are ever expanding outwards. Space, true nothingness is infinite. God is growing. God is greater than our wildest dreams, but still growing. Justice is God, injustice is an absence of God. All that is is God, all that is not is evil, or what we, as Christians, have called evil. Evil is absence. Satan is a figure full of emptiness.*
A woman steals a car. The evilness is the lack of goodness she had. At the root, however, we can find the justice in her action, in her movement. For whatever reason, it is justifiable to her. Never do we do any action without inherently, in some way, justifying it to ourselves at some level. Even a serial murderer claims justification – even if it is a complete disregard for society. In this disregard, the crime is irrelevant to them and so justified. Genocides happen because the victims are dehumanized, thus allowing the action to be justified, to be “okay.” Even things we do with guilt, we do in our heart out of some sense of righteousness, desire. Succumbing to our desires is a form of justification.
In so far as our actions are harmful, misguided, evil, simply wrong, we our missing something. We are missing knowledge, we are missing perspective, we are missing strength we are missing focus, love, hope, faith. We are missing many virtues, goodness, etc., and the specifics matter, but at the heart of it all is that we are missing virtues, goodness, etc. All wrongdoing can be attributed to an absence of goodness (faith, hope, love, etc.), an absence. That is, all evil can be attributed to absence, while all goodness to God. All that is is God, all that is not is evil.
It is our purpose to manifest God, the greater reality, the greater truth and meaning, as much as possible. It is our responsibility, to ourselves and others. We are part of God, within God. It is for us to create God, to see God, to be God as often, and in as many ways as possible. That is the rooting out of evil – the filling it with God.
*and not worth a tenth of the attention we give.
I have since realized the truly expansive implications of this, and combining it with ideas about evil have come to terms with a personal perspective on God.
To begin, we must humbly recognize the following. We have five basic senses, but we must recognize that reality, and God of that reality, is infinitely more than what these rudimentary means of data collecting can pick up. Even our senses fail us often enough, and are vastly inadequate within themselves.
We are not limited to these five senses, however. We have means of perception that are deeper than these data collecting techniques. We have intuition, love, awareness. We can guess the power and awesomeness of all that we cannot perceive due to our lacking abilities because of our soul, and our unspeakable connection to God. God, the greater reality. But God is beyond us, of course. She must be. And the power is beyond our imagination – how could it not be? For God is the greater reality, is reality. All that is is God, absolutely everything and anything and all that we can’t even imagine. All is God.
So where is evil? Nowhere. It is the very absence. The big bang theorists are right in a at least on thing. We are ever expanding outwards. Space, true nothingness is infinite. God is growing. God is greater than our wildest dreams, but still growing. Justice is God, injustice is an absence of God. All that is is God, all that is not is evil, or what we, as Christians, have called evil. Evil is absence. Satan is a figure full of emptiness.*
A woman steals a car. The evilness is the lack of goodness she had. At the root, however, we can find the justice in her action, in her movement. For whatever reason, it is justifiable to her. Never do we do any action without inherently, in some way, justifying it to ourselves at some level. Even a serial murderer claims justification – even if it is a complete disregard for society. In this disregard, the crime is irrelevant to them and so justified. Genocides happen because the victims are dehumanized, thus allowing the action to be justified, to be “okay.” Even things we do with guilt, we do in our heart out of some sense of righteousness, desire. Succumbing to our desires is a form of justification.
In so far as our actions are harmful, misguided, evil, simply wrong, we our missing something. We are missing knowledge, we are missing perspective, we are missing strength we are missing focus, love, hope, faith. We are missing many virtues, goodness, etc., and the specifics matter, but at the heart of it all is that we are missing virtues, goodness, etc. All wrongdoing can be attributed to an absence of goodness (faith, hope, love, etc.), an absence. That is, all evil can be attributed to absence, while all goodness to God. All that is is God, all that is not is evil.
It is our purpose to manifest God, the greater reality, the greater truth and meaning, as much as possible. It is our responsibility, to ourselves and others. We are part of God, within God. It is for us to create God, to see God, to be God as often, and in as many ways as possible. That is the rooting out of evil – the filling it with God.
*and not worth a tenth of the attention we give.
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