Richard Rohr on Freedom

“Jesus’ notion of the Kingdom is a different understanding of personal freedom than that of most religious and secular leaders today. We think of freedom as not having to do what we don’t want to do, but divine freedom is the capacity to be fully who we already are, to develop our inherent and true nature in God, as much as possible—really wanting to do what we know we have to do. Only God can create that freedom inside of us. A mustard seed, yeast, and light, that grow from within, are some of Jesus’ central metaphors for the Reign of God. Secular freedom only creates individualists, and private freedom, but not a society. It never gets around to the common good, which is a central principle of Catholic social teaching and the Gospel, which demands from you and demands for others. Then you become who you most deeply and truly are, a member of a family, a neighborhood, a society, and a planet. If you are trying to ‘go to heaven’ alone or on your own merits, you are preparing for a place other than heaven”

 — Richard Rohr

The Same Key

“To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven; the same key opens the gates of hell.” - A Buddhist proverb quoted by Richard Feynman.

The key is called human freedom.

Ground of Being

Jesus said unto them: "Who do you say that I am?" And they replied: "You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the kerygma in which we find the ultimate meaning of our interpersonal relationships ". And Jesus said, "What?"

- Written on a wall at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia

I'd expect nothing less from the Jesuits.

After Viewing about the Fifth Humorous Video about Cats, Sent to Me by a Friend

I am starting to see the humanity of cats.

The Baby in the Well. The Case Against Empathy.

Below are my ruminations in reference to the article, The Baby in the Well. The Case Against Empathy, by Paul Bloom, which was published in The New Yorker, May 20, 2013.

The point of the article is that empathy is not very helpful unless it is coupled with values and reason. Empathy is something that I was ignorant about until I was in my early 30's. I thought it was something that women did! Of course in hindsight, I had experienced empathy before then, especially from my mother when I was a child, but I was not able to put a name on it. Until my early 30's, I had chosen an approach to life that was rigid and overly intellectual. Of course, I always had the same human need for empathy as everyone else, but I was lost in the wilderness. As I grew up, I chose a rather stoic, 1950's male approach to life, coupled with a wildly overdeveloped superego. As per what I have learned from Fr. Luigi Giussani, the purpose of feelings in humans is to draw our attention to what is important.  That makes perfect sense to me. And using a metaphor from Giussani, feelings are the like the lens of the eye or a camera. To see clearly, the lens must be focused. Feelings inform our reason, and for our reason to function at its best, the lens of feelings must be properly focused.  The last sentence of The New Yorker article reads, "But empathy will have to yield to reason if humanity is to have a future."

Rescuing the Book of Genesis from the Fundamentalists

Watch the video, Misreading Genesis, where Father Barron talks about the problem of treating Genesis as a science text. People need to be aware of the genre of what they read. The author of Genesis did not intend to write a science textbook. In fact, modern science as we know it did not even exist until the late 16th or early 17th  century.  Rather, Genesis is a great humanistic text.

In almost all of the ancient cosmologies and creation myths, order results from a conquest or act of great violence. In contrast, in Genesis, the world is created through a non-violent act of speech. Further, [my assertion] the creation of Adam and Eve as the pinnacle of creation and in the image of God show the exalted value of humanity.

"God has imbued all things with intelligibility. Adam, noticing the intelligibility, names them, gives them their proper title. Who is he? The church fathers read him as the first scientist. He is the first philosopher. He is the human being in his proper role as the steward of creation and the one who names and orders all things according to God's creative intention." 

"Adam and Eve who are kind of, 'at play in the fields of the Lord:' That stands for science, for art, for politics for conversation, for friendships--all these forms of human flourishing, under the Lordship of God."

  No, Genesis is not an attempt at science but an exquisite theological reflection on the origin of all things.

Listening to the Bible on CD--the Pentateuch

I friend loaned me a copy of the Bible on CD, and I've been listening to it in my car whenever I drive, starting at the beginning. The voices are done by major Hollywood actors, and the dramatization makes it more palatable. There is background music and sounds effects as well, like the sound of rain and of sheep going , "Bahhhh..."

Listening to the Bible is an entirely different experience than reading it. I've just finished the Pentateuch, also known as the Torah, the first five books. In the past when reading the Pentateuch, I tended to get lost; reading each countless verse in succession was like looking through a microscope at each molecule in succession that makes up an entire body.

In the car, I just put the CD on. My mind wanders just as when I'm listening to music or just driving. I don't have the microscopic focus on each individual verse. The characters keep talking, whether you got the last line or not.  But what I discovered was that listening results in a better overall sense of the narrative, without getting hung-up on the thorny details.

What I didn't realize until now is that the journey out of Egypt didn't end with the Book of Exodus, but the journey, and the transmission of the Law by God continues through the entire Pentateuch. Moses doesn't die until the last chapter of Deuteronomy.

With the event of the original Passover--with the angel of God killing the first born of every Egyptian family, Pharaoh finally agreed to free the Jews and let them return to the promised land. Each Jewish family had to sacrifice a lamb and spread its blood on their door post in order for the angel to "pass over" them. And afterwards, God commanded the Jews the commemorate the event every year, in what is known as the feast of Passover, which includes the eating of symbolic foods at a commemorative dinner known as the Passover Seder.

In the Christian New Testament, the Last Supper was a Seder. In the ritual, participants eat at four different times, and each part is concluded by drinking a cup of wine.  At the Last Supper, Jesus leaves the Seder after concluding the third part--without completing the ritual. The third part consists of eating the pascal lamb and unleavened bread--called the Bread of Affliction, and the concluding cup of wine is known as the Cup of Blessing. On the next day, Jesus was crucified--He had become sacrificial lamb, and his blood  was the fourth and concluding cup.

Whereas in Egypt, the Passover freed the Jews from slavery and allowed them to journey to the promised land, the crucifixion of Jesus freed us from bondage to sin and enabled our salvation.  Whereas the Jews in Egypt were freed physically, Jesus freed all of humankind spiritually. Moreover, whereas Jews commemorate Passover every year with the Seder meal, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and some Protestant Churches commemorate the Last Supper with each Mass/Liturgy ("Do this in memory of me.").

While listening to the Bible on CD, I realized that the parallel continues. From the time Moses led the Jews out of Egypt, until they settled in the promised land, it was a long, contentious relationship between the Jews and God, with most of the people seemingly failing (sinning) most of the time.

The parallel that I see here is that once a person chooses to follow Christ, they nevertheless have a long journey ahead of them--a lifelong, sometimes contentious relationship between themselves and God, with much failure (sin) along the way.