Sunday, November 9, 2008

3rdStreet Ecology /The Interior Environment

"Faith enfolds, reason upholds, understanding beholds." [Gilbert of Hoyland+ 1172 AD]

Posted by at No comments:

3rdStreet THEN AND NOW /Watch, Hat and Scissors

This is a story of a son who found the courage to right a thirty-five year wrong. He sought forgiveness from his father without the certainty that he would receive it. . . 


I expected the usual disconnect, the peevish twitch of entering 1220 W. Golf Course Road after an overly-long absence. The old adolescent—aging but never perceived as mature—had come home. To step through the front door of my boyhood home—largely unchanged since the time of my youth—meant entering a living diorama filled with relics and memories. Awkward and self-conscious, I felt guilty for being detached from the things once so lovely to me and now irrelevant. 

In spite of the long days, the week vanished quickly. I wanted to talk to my dad; what I had to say wouldn’t be easy. Worse was the prospect of hauling all the old baggage back to Houston. My unspoken thoughts have been in storage for thirty-five years. I had to clear the stuff out. But I got a break. A big break on Friday. My father said, LET’S GO TO LUNCH! He liked brisket, and he’d grown attached recently to a small barbeque house called the Flying Baron. I never heard of the Flying Baron. It was owned by an Air Force vet which made sense.

On the porch of his house, my father gave me his truck keys with a ceremonial flourish. I was to drive his pride and joy, a tan 1985 Ford Lariat F150. Though he no longer drove his pickup—he said his license was yanked by a Department of Public Safety officer who had it in for him—he carried his truck keys as if he did. I carried a wad of raw feelings.

As a kid, my father towered over me. When I say towered, I mean being intimidated by his iron will and stern personality. I suspect this was the case with most boys of my generation. Our fathers won World War II. To the end of his life, my dad was a sovereign patriarch. His home was his castle. He ruled over the affairs of his family. 

One of my father’s rules: The son walks into the Flying Baron, the father follows. The counter help looked up as we came in. Well, look who’s here! Howdy Mr. Barker! Who you got with you? Barker. The old epithet still hounded me. I was That Dick Barker, the constant disappointment of his parents, the one who left home, had to do things his way. 

Sometimes, a fellow will try to sort out just what he got from each side. My mother gave me something spiritual, I guess. My dad dumped into me his stubbornness and gumption. And probably regretted it for more years than he could remember. I used my stubbornness and gumption as weapons against him. When I got to high school, my father knew me as a formidable adversary. What we said to each other was forced; what we did was confrontational.

At its lowest point, I imagined that an old-fashioned fist-fight in the backyard would be a positive development. But squaring off against R.W. Barker was out of the question. Mrs. Walker, my world history teacher, taught me about Ghandi’s passive resistance to British rule in colonial India. I imported passive resistance into West Texas. The more my father told me what to do and how to do it, the more I did the opposite. I answered him in single-syllable words. I sang songs in my head when he talked to me. 

Except for the unalterable fact that we were father and son, our relationship didn’t produce a lot of day-to-day satisfaction. It would take many more years, before I admitted that my father wasn’t profoundly selfish or ignorant of things that mattered. He did what he did, because he loved his wife and children. He did what he did, because fathers were supposed to. He loved us. He knew best. He decided things for us, because he loved us and knew what was best for us. Then and now, I suppose that’s debatable.

My youthful eyes, to be sure, were not accustomed to looking at the jagged horizons of a Great Depression followed by brutal world war. Looking back at my teenage years, I realize that few boys are capable of discerning whether they’re being guided or manipulated by their fathers. Very few boys can possibly understand why distressful experiences are necessary in life, especially in the life of a young man. How distress in the present can bring a guy to contentment in the future is a mystery. To teenage boys, it doesn’t make sense. They can’t see it. I didn’t see it.

My father loved me very much. He loved me, because I was his oldest son. When I was little, he tucked me into bed each night. He sat on my bed—this was as horizontal as our relationship would ever be—and regaled me with Stephen Foster “Swanee River” songs. One night he didn’t come in to sit on my bed or sing off-key to me. I missed my father greatly, but I didn’t ask him to come back and sing. In my adolescent years, I often thought about the night my dad didn’t come in to give me his personal Lights out! I admit it was a hard separation for me. It affected me more than his death at 92 years.

The old Good Nights stood in sharp relief against my father’s harsh reliance on the hierarchical character of our relationship. I suppose it had something to do with a father’s natural fear that his would turn bad. The 1960’s were hard years for independent oil men in West Texas. My dad, an ex-Navy officer and ex-company man with Phillips Petroleum believed in two philosophical principles: propriety and obedience. Robert Walter Barker was Chief Petty Officer. His non-reflective and invincible conviction that he was in the right impelled him to micro-manage every aspect of my life. Richard Edward Barker’s apprentice rank meant, Shoulders back! Chin out! Stomach in! Feet together! Yes sir!


The day after graduation, I threw my gown and mortar board down and packed my belongings. My philosophical principals were Go to the university. Escape Midland. In 1967, any high school senior who was normal wanted to escape. My father drilled me for four years. The day you graduate from high school is the last day I’m responsible for you. You better have a job and a place to live. The flip side? If you disgrace the family name, don’t ever come back.

I had a habit of coming home twice a year, sometimes for a few days, often less. Call it stubbornness and gumption. Call it compulsion. However I wished the opposite, I couldn’t shake the sense of duty and loyalty my father drilled into me. A son’s duty is to visit his parents. A son’s duty is to pay his respects. Most of the time, however, any nostalgic feelings I started with evaporated on the road. The auld lang syne, a sour lemon, didn't have a drop of juice in it.

For my father, lacking the vocabulary of love and relationship, small gestures were obliged to bear the weight of great meaning. These signs demanded careful discernment. On that Friday, headed for barbeque, my father handed me his truck keys. The handing-over of the keys signified his good will and benevolence. Driving his truck to the Flying Baron was a small, but significant point on the compass. The passing of the years had changed us. The eightyish old man and the fortyish unmarried young man, had attained some kind of parity along the way.

Back to Friday and the Flying Baron. I turned back to hold the heavy door open for my father. Dressed in a shirt and tie—always—and wearing polished boots—always, he walked with small, determined steps to the cafeteria-style serving line. He removed his elegant, beaver felt Stetson hat, a 10X with a full saddle row crease, and bantered with the kitchen help in his formal, ceremonious way. He ordered his meal with pomp and flourish. I guess my father’s old battleship bearing was decommissioned. He took on a more gracious, tolerant personality.

Yet he remained acutely conscious of his frailty and deafness, and to compensate, invoked excessive formality—even grandiloquence—pretending to hear what people said to him. He would nod and gesture officiously: We do what we want to do! Anybody can spend money! Don’t look back, just look straight ahead! WHATS ON THE MENU? So the serving attendant's muted question—Do you want barbeque sauce?—was a minefield of potential embarrassment. I leaned over to one of dad’s hearing aides and said, She wants to know if you want barbeque sauce. He stood there stiffly, acting as though I hadn’t prompted him. YES! he said loudly, and for emphasis, PUT SOME ON! He made a circle with his right outstretched index finger and then stabbed it forward for emphasis.

The restaurant was packed and very loud. I couldn’t see how this was going to work. After what seemed a long time—ordering was typically an ordeal—we made it to a booth. The restaurant wasn’t highly regarded for its formica table tops and Naugahyde benches. It’s pride and joy were the vintage World War II model airplanes dangling from the ceiling. Tethered by fishing line, they bobbed back and forth back in the turbulence of the swamp cooler.

Our booth was surrounded by the downtown crowd of oil men on lunch break. Like my old man, these young men liked to wear pressed short-sleeved shirts, bold ties and shiny cowboy boots. They spoke and moved with energy—as my father once did—each of them regaling the others about mineral rights, pump jacks, and production over-rides. Only one older fellow at the Flying Baron knew my dad and called him by name. I supposed the rest were newcomers to the business, part of the corporate influx of the feverish 1970’s and ‘80’s. I had other things on my mind, not oil, cattle and cotton.




My dad and I ate in silence for a few minutes, letting the boisterous conversation around us mask our unease. Our shouting to one another broke the silence. We weren’t mad. It was about the pepper. PASS THE PEPPER! WHAT?? PASS THE PEPPER!!! My father, almost totally deaf, despised his hearing aides. I did, too. For my father to hear a single word, I had to scream, to out-shout the entire lunch crowd at the Flying Baron.

There was no protecting our privacy. My dad’s old crony and all those newcomers could hear every word we shouted. A few made no effort to hide their annoyance. I made no effort to hide the unbearable heat. The barbeque beef in my sandwich was dry and tasteless; I was eating far too quickly. Finally, I had enough. I no longer cared who listened to what I had to say. Come hell or high water, this would be my last day to warehouse unfinished business. So I swallowed my raw sensibilities, leaned forward, and shouted DAD, THERE’S SOMETHING I NEED TO TELL YOU!

Actually I was screaming. I glanced around, nervous. Every guy in this lunch wagon had ears the size of a satellite dish—tuning in a strong signal. Dad, eating his sandwich with great solemnity, finally said Okay. DO YOU REMEMBER THE TWO POCKET WATCHES THAT YOU INHERITED FROM GRANDPA? THE ONES YOU KEPT IN YOUR DRESSER DRAWER? Silence. WHAT?? I shouted my question again word for word. They heard me at the steam tables. They heard me in the restroom. I KEPT WHERE?? IN YOUR DRESSER DRAWER! There was a long pause. The restaurant was silent. YES, he said slowly, I DO. Another pause. WELL, I JUST WANTED YOU TO KNOW I WAS THE ONE WHO TOOK THEM. Oh, he said. I STOLE THEM WHEN I WAS IN FIFTH GRADE. I GAVE THEM TO TWO KIDS I KNEW SO THEY’D BE MY FRIENDS.

The Flying Baron turned into a church. The first painful words of my confession were like a locomotive pulling a long line of heavy freight cars behind it. But they got easier. Suddenly, I was no longer shouting. I didn’t neet to. I lied to you about it at the time, and I've lived this lie all these years. It was the worst thing I've ever done in my life. I just want you to know that I'm very, very sorry, and I'd give anything to be able to give them back to you now. I knew—without words—that by asking for my dad’s pardon, I’d have to accept the consequences. I had to place myself into his hands. I had to say, I ask for your forgiveness.

We rested for a while which was good. My overwrought soul needed a breather. And it was bad, because I had reopened a longstanding hurt of an 82 year old man. Admitting to my father the theft of his most cherished possessions gave me no consolation. I was thirty-five years too late. My father deserved, even in his old age, to know about those gold pocket watches. Even if it wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

When he was a kid, an ugly fire destroyed his childhood home. Very few things survived. When a frame house burns, you just grab what’s next to you and get out fast. Dan Edward Barker got out with his pocket watches and his family. Those watches were just about all he had. They were tangible proof of his family’s history. They were silent witnesses to the hard reality of Oklahoma dust bowl farming.

The watches were like my grandpa, solid, dependable and hard-working. Necessary and useful products in their day, people now collect old watches as things of beauty. My father deserved better than the shabby pick-pocket of his beloved watches. He deserved better than going for 35 years knowing that none of his children ever owned up to stealing them. The joy of giving them to his own children or grandchildren had been stolen. I know what happened to the Stephen Foster songs. They disappeared with the gold watches.

That dad could’ve forgotten about the theft was inconceivable. Because he couldn’t easily speak about his father, these timepieces expressed the inexpressible. Against a counterpoint of oil and gas shop-talk and hard looks at the Flying Baron, I humbled myself before my father. Bob Barker was entitled to be wrathful. The role of a father certainly allowed for it. After all, a gold pocket watch feels good in the hand, like a handshake. It’s alive. It makes a unique sound. Carefully preserved, a cherished watch will move and sound just like it did when a guy’s father wore it and held it in his own rough, calloused hands.

Eventually dad broke the deafening silence. Well, I'm glad you told me. I always wondered. A long, very long pause followed. Dick, I want you to know the watches don't mean anything to me. You do. He shoved a bowl of cherry cobbler over to me—HERE, HAVE SOME!!—another grandiloquent gesture of take-charge control. He was always pushing food. We sat quietly for some time, absorbed in our own thoughts, eating tiny bites of cobbler from the same dish. By now, the FLYING BARRON was mostly empty. Just as I thought we were about to leave, dad began to speak about his father. Rarely did he ever talk about his father. I could see my grandpa Dan Edward in my mind—-an austere, grim Oklahoma farmer who died without being reconciled to his only living son.

When my daddy died, my father said in his formal way, I brought his old black hat home with me. And I brought back a pair of long, black, steel scissors, too. The old heavy kind. You might remember that hat. I've got a picture of him wearing it branding calves. It was a tall hat with a round top. He never put creases in it. I kept that hat and the scissors for a while, in the trunk of my car. Kept them there a couple of years. On the way to the ranch one time, I don't remember when, I pulled off the highway, near Santa Fe. I followed the Colorado River up into a box canyon. I was by myself that day. I parked the car near the bank of the river, in the shade of a tree.

I took my daddy's hat and that old pair of big scissors with me and sat on a big rock next to the river. It was still a good hat, but it showed the wearing of many years. Did you know that he had only two hats in his whole lifetime? I was with him part of the first and all of the second. I took those black scissors and cut that hat up into little pieces. I dropped them one by one in the water, watching them float off down the river. It took a long time. And then I threw the scissors in the water. My daddy was in that hat. I sent him off down the river, down the river into the sea. That hat is still traveling, it’s still traveling. And if any pieces are yet snagged in the river somewhere, they’ll catch up with his hat sooner or later. I put to rest what others should not disturb.

In telling this story, my father avoided saying anything personal about my grandpa. This came as no surprise. I’ve never known the true nature of their conflict or why they hardened to the end. Perhaps they were a father and son who depended on stalemate to continue any relationship at all. But my father’s story wasn’t about knowledge—even intimate family secrets. It was about bringing the burden of his past to a place of rest. And then moving on. His was the story of a crucial moment in life when a man gives up the artifacts of unfinished business.

More important, in my father’s eyes, than the pain and mystery of a father-son relationship, is the solemn, personal ritual of forgiveness. And it was a ritual. In those moments, listening to my dad, I became aware that love and forgiveness are not theoretical or best expressed with emotions and flowery words. Love and forgiveness are like exquisite machinery. They’re alive when they are moving. They’re meant to run, to work, to be experienced fully in the doing of them.

Men need signs and symbols of remembrance—some of us more than others—to articulate past relationships and a lifetime of memories. How else could anything ordinary—a memento, a keepsake—be transformed into the sacred objects of an intensely private rite of forgiveness? We take what we’re given. As icons of our father-son relationship, my father and I were given a watch, a hat and scissors. As I looked across the table, I grew acutely aware of my dad's fragility, conscious that age is the great leveler and perhaps the last vital opportunity for a man to humble himself before God.

Certainly estrangement ages the soul. Asking for forgiveness keeps the soul youthful; it keeps hope and confidence alive. With few words and profound feeling, my father broke the power of an unpleasant memory throttling me in its fierce grip. My dad said I put to rest what others should not disturb. Yet he went back to the past to touch it, like a priest, to bring its healing message to the present as a medicine for my festering wound. I call it a miracle. Though he probably didn’t realize it, my father conferred a lasting spiritual blessing on our father and son relationship. And perhaps, absolving my embarrassed and overdue confession, he received a blessing for the hard knocks he had from Dan Edward Barker, my grandpa.

Moving on is a proof of reconciliation. Together, my dad and I got up from an old hurt and moved on. We were graced by God to be tender-hearted to each other at a pivotal moment in our relationship and, in the remaining years of his life, a little more space existed in each of our hearts to love each other. Without realizing it, my father taught me that forgiveness is not dependent upon whether the other person is willing or able to grant us pardon at a convenient time.

That forgiveness and peace can be realized between two persons—even when the death of the other makes face-to-face reconciliation impossible—is a proof of God. Certainly God doesn’t guarantee us the consolation of hearing I forgive you from someone we’ve offended. But a man can seek forgiveness for the sake of his own heart, his own family, his own future. We trust that God rewards a poor soul’s solemn act of atonement with grace enough for the penitent and the person for whom forgiveness seems impossible. The act of seeking forgiveness is like winding an old pocket watch. It’s supposed to be done, for the sake of good order. It keeps our future alive and our inner spiritual works ticking. Any watch that keeps good time is a thing of beauty.

My father took his time arranging his hat and coat. At the cash register, he paid for our meal with exact change. He was in total control. Flourishing a bundle of ones and fives, he slowly and carefully snapped off two crisp bills. Then he pulled an old stunt—decades old—obliging the cashier to chase the coins he plunked down one by one on the countertop. Through the doorway of the Flying Baron, he sighted his truck. Glancing at me, he confirmed the whereabouts of his keys. Then he raised his chin, squared his shoulders, and stepped onto the sidewalk. He put on his Stetson hat. If I remember correctly, that style of hat is called the Open Road.

Posted by at No comments:
Labels:

Thursday, October 30, 2008

3rdStreet HEAVY INDUSTRY /Entrusted, Not Surrendered

The source of a minister’s holiness is Christ. Not only must the minister's goodness inspire the people, but the minister’s own salvation depends upon it. He preaches the Kingdom of God, not the compromise of God.

The Letter of Peter advises shepherds to be worthy of God's calling: "Tend the flock of God that is your charge, not by constraint but willingly, not for shameful gain but eagerly, not as domineering over those in your charge but being examples to the flock. Therefore, a pastor’s relationship with his congregation should be that of a loving father who enjoys the friendship of his grown children.

Lest shepherds of the Lord’s flock become discouraged by their own sinful human nature and lose heart, the Lord consoles them with the knowledge that their apostolate finds its origin in his mercy. And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will obtain the unfading crown of glory." [cf. 1Pet 5:2-4]

The apostle Paul warned those who would undertake the preaching apostolate. Empty words and flattery, showmanship and entertainment are deadly to the Gospel message. The Gospel and the mysteries of salvation are the property of God. Christ has entrusted the liturgy to the custody of the universal Church. Both Gospel and liturgy are entrusted, not surrendered.

God.Write: Preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths. As for you, always be steady, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. [2Tim 4:2-5]

calibration.test: "When I am frightened by what I am to you, then I am consoled by what I am with you. To you I am the bishop, with you I am a Christian. The first is an office, the second a grace; the first a danger, the second salvation." [Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 340]

cutting.tool: The shepherd should feast on the Gospel; he should not devour his flock. He should pray on his knees, not prey on the weakest members of his congregation. He should practice his faith, not practice upon the lay faithful.


Posted by at No comments:
Labels:

3rdStreet Primary Care /Make His Experience Your Own

Is it an act of justice to end the life of a sick person because you can’t comprehend his suffering? If you really desire natural justice, take his place in the sick bed and take his suffering into your own body. But I can’t, you answer. I understand. Then commit your beloved’s life and death into God's hands. And go, suffer your loved one’s experience as your own in the dark night of prayer. Take his suffering into your soul. Intercede for him. Entrust his life to God in your own spiritual agony. Love him in life's helplessness. This is supernatural justice—not a sentence of death but a word of life, not as you want but as God wants.

God.Write: And when I passed by you, and saw you weltering in your blood, I said to you in your blood, "Live". [Eze 16:6]

street.words: Hospital is to hospitality as healing is to welcoming.


Posted by at No comments:
Labels:

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

streetCLEANER /Remnant or Multitude?

Some people claim there are only a small number of true believers. They claim most people sitting in a Church are Christian in name only. They say God has a secret Church and it's not yours. Only one or two here or there belong to God's secret Church. God alone knows. You don't. They call this secret group the remnant. Only the remnant will go to heaven.

Count on this. The guy who thumps on you is sure he belongs to the remnant. He's not sure about you. When Jesus comes back, he says, the name-only Christians will be left behind. For what? To be tortured and to thank God for it. If not, to die and burn.

This is his take on the tribulation. The secret believer escapes in the remnant. Humanity is crushed in the tribulation. When will the tribulation happen? Oh, he says, it'll start next year, in 3 years, 10 years, at the end of the decade. One thing's for sure. It won't happen today at 12 noon.

Do the math. From 4 millennia of salvation history, Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, 2 millennia of Christianity, and 100+ billion human beings, only 200 people will make it to heaven. What is this? Science fiction? Space colony? What?

It's not heaven. It's a moonscape. A moonscape is not a theology of grace but a theology of evil. The deity in this wilderness is not God but a back-stabber. You can't see me, but I'm going to get you. All of you. If it's not God, who is it? It's twisted human opinion.

What does the theology of grace say? God is generous. Grace is generous. Heaven is generous. Heaven is not now and never will be a clique or cabal. Heaven is now and always will be a multitude. The number 144,000 mentioned in Revelation 7:4 is 12 multiplied by 12. The biblical number 12 is a way of saying totality, fullness, and completeness according to God. Go look for yourself.

Twelve times twelve means a number that no human mind can count or comprehend--the total, full and complete tribes of Israel's children. The number 144,000 is followed by another multitude: "After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, 'Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!'" [Rev 7:9-10] Remnant? Hardly.

3rd.degree: What's "theology"?
street.wise: The purposeful contemplation of God in prayer and study.

GodWrite 1: For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. [2Pet 1:16]
GodWrite 2: For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile. [Jer 29:11-14]

(3rdStreet >> TALK) whoa.

Posted by at No comments:
Labels:

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

3rdStreet Oratory /Prayer Is No Soft Chair

CHRISTIAN PRAYER is not diving into a soft chair for a moment to catalogue the day’s activities and chart the peaks and valleys of your emotions. Rather, you start by asking the Holy Spirit to form your prayer into the likeness of Christ the merciful and faithful high priest.

YOU PRAY when having abandoned the noise of the day, you undertake the work of contemplating God’s ideas, loving them, and obeying them to your utmost. Ask God for wisdom to understand that all his ideas really are just one idea, one Truth, one Person--Our Lord Jesus Christ through whom all things were made. [cf. Jn 1:1-3]

PRAYER IS the summit of all worthy human ideas, indeed the knowledge that all good things lead to one thing--Jesus Christ. He is worth dying for in this life and living with eternally in the next. So pray fervently to spread the fragrance of the knowledge of God everywhere"! [2Cor 2:14]

Posted by at No comments:
Labels:

Monday, October 27, 2008

3rdWord /Getting the Drop on Self-Reflection

I yanked a hard left into the visceral underworld of a freeway interchange. In the shadowy u-turn, I glimpsed a wide-eyed pigeon squatting on the low concrete divider inches away from the wheels of my truck.

First impression--That pigeon is odd. Far from the safety of a high wire or window ledge, it was spread out on the cement. Comfortably. Second impression, It's a she. As if sitting on a nest and warming eggs, "she" calmly pecked about at imaginary twigs and grit. Last impression--The bird can't fly. I cleared the u-turn and careened into the feeder lane under the white noon sun.

Pigeons eat, sleep, fly, perch, preen, crap in the air and breed. They're not clever, they take refuge on high ledges, they'll get the drop on you. What struck me, however, was the force of the bird’s natural aplomb. The pigeon, plopped on the pavement, projected complete confidence and poise. It portrayed perfect equilibrium in the midst of howling traffic, appalling road noise, honking, speed freaks, screeching tires, heat and dust.

I couldn't help but impute some category of the universal to this particular bird and its strange posture. By characterizing it as EveryPigeon, I formalized my impressions. Using allegory, one can rescue a pathetic figure from folly and elevate it to the level of prototype or symbol. Who was the pathetic figure being elevated--me or the pigeon?

Self-reflection is a uniquely human attribute, the possession of this faculty implying that human beings should be good at concentrating on ideas apart from other persons and mere things. Reflection on the past is like scrutinizing one's complexion before the mirror. We view the past with some detachment, sometimes embarrassment.

The sacredness of memory is never more apparent than in its tragic loss. Talk to the amnesiac who by losing his memory has lost his identity as well. He longs to retrieve the data of his own biography in the hope of discovering his identity and history as well. Whatever one might say about recognition and memory, a constant theme emerges from the lives of human beings: No one wants to live below his proper spiritual level.

It’s not enough to remember a memory. One has to enter it, cautiously and respectfully, experiencing the tension between self-deception and self-reflection.

If one is self-deceiving, his examination of memory will be self-conscious and manipulative. In fact, it won’t be self-reflection at all. Absent objectivity, he will not be able to reconcile his conflicted humanity with the demands of humaneness. He will troll his idealized past foolishly hoping to validate his corrupted present. His memories will betray him. He will see in them the reflection of an ambivalent person confusing heroism for parasitism and reason for emotion.

If one is self-reflective, he will examine his memories objectively, situating them in the context of personhood and community. Self-reflection is good for its own sake. It requires a fairly high degree of intensity and therefore is most beneficial in an atmosphere of silence. A human being is at his best when he is engaged in thoughtful consideration of his life.

He takes a memory in his consciousness, sometimes personally chosen, other times put before him, and turns it over, feeling it, conserving its form and shape. He looks at it directly and from different perspectives. Who am I? What is the meaning of my life? Who am I to others? How will I be remembered? Intuiting from nature that the lesser leads to the greater, he will ask, What lies beyond death?

The pigeon's odd performance afforded me a small opportunity to reflect on the capacity of living creatures to live harmoniously in their surroundings, peacefully pursuing the hard-wired scripts called instinct, making choices within the limitations of their intellectual processors and, at the end of the day, finding rest.

Human beings are irresistably compelled to interpret. Significantly, self-reflection invokes the metaphysical in the sense that it contextualizes mere memories and even the procession of time, offering splendid possibilities for the integration of art and science, faith and reason. It is through the human capacity for self-reflection and contextualizing that we perceive God’s enduring recognition of us as individuals.

In the main, human beings everywhere accomplish the ordinary things of life with the same kind of breathtaking aplomb observed in a relentlessly common gray-brown pigeon sitting on concrete in a storm of traffic. Should we perhaps become discouraged at all the hubbub about us, dissatisfied with the past and anxious about the future, we might reflect on the impressive fact that, in order to survive, a pigeon must reconcile itself to an alien environment of mortar, steel and glass.

Would that human beings could--encompassed by brick and stone, so devoted to glass and steel and plastic--more easily withdraw from the unnatural uproar and turmoil of urban living, to seek the surpassing peace which comes from honest and thoughtful self-reflection. I will send you a pigeon if you need one.

Posted by at No comments:
Labels:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)