Festival Spirit

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Festivals.  These common events, often outdoors, are ways to be around other people while not really seriously engaging them.  I spend a lot of time by myself, or alone with family.  We don’t know many folks locally (I’m pretty sure very few locals read this blog), so online community is often how I connect.  Still, even we introverts crave the human touch now and again.  In October we attended the Covered Bridge and Arts Festival in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania.  It is one of the largest free festivals on the east coast, and just a couple of hours from us.  While there, we learned about the much smaller Riverfest in nearby Berwick, held the same weekend.  We decided to stop there on our way home.  The thing about craft fairs is that you get used to seeing pretty much the same kinds of things over and over.  That’s fine, because we’re here for the atmosphere.

At one of these events, while my wife and daughter were examining the wares, an owner came up to me (I was just outside the tent) and said, with a bit of surprise and wonder in his voice, “You have the spirit of God.  You can tell someone who does.”  Now, this can be a sales ploy, of course, but he seemed sincere.  He really didn’t nail my spirituality, but he was correct that I am a very spiritual person.  Given his talk of Jesus, I suspect he’d have been put aback if I told him that horror films are one form of spiritual practice for me.  So I remained relatively noncommittal until he turned to my wife to tell her about the products in his tent.  Still, the encounter left me reflective.  I don’t think myself any kind of spiritual guru, but I have been singled out by a number of people over the years and I wonder what it is that they see.

Some New Agers suggest we all have auras.  That’s generally considered paranormal, of course.  I’ve known people, however, who’ve been accurately “read” by strangers who seem sensitive to such things.  Or are extremely good at cold reading.  When I go to a festival I don’t mean to have my aura showing.  I spend a lot of time alone, so maybe I’m hiding my aura in my house.  No neighbors have complained about the light pollution, in any case.  I admire those who see something special in strangers, even if it’s an attempt to get them to buy something.  That’s why we go to festivals, I guess: to have a kind of spiritual experience that comes from being with others.

Paranormal Religion

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I remember well what it was like to be an evangelical.  Measuring everything by what I thought the Bible said, fearing those things that seemed to come from outside.  Being very concerned with salvation and its opposite.  At the same time, I was fascinated by the paranormal.  As I child I was teased for these interests and subsequently buried them.  Then I had a slow, protracted, and continuing waking from dogmatic slumber.  So it is natural that I would want to read R. Alan Streett’s Exploring the Paranormal: Miracles, Magic, and the Mysterious.  I didn’t know how he would approach the subject, and I didn’t know where on the evangelical spectrum he fell.  Still, I’m always interested to see how others handle what we all know—strange stuff happens and there is no real explanation for it.  Scientific method may one day be able to address some of it, but at the moment it generally falls outside the bounds.

Streett’s book is somewhat autobiographical, from his non-religious childhood, believing in parapsychology, through seminary and having an evangelical awakening, to the point that he stopped supposing such things were demonic, and on to where he stands at the moment—thinking that most such things can be explained by brain science and alternative states of consciousness.  There are a number of interesting situations and concepts described in this book; I learned quite a bit when he discussed different brain states.  I understand his theological rejection of potential realities behind the phenomena he discusses (mostly mediumship, but also reincarnation and faith healing) but don’t always agree with the conclusions.  There is much in the world that theology can’t explain.

Something that is perhaps overt between the covers, is that the paranormal is something that happens to evangelical, liberal, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, atheist, agnostic, and none alike.  What differs is the interpretation, based on various faith traditions and their tolerance for that which is outside.  Evangelicalism is a worldview, perhaps more so than it is a theological position.  Non-divine miracles, or whatever you want to call paranormal occurrences, don’t fit comfortably into that worldview.  Other interpreters, also raised in Christian traditions (Catholicism, for example, is quite open to mystical happenings that can fall into the paranormal category), might approach the question in a different way.  Dialogue is important, however, and trying to make sense of this world we live in, in my humble opinion, has to reach outside the reductionistic view that brains alone account for human experience.  Streett’s account offers a reasonable perspective on the issue from an evangelical outlook.

Consciousness Conscience

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Not so long ago—remember, I read old books—living to 60 was considered a full life.  I’ve passed that and while I’m in no hurry to shuffle off this mortal coil, I often think of how improved medical practice has prolonged many lives.  This is a good thing, but it does make death a more difficult fact to deal with.  If there is any good that came from my Fundamentalist upbringing, it was that it taught me early on to think about death with some frequency.  I’m not a particularly morbid person, but since we all have to face this, avoidance seems to lead to grief, shock, and acute mental pain.  I tend to consider watching horror movies a spiritual practice.  Little reminders, in case I forget to consider my own mortality today.

Our faith in science is a little bit misplaced.  Sure, it helps enormous numbers of people live longer, healthier lives.  But it may also detract from the necessity of attending to our spiritual lives.  I don’t care if you call it consciousness, your soul, psyche, or mind, but we have a life we’re accountable to, and it’s not all physical.  Since consciousness feels neutral enough, let’s go with that.  We don’t know what happens to our consciousness after death.  There are plenty of theories and ideas about it, but no certain knowledge.  There may be faith, and there may even be some evidence, but it is always disputed.  It does seem to me that facing death squarely on may help take care of at least some of the anxiety.  Fear of the unknown is probably the greatest fear our species possesses, so pondering it may take the edge off a bit.

Some people claim to remember past lives.  Sometimes I wonder if they might be tapping into the great unknown: consciousness.  Perhaps consciousness survives without a physical body.  Perhaps it’s large—expansive—and encompasses far more than we can imagine.  Maybe some people can access part of that consciousness that includes the past lives of others.  We have no way of knowing, but it seems worth thinking about on this All Souls Day.  Of course, I have the advantage of having lived what used to be considered a full life.  In it I have set aside at least a little time each day to consider what happens after this.  Do I have a definitive answer?  No.  I do have faith and I do have beliefs.  And I’m always reflective on All Souls Day.

Frans Hals, Young Man holding a Skull (Vanitas), public domain via Wikimedia Commons

This Is Halloween

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He was probably trying to impress his wife with his wit.  I was in a department store—a rarity for me.  I was wearing a mask, because, well, Covid.  As this guy, older than me, walked by he said “Halloween’s over.  Take off your mask.”  It bothers me how politicized healthcare has become, but what bothered me more was that it was only October 20.  It wouldn’t even be Halloween for another 11 days.  What had happened to make someone think Halloween was over so early?  Yes, stores had switched over to Christmas stuff by then.  In fact, I wandered into another store where Christmas carols were playing.  Capitalism seems to have wrenched the calendar out of order.  We’re tired of All Hallows Eve before it starts.  In fact, just the day before we’d gone out to a pumpkin patch to get our goods and the carved pumpkins are now showing their age.

If that little exchange in the store had been in a movie, it would’ve been a cue for me to transform into some big, scary monster.  Of course, Halloween is what it is today because of relentless marketing.  And a handful of nostalgia from people my age with fond childhood memories of the day.  For some of us, however, it is a meaningful holiday in its own right.  It makes us feel good, even after we’ve grown out of our taste for candy.  It is significant.  Christmas is a bit different, I suppose, in that there is nothing bigger following, not until next Halloween.  Besides, Christmas is supposed to go for twelve days.  The fact that Halloween is a work day makes it all the more remarkable.  We have to work all of this out while still punching the clock.

I had really hoped to be able to get to Sleepy Hollow this Halloween.  Sleepy Hollow as American Myth tries to make the case of how that story and Halloween came of age together.  It is the iconic Halloween story, what with ghosts and pumpkins and all.  And the month of October is spent with scary movies for many people.  This month I’ve posted about horror movies every other day, pretty much, trying to connect with my audience.  If that is my audience.  I tend to think of Halloween as a community.  Those of us who, for whatever reason, think of this as our favorite time of year.  A time when perhaps we don’t feel so stigmatized for liking what we do.  A time that we’re not hoping will shortly end so we can get onto the next thing.  It may have been meant as a joke, but I wasn’t laughing.  Happy Halloween!

Word Undefined

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It’s one of those amorphous, uncommon words that can be devilishly difficult to define.  It’s also a churchy word.  “Acedia” was considered both a sin and a demon by various monastics, although the basic idea is listlessness.  Kathleen Norris has made her mark as a spiritual writer, and my wife and I have read a few of her books.  Dakota, her first non-fiction, was stunning.  We just finished Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life.  It revolves around this concept of acedia and for a writer to admit it, it seems, takes courage.  But the question that remains unresolved for me is whether it really exists.  It seems that acedia was devised by monks to name their ennui with monastic existence.  When all you do is pray there comes a time when you just don’t want to.  Or can’t.  They called it acedia.

There is a rich vocabulary for such states, reminding me of The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows as well as the Existentialist literature I grew up reading.  I think of Kafka.  Of Kierkegaard.  Of angst.  Of boredom.  More to the point in Norris’ case, writer’s block.  This is a terribly personal book for her.  She describes the death of her husband and coping with widowhood.  And on top of it all, that dreaded block of inspiration that is a plague upon writers.  Interestingly enough, the book took me back to my Nashotah House days.  Norris, as do many monks, appreciates the slow reading of the Psalms.  One of the points of contention at Nashotah House—I kid you not—was how long to pause between the halves of the verses in the Psalter.  But is this a demon or only human nature?

“The noontime demon” was another common term for acedia.  This connects it to yet another of its aspects: depression.  We tend to think of depression as a clinical problem, but Norris explores the possibility that it’s a spiritual problem.  Some claim acedia as a sin, as I’ve noted, which shoves it back on the experiencer.  Norris has some interesting definitions of sin in her exploration.  Tellingly, in an appendix she presents the Webster’s Dictionary (1913) words related to acedia and there are over 100 of them.  And these words range from lust to world-weariness.  Is the word too promiscuous to be really useful?  For a writer like Norris, influenced by monastic practice, a poet by trade, and yet a writer of New York Times bestsellers, she makes the word fit.  There’s much to ponder here.

August Thoughts

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The other day I saw a headline on a BookRiot email blast: “August is Spooky Season Jr.”  I’ve often wondered why more horror fans haven’t emphasized this.  It’s not just that stores start putting out their Halloween merch, and it’s not that Summerween has taken hold.  No, it’s a feeling in the air.  When I was younger, August always seemed like the hottest month, the dog days of summer.  For many years now, however, I’ve begun to feel autumn’s approach in this month.  Some of the earliest trees begin to change (some start even in late July).  And if I take the time to smell the air when I step outside on an August morning, the first hints of harvest greet me.  The produce at the farmers’ markets should be a regular alert to that.  And my mind turns to the half of the year with which I most resonate.

It’s as if nature wears a mask, lulling us to suppose the weather will always be warm enough to sustain us, dropping rain in appropriate amounts at the correct time.  Yet we know that we have attacked our planet and it knows so too.  The true nature of all of this is change.  And change is scary.  A deep-seated fear accompanies autumn.  Did we store enough away for winter?  Is the house winterized?  What if the furnace breaks down?  What if the cold truly becomes too intense to stand?  I spend most of the year wearing multiple layers and fingerless gloves indoors.  Cloudy days make my office so chilly I can barely stand the lower thermostat setting until the end of the work day.  What if snow prevents me from getting to the store?  What if there truly is something scary in the dark?  All of this begins in August.

I watch horror movies year round.  I like to read creepy tales.  I even try my hand at writing a few.  Even so, I’m glad to learn that I’m not the only one whose thoughts turn toward Samhain even as Lughnasadh dawns.  A cool day in August is enough to start the chain-reaction going.  Some of us feel the respiration of fall even now.  Hear its slow heartbeat.  See its rictus grin.   Harvest tells us something about our own souls.  Our sins catch up with us as the nights grow longer.  The sun sets nearly an hour earlier than it did in late June, have you noticed?  And it rises nearly an hour later, I’ve noted.  Let spooky season jr. begin!

Sleeping and Watching

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The older I get, the more flexible my idea of reality becomes.  I’m starting to notice things that may have been happening for decades, but the reflection of age throws into sharper focus.  I’ve mentioned before that a good night’s sleep casts the day in a different light.  Such nights are sometimes hard to come by and unrelenting capitalism doesn’t offer enough “sick days” to sit out the bad ones.  But it’s not only that.  I watch a lot of movies.  Since I’ve been writing books on movies that only makes sense.  Still, I’ve begun to notice how movies stay with you after the credits roll.  Sometimes they remain the whole day until a night’s reboot comes.  This can also happen with reading, but on a slower, and most likely more profound level.

In high school, reading existentialist plays (sometimes in German), I learned to remind myself that watching a play (or movie) is observing an illusion.  Now I’m beginning to question whether that’s entirely true or not.  What enters our minds becomes part of us.  Think of the vast majority of human lives throughout history.  People living out their lives by farming and/or hunting.  Spending every day on the many tasks it takes to stay alive.  No reading.  No watching.  Their daily lives constructed their reality.  How many of us could grow our own food or build adequate shelter?  And God help us if we need a doctor.  Our lives require many other people to ensure we keep on going.  Most of them people we don’t know.  People whose realities are different than mine.

My career trajectory misfired fairly early on, and my reality has been years of trying to make sense of what happened.  From the first days of hurt and confusion I began to cope by watching movies.  For ninety minutes, at least, I escaped reality.  Or did I?  Was I enhancing reality?  What of my existentialist outlook?  Perhaps I was doing what existentialists do best—creating my own meaning.  So if I get out of the wrong side of bed, and the day feels like it really isn’t welcoming me this time around, I await the reboot.  Or when I have a few moments to sit down and watch a movie, I get up from my chair with an alternative reality surrounding me.  Perhaps I have learned something by sleeping and watching.  Maybe I have learned that reality is more flexible than I’ve been inclined to believe.  Maybe somehow this all does make sense.  Or not.

Singing Darkly

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Euro-horror has become one of the more profound sub-genres of film.  I can’t recall who it was that recommended A Dark Song—set in Wales although filmed in Ireland—but it was immediately obvious I was in for a treat.  Dealing with Gnosticism, occult, and demonic manipulation (I wish I had the script!), it takes on the big issues of death, loss, and forgiveness.  The premise begins chillingly enough.  A woman rents an isolated country house for an entire year, paying in advance so there will be no disturbances.  She brings in an accomplished occultist to let her speak to her dead son again.  The two don’t know each other and this ritual will take many months, during which they will not be able to leave the house.  Neither really trusts the other, but Joseph (the occultist) tells Sophia that she must obey everything he says if she wants the ritual to work.  Once they begin they cannot stop until it reaches its conclusion.

Sophia hasn’t revealed the real reason she wants to summon her guardian angel.  She wants revenge on those that used the occult to murder her son.  The truth Sophia kept from Joseph requires them to restart, so he drowns her in the bathtub and then uses CPR to revive her.  As they grow increasingly tense, a fight breaks out where Joseph is accidentally impaled on a kitchen knife.  With only bandages and whiskey to treat the wound, they press on, but Joseph dies leaving the ritual unfinished.  Sophia can’t escape but after being tormented by demons, her guardian angel arrives.  Her request is actually wanting the ability to forgive.

This profound story has many twists along the way, but a scene that I would like to consider is where Joseph tells Sophia “Science describes the least of things… the least of what summat is. Religion, magic… bows to the endless in everything… the mystery.”  The suggestion that science is indeed correct, but limited.  Religion goes beyond science, however, to the world of possibility.  The movie suggests these two worlds intersect.  After Joseph dies Sophia can’t escape that other world until its rules have been met.  And when she does reenter the world of science, what happened in the world of magic has lasting effects on her.  A Dark Song is one of those movies that will haunt you after watching.  The Euro-horror of the last decade or so has been incredibly profound, showing the promise of what horror can be.

Summerween

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Okay, so why didn’t anybody tell me?  Well, I suppose it’s because few people know me.  But still, I had to find out about Summerween from the New York Times.  Folks, I don’t spend a lot of time online.  I work long days and I read books and mow the lawn.  I just don’t have time.  I wasn’t aware that Summerween was happening.  Interestingly, the idea got started from Gravity Falls, an animated television show based on Twin Peaks and The X-Files.  I actually watched this show because a couple of young friends, who spend a lot of time online, started showing it to me.  I didn’t remember, however, that in one episode the population of Gravity Falls decides to celebrate a second Halloween in the summer.  And now internet influencers (I’m more of an unfluencer) are popularizing the holiday.  

The need for spooky holidays is encouraging to me.  I’ve long been exploring the spirituality of the unexpected, and Summerween has the possibility of contributing to it.  According to the New York Times article there’s no set date for the celebration.  It’s more of a party aesthetic, but, the story notes, Michaels, the arts and crafts chain, has already caught on and is stocking scary summer decorations.  I have long opined (and fifteen years is a lot of daily posting—nearly five-and-a-half thousand of them) that people are afraid.  That’s why they run after unlikely political leaders and seek shelter beneath the wings of the Almighty.  Horror movies, and Halloween, simply bring this out into the open.  And what’s wrong with having a little fun with it along the way?

By the by, if you haven’t checked out Gravity Falls, you don’t know what you’re missing.  It’s a Disney production and it’s aimed at a younger crowd.  That’s one of the disconnects I experience here: Halloween is something younger people love.  At work I can’t count the number of people who’ve said (not to me directly, since few speak to me that way) that Halloween is their favorite holiday.  I guess you wouldn’t expect to find a kindred spirit among old guys who edit biblical studies, of all people.  I venture to guess that any of them would be surprised to learn that someone of my vintage even knows what Gravity Falls or Summerween is.  Well, they’d have been right about the latter, had it not been for an article yesterday in the Gray Lady.  And what a more adult way to find something out might there be?

Copyright: Disney. Summerween trickster, Gravity Falls

Spirit Storm

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Some time ago, we experienced quite a windstorm.  More than wind, there was a dump of rain, thunder, hail, and all that.  My wife and I were attending a Tibetan singing bowls sound-bath with some others in the cancer support community.  I’ve described this practice before, here.  In any case, the meditation is held in a large room with a tin roof—the kind of place you don’t want to be during a tornado.  We’d just got inside when the gust front hit and knocked out the power.  The instructor still went through the meditation, but the storm sounds blended with those of the singing bowls.  Afterwards my wife asked about Job.  Specifically, God speaking from the whirlwind.  I told her that was God on a bad day, but I understood what she was getting at—there’s a spirituality to the weather.  (I was going to suggest Elijah instead, but “but the Lord was not in the wind.”  Alas.

I thought of Weathering the Psalms.  My contribution to biblical studies, had I been allowed to remain in academia, would’ve been further explorations of weather terminology in the Bible.  But the Lord was not in the wind.  I wrote that book because I noticed the juxtaposition of severe weather with daily chapel at Nashotah House.  We were required to attend, no matter what the weather.  (Such is life on a fully residential campus.)  We were reciting the Psalms one day when a storm blew the power out.  It may have happened more than once, since we’re getting on past two decades hence my memory’s a touch imprecise on the point.  In any case, the spirituality of the power of the storm fascinated me.

It still does.  The next morning, out for my jog, I marveled at the number of branches down.  Thousands in the Lehigh Valley were without power.  This is probably why the ancients considered the storm god chief of the rest.  The violence of nature is something that suggests divinity.  Other primates have been observed screeching back at the sky during thunderstorms.  It’s deep in our DNA.  That doesn’t make it any less spiritual.  There’s a lot of weather in the Bible.  I only explored a tiny piece of it by trying to tackle the Psalms.  The Good Book, however, doesn’t say much about the spirituality of weather.  It’s there nevertheless.  Anything that can snap a tree a foot in diameter like a toothpick has a spiritual message for us.  I mused on the way home—we had to take a detour because of downed trees—that had the storm claimed us as victims, dying while meditating is probably not the worst way to go.  Now I wonder, what might God’s nice words from the whirlwind be?

Life After

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Robert T. Bigelow is wealthy enough to speak his mind.  A hotel and aerospace entrepreneur, Bigelow has made no bones about his belief that aliens are among us, for example.  After the death of his wife in 2020 he initiated a contest for essay writers to give their best proof that consciousness survives death.  The results took the form of a five-volume, twenty-eight essay collection that, according to those who’ve read all, is impressive.  Having spent my life studying religion, I can trace my motivation back to this basic concern.  As a child I was terrified of Hell—a fear that has never abandoned me—and consequently studied religion as a means of reassurance.  I’m not alone in this; the whole Methodist movement began because of John Wesley’s similar concern.  Most of us don’t have the money Bigelow has to attempt reassurance.

Having said that, some time ago, the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies—the organization behind the essay contest—offered $500,000 for the first place essay.  The second received $300,000 and the third $150,000.  Those who were selected for publication received a copy of the five-volume set.  Then, the Institute made an announcement: while supplies lasted, anyone with a legitimate interest in the subject could write to them for a free copy.  I’m not of the intellectual caliber of these essayists, but I have studied religion my entire life.  And I am quite interested in what the BICS is calling “absolute proof of life after death.”  All it cost was an email.  They even paid for shipping.

The set arrived yesterday.  The postal worker at the door seemed apologetic (I had to sign for it), noting the package was heavy.  Now, this is going to take some time to get through.  The five volumes are handsomely produced.  The hardcovers are printed in full color (I know from work this is quite costly).  They have gilt edges and ribbon markers.  And a wealth of thought within.  I guess you’ll need to stay tuned here to find out, after I finally finish, if the results are assuring.  Glancing through the table of contents, and having looked over the judges of the contest, I’m optimistic.  Although Robert Bigelow stands at the opposite end of the political spectrum to me, we both understand that deep-seated human need to know physical death is not the end of who we are.  Even the famous skeptic Harry Houdini wanted the answer to this question as he debunked mediums in search of someone legitimate.  In any case, I’ve got years of interesting reading ahead of me.

Sun Day

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Two holidays in a row!  Although today nobody gets off work because, well, two holidays in a row is too much.  People might come to expect a little more time off.  If you’re like most people, the summer solstice creeps up on you.  Its more somber sibling, six months from now, is more anticipated.  In December we’re light deprived (here in the northern hemisphere) but we’ve been soaking in the sun for some time already now.  Besides, nobody gets the four turns of the year off work.  Christmas is a gimme, but it comes three or four days after the solstice.  We figure Labor Day is close enough the the autumnal equinox, and thank God Easter is a Sunday, at least in the years when it’s near the vernal equinox, so nobody complains.  I feel at my most pagan these days.  Why not celebrate the turning of the wheel?

The other day I was catching up on the Vlog Brothers—John and Hank Green.  Last week they were talking about “Beef Days,” or how to reduce the amount of red meat they eat.  They proposed doing it by setting aside a few holidays a year where they would have it.  Their reason?  The biggest environmental threat to our planet is our dependence on beef.  It’s the reason rainforests are being clear cut.  It is a huge source of greenhouse gasses.  The one thing they didn’t mention, however, is the suffering of the animals themselves.  Industrial farming leads to horrible lives being raised to be consumed.  The conditions in which animals are kept is so bad that it is illegal in some states to reveal the conditions to the public.  You hide things that you’re ashamed of.  I became a vegetarian a quarter century ago, and a vegan coming up on a decade now.   I can’t live being the cause of the suffering of others.

Why not use the ancient holidays as days of some kind of indulgence?  I don’t recommend eating red meat—in fact, I agree with my Edinburgh friend that if you want to eat meat you should be required to kill it yourself.  (He’s not a vegetarian, note, but a wise man.)  In any case, although you may be stuck behind a desk at work, take a moment to ponder that light will be slowly fading from this day on until we reach that other pole that turns another year.  And we can dream of shortened work weeks, although that’s about as likely as being given the summer solstice off as a matter of course.  Speaking of which, work calls.

Mystic Thoughts

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Those who know me primarily from my writings on horror are perhaps whiplashed when I muse about spiritual matters.  I don’t mean just religion, but spirituality—the two are quite different.  If life had unfolded differently I would likely have ended up as a mystic.  The problem is “rational mystic” is an oxymoron in most minds.  Either you’re one or you’re the other.  To become a proper mystic, in any case, you can’t be bothered with such things as secular work.  Mysticism—direct encounters with the divine—requires development and practice.  You can’t always control when a trance or vision might hit you.  What if it comes during a meeting?  Say your performance and development review at work?  You see the problem.

I seriously considered becoming a monastic as a young man but I had a problem.  I was a Protestant.  Protestantism was based on the idea that Catholic practices, such as monasticism, were wrong by default.  Miracles don’t happen—haven’t done since New Testament times—and God is a biblical literalist.  Why spend valuable church funds, then, on establishing monasteries?  Still, mystical experiences happened to me.  (You’ll have to get to know me personally to find out more about that.)  I talked to my (Protestant) professors.  “You don’t want to become a mystic,” I was told.  “They always have trouble with the church.”  Eventually I became an Episcopalian, a tradition that was more open to mysticism.  It became clear in 2005, however, that the Episcopal Church wanted nothing more to do with me.  Besides, I’m a family man.

Monasteries for married folk is an idea whose time has come.  Monasticism is based on the idea that you need to isolate yourself from the world’s distractions to grow spiritually.  To me, as I noted recently regarding sacraments, the “distraction” of marriage isn’t the problem.  It’s the constant need to earn money.  More and more money.  Monasteries became wealthy because other people were glad to pay money so that someone else could do the spiritual heavy lifting for them.  You can get into Heaven on borrowed virtue.  (Even Protestants believe that.  If you doubt it, get a degree or two in theology and you’ll see.)  So why not provide monasteries for those poor souls that just don’t fit into the capitalistic ideal?  I have the vision that such places would become havens for artists of all stripes.  And that, with the goodwill of society, locations where your needs were met for an exchange of goods—building good spiritual karma for a world where most people are content with trying to get rich—might just work.  It’s an idea whose time has come.  Who’s with me?

Photo by Luís Feliciano on Unsplash

Have It All

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You can’t have it all.  I know, I know.  People are all the time saying, “I want it all.”  But you can’t have it.  This is where my Buddhist side kicks in, I guess.  It’s the constant desire that makes people unhappy.  And you don’t have to take my word for it.  About having it all, I mean.  The Catholic Church backs me up on this.  There are seven sacraments.  If you follow the rules most strictly, no one can receive all seven.  Holy orders and marriage, at least for much of church history, have been mutually exclusive.  As Paul was rattling on about spiritual gifts in one of his letters, he makes the point that nobody gets them all.  And you don’t even get to choose.  

Humans are acquisitive.  It’s probably an evolved trait.  Think of squirrels hoarding more acorns than they can ever eat.  (By the way, squirrels are the real heroes when it comes to planting trees, and they don’t even mean to do it.  It just comes naturally.)   Life gives us what we need for as long as we have time on this earth.  If you’re reading this you’re living proof.  We fear for the future, however.  What if tomorrow something I need goes away?  I’ve lost jobs and I know the desperation that immediately sets in.  So we want to store up more than we need.  But those sacraments.  Those spiritual gifts.  They remind us of something important.  Something a carpenter from Galilee once said.  It’s essentially the same as therapists have told me: be in the moment.  You have what you need right now.  As a coda: tomorrow will take care of itself.

Those of us who can’t stand incompletion (don’t show me a series of books with one missing!  Please don’t.) suffer from this quite a lot.  Here’s where we need to nod to Siddhartha again and take a deep breath.  Center yourself.  When I was a seminarian discovering Roman Catholicism for the first time, really, and that mostly through the Episcopal Church, I wondered about the sacraments and why, if they were things we should strive for, we couldn’t have them all.  By seminary I was pretty sure I wanted the matrimony route.  As my wife can attest, however, I still crave a monastic existence from time to time.  Torn between two sacraments and I’m not even a Catholic.  I guess I’ve known all along that you can’t have it all.  Those who try for it, if they’re lucky, end up under the Bodhi tree.

Photo by Mattia Faloretti on Unsplash

Saint Material

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Miracles don’t often make the New York Times.  The Gray Lady was reluctant to release stories about verified UFO cases, for crying out loud.  But the story about a twenty-first century saint made me pause.  Well, Carlo Acutis isn’t technically a saint yet (at least he wasn’t at the time of the story), but you can’t become a saint without miracles.  Miracles are difficult situations for which to set up a control group.  Often they involve human beings and we really don’t understand ourselves well enough to say what might be supernatural from time to time.  All we know, at least from the “educated” establishment, is that materialism accounts for everything so miracles don’t happen.  QED.  That’s why I found the account of Carlo Acutis so interesting.  A story about a young person dying from leukemia is always sad, but this report doesn’t end there.

In his brief life, Acutis tried to bring good into the world via the internet.  In this shadowy realm where trolls and hatred thrive, here was a young man trying to spread positive things through this collective of anybody who can afford connectivity.  That does make a remarkable news story in and of itself, but that miracle.  Two, in fact.  Catholic practice is not to assign sainthood without out two very carefully studied miracles.  The Vatican has been involved with science for many decades.  The idea of the Big Bang, after all, derived from Georges Lemaître, a Catholic priest and physicist.  Controls are set up for miracles, and the church even used to use Devil’s advocates to try to disprove miracles in such cases.  Skepticism was an essential part of the process.  In its own way this is the scientific study of miracles.

The miracle that may put Acutis over the top, according to the Times, is a spontaneous remission of a brain hemorrhage after a prayer was made to the young man.  Such things happen and doctors can’t explain them.  We as human beings have no way to determine what actually causes such unconventional healings—miracles—often deemed impossible by medical science.  A saint is as good an explanation as any other.  What’s fascinating here is that this miraculous recovery in all likelihood would’ve been overlooked by the New York Times, had it not been for this pending sainthood case.  Such cases as this aren’t everyday occurrences, but they reflect realities that modern people may be very slow to acknowledge.  They still do happen, whether they make the papers or not.  Perhaps our world would be a bit better if they did get reported a little more often.