email to a friend

I am putting this in because it might throw light on things and I will perhaps need to re-read it over the coming days. it's parts of a letter to a guy I met at a forum.

....Perhaps it comes of not having enough normal stuff to do, but it also connects with bits of stuff I've seen on youtube over the weekend after typing in the word 'catholic'. What came up was mostly anti- (though not all); for example, to my astonishment, Stephen Fry, who seems to rank close to R Dawkins in his hatred of, well perhaps not all religion, but all things catholic anyway. Even he was stumbling over his text with the rage he was obviously feeling - and this was a man not even educated in one of those Irish institutions or by agressive nuns in Hull or by a hell-fire spitting priest - none of those reasons: just intellectual loathing. Which relates back to your posts yesterday. There is an urgent need for me to try to be 'laisser-faire' here and, I promise, I will try to do this.
I suppose I just wanted to point out the 'reactive' nature of theology generally, (in the sense that Abraham could not sit down to do a theology course as there can be no theology without scripture) and the way in which churches, by which I mean those who preach in them, tend to 'dumb down' in the same way that tv does: in order not to lose their 'audience' perhaps but also because there is an important truth in the fact that 'Christianity' [as a 'package' if you like] cannot be seen to be 'intellectual' for its own sake - for lots of reasons but mostly because it has to be 'available to all' - like an omnibus perhaps. [Intellectual implies an elite]. The problem then comes that, for people who really do think (not because they want to, but because they need to - and I think you are one of those), the inadequacy of that simplified 'package' of Christianity-made-easy, when put alongside thorough, careful science, becomes ridiculous and incredible.
The catholic church began to grow through the 'dark' ages, when only monks could read and write. The ordinary people were illiterate, and their faith needed to be simple: sacrament was everything (along with pictures perhaps) It's almost impossible for us to get into the mindset of a Saxon peasant now. The reformation came about because of printing and because more and more people were educated, literate, and wanting to make up their own mind. The Catholic church became anachronistic because it couldnt reform rapidly enough for the new modern world and because it invested too much effort into holding back the tide (the counter reformation). Sacrament became less and less significant because of the overwhelming importance -relatively speaking - of the word (now it was out of the old Latin and into the vernacular, and, more important, widely available).
Today there is a new crisis and a new kind of reformation is under way and, as before, because of the nature of the Christian (rather than his church I think), he tends to spend his efforts in attempting to hold back the tide [as though the Holy Spirit was something that only happens yesterday: 'O ye of little faith'] rather than modernising. This is as true in the 'reformed' churches as it is in the 'old' church of Rome - (which has arguably only just begun to come to terms with the previous reformation - centuries behind) although their respective 'counter-reformations' do manifest themselves in very different ways.
America has become central in the life of Christianity now that the balance of power has moved from Europe - partly because of economics but, as I was saying earlier, it also has something to do with their experience (or lack of it) of war. The internet- it seems to me, will change the world in as many ways as the printing press did in the 15th century. Perhaps it has already. For a start it means that the simple religion of guys like 'xxx' on the forum (literate but not educated) is now there for all of us to see and wonder at (I've just seen his latest post in your thread). It also means that people like us can communicate for the first time and the cross-over between faith (and lack of it) and xxxness can express itself. The whole mix can become profoundly confusing, which is all the more reason why many retreat back into an ultra-simple defensive position. The instinct is to mock this, but I think this misses the main point: theology is even more complex, more difficult to 'suss' than the most complex aspects of science dealing, as it does, with invisible, highly debatable, and rather poorly documented concepts which can anyhow be so difficult for us as modern individuals to relate to in a 'tangible' way. The retreat into blatant simplicity is surely a natural reaction.
The danger is that, just as the Baptist American might retreat into a simple fundamentalism, and the confused Moslem might do the same, so might the confused scientist. The temptation to shake it all off as antiquated nonsense can become overwhelming (a la Dawkins) particularly because we are dealing with invisible, unquantifiable things - which very fact will immediately put any decent scientist on edge. Dawkins has been called a fundamentalist atheist but I think Stephen Fry http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYt3sXJLw_w has persuaded me that there might also be such a thing as a fundamentalist humanist. It is all very well to retreat into a spitting rage over the wrongs of the Catholic church re Galileo or making Thomas More (who apparently burnt heretics (I never knew that!) a saint or to see humanity (and therefore all of creation as well I suppose) as the universal victim of a vengeful whimsical God but doesnt this just lead to impasse and . . . . what then? Where is there to go except into more diatribe?
The danger is particularly severe for people such as yourself. You are searching for truth: longing for coherent and meaningful answers which you can relate to and identify with (and which you will not find) so when you come across this forum with its amateur theology and simplistic Christian 'solutions' it is easy for you to use it as a way of creating a reactive position of your own.
With both Fry and Dawkins, where does their missionary zeal actually stem from? "they do protest too much, methinks."
Although they find themselves caught down ultimately dead ends, there is perhaps a sense of identity to be found in their position and it is my belief that it is exactly this overwhelming need for identity which is at the base of all religion.
The less secure our sense of identity actually is the more we clamour for it. The need to belong somewhere (anywhere!) can override everything else, but 'identity' is more important even than that. (I think it's possible to 'belong' without properly developing a sense of identity.)
This is why the fundamentalist view is so appealing: because it gives a sense of identity, albeit at the expense of credible truth, which becomes a secondary concern.
I have no idea what you will make of all this, if anything, and I'm not at all sure that I've got anywhere near the things that have been bugging me for days now. Time will tell . . . . .
In my own life, I am gradually coming to terms with my own inability to develop a convincing sense of identity or, for that matter, a sense of belonging and I begin to realise that this very lack might be an important aspect of our journey towards the truth of the matter; something we all need to confront if we are to escape what you call the stereotypical God.
In other words, I think the real journey is a constant battle with the temptation to create 'false' notions of God which the longing for identity and belonging throws up in us in numerous different guises as we journey from day to day. . . . .

today: everything different
almost unrecognisable
unsettling,
disturbing:
the only way forward:
to give and give again
uselessly,
silently,
joyfully
my only hope is gift:
to give everything
and to trust that you are worthy.
[and I am ashamed to put it that way]
this I do know
this I do know:
you gave and I must give back
only - not me, you:
the voices I heard today were not mine;
my part in you: gift received
gladly
joyfully
and given back
my part in you: tiny
your part in me: bigger

doubt

so aware again today of the immense power that doubt has over everything to do with the spirit.
even vague wisps can cripple: preventing forward motion and suffocating creativity.
even doubt about very doubt itself is enough to destroy.

and then it dawned on me that guilt and doubt come from the same toxic well-spring:
hideous bedfellows.

don't focus upon these;
though they may always be there:
embedded in the wall.

and so it's too much to expect doubt to ever go away once and for all
which makes learning how to tackle it all the more important.
if it's an inevitable hum within that background 'noise'
it must simply be handed over rather than confronted:
part of being human:
consequence of a created being seeking that which is not?

thomas merton

"all men need enough silence and solitude in their lives to enable the deep inner voice of their own true self to be heard at least occasionally. ... For he cannot go on happily for long, unless he is in contact with the springs of spiritual life which are hidden in the depths of his own true soul."

I don't think this is really a 'different understanding' but I was writing in the forum yesterday about inner 'noise' during prayer and I mentioned something specious about God 'transforming this into music'.
today it occurred to me that this interior noise is the imagination at its ceaseless work and that 'art' is a way of transforming this very noise (a sort of raw material) into 'something coherent'. can it be said that art and prayer seek to 'do' the same thing albeit in quite different ways? the way of prayer is beyond the noise and does nothing with the noise except to give it into the hands of God. but art is a fashioning of the noise into coherent shape so that we can then be 'freed' from it.

another thought I had today was that there is no inner life as such - no spiritual life - there is only me and the 'other' . . . . . my spiritual life, when I am blessed with awareness (although let's face it, it doesn't always seem such a blessing either), is you, glimpsed through noise and cloud.

yesterday's solutions dissolve away and cannot help.
throw away the maps because this is new territory.

there is an urgent need to discard all that weighs me down
because none of the old load can help, however helpful it had seemed.

today I was thrown up against the wall and saw ancient stones:
huge and worn;
lasting.
the temple?
the wall is the temple?

I have almost always misunderstood the wall.
I have to realise that the wall is not barrier but presence.

the levites: the leaven of the old covenant.
but jesus was not levite.

today it seemed that the music has to go,
but then:
a wider horizon and a glimpse of dawn.
thinking about it now: the music does have to be let go
although the music will still be there anyway:
differently formed
differently understood

the wind buffeted the car;
the town below twinkled at me:
the psalms my bridge across the ancient hills beyond

something happens when I read the psalms.
I say the words but the words stay on the page and draw me in.
they tell me who I am and give me life.
they are true in a way I cannot understand except as I read them.
they are my music

identity.
or perhaps we start off with a false notion of one.
I must lose false identity to find the real one.
today in the psalms, identities came and went,
but mostly went.
I was glad to be working for others.
God

is it really so simple?
yes it is.
how is it that I forget?
swathes of wasted time and effort
when it stares me in the face:
gift: not refused.

today everything is very different.
the prayer was essential:
yes, the usual chaos of false concepts,
dead ends,
mere clutter,
some strange nonsense,
but, in between, that desire to give.
strange oft-frustrated Desire,
Need,
to give everything.
to be the very gift.
My music is perhaps a manifestation of that desire,
frustrated because deeply inadequate,
made more so by my lack of faith (in it).
Love for another frustrated by lack of faith (in him and myself too).
unable to give myself into that community.
giving frustrated.
but in prayer this is no longer the case:
once I find the link established (from the other side)
(I am aware that I am unable to establish that link and can only ask for it)
the giving can be total - if bound by time -
and to give all is no sacrifice although it looks like one.
it is only relief and joy because it is all that is wanted.
it is a giving with no strings attached.
no purpose except itself.
and the ability to find that ability to give
is the greatest gift of all . . . .
surely this is where you are most present.
spirit of God.
I can only Give because you Gave to me.

my emails to ryan have been a useful focus.
thinking back through this year:
joy came with recognition of the enemy:
gihad.
once I knew where the fight lay
I could get on with it with a glad strong heart.
man is nothing if not a war-monger.
but the fight must be the right one.
the enemy must be the real one
when I lost sight of the enemy
I wandered disconsolate through the fog
purposeless and lost again . . . . . .

if we cannot locate the real enemy
we invent a pretend one.

then who is the real enemy?

only it isn't as simple as that . . . .
because the real enemy is the very urge to fight in the first place.
this is the enemy.
and so the gihad (noun) must be against the very urge to gihad (verb)

the real war must be against the pretend war against peace.

isnt this what freud meant by the death wish?
only he thought of this as a neurosis
when really, seen aright,
it's the very source of strength and life . . .
(onward christian soldier . . .)

I came to a place where I was able to say
over and over
I am yours and you are mine.
I was able to say it and understand it.

the question is:
what do I want this music to do?
where do I want it to take me?
can I just be led by it,
or do I have to lead it myself?

does it speak, or am I speaking it?

earlier I knew that the silence must come first
that the music can only ever accompany this silence
like a missing solo violin part:
far more beautiful and essential than any notes on the page.

and then I went and wrote a few chords
which seem to take me nowhere
and drag me down.

the wall?
could it be the wall?
the essential wall:
the wall that runs through my life
the wall that I still havent understood
and wonder if I ever shall.
although at least, now,
I can acknowledge it and even look at it
without quite so much dread

my words seem to crumble even as I say them.
thoughts jumble and crowd.
meaning disintegrates
leaving shadows and dust.
filling the air with doubt and despair.

but this will pass.
I do know this.

this morning was so different:
my words were your words.

yesterday:
having and being:

to be
I must give
what I have.
what I have you gave to me
and I must give it back
because nothing can be kept.
but oh it seems a tedious business indeed.

yesterday I thought:
the ark is empty;
the tomb is empty.

today it is all struggle and darkness