A.A. and the Church, Part 2

A continuation of my previous post on this topic. I was talking about how I got involved in the church - against my own will and better judgment, for the most part - and what my current influences are. I was talking about my experience with A.A., and relating that, as I have done pretty frequently on this blog over the past 6 years, to my experiences with the church.

And I come, basically, to this:

• I'm in this now - the church, I mean - willingly or unwillingly; it seems that I'm being "called" to something here, and I'm going with it even though I don't know where I'm going;
• I've been on a spiritual path in A.A. for a quarter of a century now - and A.A. is actually among the best spiritual paths I've ever had contact with;
• The church continues to lose members;
• Many believe it to be boring and irrelevant at best; many think it has nothing to offer except bigotry, "fairy tales," and worn-out attitudes;
• I believe that my very life depends upon my spiritual condition - that if I don't at least attempt to maintain conscious contact with God I could lose everything, including my life and/or sanity;
• It seems to me (and this is the penultimate step of the proof - and where the proof might in fact break down, unfortunately!) that the difference between me and anybody else is one of degree, and not of kind.  IOW, that alcoholism/addiction is just an extreme example of the brokenness and distress of the human condition; that everybody is broken in some way or ways, small or large - and that, therefore, all people need to attempt to maintain conscious contact with God in order not to lose everything.
  
  This I suppose is a bit controversial - but honestly I don't see why it should be.  Yesterday I was crucifer at one of the Sunday services; I don't usually do this job, but lots of people were out yesterday and I took it because I was there.  Anyway, I held the cross very high; that's my style, because I think of the words of the hymn, and because I want it to be very obvious and the most prominent thing in the room.  I should say this is a fairly new development in my personal theology, too, although I'm not sure why it wasn't immediately obvious that the cross should always be presented this way.  Well, I'm dense, that's all.
  
  Anyway, it made me think again of something I'd read a few years ago - that "the traumatic truth of human history is a tortured body." Surely this is obvious to everybody, isn't it? That human beings can get up to all kinds of horrific things - things (we say) we find unbelievable later but that were accepted as normal at the time?  Surely it's obvious that, as John Huston put it in the movie "Chinatown," playing the hideous Noah Cross (!): "Most people never have to face the fact that, at the right time and the right place, they're capable of... anything!"
  
  Surely that's clear, isn't it? Think of what the church itself has done in the past - and what it continues to do when it thinks it can get away with it. Think of Western Imperialism - and Eastern Communism. Think of Rwanda. Think of the Trail of Tears. Think of the Bataan Death March. Think of My Lai.
  
  Remember Arendt's "banality of evil." (Although that idea is currently being questioned, it doesn't seem at all controversial to this gay person. I'm sure it doesn't seem controversial to anybody who grew up black in the United States during most of its history, either.  And it won't seem controversial to the people whose lives we're currently ruining by our actions or by our neglect, either way.)

OK.  So, while the last bullet above is something of a leap that needs more justification, what I'm saying is that human beings, by definition, are all in need of rehabilitation - you and me both.  And as in A.A. (where this is accepted as completely uncontroversial) it's not a one-off, either; it's a continuing process that needs to occur over the course of a person's lifetime.  And since A.A. is not for everybody, nor was it meant to be, some other organized group needs to take charge of this problem.

But, wait!  Another organized group has, in fact, addressed this very problem!  Religion has!  Including the religion we're involved with now, Christianity!  What do you know about that!  For more than two thousand years now, Christianity has been claiming that we and the world are broken and in need of salvation.

I submit that perhaps it's actually true.  I submit, too, that most people know this anyway; everybody in New York, for instance, is in therapy - and this has been true for a long time.  They are in therapy for the same reason that everybody in Biloxi, Mississippi goes to church:  because that's the fashion locally.

But, as posters to the Mockingbird blog often note, the church does not do a very good job of addressing the sickness of the human condition.  In fact, it becomes sick itself - it decides that nobody outside its circle has done or can do anything right - then tries to push that off as health.   Here's Mockingbird again:

By way of contrast, the Christian church often creates an environment where people cannot really be open and honest about their struggles. It can appear that Christians have no besetting struggles, just “victory,” and the occasional assaults of the devil, but very few inwardly generated liabilities or recidivistic tendencies. The person in AA who denies these things is nothing more than a liar. To quote 1 John 1: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves.”

Imagine walking into a church where all who entered were asked to sign a waiver at the door that said: “I’m a sinner and by stepping into the room today I acknowledge that fact.” Ministry and church life would be tremendously more effective. Unfortunately, you can come into church these days and sign up for any number of identities: Easter/Christmas type, fanatic/Pharisee, sinner, middle-of-the-road, or whatever. In AA there is only the option of sinner.

I'm sure it's clear to you by now where I'm going with this. The church offers, by way of ancient spiritual texts and interpretation of what's contained in those texts, a way for human beings to live and be saved. Ancient spiritual texts are so interesting in their own right (at least for me) because it's clear that people had need of spiritual sustenance in times and places that were lots less "safe" than our Western experience is today. And those people needed to find that sustenance on their own - without the aid of chemicals or technology. They are, in other words, addressing at depth and directly the facts of the human condition - which, it seems to me, makes them more or less timeless. Or, at least, applicable until the next great evolutionary change occurs in the species homo sapiens - and I really don't think we're there yet.

IOW, all ancient texts are in some way "Wisdom Literature." They continue to have many, many things to say to us - and when you attend a great Bible study class, for instance, you realize this immediately. And when this is paired with a view of Grace such as the one you find in A.A. - that hopeless people (AKA "sinners") are given the free gift of life and sanity completely undeserved and unasked-for - it becomes a startlingly clear path towards healing.

And that is where the church misses the boat, from Evangelicals to liberal Episcopalians; "Grace" and "healing" have been utterly forgotten. That is where our focus needs to be, and isn't.

Maybe more later.....

A.A. and the Church

As I've been posting here recently, I've started to follow a blog written by an organization called "Mockingbird Ministries."

The reasons are several; one is that I've come into strong contact recently with the Reformation idea that "Grace" is the key to the faith life and to "salvation." Another is Mockingbird's explicit drawing from the literature and example of Alcoholics Anonymous. You might notice on the blog that the first link in their "Churches/Sermons/Resources" section is to Calvary/St. George's in New York City - a church where A.A. has deep roots. I think some of the founders of Mockingbird, or writers on the blog, have been connected with Calvary in some way.

Keep in mind that my experience with Christianity has been almost completely experiential; I have had very little contact at all with systematic - or formal in any real way - theology. I've just had a particular experience and have been putting one foot in front of the other ever since, because I felt "called" in some basic way - "obligated" is how I've put it in my more sardonic moments, because I was never really looking for it. And actually, I'm in a number of ways almost totally unwillingly involved in all this.

This is to say that my relation to faith is not intellectual, but emotional, really, I guess. I certainly feel that I'm being swept up into something that I have been completely unfamiliar with - and highly resentful of even at the best of times.

So, anyway: what I'm interested in now - and this has been a theme for me for years, actually - is how religion - Christianity in particular - can create health. Don't forget: I have been intimately involved in that particular experience via A.A. for more than 25 years now - and A.A. is explicitly "spiritual." I know from my own life experience the difference between extreme illness and health - and I owe my life to this difference even now. And almost everybody in A.A. acknowledges - after we get a little better, anyway - that we did absolutely nothing to deserve - or effect - the second chance at life we're getting. We were not in control of our lives or our resurrection from the dead; it was a free gift from God.

And of course, this is the exact definition of "Grace" as taught by Luther and other Reformers.

And the more I read the gospels, the more I realize that "health" is really a central idea there. People come to Jesus for healing - all kinds of people with all kinds of problems. Nothing has worked, as long as they've lived, to solve these problems: the invalid at the Sheep Gate was lame for 38 years, and could never get into the Pool first for its healing effects; the woman had had the hemorrhage for more than 12 years and no doctor had ever been able to help her; the paralytic at Capernaum had been seeking to be healed for a long time, and needed the help of his four friends to get him to see Jesus. These stories are completely familiar to people who get sober in A.A.; many have tried everything - but could never get better until they "surrender" and admit complete defeat, asking God for help. (This is notwithstanding the many anti-A.A. attitudes currently in fashion. Here's an interesting recent example of one; this particular argument claims at once that A.A. keeps people from obtaining necessary care for their desperate problem - and also that alcohol abuse isn't really that serious, but something that most people simply outgrow naturally. Interesting contradiction there, don't you think?)

So, OK. This is a long-winded introduction to my major point, which is that if A.A. can succeed at changing people's lives in such a dramatic way - why can't the church take a few lessons from it? I've talked about this many, many times on this blog - and am finding that this is what Mockingbird argues, too, quite often.

There are definitely distinctions to be drawn; I've been drawing some, as I see them, at their blog lately. (Funny thing is, nobody's responded to me yet, not even when I wish them the best as they move their organization from New York to Virginia! Whenever that happens, I always suspect it's because people have linked to my blog and seen posts I've written on gay-related topics and decided I'm not really that welcome. Who knows if that's really true? But there's no question that they are coming from an Evangelical perspective, and of course we've all written volumes about that whole relationship.) These distinctions are actually quite important, in my view - and need to be drawn in order to understand how to work this problem out for the general (non-addict/alcoholic, that is) population.

More later; this post is growing too long at this point. Do check out, though, their Memorial Day post; it's a stunning and fascinating video of the "Honor Guard Inspection" portion of the Changing of the Guard at Arlington National Cemetery. Better yet, here's the video itself.

"Deal Reached for Ending Law on Gays in Military"

In the NYT today:

WASHINGTON — The White House and leading Congressional Democrats reached agreement Monday on legislative language and a time frame for repealing the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, but it was not clear whether the deal had secured the votes necessary to pass the House and Senate.

Under the deal, lawmakers could vote soon to repeal the contentious 17-year-old policy, which bars gay men and lesbians from serving openly in the armed services; the House Democratic leaders are considering taking up the measure as soon as this week. But the policy would not change until sometime after Dec. 1, when the Pentagon completes a review of its readiness to deal with the new policy. President Obama would also be required to certify that repeal would not harm military readiness.

If it passed, the measure could clear the way for gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military as early next year, ending a policy that Mr. Obama, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, all say they oppose.

Such a strange feeling to see this. I mean, didn't we all know this outcome was inevitable about 15 years ago?

All that fighting and arguing and debate - and here the news just appears one day in the Times, as if none of it had ever even been necessary. Well, I guess it was - all part of the "process" - but it seems things are going to be what they're going to be eventually, with or without our help. Reminds me of that Coventry Patmore poem again, actually:

Magna Est Veritas

Here, in this little Bay,
Full of tumultuous life and great repose,
Where, twice a day,
The purposeless, glad ocean comes and goes,
Under high cliffs, and far from the huge town,
I sit me down.

For want of me the world's course will not fail:
When all its work is done, the lie shall rot;
The truth is great, and shall prevail,
When none cares whether it prevail or not.

On the Vigil of Pentecost

A terrific video clip from the movie Barcelona. Not exactly sure who Whit Stillman is, but am now eager to find out....



HT Mockingbird blog.

Alleluja, Veni Sancte Spiritus

This is the Pentecost Alleluia, and very beautiful:



The text in English is:

Alleluja. Come, Holy Spirit; fill the hearts of your faithful people, and enkindle in them the fire of your love. Alleluja.

Here's the score:

The Sequence Hymn is, of course, also called "Veni, Sancte Spiritus," and is simply wonderful, both for its music and its text:

Holy Spirit, Lord of light,
From the clear celestial height
Thy pure beaming radiance give.

Come, thou Father of the poor,
Come with treasures which endure;
Come, thou light of all that live!

Thou, of all consolers best,
Thou, the soul's delightful guest,
Dost refreshing peace bestow.

Thou in toil art comfort sweet,
Pleasant coolness in the heat;
Solace in the midst of woe.

Light immortal, light divine,
Visit thou these hearts of thine,
And our inmost being fill.

If thou take thy grace away,
Nothing pure in man will stay;
All his good is turned to ill.

Heal our wounds, our strength renew;
On our dryness pour thy dew,
Wash the stains of guilt away.

Bend the stubborn heart and will,
Melt the frozen, warm the chill,
Guide the steps that go astray.

Thou, on us who evermore
Thee confess and thee adore,
With thy sevenfold gifts descend.

Give us comfort when we die,
Give us life with thee on high,
Give us joys that never end.

Amen.

Here's the score:

Just as lovely, the Pentecost Vespers hymn Veni Creator Spiritus:



The English text:

COME, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, And lighten with celestial fire! Thou the anointing Spirit art, Who dost thy sevenfold gifts impart; Thy blessed unction from above Is comfort, life, and fire of love.

Enable with perpetual light The dullness of our blinded sight; Anoint and cheer our soiled face With the abundance of thy grace; Keep far our foes, give peace at home Where thou art guide no ill can come.

Teach us to know the Father, Son, And thee, of both, to be but One; That through the ages all along This, this may be our endless song, All praise to thy eternal merit, O Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!

From Full Homely Divinity, about Pentecost:

The usual liturgical color for Pentecost in the West is red, the color of the fire which descended on the apostles on that day. In modern times, laypeople have also adopted the custom of wearing something red to church on Pentecost. Although the alternative name for the feast is Whitsun, the custom of the newly baptized wearing white on Pentecost seems to have disappeared, except in the case of those who are actually baptized on the day of Pentecost and may then be wearing a white christening outfit. But there is another color that rightly belongs to Whitsun, and that is green. In the Orthodox Churches, green, the color of life, is the color of the vestments on Pentecost and churches are decorated with both cut and live greenery.

Green also has a place in the spectrum of Pentecost in the West. It is, in some ways, a tenuous connection. Nonetheless, it is one that should not be overlooked. The Hebrew feast of Pentecost, Shavuoth, fifty days after Passover, was a harvest festival, the occasion for the offerings of the first fruits of the wheat harvest. In northern Europe and Britain, the Christian feast of Pentecost attracted to itself elements of various celebrations which celebrated the greening of the land in late spring and early summer. In some northern areas, Pentecost takes the place of the Mayfest. For example, in Silesia the Maypole was not erected until Pentecost and greens were gathered from the woods and fields to decorate churches and homes in a celebration of new life that reflects the church's celebration of new life given by the Spirit. Often, the gathering of greens was accompanied by a search for a figure who embodied in a personal way the idea of new life, a man known by different names in different places, but eventually dubbed the "Green Man." Covered with greens and a mask of bark, he would be escorted into town to preside over the Whitsun games and feasting.

Carvings of the Green Man appear in British churches beginning in the 12th century. His prototype, of course, is much older. His origins are to be found in the ancient god of the woodlands who was known as Sylvanus by the Romans and Cernunnos by the Celts and was related to Dionysos, Misericord (choir seat) - 17th century Belgian, now in the Cathedral of All Saints, Albany, NYthe Greek god of the vine and its fruit. He first appears as a human face in the midst of foliage, but in time the foliage seems to grow from his face and, finally, to grow out of his mouth. Early Christian representations of the Green Man treat him as a demon, a pagan spirit to be resisted. In time a transformation takes place: the Green Man becomes a generally more friendly character, as in the boss from Canterbury, above, a symbol of the goodness of creation and the fruitfulness of the land which spring and summer festivals celebrated. But there always remains a grimmer side to him, as in the misericord at the left, which reminds us that nature also has the potential to harm if it is not properly used and respected.

The remarkable assimilation of the Green Man into Christian symbolism is particularly well-illustrated by an Easter Sepulchre at the Minster in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. Christ reposes behind the stone tracery of the sepulchre, mourned by his friends, while each corbel on the canopy above is decorated with a Green Man. The gods of the soil who die and rise again annually have come to mourn the true God who died but once and rose again. The marriage of the two similar, yet very different, worlds encapsulates the full meaning of the Incarnation, for when God puts on human flesh in the Incarnation, he unites himself with the whole created order in order to redeem that which is fallen and to restore that which has been corrupted by the Fall of humankind. Although the ancient gods are discredited as gods in the new creation, the cycles of life which they represent continue on with renewed vigor and the ancient symbols are infused with new meaning.

Pentecost is the day on which the Church is empowered by the Spirit and, as we read in Acts, it does indeed spread and bear much fruit, proclaiming the Gospel of the One who died and rose again. As we recognize and welcome the Green Man into our celebrations of the feast, we should not confuse him either with Jesus or with the Holy Spirit, or even with the human race. The Green Man is neither divine nor human. Rather, he is the world in which the drama of salvation takes place, and as such he deserves and even requires our attention and respect. He is cause for celebration as he symbolizes the good creation in which God has placed us. He is cause for celebration as he represents all of the fruits with which creation nourishes us. And he is cause for celebration as his ancient character calls forth in us a spirit of joy and wonder. But he is also cause for concern. He is a reminder of our responsibility as stewards of creation and he is a reminder that we have not always been good stewards. The grimmer Green Men who peer at us from stone and wood in medieval churches look out at a world that has too often exploited the created order and as a result stands in danger of damaging it beyond repair.

How we choose to live out our vocation as Whitsun stewards of the Green will vary, but a full homely divinity compels us to move beyond both church and home to the world beyond to celebrate the good gifts that ultimately come from above and to ensure that the creation which provides them is properly cared for.

Here's Duccio di Buoninsegna's tempera on wood Pentecost, from around 1308:

"Do 'Family Values' Weaken Families?"

An interesting post at National Journal Online, by Jonathan Rauch (one of my favorites). Excerpt:

Can it be? One of the oddest paradoxes of modern cultural politics may at last be resolved.

The paradox is this: Cultural conservatives revel in condemning the loose moral values and louche lifestyles of "San Francisco liberals." But if you want to find two-parent families with stable marriages and coddled kids, your best bet is to bypass Sarah Palin country and go to Nancy Pelosi territory: the liberal, bicoastal, predominantly Democratic places that cultural conservatives love to hate.

The country's lowest divorce rate belongs to none other than Massachusetts, the original home of same-sex marriage. Palinites might wish that Massachusetts's enviable marital stability were an anomaly, but it is not. The pattern is robust. States that voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in both 2004 and 2008 boast lower average rates of divorce and teenage childbirth than do states that voted for the Republican in both elections. (That is using family data for 2006 and 2007, the latest available.)

Here's a little aphorism he uses: "In red America, families form adults; in blue America, adults form families." He explains it this way:

For generations, American family life was premised on two facts. First, sex makes babies. Second, low-skilled men, if they apply themselves, can expect to get a job, make a living, and support a family.

Fact 1 gave rise to a strong linkage between sexual activity, marriage, and procreation. It was (and still is) difficult for teenagers and young adults to abstain from sex, so one important norm was not to have sex before marriage. If you did have premarital sex and conceived a child, you had to marry.

Under those rules, families formed early, whether by choice or at the point of a shotgun. That was all right, however, because (Fact 2) the man could get a job and support the family, so the woman could probably stay home and raise the kids. Neither member of the couple had to have an extended education in order to succeed as spouse or parent.

True, young people often make poor marital choices. But that, too, was usually all right, at least from society's point of view, because divorce was stigmatized and fairly hard to get. Even a flawed marriage was likely to be a stable one. Over time, the spouses would grow into their responsibilities.

That is what "families form adults" means. Many teenagers and young adults formed families before they reached maturity and then came to maturity precisely by shouldering family responsibilities. Immature choices and what were once euphemistically called "accidents" were a fact of life, but the unity of sex, marriage, and procreation, combined with the pressure not to divorce, turned childish errors into adult vocations.

But then along come two game-changers: the global information economy and the birth-control revolution. The postindustrial economy puts a premium on skill and cognitive ability. A high school education or less no longer offers very good prospects. Blue-collar wages fall, so a factory job no longer cuts it -- if, that is, you can even find a factory job.

Meanwhile, birth control separates decisions about sex from decisions about parenthood, and the advent of effective female contraception lets men shift the moral responsibility for pregnancy to women, eroding the shotgun marriage. Divorce becomes easy to obtain and sheds its stigma. Women stream into the workforce and become more economically independent -- a good thing, but with the side effect of contributing to a much higher divorce rate.

In this very different world, early family formation is often a calamity. It short-circuits skill acquisition by knocking one or both parents out of school. It carries a high penalty for immature marital judgment in the form of likely divorce. It leaves many young mothers, now bearing both the children and the cultural responsibility for pregnancy, without the option of ever marrying at all.

New norms arise for this environment, norms geared to prevent premature family formation. The new paradigm prizes responsible childbearing and child-rearing far above the traditional linkage of sex, marriage, and procreation. Instead of emphasizing abstinence until marriage, it enjoins: Don't form a family until after you have finished your education and are equipped for responsibility. In other words, adults form families. Family life marks the end of the transition to adulthood, not the beginning.

Red America still prefers the traditional model. In 2008, when news emerged that the 17-year-old daughter of the Republican vice presidential nominee was pregnant, traditionalists were reassured rather than outraged, because Bristol Palin followed the time-honored rules by announcing she would marry the father. They were kids, to be sure, but they would form a family and grow up together, as so many before them had done. Blue America, by contrast, was censorious. Bristol had committed the unforgivable sin of starting a family too young. If red and blue America seemed to be talking past one another about family values, it's because they were.

I know I've been changed

"Preserving Words and Worlds"

This program was on NPR's "Speaking of Faith" this morning, and I listened for awhile as I was headed out to early service.

It's about preservation of manuscripts - ancient and current - and was pretty fascinating. Here's the intro blurb on that page:

Saint John's University and Abbey in rural Minnesota houses a monastic library that rescues writings from across the centuries and across the world. There are worlds in this place on palm leaf and papyrus, in microfilm and pixels. And the relevance of the past to the present is itself revealed in a new light.

Here's a video/slideshow of some parts of the interview. And you can listen to the whole thing at the link above.

A good blog I've just found

It's The Mockingbird Blog.

I'm learning a new theological language - or, maybe rather, a coherent theological language for the first time. Here's an interesting post at Mockingbird that makes clear to me how little I know at this point: "Killed by a Robber." Here's what I'm learning:

A friend of mine killed himself yesterday.

He was far from being a close friend.. But I did know him. And since hearing about his death I've found myself thinking and feeling my way through a lot.

One thing that has been a help is a brief comment by Martin Luther. He lived of course at a time where to kill yourself marked you as untouchable by the church, certain of damnation, and unable to be buried in consecrated ground. He wrote:

"I don’t share the opinion that suicides are certainly to be damned. My reason is that they do not wish to kill themselves but are overcome by the power of the devil. They are like a man who is murdered in the woods by a robber."

How you deal with suicide theologically is a study in microcosm of whether you see the human will as free or bound; and how that leads directly to either cruelty or compassion. If you see the will as free, or mostly free, or kinda free, then the suicide can and must be judged as freely and wickedly choosing to end his life. You (the Church) decide you've got to speak the Truth here; and all you have to give those who survive him is Law, Judgment, and the pronouncement that the man for whom they grieve is eternally damned.

If on the other hand you see the will as bound, then the suicide becomes a victim, a man murdered in the woods by a robber; and just as in the case of a murdered man, you have just the opposite to give as the Free Willer does: pity, compassion, and the promise that NOTHING can separate him from Christ Jesus -- in brief you have grace, tenderness, and Gospel.

I've never known anything about "Free will" vs. "Bound will" - never even heard the latter term before. It seems to be something from Luther. But the argument looks right to me - so I will need to learn this.

I'm learning all kinds of things these days. I'm one of those who didn't realize that there are centuries of ideas and arguments around this religion; my relationship with it has been completely experiential. But there's much more to it than I knew - and this seems to be the way I am being led these days.

Anyway, it's a blog that's certainly worth subscribing to, I think. Systematic (Reformed!) theology - imagine!

I'll take you there

Mercy. Mercy. Mercy.