When I was in graduate school for anthropology, the wife of a famous anthropologist at Stanford, who was also well-known, died by falling off a slippery slope in the Philippines.  Some time later, the husband wrote of his heartbreak, and mostly, of the funeral.  To paraphrase, he said, "The funeral ceremony is supposed to comfort us in the death of a loved one, but it did nothing of the sort for me.  I still felt as empty and hopeless as before."  

The utilitarian principles behind religious practices have been taken for granted by many social scientists.  In the Old Testament, for instance, shellfish and pork are prohibited; anthropologists have said that this is because shellfish can give hepatitis, and pork was an unusually filthy food back then; also, pigs required mud to cool off in in an area of limited water. Circumcision is still heralded as hygienic, making the circumcised boy less likely to get certain types of infections. 

But there are tremendous holes in these arguments: many foods cause illness (salmonella on lettuce, for instance), and circumcision before antibiotics must have killed thousands, its health benefits so minuscule as to be negligible (although doctors continually press for it today, citing only these small benefits and never the negative, for the operation is a great financial perk.) Others may stick to their claims, however, and I am not going to nit pick over them - but merely to show, through the anthropologist's confessed feelings, that the functionalist arguments concerning religion are often wrongly placed. Sometimes, even often times, religious practices are not for the family or the individual. Instead, they are for the soul.  That they might help individuals in some ways is often a side -effect or simply besides the point.   

The treatment of the dead is a clear example.  Throughout the world, there are prescriptions for the deceased intended to send them on to greater reward.  To those who have seen the movie "Jeremiah Johnson" (so authentic in Indian ways that it's hard to believe it could be done), recall the fateful day Johnson took the white rescue party through the Indian funereal ground to save stranded pioneers.  That breach caused him the death of his family and months or years of persecution by the tribe.  However the practice may have helped tribal solidarity, it was clear that the violation of the spirits of the dead was foremost in mind - that their souls were being protected as they journeyed to the other world, and desecration jeopardized that journey.  

It seems to me that in our rush to understand things, we often place them in the wrong box.  The funeral service that the Professor went to was originally designed  primarily for the soul, to aid it in its flight to heaven.  

So I am reminded of this as I begin the preparations for my mother's funeral.  Frankly, I want it all to go away.  The initial shock is over and I don't want to return to it.  I don't want a big ceremony or a wake where old friends and relatives come to give condolences (as nice as that is, and it really is).  I want it over, to let the death sit and percolate in the subconscious as it always does, to later bring forth a truer sorrow and a greater meaning.

But it's not about me.  If my brothers and sister and I were to think about it, we are not doing this for ourselves, and only partly for social convention.  Behind it all, really, is an obligation to the deceased - that she deserves a proper send off.  We are not worried about her place in the hereafter so much as the unspoken belief that she is still about somehow, waiting for us to show our appreciation for her life.  And while the pragmatist may still claim that this is still about us and our feelings of obligation, in truth it is about our unspoken belief in the soul.  It is waiting for its proper send off, no matter how much better or worse it makes us feel.     

What the truth, the real Truth about death and the soul and time and place is, we have our inherited ideas, ideas that are deeper than any one culture or time.  We understand that something survives after death and needs our attention.  It is an obligation, and worth it, I suppose, just in case our hidden beliefs are true. But I also suppose it is about us, too - for we, whether we understand it or not, are hereby reminded that there is more to death than a void of  darkness.  That might be the true  "practical" reason for many religious practices - to remind us that something else is there that is well beyond our nuts and bolts practical world.  FK                  

As mentioned in other blogs, sometimes I resort to using the IChing as a contemplative oracle, for its advice is based on the laws of nature.  Thus, if the question is replied with, say, a water and a fire sign, then the Ching tells us that we are in conflict, or exhausted, or some such notion equated with the mixing up of fire and water.  We are then told what to do, what posture or action to take, given these circumstances.  

It is a very inexact metaphysical science, although its advice is always sound - for instance, when confronted with insurmountable obstacles, perhaps like the coming of winter, it is indeed a good thing to fall back on our inner worth until the time (and the season) changes.  

However, this assumes an eternally cyclical nature to nature itself, one that can be contained in a "book of changes." In this way, it appears that the god, or force, that is found behind this cycle is chained to the rules it made, and can be summoned or used by pat formulas.  True, the wisdom in the IChing is often applicable and useful, but it often might lead us away from the real nature of nature itself (which is also suggested in some of the hexagrams of the IChing) - that is, that within its regular cycles is buried a constant element of change that causes the unique, the unexpected, and the absolutely unpredictable.     

Take Super Bowl XLIX - please!  (not really - as a New England native, my team allegiance was predestined).  Who could have predicted that in the last minute of the game, with the Seahawks down by 4 and on the 50 or so yard line, they (Wilson, QB) would throw a Hail Mary which would be (as usual) blocked - but would then be caught by the receiver who was already on the ground, the ball that had been knocked away bouncing off his knee and into his hands, putting them near the 5 yard line?  And who then could have predicted that an unknown defender would come from behind the receiver and hit him so hard that he lost the ball, and then go on to recover the ball himself on the goal line with 26 second to go and victory assured for the Pats?  Who?  And the Monday morning quarterbacks - who could know what would have happened if Pete Carol had actually had Lynch run the ball for the Seahawks instead of throwing that intercepted pass?  


It is what it is, as the brilliant sports analysts often say, and that is true: within the predictable is often, is perhaps always, an element of chance and novelty that cannot ever be anticipated. Whether it's in the small confines of a sports arena, or the larger scope of planet earth, or an open -ended and unfathomable universe, there is always the unpredictable, the outcome that no one could see, no matter the degree of expertise of the prognosticator.  And so it seems for the nature of our reality - that as much regularity that it shows, from the personal to the planetary, there is always that element of the unpredictable, even the impossible.  It is as if God is unpredictable and creative, too; as if the world and cosmos moves in ways that might break its bounds at any moment; as if the bounds themselves are only an illusion dreamed up by those with limited minds, or who hope for a limited and comprehensible universe.  And yet on and on it goes, the unpredictable, the novel, the surprise, the break to the cycle that shows a chaos in the pattern, an exception to the rule that sometimes proves the rule, but always, in the end, invalidates it.  

And so we have Teilhard de Chardin's evolutionary movement - a pull towards a greater unity, but a pull none the less that sooner or later disrupts or eclipses the former patterns.  It is not only in biological systems, however, but in everything.  We can guess; we can feel comforted or alarmed by the IChing or by scientific law; but sooner or later the novel comes in to disrupt, to perturb, to destroy or create anew.  That, the creative or unexpected rather than the repeated circular pattern, might be our greatest legacy and our greatest insight into what is.  FK                 

I recall a remarkable sermon in church from at least ten years ago when an ancient visiting priest stood up before the congregation and gave an impassioned speech about something he must have known little about - sex.  Much to everyone's shock, he gave the old Catholic party line, propelled by righteous fury, about sex - that is should be primarily for procreation, only between married couples, and done only in a certain way.  He deftly let us know that certain orifices were never to be used, nor almost any other positions besides the old standard.  About half the congregation  was raising its eyebrows, while the other half was lowering its head to hide anger, mirth, disbelief, anything but agreement. Hadn't we gotten over that nonsense?  We had, but surprisingly, the Church hadn't, at least according to this ancient Father.  

I was one of those wracked with a bad case of the chuckles, and I didn't bother to hide my head either, but the truth remains - sex in religion, in spirituality, in witchcraft and sorcery remains a powerful force, and for most, the force is negative.  It is seen as anti-spiritual, as a block or an impediment or a crutch or a vampire-like energy sucker.  Few have anything good to say about it, from the traditional Plains Indians of America to Buddhists in Japan.  Biochemists have linked sex to primal animal aggression and dominance, and we certainly see that in the world - for instance, until the drug wars began in the late 1960's, most murders were performed during passionate fits of jealousy.  And it's seamy, sick and usurious side is all too well known and apparently eternal and cross-cultural.  

So, although it was consistent with the overall theme, it seemed unusual then that Sister Ilia Delio (in her book "The Unbearable Wholeness of Being) should expound on Father Teilhard de Chardin's downright jubilant view of sex.  The word "sex," we learn, comes from the Greek "to shear or sever" - that is, that the differentiation of animals by sex is a splitting apart, a cleaving of a whole in two.  And it is exactly in the coming together of the "sexed" animals that the meaning of the world, and of God, comes through so clearly, as does evolution.  We are pulled, as it is, towards union; the very nature of the animal kingdom flies in the face of the 2nd law of thermodynamics (entropy), its line going instead towards more division, more species, greater complexity - and greater union.  Thus we begin to see the nature of God - not as a prime mover, not as a watch-maker who stands apart, but as the whole that is both greater than the sum of the parts, and a part of the parts themselves.  God is in the motion and is behind the motivation of all things, living or inert - a movement towards more, and in the "more", a movement towards greater Union. Existence, then, is not a distant creation of a creator god, but a work set in time to express the very nature of God, who is both imminent, in everything and action and thought, and transcendent - NOT the thing itself, but encompassing and being and moving and living in everything.  And sex - that we are "severed" from one another as a move towards complexity, so that we might be drawn together in equally greater union - is God in both being and action.  

For all I know, this might be one of the major reasons why Fr Teilhard's books were forbidden by the Vatican to go into print until the Church was loosened up by Vatican II in the early 1960's - because Teilhard took the view that the act of sex was one of the greatest displays of the reality of God.  This comes as no surprise to those of us who have loved and have had children from our love, but the Church and most of the worlds spiritual practices - how could they have missed this understanding? It is well known that St Paul preached to a civilized world that was awash in thoughtless and abusive and financial sex, and as such, gave the Catholic Church much of its austerity, but what of the others?  Certainly there must be some truth to the anti-spiritual nature of sex.

Certainly there is.  For Teilhard de Chardin, everything is an exposition of God, yet few actions show it more greatly than sex. And this, perhaps, gives us the clue.  Given that we have come to treat everything in a profane manner, what greater blasphemy towards the sacred could there be than in treating a central truth of the cosmos so casually?  As we often while away our ordinary time so blankly, so devoid of wonder and awe, how much worse that we should while away something so obviously spiritual in equal fashion?  When treated so, sexual activity can also become a vice because of its obvious attraction, riveting us even more firmly to profanity.  It is then that the aggression and dominance that is an occasional instinct in other animals can become so twisted and sordid.  While other animals act with a certainty that is beyond the profane, it is our very conceptualization of the profane that creates the profane; it is the very gift of thought, that which can bring about the highest union, that can turn the greatest natural gifts into the worst.

Then again, how best to ensure an obsession with certain types of sexual activity than to ban it?  It only shows how religion can take a spiritual idea of cosmic proportions and overly humanize it to the point that the idea itself becomes profane.  Religion is there to help us understand the nearly incomprehensible - but sometimes the dumbing down dumbs down the religion itself.  As the marauding fanatics in the Middle East show us, this has not happened with sex alone.  FK