After a few weeks of extreme cold, we got rain and warmth, melting the layers of ice and snow from land and water. Driving into town a few days ago, I noticed that the big river had opened up towards the bridge in town, causing a surge of melt to pile up shards and chunks of ice onto the firmer pack below, and well up along the banks of the river. Some were large slabs, and the mighty power of water and ice was on display, sending shivers along my back. This was the force of nature, that which surrounds us and reminds us of the kind of world we live in far beyond human artifice.
Once in town, a man stood out in a parking lot by a remaining dirty slush pile, working furtively on a cigarette. After I had done a brief shopping, he was still there, puffing on another with even greater abandon. His story was written on him – he was taking a break from work and getting all the nicotine he could before going back to earn his pay. It spoke of addiction, of hast and worry, and in our age of anti-smoking, it evoked the image of imminent death. His was a different story from that of the ice and the river.
Comparing the two, both had potential interest, but which evoked the deeper spiritual meaning? For one who sees all, perhaps all is the same, but for me, and probably most of us, it would be the story of the river. For most subjective viewpoints, the two events were qualitatively different.
This idea of quality was brought to my mind after a recent party, where a certain man of the cloth was mentioned (who was not there). I added that he was a good guy, but that he spoke too much about religion in simplistic, even childish terms. I was stopped short by someone’s reply: and what do YOU believe in? Whether intended or not, I was caught short: as a Catholic I was supposed to believe in the immaculate conception of Jesus, who was a god-man who could do miracles and in the end could lead all of humanity past the thorny underworld of old to an eternal heaven of peace and love. Yes, what do I believe in? How much better is that story than the simplistic one where we go to purgatory to suffer for eons in a kind of dark cell before we are brought up smiling into the face of god? Or tales of a Medieval saint whose body parts rotted within her so that she had to be stuffed with cotton, yet still survived to express the sufferings of Jesus for humanity? Might we then say that one’s fairy tale is just another’s religion?
Thinking about it later, the images of nature and that of the man sneaking a butt came up, which led me to conclude: no. There are qualitative differences in our experiences, and very big ones at that. One does not have to be a film buff to realize that the depth of, say, “Apocalypse Now” goes far beyond “The Hangover, Part II,” or an English major to know that Moby Dick stretches our inner mind far more than Fifty Shades of Gray. Or that a Lexus beats a basic model Hyundai. There are qualitative differences in everything, including beliefs. Of the latter, some are simplistic, merely reporting on spiritual matters as if they were rocks or bridges, while others take us into the sublime, where we are brought to understandings far beyond what we thought was possible.
In spiritual matters, the quality of sacred text or belief can be measured by the layers of understanding it brings. Anthropologists might read of circumcision in the Old Testament and conclude that it was done (unknowingly to the masses) as a matter of health, while a religious scholar might find the relationship between the penis, a creator god, and the exposed nakedness of the circumcised penis to be more relevant, regardless of any physical benefits or pains. Humanists might see Jesus’s exhortation to “love thy neighbor as thyself” as a plea for peace and harmony among men, while the mystic will understand that Jesus was telling us, as Paul did later, that we all are one under the skin – giving a tremendous clue as to the underlying nature of human reality.
In the end, however, perhaps the criticism remains, for in the end, much depends on how one interprets. My son finds all sorts of sociological depth in the Bat Man movies, while I still see the series for what it was meant to be in my youth – providing a simple super hero for little kids who needed to have a super hero. Still, though: Dianetics or the Bible? “My Hillbilly Wedding” or “Hill Street Blues?” Budweiser or Spaten? Smoking a butt or witnessing the collapse of a season? And on and on. Behind quality are a care and a depth of knowledge on the art or object or subject. It might not always be obvious, but most often it is: quality is often known, extended from the one who makes it to the one who observes. It is has never been entirely subjective, and that is what makes the classics, from books to sacred texts, classics. FK
Once in town, a man stood out in a parking lot by a remaining dirty slush pile, working furtively on a cigarette. After I had done a brief shopping, he was still there, puffing on another with even greater abandon. His story was written on him – he was taking a break from work and getting all the nicotine he could before going back to earn his pay. It spoke of addiction, of hast and worry, and in our age of anti-smoking, it evoked the image of imminent death. His was a different story from that of the ice and the river.
Comparing the two, both had potential interest, but which evoked the deeper spiritual meaning? For one who sees all, perhaps all is the same, but for me, and probably most of us, it would be the story of the river. For most subjective viewpoints, the two events were qualitatively different.
This idea of quality was brought to my mind after a recent party, where a certain man of the cloth was mentioned (who was not there). I added that he was a good guy, but that he spoke too much about religion in simplistic, even childish terms. I was stopped short by someone’s reply: and what do YOU believe in? Whether intended or not, I was caught short: as a Catholic I was supposed to believe in the immaculate conception of Jesus, who was a god-man who could do miracles and in the end could lead all of humanity past the thorny underworld of old to an eternal heaven of peace and love. Yes, what do I believe in? How much better is that story than the simplistic one where we go to purgatory to suffer for eons in a kind of dark cell before we are brought up smiling into the face of god? Or tales of a Medieval saint whose body parts rotted within her so that she had to be stuffed with cotton, yet still survived to express the sufferings of Jesus for humanity? Might we then say that one’s fairy tale is just another’s religion?
Thinking about it later, the images of nature and that of the man sneaking a butt came up, which led me to conclude: no. There are qualitative differences in our experiences, and very big ones at that. One does not have to be a film buff to realize that the depth of, say, “Apocalypse Now” goes far beyond “The Hangover, Part II,” or an English major to know that Moby Dick stretches our inner mind far more than Fifty Shades of Gray. Or that a Lexus beats a basic model Hyundai. There are qualitative differences in everything, including beliefs. Of the latter, some are simplistic, merely reporting on spiritual matters as if they were rocks or bridges, while others take us into the sublime, where we are brought to understandings far beyond what we thought was possible.
In spiritual matters, the quality of sacred text or belief can be measured by the layers of understanding it brings. Anthropologists might read of circumcision in the Old Testament and conclude that it was done (unknowingly to the masses) as a matter of health, while a religious scholar might find the relationship between the penis, a creator god, and the exposed nakedness of the circumcised penis to be more relevant, regardless of any physical benefits or pains. Humanists might see Jesus’s exhortation to “love thy neighbor as thyself” as a plea for peace and harmony among men, while the mystic will understand that Jesus was telling us, as Paul did later, that we all are one under the skin – giving a tremendous clue as to the underlying nature of human reality.
In the end, however, perhaps the criticism remains, for in the end, much depends on how one interprets. My son finds all sorts of sociological depth in the Bat Man movies, while I still see the series for what it was meant to be in my youth – providing a simple super hero for little kids who needed to have a super hero. Still, though: Dianetics or the Bible? “My Hillbilly Wedding” or “Hill Street Blues?” Budweiser or Spaten? Smoking a butt or witnessing the collapse of a season? And on and on. Behind quality are a care and a depth of knowledge on the art or object or subject. It might not always be obvious, but most often it is: quality is often known, extended from the one who makes it to the one who observes. It is has never been entirely subjective, and that is what makes the classics, from books to sacred texts, classics. FK
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