Thanks to Cal Roeker for the comment. I agree that it is a dangerous thing to throw out the organically built cultural template, but that is exactly what we are doing. My thesis was not that it should be done, but that in so doing, it might have a silver lining. I like to think of sudden culture change in terms of the introduction of a random mutation in the gene pool. In the vast majority of cases, it is detrimental. And yet, these are essential for species change, which may be necessary in times of great climatic shifts. Cultures are more flexible than genes, but certain elements do hold together with others, and the collapse of one might cause the collapse of others, just as a defective kidney will negatively effect the body as a whole. With culture,we are not shooting in the dark, as cosmic rays do when altering DNA, but often nearly so. We are, in a sense, more dependent on fate than we might wish to think. It is a time for good thoughts, to say the least.
On a different note, I came to the end of Thomas Merton's "The Sign of Jonas" last night, and the last 100 pages were tremendously insightful and poetic. From one point, Merton made clear what "sin" really is: the obfuscation of our clear reflection of God. As I read it, sin is not so much the deed as the outlook, or impulse for the deed, the latter only being a reflection of our blindness to our divine nature. Nothing new, but put in a new way that was immediately accessible. Still, the way to "clarity" is just as difficult as ever, as Merton himself shows; after 11 years in a monastery, he still frets about his sinfulness.
New to me, however, was his view on God as the "invisible" - that is, on why God can never be fully grasped. The key, he says, is the Freedom of God and the freedom He gave to His creation. This, combined with God's completeness - He does not need His creation or anything else - contribute to His inaccessibility. Merton explains how, just as soon as he feels the presence of God, it is gone. This presence always comes when not expected, never on command, flowing as the wind and just as un-graspable. He is in nature, but NOT nature, in Man, but NOT man, in our thoughts but NOT our thoughts. Free; just as we are told in the Bible that God will set us free if we follow His commandments and, later, the Gospels. And the paradox is, this freedom can only be reached by the rejection of what we think we want - those things of the world and society that are not things of freedom, but of enslavement.
What we would do with this freedom is again up for grabs - nearly anything, it seems, just as long as it is done in freedom, in the will of God which is the only freedom. This is much like Buddhist philosophy - that freedom from desire is ultimate freedom - and, although Merton did not know it at the time, it should come as no surprise that in his later years, he became fascinated with Buddhism, and in fact died of a faulty electrical switch while in Thailand, if I remember correctly.
But that is a long way from his monastery in Kentucky. At this point, finishing the book, he has spent 11 long years, from his late 20's to his late 30's, living the life of a monk, and what he has learned is this: that God is ultimate freedom. In this, he has to resort to poetry, for it cannot be explained in plain speech. Freedom is the language of eternity, and it has always been won at tremendous cost to the average human. It is beyond us, but still within a fleeting grasp, like God - like the wind, which comes and goes as it will. FK
On a different note, I came to the end of Thomas Merton's "The Sign of Jonas" last night, and the last 100 pages were tremendously insightful and poetic. From one point, Merton made clear what "sin" really is: the obfuscation of our clear reflection of God. As I read it, sin is not so much the deed as the outlook, or impulse for the deed, the latter only being a reflection of our blindness to our divine nature. Nothing new, but put in a new way that was immediately accessible. Still, the way to "clarity" is just as difficult as ever, as Merton himself shows; after 11 years in a monastery, he still frets about his sinfulness.
New to me, however, was his view on God as the "invisible" - that is, on why God can never be fully grasped. The key, he says, is the Freedom of God and the freedom He gave to His creation. This, combined with God's completeness - He does not need His creation or anything else - contribute to His inaccessibility. Merton explains how, just as soon as he feels the presence of God, it is gone. This presence always comes when not expected, never on command, flowing as the wind and just as un-graspable. He is in nature, but NOT nature, in Man, but NOT man, in our thoughts but NOT our thoughts. Free; just as we are told in the Bible that God will set us free if we follow His commandments and, later, the Gospels. And the paradox is, this freedom can only be reached by the rejection of what we think we want - those things of the world and society that are not things of freedom, but of enslavement.
What we would do with this freedom is again up for grabs - nearly anything, it seems, just as long as it is done in freedom, in the will of God which is the only freedom. This is much like Buddhist philosophy - that freedom from desire is ultimate freedom - and, although Merton did not know it at the time, it should come as no surprise that in his later years, he became fascinated with Buddhism, and in fact died of a faulty electrical switch while in Thailand, if I remember correctly.
But that is a long way from his monastery in Kentucky. At this point, finishing the book, he has spent 11 long years, from his late 20's to his late 30's, living the life of a monk, and what he has learned is this: that God is ultimate freedom. In this, he has to resort to poetry, for it cannot be explained in plain speech. Freedom is the language of eternity, and it has always been won at tremendous cost to the average human. It is beyond us, but still within a fleeting grasp, like God - like the wind, which comes and goes as it will. FK
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