33 and a New Start

Today we learned that I don't have melanoma but rather an abnormal mole. It's being sent off for chromosomal studies to see if it was beginning to be cancerous. Just to be on the safe side, the doctors want to cut more out of my shoulder around the area of the excision. I feel that I have been given a new lease on life. And after we found out that our fears were not confirmed, my wife confided in me that if it had been melanoma, because of the rarity of the size and texture of the mole, it would have been fatal. I would have been dead within six months to a year. She had been living with this fact since Monday. My feelings right now are so overwhelming. I am grateful, relieved, still anxious...yet I see a new side of life that only scares like this can bring. I want to rededicate my life to God and you, my brothers and sisters. I don't know in what form this will take place, I am open. I further rededicate myself to being the best husband and father I can be. Thank you God for this gift tonight....This gift of life.

Atonement or At-one-ment?

Today many Catholic churches offer adoration of the Cross. It's a moving liturgy whereby one is invited to walk up the aisle, come face to face with the cross, and make some gesture of adoration (kiss, bow, kneel, etc). For me, this gesture helps me to see how "off" I have been and how grateful I am and should be for the Death of Jesus, our Lord. However, I've been pondering the meaning of the cross further of late. I wonder if in some ways, we miss another meaning of the cross.

I remember from my graduates studies being struck by the notion that Atonement theology was more a product of medieval culture, and while useful, it is certainly not the only, nor I believe, the best approach to seeing the cross. Atonement theology, touted by St. Anselm, basically emphases a theological paradigm whereby God, being all good had ordered the world in goodness and perfection. Man, due to the Fall, threw off the divine compass, as it were, and created a cosmological skew, an off balance, that needed to be fixed. God then sent Christ to fulfill the great reckoning, to realign the cosmos. However, in order to do this, there needed to be a sacrifice, the Sacrifice, which would take all the bad that Man had done and allowed to happen (sins) and negate it through an Act of perfect surrender and love. Thus the terminologies, "Christ died for our sins", "He carried our sins to the Cross", "the Sacrifice of the Cross" were born. St. Anselm, like all theologians, built a Christology that speaks much more about his own historical time and place. A commonly held worldview of the medieval period was that social order followed a divinely inspired outline which was headed by the King and was "tailed" by the peasants. Those who lorded over the peasants were dukes and land owners. If a peasant did something against his or her land owner, then reparations were needed to rectify the situation. That is, somehow a skew in world happened and the cosmology was thrown off. In order to realign the cosmology, something must be done. This world paradigm was etched in every fabric of the social life, from the micro to the macro. For St. Anselm, then, it made sense to approach the Cross in the same way. God was the landlord, so to speak, and Man, the peasant. Since the peasant was in no way able to repair the damage he had caused, God had to send his Son to do the job.

Is this a bad theology? I don't think so, and it can be helpful if it takes a person (or better yet, an institution) to realize his or her own ego issues and admit failings. But I don't think that happens so much. In my view, emphasizing Christ's horrible death on the cross from the standpoint of worship tempts us to thank Jesus, keep thanking him and thanking him, but not actually living as he did that put him up there. If God had to send himself down to earth to fix the mess, then that leaves little for real empowerment for conversion but rather enables us to continue living unexamined lives as long as we know that his Sacrifice covers(ed) us. To me, atonement theology is too mired in redemptive violence and too enmeshed into a patriarchal mindset.

What if the cross is seen as metaphor for a new social order on the macro level and an invitation to deeper connection to one's real self on the micro level. Expounding on the latter, I am convinced that most human misery is caused by people (me too) who do not realize that we've become so dependent on our own image of ourselves that we'll fight to defend any perceived slight against us. We live our lives almost entirely in a false image that we've constructed for ourselves, often tied to our occupation or material success or our different roles. The false self is easily offended and is always protective and defensive. The true self, on the other hand, is connected to the present moment without ties to future success or past failures. It is "at one" with God because our deepest self is God as we are material manifestations of Christ's Body in the universe. Some theologians reinterpret "atonement" for "at-one-ment" whereby we risk the pain of having our false self burned off to find a core self that is at one with God. By burning off our false image, I mean that when I am offended by what someone said or did, I must look first at myself to see what is below the offense. Pausing and being mindful before reacting helps me to discern if truly an injustice was committed that merits a response or did the "offense" touch a nerve because it injured my pride or ego. Sometimes I may need to react but it will come from a place of love and my ego is not tied to the outcome of a confrontation. Can the cross be seen as the Invitation to realize that my false self needs to constantly die because it's just not life giving to me or others? When I am acting at one with my false self, I am "killing" others and myself. When I am in one with Being, I am operating from my real self which means that I had to suffer real pain to get there (suffering can lead to wholeness). On the macro level, we must admit that systems and institutions are necessarily and always conservative because they were constructed to provide an order for which to operate, think, and affect the world. This fact is not bad in itself, but most systems or institutions have huge collective ego problems and can't handle challenges to their authority or power without a good fight. Unfortunately, some of the systems in which we live are so expansive and pervasive that we don't know the harm they cause much less how we contribute to the harm. But it was precisely these kinds the systems or institutions that put Christ on the cross to begin with. He always challenged the power structures, not because structures are bad, but because they weren't honest in their ultimate goals: to maintain power for a few and keep the poor (physical and spiritual) dependent and "less-than." Our systems largely do the same thing today and we don't even know it most of the time. For example, while capitalism begets creativity and efficiency, it also demands that there be an economical order with a majority of poor at the bottom supporting the top. The theory is that if the top gets richer, it should trickle down and pull the bottom up too. But this doesn't happen very often because those at the top (myself included) are tied to our false images of ourselves and we make decisions that keep the gap widening. Another example is how the Church leadership often falls to the temptation to serve the interests of itself by keeping the "poor" dependent on them rather than offering empowerment whose goal is to foster mature and adult spirituality. Mature, adult spirituality privileges a formed conscious grounded in practical lived experiences as a way to encounter God rather than a top-down approach. In earnest, both are needed but the institution of the Church still seems to be too concerned with it's own power. For me the sexual abuse crisis is the greatest blessing that has happened in the American Church, at least, because it has served to some extent as a leveler between the powerful and the laity. Denial has become less of an option, it seems.

The Cross, for me, is a symbol of what happens when an individual or an institution lives out of their own image and ego. It hurts others and ultimately crucifies the owner of the image. At the same time, the Cross is an invitation to die to oneself, to one's ego needs, and admit the plank in our own eye. At an institutional level, it is a constant reminder and check point to evaluate whether or not it is serving life or death.

Good Friday, 2008

Right now outside my Chicago window, it is snowing outside when it "should" be warm and sunny this time of the year. I am not working today, Catholic Charities has the day off, and so I "should" be cleaning. I "should have been" more strict on myself during Lent, perhaps. I am profoundly mindful today of my failings and shortcomings today. Have I grown any during Lent this year? I don't know...

I realize that there are a lot of "shoulds" in my life and in the world at large. There "should" be a better economy. There "should not" be war in Iraq. There "should" be better recycling in Chicago (and I "should" do a better job a recycling). I feel this tension between where I am and where I want to be, the "should." But that's not where God is. God is located in the here and now embracing me where I am and lovingly inviting me to become more and more who I really am. It's precicely in the struggle of the "shoulds", the tension of the now, when my soul is torn open to receive the mercy of God. Señor, ayúdame ser quien realmente soy. Dame la sabiduría y el poder de vivir en el momento presente, en el ahoríta. Dame la forteleza a hacer lo que debo y la sabiduría a dejar las cosas cuando debo. Amen.

Trinity and Economics

Originally written elsewhere in November 2005.

• People are “selves-in-communion” with other objects (people)
• When two or more are gathered together, an imago trinitarias is created. That is, people give to other people who receive from them, and then give back. To the degree that people give and receive completely, (a. selflessly, b. without their “pointness” (Enneagram) getting in the way, ) is to the degree that they “imitate” the Trinitarian life of God, the flow; and thereby participate in and with God’s love outpouring.
• Economics addresses the material needs of each person individually within the group. Each person wants their needs met (autonomy or centripatal force) but must be mitagated by needs of each other person so that the group’s needs equals the equitable givingness and receiving of the individual (centriphical force)
• Economics therefore works at the individual level, moving outward trying to get their own needs met (centripetal force: moving away); as well as at the group level (Imago Trinitas) requiring the individual to “share” with others and thereby being pulled back into others (centriphical force.).
• Resources are what the individuals in the group give and receive with each other.
• The amount of resources are akin to the degrees of healthiness in the point system of the Enneagram. If there are little resources, then the individuals fight over them and the group as a whole suffers. The fewer the needed resources there are, the “more unhealthy” the group is because disparity between individuals is created (rich get richer, poor get poorer); participation in the Trinitarian flow is lessened or stopped in the worst cases (Sin).
• As awareness for a person about their “pointness” increases can lead to a more inner movement to more health (more participation in the Trinity); awareness of group problems can lead to more trinitarian participation.

Trinity and Enneagram: some thoughts

Originally written elsewhere in November, 2005.

• Enneagram is a system of personalities based primarily on genetics, secondarily on attachment.
• Each point on the Enneagram represents a different response to the type of attachment and very early childhood experience (0-3 yrs) with PCG.
• Each point also illustrates the best way (for that point) to reconnect with the Trinitarian flow, by awareness of that point’s level of manifestation of the personality.
• The healthier the “2” the less the “2ness” gets in the way of the person in self-transcendence; entering into relationship; and therefore participating in and with the Trinity.
• If there was no attachment with the PCG, then a person may be in the unhealthy area of all of the points which also may represent the area of personality disorders.
• Knowing our point helps us know how we attach to others (the type of attachment) and therefore how we form relationships and finally how we participate in the Trinitarian flow. We also know from our point how we “detach” from the flow throught the “shadow side of the point.”
• Awareness of our point and dealing with the shadow side increases our availability to participate in the flow.
• The freer we are from ourselves, the freer we are to live the flow.
• The more stuck we are in ourselves, the less we are able to participate in the flow. Although God does not love us any less. We are less able to love God.
• The freer we are from ourselves, the freer we are for God.

Trinity and Attachment: some ideas

Originally written in November, 2005.

• God’s love is constant and unconditional and complete through the Trinitarian flow
• We are invited into flow through self-transcendence relationships
• Self-Transcendence form relationships: to the degree that a person is self-transcendent with an object (person) is to the degree that the person can form healthy relationships.
  The ability to form relationships (being self-transcendent) is correlated to how well a person can form attachments.
• Forming attachments is the basis for forming relationships
• The degree to which a person forms healthy attachments depends upon childhood relationships with primary care givers.
• Ages zero to three are critical the critical point between disorder and problems: If emotional bonding occurs between 0-3, then attachment occurs; if bonding does not occur, then the child does not attach.
• If attachment does occur between 0-3, but problems in relationship occur afterwards between child and PCG(s), attachment issues arise. Can lead to features of PD’s.
• If attachment does not occur between 0-3, child never learns attachment and therefore loses the ability to form relationships. This part of the brain dies (no firings of neurons); no connection between hemispheres’s of brain. Leads to Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) in child; leads to personality disorders (PD) especially borderline (BPD) as adult.
• God does not love the child less, but child’s ability to actively participate in Trinitarian flow does not exist because of inability to enter into relationships with anything.
• However, RAD child’s (adult’s) existence can cause others to enter/remain and participate in flow of Trinitian love (mystery) as others see “Jesus” in RAD child/adult.
• Therefore RAD child/ BPD adult can be “instruments” of God indirectly and are used by God to help care givers extend corporate works of mercy (7 of them) which work to “convert” the CG to the flow.
  

Monastics and Babies: The Wee Hours

I'm sitting in our baby's room this morning waiting for others to get up. It's early in the morning, baby's asleep, and I feel very peaceful and still. Luckily for us, our son has been a good sleeper and for two months, sleeps through the night (he's 4.5 months now). However, for the first couple of months, we'd fed him around 9 pm, then at 12 am, then at 3 am, then again at 6: every three hours. That schedule made me think about the time-honored schedule of many monastics, such as the Trappists. They get up at 3:00 am to pray. Then what follows is a schedule that includes work, community, and prayer, the latter taking place formally every three hours or so. Interesting. So, it's fun to suggest that maybe one of the reasons why the monks' daily routine was made that way is because, like a baby needing to be fed every three hours, they realized that they must go to God's bosom also every three hours to feed, to grow, and to unite.