April 2011

“The Gospel According to Mark has continued to inform my life as the root source of my spirituality, my religiousness. The Christ that the Church offers us, the bloodless, placid ‘Saviour’ – the man smiling benignly at a group of children or serenely hanging from the cross – denies Christ His potent, creative sorrow or His boiling anger that confronts us so forcibly in Mark. Thus the Church denies Christ His humanity, offering up a figure that we can perhaps ‘praise’ but never relate to. The essential humanness of Mark’s Christ provides us with a blueprint for our own lives so that we have something we can aspire to rather than revere, that can lift us free of the mundanity of our existences rather than affirming the notion that we are lowly and unworthy.

Merely to praise Christ in His Perfectness keeps us on our knees, with our heads pitifully bent. Clearly, this is not what Christ had in mind. Christ came as a liberator. Christ understood that we as humans were for ever held to the ground by the pull of gravity – our ordinariness, our mediocrity – and it was through His example that He gave our imaginations the freedom to fly. In short, to be Christ-like.”

- Excerpted from Nick Cave’s introduction to the Gospel According to Mark

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I was about seven years old when I encoutered the Riddle of the Sphinx for the first time. I loved — and still love — Greek mythology, and I devoured them as a child. One thing I particularly loved was the Greek penchant for having their heroes solve riddles and play tricks in order to win. A marked contrast from the heroes of my own childhood — He-Man, GI Joe, etc — who spent most of their time simply fighting. (Incidentally, my Greek love for heroes who use their brains rather than their brawn to win is why my favorite movie as a kid was Superman II. I LOVED that Superman beat Zod by TRICKING him…)

The Riddle of the Sphinx, of course, was solved by Oedipus, who was one bad motherf– (shut your mouth!). And it goes like this: “What has four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs at night?”

It’s a tough thing for a 7 year old to grasp. Heck, it’s a tough thing for anyone at any age to grasp. Most people, you’ll notice, don’t really think about it. Don’t think about the inevitability of age and death. At least, not unless they’re knocking on death’s door.

But as hard as it is to contemplate and know, emotionally, that you’re going to grow old and die, I think that that real understanding is necessary to begin to grasp a real philosophy of living.

More later.

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tom p asks:

Why are we here?

This is going to take a while to answer, and before I do, I’m going to offer up some philosophic snippets that have jumpstarted ideas with me and pointed me in the philosophic direction that I find myself today. I’ll dole them out over a few days for thoughts and discussion, then we’ll see what we can do to weave them together into something coherent.

Here’s one of my particular favorite concepts, from David Brin’s novel Earth:

Query by T.M. — “Monseigneur, according to the bible, what was the very first injunction laid by the Lord upon our first ancestor?”
Reply by Msgr. Bruhuni — “By first ancestor I assume you mean Adam. Do you refer to the charge to be fruitful and multiply?

T.M. — “That’s the first command mentioned, in Genesis 1. But Genesis 1 is just a summary of the more detailed story in Genesis 2. Anyway, to “multiply” can’t have been first chronologically. That could only happen after Eve appeared, after sex was discovered through sin, and after mankind lost immortality of the flesh!

Msgr.B. — “I see your point. In that case, I’d say the command not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge. It was by breaking that injunction that Adam fell.”

T.M. — “But that’s still only a negative commandment… “don’t do that.” Wasn’t there something else? Something Adam was asked actively to do?
“Consider. Every heavenly intervention mentioned in the Bible, from Genesis onward, can be seen as a palliative measure, to help mend a fallen race of obdurate sinners. But what of the original mission for which we were made? Have we no clue what our purpose was to have been if we hadn’t sinned at all? Why we were created in the first place?”

Msgr. B. — “Our purpose was to glorify the Lord.”

T.M. — “As a good Catholic, I agree. But how was Adam to glorify? By singing praises? The Heavenly hosts were already doing that, and even a parrot can make unctuous noises. No, the evidence is right there in Genesis. Adam was told to do something very specific, something before the fall, before Eve, before even being told not to eat the fruit!”

Msgr. B. — “Let me scan and refresh my … ah. I think I see what you refer to. The paragraph in which the Lord has Adam name all the beasts. Is that it? But that’s a minor thing. Nobody considers it important.”

T.M. — “Not important? The very first request by the Creator of His creation? The only request that has nothing to do with the repair work of mortality, or rescue from sin? Would such a thing have been mentioned so prominently if the Lord were merely idly curious?”

Msgr. B. — “Please, I see others queued for questions. Your point is?”

T.M. — “Only this — our original purpose clearly was to glorify God by going forth, comprehending, and naming the Creator’s works. Therefore, aren’t zoologists crawling through the jungle, struggling to name endangered species before they go extinct, doing holy labor?
“Or take even those camera-bearing probes we have sent to other planets…. What is the first thing we do when awe-inspiring vistas of some faraway moon are transmitted back by our little robot envoys? Why, we reverently name the craters, valleys, and other strange beasts discovered out there.

Ever since I first read this passage, it has stuck with me. A Divine Command to mankind to know and understand the universe? Wonderful!

Okay, so that’s the first idea for you to contemplate. What do you say?

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“But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” — 1 Timothy 6:6-10

[click to continue…]

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