Comments on: Calling the question

By: Spiritual Reading: Introduction at Making Chutney

Spiritual Reading: Introduction at Making Chutney — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 11:40:53 +0000

[…] Last month I promised to start a series on the ancient spiritual discipline of Lectio Divina, or spiritual reading. And, well, here we go: some words on rationale, purpose, and sports equipment. […]

By: kim

kim — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 00:34:49 +0000

Just curious — what are the ideas for sermons you got from this discussion?

By: ck

ck — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 02:54:14 +0000

Peacebang, thanks:)

Yes, I am “ck” and I have a blog called Arbitrary Marks. I usually sign my comments as ck but my WordPress account is set up to say arbitrary.marks. Sorry if it is confusing. I don’t mention my gender much, so people will often assume one way or the other.

Kim, yes, I remember reading about the Hindu path to liberation that involved intellectual study, and thinking–YES, that’s my path, if I had to choose! I do meditate, and I took one yoga class–I’ll never get enlightened if I have to go those routes (unless it takes many lifetimes…) But I don’t think intellectualism is not limited to dry propositions.

I spent some time reading a festschrift for Raimon Pannikar today–who is a Christian turned Buddhist turned Hindu (but while staying a Christian, he says). I haven’t read his work yet, but I highly recommend this book about his writing. I will have to post about it later, but essentially he argues for an approach to religious pluralism that incorporates love, and has a vision for justice. It was very encouraging and tantalizing. I made a few notes in my reading journal where I marked “UU?” next to some quotes.

I second PB–carry on with the discussion, I’m learning quite a lot.

By: PeaceBang

PeaceBang — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 02:08:46 +0000

I won’t contribute anything else to the blogosphere until everyone knows that CK IS A WOMAN! Including me!
Thank you.

I’m very proud to have coined another set of complicated UU letters that only insiders understand. I think “ESOOAWWA” is a lot snappier than Rachel Ray’s “EVOO” (Extra Virgin Olive Oil). Take THAT, Rachel.

Carry on, everyone! Great discussion! I’m getting sermon topics left and right!

By: kim

kim — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 16:04:13 +0000

Sorry CK — I didn’t know you and Arbitrary Marks were the same person (am I correct that you are?)

Jeff — the thread you and others are leaving out is the other Hindu path — that’s why I brought it up:
My source is Huston Smith The Religions of Man and the revised version The World’s Religions:
the four paths to The Infinite are love, work, psychological exercises, and knowledge. Americans have a problem with acknowledging that knowledge or intellectual pursuits can lead to enlightenment. We tend to think of intellectual as escapist. But Smith says the intellectual path is considered the “shortest but the steepest” path to enlightenment. I submit that I am not the only one in UUism who has stumbled onto the intellectual path to enlightenment — I have tried meditating and etc, but each time I have had a transcendant Experience of the Divine (or whatever you want to call it), it has been triggered by something intellectual, an idea. I know I am not the only one.
UUs are criticized by others and by ourselves for being “too intellectual”, but I think it might be because we have had a succession of leaders who truely Experience enlightenment through intellectual means (“people for whom ideas dance and sing”), and they don’t state it explicitly enough for people to understand that the intellectuality is a path not an end in itself. And people who are on other paths don’t understand this one, or even acknowledge that it exists often. Maybe it’s hard for people to really see that any path that is not their own truely exists — we UUs generally have trouble really believing that the path of Love (devotion to deity) can REALLY be spiritual…. It’s so hard to see someone else’s point of view!
It would be nice to develop some stuff around UU revelation, and maybe not just be the religious “Miscellaneous file”.

By: ck

ck — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 01:58:40 +0000

chutney, no prob. Just thought I would make the comments here where the discussion is. It’s a complicated issue. Peacebang and I probably agree more than is evident online. Plus, she’s got more experience with UUism than I do, so I will generally defer to her observations. My perspective is of a newbie.

Thanks for picking up the discussion and running with it. It’s good to see.

By: chutney

chutney — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 23:50:02 +0000

cK,

I believe Peacebang used ETOOAWEA. Sorry about the misattribution—I got confused amongst all the posts and comments. And I take your point. I’m all about perspectivalism. And starts. I hope I didn’t imply disagreements between you and Peacebang that weren’t there.

By: ck

ck — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 23:35:57 +0000

A few clarifications…
1. I’m a She, not a He. For some reason, a lot of people make that mistake, though I mention that I’m a lesbian throughout my site. Kim is the fourth, I think, to do so. Not sure what that means.

2. I don’t think I used the term “Eternal Sharing of Opinions About Who We Areâ„¢”, and I know I didn’t talk about the Hindu paths. Though I did mention Hinduism.

3. As relates to the ESOAWWA(tm), I am not advocating mere “sharing” but a fuller interaction with texts in our history and in community with each other. My idea is basically that if we view revelation as ongoing, we ought to make strides towards a hermeneutic interpreting that revelation. A group, perspectival, dynamic hermeneutic seems a good place to start. My post was mostly just that, a start.

By: Jeff Wilson

Jeff Wilson — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 21:53:25 +0000

Thanks for the kind words, Chutney. Lord knows I’ve been busy, still am (just finished teaching a summer session class on Liberal Traditions in American Religious History, and now I’m preparing for three months of dissertation research in Kyoto). But I do read the UU blogs when I can.

I think you read me right; I also think you’re right that this vocab of transformation vs. reform can be understood in more than one way and that what I’ve grouped for apparent clarity’s sake under one term could arguably go under the other from a different perspective. I’m only trying to provide tools for thinking and discussion, not stating the final word on these issues in any way.

Brokenness in U and U lingo has more often refered to communities than to persons, but I think there is a place for it on a more individual level. Growing up UU, I think I was given an outsize impression of my own capacity for positive good in the world. Now as an adult, I find that I’m in much less control of myself than I imagined I would be, and that I move forward as often by letting go as by pulling myself up by my own bootstraps. If I’m not necessarily “broken,” I’m certainly imperfect and have no realistic hope of true perfection, which was a bitter pill to swallow in my younger days. This isn’t Original Sin, with its metaphor of stain and pollution–it’s Original Imperfection, our inability to truly live up to our own highest ideals no matter how hard we try. Meanwhile, many people come into our denomination with real brokenness, and we need to be able to help them heal. They probably need a different metaphor than me, who needed some air taken out of his over-inflated head.

It is interesting that you use the term “transcendant transformations,” since it was the Transcendentalists who most nearly developed a program for actual transformation of individuals within U and Uism. This relates to their understanding of the nature of language, as famously displayed in Emerson’s Divinity Address, among other sources. Language has power, it should actually provoke inspiration in the hearer. These inspirations are mainly reformist in principle I would argue, but there is room for more radical transformations as well in the Transcendentalist critique of organized 19th century Unitarianism. Since Transcendentalism was as much a literary movement as a spiritual one, and emerged from Puritan New England with its (historically unusual) emphasis on preaching and the place of the sermon in the church service, they had great confidence that inspired words could inspire and change others. If there is a place for transformation in U and Uism, at least historically speaking, I would locate it in open receptivity to inspired preaching. This isn’t quite a discipline, which as you note has more relation to reform than transformation.

The truth is, we rarely transform ourselves. We reform ourselves. Transformation is usually the result of something acting upon us. Thus the effects of inspired preaching in Transcendentalist Unitarianism, or of awakening to God’s unconditional election of all humanity in traditional Universalism. Just some more thoughts in this same vein.

By: chutney

chutney — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 16:10:03 +0000

Danielle,

As I said via email, I think we can talk about immanent transformations (closer to Jeff’s notion of reform) and transcendent transformations, immanent transformations being slow and subtle, transcendent being sudden and crisis provoking (or crisis provoked). I’ve experienced both in my life.

I would see us being more concerned to encourage immanent transformations (and here I am probably in tune with the larger UU tradition) more than transcendent, but I do mean to encourage. Spiritual disciplines are more about immanent, ongoing transformation anyway.

We should also be open to the radical breaks that transcendent transformations make happen. Transcendent experiences tend to elicit either fear or scorn and that seems illiberal and unliberating both.