First Principle and Foundation (2)

Last week I wrote about the principle of Ignatian Spirituality which is to develop the first principle and foundation of your spiritual life.  The first principle and foundation of Ignatian Spirituality is:

God created human beings to praise, reverence, and serve God, and by doing this, to save their souls. God created all other things on the face of the earth to help fulfill this purpose. From this it follows that we are to use the things of this world only to the extent that they help us to this end, and we ought to rid ourselves of the things of this world to the extent that they get in the way of this end.

The question which came to mind when considering this is, how do we know if the first principle and foundation is true to who we are created to be?  What if someone has determined that their first principle and foundation is to gain as much money, or material goods, or power that they can, and heaven help anyone who stands in their way.  There does not seem to be anything that will determine, in and of itself, that a first principle and foundation is what will be good for the world or for the individual who professes this.  Christians can, of course, base their first principle and foundation on the Great Commandment of Jesus i.e., to love others as he loves us and to love our neighbours as ourselves.  This seems to be, what you could say, is what lies beneath the first principle and foundation of Ignatian Spirituality.

I was reminded recently, when considering this question, of a traditional aboriginal teaching to help us further unpack this question:

A wise elder is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.

“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old man simply replied, “The one you feed.”

This states the quandary quite clearly.  It is possible to have a first principle and foundation that feeds either of the wolves which are inside each of us.  We have the free will which God has given us to decide which wolf we feed. 

Another way of looking at this issue, which is not directly a religious one, is to examine it from the perspective of unity and division.  Does a principle and foundation work for unity or does it promote division in our lives and in the community?  Northrop Frye, the great literary critic and author of the Great Code, addressed this in his preface to The Bush Garden, subtitled, Essays on the Canadian Imagination:

Real unity tolerates dissent and rejoices in variety of outlook and tradition, recognizes that it is man’s destiny to unite and not divide, and understands that creating proletariat and scapegoats and second-class citizens is a mean and contemptible activity. 

That was written circa 1970 and is ever so true today where the mean and contemptible activity which strives for disunity seems to fill the news. 

Which wolf will you feed on your journey?  May you be blessed to feed the one which brings love and unity.

Proof and Faith

One of my summer activities has been to listen to a wonderful series of lectures by Canadian icon Northrop Frye, literary critic who delved so deeply in the bible with his seminal work The Great Code.  The lectures entitled The Bible and Literature at the University of Toronto are available on-line at https://heritage.utoronto.ca/content/video/bible-and-english-literature-northrop-frye-full-lecture-1.

One of the statements by Frye in lecture 9, which caught my attention and made me sit up and take special note, was his assertion that “the more trustworthy the evidence, the more misleading it is.”  Frye was asserting this in relation to proof and the desire that people – at least some people - have, to find hard evidence of the events and accounts which are contained in the bible.  One example is the craze some years ago following supposed discover of the remains of Noah’s Arc on Mt. Ararat.  Then there was the case of the ossuary (vessel) that was purported to hold the bones of James, the brother of Jesus.  Especially notable is the Shroud of Turin which is held to be the burial cloth which was used to wrap Jesus’ body after the crucifix.   People seem to want and even need physical proof to affirm their beliefs that are the foundation of their faith.

I must confess that I have had this desire at times for proof and I was particularly taken with the Shroud of Turin years ago when it was first in the popular press.  It is, perhaps, human nature to desire proof of what is presented to us as reality, especially these days when there is so much in the news and on social media that needs to be questioned.  So, when Frye made the statement that the more trustworthy the evidence the more misleading it was, it didn’t make logical sense to me.

However. I was very pleased and relieved that he clarified this statement later in the lecture.  Here is the clarification from the transcript:

The point that I want to return to when we come to the Book of Job is that no serious religion ever tries to answer anybody's questions, because in any serious or existential matter the progress in understanding is a progress through a sequence of formulating better questions. An authoritative answer blocks off progress; it blocks off all advance. The answer consolidates the assumptions in the question, and brings the process to a dead stop. That is what I mean when I say that the more trustworthy the evidence, the more misleading it is. Trustworthy evidence means a kind of authority that stops you from asking any more questions.

This is the sign of a good teacher who does not want to close off the human desire to explore possibilities and enable the student to discover what is revealed which will lead to further discoveries.  This was the message in the account of the disciple Thomas who demanded proof that Jesus had been raised from the dead.   Jesus answered him and us, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”  This is essential when it comes to ultimate truths life and the world.  If we look at the belief in God from what is called the God of the gaps in which our faith is based on what science can’t explain – at least at this point.  As the result of scientific discoveries, we have to adjust our belief in God and what God is doing in the world based on what science can now explain.  However, the discoveries of science do not close off our exploration of how God has created and continues to create life and how God is calling us to be the people God created us to be.  Those questions just lead to more questions and I do not believe that science will ever provide the definitive answer or answers in the realm in which God is working.  It is love through which God created and continues to create.  Love will never be weighed or measured or put under the most powerful electron microscope.

May you be blessed to continue to formulate questions le seek better answers that will lead to yet more questions on your journey.  

  

It’s Ironic Isn’t It?

 I have been reading The Great Code by Northrop Frye, the eminent literary Critic.   The subtitle of the book is, The Bible and Literature.  The Great Code does just what the title promises and gives us a Code or key to a deeper understanding of the Bible and unfolds myth and metaphor as a way to unlock meaning woven into the texts that lie in its pages. 

There are many parts of the book which had a profound impact on me.  However, one passage that resonated particularly with me in the book is found on page 73, “The Bible’s vision of misery is ironic rather than tragic.”   This book is not light reading but is it most worthwhile delving into the depths of Frye’s approach to the Bible.  This phrase was up there with the most puzzling.  I wany to try and unpack this statement and explore what is behind this statement.

The first thing I became aware of in considering this is that I was not completely sure what irony actually is.  One thing I could be sure of is that it wasn’t “rain on your wedding day” as claimed by Alanis Morrisette in her breakthrough hit, Ironic.  Here’s a link if you want to be reminded about the song, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_tqW-Gno2k.

Just because it rains on your wedding day doesn’t make the occasion or the experience ironic.  One clear definition of irony is, “the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning.”  There is often a humorous result.  Some examples of irony in literature which I fund on-line include:

·         In the[GL1]  final act of Romeo and Juliette, Shakespeare employs dramatic irony to keep the audience on the edge of their seats.  Friar Laurence sends a messenger to tell Romeo about Juliet’s plan to drug herself into deathlike coma. We watch in horror as the messenger fails to deliver this vital piece of information. And though we know that Juliet is not really dead, we see Romeo poison himself because he cannot live without her.

·         Johnathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal is a classic example of verbal irony. He begins seemingly in earnest, discussing the sad state of destitute children.   whoever could find out a fair, cheap, and easy method of making these children sound, useful members of the commonwealth, would deserve so well of the public as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation. Seems reasonable enough. But things take a very ironic turn.  I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.  Is Swift sincerely proposing that we eat children? No, but he has indeed inverted our expectations and written a wonderfully ironic essay which critiqued the situation in Ireland.

There is no humor in the first example but there is very dark humor in the second so we can see that humor Is not an essential component of irony.  However, to turn back to Frye’s statement, can the misery in the Bible be seen as ironic?  In his preliminary discussion of this, Frye notes that literature (remember Frye is treating the Bible as literature), has two great organizing patterns, comedy and tragedy.  Comedy does not relate to humor but, rather, is the restoration of the natural order i.e., a happy ending.  Tragedy does the opposite; toward a fulfillment of the saying, “no man is happy until he is dead” to use Frye’s example.  Frye notes:

To see misery as tragic, as a destroyed and perverted form of greatness and splendor, is a primary achievement of Geek literature.  The Bible’s vision of misery is ironic rather than tragic, but the same dialectical separation of the two worlds is quite strongly marked. 

Frye goes on to explain the difference between God’s time and our time as God declares in Isaiah, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

I believe that Frye is stating that misery (tragedy) in the Bible is ironic because in God’s time all will be restored.  There may be events that are tragic from our perspective but in God’s time, “all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.” (Julian of Norwich)   

May you be blessed with a portion of irony and may all be well on your journey.

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