The Quest for Completion continues with the fifth excerpt.
Youth and Adulthood.
Youth can be defined as a period of life in which we view ourselves as immortal and indestructible. This confidence is a by product of liberation from dependence on mother's milk (which fails in direct measure as our independence of it grows). I believe the obvious case is in the grandious conduct of some youth, but the result is the same whether a youth is testing his or her limits or not.
Our independence though is arguable and soon muted by experience. Physical pain, the not so gentle teacher, soon educates us to a different view of the matter. Make the pain go away is our common plea. We can be heard bargaining with the pain. I will just stop doing something if the pain will just stop. The "pain adverse" among us perhaps delay this moment of compromise but childhood is only temporary regardless of its duration.
This growth is in fits and starts. The pain of social rejection leads to changes in one's conduct. In my youth, I could act selfishly but always had to deal with the barrier to greater productivity in that course of conduct. In behaving socially I could expand my repertoire and success rate. In effect, true selfishness required a change in how I obtained what met my needs. Having obtained social acceptance, our self-confidence returns with a renewed vigor that in socially acceptable conduct we can more fully be indestructible and immortal.
It is ironic that adulthood only leads to a more subtle argument about my indestructibility and immortality. They call it humility. What makes me an adult? I now hold the view that I am mortal and dependent on my surroundings and in being separate I have no being. I am part of the whole, an island not! In procuring the indestructibility and immortality of the whole human race, I procure my own.
I believe based on my life experience that acceptance of my limitations has made me more human and capable of behaving humanely towards others. I have had to look beyond my personal success in having my needs met towards what makes me a successful person, my capacity and enaction of conduct which can be termed indifferent to my personal success, disinterested behavior, doing the right thing even if it does not support my enlargement or grandiosity.
A true parent is such a person because right conduct requires that he do what is right by a child even when that child does not approve of a course of parental conduct. In fact, the child may rage at such parental conduct but true affection for a parent only comes in hindsight and appreciation that the parent was not just well motivated in setting a limit on one's child but that the parent was right to do so. I doubt very much that a parent does the right thing awaiting the day of approval and acceptance by the adult child. If a parent does do so, he or she will spend months and possibly years waiting for that other shoe to drop. The reward is only in doing the right thing.
RJH Saturday, November 22, 2008.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Part 6. Heroic Responsibility
The following is a sixth excerpt from The Quest for Completion.
Part 6. Heroic Responsibility.
The moral code by which we humans may be adjudged by our peers and ourselves is grown by accretion of knowledge and understanding as to what deed or omission to act is right behavior.
A person of consequence in the evolution of the concepts of human responsibility is he or she who sees in the failure to act or in the act itself a consequence to oneself and to others. Without perception of consequences to others there is no human consciousness, just the animal who is checked by responses (Pavlovian response and conditioning).
The higher order of humans over animals is that in humans there is the realization that consequences for others which are negative consequences ultimately affect one's personal consequences. The fact that a personal consequence is positive and the effect on others is negative is the predicate outcome giving rise to the human conscience.
Is there not the beginnings of heroic irony in the individual who in being adjudged not guilty by his peers knows by his abject feelings and acute self-knowledge his loss of innocence. He was called to a higher standard of conduct, and by comparison to that standard, he fell short of the mark.
I will never forget the moment in time when it dawned on me that my personal defeat in life was by an act of love my finest hour of life. Because I felt loved, the love of my mother, I could not do the evil thing I was tempted to do in revenge. Someone had been the adult in life and shown me the way. All I need to do is to follow in her loving footsteps.
The fact that a personal consequence is negative and the effect on others is positive is a predicate outcome giving rise to the super ego, the person capable of disinterested conduct and heroic accomplishment of the self.
RJH November 22, 2008.
Revised by RJH, Wednesday, December 31, 2008.
Part 6. Heroic Responsibility.
The moral code by which we humans may be adjudged by our peers and ourselves is grown by accretion of knowledge and understanding as to what deed or omission to act is right behavior.
A person of consequence in the evolution of the concepts of human responsibility is he or she who sees in the failure to act or in the act itself a consequence to oneself and to others. Without perception of consequences to others there is no human consciousness, just the animal who is checked by responses (Pavlovian response and conditioning).
The higher order of humans over animals is that in humans there is the realization that consequences for others which are negative consequences ultimately affect one's personal consequences. The fact that a personal consequence is positive and the effect on others is negative is the predicate outcome giving rise to the human conscience.
Is there not the beginnings of heroic irony in the individual who in being adjudged not guilty by his peers knows by his abject feelings and acute self-knowledge his loss of innocence. He was called to a higher standard of conduct, and by comparison to that standard, he fell short of the mark.
I will never forget the moment in time when it dawned on me that my personal defeat in life was by an act of love my finest hour of life. Because I felt loved, the love of my mother, I could not do the evil thing I was tempted to do in revenge. Someone had been the adult in life and shown me the way. All I need to do is to follow in her loving footsteps.
The fact that a personal consequence is negative and the effect on others is positive is a predicate outcome giving rise to the super ego, the person capable of disinterested conduct and heroic accomplishment of the self.
RJH November 22, 2008.
Revised by RJH, Wednesday, December 31, 2008.
Part 7. An Attribute of God
The section reproduced below is the seventh and final section of The Quest for Completion in excerpt form.
An Attribute of God.
Human knowledge of God is finite. As an individual, I can only vouch for what I know of God. However, literature which resonates with and is in consonance with our super ego (the study of truth) teaches us even more about the nature of the God than we as individuals can have through our direct experience.
I agree with those who say there is no God known to them. The problem is the God who is known to me! If the philosopher says there is a God, but says that God is not a person, I dissent vociferously. If God not be a person, it is an honest saying, if it does not contradict a person's experience.
The limitation placed artifically on us is that we can only experience what is in existence (or was in existence). The relationship of myself to someone not in existence has become my experience. Notice that I am not abdicating selfhood in saying this. I am saying that I am more fully realized as a person when I accept someone outside of myself who is outside of existence who is ultimately responsible. Why? Because being human, being in existence, my responsibility is finite and circumscribed by my human condition.
The fact that I can have a personal relationship with this person is to say I have come to trust this person will provide the outcome. Think of Abraham and Isaac on the mountaintop. Specifically consider the father who had a personal relationship with God. The father in seeking to appease the will of God would sacrifice his only son, but God holds back this beloved and fearing man with raised knife and provides an animal for sacrifice to symbolize dependence on God's will.
In effect Abraham did not stick a pillow only to later find out it was a person. He was not deluded, but sane, ultimately sane.
The quality of God as merciful is in effect the affirmation of the individual who grows dependent on God's plan and knowledge of God's will. Hence, I know that God has revealed that he is not capable of asking us to do an immoral act, such as killing an innocent child. This God I know affirms me as an individual who each step of the way is accountable for right conduct. God is truly merciful.
RJH November 22, 2008.
Revised by RJH, Wednesday, December 31, 2008.
Revised by RJH Saturday, February 21, 2009.
An Attribute of God.
Human knowledge of God is finite. As an individual, I can only vouch for what I know of God. However, literature which resonates with and is in consonance with our super ego (the study of truth) teaches us even more about the nature of the God than we as individuals can have through our direct experience.
I agree with those who say there is no God known to them. The problem is the God who is known to me! If the philosopher says there is a God, but says that God is not a person, I dissent vociferously. If God not be a person, it is an honest saying, if it does not contradict a person's experience.
The limitation placed artifically on us is that we can only experience what is in existence (or was in existence). The relationship of myself to someone not in existence has become my experience. Notice that I am not abdicating selfhood in saying this. I am saying that I am more fully realized as a person when I accept someone outside of myself who is outside of existence who is ultimately responsible. Why? Because being human, being in existence, my responsibility is finite and circumscribed by my human condition.
The fact that I can have a personal relationship with this person is to say I have come to trust this person will provide the outcome. Think of Abraham and Isaac on the mountaintop. Specifically consider the father who had a personal relationship with God. The father in seeking to appease the will of God would sacrifice his only son, but God holds back this beloved and fearing man with raised knife and provides an animal for sacrifice to symbolize dependence on God's will.
In effect Abraham did not stick a pillow only to later find out it was a person. He was not deluded, but sane, ultimately sane.
The quality of God as merciful is in effect the affirmation of the individual who grows dependent on God's plan and knowledge of God's will. Hence, I know that God has revealed that he is not capable of asking us to do an immoral act, such as killing an innocent child. This God I know affirms me as an individual who each step of the way is accountable for right conduct. God is truly merciful.
RJH November 22, 2008.
Revised by RJH, Wednesday, December 31, 2008.
Revised by RJH Saturday, February 21, 2009.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Gratitude
Recently, I failed to survive my probation as a new hire at Metro Transit here in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. I felt just terrible in the aftermath. My prospects were good when I took this position as I'd a reasonable amount of success previously driving school bus and then metro mobility buses.
My training at Metro Transit was thorough. When I passed my initial written tests and road test, I felt confident as I soloed on city streets doing route work in the morning and evening rush hours along Interstate 394 and Washington and University Avenues of Minneapolis and St. Paul. In the morning, the bus with slight exception was forty foot Gillig bus while in the afternoon it would be a much longer articulated bus. The articulated bus (looks like an accordion between front and rear sections) was especially snakelike to drive while the forty footer was like a big bread box.
As events unfolded, the split shift work proved my undoing. There was something like seven hours between shifts. When I came in the door at night, I'd have to be to bed by 9 P.M. and up by about 4:30 AM.
The first warning sign I had was the week after Memorial Day weekend, a three day weekend for me. I fell asleep in the evening on the couch without going to bed one of those nights. The dispatcher awakened me in the morning when I failed to report for duty on time. I was punished with loss of wages but it was clear I'd given my employer a dagger to hang over my head. As a probationary employee, the employer needed no reason to terminate my employment and the union which collected initiation fees and monthly dues had no legal response within its agreement were I to be terminated from employment.
About two months later, the second event was a pull-out accident from a bus stop. A single car cut-out in the sidewalk for commercial vehicles alongside of the bus stop presented no risk if I pulled out my vehicle my moving forward on the street with a gradual lane change if needed. However, the bus ahead of me deployed its wheel chair ramp and I made a sharp turn into the driving lane to my right. This caused my bus to invade the space occupied by a parked vehicle. I did not know I had struck this vehicle, but subsequently I had to admit that I did not look to see in my right hand mirror that I was clearing the vehicle parked in the cut out. As a professional driver, I was not allowed any excuse for my mistake (which I accept). I had been educated by all of my previous employers about tailswing on buses (especially school buses).
In the week following the accident, I fell asleep a second time without setting the alarm clocks (after the first incident I'd bought a second alarm clock and would set both of them). The decision of management was to terminate my employment with this latest infraction.
Of course I felt devastated. Fortunate for me, I behaved honorably in taking responsibility for both my accident damaging another's property and my failure to report to work on time on two different occasions.
I had feelings about the way I'd been treated. I was treated harshly by a system which believes elimination of probationary employees sets the standard for what comes after probation. Of course this is not true. The treatment of non-probationary employees provides for remediation by the union and management for the same errors I'd made (not termination). I know I felt shame at my personal failure as I have a strong work ethic and the last thing I'd wanted to do was to fail at making my job change a success. My employer's consequence is it lost a professional and professionally trained bus operator.
My whole effort was to behave professionally and as a gentleman, but I had not owned the price I was paying to make it through probation. In reality I put much stress upon myself in addition to employer supplied threats and requirements. My behavior had its price. I suffered an anxiety attack shortly after the termination which presented itself as a heart attack.
The good news is that I turned to God for support in dealing with the anxiety and the job loss. I was the beneficiary of prayers for me and my loving family provided some self-employment income to me and gifted gas money to help with the transition.
The reason I'm sharing this episode of my life with my readers is that I'm grateful that God took me out of a situation in which I could not succeed and put me into a better situation (but this better situation is a story for another day). I have always believed that for an ethical employee God is the real employer and God alone provides us with our daily bread.
My training at Metro Transit was thorough. When I passed my initial written tests and road test, I felt confident as I soloed on city streets doing route work in the morning and evening rush hours along Interstate 394 and Washington and University Avenues of Minneapolis and St. Paul. In the morning, the bus with slight exception was forty foot Gillig bus while in the afternoon it would be a much longer articulated bus. The articulated bus (looks like an accordion between front and rear sections) was especially snakelike to drive while the forty footer was like a big bread box.
As events unfolded, the split shift work proved my undoing. There was something like seven hours between shifts. When I came in the door at night, I'd have to be to bed by 9 P.M. and up by about 4:30 AM.
The first warning sign I had was the week after Memorial Day weekend, a three day weekend for me. I fell asleep in the evening on the couch without going to bed one of those nights. The dispatcher awakened me in the morning when I failed to report for duty on time. I was punished with loss of wages but it was clear I'd given my employer a dagger to hang over my head. As a probationary employee, the employer needed no reason to terminate my employment and the union which collected initiation fees and monthly dues had no legal response within its agreement were I to be terminated from employment.
About two months later, the second event was a pull-out accident from a bus stop. A single car cut-out in the sidewalk for commercial vehicles alongside of the bus stop presented no risk if I pulled out my vehicle my moving forward on the street with a gradual lane change if needed. However, the bus ahead of me deployed its wheel chair ramp and I made a sharp turn into the driving lane to my right. This caused my bus to invade the space occupied by a parked vehicle. I did not know I had struck this vehicle, but subsequently I had to admit that I did not look to see in my right hand mirror that I was clearing the vehicle parked in the cut out. As a professional driver, I was not allowed any excuse for my mistake (which I accept). I had been educated by all of my previous employers about tailswing on buses (especially school buses).
In the week following the accident, I fell asleep a second time without setting the alarm clocks (after the first incident I'd bought a second alarm clock and would set both of them). The decision of management was to terminate my employment with this latest infraction.
Of course I felt devastated. Fortunate for me, I behaved honorably in taking responsibility for both my accident damaging another's property and my failure to report to work on time on two different occasions.
I had feelings about the way I'd been treated. I was treated harshly by a system which believes elimination of probationary employees sets the standard for what comes after probation. Of course this is not true. The treatment of non-probationary employees provides for remediation by the union and management for the same errors I'd made (not termination). I know I felt shame at my personal failure as I have a strong work ethic and the last thing I'd wanted to do was to fail at making my job change a success. My employer's consequence is it lost a professional and professionally trained bus operator.
My whole effort was to behave professionally and as a gentleman, but I had not owned the price I was paying to make it through probation. In reality I put much stress upon myself in addition to employer supplied threats and requirements. My behavior had its price. I suffered an anxiety attack shortly after the termination which presented itself as a heart attack.
The good news is that I turned to God for support in dealing with the anxiety and the job loss. I was the beneficiary of prayers for me and my loving family provided some self-employment income to me and gifted gas money to help with the transition.
The reason I'm sharing this episode of my life with my readers is that I'm grateful that God took me out of a situation in which I could not succeed and put me into a better situation (but this better situation is a story for another day). I have always believed that for an ethical employee God is the real employer and God alone provides us with our daily bread.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Reflections on the Water
I do not want my previously stated positions found in earlier blogs on the non-existence of God and God's coming into existence to redeem humankind or to reclaim humankind as his own children to be misconstrued as a denial of the sciences which focus on this universe.
It is in this universe that we live and die and for that matter have our experience of God. I have a deep respect for science and only remind my readers that "science" means knowledge. The limited use of the word science for the inductive and deductive sequence of reproducible occurrences and prediction of outcomes in nature is not to be messed with by me (although many true believers in God think God is undermined by the success of science).
I obviously do not accept that the modern scientific community has any business concluding that atheism is anymore scientifically based than deism is so based.
The greater dimension than physics and chemistry can ever come to know is the larger than existence dimension of God. It is in concluding that a personal relationship with God is procurable by we so ordinary human beings that the spiritual domain has efficacy for we the living. This experience is well founded in human history and the personal experience of saints and mystics. I love the fact that Adam in the creation mythology of the Fertile Crescent walked and talked with God. I absolutely adore the notion that we are intended by God to be conversant with God on our good days and our bad. I also love the fact that Mother Theresa struggled with the non-existence of God, but wildly lived the life of one who permitted the God of Love to move through her into service to the outcasts of India.
The scurrilous remark of a Christian pastor was that God does not hear the prayers of the Jewish people. I know the humorous retort of God upon hearing the remark goes something like this: "Why listen to the prayers of someone who talks to me all the time?" So much for the self-righteous view of salvation.
It is in this universe that we live and die and for that matter have our experience of God. I have a deep respect for science and only remind my readers that "science" means knowledge. The limited use of the word science for the inductive and deductive sequence of reproducible occurrences and prediction of outcomes in nature is not to be messed with by me (although many true believers in God think God is undermined by the success of science).
I obviously do not accept that the modern scientific community has any business concluding that atheism is anymore scientifically based than deism is so based.
The greater dimension than physics and chemistry can ever come to know is the larger than existence dimension of God. It is in concluding that a personal relationship with God is procurable by we so ordinary human beings that the spiritual domain has efficacy for we the living. This experience is well founded in human history and the personal experience of saints and mystics. I love the fact that Adam in the creation mythology of the Fertile Crescent walked and talked with God. I absolutely adore the notion that we are intended by God to be conversant with God on our good days and our bad. I also love the fact that Mother Theresa struggled with the non-existence of God, but wildly lived the life of one who permitted the God of Love to move through her into service to the outcasts of India.
The scurrilous remark of a Christian pastor was that God does not hear the prayers of the Jewish people. I know the humorous retort of God upon hearing the remark goes something like this: "Why listen to the prayers of someone who talks to me all the time?" So much for the self-righteous view of salvation.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Why Christians must condemn burning the Koran
I believe madness and idiocy should not be confused with belief in a loving God. Regardless of the packaging we try to place God into, we must let God be the God of all, not just some of us. Extremism is usually the height of selfishness, fear, and paranoia.
In the news of the day is a Florida pastor of a small evangelical Christian congregation who plans to burn copies of the Koran on September 11, 2010, while many Christian and national leaders protest his planned conduct and request that he desist. See Damien Caves article in the New York Times of September 7, 2010: In Florida, Many Lay Plans to Counter a Pastor’s Message.
Where is the confidence in God in behaving like this minister who puts himself in contempt of the great commandment's second condition that we love our neighbors as ourselves?
The historical record of intolerance, bigotry, and repression is our human history. So too is the tolerance of Moors of Spain who tolerated Jewish synagogues and were enriched by multi-culturism. So too the chance at greatness for our country is respect for minorities who are able to benefit from the protection of our laws and extend that benefit to other minorities as they come into wealth, prosperity, and political power.
The problem all too often is when individuals and groups are not to be limited in their conduct by respectfulness of others. The kind word "fringe" is used for any group which is not limited in its rhetoric or conduct by the law of love and would do evil in the name of justice or righteousness. The unkind phrase is "lunatic fringe" which is apt if the conduct of a fringe group spirals out of control into murder, mayhem, and war.
The true human pathway is to act in justice and mercy as we would be treated in our weakness or failure.
In the news of the day is a Florida pastor of a small evangelical Christian congregation who plans to burn copies of the Koran on September 11, 2010, while many Christian and national leaders protest his planned conduct and request that he desist. See Damien Caves article in the New York Times of September 7, 2010: In Florida, Many Lay Plans to Counter a Pastor’s Message.
Where is the confidence in God in behaving like this minister who puts himself in contempt of the great commandment's second condition that we love our neighbors as ourselves?
The historical record of intolerance, bigotry, and repression is our human history. So too is the tolerance of Moors of Spain who tolerated Jewish synagogues and were enriched by multi-culturism. So too the chance at greatness for our country is respect for minorities who are able to benefit from the protection of our laws and extend that benefit to other minorities as they come into wealth, prosperity, and political power.
The problem all too often is when individuals and groups are not to be limited in their conduct by respectfulness of others. The kind word "fringe" is used for any group which is not limited in its rhetoric or conduct by the law of love and would do evil in the name of justice or righteousness. The unkind phrase is "lunatic fringe" which is apt if the conduct of a fringe group spirals out of control into murder, mayhem, and war.
The true human pathway is to act in justice and mercy as we would be treated in our weakness or failure.
Monday, August 16, 2010
A Preface to the Quest for Completion
I wrote recently a personal collection of essays which are meant to be an explication of my spiritual beliefs. I would gladly share these essays with any of my blog readers. Just send me an email to ricklaw5@msn.com for an electronic copy. The collection is called The Quest for Completion.
A Preface to The Quest for Completion.
Time has passed since I composed segments of The Quest for Completion. I have to say at this juncture (Thursday, August 12, 2010), I am not discontent with the effort and result of my efforts at personal remediation of the human condition and its relationship with a loving God in the Universe (or outside of the universe). While I am the first reader of my writing, I am still too close to my writings to conclude the essays are quality work or not. I can only say that the writings are helpful to me personally on my faith journey.
Since I am not a trained theologian, philosopher, or savant, I can only say I do not as yet worry too much about an audience for this book written by me, a lay person. I am an individual who wanted to write a street view of God and personal morality that would be a help to others who perhaps in transit like myself would receive encouragement from me. Essentially, I wrote these essays because I needed clarity in my personal beliefs as I live in a world fraught with disbelief, cynicism, and despair.
This preface is actually prompted by a recent rereading of a favorite book rather than by my own essays. This is a book extremely helpful to me in its discourse on reality and idealism, what is unknown and known, how we know it and how we come to know it.
What I came across today in rereading a recent edition of this book, Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, is interesting to note in relationship to my efforts. In tackling the "quality" perspective on art and rhetoric and even mechanical or architectural efforts, author Robert M. Pirsig had to settle on a duality aspect of quality and the resolution of what is successful as art, rhetoric, or even scientific theorem. If we just know what is quality but are unschooled in the elements or characteristics of great art, rhetoric, architecture, science, et cetera, then is our finding of quality valid? He concludes that it is.
I think so too, but our ability to discuss the quality of something reflects only on our lack of schooling. A person's subjective and perhaps pre-verbal response to something is not invalid but itself a measurement on the effectiveness of some effort.
In a classical education of the artist, if one has precursors in a domain, one has to meet, match, and transcend the masters to make something truly new and different. However, that classic understanding of art education, is confounded by the making of something of quality when one is unschooled (romantic notion and "no school for geniuses" required concept).
The really good news in Pirsig's novel/essay is that which is successful can not be wholly captured by formal education on any topic. The frontiers of science and art are by definition outside of schooling. Albert Einstein in his evolution as a profound thinker was lucky to have survived formal education such as it was in his youth and locale.
I am reminded of Einstein's resolution of models for light which to me represent a way of reconciling seemingly irreconciliable opposites. Particle theory explained in part the behavior of light and so did wave theory explain the behavior of light and neither theory wholly encompassed what was known of the behavior of light. To close the loop here, the non-existence of God and the existence of God theories are seemingly incompatible except for the explanation each makes.
If I have settled on the existence of God, it is because for me it covers the most ground. The fact I can not resolve the God question on merely rational grounds, means I ultimately have to resort to my innate sense of incompletion (1) as an individual, (2) as a human community. Hence the growth in awareness that I am not God (Hitler needed this realization before all the evil he dealt) and We are not God (Nazi Germany rhapsodized by its leaders as the Master Race fell into sorry ruin). Which is to say we are in quest of completion in unity with God to whom we must answer to be whole and at one with him. That's it in a nutshell.
Theology can be defined as the the knowable about God, a final science at the edge of and beyond the end of material world in which we live and have our being. I am as a "romantic" convinced that theology is not the ultimate resolution, while our rejoinder to God is. It is a delicate knowledge we pursue for in coming to know God we are in pursuit of our calling to transcend an animal nature and keep company with the angels whose sole purpose in not being in being is to glorify God. We have the marvelous task of coming to glorify God in all of our being.
In all humility, as a "classicist" I am respectful of those in science, philosophy, and theology who have given a lifetime of efforts in disciplined study, trial and error. I just have to accept that my efforts here in these essays benefitted from learned predecessors of whom I am so unschooled I could not properly attribute to them each his or her due.
RJH. Revised on Sunday, August 15, 2010 and again Friday, October 1, 2010.
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