[Dialogue] I went to church today

[Karl Hess]

Dick,

What a dramatic example of modernity, As Daniel 
Bell describes it " the rejection of a revealed 
order or natural order, and the substitution of 
the individual - the ego, the self- as the 
lodestar of consciousness. What we have here is 
the social reversal of the Copernican revolution: 
if our planet is no longer the center of the 
physical universe and our earthly habitat is 
diminished in the horizons of nature, the 
ego/self takes the throne as the center of the 
moral universe, making itself the arbiter of all 
decisions."

And what a dramatic conttrast to Kierkegaard below. 

Karl

The Listener's Role in a Devotional Address

Chapt 12 in "Purity of Heart" by Soren Kierkegaard
ŠIn order that no irregularity may be admitted or 
no double-mindedness left unmentioned, let me 
then at this point, where the demand is being 
made for a person's own activity, briefly 
illustrate the relation between the speaker and 
the listener in a devotional address.  Let me in 
order once again to take up arms against 
double-mindedness, make this illustration by 
borrowing a picture from worldly art.  And do not 
let the two senses in which this may be taken 
disturb you or give you grounds for accusing the 
address of impropriety.  For if you have dared to 
attend an exhibition of worldly art, then by 
doing this, you yourself must have dome to 
understand what is meant by spiritual.  Therefore 
you must have considered the spiritual with the 
worldly art even though it was the means of your 
first distinct recognition of the difference 
between the two.  If you did not, discord and 
double-mindedness are in your own heart, so that 
you live for periods of time on the worldly plane 
with only an occasional thought of the spiritual. 

It is so on the stage, as you know well enough, 
that someone sits and prompts by whispers;  he is 
the inconspicuous one, he is, and wishes to be 
overlooked.  But then there is another;  he 
strides out prominently, he draws every eye to 
himself.  For that reason he has been given his 
name, that is: actor.  He impersonates a distinct 
individual.  In the skillful sense of this 
illusory art, each word becomes true when 
embodied in him, true through him - and yet he is 
told what he shall say by the hidden one that 
sits and whispers.  No one is so foolish as to 
regard the prompter as more important than the 
actor.

Now forget this light talk about art.  Alas, in 
regard to things spiritual, the foolishness of 
many is this, that they in the secular sense look 
upon the speaker as an actor, and the listeners 
as theatergoers who are to pass judgement upon 
the artist.  But the speaker is not the actor - 
not in the remotest sense.  No, the speaker is 
the prompter.  There are no mere theatergoers 
present, for each listener will be looking into 
his own heart.  The stage is eternity, and the 
listener, if he is the true listener (and if he 
is not, he is at fault) stands before God during 
the talk.  The prompter whispers to the actor 
what he is to say, but the actor's repetition of 
it is the main concern - is the solemn charm of 
the art.  The speaker whispers the word to the 
listeners.  But the main concern is earnestness; 
that the listeners by themselves, with 
themselves, and to themselves, in the silence 
before God, may speak with the help of this 
address

The address is not given for the speaker's sake, 
in order that men may praise or blame him.  The 
listener's repetition of it is what is aimed at. 
If the speaker has the responsibility for what he 
whispers, then the listener has an equally great 
responsibility not to fall short in his task.  In 
the theater the play is staged before an audience 
who are called theatergoers; but at the 
devotional address, Got himself is present.  In 
the most earnest sense, God is the critical 
theatergoer, who looks on to see how the lines 
are spoken and how they are listened to: hence 
here the customary audience is wanting.  The 
speaker is then the prompter, and the listener 
stands openly before God.  The listener, if I may 
say so, is the actor, who in all truth acts 
before God

ŠAs soon as the spiritual is looked upon in 
worldly fashion (an observation for which one has 
the same foolishness to thank as that which would 
look upon the prompter in a play as more 
important than the actor) then the speaker 
becomes an actor and the listeners become 
critical theatergoers.  In the same way, from the 
secular point of view, the devotional address is 
simply held for a group of attenders and God is 
no more present that he is in the theater.  God's 
presence is the decisive thing that changes all. 
As soon as God is present, each man in the 
presence of God has the task of paying attention 
to himself.  The speaker must see that during the 
address he pays attention to himself, to what he 
says; the listener, that during the address he 
pays attention to himself, to how he listens, and 
whether during the address he, in his inner self, 
secretly talks with God.

ŠThe talk asks you, then, or you ask yourself by 
means of the talk, what kind of life do you live, 
do you will only one thing, and what is this one 
thing?

ŠThe talk assumes, then that you will the Good 
and asks you now, what kind of life you live, 
whether or not you truthfully will only one 
thing."

------------------------------------------

From the preface: "[This little book] is in 
search of that solitary "individual," to whom it 
wholly abandons itself, by whom it wished to be 
received as if it had arisen within his own 
heart; that solitary "individual" whom with joy 
and gratitude I call my reader; that solitary 
"individual" who reads willingly and slowly, who 
reads over and over again, and who reads aloud - 
for his own sake.

[As it happened, I did read much of this aloud, 
about sunrise over Annie Creek in Crater Lake, 
with many cups of strong, hot coffee.  One of the 
most memorable experiences of my life.]
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