[Oe List ...] Salmon: reply to Ellie on Niebuhr/Tillich, etc.

Fri May 1 17:38:42 EDT 2009

Ellie--
    I'm with you. The indicative is that we are not separated but we practice thinking we are because of the conflict between our human/natural and our humane/spiritual states of being. Ignorance and denial are the two worst enemies we humans face. This is why living the humane and gracious life while working for justice and mercy becomes the empirical evidence of how we fulfill our intended creation. There is nothing moral here, but it an ethical stance to live the humane life.  
    Using the old Lutheran 'shorter' catechism, our human purpose is to praise God. When God is experienced as Perfect At-One-Ment (the doctrine of the Atonement), then when we live At-One with our intended purpose we praise God. In this same way the cow, the tree and the rock praise God by fulfilling their "Is-ness." 
     Bill Salmon
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: elliestock at aol.com 
  To: oe at wedgeblade.net ; Dialogue at wedgeblade.net 
  Sent: Friday, May 01, 2009 2:54 PM
  Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Internal screwed-up-ness, Niebuhr and so on

  I would like to go beyond Tillich.  Seems to me the indicative is that we are connected to each other, all life forms, the larger earth/creation and God--not separated.  The problem and consequences of our behavior come from our thinking and living "as if" we were separated, disconnected.  That is why we "miss the mark" and for me is a definition of sin.
  Ellie

  -----Original Message-----
  From: R Williams <rcwmbw at yahoo.com>
  To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe at wedgeblade.net>
  Sent: Fri, 1 May 2009 10:21 am
  Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Internal screwed-up-ness, Niebuhr and so on

        Frank, Bill and all,

        When Methodist clergy are going through the ordination process they are asked, "Are you going on the perfection?"  Granted that this is high symbolism right out of the tradition of John Wesley, I nonetheless find that the discussion of the human condition in terms of perfection/imperfection leads nowhere but to moralism.  If I am "going on the perfection" that assumes I'm not there yet and that therefore being imperfect, I'm flawed--damaged goods as it were.

        It's not that we're not "imperfect.  I realize, as I read Niebuhr to say, that imperfection is one adjective, among others, that describes us.  I just don't20find it constructive to think of it in those terms.  Rather than "imperfection," I prefer to think of the human condition in terms of "incompletion."  JWM once said that until a person has experienced his/her own death, he/she is not complete.  I don't think he meant by "experiencing death" coming face to face with the fact that we are going to die.  I think he meant doing it--dying.  To put that as the precondition for "completeness", which I interpret to mean "wholeness," puts us into a kind of "being absorbed back into the world soul" mode.

        Think of "incompleteness" in the context of Tillich's "sin as separation."  If I'm separated from my own mystery, depth and greatness, from my neighbor and the ground of being itself, I think it's safe to say I'm incomplete.  This, it seems to me, is to see the situation in terms of the ontological, existential, indicative, etc. but clearly not as an issue of morality.

        So, for me my human striving is not to "go on to perfection" but "to go on to completion," to become reunited with the G-O-B, self and neighbor and to thus experience myself as whole.  In the quest I discover that my completeness/wholeness is all wrapped up with everyone and everything else's completeness and wholeness.  Where anyone or anything is less than whole, I am diminished as well.  Therefore my striving is to serve all creation, not so that it may be "un-flawed," but so that it may experience and live out of its completeness/wholeness and in the process I, as a part of all creation, may experience and live out of my completeness/wholeness as well, to the degree that that is possible, assuming JWM was right, this side of the grave.

        My contribution to the ever evolving story,
        Randy Williams

        --- On Thu, 4/30/09, frank bremner <fjbremner at hotmail.com> wrote:

          From: frank bremner <fjbremner at hotmail.com>
          Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Internal screwed-up-ness, Niebuhr and so on
          To: "Dialogue ICA" <oe at wedgeblade.net>
          Date: Thursday, April 30, 2009, 7:56 PM

          Thanks, Bill.  More below. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------
          From: bschlesinger.pv at tachc.org
          To: oe at wedgeblade.net
          Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2009 17:45:01 -0600
          Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Internal screwed-up-ness, Niebuhr and so on

          It’s been interesting to me that ‘sin’ has taken on a moral connotation (You Are Bad!).  The Greek word – hamartia – means ‘missed the mark.’  It’s pretty ontological itself.  The other element is the pretty clear language in the synoptics and John a bout the Jesus character; suffering and death isn’t equated with ‘divine punishment,’ but the necessary consequence to confronting embedded systems of control that are based on manipulation, coercion and hierarchy.  (I've always thought of martyrdom as unintended but sometimes necessary consequences.  Was Bobby Sands, N Ireland hunger striker, a martyr?  Is hunger striking really martyrdom - or is that a popular and common abuse of the word?  I've always said "No" as it manipulates the situation, rather than being a consequence of a positively intended action, but .......) ... That consequence happens but isn’t the last word.  The alternative system to confronting those systems is George Bush vs.. Saddam Hussein.  And it has its consequences.  

          Basically, there are 10 types of people.  Those who get binary and those who don’t..  That’s a joke.  I'll pass this one on to the students I tutor in Year 12 Mathematics.  There are some good binary jokes in Jasper Fforde's novels about the Nursery Crime Division. 

          The pattern of ‘accountability’ sometimes appeals to some standard out there for right action.  It also assumes the ability to measure behavior and actions and their consequences.  It can also be a method of discipline and care – future oriented for both the individual and the society.  (Did you take that cookie?).  It never fixes the past, but can be a helpful tool in pulling things together for the next step.  Blame and shame often leads to arrogance (I’m good, I did the best I could) or despair (I’m a worthless fool.)  Both are – of course – illusions, miss the mark, and are postures of ‘hamartia.’  

          “Taking the hit”  - turning the other cheek – cutting loose the bonds (aphiemi – translated as forgiveness) of having missed the mark – has the capacity of trying to fit the pieces together (eiren e – translated ‘peace’) so they work.  (I really like the word stuff in Greek).  It isn’t letting the living dead eat you up (aha! where's my copy of DHL?); it’s trusting that life sustains us as beloved in the midst of all the screwing up we and others can do, and beckons us constantly to the responsibility that comes with being linked to all that is. 

          This is a little stream of consciousness (but very useful images, thanks) – we’re in the midst of trying to set up condo’s for low income folk ($30K each), and applying for a SAMHSA grant to integrate primary care into behavioral health.  Seriously mentally ill folk die about 25 years sooner than others; nobody’s set up to deal with their diabetes, hypertension, etc.  The music’s coming in the window from a youth fair outside the window.  And our youngest son leaves for Iraq this Saturday.  

          Bill Schlesinger
          Project Vida
          3607 Rivera Ave
          El Paso, TX 79905
          (915) 533-7057 x 207
          (915) 490-6148 mobile
          (915) 533-7158 fax
          bschlesinger.pv at tachc.org

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

          From: oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of frank bremner
          Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2009 3:17 PM
          To: Dialogue OE
          Subject: Re: [Oe List ....] Internal screwed-up-ness, Niebuhr and so on

          Thanks everyone, for your comments on brokenness, and the Niebuhr commentary.  They have been use ful in coffee-break conversations within my BTh subject Grace and Humanity (Christian anthropology).  Lots of stuff about creation, eschatology, sin and grace (of course!), and so on.  

          (I was also interested in the notes about Hilary Clinton's youth pastor in Carl Bernstein's book about her - his theological influences looked very familiar, although they were part of the US theological landscape.)

          I'm doing the tutorial on Karl Rahner - as his brother once said, it's be great if he'd written in German!  But I like his notion that "creation is already blessed" - echoes of Matthew Fox's Original Blessing.  I may even refer to Jimmy Carter's interview in Playboy, in which he spoke about forgiveness in an ontological fashion.

          I'm doing my major essay on "What, if anything, is distinct about Christian freedom".  Any suggestions on leads and references to pursue?  I'm certainly taking the tack that "man (sic) is freedom" from NRM/OW/RS-I etc.  

          And definitely taking a Christian (and Christ-event) approach rather than a Jesus-ian one - although Jesus before Pilate, and Conchis (in John Fowles' The Magus) before the Nazi firing squad are good illustrations of extreme freedom, of freedom as "relationship to the situation".  And Kazantzakis' phrase about "man loses his (sic) freedom as soon as he uses it" (from Report to Greco?).  

          And certainly the responsibility/obedience/ freedom relationship from Bonhoeffer - my current take is an ontological rather than a moral one - that obedience (from obediens = I listen) means living in a world of connectedness, and that freedom means living in a world of solitariness in my decision-making ("When I'm on my journey there is no-one else but me").

          Any ideas?  Good references?  Good quotes?  (Remember "corporate writing"?)

          Cheers

          Frank Bremner

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