9-21-10 THE DOVE EMERGES FROM ITS COOP

Fatigued as I am, I thought it might be one opportunity to get to the crux of the most recent blogs; besides, I am leaving soon for AZ to visit Daniel and so probably won't be going on line much untill after Oct. 4, FYI.

To finish up about the dove/coat. The point which I hope is getting through is that no one would mistake a dovecote for a dove! The two are related but not the same thing at all. I thought some of the pictures of elaborate gingerbread dove dwellings were interesting but not so arresting as the doves who might live there, and the level of complexity of a single dove is far above the most Rube Goldbergian birdhouse imaginable. The latter is designed and built and put outside by a man. The former is a product of a far more powerful complexity than we who put up houses--even of worship-- can comprehend.

How much more absurd must it be to confuse the Person of Jesus with a church building, plus minus congregation/organization! We cannot compare the Person of Christ with any other person, assumption, presupposition, system, theology, philosophy or especially the many religious and political movements and theories we have gotten going.

Vladmir of "Waiting for Godot" asks his friend Estragon: "Surely you're not comparing yourself with Christ!!!???" To which Estragon wails,"All my life I've compared myself to him!!!" The results speak for themselves. If we merely compare ourselves with Him and sit on it, as do the two tramps in this play, we end at a malign stasis; a state which fascinated Beckett but one which he would not allow for himself. Doesn't pay the bills y'know......write on!

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a collection of essays about great men of history. After it was published, someone asked him why he didn't include Jesus Christ; to which he replied, (my paraphrase), "Jesus is not a mere man."

Sometimes it takes a pagan view from outside of our religious boilerplate to reveal that we, our emperorships, have no clothes. "No man ever spoke like this man!" Comparing ourselves to Christ will only lead to despair, as will merely emulating Christ, as in that sad, incomplete, and man-centered phrase, "WWJD?". Anything we will do but come to Christ on a personal and vulnerable and needy level i.e., the way we actually are. We prefer our culture, our morals and ethics hand-made, and our imperatives at our level--but still in the endgame impossible since no one lives up to their own values, much less those of society, much less to those imperatives of God which are made simple enough for a child to follow and for intellectuals and judges to completely miss and abjure.

On the other hand, as far as philosophy, I am not saying anything not already said by perfectly competent philosophers such as Kirkegaard or writers like Muggeridge, O'Connor, and Percy. Yet I am continually amazed at how secular (or religious) people, very intelligent otherwise, completely miss their main points. I have a collection of essays about Percy that doesn't even mention God, much less Christ! If there's any doubt, read their interviews and their letters of the authors themselves and eschew mere commentary.

To balance this out, no one should construe the above to mean that religion and/or politics and/or philosophies of men are useless. They do hold society together, and far more lives have been saved than burned by having some guidelines instead of chaos, with which the French continue to experiment ! So the controversies that erupt among us like sore boils on Job do serve a practical purpose, just as they did for Job in spite of coming right out of the pit of hell! We do not know what will come of these conflicts; but one thing I do notice is that Job himself never figured any of this out. And when he did face his Creator, suddenly he had nothing to say!

Hence I am quite convinced that very little of what I have written here will make any difference one, five, or ten years from now: "Well, that passed the time!" "But it would have passed anyway." (Estragon) "Yes; (hesitates) but not so quickly!"

But if even one of those 3 one-sentence statements about Christ is true--everything will burn and be forgotten except that. So this is worth spending some time and attention on a rather important matter, albeit one that if we manipulate or control it to please ourselves, we will never move from theories about friendship to friendship itself. We will be as stuck as the tramps in the play, with our faux-faith intact but rotting in the barn.

All have faith; all have religion; all have commitments and appetites; no one can escape politics, esp. not his own.

But as Calvin said while contemplating his Dad's hammer, "The temptation to misuse these things is terrific!" Let us not abuse Christ by telling him he is a liar i.e. subsumable under man - made categories or imperatives. Why not do the one simple thing He asks--meet him on the road to Emmaus on His terms; even if it takes some time for our eyes to be opened;and know Him; "as if for the first time." -TSE