I'm Just Sayin...

Soul enters only via symptoms, via outcast phenomena like the imagination of artists or alchemy or “primitives,” or of course, disguised as psychopathology. That’s what Jung meant when he said the Gods have become diseases: the only way back for them in a Christian world is via the outcast.

   (James Hillman)

Rendering Unto Caesar

Sucks.

There is a place between material and abstract, between physical and spiritual, between visible and invisible. I think an apt metaphor would be to say that I am right now stuck on the beach for the beach, the sand is that place between the land that we live on, the everyday place of dirt, stone, asphalt, concrete and the ocean, vast, boundless, unfathomable and mysterious. For anybody who has ever been here undoubtedly I do not have to explain. For those that have not it is likely that no explanation will be good enough to convey the reality and when I say ‘reality’ I use that term in its vaguest meaning because this place can only be described as un-formed.

A number of years ago I had the opportunity to stand on the precipice of a mountain in Colorado. The view was not down, as on the edge of high cliff but rather spread out before me as far as the eye could see, and beyond more mountains. It was awe-inspiring and I now know why the mountains hold that same attraction for many people as being at the ocean holds for me. It is as if you are standing at the edge of eternity, gaining a glimpse of forever. Moses on the brink of the promised land.

But then you have to leave. Go back down the mountain or shake the sand off your feet get in your car and go home. Back to work, back to the kids, back to the bills and grocery store, cutting the lawn, washing the car, reading the newspaper, cooking dinner for your family.

Rendering unto Caesar.

With this glimpse that I have gotten it would be so easy to simply let go of Caesar and allow myself to float into God. But that of course would be problematic when Caesar comes knocking on my door looking for the rent check… and he will come knocking.

Rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and rendering unto God the things that are God’s means living in two worlds. In this life I cannot chose to stay only in God’s world – much as I’d like to. Unfortunately if I want those opportunities to visit God’s world I have to render unto Caesar daily.

The pull of God is so strong, a force that draws me to something that I cannot see, that I cannot define, a place in which I have no idea what I’m supposed to do. But even in all that ambiguity it actually hurts to have to turn back to Caesar. It is as if I have to say to God “I’d rather do anything than leave here but I have to go now. If I want to come back here again there are things that need doing and I have to take care of my business.”

Like being in the arms of your beloved and having to tear yourself away to go back to the ‘real’ world.

Rendering unto Caesar.

Blogger Problems

There appears to be a problem with Blogger whereby certain users cannot comment on posts.  Unfortunately I am one of those certain users.  So this is a post to let the multitude of readers and posters to my blog know that I'm not ignoring you and I appreciate your comments.

Apparently this problem has been going on for several days now.  Why they cannot seem to fix it is beyond me.

Perspectives and the Weight of the World

The image is of course that of the Greek god Atlas holding up the world.  In Greek mythology Atlas was a symbol of strength and endurance.

Funny though, in this particular depiction it appears to me that the weight of the world is forcing him to his knees.  It is interesting how perspectives can change depending on one's state of mind.

I wonder what would happen if he just lay down and let it role off.

He'd probably feel a whole lot better.

It Seems Odd

To me.  This outpouring of joyous celebration that I see in scenes on the news reports of the death of
bin Laden.  It is as if the hometeam has finally won the World Series after years and years coming in runner-up.  Like the scene in Beantown (Boston to those of you who live afar) when the Red Sox had bested the hated Yankees in 2003 I believe it was, after many years of futility.

I live about sixty miles north of Manhattan and quite a few individuals in my hometown commute to work in Manhattan on a daily basis.  While I do not know anyone intimately who was affected by the events of 9/11 I am acquainted with a young girl here in town who lost her father that day.  Another young man whose family lives in town was killed in the disaster.

I don't know... I guess I expected a reaction that is a little more sober, a little more somber, a little more respectful of those people who were so shockingly and painfully touched directly and left behind that day and who will no doubt have some very painful memories dredged up over the next few days and weeks and perhaps months.

But what I see is clinking glasses in bars, high-fives, table-pounding and dancing in the streets.  And I cannot help but be reminded of those pieces of news footage that we see so frequently in third-world countries, where radical fundamentalists burn effigies of their enemies or worse drag the dead body of the actual enemy through the street, shooting guns into the air and assorted weapons held high in celebration because their hated enemy has been brought to his knees, or perhaps even to his grave.  To me those are scary scenes, thousands of out of control people joining in a celebration of violence.

I do not consider myself a bigot but I have to admit that sometimes when I see those scenes I think to myself "those people are nuts", the operative terms being "those people".  Them, the other, the ignorant, uneducated, unenlightened.  I don't mean those terms in a derogative manner.  I firmly believe that scenes like this play out repeatedly in third-world countries because of political and social oppression that denies basic human rights to citizens, one of those basic human rights being education.  Another being the opportunity to live without the fear of bodily harm.  It is unquestionably these traits (and no doubt others) that breed violence and bloodlust into a society of people.

And yet there we are, good old educated, enlightened Americans living in the equal opportunity Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave behaving just like "those people".

Odd.  Somehow.

A New Heaven and a New Earth

“it is only that, acting upon his naïve conviction that what he wrote was dictated by an unseen voice and that his paintings were no more than reproductions of what the inner eye had already perceived, Blake threw a brilliant light into a realm that for most men is sheathed in darkness of disbelief.”

June Singer, The Unholy Bible

This is an interesting passage in light of what I now know about manic-depressive illness. Did Dr. Singer see that William Blake was manic in his “visions”? And if he was then his voices were real. Through his mania he heard things that those of us who are “normal” would never hear and saw things that we would never see.

It is both curious and exhilarating to me that those periods of mania are desirable in their less hypo forms by the people who experience them. Perhaps the hypo-manic stages are undesirable and frightening because they tip over into that realm that exists in each of us where the darkness, the evil, the uncontrollable, the Devil resides.

Tyger, tiger burning bright…

I wonder if the “new heaven and the new earth” is that place at which we arrive that is the final culmination of human life whereby unconscious and conscious come together and integrate to create a whole new human existence. A new heaven (unconscious) and a new Earth (conscious).

As of Yet Untitled

I see at last that all the knowledge

I wrung from the darkness—that the darkness flung me—

Is worthless as ignorance: nothing comes from nothing,

The darkness from the darkness. Pain comes from the darkness

And we call it wisdom. It is pain.

- Randall Jarrell



We insist on believing that there is meaning to and relief from our pain. It must end, there must be a way to be, a place to go where somehow we can find a way to make it stop and when finally at that place there will be something, some thing that will make it all obvious. There will be gifts, a magical, mystical power, maybe wisdom, bestowed and we will see so clearly how it was all worthwhile. A newfound sense of freedom is what I have always hoped for. A certain knowledge what would one day gloriously catapult me into some other as of yet unimagined way of being, some other as of yet unimagined way of seeing, some other as of yet unimagined way of living. An existence of joy and freedom – I will rise up with wings like eagles, I will run and not get weary – a profound release, an incredible lightness of being.

And then sometimes I resign myself to those words of Mr. Jarrell. Those thoughts are not true. That place of freedom and lightness of being does not exist, it will not come. This is just pain for no discernable purpose and this is just darkness for no other reason than the fact that pain breeds darkness.

I used to think those thoughts, and sometimes I still do. Mostly I exist in paragraph one but sometimes I slide into paragraph two. I’m learning to live with ambiguity.