THE JOY OF --- WHAT?

In the readings and general exhortations I encounter in my daily Prions en Eglise, there is constant mention of joy. “Shout and dance for joy, people of God!” “Quiver for joy!” For those of us living outside certain evangelical movements and outside Southern US black churches, this is a curious injunction. For Anglicans/Episcopalians, it is virtually unheard-of, the sort of thing to make us seriously uncomfortable. Why?

Well, we are not a culture given to loud displays of emotion, first of all. Secondly, when we assemble and meet together, we tend to do so either as a quiet, well-behaved group of friends and neighbours, with smiles and murmured greetings, or as individuals in search of reverence, silence, beauty in music and in ritual, and prayer. We may have joy in our hearts, but we remember Jesus’ injunction not to show off while performing our religious duties. 

There is another reason, I suspect. We do not glow with joy because we aren’t sure what we are supposed to feel so rapturous about. When we reach down inside us for the roots of our faith, we will probably come up with the Resurrection (cf 1 Cor. 15:14); but from there to quivering with joy on this Tuesday in June the way is not, for most of us, entirely clear. We are happy that Yeshua rose from the dead, for His sake; we know that it means something important for all Christians, and perhaps for others beyond; but let’s face it, the world seems in at least as big as mess as at any other time since, so shout and dance for joy? Is that a joke? Grim fortitude, in faith, hope and charity as among castaways on a large raft in mid-ocean might seem more appropriate.

The Psalmist, and St Paul, saw it differently. Yeshua Meshiach (“Jesus the Anointed”), in his sacrifice, death and resurrection, saved Israel and by (crucial) extension saved humanity. Saved from what? Saved from the consequences of our unbelief and our non-acceptance of God’s love for us. Not the proximate consequences, usually: shit keeps happening, the planet is in danger, and the bad guys often win. But from the ultimate consequences: from the destruction of our immortal souls, from the hell that awaits all those who have made themselves incapable of living eternally near the radiant source of all love. 

If that does not at least inwardly fill us with a certain trembling and incredulous happiness, it may be because we have trouble envisaging what we have been saved from. We need, perhaps, to pay more attention to Shaitan. Not just as an active shooter, drawing a bead on us at all times and in all places, but also as a terrifying example. He is what we will become like if we refuse the gift. Grim and greedy; eaten up with jealousy; racked with the rage and pain that contemplating beauty and love causes us. Incapable of any pleasure not guilty or corrupt. And yes, it lies in wait for all of us, not least because there is Someone always ready to convince us how much braver and more fun it is to walk the edge of the abyss, and even to dive in.

Nobody alive and breathing is beyond being saved from this, unless he refuses to. As a priest I heard the other day said, that is why the Sin against the Holy Spirit is the only one that cannot be forgiven: because it is the Spirit that saves us, that pulls us out of the deep well we fell into, that rescues us by the skin of our teeth. Refusing Him means you’ve left no chink open to be forgiven through, no pulley for the rope. So here we are, wobbling, doubting, lurching, ridiculous: but saved. Saved. SAVED.

In the light of that, a certain joy is in order. Pour the martinis. Light the candles. Sing a silly song. Dance a bit. Yup. Joy. Remember?

BEYOND MOURNING

In Latin countries, and possibly in Eastern Europe also, it is demotically known as le jour des morts, the Day of the Dead. Chrysanthemums are put on graves freshly cleaned and full of photographs of the deceased. Officially, the Catholic churches, Roman, Orthodox and Anglican, refer to it as the Feast of the Souls of the Faithful Departed, or All Souls' Day. Its purpose was, and mostly still is, to pray for the souls of those who have left this life, to help them on their way, to assist them in Purgatory and to aid them in the progress of the purgation that will ready them for Heaven. There is something deeply comforting in this schema, which intellectuals may doubt but cannot disprove. How it can combine with the equally strong, and to many comforting, belief that the deceased loved ones watch over those of us still in the world is not clear; but we may perhaps reply with Tertullian, Credo quia impossibile, I believe because it is impossible, or with Christ, To the Father nothing is impossible.

There is nothing one can say about death that has not been said so many times before that it is commonplace. It is absolute: that bourn/ from which no traveller returns. (Except, of course, he whose love was stronger.) We are prevented from knowing what, if anything, takes place beyond the curtain. Also, it is usually accompanied with pain and grief, both sometimes excruciating. We can discuss it only in images; and there are two of those I have always found consoling. 

The first comes to one when one stands beside a waterfall. One sees a twig, perhaps, or a leaf, borne tranquilly upon the stream towards an edge of which it has no idea. Then it disappears into the crashing maelstrom of white foam and booming noise. And then, at the bottom, we see it surfacing, rather awkwardly at first, and continuing on its way downstream. So, in the days when the thought of death haunted and terrified me, my mantra was The river flows on below the falls.

The second image is that of the caterpillar, which (as far as we know) lives its laborious and earthbound life in complete ignorance of the glorious butterfly it will become when that stage of its living is finished. If we do not know what happens to us after death, it is perhaps because there is no need for us to know: it might ruin our caterpillarity if we did.

What we do know is that Love is stronger even than death. Not, now, in the sense that true lovers can face it together or remain true after the decease of one; no, in the sense that the One who was Himself true Love did not refuse that road, took it for our sake, and emerged on the other side, first to broil fish on a lake beach and to invite his stupefied mourning friends to breakfast, and finally to precede us to his, and our, Father's house. 

The thought that by the time we die we are not perhaps exactly ready for that new house, that our wedding garment in rumpled, stained, a little torn and in serious need of a hot iron, should make us deeply thankful for the doctrine of Purgatory. We are told that our stay there will be hard work and not always agreeable; but there is light and warmth and welcome at the end. Our love and assistance should go to those who are already there and whom our support will hearten in their tasks; our pity should be reserved for those who have made themselves incapable of even desiring God's love and to whom, as C.S. Lewis wrote, His presence in æternitatem would be torture. They dwell in outer darkness, capable of receiving only that final mercy of His absence.  

Will they do so forever? Is the 'gnashing of teeth' eternal? Theologians from Origen on have doubted, even as stern moralists have insisted. The word to remember in this context is apokatastasis or "restoration": the idea that at the end of time everything will be "restored" to its original state -- and the original state of man, of course, was sinless. Some theologians have even extended apokatastasis to Lucifer and his fallen angels, maintaining that eventually the whole of Creation will be "saved" -- restored to a harmonious and loving relationship to its Creator. 

In the meantime, let us remember those who have preceded us, let us send them the loving thoughts and prayers that they will surely welcome. 

OF HOMESICKNESS AND GOING HOME

Crucifix in the St Crucifix Chapel, Cordes-sur-Ciel, France (sculptor unknown)

This morning – Trinity 3 for us Anglicans, 11^th of Ordinary Time for modern RCs – the second reading was from 2 Corinthians 5:  
“For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies.While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life. God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.

So we are always confident, even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the Lord. For we live by believing and not by seeing. Yes, we are fully confident, and we would rather be away from these earthly bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord. Yet whether we are here in this body or away from this body, our goal is to please him. For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly body.”

When I saw this I wondered what our little Algerian priest would say about it; and I couldn’t help wondering also about its relation to Luther and sola fide. However, what he said was surprising and, I thought, rather marvellous. “Don’t think, he said, “that ‘standing before Christ to be judged’ is like the courtroom of the Assizes.” And he pointed to the huge and fascinating 17C crucifix after which the chapel we were in was named (see above). “When you stand before him,” he said, “you stand before Love Himself. And it is not he who will judge you. It is your own heart that will judge you, in the face and in the presence of that love.”

I found this a powerful and extraordinary thought. It was, of course, neither his nor new: in the Orthodox faith it is common, and it was uttered in a slightly different way by both St John Chrysostom and St Basil the Great. In one sense, it is a comforting thought: as Sergei Komarov puts it, “no one is going to be dragged anywhere like a caught thief.” And Gregory Narekatsi, the Armenian poet, wrote “Isn’t God’s judgement still a meeting with God?/ Where will the Judgement be? I’m going there!” Yet the thought of our standing – you, I, us chickens just as we are – before the Son of God himself, with his eyes of absolute love upon us, is both pure joy and real terror. Even the most faithful and loving among us know that they are going to need a great deal of mercy at that moment.

The greatest thoughts I have read about the Last Judgement are those of C.S. Lewis, scattered about his writings. “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.” Moreover, he says somewhere else, Hell is not fire and brimstone: it is cold and dark. Why? Because Heaven is the continual presence of God in light and warmth. But some there are to whom that would be unbearable. For them God has, in his mercy, left a place where they can live Eternity far away from him. It is cold, dark and dreary, but that is all they have made themselves capable of.

This is entirely compatible with the idea of our own heart’s judging us in Christ’s presence. And it should give us furiously to think.

THIS IS, WELL, GRAVE

Recently, a columnist in the NY Times recounted the debt owed, not by Nixon to Roger Ailes but by Ailes to Nixon. It was the President who taught Ailes the value – the commercial, publicity value – of cultural resentment. This phrase has stuck in my mind, as I believe it represents almost the entirety of Donald Trump’s continuing support. None of the voters in the hinterland believe, at this stage, that TrumpCare will improve their health; none, I imagine, believe that their economic prospects will genuinely improve with The Donald in charge. So why do they go on supporting him?

The answer, I believe, is very simple. BECAUSE HE HATES LIBERALS. And he allows us to hate liberals. And to feel, not guilty but good about hating liberals. The answer, my friends, is Cultural Resentment. And it is very close to being the ONLY answer. The whole of the Trump base is about being not for anything,  but against something. Against Hillary: the glee of shouting “LOCK HER UP!” Against the effete Europeans and Asians and All Those Other Guys who believe, against all good common-sense-over-a-beer-in-the-pub, that the planet is heating up bigly. Against all those PC assholes in Massachusetts and California. Against all those smartasses who are so proud of their useless Education and who wave their f*cking Degrees at us, and take away our jobs. Against, against, against, against. Mad as Hell and Not Going to Take it Anymore! Rage, rage, aganst the rising of the light.

Can anything be done against this? I’m not sure. It may just have to sputter and squib itself out, gracelessly, mendaciously, offensively and miserably. To me, it is genuinely sinful, because it exchanges Christ for Trump, love for hatred, discernment for stupidity. The pleasure of hate is a real pleasure, but none the less sinful for that. It corrodes, it rots, it ends in a whirlwind of emptiness. And there, Hell awaits. Lord, have mercy. These are your children. They know not what they do.

Rembrandt van Rijn, The Risen Christ

UNCERTAINTY

After my previous post on “Schrödinger’s Cross,” a friend suggested, half in fun, that I should turn to Heisenberg and the Uncertainty Principle. This was a challenge not to be resisted, even for as un-mathematical a mind as mine. I’m not sure that it is possible to apply it in any way but vague, fuzzy and inaccurate analogy. But we can try.

    The Uncertainty Principle relates to atomic-sized situations because in normal life situations it is too tiny to observe. Things are simply too big, too massy and too slow (like an automobile moving along a road). But what about spiritual situations? Factors like Sin and Grace?

    Simply speaking, the Uncertainty Principle says that you cannot measure a particle's position and its momentum simultaneously: as you try to narrow down position, momentum gets fuzzier; as you try to narrow down momentum, position gets fuzzier. Moreover, the element may not have had a definite position before you started measuring it.

    As you try to narrow down your measurement of Sin’s position, what happens? Possibilities:

         1.     you end up with Law, as in Mosaic/Rabbinic, Sharia, or Christian Puritan. You apply ‘Sin’ to more and more specific little actions (eating pork, shellfish, having more than 3 wives, turning on a light switch – or reading Elmore Leonard -- on the Sabbath).

         2.     If and as you do so, your vision of Sin’s momentum, its mass x velocity, gets fuzzier. You cannot measure both at the same time.

         3.     If your vision of Sin’s momentum gets fuzzier, you are in danger. Sin’s direction may not be at all times clear, but it has one constant: away from God. If you are deep in the minutiæ of its position, you are vulnerable to its momentum which may carry you surprisingly far from God in a surprisingly short time.

    Now let’s see what happens if instead you try to narrow down your measurement of Sin’s momentum.

Possibilities:

         1.     you get too interested in, & therefore too close to, its mass/velocity and you simply get sucked into its black hole.

         2.     even if not, your vision of its position gets fuzzier, and specific actions are harder and harder to characterise as Sin. You cannot measure both at the same time.

         3.     This is particularly true of your vision of their (the actions’) consequences. These are not what makes Sin Sin, but they are as it were indications of its (and your) future position.

    This makes a certain amount of sense, so far. Now let’s try it with something other than Sin. How about the Trinity? One’s first reaction would be to say that there are simply not enough data for measurement. However, that hasn’t stopped generations of theologians from trying. It’s now an unfashionable topic for investigation, but that shouldn’t deter us.

    Let us see what happens when we try to narrow down our measurement of the Trinity’s position.
Possibilities:

         1.     Externally, its position is in Heaven. But the more we try to narrow down the position of Heaven, the fuzzier our measurement of gets of its momentum, i.e. its impact on our soul. You end up counting angels on pinheads instead of responding to Glory.

         2.     Internally, the Three Persons relate to one another. But the more we try to narrow down our measurement of that relation as position – to measure the exact role of each Person, for instance – the fuzzier gets our measurement of its momentum. We will not, as one Church Father did, get tears in our eyes merely thinking of the Trinity.

    On the other hand, we might try to narrow down our measurement of the Trinity’s momentum.

Possibilities:

         1.     Paralysis: physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual. The mass x velocity of the Trinity are so immense, so awe-inspiring – and the immensity and the awe it inspires are not collateral elements to be eliminated by the observer, but part of the Trinity’s very essence – that as we get closer to trying to measure it, we are overwhelmed entirely.

         2.     Our measurement of its position, whether external or internal, gets fuzzier. Internally, we may lose sight altogether of the difference between the Three Persons and confuse them or, worse, conflate them. We may lose interest in, and respect for, any sort of systematic theology. Externally, we may end up thinking that Heaven (and/or, by extension, Hell) is everywhere, or nowhere. “Why, this is Hell, nor am I out of it,” said Mephistopheles. (Who, of course, lies.)

    What all this seems to show me is that yes, it’s an analogy in this context, and can never be precise, even with the limited precision of the UP in mathematics and quantum physics. But as an analogy it can be very valuable. Which in turn raises the question of the value of analogy in any intellectual endeavour. Paracelsian medicine upheld the ancient theory that nature was composed of meaningful and intentional signatures, which man must learn to read and interpret. (Walnuts were good for the brain.) Subsequent science has demoted analogy in favour of cause and effect. But in the intellectual endeavour that is theology – not just professional theology but the theology that is the necessary intellectual part of every believer’s faith – the signature concept may well still hold: an analogy may lead us to a valuable insight, in which case the analogy forms one term of a relationship. And there is every likelihood of that relationship’s being intentional.