TIE ME UP, TIE ME DOWN

 

 

Words have tones, and words have overtones. The tones are the meanings such as they are researched, ordered and listed in authoritative dictionaries. The overtones are not heard by all, and not heard in the same way by all; the overtones (also called connotations) are determined by the culture of speakers/writers and hearers/readers. If there is a strong mutuality between, say, a speaker and his/her audience; a mutuality that may occur, let us say, at a political campaign rally; the speaker can utter outrageous remarks in such a way that any verbal record would not show anything remarkable; in such a case, the speaker relies entirely on a shared harmony of overtones. In journalism, this is now called a “dog-whistle”.

            In large parts of the American demographic, the word “government” has strongly negative overtones (perhaps because American English also has the word “administration” for more neutral use). In France, no one minds the word “government”; but the word “shareholders” (actionnaires) makes large sections of the French electorate foam at the mouth. 

            And overtones depend, not only on geography but also on historical period. A word that in one age is perfectly neutral or positive may in another age be strongly disliked. I am old enough to remember that in any publicly available printed text the (sexual) “F-word” could not be printed in full; on the other hand, in modern America, the (racial) “N-word” cannot be printed or even, in some cases, referred to. And a particularly intriguing case, one that goes as far as what one might call lexical dissonance, is the French word con, which in one meaning (the original one), that of the female pudenda, is taboo; but which in its other meaning of “a stupid and disagreeable person” is colloquially common to the point of ubiquity. 

            All this leads me to the word “religion”. In the space of my (now not inconsiderable) lifetime, this word’s overtones have gone from neutral and sometimes positive to almost universally negative. When I was young we sang what were then still called Negro Spirituals, among which were stirring songs like “Give me that old-time religion, it’s good enough for me.” Some people’s religion was Christian, others’ Jewish, still others’ Muslim or Hindu; and within the Christian, some people’s religion was Catholic and others’ Protestant. Now, however, to have faith is good, to be spiritual is good, but to be religious? Noooo. 

            It is a pity. The word comes from a Latin verb, re-ligare: to bind together again. The idea behind it is that somehow, Heaven and earth got separated, and that this is tragic. I’ve often wondered that so many people find the idea of Original Sin hard to comprehend. Looking around one (and inside one), it seems so obvious: our human mind is capable of imagining something flawless, perfect; but we are incapable of realising it. Something always comes along and buggers it up. This being the case, any idea, person, or institution dedicated to binding-together-again Heaven and earth, perfection and BHF (basic human fuckup); to restoring the link between the despairing human soul and hope, between the woundedly resentful and the charity of love, between the helplessly angry and peaceable friendship, should surely be welcomed and cherished. Alas, this is too often not the case, and the media, social and otherwise, who delight in the excitement of conflict, eagerly exacerbate the tensions.

            I should like us to restore re-ligio to its ancient and merited glory. Let us be re-ligious in every part of our life. Let us try, wherever we can, to re-tie the broken strings and cables, to bridge the gaps, to mend the bridges; and most especially those broken ties between simple, hurting humans and a loving God who cannot force them to love him back, and who weeps among angels.    

THE NEED TO SEE CLEARLY

In an interview with the French daily Le Figaro, the Tunisian philosopher Mezri Haddad corrected his French colleague Bernard-Henri Lévy, who had said that "Jihadism" was a new form of fascism. I found his correction both intriguing and moving, because we often think that not enough Muslims are speaking out against what we now call jihadism, and what Haddad urges us to rethink as something both broader and deeper, and even more dangerous. 

I decided to publish this here in part because Christianity has gone through the same traumatic development in past ages -- think French Wars of Religion, think Calvin's Geneva, think English Civil War -- and because Christianity is occasionally tempted, in the face of what seems like galloping indifference, to call into question its 200-300-year-old pact with the Enlightenment. 

Here, Haddad addresses Lévy:

No, Sir, it is Islamism itself that is by definition, by its nature, by axiology and by etiology a neo-fascist ideology. It is the Islamism of the Muslim Brotherhood (1928) that is the mother-cell of jihadism, Khomeinism, Talibanism, Al-Qaida, Hamas, Boko Haram, Ansar-al-Sharia, the AKP, Ennahda, ISF . . . If those terminological metastases, those excrescences and ramifications becloud analysis and trouble Western rationality, they do not prevent the Muslim philosopher from seeing what unites them all and which constitutes their common foundation, i.e. the indissociability of the temporal and the spiritual, of the sacred and the profane, of the religious and the political. The difference between an Erdogan or a Ghannouchi on the one hand and a Ben Laden or Abou Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed caliph of ISIS, on the other, therefore, is not a difference of nature but of strategy or more precisely of tactics. In this respect, the Machiavellian difference based on the readjustment of means relative to ends should enlighten us more: in Islamist doctrine, Islam is a religious means in the service of a political goal: power, total power, nothing but power. 

A necrosis of Islamic civilisation, an alteration of the Muslim religion, Islamism is a neo-fascist, theocratic and totalitarian ideology.  It is not the incarnation of Islam but its incarceration. It is a “secular religion”, as Raymond Aron termed Nazism and Communism. And there [Levy] is perfectly correct when he says that “Fascislamism” is the final form of modern totalitarianism to be fought, because it constitutes a danger not only for the Muslim world but also for the Western world. In a recent address to the diplomatic corps in Saudi Arabia, King Abdallah – who knows whereof he speaks! – declared, “If they do not react, Europe and the USA will have jihadists in their own countries within a month”!

And this combat is one of philosophy against sophism, of autonomy against heteronomy, of alterity against identity, of knowledge against ignorance, of hermeneutics against exegetic fundamentalism, of truth against lies, of reason against passion, of pedagogy against demagogy, of the Enlightenment against obscurantism, of secularisation against clericalism, of liberty against totalitarianism.

A HAPPY MAN

I read this article in the French daily La Croix a few days ago and found it very much worth translating.

A few decades ago, Brother Francklin Armand decided to meet a formidable challenge: to pierce the land of Haiti, a dry soil eaten away by erosion, with artificial lakes in order to allow farmers to irrigate their land. And who knows? maybe to fish . . . A simple idea, but in no way self-evident in a country used to seeing water pour down in buckets during murderous cyclones and sow desolation in its wake.

            But water is life, too. And the project has grown, to the point where the Government has, in recent years, asked Brother Armand to widen his outlook, and has financed the creation of lakes on a national scale. Money is scarce and never on time, but the work gets done: the cheerful monk and his teams have so far created nearly 200 lakes in the entire country . .  Acres and acres of water, gallons and gallons of life.

            “It’s particularly important for the peasants in those parts of Haiti where it rains massively for six months, but then there is nothing for the rest of the year,” Brother Armand explains, during a stay in Paris this autumn. In the Central Highlands, for example, an area bordering the Dominican Republic, where in 1976 he founded the Little Brothers of the Incarnation, and then, a few years later, the Little Sisters of the Incarnation. Religious communities inspired by the spirituality of Fr Charles de Foucauld, combining prayer and action, “peasants among the peasants.”

            In Pandiassou, where the two congregations are installed, this man is always on the move. People to see, things to do . . . When the news gets around of his return from Port-au-Prince, where the Little Brothers also run a school, people crowd around. And it’s while walking along the country roads and side-trails that he listens to some and advises others. On matters as diverse as family worries, land quarrels or agricultural problems.

            In Haiti, erosion is an essential topic. Radical deforestation has made the country vulnerable to wind, rain and drought. But, speaking symbolically, Br. Francklin Armand points to four other forms of aggression that undermine the country: economic erosion – which ruins the countryside and feeds the anarchic growth of slums, even more so since the 2010 earthquake --, social erosion, due to an absent Government, intellectual erosion, a consequence of the flight overseas of the élite, and finally spiritual erosion, linked notably to voodoo.

            Hence the monk’s frustration when he observes the political class, for all its huge challenges, spending more time on its own problems than on those of the country. In a nation used to tearing itself apart in quarrels and disputes, he works, he walks, he advances. He is known to be closer to the Lavalas [political] school of thought of former presidents Jean-Bertrand Aristide and René Préval, beaten in the 2011 election, than to that of Michel Martelly, the current Chief of State, who does not deny his friendship with the family and friends of former dictator François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, in power from 1957 to 1971.

            But Br Francklin Armand remains discreet. “We have worked with all the presidents, whoever they were,” he reminds us. “Haiti’s problem is this division, the fact that people have other things on their minds . . .” Hence it is not rare to hear some people suggesting that it might be good for the country if he gave a new dimension to his uniting energy – that of power and politics. Wasn’t he declared, in 2008 at the age of 61, a National Treasure? Br Francklin Armand smilingly rejects the idea. He prefers to continue on the road where he feels most useful. Digging . . .

REIGN AGAIN

Today, the readings and commentary in my little French daily booklet seemed to chime so remarkably with my last post that I can’t resist sharing them here. In the passage from Wisdom, the wonderfully lyrical description given of her struck me as a perfect portrait of the Third Person of the Trinity: the Holy Spirit. And the use of the feminine pronoun (from the Greek original of ‘wisdom’) has something pleasing about it, since there is no reason necessarily to imagine the Spirit as masculine.

Wisdom 7:22 – 8:1

For within her is a spirit intelligent, holy, unique, manifold, subtle, mobile, incisive, unsullied, lucid, invulnerable, benevolent, shrewd, irresistible, beneficent, friendly to human beings, steadfast, dependable, unperturbed, almighty, all-surveying, penetrating all intelligent, pure and most subtle spirits.

For Wisdom is quicker to move than any motion; she is so pure, she pervades and permeates all things.

She is a breath of the power of God, pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty; so nothing impure can find its way into her.

For she is a reflection of the eternal light, untarnished mirror of God's active power, and image of his goodness.

Although she is alone, she can do everything; herself unchanging, she renews the world, and, generation after generation, passing into holy souls, she makes them into God's friends and prophets;

for God loves only those who dwell with Wisdom.

She is indeed more splendid than the sun, she outshines all the constellations;

compared with light, she takes first place, for light must yield to night, but against Wisdom evil cannot prevail.

Strongly she reaches from one end of the world to the other and she governs the whole world for its good. [in the old translation: “and sweetly doth she order all things”.]

It is the Gospel reading that struck me most, with reference to my previous post: Jesus tells the Pharisees ‘God’s reign is among you’ – it’s there already. This should give us furiously to think. If it’s here already, it may just be growing slowly like dough with a core of yeast . . .

Luke 17:20-25

Asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was to come, he gave them this answer, 'The coming of the kingdom of God does not admit of observation, and there will be no one to say, "Look, it is here! Look, it is there!" For look, the kingdom of God is among you.'

He said to the disciples, 'A time will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of man and will not see it. They will say to you, "Look, he [or: it] is there!" or, "Look, he is here!" Make no move; do not set off in pursuit; for as the lightning flashing from one part of heaven lights up the other, so will be the Son of man when his Day comes.

But first he is destined to suffer grievously and be rejected by this generation.’

The commentary is by Sr Emmanuelle Billoteau, a Benedictine hermit from Southeast France whose comments are almost always the most intelligent and nourishing. She is the only hermit to whom I have ever written a fan-letter. (Obviously, there was no reply: I didn’t expect one.)

The Gospel verses belong to the “synoptic apocalypses” that deal with the Last Things, but not by way of calculation or speculation. In them, Christ rather invites us to take account of the unexpected nature of the irruption of God’s Kingdom and, in view of that, to live in vigilance and confidence. Jesus also warns us against the temptation of seeing signs everywhere, without taking time for discernment; a work to be undertaken under the guidance of the Spirit and in genuine inner freedom, yet without abdicating reason and good sense.

So we still wait: but not impatiently for a coup de ciel. We wait in 'vigilance and confidence' -- confident that the reign has already begun and that we are part of it; intelligently vigilant as semioticians of true signs.

PRAYING FOR REIGN?

Meditating in bed, as I often do upon waking, I thought of a friend who sometimes says, “I wish God would just take over. Why doesn’t He?” And for a moment I found myself agreeing wholeheartedly. He is all-powerful. He made the world, the worlds, and us, and look what we – so far alone, at least in this corner of this galaxy – have made of the experiment. Why doesn’t He just blow the whistle, call the end of the exercise, and bring in His reign? The English Lord’s Prayer has “Thy kingdom come,” but in fact it is “regnum tuum” and it would better be translated “They kingship come,” or “Thy reign come.” So why leave it in the optative, the subjunctive, or any of those wish-list tenses? Why doesn’t He just take over in a coup de ciel and set this lamentable planet to rights, once and for all?

Of course, we know why. As I used to say to my students, if you are in love, and an apparently good fairy offered you the magic power to make your beloved love you back, would you take it? To their credit, they all said No. In that context, love and power are fundamentally incompatible. And God’s very essence being love, this is the one ineluctable exception to His omnipotence: He cannot go against His own being. Hence, loving all of us, it isn’t that He will not force us to love Him in return: He cannot.

The result is that for many thousands of years He has watched us doing good things, and smiled approvingly; but also watched us coming it the unspeakable, and not been able to stop us. The law of love is an iron law, and it binds even the Deity. I tried to imagine this, and found myself thinking of the tears of God.

It’s not as if He hasn’t done anything. He planted seeds of goodness in our hearts. He picked humans to work with: Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, and quite possibly Plato, Aristotle, Socrates and Seneca. And in the end, He even sent His own Son to help us get it right; and when, typically, we crucified Him, He resurrected Him so that we might be liberated from the tyranny of definitive death. Given the iron law of love, there is not a lot more that He could do. So: instead of wishing for a coup de ciel that would overwhelm even CNN, we would do better to think of His tears. Children, and even adults, are acutely uncomfortable when they see their own parent weep. How much more should we mind the tears of our Father, and do what we can to dry them. . . .

HUMBUG? NO, HUMBLE

Jean Vanier with a friend from the l'Arche community 

“The only wisdom is the wisdom of humility. Humility is endless.” (T.S. Eliot)

It’s a virtue unpopular with the young, who confuse it with humiliation or with an inferiority complex. As Paul Vallely wrote, à propos of Pope Francis, one tends to think that humility is a character trait – some have it, some don’t – when in fact it is a proper virtue, fostered by hard work. Like hope, it’s a virtue of the everyday, growing amid the humdrumlies of simple living and taking care of business. It both helps and is helped by looking at people around us and imagining their unknown private battles.

If Pride is the chief of the Deadly Sins, should Humility be the chief of virtues? The French have two words for “pride”: orgueil, which is the big bad Pride that looks contemptuously down on the world and everyone in it, and fierté, which is the good pride you take in the achievement of your offspring, and also the pride which, as Dryden’s Cleopatra observes, can be “all that held [you] up” when life gets rough. Given that pride can be complex, what about Humility? Luckily most Western languages have two words for “humility” and “humiliation”; one could say that the first is the opposite of orgueil and the second of fierté. And keeping Pride in mind when we think about all this will help us avoid the trap of thinking that a humble person thinks he’s nothing much. Well, compared to God, sure; but a genuinely humble person is probably quite a solid realist, who doesn’t think very much about his own level of whatever at all, but gets on with what needs doing and thinks of other people.

Humility also allows one to look back on one’s own life – by the day, month, year or lustrum – and recognize clearly the times when one has been a pig, a shit, or simply inadequate. Not in order to mull that over and over, but to face it without illusion and get on with being less of all three. Which, in turn, the humble person understands, involves going beyond our stone-dumb self and invoking the help of Him Who is always ready to lend a hand. In other words, prayer. No true humility without prayer. No true humility like the Cross.

True humility also allows for fierté, especially if it doesn’t last long enough to become one’s habitat.

One of the most positive things humility can do is help those who suffer from its poisonous parody: humiliation. If you look at the world around you, from children through adults to groups to whole nations, it’s easy to see how much of the world’s misery comes from humiliation. Humiliation is both an action and a feeling. The feeling can result from situations not intended to humiliate, in which case it expresses deep insecurity and an inferiority complex. What humility can do in such cases is be ultra-sensitive to words and actions that might cause humiliation in others. Pride, on the other hand, might say “Well, dammit, he/they shouldn’t be so bloody touchy: they’ve only themselves to thank.” Humility is good at seeing the hidden wounds. And seeing the innocence of others, however deeply hidden that may be; and appreciating that innocence, and other virtues, out loud.

No, it’s not just a trait of character that “some have and some haven’t, and that’s the way it is.” It’s looking at others, and talking to them, and looking at God, and talking to Him. Oh, and listening, in both cases . . . . .