Quotes & Thoughts--4

“Continuously renewed immediacy, not receding memory of the Divine Touch, lies at the base of religious living.” Thomas Kelly

What a provoking phrase, continuously renewed immediacy! Kelly, an insightful writer from the Quaker tradition, knew something about living in the present moment. Immediacy can never be past or future, only present. If faith is only a receding memory, it ceases. In his classic book from which the quote is taken, A Testament of Devotion, Kelly spoke of the power of entering into “recreating silences.” These are moments of being present with God in ways that are both re-creating and recreational. The busyness of contemporary living is such that, unless we intentionally go to some sacred space of renewal, our lives will be characterized by increasing aridity and meaningless activity. (Thomas Carlyle wrote, “Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight.”) The gift of being continuously renewed is inextricably bound with recreating silence. I don’t know how to renew myself, and entering into silence is difficult. Finding a place of solitude, however, is something I can and must do. At least in the recreating silences, the possibility of touching the sacred increases the potential for connection with God. Sometimes it is important to stand apart for a short time if one is to be a part of the shared life of God. Being present with God in silence is what gives authenticity to being present with people in relationships.

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“The corporate approach to agriculture or manufacturing or medicine or war increasingly undertakes to help at the risk of harm, sometimes of great harm. And once the risk of harm is appraised as ‘acceptable,’ the result often is absurdity: We destroy a village in order to save it; we destroy freedom in order to save it; we destroy the world in order to live in it.” Wendell Berry

Things corporate, whether in business, religion, or government, always seem to spin on the axis of an agenda. Often hidden (though not always so), the agenda is propelled by a compelling ideology that proves virtually irresistible in its logic even when the logic is absurd. The bottom-line of these seductions can almost always be summed up as the end justifies the means. Whether speaking of American foreign policy or religious crusades, this concept at some point insinuates itself into all formal movements. Kierkegaard wisely admonished, “Beware of the crowd.” Cult deprogrammers have repeatedly warned of the power of group-think. Yet, at various point in our lives, haven’t we all been swayed by a peer group or coerced by propagandistic pronouncements? It’s hard work thinking for oneself…and risky. We risk being wrong in our opinions, and thus, solely responsible for them (Is that such a bad thing?). We risk loneliness, sometimes even in a crowd. And, we risk the peril of self-righteousness if our thinking proves accurate. Should we then abdicate matters of conscience in order to preserve the status-quo of apparent well-being? The answer may not be as simple as it seems.

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“A beauty not explicable is dearer than a beauty we can see the end of.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

The purpose of science is to discover, to seek to understand, and to explain. That is as it should be for the category labeled science, but to define reality solely in terms of the explainable is to diminish reality itself. Beauty is like love in that it can never be confined to human definition. Somehow, we know intuitively that there is always more to beauty than our explanations or attempts to describe it. Our senses can be touched, our brains can respond, but words often distract from the experience of that which is beautiful. To speak about an experience beyond words is to give voice to those yearnings for transcendence which defy definition. Explanations are helpful when describing the purely physical but fall startlingly short when attempting to circumscribe the metaphysical. Emerson implies that the endearing quality of beauty lies in its open-endedness. If we could encapsulate or summarize it, it would lose its luster or maybe even vanish. Attempts to embellish that which is already beautiful renders it tawdry. To behold beauty, to be captivated by it, is to worship. The most meaningful worship, like beauty, leaves us breathless and without words. When in the presence of beauty it is enough to let it be.