Anthony Bloom speaks to the non-mystic

Two weeks ago in this blog, and in the comments that followed, Alan Rutherford reflected on an implication of Friends' emphasis on the authority of experience--it "gives more authority to those who sense God than to those who don't."

I've been reading Anthony Bloom's book On Meeting, and have quoted from it at least twice, but in view of the discussion of "immediate inspiration," I can't help citing yet another thoughtful passage. Again, Anthony Bloom is responding to an interviewer's question:

Tell me, why do some people who are sensitive and kind by the natural inclination of their souls not have a conscious experience of faith--why doesn't God seem to send it to them? Is kindness without faith possible?

I can't answer that; if I could, I'd be praised as a wise man throughout the whole Orthodox world. But I think we can at least set out some pathmarks. First of all, there is nobody in the world in whom the image of God doesn't continue to be alive and active, however deeply it might be buried. There's nobody who is not in that sense an icon of God, in whom that icon-ness, that similarity to God, doesn't operate.

From this, it follows that a lot of what we consider humanness is actually on the divine margin. When you read the Gospel, you are meeting the Living God, but you are also meeting the genuine, the singularly genuine Human Being in the person of Christ, a Human Being ["Man" in the capital-M sense of pre-sensitized English] in the fullest sense of that term. And for that reason every human being, by virtue of being human, is already part of this Christic mystery.

Another thing (but this is my reasoning, and therefore I'm not convinced of my own objectivity): humanity does not consist of separate, scattered individualities. Each of us is born, not as a completely new creature, but as the heir of all the generations that have gone before. The genealogies of Christ given in the Gospels--in Matthew and Luke--serve as a confirmation of this. If genealogy has meaning for Him, it must for us also. He is the descendant of all the lines of humanity from Adam to the Blessed Virgin. In all these lines of descent there are saints and there are those we would call ordinary sinners--imperfect people, and even some who go beyond imperfect to flagrant. Rahab the prostitute is probably a clear example of "flagrant," but she is a direct ancestor of Christ the Savior.

Can we consider them as a part of that stream which, in sum, constitutes the incarnation of of the Son of God? It seems to me that they all, righteous and sinners alike, strived with all their being (successfully or, by our lights, completely unsuccessfully) towards the fullness of being, as they understood it--that is, towards God. They lived for the sake of God.

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The politicians' machine dialers can stop calling now! I've already voted. Bill Clinton phoned to ask me to be sure to vote for Gov. Kulongoski. I tried to tell him that I took my Oregon mail-in ballot to Papaccino's coffeehouse last Saturday and completed the whole thing in a little over an hour, but he talked right over me. Earlier today, Virginia Linder, running for election to the Supreme Court, did the same thing. I'm not alone; as of Monday, apparently 17% of Oregon's ballots had already been returned, even though our voters have until 8 p.m. on November 7 to get their ballots to an official ballot pick-up point. (However, the tricky thing is for people to remember that a mailbox does not qualify as a pick-up point; people who mail in their ballots should get it into the mail by tomorrow.)

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This will have to do for now. I'm off to the opening reception for Smith Eliot's new installation at Pushdot's gallery. More tonight or tomorrow.

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I'm back. Smith's installation at Pushdot Gallery was moving. It was based on her photography and research at the former Dammasch State Hospital, a sister institution to the one at which the film version of the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was made.

These preceding links lead to some online photos that give a hint of the haunting power of Smith's images. The first room of the gallery displayed the full-size photos (example: the one behind Smith's head). As you look around at those photos, you become aware that there's another room from which people are quietly emerging. Looking closer, you see a small bed, an artifact from Dammasch, with snakes writhing out from under the bed, spreading through the metal webbing and climbing up the walls, while other snakes come down through the ceiling. The snakes (and Smith's dress) are made from Dammasch curtain fabric. These three-dimensional details amplifies the human dimension eerily echoing through all the photos, refusing to be pacified by the orderly pages of hospital manuals and inspection reports plastering the cell walls.

I last saw my sister Ellen in December 1969, during her incarceration at the Illinois State Psychiatric Instite. Three months later she "eloped" (in the language of the incident reports plastered on Pushdot's walls), only to be killed on the Calumet Canal Bridge a few days later. She was killed with a sawed-off shotgun by a man who nevertheless, according to Anthony Bloom, bore somewhere within him the image of God. Smith's images shimmer with the power of incongruity: the silent marks and debris of human institutionalization and involuntary restraint, as seen through intensely human eyes. Savage ironies abound, but are noted quietly, allowing shared humanity to witness what a more manipulative presentation would simply exploit.

Pinned to a sheet of care standards, an inmate's note in crayon: "Content in Tues. There but in His grace go I. Overcome evil w/good. Jesus knows me."

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Links, righteous and unrighteous: The latest Washington Post has at least two stories mentioning Ted Haggard of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs. Story number one, "Evangelicals Broaden Their Moral Agenda," mentions that he is one of the evangelical leaders who signed a plea for George Bush to take action in the situation in Darfur, Sudan.

The second story will cause much anguish in some circles, uncertainty in others, and perhaps even some uncharitable glee in yet others: "Church Leader Resigns after Gay Sex Claim."

New Life Church itself has issued a studiedly quiet press release (PDF link). (Saturday PS: new press release from Life Life Church.)

In the meantime, Catholic commentator Garry Wills has this worthwhile essay on our faith-based White House.

Forgive me for taking a bit of comfort in the thought that critics of religious faith are sometimes also caught getting it wrong! I confess guilty pleasure in reading this lively review of Richard Dawkins' bestselling exposé of people like me, The God Delusion. Many thanks to Simon Barrow for this nice ... er, interesting link. (Saturday PS: Simon has helpfully grouped several other reflections on Dawkins here and here.)

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Today's political frustration involves the Democrats: I'm not an uncritical fan of America's Democratic Party, which has its share of cynical operators and special-interest agenda-pushers. But right now the Democratic Party represents, in our truncated political spectrum, the only viable opposition to the criminal element that has taken over our country's government. My frustration today is not so much with the party itself as the conventional wisdom of so many commentators who, instead of discussing historic and present-day Democratic ideals, take the lazy way out by saying the party has no coherent message.

Recently CNN trotted out that same line in its "Broken Government" series. We were told that voters feel Democrats have "two left feet," project a "wimp" image, are seen as being out of touch with ordinary people, and incompetent on security issues.

Why is political commentary so often reduced to a fascination with "perceptions"? Should the commentators not be promoting a conversation on substance? There is certainly no perfect unity within the Democratic Party on specific policies (nor is there among Republicans, whose current leaders strike me as being even more out of touch, and certainly no more competent than Democrats). Yet the enduring themes associated with Democrats--social and economic justice within a framework of personal responsibility; political reform; sensitivity to labor rights, popular access to education; public health and safety, and environmental concerns; and international cooperation--remain pretty stable. Once upon a time, there was even broad overlap on these points with many Republicans. Seems to me that themes such as these, in times of crisis, form an urgent agenda for public conversation. The passing fortunes and images of either party shrink in comparison.

Some will say, "But these image issues are actually issues of leadership. How can we trust leaders who can't create their own reality?" But if you depend on conventional wisdom to do your filtering for you, you will too easily end up with leaders who create "realities" such as the lethal mix of corruption now hobbling us at home and abroad. American voter: it is time to create your own reality. Start by thinking for yourself, and decide what cluster of values to raise up by your vote. Social justice, or special privilege? Environmental concern, or the law of the jungle? International norms of mutual respect, or destructive (and self-destructive) messianic pretensions? Modest and pragmatic leaders, or slash-and-burn rhetoricians who are not worthy to use the Christian symbols they shamelessly exploit?

Yes, I wish our loyal opposition displayed a bit more passion. But I don't want them to fake it. Look where faking it has gotten us to date.

The first rule of gracious correspondence

. . . is to answer the letter you actually received, not the one you wish you'd received or might receive in the future!

Does anyone else have a sense of unreality about American reactions to the letter (here in pdf form) that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, sent George W. Bush? It's not only Bush and Condoleeza Rice who've completely and utterly missed the point, but even journalists are caught up in this distortion. In the New York Times:

State Department officials who read the letter suggested that it offered an interesting window into the mentality and thinking of Iran, especially because it seemed to reflect a inclination to dwell on myriad grievances of the past rather than on the problem at hand, namely Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program.

Although American officials said they intended to use the letter to make the point that Iran deserved to be isolated internationally over its alleged intransigence over the nuclear issue, they seemed sobered by the letter's tone as an indication of the uphill battle to change attitudes in Tehran.

The AP report gives this summary: "The document gives rare insight into a man who has largely been a mystery to the West, showing him as fixated on a long list of grievances against the United States and seeking to build on a shared faith in God."

This is what passes for journalism? Do reporters apply the same standards to Western leaders—are they described as "fixated" on their agendas? Is Bush "fixated" on his counterfeit righteousness? Do commentators meekly accept that only the U.S. gets to define "the problem at hand"? But my first and main point is this: when you receive a letter, you deal with it on its own merits. OK, stick with me. After years of no genuine communication, you get an unexpected letter from a head of state whom you've described in unflattering terms and whose government is taking actions that make you uncomfortable. Wow, a perfect opportunity to (1) gain insights into the other leader's motivations, and (2) open a dialogue. Instead, the man whose actions and reactions inevitably color the world's view of our country chooses to insult the head of state of that other country, by not engaging courteously with the letter's contents, as befits one civilized head of state communicating with another, and by telling the world what topics that unexpected letter should have covered!

There's nothing wrong with Bush and Rice and Cheney wanting more information than that initial letter contained. That's why you reply! You politely ask for more! Is there nobody within the highest circles of our government who can even speak up for elementary good manners?

I see plenty in the Iranian president's letter that deserves reply—either in agreement or in disagreement. But to dismiss it as not addressing issues in the way that the addressee might have wished betrays the habitual rudeness that comes with a worldview completely distorted by imperial arrogance. How I've yearned for the U.S. leadership to move into the arena of world opinion and state our case against the accusations of radical Islam with courtesy and humility, but also with an intelligent presentation of our side of each controversy. Now, Ahmadinejad has thrown a softball right down the middle, a perfect opportunity to engage with that task in the court of world opinion, and we more or less give him the finger.

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Another American political pastime: scolding the Russians. In our ceaseless efforts to tell the world how to be better Americans, our leaders have raised Russia-scolding to new levels of stupidity. Many times in the last two years I've readily stipulated that Vladimir Putin and his colleagues are authoritarian power politicians who will (and in their view, given the challenges they face, must) grab every lever of power available to them. So much of what goes on in Russia is completely outside the control of the Kremlin. Russia is, after all, a country where people have centuries of experience saying whatever they need to please the powerful, and then doing pretty well what they want. Russia has severe deficiencies in Western-style due process, opportunities for corruption in elections and every other citizen-to-state transaction, and powerful grassroots forces that favor both unfettered individual initiative and a restoration of Stalinist-style dictatorship. But good hardheaded common sense is what most Russians are gifted with most of the time; why can't we put more effort into recognizing this?

Once we assume that (in the light of perceived national interest) common sense, the shortest point from A to B, is at least often the basis for Russia's policy decisions, then things begin to look different. Asking trading partners to forgo historic subsidies in favor of market prices is not necessarily the same as bullying those partners. Yes, the timing may smell, but if we look at the whole picture, subsidies (such as concessionary oil prices) may reflect a mutual congeniality that may long ago have been trashed by the other country. Russia may not always have taken the first step at alienation—think of that! If Ukraine or Georgia wish to assert a greater degree of national independence, they may be absolutely justified, but how can they object if Russia makes reciprocal decisions?

The U.S. should be the last country to criticize Russia for the use of economic measures to signal pleasure or displeasure. Our attempt to strangle the Palestinian Authority financially is only the most recent example. The vindictive U.S. campaign to extend extraterritorial regulations on other countries' relations with Cuba, military sales to Venezuela, the exclusion of U.S. personnel from international courts, the string-pulling to line up a "coalition of the willing" for Iraq ... in sum, our country has played hardball on the international stage so often to line up allies and punish dissidents that the finger-wagging at Russia seems laughable.

Perhaps I sound one-sided, but the habits of imperial arrogance don't just cloud our leaders, they endanger all of us. It has become standard practice to assume that, in judging an act by Russia's government, there's never any more to the picture than the narrow slice we get. I don't object at all to an honest, assertive analysis of Russia's failures to live up to its own constitution, its horrible mistakes in Chechnya, and, in general, its political and spiritual weaknesses, as long as that analysis presents the full picture including honest coverage of the options actually available to its leaders, and some clue as to whether the analyst actually has the Russian peoples' best interests at heart. I object to analyses that measure Russia's worst realities against our best intentions, and completely fail to account for the ways our government has abandoned its own ideals. For example: Dick Cheney said a few days ago, concerning Russia,

Democracy starts with citizens casting their votes, but that is only the beginning. Elections must be fair, and regular, and truly competitive. . . . And election results must yield the voluntary and orderly transfer of power.

The man who said all this was the co-beneficiary of the U.S. presidential "election" of 2000, in which scandalous irregularities, including the disenfranchisement of thousands of black voters, tipped the process into the lap of a biased and unprepared U.S. Supreme Court! Again, the habit of lecturing the world without fair comparisons with our own performances is another example of the decay in honesty and humility that comes with an imperial worldview.

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Catching up on intriguing links:

• Janiva Magness, who has just headed up to the top of my list of awesome blues women, thanks to the exposure The Roadhouse gave her in two recent podcasts.
• Smith Eliot's newsletter, first of a new series. Keep us updated, Smith. Your work is amazing.
• Behind the Wall, a very promising online magazine originating in a wonderful collaboration between students at Ramallah Friends Schools and students in Michigan and Wisconsin, USA.
• Last but not least, the latest from the Tangaroa raft, 500 nautical miles into its journey across the Pacific.
• Saturday PS: Check Russian Blog's comments posted on May 9 for some eloquent reflections that show how engaging and persuasive our scolding of Russia can be.