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March 14, 2007
Hello everyone,
We talked of the seven cardinal virtues in the previous issue and I have since continued to be struck by the nature of faith in particular. Given that faith is the virtue generally grouped first in the list of three, perhaps it forms the most basic and entry-level virtue, from it springing hope and charity. For myself, at least, I see clear signs of faith and hope, but the charity is not always so readily forthcoming. Still, wherever I may locate myself—or, more to the point, wherever I may in fact be found—it seems to me that faith and the hope that has resulted from it are necessary first steps to the life of true charity. Above all, the advice the Apostle presented in this week’s Lenten readings is a worthy reflection: “So if you think you are standing, be careful that you do not fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12); it is always a wise idea to be clear eyed and circumspect and not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought.
As a means of shorthand to describe some of the thoughts and the manifestation to which they correspond that have been taking place in my life, I have been familiarizing my friends to the idea that the spiritual life literally involves an ontological change. I say “shorthand,” because ontology is a word familiar to philosophic circles and in a single word one evokes an entire category of inquiry: namely the category of “being” or “existence.” (That is true of many big words, really: when one learns what they mean, such words say a great deal by saying comparatively very little, though to the neophyte, they seem awkward, ponderous, even at times pretentious: why can’t you just use regular words? Well, if I just used regular words, it would take ten times as many to convey the same idea. Once we are all on the same page, we can cover a lot more ground in a lot less time with specialty, narrowly focused words: general, run-of-the-mill words are too commonplace to exhibit such pinpoint precision.)
To say that something is an ontological reality is to say with a single word that it is solid, concrete, it really exists not merely in mind but in fact, it is a tangible “flesh-and-blood” reality: (whether alive or not) it is a “living and breathing” reality: however many myriad ways one might say, it is real complete with italicized emphasis to show that we mean business. Frankly, it is very difficult for me to adequately capture and flesh out what the term has come to signify in my mind and just how powerfully it resonates: somehow when I speak of an ontological reality, by my very choice of words I have said something even more profound than when I say the same thing in other words, such as the idea of being a “new creature” or of “being renewed.” I suppose speaking of ontological realities to me irrevocably solidifies the concept of reality: there are no further questions, no ifs, ands, or buts: we are speaking about something very literal and very real when we use that twelve-letter adjective: we have evoked a whole range of interrelated and overlapping meanings, each supporting and undergirding all the rest, that give this particular word such great power in my mind. And so my friends—especially my friend Greg—suffers for it and is likely tempted at times to give me an ontological black eye. :)
It is interesting to consider the everyday miracles of life around us. A tiny seed—tiny at least in comparison to the plant into which it will eventually grow—is buried beneath the earth. Through minute, almost imperceptible processes it begins to unfurl itself, gently pushing through its own shell, stretching a tentative tendril upward and another downward, both branching outward. Soon enough, it makes its first timid appearance at the top of the soil as its pushes itself upward and through. Days pass, weeks pass, months pass, years often pass. That small seed continues to expand upward and downward, drinking deeply of the water in the soil and absorbing its nutrients from the sun. So too the human infant: a tiny sperm, a tiny ovum, a microscopic organism that first grows into a brain, then a spinal column, then a heart, and only once this system of nerves and veins is in place do the body parts begin to unfold, starting with the head and branching down to the feet. Barring complications, in nine months the newborn breaks into the world for the first time and his mother, her mother, utters a cry of delight at such a helpless, tiny bundle of life, perfectly formed little fingers, perfectly formed little toes. This process is the way of all life: it unfolds from less into more, it starts out as a fragile, humble thing and unfolds from within in response to external stimuli without. Nature and life are bound together into a sort of intricate dance, the timetable within and the timetable without in some kind of interdependent relationship, and, when all is well, flowing in harmony. Yet flowing in harmony does not always mean smooth sailing. Quite the contrary: the periods of most rapid growth are frequently marked by struggle and turmoil and we often feel like we are regressing or moving backward.
There is, of course, a logical limit to the stages of biological life; we often see the very elderly return again to more infantile ways and in any case, death and decay are the rule of all organisms here on this planet. There is almost a gentle bell curve to our lives here; we develop and mature, reach equilibrium, and then begin slowly to age until the deterioration becomes total enough that our time has come. Yet even these stages are not purely linear, for there is a sense, even on the biological level, where we die daily so that we might live:
And then he drew a dial from his poke
And, looking on it with lackluster eye,
Says very wisely, “It is ten o’clock.
Thus we may see,” quoth he, “how the world wags.
’Tis but an hour ago since it was nine,
And after one hour more ’twill be eleven.
And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe,
And then from hour to hour we rot and rot,
And thereby hangs a tale.” When I did hear
The motley fool thus moral on the time,
My lungs began to crow like chanticleer
That fools should be so deep-contemplative,
And I did laugh sans intermission
An hour by his dial. O noble fool!
A worthy fool! Motley’s the only wear.—Shakespeare. As You Like It: Act II, Scene VII
In the short hour that is our life we ripe and ripe and then we rot and rot—in a sense we do both at once as cells die away and new cells replenish the old, as blood circulates through the veins and back through the arteries, yet new life always springs up in place of the old and the theologians and poets—indeed those of us who profess the name of Christ—dare to imagine that death is not the end, but the beginning, the final stage of the embryonic form here in the belly of the earth before being finally and fully reborn to realms of light and majesty beyond. Perhaps you remember the classic tale told by the rabbi we cited nearly two years ago in The Wise Man and the King: A Postmodern Parable?
In his book Teaching Your Children About God, Rabbi David Wolpe, a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, recalls an ancient Jewish parable about twin fetuses lying together in the womb. One believes that there is a world beyond the womb, “where people walk upright, where there are mountains and oceans, a sky filled with stars. The other can barely contain his contempt for such foolish ideas.”
Suddenly the “believer” is forced through the birth canal leaving behind the only way of life he has known. The remaining fetus is saddened, convinced that a great catastrophe has befallen his companion. “Outside the womb, however, the parents are rejoicing. For what the remaining brother, left behind, has just witnessed is not death but birth. This, Wolpe reminds us, is a classic view of the afterlife—a birth into a world that we on Earth can only try to imagine. (Jeffery L. Sheler. “Heaven in an Age of Reason.” U.S. News & World Report. 31 March 1997: 65–66.)
The nature of all of living organisms is one of evolution, unfolding from within into the world without as though a sunflower turning toward the sun. Each stage of the growing organism can be thought of as an ontological transformation, though here the term would almost seem to take on a biological significance not typically associated with it except incidentally. And growth, though operating by its own laws, is not always linear or uniform; I think now of American psychologist Arnold Gesell (1880–1961) and his detailed studies of the biological development of infants and children. Specifically, Gesell is concerned with the biological process of maturation, as he termed it: a largely intrinsic process guided by one’s genes. In Theories of Development: Concepts and Applications, William Crain writes of Gesell; we will cite extensively from that text:
Reciprocal Interweaving. Humans are built on a bilateral basis; we have two hemispheres of the brain, two eyes, two hands, two legs, and so on. Our actions, too, have a dualistic quality, as when we either flex or extend our limbs. “Reciprocal interweaving” refers to the developmental process by which two tendencies gradually reach an effective organization. For example, in the development of handedness, the baby first uses one hand, then both together again, then prefers the other hand, then both together again, and so on until he or she ultimately reaches one-handed dominance. This back-and-forth quality of preferences suggests the metaphor of weaving, hence the term “reciprocal interweaving.” Gesell showed how reciprocal interweaving describes the patterning of many behaviors, including visual behavior and crawling and walking ([The Child from Five to Ten,] Gesell, 1946, pp. 342–349).
Gesell also believed that reciprocal interweaving characterizes the growth of the personality. Here we see the organism integrating introverted and extroverted tendencies. For example, the child who was self-composed at age 3 turns inward at 3 1/2, becoming timid and unsettled. This period of introversion is followed by a swing to extroversion at age 4, and the two tendencies finally become integrated and balanced at 5. Cycles such as this begin in infancy and continue at least until age 16. The organism temporarily loses its equilibrium as it expands into new inner or outer realms, but it then reorganizes itself at new levels ([Child Behavior,] Gesell, Ilg, & Ames, 1956, pp. 16–20).
Functional Asymmetry. Through the process of reciprocal interweaving, then, we balance the dualities of our nature. However, we rarely achieve perfect balance or symmetry. In fact, a degree of asymmetry is highly functional; we are most effective when we confront the world from an angle, favoring one hand, one eye, and so on. [...]
Self-Regulation. Gesell believed that intrinsic developmental mechanisms are so powerful that the organism can, to a considerable degree, regulate its own development. In one series of studies, he showed how babies can regulate their cycles of feeding, sleep, and wakefulness. When the babies were permitted to determine when they needed to nurse and sleep, they gradually required fewer feedings per day and stayed awake for longer periods during the daytime. Progress did not follow a straight line; there were many fluctuations, including regressions. But the babies did gradually work out stable schedules ([Child Behavior,] pp. 358–364).
Gesell also wrote about self-regulation from a slightly different angle, focusing on the organism’s capacity to maintain an overall integration and equilibrium. Growth, of course, also involves disequilibrium. As we just saw, infants’ sleeping and feeding patterns frequently fluctuate. We saw comparable fluctuations in the development of the personality, where periods of stability are followed by periods of instability as children enter new introverted or extroverted phases. Tensions arise when children venture into new unknowns. But self-regulatory mechanisms are always at work, ensuring that the organism never goes too far in one direction before it catches its balance, consolidating its gains before moving forward once again.
Because of intrinsic self-regulating processes, children will sometimes resist our efforts to teach them new things. It is as if something inside tells them not to learn too much too soon. The integrity of the organism must be preserved.
In addition to some telling insights into human development in the early stages, I do not think it too much to draw a direct parallel between this process of growing to that of one’s spiritual journey. A certain degree of functional asymmetry is to be expected: we are not all alike and as one body with many parts, our various strengths and weaknesses complement and contrast with one another favorably. We also get terribly impatient with ourselves at times and it seems like we are not growing at all. In fact, we cannot seem to win for losing sometimes: during the times of disequilibrium—when the most rapid growth is taking place—we feel like we are failing and floundering. But, being the humans we are, as soon as we reach those times in which we are “consolidating our gains” in a state of relative equilibrium, we begin to feel that we are not moving forward at all and we despair of ourselves. Sometimes we even regress, as a part lagging behind temporarily stalls our journey forward. Yet the spiritual life is one in which are being transformed moment by moment—an ontological change taking place within—as without we work out our salvation with fear and trembling, growing in grace and knowledge as by faith we seize hold of heaven by violent force. As Evelyn Underhill writes in the chapter entitled “The Dark Night of the Soul”:
The self, in its necessary movement towards higher levels of reality, loses and leaves behind certain elements of its world, long loved but now outgrown: as children must make the hard transition from nursery to school. Destruction and construction here go together: the exhaustion and ruin of the illuminated consciousness is the signal for the onward movement of the self towards other centres: the feeling of deprivation and inadequacy which comes from the loss of that consciousness is an indirect stimulus to new growth. The self is being pushed into a new world where it does not feel at home; has not yet reached the point at which it enters into conscious possession of its second or adult life. (Mysticism: The Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness)
Earlier, she speaks of the “oscillations of consciousness on the threshold of a new state” and how often times when we press in the closest, we find ourselves seemingly falling away the hardest. Her explanation basically comes down to the recognition that here on earth we are flesh and bone and that the process of spiritual transformation “from one centre of consciousness to another” must, in a sense, go through “disequilibrium” and then pause to “consolidate its gains.” Or, as a classmate, the son of missionary parents said today in class in defense of societal norms, there is a very real sense in which the entire history of civilization is itself a struggle against chaos. For many of us, we can only entertain such notions for so long before our heads are reeling and we feel the need to pull away and return to more mundane affairs. That is as it should be. For while our hope lies beyond, it also lies within, and for the moment, at least, we are children of the earth, our feet mostly on the ground and our bellies never far from our minds.
And so, of the seven cardinal virtues, I have been thinking most about faith: faith is the key and entry point into the world above. Faith is the means by which we may come to see and know God. It is the mustard seed planted in the soul that causes it to issue forth deep roots and extend branches high above bearing luscious fruit, nourishing, sweet, and pleasing to the eye. By faith, rich men may enter through the eye of a needle, mountains cast themselves into the sea, and the treasure trove of heaven and earth alike are opened. Faith starts out a seed, but like all forms of life it does not remain as it is; faith is like the caterpillar inside the cocoon that soon enough not only breaks forth but flies away on resplendent wings of black and gold. The caterpillar may insist upon proof of new existences, but no proof will be given it save the sign of Jonah: no proof will be given it save its own transformation as the new life is awoken within it. When we speak of tiny mustard seed of faith and the new life it awakens, we have in mind nothing short of an ontological transformation.
God bless,
Eric
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