Journal of a Soul 33

General Reflections

Chestnut tree Candles

It is amazing how certain, and indeed dogmatic, some people can be in their position vis-a-vis the world in general and the meaning of life in particular.  This happens when some of these people reduce their method of approach to life to a narrow scientific one, or one properly called "scientism" which allows of no other avenue of approach to life except that of the natural sciences.   On the other hand, as a philosopher, I must allow that there are equally certain and dogmatic believers who see the world through the narrow lens of their own religious optic and allow science very little look in.  In other words, narrow-mindedness is a quality that can be shared by people of all hues of belief and unbelief. 

I was not at all surprised, then, by a recent interview between Pat Kenny and the illustrious evolutionary biologist, ethologist and polemical atheist Richard Dawkins (born 1941), that he has a very narrow "scientistic" outlook.  You can access this interview, which took place on Newstalk Radio, 106-108 FM on 12 September 2013, HERE. I will attempt hereunder to transcribe just a very short piece of that interview:

PK: "... with something as small as viruses we can see Natural Selection and evolution at work... as they adapt to protect themselves in the face of threats. But, then, you go back to the whole idea of who designed the system... who designed the rules of nature, if you like, everything from gravity to quantum physics...?"

RD: "The point about... eh...  The basic principle from which we started is that they are very simple and don't, therefore, need a designer.  You only need a designer if you have something very complicated, and you can't explain how it became complicated.  If you've got a good explanation of how it became complicated, having started out simple, then that is the explanation you seek.  To say that it was designed is to re-import something complicated right at the start which entirely defeats the object of explanation."

It is apparent that both Dawkins here and Hawking elsewhere (most notably in the book he co-wrote with the physicist Leonard Mlodinow, The Grand Design, Bantam) have a very narrow idea as to what philosophy is.  Philosophy for this writer here is that approach to reality in its entirety (I'm taking it in the sense in which Wittgenstein describes it in his Philosophical Investigations) which asks all questions of the world or reality before it.  Why can we not ask the further question, which patently Dawkins here won't allow, namely, why should we not ask where these simple structures came from in the first place.  Why are we not allowed ask the question, "Where did these simple structures come from in the first place?"?  In philosophy, and indeed in science, surely, this is a reasonable question to ask.  I remember once reading the great philosopher and atheistic mathematician Bertrand Russell who proclaimed that some questions like metaphysical questions were never allowed in good philosophy as they were as ridiculous as asking questions about whether a teapot orbited the earth.  However, this question here, which I am admitting could be pushed to its metaphysical limits, can also be asked in a more practical sense, in an inquisitive sense which I would argue is that starting point for all good sciences.  I'm simply asking the question, yes, while I accept that the simple structures come before the more complicated ones in evolution and that the more complex ones do issue in theories to explain their complex structures which have evolved, I can still ask the question, what actually caused or brought about those simple structures?  I can also ask other questions like, "Were these simple structures always there?" "If so, what are the implications of such a statement?"  And so on.  Notice, I have not  once mentioned the G-word!

The World as a Whole

Rotten timber, but beautiful nonetheless

That Professor Dawkins, and many other atheistic authors, who are evangelical in their convictions and may wish to convert us to their viewpoints, are very intelligent there is no doubt.  However, that they confine their debate to the mere cerebral is a tragedy, I believe. If one enters debate with them one must confine oneself to the limitations of their arguments as they do not allow for the full complexity of the human brain; for the full complexity of the human mind; or for the full complexity of human culture as it engages with reality in its totality. To engage in debate with them one is confined to only using 3 or so of the nine intelligences outlined by modern psychology, especially by Howard Gardner in his book Multiple Intelligences (1993: Basic Books.  Dr Gardner's web page is accessible HERE) and they simply do not at all allow for the possibility of either EQ (Emotional Quotient: Daniel Goleman and others.  Note especially that Dr Goleman also talks about Social Intelligence and Ecological Intelligence.  See his web page here: GOLEMAN) or SQ (Spiritual Quotient: See HERE).  They will, no doubt, dismiss these theories as pseudoscience, but once again philosophy will come into play, because a good philosophy of science will ask questions about what is admissible and inadmissible in science.  After all, when the observer uses an electron microscope s/he by using it alters what is before them by bouncing electrons and other particles out of their original places.  How objective are the very pure atheistic scientists, then, anyway? Philosophy allows us to ask questions about their presuppositions, presumptions and axioms. After all, Euclidean Geometry is a very precise and fine system with tightly defined arguments.  However, there are many other geometries of the plane in existence which start from different axioms.  They are not mutually contradictory.  No. They are just different systems with different starting points or assumptions or axioms. Philosophy teaches us that we can always ask further questions.  That is its beauty.

Let us beware, then, of dogmatism and narrow-mindedness no matter what their provenance - whether in religion, science, politics or whatever.  The beauty of philosophy, (and note that every subject under the sun, including science has its respective philosophy), in that it is open-ended, and is always seeking the truths behind the seemingly apparent facts, the generally accepted theories and all those working hypotheses we humans are wont to invent for our development as individuals and as a society.  

Journal of a Soul 32

Beyond Debate IV

Self as Spiritual: Holding the Door Open to Mystery

One could argue that popular psychology and the Self Help Movement in general have hijacked the word “spiritual” from its more traditional home within organised religions. In this more general and widely accepted sense, then, we could define spirituality as being about a connection to something greater than ourselves. People might come to a spa to deepen their relationship with (i) themselves, (ii) others, (iii) with nature or the universe or (iv) with a spiritual power, personalised as God, or even as a neutral depersonalised, but greater energy source. In this sense, then, they are open to a mystery greater than their material selves. Cottingham (2010, p. 204: in Cottingham, J. (2010) The meaning of Life in Edmunds, D. &Warburton, N. (eds.) (2010) Philosophy Bites. Oxford: Oxford University Press) emphasises that it is “the need for some hope” despite all the vicissitudes and contingencies of life which I have adumbrated in previous posts here that the good in life is still worth pursuing and that somehow it will win out is “what leads us towards the idea of spirituality.” 

One could argue that the American psychologist William James’ classic The Varieties of Religious Experiences (1902) and the German theologian and scholar Rudolf Otto’s equally classic work The Idea of the Holy (1917) gave support not alone to the experiential reality of spirituality but to its intellectual credibility. However, in more orthodox theistic circles, spirituality is defined as that phenomenon that “describes the inner movement of the human spirit towards the transcendent or the divine.” [1]

Self as Soul: Holding the Door Open to Religion

That organised religion of one form or another is a sociological phenomenon is beyond doubt. That the divine exists, or that any religion offers verifiable truths, is, however, open to question. However, the contrary proposition that the divine does not exist, or that no religion offers verifiable truths, is equally questionable. Believers have argued for centuries that while one can offer logical reasons for one’s prior belief, one simply cannot contend that such belief is ever a logical deduction from premises; rather it is a question of a response from the whole person to the divine invitation to believe. [2]

While the question of faith, in either its defence or rejection, is beyond my purposes in this blog we are here holding the door open to religion as offering a sociological, theological, reasonable, meaningful and even therapeutic (healing) answer to the mystery we are confronted with in living. In the Canadian philosopher Taylor’s terms, religion is here offering us a framework or a horizon within which to live our lives. To close this door would be cavalier to say the least, as it would shut out a significant part of human experience. Hence, the question that concerns us immediately here is that of the self and its possible endurance after physical death in the religious reality known as the “soul.” According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica (2010), the soul is “…the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being, that which confers individuality and humanity; often considered to be synonymous with the mind or the self. In theology, the soul is further defined as that part of the individual which partakes of divinity and often is considered to survive the death of the body.” [3] That millions upon millions of believers are seriously deluded in many different religions is a possibility, but the sincerity of their beliefs is always beyond question. That serious scholars and deeply committed believers attest to their sincere belief in well argued books is also beyond doubt. On the other hand, that there are unbelievers who question their interpretation of these experiences is also beyond question. As there is no hard and fast proof on either side, it is, therefore, reasonable to leave this door firmly ajar. 

A Note on Peak Experiences: Where Ordinary Consciousness is a Door to Extraordinary Consciousness

It is my contention, as it is that of many scholars in the fields of psychology, psychotherapy, spirituality and, indeed, mystical theology and of practitioners of meditation in all its forms that ordinary consciousness can be a door to extraordinary consciousness. Here is where religious experience can be viewed as a deepening of ordinary experience.  Let me elaborate here on what I mean. May (2009: Man's Search For Himself. New York: W.W. Norton & Co) outlines four stages in the development of self-awareness, viz., (i) The stage of innocence – that is, of the child or infant, before the dawning of any consciousness, (ii) The stage of rebellion – the terrible twos and/or threes, and later that of adolescence, (iii) The stage of ordinary consciousness of self. This is relatively stable and healthy state of personality and (iv) The stage of extraordinary consciousness which, with practice, could be experienced by more of us more often. May reminds us that this type of awareness is also called "ecstasy". One might call this fourth stage that state Joyce alluded to as being an “epiphany” or what Abraham Maslow (1999, p. 92) in Toward a Psychology of Being calls “peak experiences.”

Peak experiences are often described as transcendent moments of pure joy and elation. These are moments that stand out from everyday events. The memory of such events is lasting and people often liken them to a spiritual experience. We all remember Abraham Maslow's famous Hierarchy of Needs pyramid from college.  As the reader will be aware, self-actualization is located at the very top of that pyramid and it represents the need within us all to fulfill our individual potential. According to Maslow, peak experiences play an important role in our goal of self-actualisation.  However, it is important to stress that self-actualization is actually considered quite rare, which means that peak experiences can be quite elusive. Not all people, then, reach the peak of Maslow's pyramid. In one study, researchers found that only about two-percent of individuals surveyed had ever had a peak experience. However, this obviously does not rule out the possibility, and, indeed, the increasing likelihood of actually reaching such a stage if we consciously set ourselves the task of so doing. However, Maslow did not wish to restrict Peak Experiences solely to self-actualized individuals because he believed that all people are capable of having these moments, but he also firmly believed in line with the evidence that self-actualized people were likely to experience them more often.

(Note: The above post is a re-worked version of an abandoned section of a recent piece of academic work for an M. A. in human development.)

[1] Quinlan, T. (1994, p. 6), unpublished thesis, Milltown Institute, Dublin.
[2] John Henry Cardinal Newman states: “For myself, it was not logic, then that carried me on... It is the concrete being who reasons ... the whole man moves; paper logic is but a record of it.” Quoted Quinlan (1994, p. 10)
[3] http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/555149/soul Accessed 06/09/2013.

Journal of a Soul 31

Beyond Debate III

Personal Experience

(i) Preliminary Remarks

It is hard to contradict or deny personal experience.  It is, moreover, more difficult still to do so when someone declares they have had a religious experience.  We literally have to take them at their word, or write them off as simply hallucinating. I'm sure we have all encountered sincere and rational individuals who are convinced that they have encountered the divine  or the transcendent in their lives.  There are many millions upon millions of people on this earth who have declared their witness to the truth of these experiences.  Such cannot be denied.  No matter what our debaters on the negative side of the debate say - like Dennett, Dawkins, Hitchens et al - there is no persuading these many millions that they are simply deluded. 

Firstly, let me declare the obvious truth of the observation that many individuals from the lunatic fringe are quite easily drawn to religions of all kinds.  Let us take this as a given. Indeed, I have known a certain few individuals who have manic depression (or more correctly bipolar disorder) and at least one of these individuals goes on a hyper-religious trip during his manic phase.  This is a given, but it is certainly and obviously NOT a valid argument against the truth of religion.

Secondly, let me declare the equally obvious truth that much harm in the form of wars, attempted genocide, torture and suffering of all kinds have been done in the name of religion and by individuals who claim to be firm believers in God.  Once again, this is a given.  And yet, logically it can never be adduced as an argument against religion per se.  Why?  Simply because the operative and significant phrase in the above sentence is "in the name of religion."  Who is at fault when a nation goes to war inspired by religion - the religion qua religion or the fallible fault-ridden human interpreters of that religion?  I would argue logically for the fault of the latter.  

Again, my favourite author on this topic is Fyodor Dostoevsky who, in his inspiring parable "The Grand Inquisitor" in his wonderful novel The Brothers Karamazov deals exactly with this persistent problem of the corruption of power within official religious circles.  Whether one accepts that religion is a sociological phenomenon that naturally grew up for societal needs from the earliest of times or that it is a divinely inspired organisation, one still has to grant that one is relying upon fallible human beings within that organisation.  Having spent some three years of my life within a Roman Catholic religious order in my younger years I can attest to (i) the existence of people who loved power  and who equally loved exercising it and who delighted in lording it over others.  It's the natural lust for power in all humans that comes to the fore in every organisation under the sun. However, I can also attest to (ii) much good done by many sincerely motivated and genuinely good people in the name of the vision which they attribute to their founder, to Jesus and to God ultimately. 

I am no sociologist, but an understanding of the sociological basis of all religions as well as the sociological understanding of organisations both need to be considered here, not just the abstract notions, considered or otherwise, of the negative side of the argument against religions and God as adduced by Hitchens, Dawkins, Dennett et al. 

(ii) A Higher Spiritual Power 

I know a certain few individuals who are recovering alcoholics and they have informed me that but for their trust in a higher spiritual power they would indeed be lost, if not dead. This belief in a higher power is an integral part of the twelve steps programme developed by that wonderful international organisation Alcoholics Anonymous.  Strangely, or maybe not so strangely after all, these twelve steps read like a spiritual/religious programme.  The first four principles or steps run:  

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to  sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.  (See this link for the web page of the Irish branch of the AA and for more information on The Twelve Steps.) 

Now, the operative phrase I'd like to stress is the underscored one, "God as we understand Him" as it defines God in an absolutely non-denominational sense, or in an open or broad religious sense, leaving it to the individual to interpret who they believe that God to be in their own lives.  

Once again, let me stress here that these persons who have encountered their own demons through the struggle with alcohol, and indeed others through their fight with addictions of all kinds, are utterly convinced that they can do nothing from any of their own inner resources (which are at their lowest ebb, like a totally drained battery, if I may use a metaphor here.) Therefore, they insist that they have to rely on an outer or outward power which they might call God. Admittedly, space is left for the addicted to call that higher power an Energy Source if they do not wish to call it God as such.  

(iii) My Own Spiritual Experiences

I readily admit that I prefer the term "spiritual" to "religious", quite simply because religion has got such a bad press through the actions of so-called believers of all hues and due to the negative press given by the debaters on the negative side of the God-debate.  That I was a religious/spiritual boy goes without saying:  as a young lad I remember being transfixed by the beauty of the old Latin Mass with its Gregorian chant, smell of incense, and the whole aesthetics of that ceremony and others. Also much of the music associated with the traditional Roman Catholic Church is exquisite to say the least.  Each year I still attend the annual performance of Handel's wonderful Messiah and certainly I can attest as can anyone who attends or rather participates in that musical experience, that deep spiritual depths are touched in the human heart through its sheer beauty and overwhelming power.  

I have also had other experiences where I felt I was close to a primal Energy which somehow was sustaining me and indeed the world around me - an experience of God in nature.  I can still remember once when I was a young monk walking around the wonderfully wild and green grounds of our novitiate and experiencing a cloud-burst on a sunlit day. It was more experientially for me than a mere and thorough drenching.  It was, in fact, in a very real sense what is called in theology a theophany, or at least that is the way I remember describing it when I was later writing down the experience in my spiritual diary at the time. A theophany is the appearance of God through nature, or at least, through the power of nature, literally a showing or manifestation of the divine.  Indeed, James Joyce also adverted to such inspirational and transfixing moments as "epiphanies."  In other word we experience a profound spiritual depth in a through a physical occurrence. 

Another link I would make here is what the philosophers have described as "the experience of the sublime." Here is how the WIKI defines this specific notion, and I believe it is a wonderfully clear definition at that: 

In aesthetics, the sublime (from the Latin sublīmis) is the quality of greatness, whether physical, moral, intellectual, metaphysical, aesthetic, spiritual or artistic. The term especially refers to a greatness beyond all possibility of calculation, measurement or imitation. (See Sublime )

As an erstwhile hill walker, I believe that we cannot not be captivated by the sheer beauty and power of nature.  Some of my friends have stood beside either Niagara or Victoria Falls and have been overcome by the sheer frightening and transfixing power and beauty of nature, by its sublimity. I have stood by the Cliffs of Moher here on the west coast of Ireland and have marvelled at their sheer power and beauty.  Then there is the Grand Canyon and many many other beautiful, awe-inspiring and powerfully overwhelming wonders of nature besides these few I have mentioned here. They have been written about widely and many have attested to their awe-inspiring power.  When people declare that they have been moved by a power beyond them, by a deep spiritual energy which is both within and beyond them at one and the same time, who are we to deny the validity of their experiences? Indeed, one can argue that such is a mere psychological or para-psychological experience and not a religious or spiritual experience of a sustaining God.  Atheists could certainly argue that.  However, there are atheists who, while denying the existence of God, readily admit that we humans have a spiritual dimension.  This latter point is one to which I shall return later in these notes here, but for the moment such a diversion is beyond our present purposes. 

What I simply want to underscore here is the validity and authenticity of religious or spiritual experiences no matter whether one can attribute such to a divine source or to a powerful energy beyond us.  To deny the testimony of our lived experiences and those of millions upon millions of believers over thousands of years and well as those of our own times is surely to deny the complexity of human nature and the role of powers beyond our limited ken.  It must surely also betray our pride or hubris in thinking that we know more than fallible creatures actually could ever possibly master.

  

Journal of a Soul 30

Beyond Debate II

Religion as a Psychological Phenomenon

Daffodils, Ardgillen Park

Once again, the psychology of religion, like the sociological dimension, is a factor often totally ignored by the learned debaters whom I alluded to in my last post.  That these debaters are in any way wrong is not the point at all.  In fact, within the parameters of their debates they are justifiably right.  My argument here is that the parameters of their debate are just so narrow.  They seem to forget that religions with their ceremonies and rituals often provide psychological support for their followers.  Adherents gain sustenance from the scriptures read and pondered, from the words of inspiration and healing proclaimed by their ministers and from the meal shared if the Eucharist forms some part of their worship.  They feel closer to their God or Maker whom they believe supports them all the day long and they also believe they can have a personal relationship with their God.  Without a shadow of a doubt such believers gain much support and no little direction for their lives from their religious beliefs.  So, on a purely personal and psychological level they feel more "at home" and more at peace with themselves and others.  Religion gives a pattern and structure not alone to their lives  but also a deep psychological support.

Once again, whether God exists or not, or indeed whether one can advance reasons for or against His or even Her or further even Its existence is in many ways quite beside the point. What I am arguing for here is that we just look on life objectively with no presuppositions and watch how religions of all hues offer both sociological and psychological support to their followers.  My own mother was a woman of deep religious faith who was a daily Mass goer and Rosary sayer for most of her long life.  That the Catholic Church provided her with something to do, somewhere to go, many friends, emotional and personal support and indeed gave meaning to her life is beyond question.  That she was of a more traditional era is perhaps worth noting as also is the fact that she died in her 97th year.  That other clubs could provide such sustaining roles I will, of course, allow.  It stands to reason and indeed to critical and objective observation that other organisations could possibly offer such support. Church attendance here in Ireland has now plummeted to practically meet the figures observable on the Continent of Europe.  Indeed, I readily agree that this is a very good thing as those who now attend are doing so because they want to and not from social pressure. That such clubs could offer the depth of meaning that religions might offer is, of course, debatable, but this argument is not ad rem here. 

Ancient tree, Trinity College, famous seat of learning, Dublin

In this regard, I recall the remarks of an outstanding academic, Sir Kenneth Dover, one time Professor of classics at Oxford, later President of Corpus Christi College and finally Chancellor of St Andrew's University, Scotland who succinctly told his interviewer, the late great Irish Psychiatrist, Professor Anthony Clare, that at a certain stage in his life he had "quite outgrown religion." For more information on my review of Clare's discussion with Sir Anthony see the following posts in one of my old blogs HERE  The point I wish to make here is that while Religion can and does offer psychological support, people can actually grow through and beyond that support when they feel they simply no longer need it.  And again here, I wish to underscore the point, needing or not needing religion are both fundamentally acceptable ways of being in the world.  As we grow we have various needs at various stages of our lives and to say one stage is better than another is quite ridiculous unless one is suffering or something during one or other period.  In other words, what really sane person would condemn a three year old for needing the support of a toy, a toddler finding it hard to separate from his parents on the first day of school, an eight year old for sulking, a ten year old for not being able to be independent and so on.  One is not necessarily stronger for not needing religion.  That's where I feel our debaters alluded to at some length in my last post have gone wrong.  Because the parameters of their debate are so narrow they do not leave room for the complexity of the human phenomenon.  Dawkins is a member of The Brights Movement who literally believe they have transcended as it were the childishness of religion and have embraced the clarity of the well-founded, the logically proved and scientifically justified conclusions that there is no God and that religion is just a load of poppy cock anyway.  See the following link for information on this movement of intellectual clarity: The Brights Movement.  Without a doubt they are somewhat condescending in their attitudes to believers.

Complexity

In summary, then, my argument here in this journal of a soul is one which stresses that the human phenomenon is a very complex one which should never be reduced to any one dimension of its complexity.  In that regard it is quite like a diamond with hundreds of faces and each face, as it were, allowing a different avenue of exploration into the mystery of what the human phenomenon is.  This diary or journal, like my previous blog, Still Point, is essentially my way of exploring the mystery of who I am.  In that journey I have learnt to be suspicious of all who seek to offer simple answers to life's complex questions, no matter whether they are scholars of standing or not.  An old acquaintance of mine, long since dead, used quote an old Catholic saying attributed to St Thomas Aquinas: "Homo unius libri timeo" or "I fear the man of a single book." In other words, let us read widely, ponder deeply and consequently be enabled to argue well.  Another slant on what the Angelic Doctor (i.e., Aquinas) was getting at would be to avoid what we call "reductionism" today.  In other words, we reduce the mystery that the human being presents us with when we examine that reality from the narrow perspective of one viewpoint only.  There are many optics by which to view the human condition; there are many sciences to examine the reality of humanity; there are many voices of experience worth listening to; there are many insights we might dismiss to our detriment.  These pages, then; these considered thoughts and reflections; these insights of a one lonely soul offer a plea for expanding our vision of what the human being is and can be.  In that respect, religion and the spirituality it introduced this writer to, can never be summarily dismissed.

Journal of a Soul 29

Beyond Debate

Self writing in a notebook , Pisa Summer 2007

Debating is a skilled activity that allows the intellect to show its cutting edge, as it were.  It is, moreover, wonderful to witness when practised by those who know their subjects well.  It is even more thrilling, still, to behold one debater either totally demolishing the argument of another or, at least, painstakingly taking it apart and showing its inherent flaws.  As this is a blog with a spiritual/psychodynamic/psychotherapeutic thrust, I shall here confine my comments to matters of faith and reason with respect to the methodology of debate. Examples of debates that come to mind here are: (i) the famous debate on evolution at Oxford in 1860 between the scientist Thomas Henry Huxley (1825 - 1895; biologist and coiner of the term "agnosticism," his favored religious stance) and the great orator, Samuel Wilberforce (1805 - 1873), Bishop of Oxford and later of Winchester, and (ii) the wonderful debate between the late wonderful journalist, writer, atheist and polemicist, Christopher Hitchens (1949 - 2011) and the former British P.M. Tony Blair, Catholic and wonderful orator and politician. This latter debate may be accessed : HERE

However, debating is cerebral and cognitive and is mainly confined to linear argumentation, though debaters may, of course, present in a logical way the findings of their reflections on experiences - religious and spiritual - and on emotions in general.  They may even, and very often do, employ humour and respect for their opponents.  But, my argument here is that debate is a limited, albeit, at times, very sharp and precise, methodology of approaching knowledge and truth.  There is, so much more to what makes us human than arguing about our beliefs and stances in life.  Our beliefs, contrary to what Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett think, cannot be confined within the parameters of logical, cerebral or inferential debating.  In other words, I am here adumbrating what in fact the great nineteenth century theologian, John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) expressed succinctly in the following words: "Faith is not a deduction from premises" or as he also expressed it "faith is never inferential."  It is as much a matter of the heart as well as the head.  He was, in these remarks, of course, echoing the comments of the great French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal (1623 -1662) who emphasised the following: "le coeur as ses raisons que la raison ne connait point." ("The heart has its reasons which reason can never know.")

More to Life than Logic  

St Peter's Square from the Cupola

As I write these lines here, I am listening to the wonderful debate and ensuing discussion to which I alluded above and to which I have given the link.  Yet I am still convinced that more is needed, and that the methodological structures of debate, argument and discussion, while effective, are nonetheless lacking is something.  It is to that lack that I wish to confine my musings here. These are my thoughts after some 55 years as a wee ant on this little minuscule anthill we call "earth"which is hurtling through infinite space.  So what I say is said in as humble a way as I possibly can.  I have no great reasons to give on either side of the debate like either Wilberforce or Huxley or Blair or Hitchens, though it is wonderful to listen to, to read and/or ponder the learned musings of these great erudite debaters.  No, rather, I wish to widen the debate in the following points.

(i) Debaters seem to forget that Religion is both a sociological and psychological phenomenon, not to mention an anthropological one, not essentially amenable to logical debate, though nonetheless may be expressed and eruditely explicated in reasonable terms.  Peoples have always been religious because it is a way, be it primitive or primal, but no less true or authentic for all that, of making sense of their lives as a community as they encounter the world in its entirety.  In coming up with how they make sense of the mystery they encounter in the world as a complete entity these peoples collectively came up in a natural manner over time with firstly the various primitive religions, animist and polytheistic, and then the major great monotheistic religions of the Abrahamic Faiths (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) and the more holistic, and perhaps more psychologically friendly religions of the East namely Hinduism and Buddhism.  

Religion as a sociological Phenomenon

(a) The contemporary Irish journalist John Waters, speaking of the few positive things one can attribute to the Roman Catholic Church, averred that it was exceptionally good at those ceremonial things associated with "hatching, matching and dispatching."  When I first read his words, I delighted not alone in his light rhyming humour but also in his sound appreciation for ritual.  The religious rituals he had in mind here, without doubt, are baptisms and christenings, marriage and funeral ceremonies respectively. Sociologically speaking, it is not a question of whether another life exists or not, or even whether it can be proved one way or another; it is rather a question of dealing with death as a human reality within a community context in as meaningful a way as possible.  Such ceremonies are ways of dealing with the phenomenon of death and they have naturally evolved over the years to help the bereaved family, friends and acquaintances deal with their emotions at a community and by implication at a personal level.  Rituals, no matter what religious faith they occur in offer a collectively and individually healing avenue to express and contain grief. Sociologically rituals have evolved to help us in that containment.  Even a humanist or atheist funeral service offers a similar emotional expression or containment.  Indeed, I have attended one humanist funeral recently and the ceremony, which studiously and purposely avoids any mention of God needless to say, was akin to a religious ceremony replete with readings and "minister."  It obviously had no overtly religious element like a mass or scripture readings, but it emphasised instead secular readings from books which the departed person loved and encouraged the bereaved by playing the dead man's favourite music.  There were also three tributes to the departed by his family and friends.  There was interestingly a period of quiet where people of all faiths, beliefs and no beliefs were asked to think of the departed man in silence.  Obviously, any believer could choose to pray to his God if he so wished at that time.

To Be Continued

Journal of a Soul 28

My Eulogy for My Mother, Mary Quinlan, 1917 - 2013

Preamble

This short eulogy fits in here in this blog because it is very much written from the soul.  My brothers and I sat by her bedside from 05:30 until 00:05, that is for her last eighteen hours and thirty five minutes of earthly existence. She seemed to have "given up the ghost" when her breathing stopped at 22:05 on Monday 15th July. However, when the Doctor in attendance arrived she declared, having examined her, that she could not pronounce her dead as her heart was still strongly beating. In the end, she was declared dead at 00:05 on Tuesday16th July.  A deeply devout Catholic friend declared that he was in no way surprised at this, adding that my mother obviously wished to die on the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.  Now, as you will read in the tribute below, my mother had spent some15 years leading the Rosary in her local church which at that stage had been run by Carmelite priests - O. Carm.  If one is a Catholic believer one would call thing providence; if an agnostic, a coincidence, or a New Age believer a God-incidence.  Be that as it may, here follows my eulogy for my mother in full, together with a poem I wrote for her:

Mother’s Eulogy

1  Words of thanks must come first.  On behalf of the Quinlan family and the extended larger Brophy family I would like to take this opportunity to say a heart-felt “thank you” to all the medical, nursing, caring and ancillary staff in St Mary’s Hospital, Phoenix Park.  Anyone with any connection to that wonderful “home from home” will know the excellent standards of care and attention available there.  Mary was in four or five different wards during her long stay there, but her last port of call was Beibhinn Ward in Teach Cara where she spent three happy and content years.  To the wonderful staff of Beibhinn, thank you for your care and love for our mother – it was simply second to none.

2.  I would also like to thank Fr Gerry for his gentle, sensitive and prayerful handling of the whole funeral service.  Thanks, as well, to the choir for the lovely fitting music.

3.  I would also like to invite everyone, back to Parnell’s Club, now called The Chanel for a light meal.  My mother would have wished that her life would be fittingly celebrated with old memories and fun shared over a meal!

4.  Mary had a long and happy life of 96 years and three months.  While not an English scholar at all she liked to say that she was born on Shakespeare’s birthday, the 23 rd of April.  In her case the year was 1917.  If Mary’s life were a book it would contain three chapters:

5.  The First chapter would be entitled: “The Crumlin Years: Hard Work and Music.”  My mother was the second eldest of 12 siblings, and as the eldest girl she performed the role of mother to many of her younger brothers and sisters.  In those days much responsibility fell to the eldest girl in any family, more so in one so large.  A committed and diligent work regime was instilled into her from her earliest years, and caring was the core of her very existence from the beginning – this was never to change.  She was a wonderful home-keeper, organiser, cook, carer, dress-maker, knitter – all the usual skills and competencies associated with the traditional Irish woman of that era.  In hindsight she would have been imbued with all these values and skills by her own mother, Phoebe St Ledger, who was a convert from the Church of Ireland.  The Brophy home was a happy and caring home where Irish traditional Irish music was part of its very fabric with all the notables of traditional music, like Seamus Ennis visiting there because her father was a well-regarded exponent of the uilleann pipes and a marvellous reed maker.  I remember her telling me that when she was very young she and her siblings would follow my grandfather in line around the fields as he played the bag and chanter of his uilleann pipes.  This is chapter one, and it ends in 1954, I think, when all her siblings were reared and married and she herself married my father Thomas Quinlan.

6.  And so chapter 2 may be called “Roscrea and Dublin.”  In 1954 at the age of 36/7 she moved to Roscrea, the hometown of my father where we were all born.  Crises were never far away, but in her case they were all grist to the mill.  The first house was burned down, I believe, but luckily the alarm was raised and no harm done.  Then in the early sixties my father Tom got polio in the then countrywide polio epidemic. Luckily he came through that with just the loss of the use of one arm and was happily able to work for the rest of his life.  However, Mary never lamented any misfortune ever as troubles were simply something you dealt with, and never ever given into.  My father’s convalescence and his new work necessitated a move back to Dublin in 1964.  All these years, which were hard at times, were in general happy ones for her and her family.  Typical of her, she found herself a job to supplement the family income as the housekeeper for an old gentleman in Ballsbridge, which she continued with until she was a young 70.  Hard work was always part of her nature. Having retired, she became a daily mass-goer in this Church which became the hub of her daily existence as she proudly led the rosary here every morning for the last fifteen or so years of her active life, and during this time was a loyal member of the over-fifties group.

7.  Chapter 3 may be termed “The Long Good Bye.”  At 84, while still active, she had a mild stroke which unfortunately was the beginnings of dementia which she would live with for the last 12 and half years, with 11 or so of those spent in the care of the wonderful staff of St Mary’s hospital.  The first several years had their funny moments with Mary thinking the other patients were her brothers and sisters – indeed she called them by their names – and used to tuck them in at night before she went to bed herself.  However, dementia is no kind friend, and it diminishes the memory bit by inevitable bit, but thankfully she was always very happy in her surroundings and was constantly smiling, an ability she retained to the very end when speech was no longer possible.  She was able to smile for us before her passing.

8.  Her two most prominent characteristics were her gentleness and her total non-judgement of others.

9.  I’ll finish with a poem which may sum her up better than these above  more prosaic words:

A Poem for Mother

Your love was the shade of a tree on a scorching day,

A summer shower refreshing our parched clay,

A strong hand that lifted child from harm’s way,

Your face a sun that warmed our every day.

And yet not much was said

For all was done and every child was fed

And every plant was nurtured to its flower

As years rolled by beyond our power.

And now there are no words that we can say,

No rhymes to capture life’s decay,

The fall of leaf, the burden of dismay,

And yet there is a solace in the season’s turn:

Ripe fruit must fall to earth

To bring new life to birth

And so inevitable it must be,

The parting wave, the final smile, the stinging tear,

The mystery of the turn in every year.

And now we dwell in the comfort of your great love,

Your long life’s work, no task left undone –

Let us celebrate its length of years

And the joys that far outnumbered all our tears.

RIP, Mary and may the light of the heavens shine upon you!

Journal of a Soul 27

Facing Death

Ireland's Eye from Baldoyle

Those who live close to nature learn its mysteries with a certain ease that is always foreign to us city dwellers.  That is why I love travelling back to the county where my father was born and lived for more than half his life.  He truly shared in that country wisdom.   Likewise, do the simple country people of Calabria where I have been holidaying for some recent summers.  Tribes and more primitive peoples also share in such simple wisdom.  Modern sophisticated humankind, which works so much from the neo-cortex, has almost forgotten what it is like to live close to nature and its cycles. Often, alas, we moderns only meet nature when it interrupts our plans through the natural evils of tornadoes, snow blizzards, floods and so on.  Indeed, we have learned of late that much of the natural disasters are caused by man-made pollution to our atmosphere.  Alas, we moderns have done so much learned thinking about the world that we have quite forgotten that we are part of it, too.  We are creatures, albeit self-conscious, but creatures nonetheless of the world, in which we live, move and have our being.

Be that as it may, what I want to write about here is the last few hours of my mother’s life.  That frail life is slowly but surely leaking away now at the grand old age of 96. My brother Pat and I have been called home from holiday to await her passing from this world.  And yet, with all the knowledge we have gained about what it means to be human, we have never really bettered the ways of coping and dealing with dying and death than the many religious traditions of the world have put at our disposal.  The community comes around and ritualises the passing of this person from our presence.  As a philosopher, I would like to believe that I am open enough to allow all creeds the dignity of their individual beliefs.  Dying and death, and indeed how we deal with them, are not matters of pure science that can rule as to what is the true and right way to celebrate the meaning of a life that has passed or indeed rule upon the belief of a life to come.  Comforting ourselves in our lonely grief is quite fittingly the province of faith, religion and indeed of the imagination, and it is my considered conviction that both faith and religion belong firmly within the ambit of the intricate mystery of the imagination.  It is not, therefore, a question of whether the next life exists or not or of whether it can be proved one way or another. It is simply not a question that falls within the province of science at all.  It is one that falls within the ambit of the psychology and sociology of religion and within humanity’s many learnt ways of coping with its crises.  These are the factors that such trenchant atheists like Hitchens, Dawkins and Denneth leave out of the picture.  Their arguments are good and valid, but only good and valid within the narrow parameters of a delimiting and dehumanising science, in effect within the confines of a sheer scientism.

My mother and I about five years ago

The imagination is a wonderful faculty which leads us individually and collectively into mysteries which the rational or cognitive faculties of the mind cannot fathom – great works of music, wonderful pieces of art, marvellous buildings and bridges and so on.  Over 100 years ago the great John Henry Cardinal Newman pointed out that even scientists had to use their imagination as well as their cognitive or rational faculties in bringing their discoveries and inventions into the world. The imagination of a culture is a rich world that cannot be reduced to the parameters of any science.  We meaning-making creatures need our beliefs, no matter what their standing in a purely cognitive or logical sense. The brain, and the mind which resides principally though perhaps not entirely there, and even the soul which some believe lives mysteriously there, too, are all more than just firings on and off of various neurons.  Yes, they may be that, but not just that.  We humans are more.  And it is in the quest to find out what the “more” in us is that all true inquiry lies.

And so, as my mother’s life leaks out, I am in many ways diminished.  The womb that begot me is no more.  That was the human animal womb.  Was there or is there, as the great psalmist David put it, a womb before the dawn that begot us all?  Our questions are legion, our feelings confused, perhaps numbed.  The existentialists are right.  Death makes dust of both our individual achievements and dreams.  However, it cannot reduce to ashes the memory of the collectivity, the shared emotions and feelings of the race, the drive to meaning within any culture. In times like this, all I can do is take refuge in the wisdom of the culture which begot me.  Rest in peace, Mary Quinlan.  I hope I will live the remainder of my life with the courage and determination to see no task left undone as you did! Your task is finished – a job well done!    Consummatus est! I will miss you sorely!

Journal of a Soul 26

Order versus Disorder

Clouds over Baldoyle recently

Somewhere, sometime, long ago at the dawn of consciousness, which, I should imagine, roughly corresponded to the emergence of civilisation around the great rivers of the world from Mesopotamia to Egypt to China and so forth, there was a first great push for order among humans.  Humankind had begun to order itself, to create systems to help itself better survive in a hostile world.  Together, human beings could create and invent ever easier and better ways of surviving.  And so, progress was now possible with these first steps of co-operation. And so, indeed, prehistory gave way to history as civilisation after civilisation sought to record all their efforts at self-betterment, both successful and unsuccessful.

And today, we are the rich inheritors of multifarious cultures and we possess a sheer abundance of ever-expanding knowledge which has its foundations in those early cultures we described above.  Having been born in a relatively poor and young nation, namely Ireland, in 1958, I was, like my contemporaries exposed to very little new knowledge as it were – most of it was then contained in the written media and in the school books from which we learned our traditional school subjects. I recall well the arrival of the first television set into our little town of Roscrea, Co Tipperary in 1962 when I was only four years old. The National Television Service, RTE, was founded on January 1 that year.

And so as I grew up, the world became simultaneously and paradoxically both larger and smaller.  Larger, insofar as we would gradually come of age by learning through the medium of the TV how bigger and richer nations lived.  We would also desire the goods they had and to do the activities they engaged in.  We would want to travel more and experience and learn at firsthand what it was like to live elsewhere.  It became a smaller world, too, insofar as we are now beneficiaries of what Alvin Toffler long ago so aptly described as “the acceleration of change” in the early 1970s – so much so, indeed, that we can now call up any amount of relevant (and irrelevant) information at our fingertips through modern technologies such as smart phones and i-pads etc.

Obsessed with Information and with organising it

The Public Library, Baldoyle

In short, we are still obsessed with information – indeed, we might truly describe it as information overload – and we are equally obsessed with ordering that information into all its relevant categories and classes, subcategories and subclasses.  The web of knowledge gets evermore intricate as the world seemingly progresses.  Note the adverb here, as human progress is surely a matter of philosophical importance, and questions can indeed be raised as to what exactly progress consists in – thoughts for another post there, I should think. The internationally famous contemporary British professor of philosophy, A.C. Grayling puts it thus, and many are wont to agree with the learned professor:

“The development of science and technology shows us that, as a species, we have grown clever; their misuse for war and oppression shows us that we have not yet grown wise.  Moral heroism is required for us to teach ourselves wisdom” (The Choice of Hercules, Phoenix, Orion: London, 2007, p.68)

Disorder breaks in

If you own a property you will realise how much maintenance is required and much if not all of it on-going.  Things naturally break down – The Second Law of Thermodynamics and all that.  As soon as a house is unlived in, nature begins to have its way all too quickly with grasses and weeds growing from every available crack and crevice.  In other words, we have to constantly labour to bring about order, and also to keep order in place lest it suddenly descend into disorder and chaos.

Meditation as a Coping Strategy

I remember one of my acquaintances remarking many years ago that no one gets out of life alive.  In spite of all our individual efforts to keep order in our individual lives we grow old and die.  The existentialists were keenly aware of this patently obvious absurdity at the very heart of the human predicament: - the self-project which each individual sets out to accomplish will come to nothing in the dust of our death.  Admittedly, collectively as a culture we amass mounds of information, much art, buildings of great architectural value, languages, the intricacies of mathematics and sciences of all types as well as the more creative stuff of poetry, novels, drama and so forth.  And yet, as individuals we come to nought.  This was at the heart of Irish National Broadcaster, Marion Finucane’s interview with the dying writer Nuala O’Faoláin some two years back.  Nuala was heartbroken, she said, on learning that her death was imminent because all the order and shape she had built up in her individual life would now simply become nothing – all the facts she had learned, all the experiences she had gained, all the insights, the teeming brain, the languages, the literature, the writings, the music she so loved, the art, her three or so apartments, her wonderful friendships, her next writing task – all gone, forever, dissolved into nothing as her individual life, her little selfhood of her own creation, was snuffed inexorably out.  That, indeed, is the human dilemma, the existential condition under which we all live. 

And yet, meditation is only too aware of this. After all, it was Siddhartha Gautama’s (the Buddha) own lived dilemma, too, how to deal with suffering in all its manifestations – mental, spiritual and physical.  For him, the key was to learn to become detached from the concerns of life, to learn to get over clinging to either things or persons – in short, to learn acceptance and detachment.  This is the Buddhist philosophy of life, a way to live serenely and sanely in an all too frenetic and insane world.   

And so, what does living wisely mean? I argue that it means something along the following lines:

To learn that there are no easy answers to life’s big questions and that  those who propose such easy answers are singularly unwise, misled and misleading.

Sometimes we have to learn to accept events in life that we can never ever understand.  Acceptance, of course, here is never blind acceptance which is sheer fatalism.  By acceptance here, I mean that graced place of equanimity where one arrives spiritually, having worked hard at either solving the problem at hand, looking for help from as many quarters as possible, seeking advice, doing one’s best to come up with some partial solution and so on.  There is little or nothing more one can do against the inevitable at that stage.  Hence, acceptance is a wise position because one has expended all the necessary energy and a further expending is nothing short of wasteful and useless.

Knowing one’s strengths and limitations, and playing life’s game in that knowledge.

Forming good relationships and working at them like a gardener cultivates his patch of ground.

Learning the limits of human knowledge.

Being humble in a Socratic way – the admission of ignorance can be the beginning of knowledge and wisdom.

Learning things by doing – the practical knowledge or wisdom (phronesis) advocated by Aristotle.

Learning through meditation to accept whatever order there is in chaos.

Doing things slowly, mindfully and consequently well.

Perfection does not exist – it is an unobtainable ideal.  Everything has slight imperfections somewhere.  Excellence is a different matter.  To excel at something need not mean being perfect at it.  The nearest description I found for “perfection” was in the Bible where one translation described it as being “whole” or complete.

Finally, one must learn the harsh truth of all existence, namely that life is not fair, and by all the logic of statistics could never be.  Mostly, life is a matter of sheer randomness and luck.  How, when, where, to whom and in what medical and monetary circumstances we are born are all matters of varying circumstances.  We are dealt a specific hand of cards and we had better play them as best we can to our advantage if we are to engage positively at all with life!