Journal of a Soul 35

As if People Mattered

People who matter: Teachers and Students in my School

In the Comment and Analysis section of today's Sunday Business Post the prophetic economist, commentator and author David McWilliams maintains that "(W)here the nuns and priests led, Irish business should follow." He argues that the trends in the poorest parts of the world are strikingly positive and that "Africa is going to be a major economic growth region in the very near future." (p. n19) These words evoked the following thoughts:

Economy

We definitely lost our way as a nation during the years of the Celtic Tiger.  Greed became the chief deadly sin of which most Irish people became both consciously and unconsciously perpetrators. A friend of mine says that this greed was, in part, an unconscious reaction to the sufferings and many losses we underwent as a people during the Great Famine era.  Poor Paddy was no longer depicted as an ape-like creature who was either inevitably drunk or wielding a shillelagh to knock the brains out of the next person to cross his path, but rather a world-recognized entrepreneur with vision, power and newly gained wealth.  

Many years ago I read, as all idealist young people did at the time, that wonderful little classic Small is Beautiful (1973) by by the British economist E.F. Schumacher.  The title "Small Is Beautiful" became a catch-cry for idealists and romantics rather than for entrepreneurs who always subscribed to words like "maximum", "big", "huge" and "great," especially when coupled with the noun "profit."  The catch-cry "Small is beautiful" is often used to champion small, appropriate technologies that are believed to empower people more, in contrast with phrases such as "bigger is better".  The subtitle appealed further to the humanitarian and Romantic in me:  "A study of Economics as if People mattered."  The "as if" has always stuck in my mind as an idealist who saw that entrepreneurs and those in power invariable did not put people first; that they didn't really believe that people mattered despite their many loud declarations that they did; they merely acted "as if."

As a teacher of secondary pupils who are on the Autistic Spectrum and as a Learning Support Teacher for the less intellectually able student, I see the effects of the recent cutbacks on my students.  Not alone are students not getting adequate supports, but many simply cannot afford to pay for their books.  As we now are monitored so closely by the troika of EU, IMF and ECB and are asked to cut ever more meat more from the "national joint" despite the fact that we are practically down to bare bone." "Economics as if people mattered" indeed.  Why, indeed, are we not convinced that year after year of further austerity will work.  You don't have to be a mathematician to see that the figures will never add up.  So who's fooling whom?  Why play such an obviously disingenuous game? Why even believe all these obvious lies we are told?

Tradition 

Old Black and White pictures from the "Old Days" - Tradition

Tradition is something vibrant and living.  It is never stagnant.  It is not something that we solely inherit from some isolated period in the past.  Rather it is something which advances and grows naturally and organically.  For sure, the nuns and priests who went out to Africa and other far-flung missionary territories were imbued with Christian fervour and a desire to help the less fortunate.  Modern missionaries are more attuned to the cultures among whom they work and realize the importance both of inculturation and of working collaboratively with other Christian and non-Christian religions.  The old concern with converting the multitudes is long since dead and gone.  Now the emphasis is on working collaboratively to create a better world under the Christian vision.  I remember, in a recent televised documentary, one wonderful religious sister in the heart of some African country insisting that even if God did not exist she could not leave the work she was doing as she felt she had a duty to help others.  So religious motivation can also be human motivation.  And in the words of the Angelic Doctor St Thomas Aquinas, "grace builds on nature."  Even though I'm quoting this medieval theologian, I am going to take my own meaning out of his words. Now, I do realize that I am reading a meaning into his words which he could never agree with way back in the thirteenth century.  What I am getting at is that deep down our ordinary human experience can lead onward or deeper into religious experience, that in that sense "grace builds on nature."  And yet, if one loses one's belief in this or that idea of what or who God may be, you might fall back on the common denominator, i.e., that humanity in its essence and in its existential manifestation really matters and that it confers its own dignity upon itself from within, not from without.  In other words, in a world of many and various systems of belief and indeed of none, the human being matters, really matters, and is its own conferral of meaning. 

We in Ireland have a wonderful spiritual tradition based on the twin principles of (i) hospitality and (ii) welcome.  A visitor who came to the door was always to be seen as an "alter Christus" or "another Christ."  The Celtic Christian, therefore, welcomed the stranger into his/her house and shared whatever little they had with them.  Both hospitality and welcome are still cherished widely among the Irish.  No wonder Ireland is also known as "Ireland of the Welcomes." 

David McWilliams article is good and the editor has illustrated it with a wonderfully large coloured picture of planet Earth, of great Gaia herself.  The picture speaks of wonder, hope, beauty, truth, stillness, purity, lack of pollution and defilement, of a fitting home for humans and indeed of animal life of all kinds.  It presents a fitting contrast to the underlying greed of economics hinted at in the main article.

Maybe someday, as children of Mother Gaia, we can muster the courage to promote an economics as if people and animals and the earth really did matter.

Journal of a Soul 34

Shocked

Grey clouds will come....

There is nothing quite so sobering as a shock, a deep existential shock.  Let me explain.  I was chatting with a fellow staff member over lunch one day during last week, which, as it turned out, was a rather enjoyable, though tiring, average working week as would occur in any busy school, when she told me the following story about a student I once taught.  Let us call him Luke so as not to identify him and also let me paint in just a little of the background. Luke worked part-time in a well-known retail outlet while he was at school and continued to work there full-time after he left school.  One day in November 2006 he doused himself in petrol and set himself alight in the toy department of that store.  His burns were so horrendous that he died practically immediately.  I'm sure the customers in the store that fateful morning must have been disturbed, deeply disturbed.  I had previously heard a rumour that Luke had ended his life, but had refused to believe it, writing it off as idle, if dreadful and disgusting, gossip as my experience of this boy in the classroom, on a school tour to France and in the retail outlet was always pleasant.  He could have been no more than early to mid- twenties at the time of his suicide.

Anyway, Luke was a good average student who seemed to get on relatively well with his fellow students and who did well enough in his Leaving Certificate to continue on in a "middle of the road" course in college, though to my knowledge he never pursued any academic route.  I taught him both the Irish language and Religious Education.  He had a brother in the school who was far more problematic insofar as this particular lad was almost totally lost in his own world and was almost completely uncommunicative.  This boy would now be diagnosed as belonging somewhere along the ASD spectrum.  In those days we had no ASD unit in our school (and knew very little about special education) - we do now, and I am a trained Resource teacher who specialises in that disorder among other educational disabilities.

As I shop quite regularly in the retail outlet where Luke worked I did miss him, but thought merely that he had moved on, got a better job, or gone to college.  Hence the above story shocked me to the core.  In short, I experienced a deep existential shock.  I have one memory of Luke and me playing basketball on the one team against another teacher with some other pupils somewhere in France on a school trip.  For some reason I can still see Luke visibly in my mind's eye on that basketball court.  He was a good gentle soul and a reasonably good looking smart young man.  What could have led him to such a lonely and excruciatingly painful end?

Beyond Debate

Compassion is needed

For those of you who are loyal readers of these posts you will have read my previous ones on the "beyond debate" nature of many existential themes.  You will have read my thoughts and reflections on how human existence is such a complex reality that it can never be reduced to the parameters of an intellectual debate. This is my big theme, the central theme, indeed, of this very blog.  Existence cannot be reduced by dry logic and be summed up in a clinical equation as my above horrific story illustrates.  The human being is a complex totality like a diamond with many faces: the social, the personal, the emotional, the intellectual, the moral/ethical, the interpersonal, the spiritual, the cultural, the rational, the non-rational, the irrational, the aesthetic and so on and on.  It would seem to me that narrow debaters forget to their detriment the sheer complexity and wonder of the human entity and the sheer heights and lows of the human spirit.  I remember reading somewhere in the works of that wonderful Victorian theologian, John Henry Cardinal Newman, that to seek to comprehend the human being in his/her breadths, heights and depths was nothing short of trying to  "quarry the granite rock with razors, or moor the vessel with a thread of silk." (i)

In the great universal scheme of things we are minuscule ants on a minuscule anthill called earth, lost in the infinity of space.  How do we cope with the fact that we as thinking and feeling subjects will come to nothing in the end.  Let us hear the words of the great Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard: "I stick my finger into existence - it smells of nothing. Where am I? What is this thing called the world?  Who is it that has lured me into the thing, and now leaves me here?  Who am I? How did I come into the world? Why was I not consulted?" (2)

Existential Beings

In short what I am stressing here is that we are exceptionally complex beings who have had existence thrown upon us.  In that very "throwness" (Heidegger) and randomness of life, we are left with the task or project (Sartre) of making some sense and meaning of our little lives. Again, let me argue for the complexity of life that would allow, to our dismay, shock and terror the horrific nature of Luke's painfully lonely act of suicide. This latter topic was always central to existential literature from Dostoevsky to Albert Camus.  Both of these authors had scaled the heights and plumbed the depths of life's sheer complexity, though I hasten to add that neither took that fatal and final choice.  Let me put it this way.  They were both sensitive souls who embraced life in its totality and sought to make it as meaningful as they could for themselves.  As you will observe, I'm leaving their more philosophical musings to one side here.  However, what these authors of this rather amorphous Existential Group of philosophers (I am, like most commentators, loathe to call it a school given the great divergences from the admittedly common themes like alienation, individuality and anxiety to name but three) do offer us is a grappling with the big issues of human existence and considered reflections thereon.  Indeed, a wonderfully real school of psychotherapy has grown out of their grappling and reflections, namely the Existential School of Psychotherapy. Ironically, it is by acknowledging the painful and almost meaningless (note the adverb here please) nature of human life that some meaning is embraced in the client's life. Acknowledging the problematic nature of life, naming it in its sheer nakedness, stripping away all the superficial coverings which only hide and deny the real problems is the road to recovery.  Somehow on the road to recovery, with the help of other human beings we are healed.

Luke's death has shocked me deeply, and the picture of him, larger than life, in his sports outfit, playing basketball lives on in my mind's eye.  These thoughts are my tribute to him. Unfortunately, there was no one there for him to reach out to in the sheer hell of his lonely tormented mind.  Each day that I teach my poor needy SEN students I will think of Luke who had no one to listen to him in his pain.  For me philosophy will never be a game, or an intellectual pursuit alone.  It is and always will be a way of attempting to make even a little sense and meaning of the mystery which human life confronts me with - in its highs and lows; in its heights and depths; in its joys and sorrows; in its apparent randomness; in its occasional serendipity and rare synchronicity; in its rich bounty and supreme splendour; in its littleness and greatness; in its strength and in its brittleness.  St Augustine of Hippo says somewhere that life is a hospital and that it is our duty to care for one another and help heal the wounded soul and the wounded body of our fellow travellers.  In so doing, we are in fact engaged in making it meaningful and allowing a little light of understanding in.     

(i) The full quotation is from The Idea of a University and goes: "Quarry the granite rock with razors, or moor the vessel with a thread of silk; then may you hope with such keen and delicate instruments as human knowledge and human reason to contend against those giants, the passion and the pride of man." 

(ii) Quoted Lavine (1984, p. 322)

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!