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Thought of the Week
March 2002
March 4
Even our own bodies and minds are regarded as 'things' we 'have.' Life
is said to be the most valuable thing we possess. Consequently, body,
mind, and life are all looked upon as objects that 'I' can somehow keep
or lose. Here, as in all acts of having, a gulf is created between the
possessor and the possessed. Having always presupposes a sharply defined
dualism between subject and object. ...The maxim becomes: "I am what I
have." As a result, any sense of fulfillment will necessarily be illusory,
because there is nothing one can have that one cannot fear to lose. Absorption
in the horizontal dimension of having is the origin of all states of ontological
insecurity. ...as long as the notion of having predominates, our being
remains empty and superficial.
- Stephen Batchelor
Alone with Others
March 11
The first function of understanding is to orientate us in a situation.
So understanding is not concerned with grasping a fact but with apprehending
a possibility of being. We must not lose sight of this point when we draw
the methodological consequences of this analysis: to understand a text,
we shall say, is not to find a lifeless sense which is contained therein,
but to unfold the possiblity of being indicated by the text.
- Paul Ricoeur, Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, p. 56
March 18
Ritual is not compatible with the rapid rhythm that industrialism has
injected into life. So whenever ritual happens in a place commanded by
or dominated by a machine, ritual becomes a statement against the very
rhythm that feeds the needs of that machine. It makes no difference whether
it is a political machine or otherwise.
I say this because it feels to me that this elusive sense of the divine
in the modern world and the practice of blatant consumerism have spread
even into the spiritual realm. This reveals the attempt of the mechanized
culture to protect itself from having to face even subtle duties toward
its higher self. To say that ritual is needed in the industrialized world
is an understatement. We have seen in my own people that it is probably
impossible to live a sane life without it.
- Maladoma Som�, Ritual Power: Healing and Community,
p. 35
March 25
To make meaning in life is to create dynamic narratives that render
sensible and coherent the seeming chaos of human existence. To fail in
this effort of mythmaking is to experience the malaise and stagnation
that come with an insufficient narration of human life. Meaning and malaise
may be viewed from many different standpoints on the personal myth, such
as the quality of imagery, the nature of themes, the characteristics of
imagoes, and the viability of the ideological setting that situates the
myth in an ethical and religious context. ...the most mature and psychologically
viable personal myths display coherence, openness, credibility, differentiation,
reconciliation, and generative integration.
- Dan McAdams, The Stories We Live By, p. 166
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